The meaning of consciousness (Part III): Conscious thought results as our brain goes through our conscious (language-coded) knowledge.

The following is part of Chapter III of "A Scientific Model Of The Brain":

Concepts and conscious (natural-language coded) knowledge: (conscious) concepts are the stereotypes we form to use as sequences-of-actions- building blocks, so that it becomes feasible to elaborate complex plans for the achievement of our goals.

 * What is the essential role played by our instinct - the unconscious levels of our brain - in the resolution of those tasks, that our conscious thought takes on? 

As a matter of fact, even a highly cognitive task such as reading text is carried out with very little intervention by the conscious levels of our brain. Indeed, it is only when we are starting learning how to read, that we go about one by one consciously and conscientiously recognizing each and every letter. However, little by little, as we gain more practice, more and more we become able to identify at once strings of several letters or even entire words. In fact, as we go through a text, very often it is possible to make a rough guess of what word will come next. Surely there will be a plethora of sensible candidates, but as we take a closer look at the word, several different cues will help to tilt the scale towards the right one. Not unlike the fly-selection mechanism running in our froggy friend's brain, there will be a competition between the several word candidates. Cues such as the word's basic shape, its length, the first letter and the last letter, etc. will elicit higher firing rates in those groups of neurons selective for those candidate words most similar to the one in question. At some point we will feel confident enough of what will be the outcome and will call the competition good. Whichever candidate word is winning at that time will so become our (conscious) recognition and we will be ready to proceed with the next words.

  

* If we do not know how to solve a task; we go by trial and error. If the attempt is successful, we take note of it, so that next time we know how to obtain the same positive outcome. However, if the attempt fails, we likewise take note, so that next time we do not repeat the same mistake.

From these examples, it really seems difficult to conclude, that our consciousness acts as anything such as a intelligent, decision-making agent sitting at the very crest of our intellect. Rather, it is just an additional layer of functionality and, by no means, the most glorious and supreme of all. In fact, in order to understand the role and functionality of consciousness, it may be helpful to imagine our 'consciousness-accessible' knowledge base functioning as a Dictionary, where, throughout our lives, little by little, we write down new entries to consolidate the information of every new learning episode. Alternatively, in some other occasions, someone else may supply the information. Needless to say, the latter is typically the case for us, modern humans, as most of our knowledge is acquired from other people. Crucially, however, as opposed to real dictionaries, the information contained in our conscious knowledge is by no means always exact; but it only represents our current beliefs on what things mean and how do they work. Indeed, as confident as we may be of our wisdom, our conscious knowledge is not the kind of dictionary we buy from a bookstore, that has been edited by the most eminent authorities in the language in question; but it would be more accurate to think of it as a 'personal dictionary' that we - and the people we trust - haphazardly knock together as we explore the world around us.    

 

In order to illustrate this point better, let us imagine an immigrant, who arrives at a foreign country with no knowledge of the language spoken at her new place of living. At the beginning she will just do her best to guess the meaning of what the natives may say to her, and to express whatever she may think in response. Sometimes she will perform some gestures or repeat something she may have heard before. Basically, at first she would be experimenting and learning through trial and error. Indeed, sometimes she will get it wrong and sometimes she will get it right. In each of those occasions, she will create or correct an entry in her 'personal dictionary', noting down what is that she learned in the recent encounter and learning episode. Consequently, little by little, her 'personal dictionary' will get populated with the meanings and explanations for a plethora of lexemes and language expressions. Soon enough she will be able to use her notes as a reference. In the same way that someone may apply a trick he has learned to discern fake smiles, she could use her 'personal dictionary' to look up the meaning of whatever someone else has said to her. Similarly, she could go through her notes to prepare how to articulate her response. However, as she gains more experience and grows more proficient - in the same way that we follow our instinct, in order to determine a person's gender from and image of his or her face, or to keep balance while riding a bicycle - she will stop resorting on her dictionary. Certainly,she will come to be able to perfectly understand what people is talking to her, as well as intuitively, sort of automatically, come up with the right words to express her thoughts.

** The unconscious learning of associations between patterns and the acquisition of conscious knowledge go hand in hand and are nothing but interlaced components of the same learning process.

The general scheme therefor seems to follow three basic rules. The first time we encounter a given situation and have no clue how to go about it, we just try out something and see how it goes. 

However, very soon we will acquire some experience and will be in condition to 'reason out' how to proceed. If not exactly the same, probably we have previously faced a similar scenario. Thus, based on how it went on all earlier related episodes, we will be able to make an educated guess, of what should be our best next move. Importantly, the process, whereby our previous experience is gathered and an optimal response is researched, - as much as it may be coordinated by the conscious levels of our brain - is largely conducted unconsciously. Indeed, the current scenario will evoke reminiscent circumstances, which will trigger many different suggestions on how to answer the present question and advance to the next step. Whichever of these ideas is fit enough to best the competition, will then reach the conscious levels.

