The universality of consciousness
In this, I want to argue against the idea that people other than ourselves lack consciousness, although not simply the idea of them possessing a separate consciousness. Whether or not this agrees with or disagrees with solipsism is dependent on how you perceive it.
It is, by common sense, factual that consciousness exists. We know that consciousness exists. However, when we suggest that we know, we question who that we is. The pronoun we in the English language is highly subjective, and is dependent on context, but in every usage of the word there is the common subject of I and oneself, regardless of who else the pronoun entails. Although we know that consciousness exists, that we is indeterminate. This is, of course, a well-trodden idea in philosophy, and pairs particularly well with the concept of solipsism.
However, let me suggest a different perspective on the idea that only oneself is sure to have consciousness, and to express this I am going to use the experience that one has in a dream, as a microcosm.
In waking life, most people accept that others possess a consciousness both instinctively and because we are told as such. In a dream - assuming that it is not lucid - we transfer these principles into this alternative state of experience, and assume, in this dream, that the characters we encounter have consciousness. That is not incorrect.
In a lucid dream, we recognise that these characters are not real, as they are in reality, and therefore, because we are taught that they are not real, we also assume that they dont have consciousness. This is incorrect.
If I were to tell a person that they do not have consciousness, they would not be able to give me evidence that they do, even though they can definitively prove that to themselves. Neither of us can prove, or have any way to know for certain, that the other has consciousness. The belief that others have consciousness, as we lack the evidence, is pure faith. One might also argue it is due to an evolutionary development of recognition of other consciousness existing, but it is not proof regardless. We believe.
In a lucid dream, our perspective of these dream characters is different from our perspective of people who are real, because we are taught that these people are not conscious, even if they act the same way that real people do. The fact is, however, that these people do have consciousness, but they do not have a separate consciousness. Their actions and decisions are consequences of our own consciousness.
So now we take this idea and assume the same for reality. Solipsism argues that ones mind is the only one true to exist, and metaphysical solipsism involves the belief that other individuals are part of ones own mind. Some people who value this belief might argue that the consequence of this is that other people besides ourselves do not possess a consciousness, but this is not true.
As I said before, the concept of a we includes only the definitive I, but that I, in terms of others consciousness, may actually exist as an inclusive pronoun: we. The argument that other people might not possess a consciousness does not coincide with the idea that other people are a creation of the consciousness.
If individual consciousness does not exist besides our own, that does not disprove the existence of others consciousness. In fact, it gives evidence to the opposite. The creation of other people by ones own mind means that those people must, then, have a consciousness, that consciousness being your own. Likewise to the characters in dreams, if we assume other people are also creations of our mind, to say that they do not have consciousness is to deny the existence of ones own consciousness, as the actions of those people are a direct result of your consciousness.
In summary, we know for a fact that consciousness exists. But regardless of whether or not there are consciousnesses individual from your own, and whether the we could or could not mean I, the notion that others might lack individual consciousness does not invalidate their possession of consciousness altogether. In such a case, that consciousness would simply be your own.
(If there are any inaccuracies, plagiarisms, or flaws in my logic, please point them out).
It is, by common sense, factual that consciousness exists. We know that consciousness exists. However, when we suggest that we know, we question who that we is. The pronoun we in the English language is highly subjective, and is dependent on context, but in every usage of the word there is the common subject of I and oneself, regardless of who else the pronoun entails. Although we know that consciousness exists, that we is indeterminate. This is, of course, a well-trodden idea in philosophy, and pairs particularly well with the concept of solipsism.
However, let me suggest a different perspective on the idea that only oneself is sure to have consciousness, and to express this I am going to use the experience that one has in a dream, as a microcosm.
In waking life, most people accept that others possess a consciousness both instinctively and because we are told as such. In a dream - assuming that it is not lucid - we transfer these principles into this alternative state of experience, and assume, in this dream, that the characters we encounter have consciousness. That is not incorrect.
In a lucid dream, we recognise that these characters are not real, as they are in reality, and therefore, because we are taught that they are not real, we also assume that they dont have consciousness. This is incorrect.
If I were to tell a person that they do not have consciousness, they would not be able to give me evidence that they do, even though they can definitively prove that to themselves. Neither of us can prove, or have any way to know for certain, that the other has consciousness. The belief that others have consciousness, as we lack the evidence, is pure faith. One might also argue it is due to an evolutionary development of recognition of other consciousness existing, but it is not proof regardless. We believe.
