Consciousness

[Mark]

Ah common Daffy, roll the dice.

[Alan V]

However, the point of saying that the self is the body is to emphasize that A) the self is not a unity but a composite, B) we can gain or lose parts of ourselves, C) parts of ourselves can turn on and off, like consciousness, and D) the whole question of what is and isn't the self becomes much more complex, in accordance with the realities be observe.  So I guess it all depends on whether you want to be more accurate or stick with simpler discriminations.

In any case, I think it is obvious from observations that consciousness is only a part of our complete self-system.

Your definition seems arbitrary to me. Following your reasoning, we can go one step further and say the body is also a part of a bigger system like a group or a society or an ecosystem, so self must refer to that bigger system for more accuracy. 

I'm wondering why do you stop at the 'body' level? What's so particular at that level?

At this point, I think you are missing the obvious because you want to miss the obvious.  Yes, people are also parts of societies, ecosystems, and so on, but the subject is the self.  We are discrete selves, as is established by our boundaries and nervous systems.

[Hussein]

but the subject is the self

You previously said:

It's easiest to think of the body as the self.

So, we agreed that the self is the body, which is an object, not the subject. Why are we back at the conditioned belief that the self is a soul, subject, consciousness, etc.?  

Have you abandoned your initial statement or I'm not following your reasoning?

[SYZ]

It seems as though you're determined to avoid meaningfully defining the terms "mystic" and "mystical".

It's not my definition, I quoted from a scientist, isn't this definition meaningful enough, SYZ?

No, it's not.  Sorry.  I'm asking for your definition—not the opinion of one single scientist who
may well be mistaken or deluded.

You insist religious concepts must be kept in the supernatural category, I'm introducing some scientific hypotheses that demonstrate it is possible to understand religious concepts in terms of the natural.

Nope.  It's ludicrous to think that there's any crossover between the fantasies of religion, and
the methodological empiricism of science.  This alleged  co-relationship is often touted by the
theists in an attempt to give their fantasies some semblance of legitimacy.  But of course it's
doomed to failure.

[Alan V]

but the subject is the self

You previously said:

It's easiest to think of the body as the self.

So, we agreed that the self is the body, which is an object, not the subject. Why are we back at the conditioned belief that the self is a soul, subject, consciousness, etc.?  

Have you abandoned your initial statement or I'm not following your reasoning?

No, the body is not a mere object.  It is a subject because it is alive and has consciousness.  Consciousness depends on having a body.  It's not something that can be separated from it.  It is a process or property, not a being in itself.

What I am saying is that the physical body, with its consciousness, unconscious processes, and self-concept, is one system.  That system is a self, not one of the components alone.  So the answer to the question "What is a self?" is a bit more complicated than people typically take it to be. The body is inclusive of the complete, living system. The brain is a part of the body.

[Hussein]

No, it's not.  Sorry.  I'm asking for your definition—

How is my personal definition relevant to this discussion? I don't have a personal definition, I refer to the definition provided by experts and those who are experienced.

not the opinion of one single scientist who may well be mistaken or deluded.

That is a misrepresentation. What I provided was not an opinion, it was an elaboration of implications of a scientific hypothesis about consciousness. 

This alleged  co-relationship is often touted by the theists in an attempt to give their fantasies some semblance of legitimacy.  But of course it's doomed to failure.

After repetition and clarification, I no longer think you are not informed about the fact that I provided, it seems to me you are motivated to deny the fact.

I have no intention to insist, however, your outright denial of a fact was something unexpected.

[Hussein]

No, the body is not a mere object.  It is a subject because it is alive and has consciousness.  Consciousness depends on having a body.  It's not something that can be separated from it.  It is a process or property, not a being in itself.

What I am saying is that the physical body, with its consciousness, unconscious processes, and self-concept, is one system.  That system is a self, not one of the components alone.  So the answer to the question "What is a self?" is a bit more complicated than people typically take it to be.  The body is inclusive of the complete, living system.  The brain is a part of the body.

To clarify my confusion:

1) self is both an object and a subject
2) self is an object and not a subject, unlike simple objects, the self has a function of subjective experience or consciousness, the subject or perceiver is a self-concept residing in the brain, so the subject is a subsystem/property of the self and is not equal with the self.

Which one best reflects your understanding? If both are problematic, please explain

[trdsf]

It seems as though you're determined to avoid meaningfully defining the terms "mystic" and "mystical".

It's not my definition, I quoted from a scientist, isn't this definition meaningful enough, SYZ?

