The 'hard problem of consciousness'. I did a redraft, hope this is clearer:
Consciousness
What we perceive, feel, and think is experienced from a unique internal perspective. Descartes was the first to envisage consciousness as being the experiential mental phenomena separated from the physical realm. In doing so, he invited beliefs in a metaphysical self that has confounded philosophical thinking and given those predisposed to this sort of concept a basis for which to justify beliefs in all sorts of ethereal things. What is needed is a fundamental explanation of consciousness that can be easily understood to demystify this concept and provide a platform for rational, logically minded contemplation.
1. The ‘hard problem of consciousness’
As proposed by Chalmers, this includes the inner aspect of thought and perception. The way things feel when we experience visual sensations, music, happiness or the mediative quality of a moment lost in thought. That seemingly undiscernible thing within ourselves that coalesces into a unique individual.
This is opposed to the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ where objective mechanisms of the cognitive system are reducible to physical processes. These include discriminating sensory stimuli, reacting to stimuli, speech, intellectual thought and integrating information to control behaviour.
For me it seems intuitive that the ‘easy stuff’ would be harder to explain than the ‘hard stuff’ that we all have a direct and personal relationship. But that’s me.
2. Dual perspectivism
Consciousness combines two perspectives of ourselves; our inner view and external view. By combining these two perspectives we are able to identify our capabilities and competencies and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of our environment and gain a competitive advantage. This likely creates an evolutionary priority effect.
I think that it is likely that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is actually what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly.
As an example, you may feel an internal apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of externally perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.
3. Internal and External Environments
If there is anything that is steadfast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable, and organisms that don't accept change and make adjustments to their behaviour to keep up with changes are doomed to fail. There are events or situations that occur that affect an organism in a positive or negative way. These events or situations can have either a positive or a negative impact on an organism and are called environmental factors.
There are two types of environmental factors: internal environmental factors and external environmental factors. Internal environmental factors are events that occur within an organism. Generally speaking, internal environmental factors are easier to control than external environmental factors. Some examples of internal environmental factors are:
• Shift in priorities
• Morale
• Evolutionary priority effects
• Other issues
External environmental factors are events that take place outside of the organism and are harder to predict and control. External environmental factors can be more dangerous for an organism given the fact they are unpredictable, hard to prepare for, and often bewildering. Some examples of external environmental factors are:
• Changes to economy (quid pro quo)
• Threats from competition
• Social factors
• Accepted normalities
• The organism’s species itself
Consciousness allows a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis to take place that looks at internal and external factors that can affect an organism. Internal factors are your strengths and weaknesses. External factors are the threats and opportunities.
This is not a linear but a dynamic, experiential and qualitative process. This process is a balance between internal subjective priorities, perceived external factors and the mental attitudes we ascribe to both of these factors. This enables an individual to appraise their positive and negative attributes regarding a particular goal or situation, the impact of external factors on the goal or situation, and guide them to make rational choices based on this analysis.
4. Observations
An observation I will make is that newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as ‘basic consciousness’ but they still have to mature to reach the level of adult consciousness. This would seem to draw a correlation between physical growth and consciousness.
Mental illness is also worthy of note in that a person may experience drastically altered mental states or qualitative experiences of both external and internal environments. This can be transitional or more permanent and is known to be the product of treatable physical processes in the brain.
Having both a healthy internal and external appreciation of self and environment would then seem to be integral to consciousness. I contend that consciousness itself is just an abstract word for this process.
5. Conclusions
So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness and a correlation to physical development and disease. Associated mental attitudes we use to conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis are merely a part of our consideration of internal and external environments.
Furthermore, it is conceivable that any organism that can construct a concurrent internal and external viewpoint is able to identify capabilities and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of their environment and gain a competitive advantage; be conscious.
Given the above, I do not believe that it is reasonable to assume that consciousness is a metaphysical entity separate to the physical body. I hope the above goes some way to providing a fundamental way of thinking about consciousness that somewhat demystifies consideration of this topic.
6. Comments
In response to the below questions regarding the contemplation of who we are and consciousness I provided the below answers:
"What actually are we? Where are we?"
We are lucky, our bodies occupy the only region of space in the universe where we exist.
“How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people's experience of consciousness?”
That’s a complex question because, more importantly, people have varying views on what consciousness is. You could be talking with someone who believes that they have a metaphysical presence separate from their body whilst you might think your consciousness is a function of brain activity inseparable from the body. A fundamental mutual understanding of what consciousness is is required before this question can be sensibly answered.