The meaning of consciousness: we are conscious of something, if we can express it with words - Part II

From all of our brain's wisdom and knowledge, we are only conscious of the knowledge, that is coded in natural language.

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.

* Of all our knowledge and wisdom, our conscious knowledge is only the small part, which we are able to spell out with words.

contrary to what it intuitively seems, our knowledge about the world is not hosted by any single, central brain area, but it is spread all over the brain. Furthermore, importantly enough, only a fraction of this information is accessible to our consciousness and, therefore, constitutes the knowledge 'we' are actually aware of. Indeed, I have no doubt that you do not struggle the tiniest bit telling between a man's face and a woman's face. Yet, if you were to meet an extraterrestrial alien, who understands your language, but has never come across a human face, would you be able to write down a set of rules, that it could use to solve such task all by itself? While I would not be totally surprise if you can, I am far more sceptical, that you would be able to produce a similar written explanation on how to go about telling between a woman's voice and a man's voice. Certainly, we so effortlessly sort these tasks all the time, that one would think it should be easy to come up with such a set of written rules. In fact, it is very likely that we do not even ever learn them, but they are already wired up in our brains, when we are born. Yet, precisely because these tasks are performed unconsciously out of our intuition, and, therefore, our reason does not have access to such information, we find ourselves incapable of spelling out, what is the logic we follow. As a matter of fact, if we find it more difficult to explain how to solve a task by means of auditory information, it is because the visual modality is so predominant in the primate brain, and our reason thus only very rarely employs auditory information to perform any task. Consequently, the great majority of the concepts formed in our mind are defined from visual information, whereas only a few are defined from auditory information. Interestingly, we can start glimpsing, why - as we all have always intuitively felt - there is such a tight connection between consciousness and language.

* Our reasoning ability is not the crest of our intellect. In fact, we do not consciously carry out those many fundamental tasks, for which we are not able to write down an explanation, that anybody could use to resolve them. Yet, crucially, it is most definitely true, that our (reason's) ability to spell out with words a certain piece of knowledge is utterly powerful, since then it becomes possible to transmit such information to other people.

To make the point even clearer, let us consider the question of discerning a fake smile. Probably, we all have some intuition to tell, whether a person's smile on a photograph is genuine or (as it is most often the case) is just fake. However, unless one has conscientiously and methodically study the problem for quite some time, it is rather unlikely anyone would be able to provide an answer with any degree of certainty. Now, as a matter of fact, when I was in graduate school, I had a postdoc friend, who had precisely researched that exact question. He explained that it is possible to distinguish a genuine smile from the wrinkles that appear next to the outer corners of the eyes. Well, if you now come out saying, that you actually already knew it, you will definitely kill me here; but, assuming that you did not, now it got added to, and has become part of, your 'consciousness-accessible- knowledge base. Thus, the nnext time you are confronted with such a scenario, you will be aware, you will know an appropriate course of action to go about it. Moreover, if by any chance you are so inclined, you could now also go to your friends to boast about your knew knowledge and give them a dissertation on how it is possible to figure out, if someone's smile is fake. Yes, it all comes to show, there is a tight connection between consciousness and language.

 

Now, here it is of great importance to debunk a very-deeply rooted incorrect assumption; namely, it is not reasonable to argue, that someone is more stupid, just because he or she is not able to spell out, how to go about discerning a man's face from a woman's face, a man's voice from a woman's voice, or a fake smile from a genuine smile. Clearly, what matters is that you know how to solve a problem, not that you are able to spell out how you do it. Undoubtedly, if you can explain the reasons for your choices, nobody could reasonably argue you only randomly stumble upon the right solution, but you knew full well all what you needed to do in order to achieve your goal. However, if you are able to spell out your reasoning, it means it is possible to express in words the knowledge you employed. It is then far more doubtful that you actually ever figured out such knowledge by yourself; but, in all likelihood you acquired it from someone else. Or perhaps you are ready to allege you have power in your home, because you found out about electricity on your own? Now, if someone else taught it to you, then, on what basis could you reasonably argue your profound knowledge is proof of your superior intelligence?       

* The myth of Reason: Why are there left-handed folks and right-handed folks, and how there can be reasons for choices without any previous reasoning, or how prodigiously intelligent "choices" are possible in the absence of any reasoning. Long story short, the "intellegence" of an action or conduct is determined by the degree to which the system becomes fitter and so more likely to prevail.

