At the Braziers gathering Nigel Perks convinced me that I must make my novel ideas on consciousness much clearer and unambiguous.
I believe that many problems arising in debates about consciousness result from starting with definitions instead of looking at the phenomenon. I hope to show that if we do this some of the problems of awareness and dualism dissolve and do not require solving. The single speculative innovative idea concerns the origin long-ago of consciousness and the continuity of that process today.
What consciousness really is
Conduct a thought experiment that would be impossible in real life. Imagine being in a dark room in which your experience of total darkness is unmodified by memory, emotion thought or any other sensation. You would be conscious in the sense of being awake but there would be no contents of consciousness. This state is then used as a benchmark to establish what consciousness really is. One speck of light entering that room creates consciousness of both darkness and light. All consciousness is an extension of this pattern into the likeness of a life long film. Our experience is this 'film' of light, dark, colour, sound, all sensations with our reactions and commentary on it merely super-added.
Awareness requires no explanation
If there is a difference between the smell of a rose and awareness of the smell of a rose I challenge any reader to explain what this difference is. (Awareness is not knowledge that I am sniffing, nor is it comparing the scent to other scents or classifying its particular perfume). If you conclude there is no difference then you should accept the liberating conclusion that one is never aware of consciousness. You are set free from the impossible task of explaining consciousness in terms of awareness of the world.
The origin of consciousness
Because few people would attribute consciousness to primitive life forms the problem of how consciousness arose in more complex creatures requires explanation. It is my contention that the central nervous system of primitive organisms was invaded and colonized by a physical force in the organisms environment, that is by light. Light and the other environmental causes of sensation have mindlessly constructed the interconnectedness we call consciousness and the illusion of the self. This process has been so beneficial to the survival of the original colonized systems that evolution has ensured that the colonized brain hardware has become ever larger and more complex. So this is the Copernican revolution that the environment has fashioned the mind, that consciousness was constructed by light and sound.
Dissolving dualism
Can we now begin to dissolve the greatest problem of consciousness that forces us to be reluctant dualists ? There appear to be two constituents of the world: the physical world and our consciousness of the physical world. Is the mental image of a red balloon, when looking or recalling, itself a part of the three dimensional world ?
Consider the arbitrary marker "red" the brain gives in the darkness of the head to the electro-chemical effect of light of a certain wavelength. We know we do not see it because that would involve an infinite regress (who sees the sighting of what is seen?). It was earlier argued that we have no awareness of red. So if we never see red or become aware of red is not redness part of the furniture of the world, repro furniture, that is just another consequence of light energy. Red only becomes included in consciousness through the system of interconnectedness. That system is the way light has self organised the brains' hardware.
Consider the thought experiment again. If there was uniform redness and we had never experienced anything else would not the situation of sitting in the dark room be duplicated. There would be no contents to consciousness. It is only by contrast and similarity by storing that information as interconnectedness that consciousness arises. Consciousness is in the function of the system not in the quality of redness or any other qualia.
Were these ideas valid they would revise and reverse our thinking about what it is to be human. I cannot believe this to be so and would welcome any reader’s attempt to dismantle the arguments.
Roger Farnworth