Consciousness it’s not some state you’re in. It’s work. Physical work.
It’s like a brake. When you sense something, the body would react immediately – instinct, reflex, fight or flight. But consciousness holds it back. Just for a moment. For that split second.
And in that moment, you can say no. Don’t fight. Don’t run. Wait. Think.
That’s the power of veto. Not that you do something, but that you stop what would have happened on its own. The old brain wants one thing, but the cortex says no.
And that’s exactly what consciousness is. It’s not mystical energy. It’s the moment when you stop instinct and choose something else.
This fits with my image. The point is this moment of delay. The line is what you chose in the past. And every time consciousness inhibits, that gets written into the line.
The fact that emergence exists. If you don’t understand emergence, I don’t think you have any hope of understanding theories of consciousness.
But it’s demonstrably not. The constituents of water are water molecules, and water molecules don’t not have any property that makes them wet. This is a fact. Also, I’m talking about wetness, not liquidity.
What is well understood about emergence is that it exists? Is there anything else about emergence that is well understood, or is that it?
i’m the one who brought it up, and I said liquidity, not witness.
In any event, please demonstrate your point. I cannot imagine what a demonstration that the liquidity of water has nothing to do with the properties of water molecules could look like, but I am very interested.
Ehhhhh…….just me objecting to the notion consciousness means something.
That’s fine. I’m more inclined to leave all that to understanding, or however one wishes to notarize our system of comprehension, and instead, give to consciousness the capacity for retaining that which the cognitive faculties provide.
Empirically….for that mental activity having to do with sensations…..yes, synonymous with memory. In addition, rationally, insofar as I am just as conscious of the totality of all that I think as I am of all that I perceive. From which follows necessarily, consciousness is not the same as either a priori or a posteriori knowledge, nor is consciousness ever an experience objectively on the one hand, nor is it a cognition subjectively, on the other.
Memory recalls, understanding structures, perception receives — yet none of it is for anything, mere processing.
Consciousness is not an additional capacity for processing but the very condition that retains what the faculties provide so that it can be here rather than merely processed.
The contents of consciousness are what you think about. Consciousness is that with which you think.
Yes, partially, but I’m inclined to limit that with which I think, to be the logical faculties, re: understanding, under which resides judgement, both of those arbitrated by reason.
Blockquote[quote=“Chelydra, post:72, topic:1137”]
The contents of consciousness are what you think about. Consciousness is that with which you think.
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Is it possible that consciousness is just a consequence of development? When we say we do something subconsciously, instinctively – is it possible that this is a decision of our consciousness? Example: Subconsciously I pull my hand out of hot water, but if I decide, I can also leave it there. I’m asking myself – is it consciousness or the self that decides? Both?
Consciousness is the condition under which what you think with is present rather than merely processed.
I don’t think consciousness overrides reflex. Consciousness holds pain present against a reason — that’s what makes a decision possible at all.
What develops are the cognitive faculties and the complexity of what consciousness can retain.
The condition may be there from the start as @Patterner wrote (1)
Consciousness is the condition under which what the brain produces is present rather than merely processed - and that dimension cannot be reached by any level of emergent complexity.