# Language and The Development of Consciousness



## mosaix (May 28, 2017)

Following on from Phyrebrat's 'Internal Voice' thread...

For many years I've pondered on how I think and develop ideas. I definitely think in English sentences (there was a time when I was writing programs in machine code when some of my words were replaced by the machine code equivalent!).

When I'm resolving, say, a programming problem that I haven't met before I have a conversation with myself along the lines "What if I...", then a few moments later "No, that won't work because..." etc.

I fully understand that these voices are coming from one and the same person (or are they?) and I also sometimes ponder if schizophrenia is, somehow, related to not recognising this.

But why can't I resolve problems like this without verbalising them internally? On the other hand I know that there are processes in my brain that do problem solving 'in the background' so to speak. On occasion, with a particularly knotty problem, and when I'm least expecting it, a solution will pop into my head fully-formed and unprompted.

But what I wanted to discuss here is this: without language is it possible to have consciousness? Indeed, is it the development of language the start of consciousness? Is the ability to have internal conversations with oneself, and thereby recognise 'self', the trigger for the start of consciousness?

I'm quite prepared for this post to be considered as the incoherent thoughts of a nut-case and for someone better informed than I am to bring me to my senses.

Edit: Wouldn't it be awful for me and hilarious for the rest of you if it turned out that I was the only person who had these 'internal conversations'?


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## Vertigo (May 28, 2017)

For me I tend to liken this concept to the quantum conundrum of the act of observation changing the phenomenon being observed. As soon as I ask myself if I think in words and sentences I definitely do think in words and sentences but I'm not convinced I'm always doing so when I'm not observing my own thoughts....

How's that for sounding crazy?

As to your question about language and consciousness, I wonder if you haven't got a bit of a chicken and egg situation there...

Isn't one of the key consciousness things supposed to be self recognition; seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising that it is you not someone looking at you? Something I believe Dolphins can do.


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## Ursa major (May 28, 2017)

mosaix said:


> But what I wanted to discuss here is this: without language is it possible to have consciousness?


I find it hard to imagine non-verbal consciousness... but I suspect that this is because even where the mind is not specifically using words to process something, it interprets/reports the processing in words. Of course, if we define consciousness as "being conscious of" whatever it is we're doing, and we analyse ourselves using words, then, by definition, consciousness must be verbal. But that isn't really helpful, is it?

We can hit the same problem with HB's fox. It was clearly working out how to achieve something, but was it conscious of doing so... or was it just doing it (whatever that means)?

Given these problem with definitions, I'm not sure we can ever be entirely sure that consciousness can be non-verbal, until we are truly able to recognise consciousness that's very "similar" to our own in a creature with no facility for language**.


By the way, I know my subconscious mind (or, at least, a part of it) can processes words, because puns often pop into my head unbidden, and did so before I decided*** that making puns should be something I would do as a conscious activity****.


** - At which point, we'll start having issues with how we define language.... Does an alien that communicates solely with images, or scents, really not using language? Are those images and scents not words in a very real... er... sense? All we'd really be able to say was that the language was exclusively non-verbal, which isn't much help at all.

*** - At least part of my ability to come up with _conscious_ puns is the direct result of having to force myself to understand -- or at least to recognise -- the ones I found my saying without any conscious intention of doing so. Saying something funny when you are the only one who doesn't realise that you have done so isn't a particularly good look. And as a bonus, I can actually stop myself from saying them (hard as this may be to imagine).

**** - Ironically, when one trains oneself to do something, it gradually becomes more "automatic", and so no longer is an exclusively conscious activity.


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## Ursa major (May 28, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> Isn't one of the key consciousness things supposed to be self recognition; seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising that it is you not someone looking at you? Something I believe Dolphins can do.


I have trouble imaging how they might process this without something along the lines of having the thought, "That is me". Do they just get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they're seeing themselves rather than another dolphin (who/which may potentially be hostile or a playmate)?

Do they wonder _how_ it is that they can see themselves? On seeing the mirror, do they store the concept of "something by which I can see myself" or is it purely an extension of many animals' division of the world into "me" and "not me"?


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## Vertigo (May 28, 2017)

Ursa major said:


> I have trouble imaging how they might process this without something along the lines of having the thought, "That is me". Do they just get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they're seeing themselves rather than another dolphin (who/which may potentially be hostile or a playmate)?
> 
> Do they wonder _how_ it is that they can see themselves? On seeing the mirror, do they store the concept of "something by which I can see myself" or is it purely an extension of many animals' division of the world into "me" and "not me"?


Hmmm I'm afraid that lot are all way beyond my ability to answer.


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## mosaix (May 28, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> Isn't one of the key consciousness things supposed to be self recognition; seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising that it is you not someone looking at you? Something I believe Dolphins can do.



And elephants apparently. In one experiment I saw, a white cross was painted on an elephant's forehead. When it was stood in front of a mirror it examined the cross (not the reflection) with its trunk.