If the all-pervading electromagnetic field is in fact conscious, then the unity experience simply represents the sudden realization by one tiny conscious fragment of the field that it is not, after all, isolated and alone in its immediate surround of bone and flesh, but is in fact an inalienable part of the vast, glorious whole.

From: The Nature of Consciousness: A Hypothesis. p.95

I think it's quite clear, we perceive ourselves as being separate from the totality, according to the above definition, a mystical experience is identified by the cessation of that sense of separation. In Pockett's scientific terms, the realization of a fragment in the electromagnetic field that it is, in fact, not separate from the all-pervasive electromagnetic field.

That's going waaaaaay out on a limb, even as a hypothesis.  There is no mechanism by which we can consider an electromagnetic field to have any sort of consciousness, and there is no "all-pervading" electromagnetic field, just a near-infinite overlap of local fields.  And even the programmatic semi-"awareness" one might attribute to a computer relies upon having a physical layer within which signals flow.

Similarly, you -- or at least your concept of yourself -- don't exist without the physical substrate of your brain within which signals flow.  If you suffer brain damage, you change.  There's no separate part that defines you, independent of the meat-computer inside your skull.

As far as feeling that I am an inalienable part of the "vast, glorious whole" -- well, I'm not so arrogant as to think that I'm implicit in the universe, merely possible.  And there's a far greater sense of connectedness to the universe in Neil deGrasse Tyson's observation that we are all related to all other Earth life biologically, to the Earth chemically, and to the universe atomically.

Also, this is a hypothesis.  That means you can't treat it as a settled observation, which you appear to be trying to do.  A theory actually provides an explanation for a class of observations, and makes predictions about further observations.  A hypothesis is nothing more than a way to say "Well, lemme just throw this out here..." and may or may not be interesting, and may or may not have some mathematical reasoning to back it, but definitely lacks the observational evidence to be anything more than that.  There is no obligation to accept a hypothesis even provisionally.  There is an obligation to accept a theory, absent a contradictory observation.

Science is unable to investigate the supernatural or the paranormal.  Science only deals with the real world.

You insist religious concepts must be kept in the supernatural category, I'm introducing some scientific hypotheses that demonstrate it is possible to understand religious concepts in terms of the natural.

That's because religious concepts are supernatural, essentially by definition.  Under the few circumstances which can be explored scientifically, such as the power of intercessory prayer, we find there's no "there" there.

[Alan V]

No, the body is not a mere object.  It is a subject because it is alive and has consciousness.  Consciousness depends on having a body.  It's not something that can be separated from it.  It is a process or property, not a being in itself.

What I am saying is that the physical body, with its consciousness, unconscious processes, and self-concept, is one system.  That system is a self, not one of the components alone.  So the answer to the question "What is a self?" is a bit more complicated than people typically take it to be.  The body is inclusive of the complete, living system.  The brain is a part of the body.

To clarify my confusion:

1) self is both an object and a subject
2) self is an object and not a subject, unlike simple objects, the self has a function of subjective experience or consciousness, the subject or perceiver is a self-concept residing in the brain, so the subject is a subsystem/property of the self and is not equal with the self.

Which one best reflects your understanding? If both are problematic, please explain

"The self is both an object and a subject."  I have no problem with that.  Plus, for a self to be a self, it must be both.  It has to be a living physical body with at least the potential for subjective experience, i.e. it may be unconscious now but could become conscious later.  A dead body is no longer a subject, since the physical systems which supported subjective experiences have broken down irreparably.

I take the perceiver to be the body, and specifically the unconscious processes of the brain.  The self-concept is more like a filter for our perceptions.  It sets the defaults for what we pay attention to and what we should ignore.  If that self-concept changes, then what we pay attention to also changes.  The self-concept is not equal to the self, but is a property of a self.

To address where I think your confusion lies, from my own perspective, I will add that I think life is what makes us into subjects, not consciousness or even a self-concept, which are later developments evolutionarily.  Life is the organization of matter into an information storage medium, with its own internal logic.  Both consciousness and self-concepts are extensions of that innovation.

These are a few points from The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind by Michael Gazzaniga from my post #22 above.  I believe they are pertinent to this discussion.

Howard Pattee pointed out that “it was the belief that human consciousness ultimately collapsed the wave function that produce the problem of Schrodinger’s cat.”  But Pattee suggested that natural mechanisms far simpler than human consciousness could do this, and he proposed that the gap between inanimate and living matter resulted from “a process equivalent to quantum measurement that began with self-replication at the origin of life.”  In other words, subjectivity was born with life, not with consciousness, which was a later elaboration.  He stated, “Duality is a necessary and inherent property of any entity capable of evolving” and “if we want to understand the idea of consciousness, something fully formed in evolved living systems, we must first understand what makes a living system alive and evolvable in the first place.”

