How can Consciousness be explained clearly? Is there a science of Consciousness? Just a little confused here and need some clarity.
Consciousness research is extremely controversial, and to me appears to be in its earliest stages. In my experience, many scientists consider it to be “fringe science.”
For example, that “chinese box” thing is so shamefully stupid that I wonder how anyone can take it seriously. Why stupid? Because the person in the room is obviously analogous to the brain’s neurons and connections, or analogous to a set of logic gates in a processor chip. Do the individual neurons know what they’re thinking about, can they choose to not carry out the commands? If no commands are received and the process halts, do the neurons feel bored? Of course not, any more than a NAND gate in a microprocessor would know what kind of program is running or get bored when the power is turned off. “Chinese room” is fine as a simplified way to explain the problem to the public. Now the stuff about having the man in the room memorize the rule book, then claiming that the man’s brain understands chinese… that’s just plain dishonest. It’s someone’s attempt to obscure the concepts with deceptive word-play. Someone trying to win an arguement rather than trying to shed light on the truth. Ugh.
If consciousness is just an epiphenomenon, then the system as a whole is where the consciousness lies. Even if the man inside the chinese room memorizes the rule book (or better yet, train a group of rats to carry out the instructions,) the system as a whole would be conscious, and it would only be conscious while the rats are actively performing the tasks. The consciousness of individual rat brains is then clearly irrelevant.
Here’s an idea. Let’s extend the “chinese room” analogy. Let’s train the man to personally understand chinese. Now when the chinese language instructions come in, the man still follows the rule book as before, and the system as a whole understands chinese. But now the man watches the communications go by and understands exactly what’s happening. If he chooses, he can intercede and decide to not follow the rule book. The room as a whole is now like a brain, and the man is analogous to the “conscious Self” who has free will and who sits inside the brain and watches what’s going on (and perhaps intercedes occasionally and alters the normal automatic processes.) But… how does the man in the Chinese Room do it? Simple. All humans seem to have a little man in their heads who watches what’s going on! THAT little man is really the one who has free will and initiates actions. But that leaves a big question open. The “little man” in all of our heads… how does he do it? Maybe he has a “little man” in his own head, and that one has an even smaller one in his!
Separate topic: consciousness seems to involve humans observing their own mental processes, but that’s not the only thing. Humans also can derail their thought processes. They can CHOOSE to interfere in automatic responses. I think that’s the key. Free will. What the heck is free will? A deterministic “clockwork” universe is understandable, but “free will” is not. If decisions are being made freely rather than being determined entirely by perceptions and memory, and if a “someone” or a “consciousness” is making those decisions, then free will is occurring. A “someone” inside our heads can CHOOSE to ignore perceptions and memory, and instead take actions based on random decisions, or based on reason, or based on gut feel, etc. Explain free will versus determinism, and you make great strides in explaining consciousness.
And in this vein, the 1950s philosophy of Behaviorism can be seen as a reaction against the need to understand consciousness. The problem seemed intractable, so psychologists went into sick denial, claiming that human behavior was a collection of pure unthinking reactions. Proclaim that consciousness doesn’t exist, so there’s no need to study it! Well, never actually say that out loud, just pretend that it’s true. (Down that path lies madness.)
Me, I lean more towards the idea that consciousness is a fundamental irreducable concept; something like “space” or “time,” and is not just something associated with computers which can observe their own actions. But such a stance leads to unsettling ideas such as consciousness without brains, and subatomic particles being very simple examples of conscious entities. Now THAT is seriously out into fringe science, no?
The little man in your head has a smaller man in his, and so on? This is not a new concept, it was discussed by Hofstadter in “Godel Escher Bach,” when the human who was conversing with a genii requested that the rules regarding wishes could be altered. The genii asked his superior if it was OK to do this. That superior genii asked his own superior. The request was relayed up the chain of increasingly powerful geniis, with each one talking faster to the next. See where this is leading? The chain of geniis was infinite. Yet the higher in the chain, the faster the request moved, so within a few second an answer came back. But WHO MADE THE DECISION? Heh. Didn’t say. The request went into the realm of infinitely powerful geniis, then came back down into the finite world. Also, the entire genii buerucracy was named G.O.D., with the acronym standing for GOD OVER DJINN. A recursive acronym similar to the operating system called X.I.N.U. or “XNIU IS NOT UNIX”
I just posted some links in the syicky reference GQ thread.