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## Vertigo (May 28, 2017)

mosaix said:


> And elephants apparently. In one experiment I saw, a white cross was painted on an elephant's forehead. When it was stood in front of a mirror it examined the cross (not the reflection) with its trunk.


Now you mention it I remember hearing about elephants as well. I'm sure there are some others.... octopuses perhaps?


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## HareBrain (May 28, 2017)

mosaix said:


> When I'm resolving, say, a programming problem that I haven't met before I have a conversation with myself along the lines "What if I...", then a few moments later "No, that won't work because..." etc.



Having said in the other thread that I don't tend to think in coherent language, I believe I do so when problem-solving, i.e. when I must keep my thoughts on track and have them work in a logical manner to have much chance of success. So thoughts can be directed, otherwise I believe the default state is a kind of chaos soup (familiar to anyone who's tried meditation).



mosaix said:


> But what I wanted to discuss here is this: without language is it possible to have consciousness? Indeed, is it the development of language the start of consciousness? Is the ability to have internal conversations with oneself, and thereby recognise 'self', the trigger for the start of consciousness?



If by consciousness you mean awareness of oneself as a separate entity, then probably, I think. Without language, how do you know that "I" is not the same as "you"? (I.e. both parts of something larger.) The elephant with the cross on its forehead might not have been aware of that distinction; it might "merely" have understood the concept of a mirror (which is hardly that surprising given that water reflects).

Has anyone else here read _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ by Julian Jaynes?


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## The Judge (May 28, 2017)

Are there any cases of children being born deaf and blind -- or the mythical raised with wolves -- who learn language very much later in life?  If so, would they achieve consciousness only at that late stage?  Infants wouldn't be able to understand let alone explain the concept of consciousness and any difference between the non-verbal and the communicating self, but older children and adults might well be able to grapple with it and confirm if there were indeed a difference.  (I was going to cite Helen Keller, but apparently -- which I hadn't realised --  she was able to hear and see at birth, so language use and any connection to consciousness might have been a continuation/enlargement of what had occurred before she lost her sight and hearing.)

Anyhow, regarding the problem-solving issue, I've just played a couple of games of Spider Solitaire to check, and at no point in the game-playing do I think in complex sentences.  The nearest to any verbalised thought is
(a) when I'm trying to memorise hidden cards. (If a face-up card is moved to another column, the card immediately beneath is turned, disclosing its face.  That action can then be undone, so leaving the original in place and the underneath card again hidden.  Recalling what is hidden and where, is useful in deciding how to proceed.) In that case I'm internally muttering eg "queen, seven, six" 
(b) when I swear having made a wrong decision.​
I certainly don't think "What if I try this one?" and the like. Everything except the memorising and swearing takes place on a non-verbal level of scanning, checking, turning cards, undoing etc.  The only time I started to think in complex sentences with verbs and the like was when I began mentally composing this post.


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## HareBrain (May 28, 2017)

The Judge said:


> I certainly don't think "What if I try this one?" and the like.



I can tentatively narrow down my use of sentences in problem-solving to trying to predict a series of effects when "programming" (writing checking scripts for SPSS). "If this happens, that would, but if that variable doesn't then equal that ..." etc. Sometimes I actually speak it aloud. I think it was the same when I used to play chess. Would that count as coherent sentences? (If that's what you mean by "complex".) Do you not do something similar with Spider Solitaire, whatever that is?



The Judge said:


> consciousness



I think one problem with this discussion is that we might all mean different things by this word, and it's difficult for any of us to define what we do mean by it.


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## mosaix (May 28, 2017)

The Judge said:


> Are there any cases of children being born deaf and blind -- or the mythical raised with wolves -- who learn language very much later in life?  If so, would they achieve consciousness only at that late stage?  Infants wouldn't be able to understand let alone explain the concept of consciousness and any difference between the non-verbal and the communicating self, but older children and adults might well be able to grapple with it and confirm if there were indeed a difference.  (I was going to cite Helen Keller, but apparently -- which I hadn't realised --  she was able to hear and see at birth, so language use and any connection to consciousness might have been a continuation/enlargement of what had occurred before she lost her sight and hearing.)
> 
> Anyhow, regarding the problem-solving issue, I've just played a couple of games of Spider Solitaire to check, and at no point in the game-playing do I think in complex sentences.  The nearest to any verbalised thought is
> (a) when I'm trying to memorise hidden cards. (If a face-up card is moved to another column, the card immediately beneath is turned, disclosing its face.  That action can then be undone, so leaving the original in place and the underneath card again hidden.  Recalling what is hidden and where, is useful in deciding how to proceed.) In that case I'm internally muttering eg "queen, seven, six"
> ...


Interesting re the game TJ. But I wonder what the thought processes would have been if you were playing the game for the first time?

Re what we mean by the term 'consciousness': there was a New Scientist special on it a while back. I'll see if I can find it and post a link.


