Why we have consciousness (According to an academic, Psychology textbook)

[QandC]

"WHY DO WE HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS?

Given our brain’s capacity to process information unconsciously, why have we evolved into conscious beings? What functions does consciousness serve? Surely the subjective richness of your life might evaporate if you lost the ability to consciously reflect on nature’s beauty, or on your feelings, thoughts and memories. But what about survival? How does consciousness help us adapt to, and survive in, our environment?

Christof Koch (2004) suggests that consciousness serves a summarizing function, it is important in planning, and allows us to think about the many ways we might deal with different situations and indeed choose a solution path. At any instant, your brain is processing numerous external stimuli (e.g., sights, sounds) and internal stimuli (e.g., bodily sensations). Conscious awareness provides a summary – a single mental representation – of what is going on in your world at each moment, and it makes this summary available to brain regions involved in planning and decision-making. Other scientists agree that consciousness facilitates the distribution of information to many areas of the brain (Shanahan & Baars, 2005). Where there are disorders of consciousness, for instance, such as locked-in syndrome, scanning suggests that there is neurological disruption in multiple areas related to the functional and organizational structure of the brain itself (Amico et al., 2017).

On another front, a lack of self-awareness would compromise your ability to override potentially dangerous behaviours governed by impulses or automatic processing. Without the capacity to reflect, you might lash out after every provocation. Without the safety net of consciousness, Sondra almost drank ammonia during a sleepwalking episode. Under the control of unconscious, autopilot processing, other sleepwalkers have fallen down stairs or have cooked foods and then burned themselves severely while grabbing red-hot pans.

Consciousness allows us to deal flexibly with novel situations and helps us plan responses to them (Koch, 2004; Langer, 1989). Self-awareness – coupled with communication – also enables us to express our needs to other people and co-ordinate actions with them."

 

...let's just say I was kind of disappointed.

Edited September 14, 2020 by QandC

[Fran11]

They are thinking about conciousness like an epiphenomenon, just basic standard materialism...

[Matt23]

It also seems like the scientific paradigm uses the argument that "Since we can think and self-reflect, that means we have consciousness.", as opposed to, say, animals.  But it seems obvious that animals have consciousness and experience things, even though they might not have thoughts.

I never really understood that argument or way of seeing consciousness as synonymous with thinking, since thinking is an experience or activity within consciousness/awareness.  Even I've had moments without thinking, but there was plenty of other stuff to be conscious of.

Or am I misunderstanding the argument?

[QandC]

44 minutes ago, Matt23 said:

It also seems like the scientific paradigm uses the argument that "Since we can think and self-reflect, that means we have consciousness.", as opposed to, say, animals.  But it seems obvious that animals have consciousness and experience things, even though they might not have thoughts.

I never really understood that argument or way of seeing consciousness as synonymous with thinking, since thinking is an experience or activity within consciousness/awareness.  Even I've had moments without thinking, but there was plenty of other stuff to be conscious of.

Or am I misunderstanding the argument?

Yeah exactly. They just view it as a mental process. 

[Fran11]

1 hour ago, Matt23 said:

It also seems like the scientific paradigm uses the argument that "Since we can think and self-reflect, that means we have consciousness.", as opposed to, say, animals.  But it seems obvious that animals have consciousness and experience things, even though they might not have thoughts.

I never really understood that argument or way of seeing consciousness as synonymous with thinking, since thinking is an experience or activity within consciousness/awareness.  Even I've had moments without thinking, but there was plenty of other stuff to be conscious of.

Or am I misunderstanding the argument?

That's because sometimes in psychology when they use the word conciousness/self-awareness/wathever they just mean the mind's capacity to reflect upon itself, which animals don't have.

They don't give much attention to actual conciousness 

 

[Gidiot]

It’s funny how at stage orange I thought this was gospel.

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, QandC said:

Christof Koch

He's a materialistic, reductionist fool. Despite spending his whole life studying consciousness, he understands nothing of it.

[Spaceofawareness]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

He's a materialistic, reductionist fool. Despite spending his whole life studying consciousness, he understands nothing of it.

I wouldn’t call him a fool. But maybe short sighted and blinded by his own knowledge of the brain. And I would agree that he, and every other psychologist, neuroscientist, cognitive scientist and especially computer scientist and AI proponent has no clue about what consciousness is. Those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know. But hey, if he discovers something useful in the meantime, I’ll be happy for him. I’m not holding my breath though.