Consciousness

It was either Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. I was on campus since there were classes. I came into the convenience store, bought my food, and went out to eat it. Usually, I watch videos on YouTube while eating lunch, especially if I am alone. The documentary from Google DeepMind had been popping up for several days. I decided to watch it, and it literally changed my interest. It was about AlphaGo and how it won against World Champion Go (Eastern Asian board game) player Lee Sedol (a Korean dude). I got really interested because it showed how AlphaGo learned to play Go itself and beat the best player in the world. I became a fan of its CEO, Demis Hassabis. Then I watched a couple of his other interviews and podcasts. On his podcast with Lex Fridman, he talked about consciousness and philosophy, which made me curious to learn about this topic. I have played around with this topic for some time, and finally, now I have written a short overview: What is consciousness?

Definitions

Consciousness is generally the awareness of one's own inside and outside; however, in philosophy, it is complicated. There are many proposed definitions of consciousness. The following are some of the proposed definitions of consciousness as creature consciousness, according to the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia:

Sentience: Just being an entity that is able to sense can be thought of as consciousness. However, there might be arguments about what level of sense is considered consciousness. Are dolphins conscious? How about flies?

Wakefulness: Another perspective is wakefulness as consciousness. In that case, when humans are asleep or in a deep coma, they might not be considered conscious. This also raises potential questions.

Self-Consciousness: This one is the most demanding. Being aware of one's inner self can be considered consciousness. However, this also requires determining which level of self-awareness constitutes consciousness. If we take a low level of self-awareness as consciousness, non-animal organisms might also be considered conscious, which raises a contradiction. If we take a high level of self-awareness as consciousness, aren't babies conscious?

What it is like: Thomas Nagel proposed this idea of "what it is like." If there is a sense of "what it is like"—that the world appears or seems from the point of mental or experiential view of any animal—it is conscious. He gave the example of bats: bats experience the world through their echolocation, and there is "something it is like to be" a bat. Even if we, as humans, can't experience the world the way bats do, we can consider bats as conscious.

Types

Ned Block explores consciousness and separates it into two types: phenomenal and access.
Phenomenal consciousness refers to the raw subjective experiences or "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. For instance, an Americano might taste bitter to some and sour to others, or a toothache—you don't have to explain it, but you can still experience it. It is independent of any function or behavior; you don't need to explain or behave in a certain way to experience a toothache. These experiences are often described as qualia—the intrinsic and ineffable aspects of sensory and emotional experiences.

Access consciousness, on the other hand, refers to information in the mind that is accessible for reasoning, verbal reporting, and guiding actions. Knowing the time is 11:00 p.m., which is time to sleep, and then deciding to sleep can be considered access consciousness. For A-consciousness, it involves certain behavior, action, or decision-making for it to qualify as access consciousness.

Block's main argument is that you can experience P (phenomenal) consciousness without A (access) consciousness. For example, you don't need to explain or articulate a toothache; you just experience it. However, A-consciousness without P-consciousness is debated. Zombies, as an example, can't have the subjective experience of P-consciousness (feeling "redness" as red) but still can act or behave in a certain way.

Mind and Body

Mind processes and physical processes are obviously different but connected to each other. The main question in philosophy is how the mind and body's relationship is related. René Descartes ("I think, therefore I am") was one of the first people to discuss this problem and propose a potential solution. Descartes offered that the mind and body are two different realms: res cogitans—the immaterial domain of thought and consciousness—and res extensa—the material domain of physical things. Descartes suggested that the pineal gland of the human brain is where the mind and physical body interact. Scientists proved him wrong about the pineal gland, but his suggestion of mind-body dualism was a fundamental idea that shaped the concept of dualism in philosophy.

Dualism and Monism

After that, two broad categories emerged in response to the mind-body problem. First, dualists believe that the mind and body are separate, individual entities. Second, monists believe that there is one kind of "stuff," and both mind and matter are only aspects of that "stuff."

Within dualism, there are two main "sects": substance and property dualists. Substance dualists argue that the mind is a separate entity and isn't governed by physical laws. Property dualists argue that the mind is, indeed, a physical entity but can't be explained only by the laws of physics.

On the other hand, monists are divided into three different sects: physicalism, idealism, and neutral monism. Physicalists argue that the mind is a physical entity and arises from matter organized in a specific way. Idealists (I love their argument and think it would be very cool if they were right) argue that only the mind and mental experiences exist; matter (the physical world) is an illusion of the mind. Neutral monists argue that mind and matter are only aspects of a fundamental, neutral essence.

Problems

There are two main problems of consciousness: the hard and the easy problems.
The easy problems aren't called easy because they can be solved easily but because they can be explained by mechanisms or science. For instance, using techniques or technologies, we can explain how the brain creates colors or why we can hear our partner's voice in a noisy room.

The hard problems, on the other hand, can't be explained by science or mechanisms. They are more mysterious and difficult to solve. For instance, when does our first-person experience arise? When do we start to sense ourselves as subjective entities? These are the hard problems of consciousness.

There is also the problem of other minds, which asks: Given that I can only observe the external behaviors of others, how can I know others have minds? This question is tied to the thought experiment of zombies. If zombies (not like those portrayed by Hollywood, but entities that physically resemble humans) act or behave the same way humans do, are they conscious? Some philosophers argue that even if zombies behave, act, and move like humans, they do not experience consciousness. For instance, they wouldn't know why to go to sleep early if they have classes early the next morning. Others argue that we can attribute consciousness to behavior and assume they have a mind since they behave the same way we do.

Conclusion

You might ask: Why do I need to care about consciousness? You don't have to—it is a complex and highly specific topic. However, there are some potential benefits to studying consciousness. First, it helps us understand and improve ourselves better. Second, it could lead to treatments for depression, anxiety, fear, psychological diseases, and trauma. Third, it is one of the ways to solve intelligence and even build artificial intelligence.

This is a short overview of consciousness. It is a philosophical approach, not a scientific or neuroscientific one. I don't have enough knowledge to cover consciousness from a biological perspective yet, but in the future, I plan to explore that as well. For now, this is all about the philosophical perspective of consciousness. Over the coming months, I hope to write about most of the discovered knowledge — at least the fundamentals — of consciousness. Thank you for reading! Peace.

Seoul, Korea

17/12/2024