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## Stephen Palmer (May 28, 2017)

This is the one to go for:


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## The Judge (May 28, 2017)

HareBrain said:


> I can tentatively narrow down my use of sentences in problem-solving to trying to predict a series of effects when "programming" (writing checking scripts for SPSS). "If this happens, that would, but if that variable doesn't then equal that ..." etc. Sometimes I actually speak it aloud. I think it was the same when I used to play chess. Would that count as coherent sentences? (If that's what you mean by "complex".)


Yep.  I used "complex" simply because it's arguable my internal cry of "Sh*t!" when I do something wrong is both coherent and a sentence! 





> Do you not do something similar with Spider Solitaire, whatever that is?


Nope.  No verbalised thoughts at all in planning what to move, it's all sub-verbal.  Actually "planning" is going too far, as that suggests some coherence of step A followed by step B, because although I do have consecutive moves of that kind there's no "Move this then move that" consciously thought, it's all kind of automatic.  I'd have said instinctive, except it seems wrong to describe playing a card game in such terms.  I am very much in the flow when I play, though, which might have something to do with it, and the odd occasion I can't get the game to come right with all the cards taken up, it's usually because I've not been quite "there" (wherever "there" is).   



mosaix said:


> Interesting re the game TJ. But I wonder what the thought processes would have been if you were playing the game for the first time?


Yes, that's an interesting thought.  It could well be that I've played it so often I've moved from a conscious "Do this then try that" strategy to kind some of learned-instinct, if such a thing is possible.  (And I do win consistently, so I'm not moving stupidly and trusting to luck all the while.)  How do you play chess?  Do you fully consider all your moves in the way HB seems to have done?


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## mosaix (May 28, 2017)

Chess is a strange one TJ. First  there are recognisable patterns on the board that immediately spell 'advantage' or 'danger' and these jump out at me after my opponents move or, unfortunately, sometimes after mine. 

Then it probably is a lot of 'if I do that then...' for as many moves ahead as I can picture the board. And that's probably because after each move there is a new set of problems to resolve, so it's like new game each time.


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## Lumens (May 29, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> Isn't one of the key consciousness things supposed to be self recognition; seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising that it is you not someone looking at you? Something I believe Dolphins can do.



Dolphins also have sonar though, as an extra sense. Who knows what that is like, but it is highly likely that they know they are not looking at another individual.



Ursa major said:


> Ironically, when one trains oneself to do something, it gradually becomes more "automatic", and so no longer is an exclusively conscious activity.



Also known as muscle memory, if I understand you correctly. It allows us to do things "faster than thought", since thinking takes quite a lot of time. In fact, it has been proposed that speaking out loud what your "thought process" is, can impede our ability to make sound choices.

People with a lot of experience in a field, like firefighters, have to make quick desicions based on a lot of input. If they are asked to think aloud, they lose their intuitive grasp of the situation and also spend too much time trying to express what could well be abstract thought.

Experiments have been done on problem solving as well, getting people to explain how they are attacking a totally new situation. It seems to slow it down a lot.

It's never simple. I am not sure an internal dialogue, when there is one, goes through the same steps as spoken language. Try to think of your way to work, or somewhere familiar. You skip through it in huge steps, and perhaps not even in a linear way. Inside your mind, "Language", as an understandable stream of audible noises, could be completely alien to somebody else, even if it is makes complete sense in your mind as you are thinking it.


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## Ursa major (May 29, 2017)

Lumens said:


> Also known as muscle memory


I was thinking more of mental tasks than physical ones, given we're looking at conscious, and unconscious, ways of thinking. (I'm pretty sure my muscles don't use words. )


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## Lumens (May 29, 2017)

Ursa major said:


> I was thinking more of mental tasks than physical ones, given we're looking at conscious, and unconscious, ways of thinking. (I'm pretty sure my muscles don't use words. )


Ah yes, of course. As a martial artist, and an improvising musician, the division between muscle memory and mental tasks is never that clear cut to me. When adapting to an ever changing but familiar situation, it all comes together. A lot of it is not conscious, at least to an experienced person. 

Apologies for my messy post - I think I was trying to say that the mind may not use words either. In the end, it's all just chemistry and electrical impulses, whether in the muscle or brain. "Language" is what comes out when we communicate with each other.


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## Ursa major (May 29, 2017)

No need to apologise.

There's nothing wrong with looking at muscle memory... which, I suppose, is more like program memory than data memory, as it drives a series of processes, some of which are quite complicated. I seriously doubt that there is an easily defined boundary between it and some of the other things we're talking about.

For instance, a pianist may play a long piece of music (some pieces can have individual movements longer than half-an-hour), and much of what s/he is doing could, after many years, be _sort of_ automatic. Yet no two performances will be alike. Now it may be that some of the differences are simply a matter of "error" -- which doesn't mean that wrong notes are being played (or the right ones are, but in the wrong order...) --  just that the way they're being played is not how the pianist either wants them to be, or expects them to be. Most differences will, one would hope, be due to how the pianist feels like playing the piece at that time, at that location, to that audience (if there is one)... which means that there is a subtle, and perhaps not so subtle, relationship between the _apparently_ "automatic" actions and the _apparently_ conscious ones.