Eventually, however, we will have accumulated a lot of practice and will be able to immediately, 'instinctively' identify the specific case at hand, and will be ready to produce the most appropriate response. 

Clearly, unconscious learning and conscious learning do not follow separate, conflicting paths; but go hand in hand. In fact, fascinatingly enough, there is a parallelism between how conscious processes and unconscious processes work together, in order to learn how to optimize the animal's interaction with its environment, and how lab research and the publication of scientific findings are interlaced and lead together to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

    

* Since it is not feasible to learn direct associations between any arbitrary goal and any arbitrary initial state, it became advantageous to evolved some kind of neural planning mechanism.

We can therefore deduce that it would not be entirely accurate to depict consciousness as a mere alternative method to represent information. Rather, it appears to be a coding scheme developed for the purpose of implementing complex plans. There is no doubt about it, everything in the brain circles around the principle of how to reach one's goals. Unfortunately, the course of action required is sometimes incredibly serpentine.

Needless to say, that is typically the case for highly evolved species such as human beings. Life is certainly not easy for our new immigrant friend. Our old froggy pal may be able to make a living of (simply) processing visual information, hoping to discover something in its environs to satisfy its belly with; but our new immigrant friend's odds to succeed will depend critically on her skill of listening to whatever the people around her say, in order to find out what ideas they are trying to communicate. As little inclined as I am to exalt the superiority of human intellect and as far as I am of wanting to diminish our froggy pal's undeniable talents, it seems reasonable to say, that our ability to conversate and argue with someone else, trying to sway our interlocutor's views, or working out a common problem, requires a higher level of sophistacation than solving an - undoubtedly complex - visual pattern matching task. For one thing, bringing down an insect flying around one's space can be conceived as a one-shot problem; whereas making a point or producing an explanation (as I am doing myself here) calls for putting together a whole, intricate plan of action. In fact, Graeber and Wengrow very correctly and insightfully point out in their book "The Dawn of Everything" how conscious thought and reasoning can be seen and characterized as a mental exercise of arguing with or explaining something to someone else.

* The reasoning and planning process followed by a chess player can be conceived as the continuous elaboration of a plan to achieve victory in an argument against an opposing side.

For instance, it would be reasonable to conceive the mental processes followed by a chess player while playing a game, as conducting an argument against her opponent. As a matter of fact, viewed in this light, fascinatingly enough, we can get some clues on how the ability of reasoning and strategic planning may have originated, since a chess game is nothing but the simulation of a fight. Admittedly, most fights are limited to a rudimentary, brutish exchange of blows; but if, for example, you ambition to become the group's alpha male and your sheer life is on the line, you will be sure to put a whole lot of thought in how to go about the upcoming combat. 

As a matter of fact, the very same argument can be made for chess: The amount of effort put on the elaboration of a plan, is directly correlated to the relevance of the achievement of the target goal. Intellectuals past and present have always loved to elaborate on the wonders of human intelligence and all what set us apart from even the most evolved of all other animal species, (albeit, admittedly, no lesser is the passion with which we all listen to those words of praise). Undoubtedly, no other animal would be able to play chess, since they lack essential, distinctively human intellectual abilities, such as visualization, calculation, forwardd planning, abstract thought, etc.. 

* Yet, a chess player does not select the next movement based on an idea, that has magically popped up; but after exhaustively researching as many as possible promising combinations. 

It is certainly worth considering, how often, when playing chess, do we actually select our next move, based on something more than what our instinct says looks good? It is definitely not that we are not capable of thinking ahead a few movements; but we simply do not feel like making the effort. Indeed, it takes a whole lot of energies to explore and analyze in depth all possible combinations. Fact of the matter is our conscious thinking does typically not allow the unconscious levels of our brain enough time to exhaustively research the optimal answer to a given query. Yet, undeniably, the result will always be more accurate, if we make the effort. I guess we generally understand it is just not worth it, since, after all, it is just a silly chess game.

For some odd reason, the discussion is always restricted to what is strictly possible and what is strictly impossible. It would instead be more accurate to consider what is practical and what is not in each situation, or if any comparison is at all reasonable, since the circumstances are simply completely different. Namely, how on Earth is a monkey going to learn to play Chess, if, to begin with, we do not even share a common language, that a human can use to teach him? 