“Any living thing that ‘records’ information is introducing a form of subjectivity into the system.”  A symbol is arbitrary, so while natural laws are inexorable and universal, rules that apply to symbols can be changed and are arbitrary.  Pattee asserted that “it is precisely this natural symbol-matter articulation that makes life distinct from non-living physical systems.”

Biosemiotics is the semiotics of living systems.  Semiotic systems pair signs and meanings with a code which is included within the system itself, and not imposed externally.  Such assignments are arbitrary, like sounds for meanings in language, and came into existence through random molecular resorting.  In other words, matter can self-organize in another way besides the laws of physics or evolution.  “In its informational (subjective) mode, DNA follows rules, not the laws of physics."

“There can be no self-awareness without a self.  The first steps must be toward a delimited self.”  Consciousness of such a self is further down the road, and is a relatively simple matter of perceiving an already existing self.  Thus consciousness depends upon discrete living systems.

[Hussein]

There is no mechanism by which we can consider an electromagnetic field to have any sort of consciousness,

No, the theory is testable:

The cemi field theory makes a number of testable predictions:
1. Stimuli that reach conscious awareness will be associated with em field modulations that are strong enough to directly influence the firing of motor neurones.
2. Stimuli that do not reach conscious awareness will not be associated with em field modulations that affect motor neurone firing.
3. The cemi field theory claims that consciousness represents a stream of information passing through the brain´s em field. Increased complexity of conscious thinking should therefore correlate with increased complexity of the brain´s em field.
4. Agents that disrupt the interaction between the brain´s em field and neurones will induce unconsciousness.
5. Arousal and alertness will correlate with conditions in which em field fluctuations are most likely to influence neurone firing; conversely, low arousal and unconsciousness will correlate with conditions when em fields are least likely to influence neurone firing.
6. The brain´s em field should be relatively insulated to perturbation from exogenous em fields encountered in normal environments.
7. The evolution of consciousness in animals should correlate with an increasing level of electrical coupling between the brain´s endogenous em field and (receiver) neurone firing.
8. Consciousness should demonstrate field-level dynamics.

from EVIDENCE FOR AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Johnjoe McFadden, Published in: Journal of Consciousness Studies (2002) 9: 23-50

For more details read the article.

and there is no "all-pervading" electromagnetic field, just a near-infinite overlap of local fields.

The electromagnetic field is one of the fundamental fields associated with photon particle in the standard model of particle physics. All fundamental fields are all-pervading.

I think you are talking about the classical field, this bit might be helpful:

If simple consciousness is indeed identical with certain localized configurations of the electromagnetic field, then the electromagnetic field as a whole (which as far as we know pervades the entire universe) includes all of the conscious configurations that currently exist in the universe. The electromagnetic field as a whole can thus be thought of as one vast mind. This concept relies on the understanding that the electromagnetic phenomena that are produced by simple material objects such as magnets (or more complicated ones such as brains) are not isolated individual fields generated de novo by the objects, as basic physics texts tend to suggest, but localized perturbations in a universal, all-pervading field which is presently known as The Electromagnetic Field.

From: The Nature of Consciousness: A Hypothesis. p.95

Also, this is a hypothesis.  That means you can't treat it as a settled observation, which you appear to be trying to do. 

Not at all, I do not advocate this theory. My point is some of the fundamental religious concepts are discussed in the scientific literature, therefore those concepts can be regarded as both scientific and religious. 

A theory actually provides an explanation for a class of observations, and makes predictions about further observations. 

I mentioned some of the predictions above. The evidence is also discussed in the same paper.

That's because religious concepts are supernatural, essentially by definition. 

Whose definition? As far as I know, the religious sources do not make any mention of the supernatural category.

[Hussein]

"The self is both an object and a subject."  I have no problem with that.  Plus, for a self to be a self, it must be both.  It has to be a living physical body with at least the potential for subjective experience, i.e. it may be unconscious now but could become conscious later.  A dead body is no longer a subject, since the physical systems which supported subjective experiences have broken down irreparably.

I take the perceiver to be the body, and specifically the unconscious processes of the brain.  The self-concept is more like a filter for our perceptions.  It sets the defaults for what we pay attention to and what we should ignore.  If that self-concept changes, then what we pay attention to also changes.  The self-concept is not equal to the self, but is a property of a self.