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## Montero (May 29, 2017)

I do know that a lot of my problem solving is with pictures, not language. Unless you call pictures language. I run pictures in my head and when I was learning chemistry, if it got too complex for my head then I did some 3D modelling with bits of wire and plasticine.
There are people who can think in mathematics (that being another language). Some of them were my chemistry lecturers (especially the theoretical chemistry ones). I can do maths, I can follow it (with a bit of a run up) and I can work through to writing maths to describe the physical/theoretical chemistry problem - but to understand fully I need pictures.

One of the things I have to work on with writing, is translating the film in my head to being words on a page, which will then create a film in someone else's head (assuming that is how the other person reads a story).

In terms of being aware of self - cats. Cats know very well that they are wonderful individuals, with a sense of worth and personal space.


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## tinkerdan (Jun 7, 2017)

At the risk of bandying about definitions of words and all, I think that there might be some benefit to defining both what is meant by consciousness and language.

Let's take language; as ridiculous as it might seem the first language we learn is one of two--body language or tonal. Long after that we learn to put words to some of those and eventually we transcend that to more abstraction. And my guess would be at this point we're delving into the area above and beyond abstraction for this question. (This is overly simplified to attempt to be brief.)

Likewise consciousness has several levels. The most rudimentary would be waking up and recognizing there is a world around us. In that respect all animals have this type of consciousness since it's vital to survival. Eventually you reach a point of self-awareness, which also has levels. Animals are self-aware to a very rudimentary place that they might perhaps feel the world revolves around them and that there are other animal out there. Case in point my dog Ginger spends a large portion of time watching the cues from us to determine when she needs to assert herself to remind us to feed her and several other basic function that we're there to serve(she is aware of other cats and dogs and people and is guarded about sharing her resources[us]with these others).

At some place along the scale our awareness is such that we realize that the world doesn't revolve around us.

Through all of that we really don't have to go that far beyond the stage where we've interpreted the tonal and physical languages beyond defining those essentials. It is when we become aware of others and the fact that we don't all think the same or respond to cues in the same manner that we need to formalize language to exchange ideas. [Again this is over simplified.]

The point is that the consciousness we're talking about I think might go beyond self-consciousness and into an awareness and acceptance that others have a separate consciousness.

We can have some self-consciousness without language and language becomes necessary to interact with other self-conscious beings.

We can have thoughts without words; however words help convey them to others, though in some cases if we fail in that we can always fall back on pictures which can express thousands of words.


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## Montero (Jun 7, 2017)

@tinkderdan
I think you are perhaps being a fraction optimistic to say "At some place along the scale our awareness is such that we realize that the world doesn't revolve around us."
Some people never manage that. 
Or if they do, in a dim and distant way, they immediately try to fix it. 

Other than that - you making the point about learning body language. Cats have that in bucket fulls. Boy do they ever let you know what is wanted.
It also occurs to me from you mentioning body language that there is an awareness of eyes and gaze - as in prey animals knowing they are being watched, being very sharp on you, or anything else looking at them. 
Also toddlers and kids are very aware of their parents' attention - "Look at me". 

Its a fascinating subject, how all of this interacts and where you'd put the borderline for self-awareness.


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## Ursa major (Jun 7, 2017)

Montero said:


> as in prey animals knowing they are being watched, being very sharp on you, or anything else looking at them.


A couple of decades ago, my mother told me that she had encountered a small mouse on the terrace at the back of the garden. It stood there looking directly up at her eyes and not at the parts of her that (in physical terms) posed the mouse most risk. Now I can understand why pets would do this: they're around us and get to know how to behave to achieve what they want. It's harder to understand how and why a mouse would know to look at a human being's face.


For those of you concerned about the outcome, both human and mouse survived the encounter unscathed. (The mouse was probably only 50 metres or so from the nearby nature reserve... and about twenty metres from the house, so far enough away, in my mother's opinion.)


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## Montero (Jun 8, 2017)

Wild birds know if you are looking at them too. I sometimes try to watch from the corner of my eye. Also prey animals in the main of course.

I get the feeling that there is a built in understanding of eyes and gaze in many creatures - so many know to move when you look away. If you talk survival of the fittest (which I know is a bit more complicated than that and sometimes misused but anyway....), then the ones that work out attention being on them, vs attention not being on them, probably have a better chance of living to breed.

Not about attention as such, but remember reading an account written by someone whose cat had had kittens - and it was how cats can count to two but not higher. The cat was moving the kittens across the garden - pick up a kitten from starting place, move it to finishing place, trot back for the next one. To help her they moved the rest of the pile to finishing place - and she was very upset, casting around at the starting place, expecting to find kittens. They moved the kittens back and all was OK. So they reckoned she could count to two - two heaps - but not higher - as in many kittens. Or as Terry Pratchett had it - some, many, lots.....


