John Page

Apparently consciousness (as opposed to sensory awareness) plays no role in <a href="http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindsight.html" target="_blank">blindsight</a>.

I'd be interested in people's comments on:

a) whether this is convincing evidence that the "conscious I" is a kind of self-referential illusion.

b) any contradictory information or experiments that maintain the existence of an "actor" in the "Cartesian Theater"

Cheers, John

tronvillain

Well, blindsight is the ability to guess better than chance whether a light is in the blind region. Perhaps people might be able to guess better than chance selecting between various patterns or colours, but I don't know if that's been done. Now, we say blindsight is not conscious because individuals are not aware of detecting anything and are thus unable to spontaneously guess. It is presumably the result of information processing that does not contribute to conscious awareness, but can influence our pseudo-random choices.

A)It is not immediately apparent why blindsight would be evidence that the "conscious I" is a kind of self-referential illusion. Are there other kinds of self-referential illusions?

B)No.

Anyway, have you read Consciousness Explained? It has an interesting discussion of blindsight.

John Page

<a href="http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/~morgan/blindsight.pdf" target="_blank">UK experiment on patterns</a>

... but it only appears as though "we" are spontaneously guessing to the "conscious I". Maybe that's what you meant by "pseudo random".

A physical example would be a mirror, there's only one "you".
Yes. Thanks, I will go find that section again.

Cheers, John

DRFseven

I think blindsight studies are becoming important in the nailing-down of consciousness. They provide us with behavioral evidence that our thoughts can be stimulated by unconscious memories.

Laurentius

AVE


I think blindsight studies are becoming important in the nailing-down of consciousness. They provide us with behavioral evidence that our thoughts can be stimulated by unconscious memories.


I have lately (for the past 10 years, that is) come to the moderate conclusion that when we make up our mind about something, we generally follow the decision that has already been taken by the unconscious. It's like the role of the conscious (=rational) would be to justify the unconscious (=irrational).

AVE

tronvillain

John Page:
Well, I meant that it only appears as though "we" are guessing to the "conscious I." The bit about spontaneous guessing was a poorly worded attempt to say that shining a light in their blindspot doesn't cause them to "guess" there is a light in their blindspot. That would probably be the first step towards being conscious of the phenomenon, though it would be a very limited binary conscious perception, perhaps analagous to only seing either "light" or "dark."

So, that would be an example of a "self-referential illusion"? I am afraid I don't see how consciousness is supposed to be another example. Perhaps if you could define the characteristics of such an illusion?

phaedrus

John

Umm...could you elaborate as to how your first question relates to blindsight in the first place?

Now regarding this line from the article The phenomenon, called "blindsight", is one of the more dramatic of a number of lines of evidence suggesting that being aware of doing something is distinguishable from doing something, that areas of the brain underlying the experience of doing at least some things are distinct from those needed to actually do those things.

I thought i did some of my activities "withough given a thought" due to its repetitive nature..driving home, eating while reading, ablility to do two parallel routine tasks along with main task...etc is that also blindsight? And now if "identify" the unconscious part of the thought, can we find a nerual correlate for that as well?

Anyhows you might find this article interesting...
<a href="http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Mind/MindSchu.htm" target="_blank">Blindsight and the Role of the Phenomenal Qualities of Visual Perceptions</a>

Mr. Sammi

phaedrus, you seem to be on to the point, where repetition of tasks slip from the focus of consciousness. Initially you had to focus your consciousness on the elements which lead you to consider yourself a driver, or someone else considering you capable of driving.

I think the focus of consciousness fools people to believe consciousness as a singularity, and not as some N-field resultant vector, where the resultant vector can be seen as the focus of the consciousness. I use the term vector because it points directly to the focus.

Sammi Na Boodie ()

DRFseven

I think so. To experience it is definitely not "business as usual"; why, sometimes, it's really irritating the way driving through traffic infringes on my phone conversations and checking my hair in the mirror!

John Page

Is the Cartesian theater the metaphysical equivalent of looking into a mirror with consciousness's "mind's eye", for example?

The characteristics of a self-referential illusion would be one that made it seem as though the self is being viewed objectively. It seems to me as though statements like "I'm thinking" could result from such illusion.

Cheers, John