In a lucid dream, our perspective of these dream characters is different from our perspective of people who are real, because we are taught that these people are not conscious, even if they act the same way that real people do. The fact is, however, that these people do have consciousness, but they do not have a separate consciousness. Their actions and decisions are consequences of our own consciousness.
So now we take this idea and assume the same for reality. Solipsism argues that ones mind is the only one true to exist, and metaphysical solipsism involves the belief that other individuals are part of ones own mind. Some people who value this belief might argue that the consequence of this is that other people besides ourselves do not possess a consciousness, but this is not true.
As I said before, the concept of a we includes only the definitive I, but that I, in terms of others consciousness, may actually exist as an inclusive pronoun: we. The argument that other people might not possess a consciousness does not coincide with the idea that other people are a creation of the consciousness.
If individual consciousness does not exist besides our own, that does not disprove the existence of others consciousness. In fact, it gives evidence to the opposite. The creation of other people by ones own mind means that those people must, then, have a consciousness, that consciousness being your own. Likewise to the characters in dreams, if we assume other people are also creations of our mind, to say that they do not have consciousness is to deny the existence of ones own consciousness, as the actions of those people are a direct result of your consciousness.
In summary, we know for a fact that consciousness exists. But regardless of whether or not there are consciousnesses individual from your own, and whether the we could or could not mean I, the notion that others might lack individual consciousness does not invalidate their possession of consciousness altogether. In such a case, that consciousness would simply be your own.
(If there are any inaccuracies, plagiarisms, or flaws in my logic, please point them out).
Comments (12)
A well-written and interesting post. Welcome to the forum. As to your idea...hmmm. Let me think.
My father died in 2001 and I think about him often. I don't think it's irrational for me to say that he is still alive, and I guess conscious, and will continue to be so for as long as me, my siblings, my step-mother, and others who cared for him are. I guess, if we wanted to be materialistic about it, we could say that my father continues to live as a subroutine in my own consciousness. That entity is given strength and dimension when I get together with my whole family every February for a family reunion. Knowing that we all share those memories and thoughts brings them to life, as do the stories we tell about him.
As I said, I have no problem with that way of thinking, but it does call for a redefinition of what most people see as the common meaning of "consciousness." We have many discussions of consciousness here on the forum and most break up on the reefs of language rather than philosophy.
Some other thoughts:
Quoting Reilyn
I am suspicious of claims of common sense, self-evidence, obviousness, or certainty, at least in a philosophical setting.
Quoting Reilyn
Are you familiar with p-zombies? Don't get me started. I think I can know that someone else has consciousness with the same level of certainty that I can know most things in life. Consciousness is not just an experience. It is also a set of behaviors. Now here we go with our definitions again.
Again, good post.
No, you're right there. I've never written a philosophical essay of any kind before, so I'm still testing the ropes with it. I'll bear this in mind because the language used in philosophical essays certainly differs from other essays.
Quoting T Clark
No, I can't say that I am. There are still many things I'm yet to familiarise myself with in this area
Presumably you're familiar with the well-known expression in Descartes' Meditations, cogito ergo sum, translated as 'I think, therefore I am.' The thrust of Descartes' argument was that, even if I were to be deceived by an evil demon into a completely illusory picture of reality, I cannot doubt that I exist, as I must exist in order to be deceived.
Descartes uses this as a foundation for what he describes as 'clear and distinct ideas'. This puts Descartes in the tradition of rationalism, which can be traced back to Plato, in which the mind's ability to know rational truths directly, without the mediation of sense, is taken as guarantee of their veracity.
Descartes influence, not only through his philosophical writings, but also through his dualist model of mind and matter, and his invention of Cartesian co-ordinates which revolutionized mathematics by allowing the expression of problems of geometry in terms of algebra and calculus, makes him hugely influential in modern culture (more so than many people realise, in fact.)
Now to solipsism. Solipsism is the idea that only one's own consciousness can be known with certainty. I think that this is implied by the cogito, as the expression is written in the first person (*I* think therefore *I* am.) But I don't believe Descartes himself considered solipsism a possibility. He believed that God would not deceive him about the reality of the world. As he believed that humans comprised body and mind (or soul), presumably he saw no reason to doubt the existence of minds other than his own. Nevertheless Descartes' philosophy was later criticized for the suggestion that the knowledge of other minds can only be inferential, which can indeed give rise to solipsism.