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## hej (Oct 8, 2017)

mosaix said:


> without language is it possible to have consciousness?



Consciousness is far more fundamental that present science typically acknowledges.

The humble electron _knows_ where the nucleus is. The electron also knows not to crash into something to which it is attracted.

Philosophers of the mind lack the tools in their field to understand consciousness -- but that doesn't stop them from trying.

The complexity of human consciousness vis-a-vis that of, say, an insect (which is very well aware of changes in its environment), confuses discussions about consciousness.

Consciousness can be exquisitely simple, but saying so  -- let alone defending such a position -- invites mockery and ostracism.


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 8, 2017)

Peter Russel gives some very enlightening talks on this topic. 
The Reality of Consciousness


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## hej (Oct 8, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> Peter Russel gives some very enlightening talks on this topic.
> The Reality of Consciousness



Refreshing to see this view from a scientist.

It's one thing for him to give a talk. It's quite another to put the bases for his conclusions in a journal article. I wonder if he's done so.

On his site he lists articles and books -- but not journal publications. Disappointing, but not surprising.


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## Pyan (Oct 9, 2017)

hej said:


> Refreshing to see this view from a scientist.
> 
> It's one thing for him to give a talk. It's quite another to put the bases for his conclusions in a journal article. I wonder if he's done so.
> 
> On his site he lists articles and books -- but not journal publications. Disappointing, but not surprising.



No, not really surprising - because journals tend toward provable, peer-reviewed articles, whereas anyone can publish a book. Suggest that you google Mr Russel and decide whether the word 'scientist' in your quote is strictly applicable...


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## hej (Oct 9, 2017)

pyan said:


> Suggest that you google Mr Russel and decide whether the word 'scientist' in your quote is strictly applicable...



I catch your drift.

I merely refer to what he claims as his education. Considering the content of his site alone, I should have said 'someone trained/educated in science.' He seems to have veered away.


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 9, 2017)

Ah, but if you never question the status quo, how can progress be made? He starts out saying that there are many contradictions in current understanding of science, and consciousness is one area where this is definitely the case. I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions either, but he makes several good arguments about the difficulty involving the science of consciousness. Specifically, "How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as inanimate as matter?"


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## hej (Oct 10, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> "How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as inanimate as matter?"



Note the premise. If consciousness arises from that which is beneath matter, e.g. dark energy, then we have a difference question.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 10, 2017)

hej said:


> If consciousness arises from that which is beneath matter, e.g. dark energy, then we have a difference question.



Much as I agree with some of your notions of consciousness, I think you're stumbling over your use of terms here.


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## hej (Oct 10, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Much as I agree with some of your notions of consciousness, I think you're stumbling over your use of terms here.


My statement that consciousness is fundamental to the cosmos is too simple -- and paradoxically, too complex -- to easily grasp. Please, I ask for your patience.

Consciousness emerges with dark energy, and thus it -- and all other systems -- must demonstrate it. We can only see it manifest in that which we can measure.

We may explain away certain reactions as mere laws of nature, but what is consciousness other than a set of rules that, when followed, show awareness?

The electron knows to absorb and release certain photons -- but not others. Also, it is conscious of the nucleus -- and knows not to crash into the proton (to which it is attracted and from which it is repulsed).

The cell, with its sense of smell (the first sense), is conscious of its food and prey. The following gif demonstrates.
Neutrophil Chases and Eats a Staphylococcus aureus Bacterium - Neutrophil Chases and Eats a Staphylococcus aureus Bacterium
Note, too, how the bacterium knows to move away from the neutrophil -- but not other cells. The bacterium has sufficent consciousness to discriminate.

Philosophers like to focus on the complexities of consciousness, which makes for good books. Philosophers either do not know -- or discard -- evidence of simple consciousness. It need not include self-awareness, but it necessitates certain reactions.

Quantitative arguments about consciousness, e.g. our having it somehow relating to language, are variants of the problem of the heap. When does a collection of material (evidence) become a heap?

Qualitative premises on consciousness look for the essential element of awareness, which we can see in laws of physics both known and unknown.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 10, 2017)

hej said:


> consciousness is fundamental to the cosmos is too simple -- and paradoxically, too complex



I can easily grasp that and have no problem with it. But citing "dark energy" is meaningless - "dark energy" is supposedly a gravitional effect relating to how the universe expands. You'd be better off invoking Quantum Mechanics, which requires an observer to collapse any system from a state of probabilities.


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## Vertigo (Oct 10, 2017)

Sorry I must take exception a little here. We don't know what dark energy is, it's just a placeholder name for something that, as @Brian G Turner says appears to be continuing to accelerate the expansion of the universe. As such I'm not sure it's valid so say that anything other than that expansion can be caused by it.

