UvA Consciousness PDF

Consciousness Cartesian Theatre → a mental screen/stage on which things appear to be presented for viewing by your mind’s eye. ​ Impossible to share what’s in your cartesian theatre to anyone else ​ Humans all have subjective experiences, attempting to grasp the subjective perspectives...

Consciousness Cartesian Theatre → a mental screen/stage on which things appear to be presented for viewing by your mind’s eye. ​ Impossible to share what’s in your cartesian theatre to anyone else ​ Humans all have subjective experiences, attempting to grasp the subjective perspectives of people Hard problem of consciousness → the difficulty of explaining how subjective experience could ever arise Phenomenology → how things seem to the conscious person, in terms of quality of experience ​ 3 mysteries of consciousness: the homunculus problem, the problem of other minds, mind-body problem Homunculus problem → difficulty explaining the experience of consciousness by advocating another internal self ​ Essentially like having a mini version of yourself inside your head making decisions for you. ​ It’s a problem because the homunculus would have another version inside of it, and this process would carry on indefinitely ​ So then who’s in control? → Spinoza’s free will Free will → the common assumption that individuals are in control of the decisions they make and have the choice to do one thing instead of the other. ​ Some suggest free will is an illusion because behavior and thoughts can be molded by reinforcements and punishments ​ Science undermines the free will as a personal choice ​ However, rejecting free will is also challenging to accept → who is really responsible then? ​ We feel the experience of conscious free will in regular decision making to keep track of our decisions and actions Problem of other minds → the fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving consciousness of others ​ Barrier that prevents us from understanding someone else's consciousness, due to the subjective perception of the world around us Qualia → subjective experiences we have as part of our mental life ​ Qualia cannot be directly accessed by others, hence impossible to understand the conscious experience of another person ​ No way to tell if another person’s experience is the same as yours, even if they are just describing their experiences ​ Philosopher’s zombie → hypothetical nonconscious person eg. zombie ​ They could talk about and react to stimulus but not have any inner experience at all  ​ This counter argues that consciousness only emerges from the brain, and suggests that there is something else independent of the brain that creates a consciousness ​ Hypothetical zombies can also be refuted by showing that the mind is what the brain does Materialism → the philosophical position that mental states are a product of physical systems alone ​ Suggests that consciousness can be explained by an additional property that resides in the brain ​ Our consciousness and free will are a product of a physical entity in the brain Anthropomorphism → the tendency to attribute human qualities to nonhuman things ​ Eg. your appreciation of a puppy’s mind reflects what is going on in your head more than in the puppy’s ​ We assume that they express the same mental life as us, making it easier for us to interact with animals and even babies ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Online survey to compare the minds of different targets (baby, chimp, robot, man, woman) on different mental capacities (pain, pleasure, hunger etc.) ​ Found 2 dimensions of mind perception ​ We judge minds in accordance to the capacity of experience, and capacity for agency ​ However, some were perceived to have agency without experience (robot, God), little experience & agency (dead person), having experience but little agency (baby), both experiences and agency (adult) *picture of diagram* Mind-body problem → the issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body ​ Scientific method requires observations, and should be able to be observed by others ​ However, if the mind is not observable, how do we study consciousness ​ Descartes suggested that the mind has effects on the brain and body through the pineal gland ​ Hard problem remains → how does the mind, which has no physical property emerge and interact with the physical structures of the body? ​ However, consciousness doesn’t feel like a product of the brain, as we feel experiences of mental life separately to our bodies ​ Mind is in control of the body, however, studies suggest the opposite - brain activities precede the activities of the conscious mind ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Brain activity was measured in participants using sensors on the scalp as they were asked to decide when to move their hand. ​ Also asked to indicate when they chose to consciously move their hand by stating the position of a moving dot on a clock  ​ Brain began to show activity half a second before the voluntary action - such activity is necessary to get action started ​ Results also showed that the brain’s activity began to rise before the conscious decision to move ​ Suggests that the brain begins activity before either the thinking or doing of an activity, rather than first thinking then doing. ​ Contradicts the idea of free will - are our actions really voluntary Choice blindness → when people are unaware of their decision making processes and justify a choice as if it were already decided ​ Our consciousness may simply be making sense of our thoughts and actions after they have already been activated by an unconscious process ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Adults were asked to choose between 2 female photos and choose the most attractive choice and to explain why ​ However, they were sometimes given the photo of a woman that they had just rejected ​ Most switches were undetected and even gave explanations preferring the switched face even if they hadn’t consciously chosen it ​ Suggests that many of our intuitions are easily deconstructed and could even be illusions ​ Unconscious influence on our decision making 4 basic properties of consciousness: ​ Intentionality of consciousness ​ Unity of consciousness ​ Selectivity of consciousness ​ Transience of consciousness Intentionality of consciousness → the quality of being directed towards an object ​ We can measure the relationship between consciousness and objects as a process of actively selecting something to attend to ​ Conscious attention is limited - objects can otherwise fail to reach conscious awareness even when being right in front of you Change blindness → when people are unaware of significant event changes that happen in full view ​ Without