Hi all,

Please excuse my ignorance on these matters; I'm sorry if this has already been discussed, but all the topics I've read seems to be bogged down by digressions and logical/dictional criticisms. Or that I just don't understand.

Assuming that consciousness is a product (or byproduct?) of neurochemistry and neuro-interactions (since if there is no brain, there is no consciousness), is it possible that consciousness does not have to exist for us to function at an equally complex level? IE - we could process information and make decisions based on experience, genetics, and situational factors without being conscious of making it, as if the mind is driving the body without our current awareness. Because at the moment I'm having a hard time envisioning how we function without being conscious of our actions - is consciousness inherently tied to our neural organization?

Or, is consciousness adaptive and of evolutionary value? If so, is consciousness [edit] genetically programmed? How do we benefit from it compared to without a conscience? If there is no effectual difference between possessing or not possessing a consciousness, what's the use of being aware of our actions?

there is talk of zombies by some philosophers, which are people that by their actions seem conscious but are not. But not everyone, including myself, accepts the premise that zombies are possible.

There are some, for example at egodeath.com, who claim we are all like zombies and consciousness is an illusion with no function.

What I find most plausible is that consciousness is necessary for our complex level of behavior, that zombies are impossible, and that consciousness without subsequent recall is not currently differentiable from zombies. For example, if you had no memory or ability to form memories of any kind, you would live in a continual Present (and possibly look into the future), but you would have no memory of prior consciousness and hence would not know for certain that you had ever been previously conscious.

When you say conscience above, do you mean consciousness? If not, then what does conscience have to do with any of this? Again, my claim would be that possessing consciousness makes a big difference and that it is a consequence of certain aspects of structured neural activities. And further, that zombie arguments are not plausible and not differentiable from the case of consciousness without memory.

Consciousness. It is a very interesting experience, which I am having and am glad that I am having it.

I know, and I don't know; I think, I will, I choose, or I decide to remain neutral. I care, and it don't care. I choose to have faith and hope and to offer love. I just responded to this thread. Therefore, I am conscious, I think!!!

yes, sorry, vocabulary slip.

I get what you are saying lucid_dream, but are you equating the ability to recall, store, and process memory - altogether the "experience" factor - with consciousness? What's stopping the so-called zombies from making decisions via experience and functioning without a conscience? Can't they operate without the awareness of experience processing, like how we are not aware of the cerebellum's processes?

Electrical signals generate consciousness, or the experience of thinking so I've learned. However, we are only consciously aware of a selected few electrical signals (which becomes our conscious thoughts). Filtering process so to speak. If we are not aware of that thought selection process, wouldn't our so-called consciousness be a facade (or an illusion, as you've said) because it is actually controlled by the inner workings of the brain? Which would mean... that genetic/memoric/environmental factors - altogether perceived and processed by the brain - only allows us shape our decisions based on its electrical signal selection process, while our "consciousness" thinks it's making the decisions for itself? Wouldn't that mean we're actually zombies?

It is not established that consciousness is generated by electric signals. Consciousness could just as plausibly be associated with functionalism (which disregards the medium), electrochemical gradients, or spooky quantum mechanics effects.

What is established is that certain types of patterned neural activities are associated (either cause or are identical to) with certain forms of conscious experience.

As for being zombies, my main point was that the idea of zombies (as being without conscousness yet behaviorally equivalent to man) is not plausible and that without memory (i.e., recall of past conscious experiences), you have no idea what you have been conscious of, much less of your identity (which is based on recall of past conscious experiences). As for the causal efficacy of consciousness, this depends on whether consciousness is identical to certain forms of patterned neuronal activities or plays a causative role, of which we don't know the answer yet. The idea of consciousness as an ineffectual by-product of neural activities is very unlikely and suggests a misunderstanding between cause-effect and identity.

Wow, thats alot of questions. Alright, see heres the thing, neuroscientist are just now starting to really research as to how consciousness works. Many say that consciousness is contained within each cell, others say that it is the result of a combination of cells that creates consciousness.

Now, what is consciousness? Scientifically it is a biological adaptation whose purpose is to allow our bodies to interpret the world around us. Something needs to be able to figure out which direction to walk and what is food and what isnt. This 'something' is our brain. Now over time, the really boring and meanil tasks that weve already learnt are left to the sub-conscious, like picking up a glass of water.

But when you are first learning something, you are conscious about it. This is the primary role of consciousness, to learn and use what it learns to take care of the body.

Language is simply a way of communicating ideas about the world around us. Diffrent sounds relate to diffrent ideas which relate to diffrent physical objects. So consciouness is really learning, it is a learning fuction. The sub-conscious is simply a mechanism that takes what you have already learnt and applies it whenever you want.

To simplify, let say you are making a computer program. Now this is object oriented programming, so you have a bunch of functions that relate to a task, for example...

Walk
{
Trigger leg muscles
Co-ordinate feet to ensure stable landing
Balance the weight of the body equally
Pump Blood to the legs
}

Thats alot of work just to take a few steps now isnt it? fortunatly, you dont think about having to increase the size of your blood vessels or making sure you distibute the weight of your body equally so you dont fall over. You just think, walk. This is because your conscious mind doesnt need to be bothered all day by things like making sure to breath. So this means you can focus on the important stuff, like keeping your body in tip top shape and making sure you are safe.

Thats the whole purpose of your conscious mind, to make sure everything goes smoothly. Think of your conscious as the CEO, its responsible for everything - the minute something goes wrong, the consciousness is the one who has to fix it. However, the CEO is not moping the floors or on the telephone doing customer service, theres just to many jobs for the CEO to be able to do them all.

So instead there are other people who do them. This is the same idea as your sub-conscious, it does all the tasks that would otherwise take up your time from learning new things.

I like Tor Norretranders ideas...

Consciousness simply gets in the way... eg: He states that there is enough circumstantial evidence to create a theory that the Rennisance period of history was caused by consciousness vanishing in certain individuals.

If you haven't read "User Illusion", I'd recommend it so you can make up your mind and clarify a few things about consciosuness.