Quoting Reilyn
Accordingly, I think this sets too high a bar for what constitutes knowledge. A world in which oneself is the only conscious being strikes me as being dangerously close to psychopathology. There is abundant evidence, overwhelming evidence, that other beings feel as we do, suffer as we do, behave for similar motivations as we do. Awareness of that fact is the basis of empathy, which is a sure-fire antidote to solipsism. The role of empathy and inter-subjective understanding has been explored in many schools of modern philosophy specifically existentialism and phenomonology.
Another point is that idea that consciousness is one's own unique possession, is itself a kind of mental construction. It relies on there being a sense of 'I' and 'mine' which is something that is acquired in infancy and forms the basis of ego. There's nothing the matter with that, it is an essential component of normal psychological functioning. But I think the solipsistic view, again, distorts this functionality by projecting it as the only real knowable. If you ever study Buddhist philosophy, you will discover that this projective functionality of the psyche is described as 'I-making' and 'mine-making', and is one of the roots of all human suffering according to Buddhism.
So I hope that provides food for thought, and again, welcome.
Perhaps I should reiterate my reason for writing this essay. It actually doesn't fit completely with my view of consciousness; indeed, I don't believe in solipsism. However, I think it is necessary to consider every argument, and then either agree or disagree with that argument. So while this post could take a solipsist standpoint, my intention was actually to disprove the idea that is possessed by some that "other people, that are believed to be projections of the mind, do not possess a consciousness." Because if we do assume that solipsism is the case and that other people are projections of our own consciousness, it is nonsensical to say that those people then lack a consciousness, which is why I made the point that that consciousness would still exist, however it would be our own.
Thank you for your response.
We can have strong evidence for something without being certain about it. In fact, you could say that characterizes almost everything we believe to be true. But we sometimes forget this and instead create a binary, where "know for certain with absolute proof" is opposed to "have no warrant to believe true," with nothing in between. So, when you say:
Quoting Reilyn
. . . I would reply, "Right, you can't have proof that they're conscious. You can't be certain. But a great deal of strong evidence could be provided to you. That being so, it isn't correct to say that we 'lack evidence,' and so believing in their consciousness is 'pure faith'. What we lack is certainty, a different matter."
That's a great way to put it, definitely better than mine.
I do appreciate all of these perspectives and criticisms of my wording, they're very helpful
Quoting Reilyn
I don't think I was ever taught that dream characters are not conscious.
I did not treat dream characters with respect when I was younger. I gradually took them more and more seriously, not because I came to some conclusion about their degree of consciousness, but because it seemed more intriguing to see what they had to say about themselves. For example, I became interested in how do they react when you say something like "you do realise that this is all a dream, don't you?".
Quoting Reilyn
I disagree. I think they have separate consciousnesses. Sure, they are a product of non-conscious processes in my brain. They are my dream characters, not yours. But they are not my conscious creations. Surely you have been surprised by what some dream characters do and say in lucid dreams? In order to surprise you, they must have private access to their own information processing. They also seem to have agency within the lucid dream: they are pursuing their own goals, and these goals are not known to me except by how they manifest in their behaviour.
They have limited consciousness compared to my lucid dreaming self. My dream characters appear to be unable to remember anything for much more than 10 seconds. Some have enough mental capacity to tell me a simple (and not very good) joke, but nonetheless a setup and a punchline.
As a side note, my lucid dreaming self has limited consciousness compared to my waking self. I can be pretty analytical in some lucid dreams, but there's almost always some stupidity which is obvious when I recall the dream.
Interesting. My experiences back in the 1970s were that my lucid dream self was more aware than my normal self. I felt myself pure will. The first instance was so powerful my first thought in that state was, "There is something else!"
I've never been convinced that I can know I am conscious. Sure, I can say that I appear to experince consciousness. But to what extent is this consciousness my own? It's an assumption which seems safe within ordinary refection. But how do I know that I am not experiencing the thoughts of another being, or machine?
I know other people's consciousness exist by my perception of their bodies, language they speak which reflects their thought contents, feelings, emotions and dispositions. Their facial expressions can be also the sign of their consciousness, which can give clues to their mental states. But when someone is far away in the remote place not visually perceptible, their writings I read can be the proof of their existence in body and consciousness.
Without above evidence, it is not possible for me to know the consciousness of the others exist. This is the way existence claims its reality in the real world.
Folks I see in my dreams are as you say, mind-created existence which only exist as mental images in the mind.
Folks I think about such as the philosophers in history e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant ... etc would be the abstract existence who exist in the mind, but not in the real world at the present time now.
I cannot know anything about the consciousness of the folks in the dreams and abstract world whether they exist or not. I suppose they don't exist.