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Definition of awareness

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Enoon

Enoon

Rising Star
Senior Member
OG Pioneer
Inspired by another thread and a nice chat, I want to create a comprehensive and if possible mostly scientific (seeming) definition of awareness. This does not have to have a bumper-sticker or dictionary format. I'm sure a definition that covers everything leaving no esoteric terms that render the whole thing sounding nice but essentially meaningless would be quite extensive, but we can try.

If you have good analogies please use them and help me come up with something suitable. I put this in the science section because I'm not looking for esoteric definitions like *all is awareness* or zen-koan style riddles that just obscure communication even more. What I want is to be able to use the word awareness without feeling like I'm being imprecise and mysterious.
Why is this important? Well the topic of awareness and all that comes with it is certainly one of the most fascinating ones around. And given the fact that we communicate mainly through words, we have the highest likelihood of actually getting our message across (and not some random one) if the language we use is precise and the words are well defined, i.e. if someone says apple we all know what he is talking about. With topics where the words are only vaguely or poorly defined the messages seem to get scrambled. Someone says awareness and someone else thinks divine presence, another person thinks perception, another person thinks something totally different... that makes understanding and working with these ideas a bit difficult.

So anyway, let's jump right into where we were in the chat:

‹endlessness› so did you come to any definition for yourself?
‹Enoon› no not yet. it usually really crystalizes only when I write it down
‹Enoon› but especially awareness is a difficult subject
‹Enoon› I think it would take a few pages to get a clear picture of it
‹Enoon› using a lot of analogies and I'd have to some proper research for that
‹Enoon› about recursive functions and emergent patterns and things like that
‹Enoon› and even then it would probably be far from scientific
‹endlessness› the standard definitions for it are problematic, you think?
‹Enoon› well they are vague
‹endlessness› yeah they are vague
‹Enoon› awareness: having knowledge; conscious; cognizant
‹Enoon› I mean what does that mean?
‹Enoon› we have no definition of the self - what this thing that understands that it exists
‹Enoon› without this *having knowledge* could mean anything
‹Enoon› and consciousness is just another word that has no real definition, or explanation at least
‹Enoon› it's a word that everyone uses but no one really knows what it means
‹endlessness› what about awareness as perceiving events and being able to respond to them/recollect them ?
‹endlessness› events in a general sense, stimulus..
‹Enoon› sure I mean it works but it kind of leaves out the elephant in the room: WHAT is perceiving them?
‹Enoon› The problem for me boils down to the self - without a proper definition of the self, self-consciousness and self-awareness or sentience all these other subjective words can't be properly defined for me
‹endlessness› receiving input through the senses and/or the different mental processes such as feeling/thinking ?
‹Enoon› a machine can receive input too and process it, but we don't know if that makes it aware or not
‹Enoon› we however are aware of the fact that we are thinking and receiving input
‹endlessness› but a machine lacks one very important characteristic
‹endlessness› meta-cognition
‹endlessness› thinking about thinking
‹Enoon› so awareness is more than just perception of input... it's something else
‹Enoon› do you know that for certain?
‹endlessness› machine just responds
‹Enoon› maybe that's what we see
‹endlessness› yeah
‹endlessness› we would have to add meta-cognition to the definition
‹Enoon› but maybe internally there's meta-structures that just don't communicate with the outside world
‹endlessness› or do you see an issue in this?
‹endlessness› in what sense? that maybe machines think about thinkng and we dont know?
‹Enoon› yeah
‹endlessness› but machines are programmed and predictable
‹endlessness› they respond exactly in the way we program them
‹endlessness› we know what are the rules governing them
‹endlessness› where would the meta-cognition be from?
‹Enoon› where does it come from in us?
‹Enoon› we could build machines to have random generators built inside
‹Enoon› using say real randomness like the decay of radioactive elements as generators, and have that influence parts of it's algorhythms... woudl that help?
‹Enoon› Think of the internet as a whole - the input are the humans that are operating it... and for them it behaves predictably on the local scale but the data flow on the whole may be so complex that it is developing a life of its own
‹endlessness› hmmm
‹endlessness› yeah that is an interesting point.. ok so lets see how far we can get
‹endlessness› awareness is the ability to respond to stimulus while displaying meta-cognition. simple machines are not aware because they are predictable and programmed. but we cannot affirm this with certainty for complex examples such as the internet
‹endlessness› do we agree with this?
‹Enoon› I'm not sure
‹Enoon› what is cognition?
‹Enoon› it sounds like a recursive definition - awareness is the ability to respond to stimulus while being aware of it
‹Enoon› :p
‹Enoon› I really don't know what awareness is :(

Ok, so I'm going to think about this and post my own idea soon but until then, any kind of help would be appreciated. Feel free to take any scientific angle you like - mathematics, physics, chemistry, neurology, algorithms, logic... but please use precise language.

