Is selfness necessary for consciousness?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Magical Realist, Nov 1, 2012.

  1. lalalandscape Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry, thanks for pointing that out. I think what I had originally intended to say was that according to that quote a self and consciousness are inextricably linked so that animals wouldn't have consciousness, or selves. If you want to use the term "awareness" it cannot be defined as the same as consciousness, so it is irrelevant.
     
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  3. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    It would have been interesting if he could have clarified exactly what these private / introspective thoughts and awareness of them consisted of in the absence of words. Many of the researchers and narrative-providing patients might as well be behaviorists, the way they focus on the extrospective aspects of aphasia. Both agree that aphasia sufferers can still think, but only dote on the public signs and methods of this intellectual activity.

    A.H. Raskin refers to "Privately I could do nothing but cry..." about the loss of his old self. But it becomes clear in the next sentence that he's literally referring to crying bodily tears when he's alone, and merely informs of us of "feelings" transpiring internally without confirming whether or not this was his manner of 'thinking'.

    Researcher Shelagh Brumfitt initially seems to refer to aphasic individuals utilizing internal non-language substitutes when he asserts that "Because speech is a central part of the self concept, its loss may be one of the most problematic conditions to accept. Aphasic people need to use nonverbal and preverbal constructs that allow them to redefine the world without language. It is unclear, however, whether this is sufficient to allow them to develop a sense of identity." But then reveals that this really does concern uttered speech (and understanding) from themselves and others (not the loss of private monologues) and its outer-expressed conceptual alternatives; and involving an identity as perceived / acknowledged by others and fed back to the individual for confirmation, rather than a private instantiation of selfhood: "The nurturing of a positive self-concept means the aphasic person must be able to function within a social context where close personal relationships confirm competency and adequacy." --Losing your sense of self: What aphasia can do

    A few may indicate words still being present in their thoughts, but they lack syntactic organization; are jumbled and lack sentence / grammatical forms. Through great effort and the aid of interpreters, they eventually assemble over a period of months the accounts of their ordeals.

    "...have investigated the telling of personal stroke narratives in aphasia therapy situations and have discussed the benefits of such narratives. All agree that narratives present people with aphasia (similar to other individuals suffering from a chronic illness) with an opportunity to talk about their problems and, thereby, help to reestablish a more positive sense of self and diminish what Shadden (2005) called 'identity theft'. --Better But No Cigar: Persons with Aphasia Speak about their Speech

    "....Unsurprisingly, individuals with aphasia struggle to instigate the fight to rescue the ‘self’, and often surrender to discreditation. Charmaz’ (1983) explanation that self-concept depends upon reflected images of the ‘self’ by others is confirmed by Simmons-Mackie and Damico (2008). This study of communication therapy sessions suggests that external negative responses to individuals with aphasia leads to internal negative perceptions of the ‘self’ and a silencing of the ‘voice’. Poor nurse communication techniques based on task-orientated conversation, ‘elderspeak’ and ‘talking over’ compound this internalisation process. According to Ryan et al’s (1986) seminal literature review and subsequent theory of ‘dependency over-accommodation’, implications of incompetence and diminished capacity which arise from such condescending speech styles lower individuals’ confidence and self-esteem. This increases dependency and passive acceptance of care, and consequently promotes feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness. Parr et al (2003) agree. This literature review reports that individuals faced with inadequate communication attempts of service providers, feel so diminished that they often apologise for their own existence. By reflecting on the impact of aphasia on self-actualisation needs, it seems that the nursing role in care delivery should involve supporting the individual to both recover the pre-aphasic ’self’ and connect this ‘self’ to the new disabled identity. In order to achieve this, the nurse must firstly get to know the patient as a person, then secondly, empower that person to regain the creativity, confidence and freedom required to control his/her own life..." --The impact of aphasia on health and well-being

    A.H. Raskin: "It is difficult to covey the depth of my emotional solitude. I did not feel like A.H. Raskin. I now had a new self, a person who no longer could use words with mastery. Privately I could do nothing but cry. With the tears came feelings of anxiety and depression. I wavered between feelings of melancholy and hope. I now realize that my vocation in life has changed. Now I represent the one million Americans who cannot speak for themselves. My plight and theirs are one: to inform the public that those of us who have lost the ability to invent fluent phrases or sentences have not lost the ability to think. We retain the skill to communicate our thoughts and feelings, whether through writing, picture boards, pantomime or facial expression. We can still speak! We hope that you will listen with your ears, with your eyes and always with your heart." --Martha's Vineyard magazine
     
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  5. Genius Banned Banned

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    A special one.
     
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  7. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder how aphasia would be experienced and described by someone trained in traditional Buddhist meditation.
     
  8. Genius Banned Banned

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    I can relate to the above quote. Also what do you think of my above comment?
     
  9. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    You seem to be talking about people following base programming, rather than thinking things through.
     
