L1 - What is Consciousness?

Question 1

What is reasoning from first principle?

Answer 1

• Deconstruct things to principle elements
• Separate assumptions from facts
• Reconstruct knowledge from the ground up
• Builds structure

Question 2

What is the easy way of thinking?

Answer 2

• Take things at face value
• Take things for granted
• Cumulate knowledge
• Lacks structure

Question 3

Why do we think critically?

Answer 3

• To create innovative solutions and strategies
• Gain insights into why things appear/behave the way they do
• Develop true understanding about the nature of reality and the meaning of life

Question 4

What are the conventional assumptions?

Answer 4

• Universe = physical world & absolute truth
• Life = our body, physical object that can self-grow
• Consciousness = non-physical, emergent property of cellular interaction
• Universe is more fundamental than life, and life is more fundamental than consciousness
• HOWEVER we know what we experience so consciousness should be first

Question 5

What is the reasoning from the first principle:

Answer 5

• Consciousness = experience, because we can be certain about it
• From consciousness, infer life and universe
• Every label we have reflects a specific form of our conscious experience (e.g matter/space/time)
• Cannot get behind consciousness as everything we talk or regard as existing postulates consciousness

Question 6

Consciousness equals experiencing:

Answer 6

• Consciousness is any and every experience
• One is conscious during wakefulness/hallucination/dream sleep
• One is not conscious during dreamless sleep

Question 7

Why does consciousness not equal self-awareness?

Answer 7

• Self-awareness = conscious experience of self (sense of self)
• Self-awareness = specific form of conscious experience
• One can have consciousness without self-awareness e.g early childhood and meditation

Question 8

Why does consciousness does not equal awareness?

Answer 8

• Conscious experience that something exists
• Awareness is a specific form of conscious experience
• One can have consciousness without awareness, e.g hallucination, during contentless conscious

Question 9

Why does consciousness not equal intelligence?

Answer 9

• Intelligence = general ability to adapt and achieve goals
• One can have intelligence without consciousness e.g AI
• One can have consciousness without intelligence

Question 10

Why does consciousness not equal cognition?

Answer 10

• General ability to acquire knowledge
• One can have cognition without consciousness such as during unconscious learning
• One can have consciousness without cognition: dream sleep/severe dementia

Question 11

Why does consciousness not equal sensory processing?

Answer 11

• Recipient and processing of inputs from the env
• One can have sensory processing without consciousness, namely unconscious, sensory processing
• One can have consciousness without sensory processing: dream sleep or during sensory deprivation

Question 12

Why does consciousness not equal behaviour?

Answer 12

• Refers to production of actions and outputs to env
• One can have behaviour without consciousness: unconscious behaviour
• One can have consciousness without behaviour e.g dream sleep of resting state

Question 13

What is a life without consciousness: sensory processing?

Answer 13

• Will exhibit high sensory detection and discrimination
• No visual/auditory/taste/somatosensory/olfactory experience

Question 14

What is a life without consciousness: behaviour?

Answer 14

• High motor and executive functions
• No experience of planning, intending, expecting, desiring, aversing, emotions as the behaviour takes place

Question 15

Why is no consciousness good from a third person perspective?

Answer 15

• Behaviour can be directly observed and consciousness is what can be inferred from behaviour
• Bad for self as life is meaningless
• As long as person can function and provide service for them = life is meaningful with or without consciousness
• Can be preferable for person to be functioning without experiencing = so not held accountable for suffering of this person
• Meaning of life lies in the beholder of consciousness
• Consciousness defines existence

Question 16

What is the clinical significance of consciousness?

Answer 16

• Decision to preserve a brain damaged person is based on consciousness rather than behaviour
• Hard to tell presence vs absence of consciousness
• 40% of patients diagnosed as vegetative state are conscious: consciousness without behaviour
• Signs of behaviour in unconscious patients render the end-of-life decision difficult: behaviour without consciousness

Question 17

What are the social significances of consciousness?

Answer 17

• Ultimate judgement of character and liability is based on consciousness
• Hard to tell contents of consciousness
• Someone should not be guilty of committing a crime if they were not conscious of their behaviour
• Involuntary intoxication may have a valid legal defence for conduct committed when unconscious
• Hard to tell real from fake unconscious behaviour

Question 18

How can we tell real from fake unconscious behaviour?

Answer 18

• Understand the brain basis of consciousness
• Separating that from the brain basis of behaviour and the brain basis of sensory processing

Question 19

How to study consciousness?

Answer 19

• Ability to introspect as well as the tool to report: needs to measure from first-person perspective and have their own conscious experience. And to communicate one’s own conscious experience to others and measure from the third person perspective
• What contents constitutes a conscious experience and How contents are structured

Question 20

What is an example of people not having the ability to introspect?

Answer 20

• Sleep state misperception = when one may feel they were awake and conscious all night but were asleep all night

Question 21

What is an example of people not having the tools to report?

Answer 21

• Language cannot steadily map onto our conscious
• Conscious is changing constantly because of brain plasticity
• Language remains stable
• Same language corresponds to different conscious experience at different moments for the same person

Question 22

How do we link consciousness to the brain?

Answer 22

• Localisation of consciousness : which regions are essential and sufficient for consciousness
• Structural basis of cognition: what is structurally unique about the brain that allows it to generate consciousness
• Functional basis of consciousness: what types of brain activity can generate consciousness