To address where I think your confusion lies, from my own perspective, I will add that I think life is what makes us into subjects, not consciousness or even a self-concept, which are later developments evolutionarily.  Life is the organization of matter into an information storage medium, with its own internal logic.  Both consciousness and self-concepts are extensions of that innovation.

These are a few points from The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind by Michael Gazzaniga from my post #22 above.  I believe they are pertinent to this discussion.

Howard Pattee pointed out that “it was the belief that human consciousness ultimately collapsed the wave function that produce the problem of Schrodinger’s cat.”  But Pattee suggested that natural mechanisms far simpler than human consciousness could do this, and he proposed that the gap between inanimate and living matter resulted from “a process equivalent to quantum measurement that began with self-replication at the origin of life.”  In other words, subjectivity was born with life, not with consciousness, which was a later elaboration.  He stated, “Duality is a necessary and inherent property of any entity capable of evolving” and “if we want to understand the idea of consciousness, something fully formed in evolved living systems, we must first understand what makes a living system alive and evolvable in the first place.”

“Any living thing that ‘records’ information is introducing a form of subjectivity into the system.”  A symbol is arbitrary, so while natural laws are inexorable and universal, rules that apply to symbols can be changed and are arbitrary.  Pattee asserted that “it is precisely this natural symbol-matter articulation that makes life distinct from non-living physical systems.”

Biosemiotics is the semiotics of living systems.  Semiotic systems pair signs and meanings with a code which is included within the system itself, and not imposed externally.  Such assignments are arbitrary, like sounds for meanings in language, and came into existence through random molecular resorting.  In other words, matter can self-organize in another way besides the laws of physics or evolution.  “In its informational (subjective) mode, DNA follows rules, not the laws of physics."

“There can be no self-awareness without a self.  The first steps must be toward a delimited self.”  Consciousness of such a self is further down the road, and is a relatively simple matter of perceiving an already existing self.  Thus consciousness depends upon discrete living systems.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I will reflect on it and will be back to talk more about the concept of self.

[trdsf]

There is no mechanism by which we can consider an electromagnetic field to have any sort of consciousness,

No, the theory is testable:

The cemi field theory makes a number of testable predictions:
1. Stimuli that reach conscious awareness will be associated with em field modulations that are strong enough to directly influence the firing of motor neurones.
2. Stimuli that do not reach conscious awareness will not be associated with em field modulations that affect motor neurone firing.
3. The cemi field theory claims that consciousness represents a stream of information passing through the brain´s em field. Increased complexity of conscious thinking should therefore correlate with increased complexity of the brain´s em field.
4. Agents that disrupt the interaction between the brain´s em field and neurones will induce unconsciousness.
5. Arousal and alertness will correlate with conditions in which em field fluctuations are most likely to influence neurone firing; conversely, low arousal and unconsciousness will correlate with conditions when em fields are least likely to influence neurone firing.
6. The brain´s em field should be relatively insulated to perturbation from exogenous em fields encountered in normal environments.
7. The evolution of consciousness in animals should correlate with an increasing level of electrical coupling between the brain´s endogenous em field and (receiver) neurone firing.
8. Consciousness should demonstrate field-level dynamics.

from EVIDENCE FOR AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Johnjoe McFadden, Published in: Journal of Consciousness Studies (2002) 9: 23-50

For more details read the article.

This is lightyears distant from the assertion that electromagnetic fields have consciousness.  All it's saying is the monumentally obvious: the electrical currents in the brain create an electromagnetic field, and that changes in the electrical currents create a measurable change in the generated field, and that changes in the electromagnetic field can have an effect on the currents in the brain.  That's why it's called electromagnetism: you can't have an electrical current without generating a magnetic field, and you can't have a magnetic field in motion that doesn't generate an electrical current.

To wit, the field itself is not conscious.  The field is a byproduct of the neural firings of a brain, no more, no less.  It may be a tool that lets us learn something about the nature of consciousness, but it is not itself conscious.

and there is no "all-pervading" electromagnetic field, just a near-infinite overlap of local fields.

The electromagnetic field is one of the fundamental fields associated with photon particle in the standard model of particle physics. All fundamental fields are all-pervading.

Twaddle.  Measure the effect, wherever you are, of my pressing the keys on my keyboard.

Also, this is a hypothesis.  That means you can't treat it as a settled observation, which you appear to be trying to do. 

Not at all, I do not advocate this theory. My point is some of the fundamental religious concepts are discussed in the scientific literature, therefore those concepts can be regarded as both scientific and religious. 

This is not a religious concept.  This is an observation of a real world phenomenon.

