On this weblog sequence, we’ve been discussing consciousness and the way it pertains to varied cognitive features, akin to consideration, feelings, and self-regulation. Whereas “consciousness” could be outlined in varied methods theoretically, we’re primarily involved with the subjective expertise of “phenomenal consciousness” in people and different organisms. For example this concept, the thinker Thomas Nagel (1974) challenged us to think about “what it’s wish to be a bat.” However earlier than we will even take into consideration what it’s wish to be a bat, can we correctly clarify what it’s wish to be “ourselves”?

Phenomenal consciousness could be described as that fuzzy feeling of the self.

Supply: Stefan Mosebach, used with permission

What’s phenomenal consciousness?

This query could be comparatively straightforward to reply: It’s the wealthy expertise you’re having proper now, comprised of the issues that you just see, hear, contact, and suppose. It’s, primarily, what it appears like to be you. This consists of your private expertise of how the world round you seems, alongside together with your reminiscences and varied inside organic processes (ideas, aches, pains). If we contemplate the Freudian perspective, phenomenology would come with the deal with how one feels subjectively, or “introspection.”

Whereas your subjective expertise sometimes is sort of wealthy and full of data, phenomenal consciousness doesn’t “current” all the knowledge that’s processed by your nervous system. As now we have argued, the varied information-processing mechanisms, akin to consideration, course of a lot info to assist a human’s profitable interplay with the atmosphere that solely a subset of this info can enter phenomenal consciousness.

Phenomenal consciousness as a restricted expertise of the world

People are spectacular information-processing methods. The quantity of knowledge that’s detected and processed by our completely different methods is outstanding. Think about all of the sensory channels: visible, auditory, contact, scent, style. These methods “subconsciously” course of info always and sometimes reliably.

Often, we turn out to be conscious of solely related or vital info, which suggests we will solely report on a fraction of the knowledge processed that helps our selections and actions. For instance, have you ever ever questioned in the event you turned off the oven or locked the door in your approach out of your own home? These actions have turn out to be so computerized that they require little or no acutely aware consideration, and thus they’re simply forgotten or neglected. Certainly, if we remembered all the things we see or do, we’d most likely not be as environment friendly as we’re.

Not solely do now we have entry to sensory info, however we even have inside info from proprioception (e.g., steadiness, physique aches) and from self-reflection (e.g., ideas). Planning any motion requires processing and organizing this info, and this happens with completely different ranges of consciousness. Examine your expertise of cooking a brand new recipe in a buddy’s kitchen to your expertise of constructing tea in your personal home. You’ll most likely discover that one process takes rather more effort and acutely aware consciousness than the opposite.

Aware consideration and easy consideration

From all the knowledge processed by our complicated methods, the subset that we phenomenally expertise could be known as acutely aware consideration (i.e., the stuff we will report seeing, listening to, or feeling). What enters acutely aware consideration varies in accordance with context or subjective wants. An excellent instance right here is to recall how a lot effort it took once you first discovered a brand new ability, like taking part in the piano or taking part in tennis. When first interacting with a piano or tennis racket, the expertise was extra “effortful” as you needed to attend to many alternative facets of the stimuli: the placement of the piano keys and pedals or your grip on the racket and posture. Over time, these processes turn out to be extra easy, related to a sure experience in utilizing the instruments.

In these examples, the outstanding expertise of the exercise adjustments with experience. It started by devoting extra assets to deal with the instruments and easy methods to carry out acceptable actions. This developed into requiring much less targeted consideration on the duty’s mechanical facets however extra on planning, like anticipating a particular sort of backhand that will lead to a profitable shot or specializing in the auditory suggestions that means that you can higher talk emotion by your piano-playing moderately than merely executing an accurate sequence of notes. Phenomenal experiences fluctuate in some ways and are affected by context, previous experiences, and rapid wants.

Hopefully, these examples assist make clear what theorists imply once they say “phenomenal consciousness.” To summarize, it’s the attentive, first-person, vividly wealthy, but extremely restricted, subjective expertise of all of the completely different sorts of data accessible to you.

What’s the objective of phenomenal consciousness?

This query is a broadly debated and investigated matter in varied fields of cognitive science, together with psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and synthetic intelligence. Due to the overlap between consideration and consciousness (theoretically, neurologically, behaviourally), it’s been philosophically troublesome to argue clearly for a singular purposeful position that consciousness supplies. Since consideration processes the knowledge that’s in consciousness, why will we even want phenomenal expertise?

As talked about above (and in earlier posts), we all know the mind processes info and makes selections and coordinates actions exterior of our consciousness. We don’t must have a wealthy acutely aware expertise of taking steps as we stroll alongside a busy sidewalk whereas adjusting our actions to keep away from different pedestrians or tripping on the curb. Whereas generally we might have richer experiences of strolling, we sometimes also can navigate by our day with out a lot deliberation or effortful consideration due to our experience in doing such issues in typically predictable environments. Some argue that the extra predictable a scenario is, the much less it must be on the forefront of acutely aware expertise (e.g., see Solms & Friston, 2018). Maybe then, consciousness is especially vital for novel and unpredictable conditions.

Phenomenal consciousness additionally tends to contain affective info associated to the visceral nature of being alive. In different phrases, our emotions. That is related to valence judgments assessing if the informational enter is an effective factor or a foul factor after which highlighting the intense circumstances we have to actually attend to (e.g., harmful conditions).

So we will consider phenomenal consciousness as one thing that helps us in additional complicated or unpredictable conditions (e.g., studying new technical expertise, navigating by unpredictable environments). It additionally helps us be extra conscious of essential stimuli that can inherently profit survival or different life-maintaining expertise (e.g., see our homeostasis put up).

Whereas these should not the definitive or unarguable roles of phenomenal consciousness, they actually may very well be a part of its operate. The thrilling problem lies within the scientific rationalization of those potential purposeful roles and figuring out what info that phenomenal consciousness supplies that’s not already being processed successfully and silently by our complicated cognitive and neurological methods.

— Harry & Carlos