Materialism

I think I agree with Ed. Mind is what distinguishes us from the animals in re our conscious awareness. Animals have memories, too, but those while stored are not consciousness (let alone, mind). They are just stored stuff in the brain, waiting to be activated (or not).

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Consciousness--for those living organisms which possess it--is the basic means of survival.

The simpler organisms, such as plants, can survive by means of their automatic physical functions. The higher organisms, such as animals and man, cannot: their needs are more complex and the range of their actions is wider. The physical functions of their bodies can perform automatically only the task of using fuel, but cannot obtain that fuel. To obtain it, the higher organisms need the faculty of consciousness. A plant can obtain its food from the soil in which it grows. An animal has to hunt for it. Man has to produce it....The range of actions required for the survival of the higher organisms is wider: it is proportionate to the range of their consciousness. The lower of the conscious species possess only the faculty of sensation, which is sufficient to direct their actions and provide for their needs. A sensation is produced by the automatic reaction of a sense organ to a stimulus from the outside world; it lasts for the duration of the immediate moment, as long as the stimulus lasts and no longer.... The higher organisms possess a much more potent form of consciousness: they possess the faculty of retaining sensations, which is the faculty of perception. A "perception" is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things. An animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by percepts. Its actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate stimuli, but are directed by an integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. (VOS, pp. 18-19)

Bill Dwyer, thank you for the nice compliment. :-)

You raise an interesting point about my attempt to define consciousness as "the biological process of which we are directly aware through introspection." You point out that "awareness and introspection, which are part of the definition, presuppose consciousness, in the sense that you can't understand what awareness and introspection are without first understanding what consciousness is." Although you don't say it in so many words, you are suggesting here that my attempted definition is circular, and I have to agree.

There are some good points about my attempted definition. First, it certainly seems to be a true statement about consciousness – consciousness is a biological process, and it is something (actually, the only thing) of which we are directly aware through introspection. Secondly, the fact that we are aware of consciousness directly through introspection is something that really does differentiate consciousness from everything else in reality (let alone all other biological processes). So far, so good…

However, my attempted definition does not meet the Rule of Fundamentality. (Its circularity, which you allude to, is a symptom of this problem.) While it does identify a characteristic of consciousness (namely, that consciousness – and only consciousness – can be held as the direct object of introspection) that differentiates it from all other biological processes, it does not give the fundamental characteristic of consciousness that differentiates it from all other biological processes.

Perhaps this comparison will help explain what I mean. Attempting to define “consciousness” as: that which can be the direct object of introspection would be like attempting to define “existence” as: that which can be the object of awareness.

On the one hand, introspection is a species of consciousness, and you truly do have to use that particular species of consciousness in order to be directly aware of any kind of consciousness – just as awareness is a certain kind of thing that exists, and you truly do have to use that particular kind of thing that exists in order to be aware of anything that exists.

On the other hand, it is no more true that consciousness needs introspection in order to exist and have a nature (which is to be captured in a definition), than that existence needs consciousness in order to exist and have a nature (which is to be captured in a definition). So, just as consciousness is not essential to existence (neither in reality, nor in the content of its definition), neither is introspection essential to consciousness.

Thus, accessibility via consciousness cannot be the differentia of “existence,” and direct accessibility via introspection cannot be the differentia of “consciousness.”

More importantly, I can’t think of anything else that can be the differentia for “existence” or “consciousness” either. I think that is why, as Rand observes, any attempt to define either “existence” or “consciousness” at best can instead only be a restatement of them, with synonyms or difference forms of the same word. Existence is everything that exists. Existence is the sum total of reality. Existence is everything in the universe. Consciousness is awareness of reality. Consciousness is being conscious of reality.

So, what does she do instead? Well, as Bill has already noted, she defines them ostensively, basically by pointing. With “existence,” it’s pretty easy to do – you just point to a lot of different things, or sweep your arm around, expecting that your listener will engage his perception and take in all that you are pointing to, and say “By ‘existence,’ I mean ALL OF THIS.”

But how do you do it with “consciousness”? That’s what had me baffled at first, which drove me kind of sideways into my circular definition. But after thinking about it for a while, it occurred to me that to ostensively define “consciousness,” you have to draw your or another person’s attention to as many different kinds of conscious acts as you can – memory, perception, concept-formation, logical argumentation, emotion, imagination, etc. – and say, “By ‘consciousness,’ I mean ALL OF THOSE ACTS.”

But here’s the kicker: how do you focus your attention on these different acts, or draw another’s attention to them? You have to enlist the aid of introspection. You cannot form the concept of “consciousness” without introspecting its various units and abstracting from them, and you cannot form your definition of it, nor communicate that definition to another, without engaging yourself and your listener in an act of introspection.

I think that is why I thought that introspection was vital to the definition of “consciousness.” It is vital – not, however, as the differentia of consciousness, but as the mental act by which we line up all the things (conscious acts) that we want to verbally point to, and from which we want to abstract the most general category of “consciousness.”