Noble Mind
An Exploration of Human Nature.
Consciousness, Intellect, and our Mind.
Chapter 7 Here 'I' am
In this chapter
One of the big gaps in the H I Mind Model, as described so far, is the ability to describe our experience of consciousness.
Consciousness is a key experience of being human. Any, and every description of how we experience being human must include an understanding, in one form or another, of consciousness.
This chapter explore consciousness from an H I Mind Model perspective.
Introducing The Hemispheric Intelligence Theories of Consciousness.
Caveat
The theories offered here attempt to use the understandings inherent in the H I Mind Model to explore ‘The Hard Problem’ of consciousness. The H I Mind Model includes 'intelligence' as part of the basic model of the mind. This allows us to better define what the essence of consciousness is and so suggest potential areas for future research.
These theories are not yet supported by research and are offered here as hypothetical.
Theories
These theories describe different aspects of consciousness:
1. Using the H I Mind Model to focus in on the core of consciousness.
2. Component attributes of our consciousness: Simulations, Working Memory, Language-Based Logic, and Narrative Context
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3. Evolution of Conscious Awareness: From crude sensing to full consciousness.
4. The role of the brain hemispheres in producing consciousness.
5. Variability in conscious experiences.
The detailed H I Mind theories are to be found in Appendices B to G.
The descriptions that follow present the basic ideas and should give most people an idea of how I think our mind actually works.
History
Historically, descriptions, models, and theories of consciousness have, in my humble opinion and despite valiant intellectual efforts, fallen short of actually describing much about consciousness itself.
Our descriptions of consciousness have been based on what we experience as individuals and have been represented as part of our understanding of the human mind.
The brain is recognised to be immensely complex and all work on consciousness suffers a challenge to describe our experience of consciousness.
More recently, neuroscience has developed a variety of models that try to represent the processing that can be measured within the human brain. As an example. One of the best theories, again in my humble opinion, is the Global Workspace Theory proposed by Bernard Baars and Stan Franklin in the late 1980s
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Input to the conscious mind comes from numerous senses. The Nonconscious Mind processes sensory information to provide perceptions, emotions, memories, etc. to the Conscious Mind.
Consciousness is either still represented as in the historical model or it becomes defined as a set of theoretical or measured processes. The end result is that our understanding of consciousness remains vague.
The Problems
There are several problems with historic and existing theories:
• It is really difficult to describe consciousness.
• Existing theories tend to lump all forms of cognition together as well as sensory processing, perhaps attempting to include what is known about the brain.
• There is little allowance for altered states of consciousness.
I shall summarise each of these in turn.
Brain, Mind, and Consciousness
Immediately the very terms that we use to describe our mental experiences and activities can become contentious.
Our brain is a physical thing that can be measured, described, and studied in increasing detail. Our brain ‘hosts’ our consciousness and our mind.
Our mind does not exist, it is a metaphor for something that helps us to understand and define our mental experiences.
Consciousness is a concept that may sit somewhere between brain and mind. Aspects of consciousness may be testable yet these tests tend to relate to whatever model of mind we adopt, and our models of mind remain too lacking in structure to be useful.
Descriptions of Consciousness
Descriptions of consciousness are most likely to start from our own experience of consciousness. These descriptions, my own attempts included, will often end up using words such as ‘attention’, ‘awareness’, ‘thought’, ‘concentration’, and ‘cognition’. But each of these is itself a part of consciousness or a synonym for consciousness. We simply don’t seem to have the words to actually describe our own experience.
Another seeming dead-end is to try and describe the process of consciousness. What is actually going on under the bonnet that results in consciousness happening? The most recent big advance that is exploring this is perhaps the development of Artificial Intelligence. More on this later.
Basic Models of the Mind
Models of the mind, and particularly consciousness itself, have not evolved at the same pace as developments in neuroscience. We basically have been struggling with a two-part model comprising Subconsciousness and Consciousness. Some psychologies, philosophies, and theologies suggest additional parts but the mainstream scientific view seems limited to the two-part approach.
Consciousness is what may be available in all varied situations to our conscious experience. Subconsciousness, or Non-Consciousness, covers all the sensory and other processing that is not directly accessible to our experience of Consciousness. is what may be available to our conscious experience. But, again, there is no adequate definition of what that conscious experience actually is.