A theory actually provides an explanation for a class of observations, and makes predictions about further observations. 

I mentioned some of the predictions above. The evidence is also discussed in the same paper.

None of which have anything to do with religion.

That's because religious concepts are supernatural, essentially by definition. 

Whose definition? The religious sources do not make any mention of the supernatural category.

Show me a piece of a god, then.  Give me an observation that can only be explained by the existence of a soul, and has no possible other explanation.

Of course religious sources don't make mention of the supernatural as supernatural, they want to pretend what they believe is real despite the total lack of concrete evidence for the religious position.

[Hussein]

This is lightyears distant from the assertion that electromagnetic fields have consciousness.  All it's saying is the monumentally obvious: the electrical currents in the brain create an electromagnetic field, and that changes in the electrical currents create a measurable change in the generated field, and that changes in the electromagnetic field can have an effect on the currents in the brain.  That's why it's called electromagnetism: you can't have an electrical current without generating a magnetic field, and you can't have a magnetic field in motion that doesn't generate an electrical current.

To wit, the field itself is not conscious.  The field is a byproduct of the neural firings of a brain, no more, no less.  It may be a tool that lets us learn something about the nature of consciousness, but it is not itself conscious

You make strong assertions while your inputs suggest you are not informed about the theory. I would be glad to have a discussion with you, but I think your attitude of outright denial of the theory without even being informed about it is not helpful for a discussion.

I propose that the brain´s em information field is the physical substrate of conscious awareness – the cemi field - and make a number of predictions that follow from this proposal.

from EVIDENCE FOR AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Johnjoe McFadden, Published in: Journal of Consciousness Studies (2002) 9: 23-50

The electromagnetic field theory of consciousness recognizes the EM field as the physical substrate of consciousness, it is essentially an identity theory, consciousness is identical to certain spatiotemporal patterns in the electromagnetic field, not the brain. This means if the field can be produced by any other means, the same consciousness would arise. 

Twaddle

I have a background in physics and I can assure you that the electromagnetic field being a fundamental and all-pervading field is not "twaddle"   Unless you are not a fan of modern physics. 

Do you accept scientific theories in general? Or you have some sort of filtering to select the ones that make more sense to you? 

Give me an observation that can only be explained by the existence of a soul, and has no possible other explanation.

To explain consciousness, some theories inevitably introduce a universal consciousness or panpsychism, for example. These are religious concepts.

[trdsf]

This is lightyears distant from the assertion that electromagnetic fields have consciousness.  All it's saying is the monumentally obvious: the electrical currents in the brain create an electromagnetic field, and that changes in the electrical currents create a measurable change in the generated field, and that changes in the electromagnetic field can have an effect on the currents in the brain.  That's why it's called electromagnetism: you can't have an electrical current without generating a magnetic field, and you can't have a magnetic field in motion that doesn't generate an electrical current.

To wit, the field itself is not conscious.  The field is a byproduct of the neural firings of a brain, no more, no less.  It may be a tool that lets us learn something about the nature of consciousness, but it is not itself conscious

You make strong assertions while your inputs suggest you are not informed about the theory. I would be glad to have a discussion with you, but I think your attitude of outright denial of the theory without even being informed about it is not helpful for a discussion.

I propose that the brain´s em information field is the physical substrate of conscious awareness – the cemi field - and make a number of predictions that follow from this proposal.

from EVIDENCE FOR AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Johnjoe McFadden, Published in: Journal of Consciousness Studies (2002) 9: 23-50

The electromagnetic field theory of consciousness recognizes the EM field as the physical substrate of consciousness, it is essentially an identity theory, consciousness is identical to certain spatiotemporal patterns in the electromagnetic field, not the brain. This means if the field can be produced by any other means, the same consciousness would arise.

I make no assertion, I can read what it says.  Nowhere in that list was anything other than purely physical phenomena.

Twaddle

I have a background in physics and I can assure you that the electromagnetic field being a fundamental and all-pervading field is not "twaddle"   Unless you are not a fan of modern physics. 

Do you accept scientific theories in general? Or you have some sort of filtering to select the ones that make more sense to you?

I notice you don't bother answering me.  And I don't believe you have a physics background.  If there is an all-pervading field, tell me what keys I just corrected.  The field is everywhere.  Measure it.  Go on.  I'll wait.

And I'm a fan of that which can be measured, observed, and demonstrated, not wooly-headed blather that tries to use science as a fig leaf for woo.

Give me an observation that can only be explained by the existence of a soul, and has no possible other explanation.