Thanks in advance everyone
 
Interesting…

Do you define awareness as consciousness? It seems like you’re talking about consciousness, but using the word “awareness”.

Regarding some of the points in your chat:

Although machines are programmed, they are not always predictable. (After all, if we could precisely predict the output of every algorithm, then why would we need algorithms?) There are classes of algorithms that have randomness and unpredictability built into them – I’ve written a few of this type myself. There are some types of problems that are more easily solved using a semi-random approach.

Any computer application that examines and analyzes the behavior of other applications could be thought of as possessing meta-cognition. There are many applications (especially systems applications) that do just that.
 
Enoon said:
awareness is the ability to respond to stimulus while displaying meta-cognition. simple machines are not aware because they are predictable and programmed. but we cannot affirm this with certainty for complex examples such as the internet
Click to expand...

Although there was no hard and fast agreement in this discussion it sure is rich food for thought. The quote above makes me believe that part of what we call awareness is also a key feature of what we call the self and that is memory and history. Is interpretable/meaningful awareness even possible without memory and/or history? I think not. Is it even awareness at that point?

If someone had memory and history intact, they could conceivably have ALL access to physical stimulus blocked either by brain injury (severe coma) or by induction (science fiction theme currently). Thus, no input is coming in, but due to the personal memory/history, there is in fact a type of awareness - a thinking about thinking as you discussed. Also an awareness of rich sensory input, which in the science fiction case at least, would be defined as "hallucination." When you sensory deprive people, they fill in data for the missing input.

Memory & history are a big, big part of this, though obviously not the entire picture, not even close. But just think, we really do need to have both of those at least somewhat intact to have a well defined "self." Consider the thought experiment:

Who has memory but no history?: A newborn baby. This newborn has sensory input but cannot resolve it (lack of experience/training). It has a self but it is indistinguishable from The Mother. It's memory is intact, but empty.

Who has history but no memory?: Those suffering from rather severe forms of dementia come immediately to mind.

Both newborns and those with severe dementia are missing key elements of awareness that lead to an intact self. They are aware, but not in the (artificially) meaingful way that those with memory & history intact are.
 
Could we ever define what awareness is? Is it even a 'thing'?
We can attempt to define what a 'thing' is by taking it apart & looking at its composite parts.

Any definition or any 'thing' we come up with is an appearance within awareness, so could not possibly be the definition of awareness itself.

Sorry if this sounds too 'zen koan' for the science forum but ime it's a rational & logical deduction that Awareness is not a 'thing' observable or measurable, as any observation or measurement would take place within awareness & not be measuring the awareness itself.
 
Chronic - a workable model then - something that allows us to talk about it. And there are plenty of non-things that are very well defined, I mean look at all the abstract concepts and constructs in mathematics... I don't think this should keep us from trying to clarify what this word *awareness* implies, or how we can conceptualize it so that we are all on the same page when using it.

Pandora I see one problem with your examples - in both cases the brains are not functioning properly. An infants brain isn't fully developed yet so the level of cognisance would be lower I would imagine. People with dementia might have other problems in their brains than merely memory being affected. Would total amnesia do as an example? Or someone with the problem the guy in the movie Memento has?

In cellular networks / automata each iteration is affected by the previous state of being, some networks even have a memory so that iterations before the previous one affect the next iteration. One can create quite astonishingly complex patterns with these automata. The idea of memory though is that the interaction or the event somehow is stored somewhere so it can continue to affect ...

it's too soon, I haven't worked out my theory for this yet. I have to start with the very basics of what I believe or want to work with. One of my main ideas is that awareness arises from complex interactions of matter/energy.
 
Hmmm, just rambling off the top of my ignorant head: Since brains and brain structures in human beings seem to be at least highly correlated to what we define as "awareness," one way to get a better grip on what this thing really is is to look at examples where brains are not functioning correctly. I felt the examples I gave helped to shed light on this nebulous concept by illustrating these small examples that really do seem to show that history/memory (I don't have a better term - it is an interpretation/cognition factor I think.).

