Re[2]: [CYBCOM] Re: Consciousness. With attachment!
Loet Leydesdorff
________________________________
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
lo...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
"The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-59951-5 (Open Access)
Dear Loet, could you offer a few examples about "after a bifurcation another dimension can take over control"? Highly interested. Sounds compatible with my little theory of multiple-layer self-organization and concepts of "feed-down vs feed-up"? Best regards - Jason--On Sun, Aug 15, 2021 at 6:04 AM Loet Leydesdorff <lo...@leydesdorff.net> wrote:--Dear Randall and colleagues:It seems to me that different from a biologistic percpective, consciousness emerges in interhuman communications and can be further developed and analyzed at that level. Freud (1926) noted that "thrift" has a similar status. It is always psychological. The psyche has no internal access to the body. Consciousness is specific as a medium needed for interhuman communication. The complexity is retained at the individual level as consciousness.As another golden rule: the construction is bottom-up, but after a bifurcation another dimension can take over control. The reorganization of this newly emreging eigenvector (in a reaction-diffusion dynamic) drives the transitions and can overwrite them.Best, Loet________________________________
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)lo...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
"The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-59951-5 (Open Access)
------ Original Message ------From: "'Randall Whitaker' via CYBCOM" <cyb...@googlegroups.com>To: "CYBCOM" <cyb...@googlegroups.com>Sent: 8/15/2021 6:25:29 AMSubject: [CYBCOM] Re: ConsciousnessJason Wrote:Perhaps it is high time that we gave this topic a thorough treatment through a classroom-type discussion? Not sure how many people would be interested in it though.I'm not trying to use a "partition by context" methodology, although that is reasonable too. My perspective is ...-------------------------I agree there's probably a progressive or telescoping schema by which one might categorize "consciousness" in various situations or contexts - e.g., one ranging from simply "being conscious" (mind up and running; not comatose) all the way up / out to more complex situations such as social scenarios requiring inference about one's own and others' reflexive states and orientations.However, I'm not willing to evaluate, much less accept or choose, any such schema until and unless it's grounded in a specification of what is entailed in the "consciousness" being described or categorized. This is the essential problem, and IMHO it cannot be brushed aside by waving one's hands and invoking "awareness" as a proper foundation for explanation. Above and beyond the fact it's essentially a synonym for "consciousness" in some sense(s), "awareness" is every bit as vague and elusive a construct.As Salvo touches upon above, the notion of "awareness" invariably insinuates some measure of allusion to a dyadic relationship between a beholder and what's beheld. I don't think any substantial traction can be obtained on the notion of "consciousness" without clarifying where and how these two aspects arise and interact.In any event, it remains the case that whatever we might mean by "consciousness" could be no more than an illusion - e.g., an explanatory fiction useful for limiting complexity in abstract thought processes or a metaphor absorbed / adopted from our inescapable immersion in language / languaging once past a certain point in development / experience.- Randy--On Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 4:03:54 PM UTC-4 grixt...@gmail.com wrote:Dear Michael,
Yes, I would agree that is definitely a part of consciousness. There does seem to be a historical element of consciousness such that we can view consciousness as a historical entity
My definition of consciousness is a mixture of Hegel and Pask. First, the Hegel: consciousness requires a apprehender and a apprehended. I as an apprehender, apprehend my world which exists as something apprehended to me. So, for me consciousness involves a first-person subjective perspective as a minimal unit. The second involves Pask's idea of perspectives which engage in conversations with one another. I can have a perspective and you can have a perspective and we can talk about our individual perspectives to each other, yet we also have different perspectives within ourselves as human beings which are also conversing with each other. The dynamic "voices" you hear in your head making you doubt yourself, telling you to do something, etc., are also in some sense conversing with each other.
So, for me, Consciousness is a bit like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where you have people talking over bad corny movies. You have the apprehender-apprehended relation, by virtue of watching the movie but you also have the conversational element where you have the different characters (perspectives) in the theater talking and conversing among themselves about how bad the movie is.
That's my two cents,
Salvo Rumata Grixti
On Thursday, August 12, 2021 at 1:26:27 PM UTC+1 Michael Lissack wrote:In an effort to return to a discussion worthy of intellectual pursuit, I would like to suggest my working definition of consciousness and invite others to disagree, tear apart, expand upon etc.To me consciousness is having access to a prior state (of self) such that awareness of the prior state can inform current or prospective actions. Most animals thus have consciousness.A human with alzheimers whose current memory processes have severely deteriorated might have consciousness with regard to some of the more distant past and little of the immediately current past.Michael Lissack14 Stratford Rd Marblehead MA 01945 phone 617-710-9565Michael is the immediate past President of the American Society for Cybernetics (2014-2020), Executive Director Emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence and Professor of Design and Innovation at Tongji University, Shanghai. Opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect the views of any of the institutions with which I have an affiliation.
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