attention, we miss details in front of us ​ We may also fill in missing portions of experience by making assumptions, eventually filling in our blind spots ​ Unity, selectivity and transience is used to explain this ​ Unity of consciousness is resistant to division  ​ This is present when attending to more that one thing at once ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Adults were asked to count the number of times the players with white shirts passed a basketball to each other ​ They kept track of the passes, however, failed to notice a man wearing a gorilla suit came in amongst the players ​ Shows our scope of consciousness is limited - maintaining a coherent unity of consciousness makes it challenging to divide attention ​ Selectivity of consciousness is the capacity to include some objects and not others ​ This can be seen through studies of dichotic listening Dichotic listening → a task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented in different ears ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Participants were asked to repeat the words they hear in one ear whilst another message is presented in the other ear. ​ As a result of their selective focus on the words asked to be repeated, they didn’t notice much of the second message ​ They didn’t realize the language changed, however, did notice that the voice changed from a male to female voice ​ Suggests that selectivity of consciousness can also tune in information Cocktail party phenomenon → people tune in to one message even while they filter out others nearby ​ The consciousness is inclined to select information of special interest ​ Eg. likely to notice when your name is spoken in the unattended ear, perhaps even during sleep ​ Transience of consciousness refers to its tendency to change ​ The mind wanders from one thing to another, reducing our ability to concentrate when distracted. ​ Stream of consciousness may flow this way due to the limited capacity of working memory ​ The mind can store only a limited amount of information - when new information is inputted, current ones are neglected or disappear ​ Necker cube is a visual counterpart to the stream of consciousness ​ Although the cube is constant, the stream of consciousness reverses the figure.  ​ Cannot simultaneously see both versions of the cube - unit of consciousness Minimal consciousness → a low level of awareness that occurs when the mind inputs sensations and may output behavior ​ Sensory awareness and responsiveness, presenting even during sleep ​ The experience may be registered but not think of having the experience ​ In animals and plants we don’t know for sure if they experience the things that make them respond - problem of other minds ​ In humans, we can assume this because we are at least minimally conscious Full consciousness → consciousness in which you know and are able to report your mental state ​ Being aware of the experience and also having the experience ​ Full consciousness fluctuates throughout the day ​ A person notices the self in a particular mental state - however, not equivalent to being self-conscious Self consciousness → a distinct level of consciousness in which the person’s attention is drawn to the self as an object ​ Focusing on the self while excluding almost everything else ​ Commonly experienced when feeling introspective about your thoughts, feelings or personal qualities eg. embarrassment ​ Humans don’t have self-consciousness right away - after 18 months ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Children were less likely to be greedy and take more candy when there was a large mirror in front of them ​ Students were found to be less likely to cheat when there was a mirror in the room ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Rouge test ​ Certain animals are mystified by mirrors, ignoring it as another creature ​ However, chimpanzees seem to recognize themselves ​ A red dot was put over the eyebrow of a chimp, and then was presented with a mirror ​ If they saw it as another creature, they would reach towards it or just look at the mirror ​ However, the chimpanzee reached towards it own eyes and looked in the mirror - recognized the image as a reflection of itself Experience sampling technique → people are asked to report their conscious experiences at particular times ​ Used to learn the different contents that come to mind ​ Participants are asked to record their current thoughts ​ Useful to study how consciousness is influenced by the immediate environment - becoming their current concerns ​ GSR (galvanic skin response) sensors attached can detect if someone was thinking of something distressing Daydreaming → a state of consciousness in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes to mind ​ Mind’s attempt to deal with difficult issues through a creative approach to control and channel their emotions ​ Current concerns can dominate the consciousness and transform daydreams into rumination & worry ​ To control this, people do mental control through thought suppression Mental control → the attempt to change conscious states of mind Thought suppression → the conscious avoidance of a thought ​ People suppress thoughts because it causes overwhelming anxiety ​ However, this leads to the rebound effect of thought suppression Rebound effect of thought suppression → the tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression ​ Attempts of mental control is very challenging ☁︎ STUDY ☁︎ ​ Participants were asked not to think of a white bear for 5 minutes and records all their thoughts aloud into a recorder ​ They were asked to ring a bell if a white bear came to mind ​ They mentioned the white bear more than once per minute  ​ When asked to change tasks and deliberately think of a white bear, they became oddly preoccupied with it ​ This suggests that the act of avoiding a thought, may instead cause a return of such unwanted thoughts Ironic process of mental control → mental processes that can produce ironic errors because monitoring for errors can itself produce them ​ The attempt of not thinking of a white bear ironically caused participants to think about it ​ Ironic-monitoring process is not present in consciousness ​ ironic monitor → a process of the mind that works outside consciousness, making us sensitive to all the things we don’t want to think about, consciously attempting to regain control if these thoughts come to mind ​ This is required for mental control Dynamic unconscious → an active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the inner struggles to control these forces Repression → a mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness and keeps them in the unconscious ​ Repression helps keep these thoughts in the dynamic unconscious