To explain consciousness, some theories inevitably introduce a universal consciousness or panpsychism, for example. These are religious concepts.

Wrong.  Those are not theories.  I repeat: a theory explains a class of observations and makes definite predictions that are in principle falsifiable.  Theories do not advance unobserved, unrealistic nonsense.  Twenty-five years ago the idea of an accelerating expansion of the universe (outside of the early inflationary period) was nonsensical.  And then it was observed.  Now it's not.  If you want "panpsychism" or whatever to be taken seriously, it needs to be observed, measured and demonstrated.  Until then, it's not worth taking into account.

Resorting to universal consciousness/Gaia/Galaxia/whatever is just throwing nonsense out there and hoping no one notices it's bull.

[Hussein]

I make no assertion, I can read what it says.  Nowhere in that list was anything other than purely physical phenomena.

They are indeed physical. Perhaps by reading more about that theory, you can understand a falsifiable scientific theory can imply the existence of a universal consciousness.

I notice you don't bother answering me.  And I don't believe you have a physics background.  If there is an all-pervading field, tell me what keys I just corrected.  The field is everywhere.  Measure it.  Go on.  I'll wait.

This bit might help:

experiment and theory imply that unbounded fields, not bounded particles, are fundamental. This is especially clear for relativistic systems, implying that it’s also true of non-relativistic systems. Particles are epiphenomena arising from fields.

There are no particles, there are only fields, Art Hobson, American Journal of Physics. 81, 211 (2013); doi: 10.1119/1.4789885

In terms of field theories, the keys you corrected are perturbations in fundamental fields that propagate throughout the universe. The information is theoretically measurable, but that's not feasible, at least for me. 

Wrong.  Those are not theories. I repeat: a theory explains a class of observations and makes definite predictions that are in principle falsifiable.

They are. Field theories of consciousness (implies universal consciousness), Integrated Information Theory (implies panpsychism).
IIT, the second theory, is commonly referred to as the "leading theory of consciousness".

Both theories:
(1) explain a set of observations, but the set is still too small, mainly due to our computational limitations, so none of the theories of consciousness are established yet.
(2) are falsifiable

[Dānu]

I have a background in physics and I can assure you that the electromagnetic field being a fundamental and all-pervading field is not "twaddle"   Unless you are not a fan of modern physics. 

What is your background in physics?

[Hussein]

What is your background in physics?

My serious background started in the last year of high school, I earned a medal in national physics Olympiad, next year we earned a medal in international young physicists' tournament (IYPT), after that we did some research and published articles in the proceedings of the tournament, it was peer-reviewed, but nothing in the level of ISI journals, I continued studying physics during my BS, but changed my direction to AI afterward.

[SYZ]

That's because religious concepts are supernatural, essentially by definition. 

Whose definition? As far as I know, the religious sources do not make any mention of the supernatural category.

LOL... that's simply because the religionists refuse to accept the concept of supernaturality.  
Why?    Because it would immediately obviate their notions of gods and angels and devils.

"It is at the horizon where the known meets the unknown that we are tempted to inject
paranormal and supernatural forces to explain hitherto unsolved mysteries, but we must
resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed, not even in principle".

—Professor Michael Shermer Ph.D, Scientific American, September 2016.

[Hussein]

"The self is both an object and a subject."  I have no problem with that.  Plus, for a self to be a self, it must be both.  It has to be a living physical body with at least the potential for subjective experience, i.e. it may be unconscious now but could become conscious later.  A dead body is no longer a subject, since the physical systems which supported subjective experiences have broken down irreparably.

I take the perceiver to be the body, and specifically the unconscious processes of the brain.  The self-concept is more like a filter for our perceptions.  It sets the defaults for what we pay attention to and what we should ignore.  If that self-concept changes, then what we pay attention to also changes.  The self-concept is not equal to the self, but is a property of a self.

To address where I think your confusion lies, from my own perspective, I will add that I think life is what makes us into subjects, not consciousness or even a self-concept, which are later developments evolutionarily.  Life is the organization of matter into an information storage medium, with its own internal logic.  Both consciousness and self-concepts are extensions of that innovation.

These are a few points from The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind by Michael Gazzaniga from my post #22 above.  I believe they are pertinent to this discussion.

