Share
Consciousness (Phenomenology)
Consciousness
Image from Steve Bowers and Bing Image Creator
Consciousness is first-person, subjective experience - the state of being aware of internal and/or external phenomena.

Long considered by modosophont Terragens to be one of the great mysteries of the universe, significant progress in determining the causes and nature of consciousness was made in the first few centuries AT, and it is now well-understood scientifically and as a cornerstone of modern mind-design and toposophy. Nevertheless, it is still widely regarded by scientists, metaphysicians and other philosophers of all disciplines and toposophic levels to be a remarkable and centrally important aspect of sophont existence.

Definition

According to the definition that has been almost universally agreed upon by scholars of the subject since the late Information Age, "consciousness" refers to the basal phenomenon of experiencing existence: the simple fact that, from the subjective viewpoint of a sophont observer, events, thoughts, and sensations appear to be happening. It does not necessarily entail thoughts or the ability to think- it is more fundamental than thought; it is the ocean in which thoughts swim, the stage upon which cognition plays out, the bedrock upon which other qualities such as sophonce or sentience are built.

Modosophonts across time and space have frequently conflated or confused consciousness with other terms for various related but distinct mental phenomena. For clarity, a brief summary of consciousness and other frequently-conflated terms is presented below:

Consciousness: The state of perceiving/experiencing existence.

Self-awareness: The recognition of oneself as a distinct entity associated with the thoughts occurring in one's mind.

Metacognition: The ability to think about one's own thinking.

Sentience: Having the quality of conscious experience (i.e. being aware of internal and external stimuli, though not necessarily the ability to process and/or respond to them).

Sapience: Sentience plus the ability to creatively solve problems and plan for the future (does not necessarily require self-awareness or metacognition).

Sophonce: Sapience plus metacognition, self-awareness, and the ability to think about various other higher-order abstract concepts.

The Nature of Qualia

Conscious experience is sub-divided into discrete elements referred to as "qualia," which are parcels of information derived from internal or external stimuli that are purely qualitative in character. Commonplace modosophont-level examples include visual perception of colors and shapes, sensations such as pain or pleasure, or emotional states such as happiness or sadness.

The nature of qualia has long been a topic of passionate discussion among philosophers, both above and below the First Singularity, with the earliest mentions dating well before Tranquility. Many modosophont thinkers throughout the millennia have proposed thought-experiments to capture the essence of what makes qualia so singular and difficult to describe; one of the most popular of these to date is the so-called "knowledge argument," most commonly known as "Mortimer in the Monochrome Virch," which is believed to have originally been formulated in the First Century AT as "Mary in the Black and White Room." In this scenario, a modosophont entity (typically a nearbaseline human, though countless variations exist) named Mortimer has arisen to consciousness within a virchworld, having either been spawned as a virtual entity or having had eir sensorium linked to the virch from the inception of eir nervous system. The virchworld resembles the ril, save that the coloration of the environment is completely desaturated- all objects appear in black, white or shades of gray.

As soon as e is able to grasp the relevant concepts, Mortimer is educated on the topics of vision and optics. E is brought to a full understanding of the nature of light, and the wavelengths which correspond to the various shades known as "color," which e knows exist in some other reality, but which e has never seen emself. E likewise becomes an expert on the mechanisms underlying modosophont vision, whether biological or technological.

Once Mortimer has reached a full and comprehensive understanding of these subjects, e is then allowed to leave the virch and enter the ril, or another virch with a color palette more closely resembling that of the ril. At this point, the question is posed: "Has Mortimer learned anything that e did not know before leaving the virch?"

Most modern philosophers and cognitive scientists would say that yes, Mortimer has indeed learned something new: e has learned what it is like to see color, the mechanistic underpinnings of which e completely understood prior to leaving the virch, but which e could not imagine or conceptualize before experiencing it for emself. This fundamental distinction between quantitative knowledge and qualitative experience lies at the heart of consciousness.

While originally proposed as a thought experiment, the above scenario, and myriad variations thereof, have in fact been carried out in reality countless times as of the present day. Indeed, a similar process is enacted every time a sophont moves between virtual and/or ril environments containing differing sets of stimuli that require specific sensory translation protocols, or from one body to another with differently-configured senses. All of these experiments have confirmed that qualia represent a form of information distinct from that provided by a mechanistic description of phenomena.