Will the Internet become self-aware? Entirely possible, even as an archival artifact, even with no one trying, possible simply due to the sheer "number of connections," which is I believe yet another factor having to do with "awareness," - a minimal number of connections, be they synaptic, electronic, even dare I suggest, mycelial . . . .

So, what would be a recognizable manifestation of this, other than hiding followed by obvious world domination? :shock: I have read/heard it suggested (and I really like this idea) that we'll know it's happened when the internet or individual machines mysteriously begin to show "outside interests," or "hobbies," separate from their programming. "Yeah, I'll take care of that encryption, . . . . AFTER I make a bet on this game!" Something bizarre like that.
 
Alright, despite myself, let's play crack at the sky. Interesting replies, pandora you really got me thinking. I wrote this last night.

Hmm, a scientific, no non-sense solution to the question of consciousness?

I’ll start with a few quotes I’ve been going over recently, by Bryce Lee in his book, Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Hopefully not too esoteric or mysterious, if somewhat Zen.

-To understand the actual requires awareness, an alert and totally free mind.

-Thinking is not freedom – all thought is partial; it can never be total. Thought is the response of memory and memory is always partial, because memory is the result of experience. So, thought is the reaction of a mind conditioned by experience.

-There is no thought, only thusness – what is. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible.

Awareness and self consciousness are presented as opposites here.

The way I see it, your speaking of a type of ghost, this awareness. A real variable. Awareness is interpreted by different people in different cultures. To say, that we know what your speaking about when you say apple, is to assume we have seen an apple before. To say we know what you mean if you say 2, is to assume we have a reason to know this number 2. I mean it seems to me we operate with very different mind machinery oft times. One person sees an act and calls it courageous, another calls it appalling. Yet others call it stupidity. Does that affect your idea of awareness?

You could narrow this down ghost by saying certainly some people have a higher awareness(allowing them finer values) than others, no? What defines the higher awareness though? Facing the duality of our world? removing biases or strong beliefs? Pausing before you speak? Speaking right from the heart? Speaking with the heart put away? Could you make a list of actions or knowledge that increase awareness specifically? If awareness is increased, is there an evident result or power achieved?

If a person is deaf and dumb, and they only relate with signs, do they lack the ability to be as aware as ‘normal’ men? Their cognitive functions in tune, but sensory not.

Awareness is vision to me and little more, to see, to know. Consciousness, examining thoughts in motion is another thing. Very strange.

Without symbols or signs of some sort how could you relate anything to yourself?

I didn’t offer a lot scientifically. But I tried to stick with hard technical ideas. How factual can one get concerning such a thing?

3 people don’t look at fruit and say kiwi, orange, grape. If 3 computers analyze information, and start grouping it differently, what’s at work there, choice or just perception? Maybe I’m way off base, I know your not asking me to define interpretation and speak on that. More like, what is this ‘me’ that’s being talked to if I’m doing the talking? But that, imo, just cannot be compared to fruit or technology. It’s entirely unique. But shouldn't necessarily be intangible either.

I’ve read bits of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, can’t really say how good a read it is, though it's rated well on amazon. That could help give ideas.

I’ll leave with one last quote that really moved me when I first read it.

-The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.

I wonder how that would affect machines if they became self conscious.

I might have only muddied the waters, but food for thought.
 
My, my... this is quite a philosophical thread for the Science forum. It has been said that philosophy is a science unto itself and I am from the camp that believes the two should co-exist mutually and interdependently. If I may offer my interpretation of the word awareness, one based on decades of serious inquiry, I would have to simply suggest that such a state of being is one of receptivity. At it's very simplest level, at the very heart of the matter, awareness is based on receptivity. Of course, it's an understatement that existence is not simple. Granted, but the awareness riddle takes on an almost universal significance when one considers that there is an interrelationship between subject and object, perceiver and perception and ground of data to be aware of and/or the potential flood of radical, unrecognizable data and sensory stimulation (thus provoking an idiosyncrasy).