Howard Pattee pointed out that “it was the belief that human consciousness ultimately collapsed the wave function that produce the problem of Schrodinger’s cat.”  But Pattee suggested that natural mechanisms far simpler than human consciousness could do this, and he proposed that the gap between inanimate and living matter resulted from “a process equivalent to quantum measurement that began with self-replication at the origin of life.”  In other words, subjectivity was born with life, not with consciousness, which was a later elaboration.  He stated, “Duality is a necessary and inherent property of any entity capable of evolving” and “if we want to understand the idea of consciousness, something fully formed in evolved living systems, we must first understand what makes a living system alive and evolvable in the first place.”

“Any living thing that ‘records’ information is introducing a form of subjectivity into the system.”  A symbol is arbitrary, so while natural laws are inexorable and universal, rules that apply to symbols can be changed and are arbitrary.  Pattee asserted that “it is precisely this natural symbol-matter articulation that makes life distinct from non-living physical systems.”

Biosemiotics is the semiotics of living systems.  Semiotic systems pair signs and meanings with a code which is included within the system itself, and not imposed externally.  Such assignments are arbitrary, like sounds for meanings in language, and came into existence through random molecular resorting.  In other words, matter can self-organize in another way besides the laws of physics or evolution.  “In its informational (subjective) mode, DNA follows rules, not the laws of physics."

“There can be no self-awareness without a self.  The first steps must be toward a delimited self.”  Consciousness of such a self is further down the road, and is a relatively simple matter of perceiving an already existing self.  Thus consciousness depends upon discrete living systems.

That's an interesting take. Subjectivity is essentially the capacity of information storage and processing, and the laws of processing are expressed in symbolic terms and are dictated by the system itself, so they are no longer limited by natural laws, that's what I understand.

However, I think this definition of subjectivity is too broad, the capacity of information storage and processing is not limited to the living things. Do you think a mechanical calculator is a subject? It can store information and it processes the information based on symbolic laws. Or maybe I'm missing something?

[Alan V]

That's an interesting take. Subjectivity is essentially the capacity of information storage and processing, and the laws of processing are expressed in symbolic terms and are dictated by the system itself, so they are no longer limited by natural laws, that's what I understand.

However, I think this definition of subjectivity is too broad, the capacity of information storage and processing is not limited to the living things. Do you think a mechanical calculator is a subject? It can store information and it processes the information based on symbolic laws. Or maybe I'm missing something?

The information I quoted was not just referring to semiotics in general, but specifically to biosemiotics.  I think life is an essential prerequisite for consciousness.  The reason I think this is because life was self-organized, so subjective states can be seen as providing the necessarily motivations which aren't provided by any external forces.  This perspective means that subjective states could only be evolved.  In the case of mechanical systems, subjective motivations are not required because external programmers provide directions from without.  (Of course, this is my own private opinion, and it's still under development.)

This isn't to say that we can't still make remarkable progress in programmable machines and robots.

[Dānu]

That's an interesting take. Subjectivity is essentially the capacity of information storage and processing, and the laws of processing are expressed in symbolic terms and are dictated by the system itself, so they are no longer limited by natural laws, that's what I understand.

However, I think this definition of subjectivity is too broad, the capacity of information storage and processing is not limited to the living things. Do you think a mechanical calculator is a subject? It can store information and it processes the information based on symbolic laws. Or maybe I'm missing something?

The information I quoted was not just referring to semiotics in general, but specifically to biosemiotics.  I think life is an essential prerequisite for consciousness.  The reason I think this is because life was self-organized, so subjective states can be seen as providing the necessarily motivations which aren't provided by any external forces.  This perspective means that subjective states could only be evolved.  In the case of mechanical systems, subjective motivations are not required because external programmers provide directions from without.  (Of course, this is my own private opinion, and it's still under development.)

[Hussein]

The information I quoted was not just referring to semiotics in general, but specifically to biosemiotics.  I think life is an essential prerequisite for consciousness.  The reason I think this is because life was self-organized, so subjective states can be seen as providing the necessarily motivations which aren't provided by any external forces.  This perspective means that subjective states could only be evolved.  In the case of mechanical systems, subjective motivations are not required because external programmers provide directions from without.  (Of course, this is my own private opinion, and it's still under development.)

This isn't to say that we can't still make remarkable progress in programmable machines and robots.

That all looks well. Considering life to be the underlying requirement solves the problem.

However, the definition of life is a problem in biology and I think higher-level forms of life that are not immediately recognizable for us is a possibility to think about. 

An organism is an integrated system of lower-level organisms. (except basic life forms who are made up of non-living structures)

Now consider an integrated system consisted of humans, this larger system can be seen as a higher-level organism. It has all the features of an organism, it can adapt itself to the environment (the recent pandemic for example), it has order and organization, it grows (our growth is as a result of cellular reproduction, similarly our societies grow as a result of human reproduction), it responds to stimuli (again, the recent pandemic is a good example), it reproduces (new groups can leave the initial population and form new societies with different cultures) and all that. The evolution of the organization for more adaptation is also well-defined in human societies. 