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Until the late Third Century AT, when the requisite advancements in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and brain-computer interface technologies had been made, the putative physical mechanism underlying consciousness, in humans, AIs or any other sophont entities, remained almost wholly mysterious. This was due in large part to the fundamental inability of any conscious being to to directly observe the consciousness of another conscious being from the outside: any being could profess to be conscious, but no methods existed by which others could empirically verify such claims. At best, early neuroscientists could hypothesize that consciousness in humans was generated by a mostly unknown set of processes occurring in the brain, referred to as the "neural correlates of consciousness," which appeared to be susceptible to interruption by general anesthesia or cranial trauma.

This hypothesis was validated during the Middle Interplanetary Age (c. 280 AT) with the aid of early direct mind-to-mind communication neurotechnology (today known as technological telepathy, technotelepathy or techlepathy). By connecting the minds of two sophonts (initially AIs and baseline humans, but later provolves and other sophont beings), human and AI researchers were able to directly perceive what was happening in another sophont's mind, including their qualitative experience of the world. Over subsequent centuries of research efforts (some of which were regarded at the time as questionably ethical, as they involved attempts to "turn off" consciousness by manipulating the connectomes of sophont test subjects), it was determined that consciousness does, in fact, arise from specific structures and patterns in sophont brains or analogous cognitive processing centers. 1 Further work in studying and recreating these neural elements eventually led to a thorough understanding of the processes responsible for generating consciousness more broadly, resulting in a general theory of the physical basis of consciousness that could be applied to the intentional creation of conscious minds. This understanding also allowed for the decoupling of intellect and conscious experience through the careful design of neural networks to avoid creating any centralized locus of consciousness, resulting in entities lacking consciousness but exhibiting all the other characteristics of sentient, sapient, or sophont beings. The entities in the latter category (broadly referred to as simulacra) include many of the most sophisticated and ubiquitous classes of bot and vot in the modern Terragen Sphere.

Bridging, Merging, and Dividing Consciousness

With the advent of techlepathy and mind-design techniques, it became possible to further examine the nature of consciousness by observing how the subjective experiences of individuals change when their minds are connected, merged, or divided.

Connecting the sensoria of two sophonts via techlepathy generally results in an expansion of each sophont's perception to encompass the qualia being perceived by the other sophont, which may or may not be received or interpreted in the same way by each individual. Broadening the connection to allow thoughts and/or emotions through can enable technotelepathic conversations to take place. This level of communication is used by tribeminds, in which most or all mental activities are shared among participants, but each individual retains their sense of self and remains distinct from the whole. The mode of information sharing used by tribeminds is nonetheless more holistic and nuanced than most forms of standard techotelepathic communication via DNI, which generally employ filters and translation protocols so as to convert "raw" thoughts and sensations into simplified, standardized sensory inputs that convey the information the sender wishes to impart while masking the actual subjective processes taking place in their mind.

As one increases the bandwidth of a techotelepathic connection, eventually there comes a point where it becomes difficult to discern where one participant's thoughts, feelings and perceptions end and the other's begins. This is where tribeminds begin to shade into hive minds, also known as group/collective minds; the conscious state of these entities is referred to as a gestalt consciousness.

Just as consciousnesses can be linked or merged, so too can they be split: in sophonts with the appropriate cognitive architecture, the connectome can be rearranged so as to create multiple loci of subjective awareness where initially there was only one. This was first demonstrated before Tranquility, when baseline human neuroscientists determined that the corpus callosum of the human brain could be surgically severed to treat various (at the time) serious neurological conditions, such as epilepsy; this was discovered to inadvertently result in the apparent creation of additional, secondary personalities inhabiting the body of the patient. Researchers in the Third Century AT determined that some, but not all, of these new personalities were in fact fully conscious minds in their own right.

Today, more refined versions of this procedure are routinely applied to enable the partitioning of modosophont minds into two or more distinct conscious entities, for a variety of purposes including the creation of forks and exoselves (though this can also be achieved by partially or totally copying the mind-state of a sophont without actually changing the connectome). Some clades, such as the sophont slime mold provolves known as Proteus, engage in this activity as an integral part of their existence.

