Free will again (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, March 11, 2012, 11:15 (4639 days ago) @ BBella

Romansh drew our attention to an article by Susan Blackmore on:-http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Books/Tenzen/question1.htm-In this she asks repeatedly whether she is conscious, tries to make her students ask the same question, has difficulty pinning down the reality of time, and concludes:
 
Years pass.
Am I conscious now? No I'm not. 
What?
I realise for the first time that I can answer "No". What if this slippery, difficult, not quite being really here, is not being conscious, and I should have been answering "no" all along? 
Is this the same as looking into the darkness? 
Is there any light?-She doesn't actually tell us what she's supposed to be conscious of, and all I can get from this is the fact that she hadn't realized there are different levels of consciousness. BBella, however, sees the article as the record of a profound awakening, of how "she became aware of her own ability to control her focus." I find no focus at all ... only the question whether she is or isn't conscious.-I'd very much like to know what Romansh himself and others make of it, and especially of the above conclusion. Meanwhile, BBella's post raises some interesting questions. For me the key is a parenthesis in which you wrote: "the word excessively can't even pertain to awareness, you either are or aren't". This "either/or" eliminates the idea that there are different degrees or levels of consciousness. I'd say an animal or small child is aware of its surroundings, its needs, and even the means required to get its needs. I doubt if an animal or a small child is aware of all the alternatives (including renouncing its needs), or of the processes involved in making its decisions, or of the very FACT that it's making decisions. So my first problem with your argument is that I do not see awareness as an either/or but as a matter of degrees and levels.-Our second disagreement is over my contention that excessive self-awareness can lead to a damaging loss of spontaneity. Once the actor begins to watch himself (self-conscious in both senses), he will cease to act convincingly. Another classic example is in sport. The moment you start to watch yourself and worry about whether your feet are in the right position, you're holding the bat/ racket/ball correctly etc., you will lose confidence and your play will suffer. There is a degree of consciousness that simply has to be eliminated if you are to succeed on the stage or on the sportsfield, and I'd go so far as to say that excessive self-awareness destroys confidence, and can even ruin relationships. You didn't understand what I meant when I compared this to the "philosophical" (as opposed to commonsense) level of thought, on which nothing is real or certain, but the point of the comparison is that your own identity becomes unreal and uncertain if you think too much about it (= excessive self-awareness). I'm sure there must be at least one person you know who has problems relating to himself/herself and to others because of too much self-analysis.-The third point is your belief that "becoming conscious makes your perception more aware of your surroundings, therefore more objective of it (because your focus is outside the mind)." I'd say that if you were not conscious, you would have no perception of your surroundings (discounting psychic experiences such as NDEs), and the terms "conscious" and "aware" are synonymous here; to say that becoming MORE conscious makes your perception more aware, would be true but tautological. However, at least your "more aware" acknowledges that there is no either/or, but there are instead degrees! As for "more objective", I don't think perception of our surroundings can ever be anything but subjective, though a greater degree of FOCUSED consciousness will make us more perceptive of what we are focusing on. (I would also point out that one level of consciousness is that which tells me that my perception is subjective ... a level which I suspect you won't find in animals and small children.) This may well be the point at which we are actually in agreement but are simply interpreting "awareness" differently. Focusing, in the examples I have given, entails deliberately shutting out the layer of consciousness that makes us aware of ourselves perceiving, so that we get on with the job of perceiving (or acting, or playing, or dealing with people). That requires control ... yet another layer, which involves the will, free or not. You wrote: "My focus was out of control and what was going on in my mindfield controlled me." Of course I don't know what exactly was in your "mindfield", but if it interfered with your focus, I suspect that it's what I call excessive self-awareness.