So if the larger system can be considered to be alive, then we can talk about subjectivity in that larger system, human societies have a great capacity to store information (culture, knowledge, etc.) and process that information and produce new information, also, a 'collective consciousness' for the system seems to be very well-defined.  

Having all these characteristics, do our societies have independent identities that cannot be reduced to human identities? 

Can we identify the 'self' with human populations instead of individual humans?

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness.
— Emile Durkheim

[Alan V]

Danu,

I have been fascinated by consciousness since I was in elementary school, and I started from cognitive dissonance concerning religious conceptions.  I should have made it my career choice to study it in some way, but I had no family members who were scholarly-types and it never even occurred to me.  So my ideas have been under development for decades.

It's a strange hobby of a kind, I suppose.

[Alan V]

An organism is an integrated system of lower-level organisms. (except basic life forms who are made up of non-living structures)

Now consider an integrated system consisted of humans, this larger system can be seen as a higher-level organism. It has all the features of an organism, it can adapt itself to the environment (the recent pandemic for example), it has order and organization, it grows (our growth is as a result of cellular reproduction, similarly our societies grow as a result of human reproduction), it responds to stimuli (again, the recent pandemic is a good example), it reproduces (new groups can leave the initial population and form new societies with different cultures) and all that. The evolution of the organization for more adaptation is also well-defined in human societies. 

So if the larger system can be considered to be alive, then we can talk about subjectivity in that larger system, human societies have a great capacity to store information (culture, knowledge, etc.) and process that information and produce new information, also, a 'collective consciousness' for the system seems to be very well-defined.  

Having all these characteristics, do our societies have independent identities that cannot be reduced to human identities? 

Can we identify the 'self' with human populations instead of individual humans?

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness.
— Emile Durkheim

There exist many striking parallels between conscious creatures and societies, as you point out, but the question is whether such parallels are analogical or equal.  It may simply be that successful strategies in one area translate well into others, as @DLJ mentioned earlier concerning business management techniques.

To me it seems that the kinds of communications we employ (movies, news, emails, internet discussion forums, and so on) which are parallel to how consciousness works in biological creatures are still discrete and objective rather than united and subjective.  Once consciousness evolves to a certain point, and social evolution takes its place, our basic conscious abilities stay pretty much the same.  We just find different methods to achieve similar goals.

I guess you might call that "conscious evolution," but again I think that is more of an analogy than anything.  Strictly speaking, it's no longer evolution in the same sense, just as the evolution of stars is not the same as the evolution of life.

[Dānu]

The information I quoted was not just referring to semiotics in general, but specifically to biosemiotics.  I think life is an essential prerequisite for consciousness.  The reason I think this is because life was self-organized, so subjective states can be seen as providing the necessarily motivations which aren't provided by any external forces.  This perspective means that subjective states could only be evolved.  In the case of mechanical systems, subjective motivations are not required because external programmers provide directions from without.  (Of course, this is my own private opinion, and it's still under development.)

This isn't to say that we can't still make remarkable progress in programmable machines and robots.

That all looks well. Considering life to be the underlying requirement solves the problem.

However, the definition of life is a problem in biology and I think higher-level forms of life that are not immediately recognizable for us is a possibility to think about. 

An organism is an integrated system of lower-level organisms. (except basic life forms who are made up of non-living structures)

Now consider an integrated system consisted of humans, this larger system can be seen as a higher-level organism. It has all the features of an organism, it can adapt itself to the environment (the recent pandemic for example), it has order and organization, it grows (our growth is as a result of cellular reproduction, similarly our societies grow as a result of human reproduction), it responds to stimuli (again, the recent pandemic is a good example), it reproduces (new groups can leave the initial population and form new societies with different cultures) and all that. The evolution of the organization for more adaptation is also well-defined in human societies. 

So if the larger system can be considered to be alive, then we can talk about subjectivity in that larger system, human societies have a great capacity to store information (culture, knowledge, etc.) and process that information and produce new information, also, a 'collective consciousness' for the system seems to be very well-defined.  

Having all these characteristics, do our societies have independent identities that cannot be reduced to human identities? 

Can we identify the 'self' with human populations instead of individual humans?

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness.
— Emile Durkheim

If it doesn't have qualia and intentionality, I think referring to such things as subjective, aware, or conscious is simply an equivocation.