Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!NOSC.ARPA!speidel%trout
From: speidel%trout@NOSC.ARPA.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Discussion of "consciousness"
Message-ID: <8701202357.AA10560@trout.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 20-Jan-87 18:57:00 EST
Article-I.D.: trout.8701202357.AA10560
Posted: Tue Jan 20 18:57:00 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Jan-87 19:36:15 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 38
Approved: ailist@sri-stripe.arpa


   Original statement of hypothesis:
     If one is "conscious" of an event, then
     the features/schema of that event are available to his
     goal-setter/planner for planning of future behavior 
     ( and vice-versa ).

  Further discussion:
    This is true, but its ( in this context ) implied converse is not.
    Clinical psychology furnishes ample examples of goalsetting/planning
    that is not accessable to the person's conscious awareness in the
    usual ways...

    So we cannot use "subject has access to event X for purposes of
    planning" as a criterion for "subject is conscious of event X."


Suppose we were to say that the therapist's evaluations of the subjects
consciousness was based on the subjects ability or inability to present
the pertinent material to the therapist.  Perhaps the function of
communication resides elsewhere in the brain (or requires additional
connections) than mere consciousness and involves another process
which the subject may or may not have performed as yet, though he is
nevertheless "conscious" of the material on a low level. Once the 
subject of therapy is prompted to "express" the material in communicable
form and that process is completed (or in progress) it is the therapists
subjective evaluation that the person has become "conscious" of it.
In this case, the hypothesis of interest would apply to the low-level
consciousness associated with an individual as opposed to an "expressed 
consciousness" which may be shared with other individuals.
Following this tack a little further, one would associate the label
"unconscious" with things like reflex, control of peristalsis,
some kinds of sensory processing, etc.

As an aside, the concept of shared consciousness is an intriguing
one, isn't it?  It could make it easier to explain how man accomplishes
what he does.
-------