Consciousness, like the mind and the brain that hosts both, is very complex and the very simple two-part model is simply not helping us advance our understanding.
Altered States of Consciousness
Consciousness can be a very varied experience. We can be relaxed, excited, in the grip of compulsions and fluid emotions. We can be imaginative and adamant. We can be thoughtful, shocked, dominant, and submissive. We can be conscious whilst dreaming, aware of what is going on whilst in a trance, and we can transcend into experiences that can be life-changing.
These, perhaps infinitely, variable states of mind highlight the complexity of the human brain, and the consciousness that it hosts. Indeed, the problems of understanding and describing consciousness have led to consciousness being described as “The Hard Problem”.
Making 'The Hard Problem' a Little Easier
Instead of describing consciousness from our experiences, or from trying to describe what processes might be involved, I suggest a slightly different approach.
By focusing on function we can propose a more advanced model of the mind (e.g. the H I Mind Model) as a basis for understanding consciousness.
Also, and vitally, we can include a functional description of intelligence to give a much improved explanation of how the mind as a whole functions.
What is Consciousness?
Instead of describing consciousness from our experiences, or from trying to describe what processes might be involved, I suggest a slightly different approach.
Consciousness is that part of our mind that manages our mind as a whole to solve problems and to maximise our living benefit.
I won’t deepen this first attempt at a definition other than to point out that it is simple, it does not yet describe any internal workings of consciousness, it requires a better description of the rest of our mind, and that it does not yet explain anything like the full range of experiences available to us.
Core Consciousness
Some use the term ‘Core Consciousness’ to try and define the central part of consciousness that is essential to consciousness as a whole. This concept of a concentrated part of consciousness may help to simplify the study of consciousness as a whole and to locate those processes in the brain that host the essential experience of consciousness.
A Mind of Parts
As an alternative to the two-part traditional model of the human mind, it is also possible to define our mind as a collection of functional parts using a variety of approaches. For example, Freud suggested a Superego to include higher-motivations and Young talked of a Collective Unconscious which can be interpreted as adding archetypical cultural influences.
The H I Mind Model, a behavioural approach based on evolutionary principles, identifies five ‘Focuses of Mind’ covering social, cultural, creative, selfless, and logical-conscious processes. By defining ‘parts’ that support our consciousness, or can be considered available to consciousness, we can better describe consciousness as part of the behavioural structure that is created within our complex, structured, brain.
Does Intelligence Provide a Potential Solution?
We are, or can be, consciously aware of mental processing that feeds into our consciousness. We know that we reason, that we hold varied types of memory, that we learn, that we can understand many objects and concepts, that we can problem-solve, and that our thinking is adaptable. These mental qualities, when combined together, can be called general intelligence.
I suggest that we can usefully add ‘intelligence’ as an additional layer to our two-part traditional model of the mind. To represent high-functioning processing that directly supports our core consciousness.
I further suggest that intelligence can be considered as semi-consciousness. We can be conscious of the influences of intelligence on our core consciousness. We can concentrate our consciousness into our intelligent thinking both to generate further intelligent processing and to become more consciousness of that processing. Finally, we do not as yet have the ability to precisely define the limits of consciousness, whether physical (brain-based), theoretical, or experiential.
Intelligent Focuses
The adoption of The H I Mind Model becomes easier to appreciate by re-drawing the mind model as follows:
In brief:
Semi-conscious focuses
The Social Focus provides knowledge and behavioural imperatives that support our abilities to live in family or tribal groups.
The Aspirational Focus provides us with creative abilities supporting play, resourcefulness, and an imaginative ability to predict the future.
The Cultural Focus provides knowledge and behavioural imperatives that support our abilities to live in large groups and develop learning and languages that are characteristic of human beings.
The Noble Focus provides us with creative abilities supporting selfless motivations and wisdoms necessary for cultural development and resilience.
Core-conscious focus
The Planning Focus contains Core Consciousness and provides for problem-solving and management of the other focuses of intelligence.
This approach is useful because it provides structure, based on behavioural capabilities, and it helps to define the broad nature of consciousness as well as Core Consciousness.