Secondly any orbiting object whether it be an electron around the nucleus or the moon around the earth will not crash into the object it is moving around. This is not a result of some kind of conscious control of its orbit but just normal physics. The moon and all our man made satellites are not consciously avoiding crashing into the Earth what is keeping them there is a balance between the attractive forces (gravitation) and the forces 'pushing' them away (centripetal forces). With electrons it is more to do with the balance of kinetic and potential energy but the effect is the same; that equilibrium is what keeps it stable. Add more kinetic energy (eg by photons) and it may move to a higher level or even depart the nucleus altogether. No consciousness just physics.

To get a more realistic view of the electron's motion (and it not crashing into the nucleus) we would need to move to quantum terminology and look at the probabilities of where we expect to find it. But this is still straight physics not consciousness.


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## hej (Oct 10, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> I can easily grasp that and have no problem with it. But citing "dark energy" is meaningless - "dark energy" is supposedly a gravitional effect relating to how the universe expands. You'd be better off invoking Quantum Mechanics, which requires an observer to collapse any system from a state of probabilities.


At our present level of understanding/ignorance, you make a great point. My position is clearer if based on known physics, yes, but then excludes 96% of the universe.

What a quandary!


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## hej (Oct 10, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> To get a more realistic view of the electron's motion (and it not crashing into the nucleus) we would need to move to quantum terminology and look at the probabilities of where we expect to find it. But this is still straight physics not consciousness.



I respectfully disagree. Physics is one method by which we can see -- and measure -- consciousness.

As for the electron, in plasma it is not bound to the nucleus, yet it still does not crash into that to which it is attracted. We describe the attracto-repulsive force of and on the electron with physics. I am stating that what we so describe is, at its very essence, a consciousness. The electron knows where the protons are -- and acts accordingly.

I understand how many (most) may see my description of the conscious electron as jabberwocky. No big deal. I hope to provide a little grist for your intellectual mill, though.

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." - Neils Bohr


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## Extollager (Oct 10, 2017)

With a thread title like this one, I need to recommend writings of Owen Barfield.  _Poetic Diction_ could be a good one to start with.  The only big problem that's likely to arise is that poetry has dropped below the horizon for many of us, and so Barfield's allusions to readers' experiences of language might not be as persuasive as they would otherwise be.  However, much that he says applies to more familiar forms of literature too.


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 10, 2017)

hej said:


> Note the premise. If consciousness arises from that which is beneath matter, e.g. dark energy, then we have a difference question.



I'll have to go along with Brian and Vertigo on this one. When science makes a discovery such as _the universe's expansion is accelerating _scientists (in this case astronomers and Astrophysicists) propose a theory to describe the phenomenon they are measuring. In this context, the theory that was put forth to explain why the _universe's expansion is accelerating _is "Dark Energy". And that's all it is. A theory. There has been no empirical truth other than the observation of the expanding universe to "prove" the theory. Once a theory has been repeatedly proven for long enough it becomes a law. (a scientific law). e.g. "The law of Gravity". There has been no particles discovered that are responsible for Dark Energy. To say that consciousness somehow derives from Dark Matter is like saying that the text on your computer screen comes from the nitrogen in the air.


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## hej (Oct 10, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> I'll have to go along with Brian and Vertigo on this one. When science makes a discovery such as _the universe's expansion is accelerating _scientists (in this case astronomers and Astrophysicists) propose a theory to describe the phenomenon they are measuring. In this context, the theory that was put forth to explain why the _universe's expansion is accelerating _is "Dark Energy". And that's all it is. A theory. There has been no empirical truth other than the observation of the expanding universe to "prove" the theory. Once a theory has been repeatedly proven for long enough it becomes a law. (a scientific law). e.g. "The law of Gravity". There has been no particles discovered that are responsible for Dark Energy. To say that consciousness somehow derives from Dark Matter is like saying that the text on your computer screen comes from the nitrogen in the air.


I hear ya, but not quite.

First, I give you my respect for a hearty criticism.

I recover to return the following. 

I am saying that consciousness, like physical laws, is fundamental to the universe.

I suppose if I said, we can measure it all the way down to the photon, you would be, perhaps, a bit more satisfied. but.

The question would remain. Is consciousness fundamental or not?  96% of the universe needs explaining. I say yes, consciousness is in there.


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## Montero (Oct 11, 2017)

OK
So if a tree falls in the wood, do you have to have a self-aware and conscious being to hear it, or will a squirrel do?

And if consciousness is fundamental to the universe, does anything with a brain need to be present, or will the universe hear it?


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## hej (Oct 11, 2017)

Montero said:


> OK
> So if a tree falls in the wood, do you have to have a self-aware and conscious being to hear it, or will a squirrel do?
> 
> And if consciousness is fundamental to the universe, does anything with a brain need to be present, or will the universe hear it?



The sense of hearing emerged from that of vision. Thus, when you hear a flute, you _see_ (without truly seeing) what produced the sound. Sound embeds itself in vision. One of the most frightening senses comes from hearing what one can not be understood as seen -- often vocalized as 'what was that?!'

Sound, the movement of air in waves, exists without its perception. How sound is perceived has to do with the senses (or lack thereof) available.


