I recall a conversation about consciousness that I came out of convinced I was a p-zombie, because the description of consciousness didn’t describe anything going on in my head. I feel confused about what you’re even referring to when you say “a vivid sensation of my own presence.”
We have a winner! :)
In meditation there is a concept called “divided awareness”. One is aware of something that one is concentrating on, e.g. the breath, a candle flame, or whatever, and at the same time aware of one’s attention to that thing, dividing one’s attention between the two. Does this make any sense to you?
In principle one can go on to be aware of one’s awareness of one’s attention to the object, and so on indefinitely, but when I try to hold multiple levels of awareness all at once, I only get up to the low single figures.
The thing you’re talking about sounds much more like a very specific representation you have for a homonoculus in your head then a sensation of consciousness.
Yes, and you attribute consciousness to that sensation. That does not mean that sensation=consciousness in others minds. To me it feels like the thing I described above—taking a representation of a homonoculus and calling it consciousness.
I think meditators have become so whole that they begin to dissolve these “parts” of themselves—the homonoculi inside them.
A problem in talking about these things is that there is no easy way to agree on what the words we are using refer to. This is why in the OP I tried to give an idea of what it is like to experience this thing I am trying to get at. When I wrote “This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious”, that was a statement about how I use the word “conscious”, not an attribution of something else called “consciousness” to that state.
I get that, I’m trying to point to something a little more subtle. That is, I think the thing you’re calling consciousness is rather a gross sensation that correlates with consciousness based on your perception of a homonoculus inside of you.
If that perception of a homonoculus went away, I suspect you would still experience something you called consciousness, but as simply a subset subtle sensation that you can’t seperate out right now from the gross sensation of the homonoculus.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self. Once the homonoculus goes away, it seems that the thing people call consciousness is still there.
It would be like if you always experienced red in the presence of warmth, and never experienced warmth without red. You would come to believe that red WAS warmth.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self.
I’m still unclear what distinction you are labelling with the words “self” and “consciousness”, but try the works of Susan Blackmore. Although she says she is not denying the existence of consciousness, that’s hard to square with this: “there are no contents of consciousness and no difference between conscious and unconscious processes or events.”
I’m still unclear what distinction you are labelling with the words “self” and “consciousness”
My claim is that this is the same type of confusion as the person above not clear about the difference between “warmth” and “red” because they’ve always experienced them together.
My claim is that this is the same type of confusion as the person above not clear about the difference between “warmth” and “red” because they’ve always experienced them together.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
I actually don’t understand what’s being said in this essay enough to figure out what claim she is making about consciousness.
She says many different things, some of which seem clear enough, but they seem inconsistent with each other. Again there is the problem of distinguishing the thing that is being talked about from the things that are being claimed about that thing.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
I’m claiming that the original thing you pointed at
I have a vivid sensation of my own presence, my own self. This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious.
Now take away “presence”, “self,” and “I have”, What’s left is awareness of “sensation” without needing a subject. That awareness is somewhere in the ballpark of consciousness.
People commonly report that the strength of their self-sensation varies depending on what they are doing. In particular, flow states are frequently described as ones where the sense of self vanishes, as the person’s focus is purely on the activity and nothing else. Just the doing, with no room for the sensation of a self, as the person’s entire focus is on the sensations of the doing.
Not really. I can be hard at work on something, my focus on the activity, but my sense of myself never vanishes. I can remember being “lost in a book” as a child, but not since then, and I don’t find it a particularly desirable state of mind.
I can sort of focus on my attention, I think. It feels like I’m focusing on the difference between what I’m focusing on and what I’m not focusing on, or on the process of shifting attention.
If I’m supposed to be focusing on the thing doing the attention then I can’t do that. A quick attempt at focusing on the process behind choosing what to focus on failed, though I might have more success if I tried doing it for longer.
We have a winner! :)
In meditation there is a concept called “divided awareness”. One is aware of something that one is concentrating on, e.g. the breath, a candle flame, or whatever, and at the same time aware of one’s attention to that thing, dividing one’s attention between the two. Does this make any sense to you?
In principle one can go on to be aware of one’s awareness of one’s attention to the object, and so on indefinitely, but when I try to hold multiple levels of awareness all at once, I only get up to the low single figures.
The thing you’re talking about sounds much more like a very specific representation you have for a homonoculus in your head then a sensation of consciousness.
It’s definitely (what I would call) a sensation. Just as is seeing my physical body in a mirror.
Yes, and you attribute consciousness to that sensation. That does not mean that sensation=consciousness in others minds. To me it feels like the thing I described above—taking a representation of a homonoculus and calling it consciousness.
I think meditators have become so whole that they begin to dissolve these “parts” of themselves—the homonoculi inside them.
A problem in talking about these things is that there is no easy way to agree on what the words we are using refer to. This is why in the OP I tried to give an idea of what it is like to experience this thing I am trying to get at. When I wrote “This is the thing I am pointing at when I say that I am conscious”, that was a statement about how I use the word “conscious”, not an attribution of something else called “consciousness” to that state.
I get that, I’m trying to point to something a little more subtle. That is, I think the thing you’re calling consciousness is rather a gross sensation that correlates with consciousness based on your perception of a homonoculus inside of you.
If that perception of a homonoculus went away, I suspect you would still experience something you called consciousness, but as simply a subset subtle sensation that you can’t seperate out right now from the gross sensation of the homonoculus.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self. Once the homonoculus goes away, it seems that the thing people call consciousness is still there.
It would be like if you always experienced red in the presence of warmth, and never experienced warmth without red. You would come to believe that red WAS warmth.
As preliminary evidence of this, and contrary to your original claim, I did a Google search, and couldn’t find any claims of meditation exposing the illusion of consciousness, but many about it exposing the illusion of self.
I’m still unclear what distinction you are labelling with the words “self” and “consciousness”, but try the works of Susan Blackmore. Although she says she is not denying the existence of consciousness, that’s hard to square with this: “there are no contents of consciousness and no difference between conscious and unconscious processes or events.”
My claim is that this is the same type of confusion as the person above not clear about the difference between “warmth” and “red” because they’ve always experienced them together.
I actually don’t understand what’s being said in this essay enough to figure out what claim she is making about consciousness.
I still don’t know what two things you are pointing to that you are claiming are being confused with each other. Imagine that English is my second language, and while I have a reasonable competence in it, I happen never to have encountered either of the words “self” and “consciousness”. How would you express the distinction you are drawing?
She says many different things, some of which seem clear enough, but they seem inconsistent with each other. Again there is the problem of distinguishing the thing that is being talked about from the things that are being claimed about that thing.
I’m claiming that the original thing you pointed at
Now take away “presence”, “self,” and “I have”, What’s left is awareness of “sensation” without needing a subject. That awareness is somewhere in the ballpark of consciousness.
People commonly report that the strength of their self-sensation varies depending on what they are doing. In particular, flow states are frequently described as ones where the sense of self vanishes, as the person’s focus is purely on the activity and nothing else. Just the doing, with no room for the sensation of a self, as the person’s entire focus is on the sensations of the doing.
Does this match anything in your experience?
Not really. I can be hard at work on something, my focus on the activity, but my sense of myself never vanishes. I can remember being “lost in a book” as a child, but not since then, and I don’t find it a particularly desirable state of mind.
I can sort of focus on my attention, I think. It feels like I’m focusing on the difference between what I’m focusing on and what I’m not focusing on, or on the process of shifting attention.
If I’m supposed to be focusing on the thing doing the attention then I can’t do that. A quick attempt at focusing on the process behind choosing what to focus on failed, though I might have more success if I tried doing it for longer.