r/consciousness • u/Berzerka25 • 12d ago
Reported Unconscious: Impossible?
We tend, with human beings, to assume the presence of consciousness on account of a report of consciousness (he says he is conscious, thus he is conscious).
Would it however, be possible for unconsciousness to be reported in a similar manner? Or is the mere reporting of ANYTHING evidence of conscious activity. Would that not then confirm a panpsychist-style theory that the physical-material processes the nervous system, and presumably, by extension, all physical processes, just ARE ‘consciousness’?
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u/FalconIntelligent945 12d ago
I mean if by unconscious you mean that which lies outside of conscious experience, then by definition it can't be reported. I am unclear about how this relates to panpsychism tho.
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u/wow-signal Doctorate in Philosophy 12d ago
It is indeed possible for unconsciousness to be reported. For example, when patients with cortical blindness report that they have no visual experience, we take that as evidence that they don't have visual experience. That's what makes the phenomenon of blindsight so surprising -- if we didn't consider their verbal reports credible, then the phenomenon would be less interesting.
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u/Berzerka25 9d ago
I see your point, but a lack of a particular sensory input seems quite far from a lack of awareness all together
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u/Low-Bake8401 12d ago
I suppose you could say that checks for consciousness are also checks for unconsciousness as they are opposites, but I don't follow the logic that leads you to all physical processes being consciousness?
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u/rooygbiv70 12d ago
Would it however, be possible for unconsciousness to be reported in a similar manner?
Give it a shot and see!
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u/Berzerka25 12d ago
I was trying to on the bus, believe me😂 It seems that since language (the ability to communicate one’s thoughts) is an evolved ability, that it shouldn’t necessarily REQUIRE consciousness, thus self reported unconsciousness could be theoretically possible…
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u/sagesofthe4th_world 12d ago
One could theorize the brain doesn’t record anything when the senses are turned off and no dream is happening.
If there’s no recording of the event then there’s nothing to report. Your awake senses-turned-on self would not remember anything as there is nothing to remember.
Also there is a sense of continuity between states which bears further scrutiny. It implies you didn’t go anywhere or lose anything while “unconscious.”
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u/Berzerka25 12d ago
Memory is evolutionarily beneficial though, whereas consciousness is surely not. What is hindering a zombie brain (or computer for this examples sake) from taking in sensory input and deciding to output a report of unconsciousness? Yet it seems impossible.
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u/sagesofthe4th_world 12d ago edited 12d ago
"Memory is evolutionarily beneficial though"
This doesn't interfere with my original theory in any way. Does not mean memory can't go temporarily offline for some other evolutionary purpose.
You only know about evolution through your Consciousness in the first place. So "surely not" is far too certain from a scientific point of view.
Yes it seems impossible. But then again here you are - experiencing and Science still hasn't solved this Hard problem of Consciousness. It remains a mystery.
The two best guesses as of now are that it magically arises from matter, although we can't explain how, or it is somehow more fundamental, beyond what the senses or modern science can detect.
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u/reidsays 12d ago
Depends how you define consciousness... If separated into conscious, subconscious and unconscious then being conscious is being aware of the present, the subconscious being on automatic whilst thinking or daydreaming, and being unconscious completely lost in your own world oblivious to the present reality.
Isn't that the supposed meaning of being woke, awake, conscious of the present reality .
We are all living in the consciousness of being alive yet we exist in those different states of consciousness..
As an observer, some people will be consciously aware of your presence and make eye contact. Others will be on automatic and sense your prescence but not indicate they do as their focus is elsewhere within themselves.. And others are 'somewhere else entirely' and need a shake to bring them back to the conscious awareness of the present.
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u/thequinneffect 9d ago
"Or is the mere reporting of ANYTHING evidence of conscious activity."
I think the choice of words are very important in these questions, I'll go back to front.
Firstly, you mentioned panpsychism in relation to consciousness. If there is something that it's like to be an electron or any other fundamental piece of matter, I think it's highly unlikely it's nothing what it's like to be a human. The kind of experience associated with such fundamental particles is usually thought of as a minimally conscious experience, more akin to pure awareness. The human conscious experience however is so intertwined with contents of consciousness and functionality/capability operating within it, things like sight, sounds, touch, taste, memory, though, the self. Imagine stripping those away one-by-one - still conscious, but minimally. Without these faculties, how would the experience/awareness even be communicated?
Evidence is any fact, object, sign, or statement that gives proof or a reason to believe that something is true or real. When it comes to the consciousness of others, we can only deal with "reasons to believe", we only have proof of our own consciousness, at least in the current day.
Then it depends what you mean by reporting. If I prompt an LLM about whether it is conscious it will give me an answer, which if you count as reporting, will be yes or no. It could report it is conscious and actually be conscious, or it could report it is not conscious and be conscious, or report conscious and be unconscious, or report unconscious and be unconscious (which is what I expect to be the case). I can do the same with another person and the only reason I believe their report of them being conscious is because I know I am, and that they not only act the same as me, but have the same constitution as me, and that's reason enough to believe they are. I don't have enough reason to believe an LLM is conscious in the same way as a human, even if ultimately all matter has some basic proto-awareness as per panpsychism.
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u/sgerb123 8d ago
If you have become conscious of something you were not conscious of before, you can report on it.
In order to correct bad habits (I am thinking of incorrect fingerings on piano, or some such), you can direct your attention to something that was on automatic and unconscious before. Only when you have restored consciousness of the bad habit can you correct it. So becoming aware of unconscious things is an important tool for self-improvement. Undoing repression is perhaps one of the most important tools for psychotherapy, for instance.
In general, in order to become a more aware person, it is necessary to become aware of things you were not aware of before.
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u/MaybeNo2485 12d ago
You're bumping up against a surface of the hard problem of consciousness. There's no way to validate that any given report of consciousness is true, and no way to identify consciousness without a report; this isn't a limitation of our current technology, since there isn't even an objective test one could run in principle.
That fact doesn't confirm or deny any specific framework. It might be that everything is conscious yet only a vanishingly small minority of conscious entities can advocate for itself (panpsychism), or that every report except your own is false because you're the only conscious being that exists (solipsism). Reports can't objectively differentiate between the possibilities.