QUESTION: When does Consciousness begin?

[Brown]

If consciousness starts at birth, then we have a problem. Memory seems to begin earlier. Or is consciousness or the type of reactive/passive experience I inferred as subconscious not essential for memory? I believe it is. One has to experience to recall.

http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/hepper1/

[A Dark Philosopher]

If consciousness starts at birth, then we have a problem. Memory seems to begin earlier.

I agree, so it's probably fortunate that I've not suggested consciousness does start at birth, if your definition of birth is that socially agreed moment of location transition from internal womb of Mother to external environment. However, as "birth" literally defines as "the time when something begins (especially Life)", suggestion that consciousness and birth are symbiotic is further problematic as not only does my original question still stand: "When does Consciousness begin?" but we also have an addendum question: "When is birth?". When does the fertilised egg/fetus/in-utero child/newborn infant actually have Life? Which, as the Pro-Life/Abortionist argument continually shows is NOT an easy question to answer. Indeed if one believes that Life begins at conception then perhaps the statement "Consciousness starts at birth" has a very different meaning.

But that just addresses the opening part of your comment, Brown. The Memory part is even more interesting.......................

Or is consciousness or the type of reactive/passive experience I inferred as subconscious not essential for memory? I believe it is. One has to experience to recall.
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/hepper1/

Important question: Memory of what?
Memory of self; of connectivity; of others; of past lives; of future life; of experience; of thought; of what?
Is memory subjective? I think certainly within the illusory confines of our Subjective Consciousness it is indeed largely memory of self but certainly not exclusively. Now, as psychologists usually concur that the sense of self in an infant doesn't develop until approximately age 3yrs this begs the question, what memory would the subjective consciousness experience prior to this age, and right back to being in utero: Largely environmental with some experiential elements I would expect, but also with no sense of self, potentially more of a connection to the one-ness of consciousness and universal memory of Akasha, which makes things very interesting!

“Or is consciousness or the type of reactive/passive experience I inferred as subconscious not essential for memory?”
Does something need consciousness to have a reactive/passive experience? Again, this is where your use of ‘subconscious’ to define such a state has problems, for it begs the question “SUB to what?”, which logically leads to the answer of SUB to Consciousness, but as the premise is that your ‘subconscious’ evolves prior to the consciousness itself then one leaves oneself in a philosophical cul-de-sac with that one!

If we look at my plant in the darkened room analogy from earlier in this discussion, with the introduction of a large, bright, heat lamp the plant is reactive to the heat and light. Is the plant ‘conscious’? Does the plant have ‘memory’? Subjective memory, one would suggest not, but ‘memory’ from what David Bohm termed ‘in-formation’ then quite possibly: The plant is sentient to a degree, being receptive to sensory input by growing towards the heat and light.

So is consciousness essential for memory? If by memory one means the subjective kind then yes, for in order to have a subjective memory one much has sense of self upon which to be subjective about! If by memory one means Bohm’s ‘in-formation’ then possibly not.

[Brown]

[*]

I agree, so it's probably fortunate that I've not suggested consciousness does start at birth, if your definition of birth is that socially agreed moment of location transition from internal womb of Mother to external environment.

I was referring to the article, not to your reply. There are a few articles on infant memory I want to track down. If only I can recall the keywords...

[A Dark Philosopher]

Brown: If you can get hold of Christof Koch's book then I recommend you do so, his work with Francis Crick suggesting that neurons in the visual cortex projecting to prefrontal areas is now amongst the leading candidates for an explanation of consciousness, and his 40-Hz oscillations in the cerebral cortex may well eventually provide experiential evidence for the identity of the neural correlates of consciousness. Koch has also made some excellent contributions to Stuart Hameroff's "Towards a Science of Consciousness" Tucson Conferences. But that's all getting a bit deep!

[Anthony Peake]

As I am rather bogged down in writing example chapters for my next three books (my Literary Agent wishes to have something to take with her to the Frankfurt Book Fair in mid October) my time is really in demand. However I am still checking in on the FORUM here and this particular post has to be one of the best in a long time. The level of discussion and debate is exactly why I set this FORUM up. I wish it to be the place that people will come to have intellectual fireworks go off in their head, a place on the web where deep-level ideas can be found.

