Lecture: Consciousness Flashcards
1
Q
What are the different meanings of consciousness (3)?
A
- Awake (Not asleep)
- Conscious of something (e.g., awareness of an oncoming car). We are aware of much less than we think
- Conscious of self: Descartes “I think therefore I am” (the consciousness of the self and being aware that the self exists). Awareness of what is doing the action or having the experience
2
Q
what is creature consciousness
A
Some creature, or kinds of creature, have the ability to have mental-state consciousness
3
Q
What is mental state consciousness
A
Whether some particular mental state is conscious or not
4
Q
what is automatization?
A
- As we get better at things, they become easier to do and faster, and we can think about other things while we do them (e.g., driving- It gets so fast that making yourself conscious of it will mess up your performance)
- Perhaps babies are more conscious than we are, because they are habituated to nothing (kids are like “look it’s a dog” and we don’t even notice)
5
Q
How/why is consciousness “not the main event”
A
- Much of what the brain/mind does is not available to consciousness or does not require consciousness
- It is like an iceberg- only a small part of the mind is available to reflect on or control
- AI has the potential to do all kinds of stuff without consciousness. We just don’t know enough about it to know.
- Another possibility – the rest of the brain is conscious but not available to “us” – we see that this is possible in the case of split-brain patients.
6
Q
What is intuition?
A
- When we perceive or decide or believe something without having a notion of how the idea came about
- Can be caused by automatization
- We have genetic and learned intuitions
- We cannot tell the difference
- When can we trust it? Often were wrong
- Old brain processes are mostly impenetrable
7
Q
What is qualia?
A
- The qualities of consciousness- “what it is lke” to see, hear taste etc
- Qualia’s for some things and not others
- An example of a “quale” (plural qualia): What the colour red looks like, or what pain feels like.
- There is a debate in philosophy regarding whether qualia are reducible to physical processes and states.
8
Q
What are some weird conscious disorders?
A
- Blindsight (ability to guess above chance aspects of visual stimuli in absence of perception)
- Hemisphere neglect (damage to the brain causing deficit of awareness of one side of space)
- Severed corpus callosum (split-brain or commisurotomy)
9
Q
What is the zombie argument?
A
In philosophy, a zombie is a being that is like a human but has no conscious experience. is this possible?
- Behavioural Zombie: behaves just like a human. E.g. Chinese room (can answer questions just like a person but isn’t conscious according to some)
- Neurological Zombie: a behavioural zombie, the brain states of which are indistinguishable from a human
- If zombies are possible, then perhaps some form of dualism is correct.
- Dualism is the belief that there is some kind of mental substance that is not physical
10
Q
What are higher-order thought models?
A
- A class of consciousness theories that are functional (what is it for/what its purpose)
- They claim that things are conscious when involved with abstract or high level thought (really abstract thoughts)
- They have problems with Qualia
11
Q
What is Baar’s global workspace model?
A
- Consciousness highlights certain parts of memory, that are viewable by other processes (everyone sees the blackboard)
- Similar to a “blackboard architecture” in AI (like servants in a house they are all doing separate things but they communicate through one thing if need be).
12
Q
What is Dennett’s multiple drafts model?
A
- There are multiple processes in the mind that interpret things. These are like multiple drafts of the same story, such as picking up a glass of water.
- They compete for control over other parts of your mind.
- There is no set point at which something becomes conscious