  10. Genius Banned Banned

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    A god.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2012
  11. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Yes.
    To be conscious, or self-aware, is to be able to recognize oneself as a separate entity from the environment.

    con·scious·ness
    1. the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

    self-awareness
    Realization of oneself as an individual entity or personality.

    http://dictionary.com
     
  12. Ripley Valued Senior Member

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    A psyche is a predecessor to consciousness and the unconscious, enabling and sparking the twofold apparatus into action. Just as a star gives birth to a planet, consciousness—daylight—and the unconscious—nightfall—are precursors to being, molding themselves into distinct methods, policies, and counterpoise, and thereby lending themselves into a sense of selfhood. But as is already evident, not all "individuals" on this planet are originals. —But that's beside the point.
     
  13. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    If you take those as the working definitions, then your answer seems correct.
    However there are various understandings of consciousness that people work with: some religious thought would have consciousness being almost synonymous with life, yet it is certainly not biologically clear that all life is conscious. Some would say that the difference between animate matter and inanimate matter is that one is endowed with consciousness. Is a blade of grass conscious? Some would say yes, others would say no.
    Others work with a definition that is more akin to self-awareness.

    So the answer to the OP does seem to depend on what one views as "consciousness" - and so, as requested elsewhere, clarification of the OP's position on this would be required.
     
  14. Genius Banned Banned

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    A quote:

    The CTMU therefore supports a kind of panpsychism. Although every part of SCSPL has a cognitive aspect, the mental capabilities of a given subsystem depend on its structure. Langan distinguishes three "levels of self-cognition": subordinate, agentive, and global.[37] The lowest of these levels, subordinate, encompasses low-complexity objects such as rocks. In the CTMU, rocks are cognitive in the generalized sense—their molecules interact, thereby processing information—but they do not possess independent volition or any intrinisic ability to optimize their environment.
    http://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe
     
  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Intriguing idea. I find the panexperientialist view of reality a little more comprehensive. Take how a rock reacts to sunlight. Heat, expansion, distribution of inner stresses and torsions, all suggesting a kind of proto-experience of or subjectivity to it's environment. Is it a CONSCIOUS experience? Only on a very primitive level. My candidate for a consciousness prototype would be something along the line of hysteresis, a sort of looped feedback that occurs in the lag between input and output. But I'm just speculating here.
     
  17. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    No, it isn't.
     
  18. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    If that's the case, then how do you explain the development of language?

    Language can only define consciousness; it could not possibly be a precursor.
     
  19. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    As stated afterwards, I would at best only partially agree with Dennett that language contributes to the sense of self which humans are familiar with, which he describes as: "I am not saying that all human consciousness consists in talking to oneself silently, although a great deal of it does. I am saying that the ability to talk to yourself silently, as it develops, also brings along with it the abilities to review, to muse, to rehearse, recollect, and in general engage the contents of events in one's nervous system that would otherwise have their effects in a purely 'ballistic' fashion, leaving no memories in their wake, and hence contributing to one's guidance in ways that are well described as unconscious." But Dennett seems to want this particular conception of 'subject' to be the only instance of or classification for self-consciousness that there is. Nevertheless, he provides for this topic an example of the less popular or non-traditional view of consciousness minus an 'I':

    "...It would follow that non-human animals and pre-linguistic children, although they can be sensitive, alert, responsive to pain and suffering, and cognitively competent in many remarkable ways -- including ways that exceed normal adult human competence -- are not really conscious (in this strong sense [of selfhood]): there is no organized subject (yet) to be the enjoyer or sufferer, no owner of the experiences as contrasted with a mere cerebral locus of effects."

    Based on your implied hypothesis that self or self-consciousness was necessary for language to develop, at what point would this need have become retrospectively unnecessary? Was it also required for the arising of tool-use or tool-making? Was it needed for an anthropic or proto-anthropic species to walk upright? Was it essential for much earlier primate color vision to fall out of evolutionary-related mutations? Etc? This goes back to some sub-program or manner of expressed selfhood surely having to emerge just as a consequence of a data-processing system being housed in a body (whether animal, human, or artificially-equipped robot). In the course of identifying circumstances in its environment and responding to them, the system would also have to keep track of and be interested in that body (its own) as distinct from what it interprets as threats / ignorable elements / desires. In memory, the storage of body-related events would beg for their more compact summarization and thereby acquires an abstract or formal use (the idea, construct, concept of self in either a non-verbal or verbal context).
     
  20. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    Consciousness is just the ability to interact and detect separate entities. Light hits your eye and there is a corresponding "reaction" in your brain. And some entities are more conscious than others. So if consciousness is a sliding scale, it can be said a rock is "consciousness" because it "detects" a hill and "reacts" by rolling down it when it falls from a cliff, for example. Without any of those separate entities, rock, cliff, hill, there is no selfs the be "conscious" of anything. So yes, you have to be a self, a separate entity to be "conscious."

    By the same token, a rock is more "conscious" than a person because, although both a rock and a person will react to gravity, there is so much more a rock won't react to because it "knows" those things are really not there.
     

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