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## hej (Oct 11, 2017)

Montero said:


> OK
> So if a tree falls in the wood, do you have to have a self-aware and conscious being to hear it, or will a squirrel do?



Your question reminds me of when, as a child, my mother held up my pet hamster to a mirror. It showed no noticeable reaction. But. A lack of self-awareness does not eliminate its being aware -- or conscious. It noticed food, water, petting, etc. Thus, is was clearly conscious.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 11, 2017)

hej said:


> mirror ... self-awareness



It's a potentially flawed test anyway, as it focuses only on the visual experience - which favours a visual-centric species like humans. 

Going back to the original post:



> without language is it possible to have consciousness?



This is very much a question that psychology has looked at: Consciousness and Language


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> It's a potentially flawed test anyway, as it focuses only on the visual experience - which favours a visual-centric species like humans.
> 
> Going back to the original post:
> 
> ...



The test with the hamster was one of visual self-awareness. The hamster certainly was visually aware, as it could react to cues depending on where I was. (Some but not all of those cues could have been smell or hearing, but those senses, too, show consciousness.)

As for psychology, the field lacks the intellectual tools to isolate consciousness. Psychology does not include quantum mechanics, yet a particle such as the humble electron is well aware of where it is in regard to the nucleus. It is conscious of the attractiveness -- and the repulsiveness -- of the proton. Schroedinger's equation will say how (for hydrogen - and no other element), but not why. Science can not ask, let alone answer, 'why.'

Consciousness is too simple for a sophisticated thinker, such as a psychologist, to understand.

Moreover, that an electron is conscious is, I admit, absurd.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 12, 2017)

hej said:


> The test with the hamster was one of visual self-awareness.



Indeed, but hamsters have very poor eyesight, and almost certainly do not define any sense of self according to how they look. 



hej said:


> Moreover, that an electron is conscious is, I admit, absurd.



Perhaps not - but you're throwing around scientific terms without showing any real understanding of what those terms mean and represent. Which will inevitably confuse anyone with any understanding of those terms.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Perhaps not - but you're throwing around scientific terms without showing any real understanding of what those terms mean and represent. Which will inevitably confuse anyone with any understanding of those terms.



I'd like to offer clarification and understanding, but I am not really sure how to do so. I will try.

The electron, a fundamental particle carrying a negative elementary charge, typically resides in an orbital around a nucleus. In hydrogen, this orbital is called s and the nucleus consists of a proton (made up of two up quarks and a down quark) carrying a positive elementary charge. As positive attracts negative, and vice-versa, the electron and proton attract each other. Yet. They do not crash into each other. The electron is aware of the proton to such a degree that it resides in a defined region of space, in hydrogen in its unexcited state, the s orbital. By staying in that orbital -- and only there -- the electron is demonstrating its consciousness of the proton. The same reasoning applies to the proton and its behavior.


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## Vertigo (Oct 12, 2017)

But by that same reasoning the Moon and the Earth must be aware of each other since there is a (gravitational) attraction between them yet they don't collide. Rather than the real reason which is the simple orbital dynamics as determined by Newton rather a long time ago.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> But by that same reasoning the Moon and the Earth must be aware of each other since there is a (gravitational) attraction between them yet they don't collide. Rather than the real reason which is the simple orbital dynamics as determined by Newton rather a long time ago.


Why must the 'real reason' exclude awareness?


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 12, 2017)

hej said:


> Why must the 'real reason' exclude awareness?



Possibly because we struggle to properly describe terms such as "awareness" and "consciousness" adequately for dealing with humans, let alone other forms of life. Heck, we struggle to scientifically define what is actually "alive" and what is not. 

Hence applying those terms outside of normal usage is likely to cause confusion and misunderstanding.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Possibly because we struggle to properly describe terms such as "awareness" and "consciousness" adequately for dealing with humans, let alone other forms of life. Heck, we struggle to scientifically define what is actually "alive" and what is not.
> 
> Hence applying those terms outside of normal usage is likely to cause confusion and misunderstanding.



The last line gave me a belly laugh!


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## Vertigo (Oct 12, 2017)

hej said:


> Why must the 'real reason' exclude awareness?


Because it's not needed, the orbital dynamics takes care of it perfectly well, and neither the Earth or the Moon (or electrons or protons) have any means of motive power so, even if aware they couldn't affect their orbits anyway.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> Because it's not needed, the orbital dynamics takes care of it perfectly well, and neither the Earth or the Moon (or electrons or protons) have any means of motive power so, even if aware they couldn't affect their orbits anyway.


It's 'not needed' does not mean it does not apply.

Why must awareness require motive power beyond that which allows for obeying the laws of the universe?

And why is obeying the laws of the universe not demonstrating awareness?


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 12, 2017)

hej said:


> And why is obeying the laws of the universe not demonstrating awareness?



Because definitions of awareness might include the ability to selectively react to stimuli. What you're saying that the inability to react to stimuli is in fact a consequence of awareness, which seems to be a non sequitur.