 

In order to further illustrate the previous, really crucial point - how our ability to spell out the reasons for our choices - is not a reliable indication of someone's intelligence, we may want to consider why there are left-handed folks and right-handed folks. As a matter of fact, if there is a distinctive feature that sets the human brain apart from all other animals', this is the asymmetry of our brains. Now, since our neurons will never be able to produce an explanation as of what were the actual reasons why such design was "chosen", we will never get a clear and definite answer to the question; but we can certainly identify a reason why it is advantageous to be more dexterous on one side than the other. In order to understand the "rationale" it is important to take into account that information in the brain is generally maintained closest to where it is used. Thus, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory or heptic memories are not kept in any central location, but in the respective brain areas where such specific type of information is processed. The same principle applies to motor programs: namely, the code on how to execute an action with the left hand is placed in the brain area controling the left hand, and viceversa for the right hand. For example, if we always use the left hand to unlock a door with a tricky lock, we will find that - even if we are generally right-handed - we will struggle significantly more, we will not be as dexterous, should we ever try to unlock the door with the right hand. Basically, when we use the left hand, our conscious thought will only need to issue the command to execute the appropriate motor program learned by the left-hand brain area. In contrast, if we ever try to use our right hand, since it never had the chance to learn the exact gesture the damn lock requires, such specific motor program will not exist in the right-hand brain area, and our conscious thought will have to exercise a more direct control on the movements of the right hand's fingers and wrist. Now, since there are many actions that are generally performed with a single hand, it would evidently be a waste of neural resources to maintain two copies of the same motor program: one for the left hand and another for the right hand. It is instead a far more efficient design to just always use the same hand for these kind of single-hand gestures. so that the neural resources that are freed on the other side can be dedicated to code some other skill. The downside is that you now lose the freedom to choose with what hand you want to carry out a single-hand action, but why would you want to be able to unlock a door with either one of the two hands?; would you not prefer to acquire a brand new skill instead?: say increase your vocabulary or enhance your navigation skills? 

Yes, the design just could not be more brilliant. If for only one thing, while a brand new skill represents an obvious evolutionary edge, it is far more doubtful that the freedom and ability to perform single-hand actions with either one of the two hands would put you ahead of the competition for survival. Therefore, given that genetic algorithms, of the kind of Evolution's 'survival of the fittest', are guaranteed to converge into the global optimum if sufficient time is allowed, it would be possible to say with mathematical certainty that, if given sufficient time, Homo Erectus were going to evolve the sort of brain asymmetry we observe in, and is such a distinguishing feature of, the human species. Indeed, once Homo Erectus started to walk upright and their hands became free to carry out a whole new universe of actions, - unless they would go first extinct for some other reason - it was a matter of time until their brains would evolve some asymmetry. Clearly, those individuals, who always employed the same hand to perform single-hand actions, used their brain's neural resources more efficiently, and were, therefore, able to develop a greater set of intellectual skills than those other individuals, who continued alternating which hand they would execute their single-hand actions with. Consequently, unless some other factor would tilt the scales against them in some other way, 'asymmetric brain' Homo Erectus were going to little by little drive their less talented 'symmetric brain' rivals into extinction.        

Now, it will always be possible to argue that the actual reasons why the human brain grew asymmetric were different, and, in fact, intervened before the evolutionary process described in the previous paragraph could play out. However, that would still not change in any way the fact that Evolution alone would have sufficed to do the trick by itself. After all, until DNAs or neurons develop some sort of mechanism, whereby they could spell out the motives behind their "choices", there will be no way we will be able to know with any certainty, what were the actual, exact reasons why things turned out the way they did.

Yet, far more important than the philosophical debate on what were the actual, exact reasons why there are left-handed folks and right-handed folks is the observation that some prodigiously "intelligent" developments can occur without the intervention of any agent. Indeed, even if we would want to think Evolution is the product of an intelligent agent, the exact same outcome would evidently still result (without any agent's intervention) from a genetic algorithm of the kind of 'survival of the fittest'. This is a more descriptive way of saying that there may be reasons without reasoning, or, if you prefer, there can be prodigiously intelligent behaviors without reasoning. Long story short, the "intellegence" of an action or conduct is determined by the degree to which the system becomes fitter and so more likely to prevail.