Consciousness seems to be able be aware of not understanding received information (the unknown0, as well as confirming recognizable data (the known), so it's very self identification is perhaps a kind of gravitational vortex or force? A central field of gravity, as it were, who draws stimulation through it's available faculties. Given the infinity of possibilities, awareness can grasp far less data, in terms of cognition, than it misses. Even so, conceptually, when awareness takes place it is always because a point of reference is alert to it's existence due to stimulation. This is largely based on the data that sensory receptors transmit to such a center of awareness (or self). Where no receptors operational of any kind, logic follows that there would be nothing happening subjectively to any form of witness to the potential phenomenon. Can consciousness exist within something to bounce off of, figuratively speaking? It has been hypothesizes that simple, single celled life forms fall into this category of existing without awareness of existence. Too academic for my tastes, though. Who are we to be so certain? This kind of empirical ideology is suspect to doubt in my mind. I certainly wouldn't swear by it. That being said and regardless of biological status, the erasure of awareness would impact most of the variations of life forms we currently understand. :shock:

Awareness could possibly be the gravity of some kind of energy pattern, whose manifestation is symbiotic with it's natural environment, whatever that may be. Pull the plug on this type of gravitational field, the self and a sudden void of awareness could theoretically exist, relative to such a tiny part of the whole of possibilities. Still, where awareness is a negative, would not the existence of a receptor bearing entity cease? Would not the consciousness of identification and therefore environmental orientation be enough to end the issue? A blank? When perception of subject and object becomes void of meaning or substance, how can one theorize about the meaning of the word awareness? We all believe we have some inkling of what being aware is, yet how can we be certain our awareness isn't so interconnected to stimulation, that without data to interpret we would still exist? Without said state of being operational, occurring with some sense of self, awareness would become void as well.

Up for your consideration, if there is nothing present of a receptive consciousness and central focus of subjectivity, so no vantage point for any sense of existence or possibility which controls the organization and identification of self.... is there still awareness? If so of what? Is awareness aware of itself, when all forms of input are nonexistent for reception? What lies beyond the scope of such a definition of awareness? The Void? Therefore, no definition of awareness that resembles what we have been conditioned to believe is recognizable as a cohesive reality, regardless of biological evolutionary development, can be cognizant of existence within a vacuum of input stimulation or have a reference of self without reception of data. Or can it be aware of being awareness itself? If not then awareness becomes a phantom concept. Ultimately, I cannot say I know what awareness truly is, although I question if if there is a central level of undifferentiated awareness within and connected to everything else? It is the most fascinating topic I can think of! Thanks.

Nice thread! 8)
 
First off thanks for the replies.
Here's the beginning of my model so far. I haven't gotten very far with it yet.

If we look at things from the physical perspective all existing matter exists not just because of interaction but as interaction. It's hard to really say matter is matter, perhaps it's better to state that what we understand as matter can be described as behaving like particles, though this concept becomes meaningless if these particles aren't *bouncing off one another* i.e. interacting. Something that does not interact in any way with anything else basically doesn't exist, or at least one could never detect it or prove that it exists. This is not a flaw in science but simple logic.

So far we can safely establish that awareness must be some form of interaction, otherwise it would not exist. So let's start simple and see how far we can get with using the word safely without getting into esoteric areas.
In a very basic sense one could say that a particle p of mass m is aware of another particle P of mass M and vice versa according to the laws of garvity, because of their effect on one another. In this example the term awareness means p is affected by P or p and P are interacting. According to Newton's actio = reactio the effect is always reciprocal.

So used in this sense, to be aware is to be affected by something, which also implies a change in state. The particles p and P will be pulled towards one another due to their gravitational interaction. Their state is altered. Through this change in state their awareness of one another will also change - that is to say their effect on one another, in this case the gravitational force and thus their accelaration.

This is all very simple so far. We are talking about 2 particle systems and awareness as term for affectedness. With this definition all things that exist are aware, because all things that exist are interaction, are interacting, therefore affected by other things.

This is not quite satisfying though. Our awareness clearly differs from that of a proton, one might think. And yes, I would say it does. Let's go back to p and P first and look at what else we have besides gravity/mass. There's charge that can be either positive, negative or neutral, there's angular and magnetic momentum (spin), there's energy levels, position and momentum - none of which can be measured without affecting the particle. In any case these are all interfaces through which the particle can interact or become aware of another thing.

So the first thing that strikes the eye when comparing ourselves to a proton to find out where the difference lies is that we are a bit bigger and have rather a few protons and other types of particles that we seem to consist of, rather than being just one proton (granted it too has constituents... but still we have more). So what happens if we take the equivalent amount of particles of a human and pile them into one heap so that they take up about the amount of space that a human does - would this have the same kind of awareness as we do? It seems highly unlikely.