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## Vertigo (Oct 12, 2017)

hej said:


> It's 'not needed' does not mean it does not apply.
> 
> Why must awareness require motive power beyond that which allows for obeying the laws of the universe?
> 
> And why is obeying the laws of the universe not demonstrating awareness?


As @Brian G Turner says, but also I wasn't saying that 'awareness' needs motive power but that the electron needs motive power to affect its situation. You are saying that the electrons know not to crash into the protons which, at the very least, is suggesting that it somehow can affect its motion so that said crash doesn't happen. And, if it can't do that, there is no meaning to the suggestion that it is conscious beyond just a simple belief; if it has no motive power then its hypothetical consciousness can have no effect on its situation, including not crashing into any protons.


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## Justin Swanton (Oct 12, 2017)

I'm diving into this late...perhaps better if I didn't, anyhow...

Consciousness for an animal is an ability to receive and react to stimuli, in the case of that hamster, the stimuli that concern and hence interest it.

Consciousness for a human is the ability to grasp the nature of things. That ability deals with abstractions, i.e. the immaterial forms of objects that the human mind abstracts from the sensory perceptions it has of those objects. This goes hand in hand with an ability to react to stimuli as animals do, since humans _are _animals - with an intellectual component. The result of the abstractive process is an idea. We wander in a forest, look at the green and brown objects around us, and abstract the idea of a tree. These objects have something in common. They are all trees (the fact that there is an immaterial component to things, perceived only by the intelligence, should tell you something about those things). The word 'conscious'  is a giveaway. It comes the Latin: _cum-scire_, 'know-with': form in one's mind a concept that unites the mind to the object in which that concept exists as its nature (BTW 'concept' comes from Latin _cum-capere_ - _cepi _in the perfect tense - 'To be taken with'. Get it?).

Animals can't do this. Their 'knowledge' consists of memories built up from experience which work on their preprogrammed instincts. A tortoise can remember that strawberries are tasty and start salivating when it sees them, but it cannot form the abstract idea that eating healthy food is a good thing to do.

At birth a human has no ideas. He forms them by observing things around him and gradually abstracting their natures. Basic ideas are compared and more complete ideas are formed from them.

Words are verbal symbols for these ideas (every single word is the expression of an abstraction). We speak to communicate to others the ideas we have abstracted, and the language that communicates those ideas also clarifies, orders and refines them. Language is a help to thinking but not indispensable to it.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Because definitions of awareness might include the ability to selectively react to stimuli. What you're saying that the inability to react to stimuli is in fact a consequence of awareness, which seems to be a non sequitur.



My explanation is incomplete, then.

The humble electron can indeed react to stimuli, as it does in flows (electricity), in plasma, and in neutron stars.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Vertigo said:


> You are saying that the electrons know not to crash into the protons which, at the very least, is suggesting that it somehow can affect its motion so that said crash doesn't happen. And, if it can't do that, there is no meaning to the suggestion that it is conscious beyond just a simple belief; if it has no motive power then its hypothetical consciousness can have no effect on its situation, including not crashing into any protons.



Mine is not a simple belief. The electron shall not crash into the proton -- whether the electron be in an atom, or in the crust of a neutron star. The electron knows where the proton is -- and acts accordingly.

We can agree to disagree, I hope.


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## hej (Oct 12, 2017)

Justin Swanton said:


> Consciousness for an animal is an ability to receive and react to stimuli, in the case of that hamster, the stimuli that concern and hence interest it.



Consciousness, like language, manifests itself with different complexities.

I am saying that consciousness is far simpler than most of us imagine.


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 12, 2017)

mosaix said:


> But what I wanted to discuss here is this: without language is it possible to have consciousness?


 So getting back to this.

Of course consciousness is possible without language. I am basing this on my own experience, but I believe the experience could be shown to be common among humans. It seems as if many of us on this thread are discussing various levels of consciousness, i.e. Animal versus human and so on. I posit that humans think in pictures, and sometimes in a representational symbology. Letters and the mapping of written words to speech itself are really shapes with meaning. So when we think in words, we are thinking in shapes we have memorized. Evidence of Human language goes back roughly 40 or 50 thousand years, and we know that Hominids were social and even "ritualistic" long before that. So here's a question I haven't seen in the thread: Are we conscious when we dream? I don't remember any discussions I've had inside my dreams (I'm not suggesting it never happens), but it seems as if we dream in pictures and meanings, not in words, at least for the most part. Any thoughts? (that wasn't meant to be a joke, but it kind of came out that way).


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## hej (Oct 13, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Because definitions of awareness might include the ability to selectively react to stimuli. What you're saying that the inability to react to stimuli is in fact a consequence of awareness, which seems to be a non sequitur.



I beg your pardon.

I did not address the nature of 'selectively.' The electron shows this when it undergoes electron capture -- or beta emission.


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## Stephen Palmer (Oct 13, 2017)

Oh dear.


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