Difference between revisions of "Conscious Experience"

From Mathematical Consciousness Science Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
m (Johannes Kleiner moved page Conscious experience to Conscious Experience without leaving a redirect)
 
(15 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
Various different connotation of consciousness exist, e.g. [[phenomenal consciousness]], access consciousness, conscious vs. unconscious processing, to name just a few that come to mind. (We should probably extend this list in a separate page [[consciousness]].) We could use the term "conscious experience" to pick out a specific notion of consciousness, e.g. as in the following definition.
+
{{note|This page has not yet reached minimally viable content. Please help improve the page and remove this note when appropriate.}}
 +
Various different connotation of consciousness exist, cf. the page on [[consciousness]]. This page provides a general definition of ''conscious experience'' and seeks to describe the relation to other connotations of consciousness. The general definition is inspired by the phenomenological reading of [[phenomenal consciousness]].
  
== Idea for Definition v1 ==
+
== Definition ==
A promising choice is to use somewhat phenomenological terminology in defining the term
 
conscious experience, referring to the totality of how experience 'reveals itself' to an
 
experiencing subject, how the experiencing subject finds itself experiencing, or how the
 
"the world" appears to it.
 
  
One could opt for a more approachable terminology and define the term conscious experience to denote totality
+
In informal terms, the goal of the following definition is to refer to the totality of how "the world" appears to us at a particular instant of time. One could also paraphrase this as referring to how we find ourselves at a particular instant of time, or as referring to the experience which reveals itself at a particular instant of time. 'Instant' can be taken as a variable that refers either to a psychological or to a physical conception thereof.
of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject
 
lives through at a particular instant of time.
 
  
== Relation to other definitions/descriptions of the phenomenon ==
+
;Definition: We define ''conscious experience'' to refer to the totality of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject lives through at a particular instant of time.
The idea would be to come up with a definition above that is (most) general and allows to reduce to other notions.
+
 
E.g.:
+
The definition is thus relative to experiencing subjects and the reference changes with time. Another, possibly more useful way of stating the same idea could be:<ref>Van Gulick, ''Understanding the Phenomenal Mind: Are We all Just Armadillos?'', 1993</ref>
- The connotation of perceiving a stimulus consciously (or not) simply concerns one specific aspect, or element, of conscious experience as defined above.
+
;Definition: Phenomenal experience is not merely a succession of qualitatively distinguished sensory ideas, but rather the organized cognitive experience of a world of objects and of ourselves as subject within that world.
 +
 
 +
== Type ==
 +
# Conscious experiences can be viewed as a subclass of ''events''.<ref name="MNR">Martine Nida-Rümelin, ''The experience property frame work'', 2016</ref> "Events may be understood as involving things which instantiate properties. (...) The subclass of experiences can be characterized by saying that the individuals involved are experiencing subjects who instantiate [[experiential properties]]", according to the proposal of (Nida-Rümelin, 2016).<ref name="MNR" />
 +
 
 +
== Relation to other connotations of consciousness ==
 +
The following sections mirror the distinctions of the various concepts on the page [[consciousness]].
 +
 
 +
=== Conscious perception of a stimulus ===
 +
 
 +
=== Conscious mechanism ===
 +
 
 +
=== Phenomenal consciousness ===
 +
 
 +
==== General ====
 +
 
 +
==== Chalmers definition ====
 +
 
 +
=== Access consciousness ===
 +
 
 +
=== Conscious and unconscious processing ===
 +
 
 +
=== Qualia ===
 +
 
 +
=== Level of consciousness ===

Latest revision as of 15:04, 24 July 2022

 Note: This page has not yet reached minimally viable content. Please help improve the page and remove this note when appropriate.

Various different connotation of consciousness exist, cf. the page on consciousness. This page provides a general definition of conscious experience and seeks to describe the relation to other connotations of consciousness. The general definition is inspired by the phenomenological reading of phenomenal consciousness.

Definition

In informal terms, the goal of the following definition is to refer to the totality of how "the world" appears to us at a particular instant of time. One could also paraphrase this as referring to how we find ourselves at a particular instant of time, or as referring to the experience which reveals itself at a particular instant of time. 'Instant' can be taken as a variable that refers either to a psychological or to a physical conception thereof.

Definition
We define conscious experience to refer to the totality of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject lives through at a particular instant of time.

The definition is thus relative to experiencing subjects and the reference changes with time. Another, possibly more useful way of stating the same idea could be:[1]

Definition
Phenomenal experience is not merely a succession of qualitatively distinguished sensory ideas, but rather the organized cognitive experience of a world of objects and of ourselves as subject within that world.

Type

  1. Conscious experiences can be viewed as a subclass of events.[2] "Events may be understood as involving things which instantiate properties. (...) The subclass of experiences can be characterized by saying that the individuals involved are experiencing subjects who instantiate experiential properties", according to the proposal of (Nida-Rümelin, 2016).[2]

Relation to other connotations of consciousness

The following sections mirror the distinctions of the various concepts on the page consciousness.

Conscious perception of a stimulus

Conscious mechanism

Phenomenal consciousness

General

Chalmers definition

Access consciousness

Conscious and unconscious processing

Qualia

Level of consciousness

  1. Van Gulick, Understanding the Phenomenal Mind: Are We all Just Armadillos?, 1993
  2. 2.0 2.1 Martine Nida-Rümelin, The experience property frame work, 2016