It is certainly a healthy idea to be always wary and distrustful of anybody, who starts singing the praises of humans' superior intelligence. Experience and History tell us there are powerful reasons to question, whether he is really thinking, that all humans are very intelligent, or what is actually going through his mind is rather a profound fascination with his very own superior intellect. In fact, it is rather unknown of anybody, who has exhibit any genuine belief in the remarkable intelligence of the unwashed masses. Of course, it is not difficult to see why the master of all orators, the illustrious Roman senator Cicero, was so fond of exalting the superiority of the Roman character. Clearly, it would only be foolish for me to suggest, that you should follow my guidance, because I am very intelligent. Instead, it would yield far better results, if I argue, that you and I are the only smart people around, and everybody else is just stupid.

* In order to simplify the elaboration of plans of action for the achievement of certain goals, those patterns that behave in significantly similar ways are grouped in a single concept. For instance, we will not develop separate concepts for male chicks and female chicks, so long we do not need to resolve any task, where male chicks and female chicks follow distinct patterns of behavior. 

  As a matter of fact, Chess is about the simplest task any animal could confront in its life. Indeed, in Nature there is no clear-cut definition for anything and the number of combinations is therefore literally infinite. In contrast, in chess the board is clearly divided in 64 distinct squares and each player has a total of 16 perfectly-defined pieces, in that, for instance, each of the eight pawns look exactly the same, and in turn strictly different from the knights, the bishops, the rooks, the queen and the king. These definitions amount to nothing less than a model of a far more complex reality (namely, a real life combat). As discussed before, the magnitude of the animal brain's feat, building such sort of model of the entire world around it, simply cannot be overstated: it is as prodigious as miraculous. Absolutely, every element in Nature is unique and only after some common pattern of behavior is found among a certain set of elements, it makes sense to the brain to group and form a meaningful concept out of them. 

For instance, every woman is unique and there are not any two women who are exactly the same. Yet, for a homosexual man wishing to find a lover, whatever differences may exist between women will never represent as much as a determent, as what he would feel towards another man. Now, in many other contexts, sex will not be an important factor, determining how we will interact with another human being. A colonial slave trader, for example, will discriminate people based on their race, and the slave's sex will generally not elicit that much consideration. In further contrast, a child's parents is the concept it will work with, when it comes to fulfilling its basic needs for love, protection and guidance. The perception of the environment allows our brain to collect information about everything that is out there. The analysis of this information yields cues on how to act in order to achieve our goals. It should not come to any surprise, that population codes of the kind that can be observed in the brain, are particularly well suited to represent all this information: When it comes to other humans, some neurons may code that person's estimated age, and some others may represent information about his or her occupation. When it comes to other animals, some neurons may code that animal's sex and some others may represent information about its degree of hostility against, or affability towards, humans. When it comes to inanimate objects or matter, some neurons may code that body's consistency and some others may represent information about its utility. As described earlier, all these neural selectivities would have developed (unconsciously) from experience gathered during previous interactions.

For instance, past experience should have made it clear, that visual information from the region occupied by the eyes, is very useful to the resolution of many tasks. Consequently, it is only to be expected that eventually some concept of the eyes will (somehow) form. Evidently, the appearance of the eyes bear more information than some random patch of skin. However, there are also some tasks, for which a close look to some specific patch of skin is very helpful. Indeed, a profusion of little lines in the skin next to the outer corner of the eyes is evidently a strong indication of a person's advanced age. Soon we will start refering to these short lines in the skin by the name of 'wrinkles'. If anything, the brain becomes 'aware' of the significance of those little lines next to the outer corner of the eyes: at a minimum, they hint what is the person's age. But, moreover, now that you comprehend the concept of 'wrinkles', you are in condition to understand my explanation on how to discern a fake smile.

Now,two stimuli may look very much alike; yet, if they function differently, they may represent different concepts. For instance, it is reasonable to wonder, if it should be at all possible to detect, when an old person fakes a smile. Indeed, if our trick to tell a genuine smile relies on the appearance of wrinkles next to the outer corner of the eyes; but older people always exhibit wrinkles next to the outer corner of the eyes anyway; then, whenever an old person smiles, we would always have to deduce, the or she did so genuinely. Or, perhaps, there are two different types of wrinkles on the outer corner of the eyes? Perhaps, the kind of wrinkles, that emerge when a person smiles are actually different from the wrinkles permanently visible on old folks? Perhaps, we should talk of "genuine smile wrinkles" and "old folks wrinkles"? I guess, at the end of the day, the question whether a smile is fake or not, is just not sufficiently relevant, that we would want to bother making such distinction, and start working with those two different concepts.  

In fact, matters will look much differently to an egg farmer: the success of his business depends critically on his ability to discriminate between male chicks and female chicks. Hence, he will be sure to figure out, what subtle details distinguish one from the other. Much to his displeasure, however, he will confront the mother of all problems in the field of Intelligence; namely, the credit assignment problem. Fustratingly enough, by the time the thing turns out to be a rooster, it would obviously be too late to analyze, what looked differently on him as a newborn chick, compared to his newborn sisters.