Tentative Definitions
Consciousness
Instead of describing consciousness from our experiences, or from trying to describe what processes might be involved, I suggest a slightly different approach.
For example, consciousness described from a functional point of view could be defined initially as:
Consciousness is that aspect of our mind that manages our mind as a whole to solve problems and produces behaviours that attempt to maximise our living benefit.
I won’t deepen this first attempt at a definition other than to point out that it is a simple definition, it does not yet describe any internal workings of consciousness, it requires a better description of the rest of our mind, and that it does not yet explain anything like the full range of experiences available to us.
But, these outstanding points can now be addressed.
Subconscious
This is the part of our mind which is purely automatic and not directly available to our conscious processes. I tend to use the term Subconscious, though some prefer the term Nonconscious. Our Subconscious can be described as that part of our mind that processes raw sensory data into forms that can be used by the basic Focuses of mind and the Core Consciousness. The Subconscious can be regarded as complex but basically automatic. It handles non-conscious processes such as habits, routines, some forms of memory (perhaps all other than Working Memory), interactions with our body, compulsions, and basic emotions.
Core Consciousness
The tentative definition of consciousness given above is focused on a simpler and smaller part of our mind than the traditional approach of trying to describe the full set of consciousness experiences and capabilities through a single functional model.
I suggest that consciousness can be described as a whole-brain quality, where different conscious activities can show as activity in different parts of the brain. It may be that while we concentrate on a social situation the rear of our left hemisphere will become active while it may be the left fore-brain that becomes active while we study academically. The right rear brain might become more active during creative activities whilst the right fore-brain might become more important whilst meditating on World issues.
However, this does not mean that the whole brain is involved in the essential production of conscious awareness and high-level conscious thinking. Conceptually I suggest that we can define the essential centre of the process of consciousness that would show up as brain activity whatever we are thinking about. I call this our Core Consciousness, which is a term that is widely used though still not precisely defined. In experiential terms it is perhaps easier to understand as that place where our conscious thinking happens and where our conscious self-awareness is most fully active.
Later, and elsewhere, I will further refine this essential part of consciousness as Hemispheric Consciousness, implying the possible importance of the central part of the brain joining the two major brain hemispheres in order to better understand our varied experiences of conscious activity.
Intelligent Focuses
From evolutionary principles we can deduce that our mind must contain characteristics that enable us to survive well. Simplistically this means getting on with the family that we are born into, being able to learn how to survive with that family, being able to grow to adulthood amongst a population of individuals beyond our family, and being able to make sense of our life in general in order to not just survive but to have the chance to prosper.
Working from these simplistic steps, we can conceive of parts of the mind, which I call Focuses, provide us with general intelligence as well as social, cultural, creative, and selfless motivations. The focuses, which may be based in the neocortex of the human brain, are at best semi-conscious. We can define internal characteristics associated with each of these focuses.
The exploration of focuses and their characteristics, including possible relationships to the brain, is described in The H I Mind Model which is described more deeply elsewhere, though I shall include a few example characteristics shortly.
The title “H I Mind Model” stands for Hemispheric Intelligence Mind Model. Hemispheric Intelligence refers to the fundamental structure of the human brain that hosts consciousness and intelligence. The brain is split between left and right and, functionally at least to some degree, between fore, mid, and hind brain. The characteristics described in the H I Mind Model can tentatively be mapped to the human Neocortex (intelligence, as described in the Thousand Brains Theory) and the hemispheres (Hemispheric Theories).
An Overview
Here is a simplified schematic overview of what we can now describe, including some basic functional characteristics:
Dynamic Processing
But consciousness is dynamic; constantly changing. This next schematic indicates the communication processes that support the mind to work as an apparent single entity:
The thicker arrows indicate complex and potentially intense two-way communications including information-transfer and feedback loops.
The thinner arrows indicate sensory input from the subconscious, compulsions, emotional content, memory retrieval, urges to support habitual behaviours, and so on. The Subconscious also accepts information from the focuses that results in memory-making, building of habits, commands for body actions, and so on.
This approach is, I believe, broadly compatible with the Global Workspace Theory proposed by Bernard Baars and Stan Franklin in the late 1980s.