Again we ask, what is the difference? The difference, it would seem, is the degree of organization. We consist of highly organized structures of particles grouped together in very specific ways, starting from atoms that are quite far down the line in the periodic table to complex molecules. With this alone we have a whole new kind of interaction. Though the basic interfaces are the same corresponding to the physical forces that be, the order of the interactions has changed with the order of the system. Suddenly chemistry and biochemistry is possible. Not just single particles affecting one another but whole structures of atoms transforming each other into other structures.

At this point awareness as we have used it so far becomes a bit shifty. However it's 4:20 a.m. here and I need to sleep, so I will try to continue this tomorrow and see where it leads me. hopefully I can work my way up to feed back loops and self-awareness.

any criticism is welcome.
 
Awareness is what made Frankenstein alive.

edit: here is the metaphor I use to close in on awareness: imagine time as a line where the present moment is a point on the line. now instead of imagining the point moving along the line, imagine the series of state changes comprising the line flowing through the point. if the "light is turned on" at that point - this is what makes that point "exist" - then awareness is present in that present. this is all I have now. as for the nature of this "light", I can only speak about it in mystical terms.
 
endlessness said:
but then is the internet aware?
Click to expand...

funny you mention this.

I have pondered this before.

IMO

The internet as a whole is not aware. The components that make up the internet are.

The routers, switches, servers, websites, and end users are, aware.

They react to the data/protocal as they were programed to, well in most cases.lol
 
For what it's worth, a difference exists between the internet and the web.

The internet is the hardware, the web is the manner in which the hardware interacts.
So the interaction (web/awareness) is dependent on the hardware (computers/synapses), though it may have independent behavior.

I'm not sure the analogy fully translates, but found it interesting given the topic.
 
Life seems to be 'aware'.
Is there any life that is not aware? or does not interact, or organize?
Life and awarness, and or consciousness seem to have some relation.

I can imagine the plants awarness of the sun to be quite different from human awarness of the sun, since the plant is not able to sense and understand the sun like humans do. Maybe so different that i am having a hard time living into the idea of plants being aware, or conscious. It is much easier to picture cute dolfins to be aware and conscious, able to understand, play with mirrors, problem solving and other brainy behaviour. But when i think about it i dont see much difference other than plants having no brain and dolfins having mucho brain. They are both aware. They are both self-aware, though to a different degree, or on a different level. As if the level of (self-)awarness is defined by the level of organisation. As life is organized on different levels, so is awarness. From the sensory to the intuitive (and back again.)

Perhaps what we call consciousness is a form of evolved awarness, or 'brainy awarness'
 
The internet aware. Connections bursting to and fro faster than the speed of light. Input signal sent out, received on the other end. Judged? Hmm, the internet profiles your face, classifies you criminal deviant with a slight chance of active resistance, files you away into the wanted places.

I think the internet, and it's potential for awareness rivaling that of humans, is a great place to start deducing. It perceives, organizes and collects information on all the world over. It knows it's own limitations, and can perhaps learn it's enemies. Could it contain a soul? Could it ever think independent of an author? Can it imitate the chaos of the cosmos and ourselves?

edit: last night, over-thinking to myself, I instructed myself to shut up, understood that the expectation and the need for the ego to babble on was difficult for evolving the mind, and was glad at this awareness. Yet when I exclaimed in my mind the significance of hushing, I was again un-hushed. It's funny to resist the talk of self-awareness, only for my self awareness to be glad and still try to communicate to me.
 
Ice House said:
endlessness said:
but then is the internet aware?
Click to expand...

funny you mention this.

I have pondered this before.

IMO

The internet as a whole is not aware. The components that make up the internet are.

The routers, switches, servers, websites, and end users are, aware.

They react to the data/protocal as they were programed to, well in most cases.lol
Click to expand...

But perhaps the complex of internet (hardware+data) and end users create an inter-web-being that is sort of trans-human and trans-hardware and in itself a being of its own. I'm not saying that it is, but it seems the idea is worth contemplating at the very least.

I'll be back for more after I've slept...
<3
 
endlessness said:
but then is the internet aware?
Click to expand...


This is obviously a very deep subject , but this question is something that I believe we can deduce from a simple though experiment.

If all the humans disappeared what would happen to the internet? exactly. It would do nothing. It would make no more perceptions. Overtime the power would go out and the individual nodes would be extinguished.

So is the Internet aware? Yes it's a collective human awareness, once our awareness leaves it dies.

Once our awareness leaves it dies....

Does anything exist outside our awareness?

Is a definition of awareness even possible since by definition it requires awareness to generate definition?
 
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