I would suggest that the most highly advanced science of consciousness is Yoga. You’d be within your rights to call it a philosophy at first glance, but all it takes is some free time and a good instructor to replicate the experiments for yourself. Once you have studied diligently for many years you might be in a position to say what consciousness is. Be sure to tell me if you do :).
Modern scientists will never approach the understanding of the Yogis. Not because they’re not able, but because they’re not devoted enough. Yogis go through many years of purifying the body and training the mind to observe consciousness - a modern scientist can only formulate a theory based on some observation of physical processes. Who has the most empirical data? Why the Yogi of course.
I disagree with this premise in general, but just to humor you, what about the neuroscientist who practises yoga?
Coming back to the premise, yogis, irrespective of their dedication, cann’t escape the perspective of their brains, since that is the very organ which they use to “purify” their mind. The yogi is bound by the processes and limits of the mind that (s)he wishes to study. In fact, the “insights” by generated by the organ under observation!! A third-party external observation in addition to personal self-observation might make for the best approach.
Correction: The insights are generated…
Don’t think so much. You’ll get a headache.
I would, if I had a head as small as yours 
litle tiny hed, no room for brane!!
Thinking in circles will give you a headache because thinking in circles will give you a headache because thinking in …
you get the idea
On the other hand, perhaps consciousness is an illusion.
Recently there were brain experiments involving decisionmaking. As I recall, researchers found a signature in MRI patterns which indicated when the subject actually came to a decision. But these appeared about half a second BEFORE the subject became aware that they had made their choice.
It’s as if our “true selves” express their free will, and our “conscious selves” are only told about it after the fact. Since we might not be perceiving the actual events, but instead are getting old data from a half second ago, maybe our “true selves” don’t have free will, but instead are just as mindlessly driven by programmed responses as any machine, and “consciousness” is a psychological defense mechanism, an illusion that brings comfort.
Isn’t Zen practice supposed to destroy your conscious self? So you simply “chop wood, haul water” in the instant, rather than trying to be in control? That part about “in the instant” is very interesting in light of experiments which show that we perceive our “selves” through a half-second delay. It would be useful in ancient times to kill instantly when attacked, only to know a half second later what had occurred. Nowdays the instant response might lead to jail, and the “thoughtful” response performed after conscious deliberation might be so useful that we should suspect that it’s a new evolutionary step.
Stuart Hameroff of the U of Arizona has made big noises about cytoskeleton quantum mechanics in the human brain. The weird aspects of consciousness might arise because evolution has discovered how to make Quantum Computers at room temperature, and our brains are an example of this.
U. Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies
http://consciousness.arizona.edu/
Search on consciousness and quantum coherence in neuron cytoskeleton
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/Pen-Ham/penrose_hameroff_publications.htm
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/Ham/Interest/interest_in_consciounsess.htm
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/papers/decoherence/decoherence.html
R. Penrose:
http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/shadow.html
Gyan9:
“what about the neuroscientist who practises yoga?”. Yeah, what about him?
Of course the Yogi’s inquiry is coloured by subjectivity when observing consciousness, but so is any data aquired by the scientist: when studying consciousness its necessary to involve test subjects at the level of emotions and thoughts - data that is unreliable and highly subjective. Of course the alternative perspective is to look at consciousness from the molecular level of the brain, but this is making the assumption that consciousness is indeed produced by molecular interactions in the brain. An assumption that will go unchallenged because its convienent, apparently common sense and easy to accept.
Actually, the stuff about brain molecules is the OPPOSITE of what you seem to assume. It’s highly controversial, unacceptable, and widely challenged because it’s actually an attempt to explain paranormal “yogi” phenomenon on the grounds that quantum mechanics has disturbing features which aren’t completely explored. How would it FEEL to be a quantum computer living in a many-worlds universe and following multiple branching worldlines with various probabilities? 
What could such a quantum entity do that normal computers could not? So, if the human brain works partly by quantum coherence, then maybe that’s where strange things such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and free will are based.
On the other hand, if human brains are deterministic clockwork machines which simply respond automatically to the perceptions/memory data, then we don’t need any molecular weirdness to explain them. We can just say that they’re Classical-Physics biocomputers based on the “neural net” idea. No free will, no soul, no Yogic paranormal mind powers to explain.
Take a look:
Slideshow, tour of quantum brain weirdness theory