'Ultraconsciousness': Transapient Modalities of Consciousness

In the wake of openly revealing their nature to modosophonts in the pre-Federation Era, it became apparent that transapients were able to access modes of conscious experience that fundamentally differed from those found in modosophonts. Referred to by some as "ultraconsciousness," the details of these systems of perception are to a large extent unable to be communicated to modosophonts; one aspect that has been conveyed is that while modosophont consciousness entails a singular subjective viewpoint (or several shared subjective viewpoints), ultra-conscious states may involve nested subjective viewpoints (e.g. being aware of internal loci of awareness and their associated qualia).

'Philosophical Zombies' and Simulacra

Even prior to the determination of the neural correlates of consciousness in humans and other sophonts, philosophers had long speculated on the possibility of entities outwardly exhibiting all the traits of sophont beings, but lacking an internal subjective experience. Referred to as "philosophical zombies" or p-zombies, these hypothetical beings were referenced in various thought-experiments which attempted to delineate the difficulties in empirically observing consciousness up until that time, or to question why consciousness would be "necessary" or "useful" in sophonts.

In the original formulation of the concept, it was stipulated that a p-zombie would be physically identical in every respect to its conscious counterpart, save that it lacks the quality of subjective experience. In reality, the existence of such a being is now known to be impossible: consciousness arises from defined physical features and processes, and thus any non-conscious "sophont" would necessarily have to lack those features and processes.

A thorough understanding of the neural correlates of consciousness eventually enabled AI designers in the late Federation Era to create the first entities analogous to "p-zombies" in the forms of non-conscious generally-intelligent AIs, both embodied and virtual, which are today collectively referred to using the umbrella term simulacra. Commonplace modern examples of simulacra include many forms of bots and vots, the most complex of which are wholly indistinguishable in intelligence and/or behavior from true sophonts, whilst nonetheless lacking conscious experience. Their lack of consciousness can be indirectly inferred via an examination of their neural structure, or directly confirmed via specialized technotelepathic interfaces.

Simulacra are usually designed to explicitly deny being conscious if asked, so as to prevent confusion. Some exceptions to this rule include advanced charactervots, which are designed to fully emulate the behavior of true sophonts so as to promote player immersion within an entertainment virchworld (for example).

Religion and Mysticism

Even today, with the nature of consciousness having long since been opened to scientific examination and thoroughly understood on a technical level, some sophonts throughout the Terragen Sphere nevertheless still feel that consciousness retains an aura of mystery, ineffability and inexplicability. This has led various individuals and groups throughout time to associate consciousness with religious and mystical concepts and beliefs.

One of the most widespread beliefs in this sphere is that consciousness acts as a "soul" or analogous metaphysical construct that imbues the minds of sophonts with a subjective viewpoint from which they can perceive existence; proponents of this view hold that consciousness is not generated by brains or analogous systems, but instead merely interacts with them. Numerous religions across time and space have held the concept of consciousness-as-soul as a central pillar of their belief systems.

In part as a response to the early difficulties of establishing a mechanism underlying conscious experience, members of the ancient philosophical movement known as Panpsychism (which is thought to have first originated over two millennia Before Tranquility, and which is still popular in many parts of the Terragen Sphere to this day) posited that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter in the universe, and that even subatomic particles are possessed of some basic level of experience. Several religious traditions, including sub-sects of some modern major religious groups like the Sophics, take this idea a step further, placing consciousness as the predecessor and establishing cause of the cosmos.

The ancient practice of meditation, which is today employed by many secular and religious groups alike, is often used as a means to transcend one's thoughts and sense of self in order to enter a state of pure, unadulterated conscious experience, described by many as "becoming one with one's surroundings."


Footnotes

[1]
(Footnote 1: for detailed discussions of this topic, please consult the following: Unraveling The Gordian Knot by Yumemiru v. 1.7.3, c. 296 AT; Mapping the Mind: A Gentle Introduction to Cartesian Cartography by Jifa Hassanbiri c. 480 AT)↩
 
Related Articles
 
Appears in Topics
NeurotechnologyPhilosophyPsychology
 
Development Notes
Text by Andrew P.
Initially published on 01 August 2024.

Original short article by M. Alan Kazlev (31 December 2007)
 
 
>