minsocal Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Myron, Interesting..... That may be one way that at least psychology looks at awareness. Awareness to me is recognized more as a potential or state or ability to perceive existence, to feel, or to be conscious of events. Awareness in this sense is the source which brings attention to one's conditioning, which includes thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, ideals, belief-systems, actions and reactions. However, conditioning or understanding or memory for that matter to me do not seem to be required for awareness which i believe is always present. Joseph Joseph, I was not limiting my stance to psychology. My appeal is to cognitive science and philosophy. Your error. "To be conscious of something you have to be conscious of it as something ( again, barring pathology and the like), but perceiving as, and other forms of consciousness as, require categories. But preexisting categories imply prior familiarity with the categories, hence the perceptions are under theaspect of the familiar. So these features hang together: structuredness, perception as, the aspectual shape of all intentionality, categories, and the aspect of familiarity (Searle, 1992)." Your argument is familar, I've seen it before. Memory allows me this, and allows me to respond. There would be no reason for a message dialoque if this were not true. Myron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephM Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Joseph, I was not limiting my stance to psychology. My appeal is to cognitive science and philosophy. Your error. "To be conscious of something you have to be conscious of it as something ( again, barring pathology and the like), but perceiving as, and other forms of consciousness as, require categories. But preexisting categories imply prior familiarity with the categories, hence the perceptions are under theaspect of the familiar. So these features hang together: structuredness, perception as, the aspectual shape of all intentionality, categories, and the aspect of familiarity (Searle, 1992)." Your argument is familar, I've seen it before. Memory allows me this, and allows me to respond. There would be no reason for a message dialoque if this were not true. Myron Myron, Searle may well be talking above of consciousness here but not awareness. Awareness is behind consciousness and not dependent on it. If I am conscious it is in relation to being unconscious. If I am conscious it is always conscious 'of something' . Consciousness always has an object of which i am conscious. So while the self realization of my identity as the "I am" is very much closer to reality than the idea that i am this or that, it is still a step away from the final realization of the absolute. By that i mean the realization that I am the non- dual awareness which is allowing the consciousness to be conscious. Awareness is that which one could say is shining through the consciousness, yet i do not believe it would be correct to say it is consciousness itself. But of course. if you would differ in this, i have no argument and do yield to you. Perhaps i could be wrong. Joseph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Myron, Searle may well be talking above of consciousness here but not awareness. Awareness is behind consciousness and not dependent on it. If I am conscious it is in relation to being unconscious. If I am conscious it is always conscious 'of something' . Consciousness always has an object of which i am conscious. So while the self realization of my identity as the "I am" is very much closer to reality than the idea that i am this or that, it is still a step away from the final realization of the absolute. By that i mean the realization that I am the non- dual awareness which is allowing the consciousness to be conscious. Awareness is that which one could say is shining through the consciousness, yet i do not believe it would be correct to say it is consciousness itself. But of course. if you would differ in this, i have no argument and do yield to you. Perhaps i could be wrong. Joseph Joseph, Not exactly, since I used Searle as my launch point. "Awareness is an example of intentionality (Searle, 2002, p. 62). It is a "... a near synonym for consciousness, but awareness is more closely related to cognition and knowledge than is consciousness (Searle, 1992, p. 84), and ... We may have to allow for cases of "unconscious awareness" (ibid)." Myron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 "We are making a mistake in posing the question in this way. And it ought to be obvious to us. On the view of the mind as containing an inventory of mental states, there must be a category mistake in trying to draw a line between Network and Background, because Background consists of a set of capacities, and Network is not a matter of capacities at all, but of intentional states. I now think the real mistake was to suppose that there is an inventory of mental states, some conscious, some unconscious. Both language and culture tend to force this picture on us. We think of memory as a storehouse of propositions and images, as a kind of big library or filing cabinet of representations. But we should think of memory rather as a mechanism for generating current performance, including conscious thoughts and actions, based on past experience. The thesis of the Background has to be rewritten to get rid of the presupposition of the mind as a collection, an inventory, of mental phenomena, because the only occurrent reality of the mental as mental is consciousness. The belief in an occurrent reality that consists of unconscious mental states, and that is distinct from Background capacities, is an illusion based largely on the grammar of our language (Searle, 1992, p. 187)." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Dr. John Searle is and interesting study. People here have objected to the positions taken by Daniel Dennet. Searle is Dennet's major opponent. Most here would never know that. Searle is in the top of the field concerning these issues. Searle is an atheist, but does not deny the possibilty of God. He admits that we could some day find a causal role for God in a causal world order. Those who participated in the anti - Dennet debate seem to be long gone ... pitty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I know one can direct them. How do you know you have total recall? Susan Blackmore, I think, would say that total recall, as stream of consciousness (awareness), does not happen. It is illusive. I write them down immediately upon awakening. I don't "remember" certain details, but the events are all pretty clear. Most of my dreams tell complete stories. They are composed largely of events that have happened both in the past (both distant and recent - sometimes in a mixed fashion) and events that are a pure creation of my mind. I often "direct" these dreams by focusing on an event or something that I would like to explore. NORM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 It is impossible for the human mind-brain to store every mental state (experience). The "wetware" just does not have that capacity. It does have the capacity to store mental events that have no physical reality. I can imagine an elephant with horned rimmed glasses wearing a pink tutu and belting out Lady Gaga songs. I can do that today and remember it tomorrow. What is required is that an experience be tagged with a code that says "remember this, it is significant." That's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Memory and memory defects can be tragic. There is a famous example of a man in the United Kingdom who cannot form long term memory. Every time he hears that his father died, he experiences the same initial grief. Every time. Those around him have learned to shield him from this agony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I write them down immediately upon awakening. I don't "remember" certain details, but the events are all pretty clear. Most of my dreams tell complete stories. They are composed largely of events that have happened both in the past (both distant and recent - sometimes in a mixed fashion) and events that are a pure creation of my mind. I often "direct" these dreams by focusing on an event or something that I would like to explore. NORM Norm, That would still leave room for having dreams but not recalling them, wouldn't it? I think it is possible and indeed reasonable that we might dream without 'knowing' we've dreamed. I know I have done things/experienced things in my life that I have no recall of. Admittedly, the lack of recall might be several years on, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility that I could dream tonight, but not remember I had dreamt by the time I awoke. So then the question would be did I dream or not! Cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inthedark Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I have read somewhere that there is some evidence to suggest some of our more important decisions are mulled over in our unconscious while we sleep and we wake up making a conscious decision based on our unconscious weighing up of factors, believing we have made a purely conscious decision. This gives some credibility to the well known saying "Let me sleep on it". I know I need to reference this but I thought I'd mention here at this point in the discussion. I'll hunt around in the meantime and see if I can find a credible reference (can't remember where I read it!) Here's an article for starters: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081224215542.htm Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I have read somewhere that there is some evidence to suggest some of our more important decisions are mulled over in our unconscious while we sleep and we wake up making a conscious decision based on our unconscious weighing up of factors, believing we have made a purely conscious decision. This gives some credibility to the well known saying "Let me sleep on it". I know I need to reference this but I thought I'd mention here at this point in the discussion. I'll hunt around in the meantime and see if I can find a credible reference (can't remember where I read it!) Here's an article for starters: http://www.scienceda...81224215542.htm Paul Antonio Damasio, now at USC. The Somatic Marker Hypothesis. Dates back to C. G. Jung. Similar to John Searle's Thesis of the Background or the earlier theory of Edmund Husserl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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