Thanks guys, I am very impressed.

[rafromca]

Karl and all:

I have been reading your lovely posts and have resisted posting as I really didn't feel competent to answer the question. I have done a lot of thinking and reading on this subject, and just came across this in Dossey's "The Power of Premonition":

"We don't know who first discovered water, but we can be sure that it wasn't fish". The old saw reminds us. Continual exposure to something reduces our awareness of its presence. Over time, we become blind to the obvious. We swim in a sea of consciousness, like a fish swims in water.

I thought this captured the dilemma very well.

[Anthony Peake]

Hi Ruth,

Glad to see that Dr. Dossey is being acknowledged on here. We have swopped a couple of emails and I am hoping to entice him over to join in with us here.

Cheers

Tony

[A Dark Philosopher]

As I am rather bogged down in writing example chapters for my next three books (my Literary Agent wishes to have something to take with her to the Frankfurt Book Fair in mid October) my time is really in demand. However I am still checking in on the FORUM here and this particular post has to be one of the best in a long time. The level of discussion and debate is exactly why I set this FORUM up. I wish it to be the place that people will come to have intellectual fireworks go off in their head, a place on the web where deep-level ideas can be found.
Thanks guys, I am very impressed.

I totally agree mate. Each and every contribution to this thread has been valuable and has added its own angle to the basic question. Alongside this, the further comments I've received on email and through twitter have been extremely complimentary and in agreement with your synopsis.

This is indeed what FORUM should be about and those who have contributed here have proven they have the interest to support our efforts to keep the theories evolving.

[A Dark Philosopher]

Karl and all:

I have been reading your lovely posts and have resisted posting as I really didn't feel competent to answer the question. I have done a lot of thinking and reading on this subject, and just came across this in Dossey's "The Power of Premonition":

"We don't know who first discovered water, but we can be sure that it wasn't fish". The old saw reminds us. Continual exposure to something reduces our awareness of its presence. Over time, we become blind to the obvious. We swim in a sea of consciousness, like a fish swims in water.

I thought this captured the dilemma very well.

Absolutely beautiful Ruth! I totally agree regarding Larry Dossey and equally totally disagree regarding you not being "competent to answer the question". In my eyes, if you are conscious then you are compenent to answer a question on consciousness. This is largely why I asked the question as openly as I did, to encourage input from the widest range, from layperson to scientist, philosopher to bloke in the pub! Indeed you, Ruth, can offer perspectives on this subject that others cannot and it helps me in my work, and subsequently Tony, in our combined work, when those with a genuine interest in where we can take these theories offer their assistance in threads like these. So, thank you.

Now, Larry Dossey! Some of his work, especially towards intercessory prayer and his paper "Scientific and pastoral perspectives on intercessory prayer: an exchange between Larry Dossey, M. D. and health care chaplains", is terrific reading if you apply my CtCw and especially what I term The Transpersonal Coherence of Collapsing the Consciousness wave (about which I shall write more in the coming weeks and months as it unfolds in the TV Interview, Radio Interviews and London Weekend Consciousness Workshop that Tony and I are embarking upon.)

And finally, your Dossey quote reminded me of my Bucket and Sea Analogy and also the famous quote of Albert Einstein:

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
(which of course, I only partly agree with)

[Brown]

A nice big paper on infant amnesia and memory.

http://psy.otago.ac.nz/pdfs/HayneDevRev%20(2004).pdf

I think there is a further oddity to be explored, namely that information can be reclaimed from leaving an audio recording through a persons sleep. This would be a subconscious memory.

Going back to the initial question, there is a glib/inspired answer from a block universe perspective. If consciousness can be imagined as an area under a beam of light, the edges will have less of a focus and less of a full interaction with the beam itself, making the starting point fuzzy and arguable also. The biggest problem I find with this question is precisely what is consciousness to begin with? We only know it as an experienced state of being and as an effect in the Copenhagen interpretation. I find the concept of an illusory consciousness a contradiction in terms ("you only think you're in pain") before I play with quantum physics. Treating the problem as a kind of algebra question gets me nowhere.

I tend to think of the grey matter as a grey area too. I wonder if human brain size is more to do with our extreme motor control than with direct cognitive abilities, which I would favour as a result of brain arrangement than scale.