A Mechanism For Consciousness

[identitythekeyston]

A Proposal.

Consciousness is thought promoted to the front of awareness.

Thought gets promoted by getting more organized.

More organized thought is made from less organized thought.

More organized thought is made by scanning less organized thought to search for similarities; similar thoughts reinforce each other and are easier to retain.
The scanning of less organized thought is enabled by parallel awareness. Parallel awareness puts us simultaneously in contact with most thought, and it seems to me that similarities would be readily apparent.
In this way similar thoughts are grouped into sets, and organization is incrementally advanced

The organization of thought never ends. It is the overriding concern of the brain.

When similarity between simple unorganized thoughts is registered it has only a little impact. On the other hand, when the organization of thought is advanced and complex thought is aggregated, the similarity or identity between complex thoughts makes a big impression. For an organ, the brain, obsessed with organizing information, the apprehension of identity between two complex thoughts constitutes an episode of ‘instant high level organization‘. This is a very compelling event. It hits many of the high notes of what the brain is about. So much so, that it is promoted to the front of awareness.

In this way complex thoughts promote each other, and instance the reciprocal reference that is described as a hallmark of consciousness.

Thank you for reading.

[tkorrovi]

OK, thank you for writing. It is said that a forum is dead when there are no new posts in two years, so you saved the forum

And now think whether everything which you said can be implemented by ADS, and if not, then what is missing. This is how deep it is. I think ADS is capable of all that, theoretically, but of course i could not check out all that during the time in which i had to reply to you.

[Dalton]

My View:

There a rather famous paper out there called, “The Magic Number 7, Plus or Minus 2,” that points out something rather important about consciousness – it’s capacity is very small. The implications guides my thinking. One implication is that it is used as a scratch pad, very short term memory, that it resides in a major pathway common to all modalities as well as priming and comparison circuits. As Demasio would call it, it has to be a “Convergence Zone” located where it can tap into and eves drop on all the cognitive traffic that’s shuttling around in the brain, yet a subset of awareness. I like to define it and think of consciousness as “Focused Awareness” for that gives it a working definition – one that can be implemented. I also look upon all the rest of the idiosyncratic published properties such as subjective experience as by products or secondary effects that result from consciousness and not necessarily part and parcel of consciousness. To further refine my understanding of consciousness, I realize that the term itself is a concept that one could call a mega-word – a term or concept that embodies a multiplicity of other concepts to the point that it become ambiguous. Other words that fall into such a category are God, country, world, nature, and so on. Therefore, it makes no sense to ask the question, “What is consciousness?” To establish an understanding of consciousness, the question should be, “What is the purpose of consciousness?” Paraphrasing Kennedy, “Ask Not What Consciousness is, Ask What Is The Purpose of Consciousness.” In that vein, I believe the primary purpose of consciousness is to integrate emotional responses with experiences – to assign them a type and intensity, so that they can be categorically established in the LTM so that future recall for comparison provides the character of the experience as well as the details.

[tkorrovi]

Thank you for adding one view. Everyone is free to decide what view one prefers, sure this is what freedom is about. Though this view somewhat endangers the freedom of others, because it decreases the importance of consciousness, therefore the value of human, and therefore the freedom which all others would be entitled to, so in that sense it is not what personal freedom is about. But my very personal reaction to that is, how can one think that way.

[NickyBlue]

says it all by itself!