We immensely value the ability to spell out the reasons for an idea, since that will make us look really smart, and we evolved the very deep association, whereby folks will do as we say, if we manage to be perceived as more intelligent. However, let us be rational, an idea should be valued in its own terms, not by how it was attained. What matters is to what extent it is effective at bringing you closer to your objectives. If you know of a method, whereby you are able to systematically resolve a task; whether you stumbled upon said method or are aware of the rationale behind it, is something that actually will not reliably say much about your intelligence. For instance, if you can consistently accurately tell a fake smile from a sincere smile, whether you can spell out how you do it is not at all a reliable indication of your superior intellect. To begin with, the so very much valued skill to reason a course of action to go from Point A to Point B is actually not at all such a formidable feat. Probably because we believe they set as apart from all other animals, all those intellectual skills we associate to our "reason" are generally considered the most prodigious of all. In contrast we give very little credit to the resolution of all those other tasks that we effortlessly perform without our reason's intervention. After all, any other animal would be able to instinctively resolve then as skillfully, if not even more: whereas "reason", my friend, that is something that only you and I can do it... However, any artificial intelligence specialist will tell you, that, while it does not require any magical formula to program a computer to reproduce some basic reasoning skills, it is far more involve to solve those ordinary tasks that we unconsciously execute without ever breaking a sweat. In fact, tellingly enough, in the early days of artificial intelligence, the discipline achieved its first successes in the domain of game theory, where, for example, computers soon became better at Chess than human beings. In contrast, artificial intelligence is still struggling at figuring out such ordinary, real-world problems as maintaining balance while riding a bicycle, recognizing a person's identity from an image of his or her face, distinguishing a fake smile from a sincere smile, etc.. Now, if this first argument is not convincing enough, given that in the immense majority of the cases we learn from other folks the rational behind the solution to problems, it is worth considering who deserves more credit: someone who eventually run into the answer to a question after exhaustively exploring all possibilities, or the guy who learned the trick from some other folk? 

Furthermore, just because one alleges some reasons for something, it does not mean that the argument is actually correct. For instance, previously, I made a case about why there are left-handed folks and right-handed folks; but I am sure many people will not agree with my reasoning. Indeed, to the degree that it generally comes from someone else, this consciousness-accessible knowledge that can be expressed in words is very often not as reliable as we usually believe. As a matter of fact, the trick I just taught you - on how to tell a fake smile from a genuine smile - may actually be incorrect; I may have even lied to you! As a matter of fact, it has always generally been the case, that when someone found out something, he made sure to keep it for himself, so that he could extract the greatest benefit from the new finding. On the other hand, religions are one of a million other examples, showing how obtaining recognition and the authority and sway that come with it, is usually the real motivation behind humans' selective eagerness to explain stuff to others. THe good news, however, are that, since often you will intuitively know how to address the issue, if I lied to you or my theory is simply incorrect, you will intuitively be able to realize my misguidance (unless you choose to lie to yourself and fall for it, that is).   

Now, regardless of whether my theory is correct and constitutes genuine knowledge or it is only a hoax, there is no denial that the ability to spread the information all over, is extremely powerful. It may not denote someones intelligence but, undoubtedly, the feature bestows a mighty evolutionary edge.

* Our conscious knowledge is where we code in natural language, everything we have learned about the world, that we are able to spell out with words.

As a matter of fact, it seems reasonable to think of this consciousness-accessible knowledge base as the individual's current scientific state of the art, since it likewise represents the individual's most established beliefs on how all significant things work. Yet, it is here important to keep in mind, that, in the same way that, as a general rule, scientific theories are eventually proven wrong, the ideas, which make up our conscious knowledge may likewise be misguided.

In any case, the key consideration to take away is that our 'consciousness-accessible- knowledge base is not more than a supplemental layer of functionality on top of all the knowledge already kept in the unconscious areas of our brain, as part of our intuition. Crucially, however, contrary to our deeply rooted beliefs, 'top' is not intended here to mean the crest, jewel in the crown or most sublime expression of our prodigious human intellect; but it only refers to the fact, that it builds up from the information held in the unconscious layers.

  

For instance, whenever we spot a human face, in order to properly interact with that individual, one of the first pieces of information our brain will want to find out is that person's gender. Now, your brain has resolved such a question so many times that you will surely be better of following your instinct, than reasoning it out according to some obscure theory you may have developed on your own or somebody may have taught you. On the other hand, discerning a fake smile is not such an useful task, that our brain needs to carry out all the time. Thus, since it does not have that much practice on it, it may be a good idea to (consciously) follow some trick, like the one I offered above. Now, when it comes to solving a system of differential equations, there is no way around it, there is no way you can do it intuitively; but it will be necessary to reason it out. Yet, conversely, nobody would go about resolving differential equations, in order to maintain balance while riding a bicycle. It is not just that it would be impractical; but, as the current state of the art in robotics show, in all likelihood, the model our unconscious levels has learned, is more accurate than whatever mathematical model of equations we may have come up with.