Here are a few more of my thoughts and comments on the general topics dealing with the mind, consciousness and personal identity.
What's the Meaning of Consciousness 1?
I've noted that consciousness and awareness are pretty much synonymous. I've further noted that consciousness or awareness can have up to three components, depending on the complexity of the life form in question. Component number one is the external environment - it's hot outside. The second component is the internal environment - I got a headache. The third component is the mind - I need to get dinner ready. Clearly as one goes down the evolutionary line, some of those components are of lesser or even no relevance. An amoeba is conscious or aware of its external environment; perhaps to some degree its cellular body; but it has no mind that it can be aware of. Ditto with plants. Some invertebrates have the beginnings of what we would call a mind and thus they have some mental awareness as well as being aware that their tentacle hurts and that they are hungry as well as being consciousness that a predator is nearby and it’s time to hide under that rock. I see absolutely no problem with how I've defined things.
What's the Meaning of Consciousness 2?
If a robot was well-programmed, it would know enough to come in out of the rain. It would be aware that it was raining and that being wet might lead to rust, or some such. Plants, microbes, bacteria and related are indeed aware. A common cold virus is aware enough that it has entered a suitable host environment - like you, the reader - and can do its biological reproductive thing, causing you some discomfort in the process. Plants are aware of the changing seasons and respond accordingly. Sunflowers follow the Sun during the course of the day. Plants bend in the direction of the light. A seed is aware of the soil conditions and acts accordingly. A seed is aware of gravity and grows partly against the force of gravity (stem) and partly with the force of gravity (roots). Every living thing must be aware of its environment and be able to respond accordingly or die. Any species, including all of the plant kingdom that you see that currently survive and thrive have awareness. If they didn't, they would not be present and accounted for in the here and now for anyone to make note of their existence.
What's the Meaning of Consciousness 3?
Consciousness is awareness. If you have no awareness you don't survive. That applies as much to me as it does to my two cats, and by extension to other living things as well. My cats have an awareness of where their food bowls are, and are conscious of what the contents in those bowls is. If they didn't have that awareness, that consciousness then they would starve to death.
What's the Meaning of Consciousness 4?
Readers will note that I equate awareness with consciousness. When the body is fully on autopilot, like when we are asleep, passed out drunk, knocked out cold, under a general anaesthesia we are not conscious hence not aware. I agree with this. This is true. I also do not equate awareness with the subconscious. We have thousands of memories tucked away in our little grey cells yet we are not aware or conscious of that storage.
Do we have less awareness as we drink ourselves under the table? I'm not convinced. What I am convinced about is that we have a more distorted state of awareness as we drink at a faster rate than our metabolism can deal with the alcohol. Plain Jane's become more attractive as we get increasingly drunk, or we have a distorted or altered state of awareness about our skills in punching out someone's lights. If one is going to postulate that we have less awareness as we drink or as we go to sleep, etc. then we almost have to have units of awareness such that when fully awake and functional we have 100 units of awareness; when asleep or passed out drunk no units of awareness; after one beer 90 units of awareness; after two beers 80 units and so on. Does anyone have suggestions for how to define a unit of awareness?
Is Consciousness an Ultimate Fact 1?
Consider the following thought experiment. If someone were to be born without any functional sensory apparatus - born blind, deaf, without any sense of touch or feeling or sensation (no urge to eat; no urge to even breathe), without any sense of taste or smell - and such a person were kept alive for years on end via transfusions of oxygen-rich blood and also tube-feeding as a means for meeting nutritional requirements (plus supplements) as a means to meet needs for growth and to keep entropy at bay, along with the removal of associated waste products, would that being ever develop consciousness?
If "yes", then consciousness transcends physics and chemistry and associated physio-chemical processes and thus consciousness is an ultimate fact. If not, if consciousness is not an ultimate fact that arises no matter what, then consciousness is the sole result of physics and chemistry and emerges out of purely physio-chemical processes.
Is Consciousness an Ultimate Fact 2?
We all have a pretty good intuitive feel for what consciousness is*, but 100 different people ranging from the great unwashed through and including professional neurologists, psychologists and philosophers will probably give 100 different definitions. In any event, one not only requires a precise definition of what consciousness is (apart from being "the hard problem") but where it is located in the human brain and also a precise way of measuring relative degrees of consciousness. I imagine there will be different readings of degrees of consciousness - brain scans of one type or another - depending on how alert or how tired you are; whether you are asleep or awake, and if asleep, in deep sleep or in shallow sleep; a bit tipsy or flat out, even passed out drunk; what drugs you are taking; what neurological traumas or injuries you've had, or have, etc. That would even have to apply in my thought experiment about someone born without any functional sensory apparatus.
There has to be some sort of standardised baseline - based on some type of brain scan - for consciousness that one can be compared and contrasted to at any given moment, just like there is a standard meter or a standard temperature and pressure, or a standard baseline for human IQ. However, if there is such a neurological standard of human consciousness, I'm not aware of it. Maybe that means consciousness is not a quantifiable thing. But if consciousness is an ultimate fact, it should be - quantifiable that is.
*Much like time. We all have a feeling for what time is but we usually have a hard time defining or explaining it.
Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?
Does consciousness defeat materialism? No, consciousness confirms materialism. Consciousness (or awareness - same difference), is easily affected - actually negated - by very common materialism-based activities, like going to sleep. When you go to sleep, a physio-chemical process, you lose consciousness. Another common example is passing out, either because you are under the influence or perhaps because you faint. In either case, no consciousness. You lose consciousness if you are knocked out. In other words, you are unconsciousness. You also lose consciousness when placed under a general anaesthesia. These are all physical, physio-chemical or in other words materialism-based processes. So, consciousness must have a materialism-based foundation in order to be influenced by materialism-based processes.
The mind (consciousness) can conceive of immaterial things like mathematics, but cannot construct them since almost by definition you can't construct with structure and substance anything immaterial out of the material. Any immaterial parts of you, anything that's abstract or a mental concept, is alive and well while you are alive and well, but passes into oblivion when you shuffle off to Buffalo (i.e. - kick the bucket or fall off your perch), maybe even before if your brain is injured or diseased.
Is Consciousness Entirely Physical?
When you were born you had existence but no essence or person-hood or consciousness.
Today you have both existence and essence, a sense of self, personality, memories, knowledge, consciousness, etc.
Your current essence or person-hood or consciousness is your output. The question is, what was the input that gave you your essence, all of that which makes you, you?
More likely as not, it came from a massive variety of sources including your parents, family, and relatives; friends, acquaintances, teachers, and well known personalities; the printed word from books, magazines and newspapers to Internet forums and blogs; visual media like films and TV; and on it goes.
Now the interesting thing is that all of the inputs you receive from these sources are totally non-material. You are fed a constant stream of ideas, opinions, ‘facts’, and assorted bits and pieces that in themselves have no structure or substance that can be associated with any form of physical reality.
So, if input is non-material, then how can your output, your essence, be material?