What is Consciousness?
Instead of describing consciousness from our experiences, or from trying to describe what processes might be involved, I suggest a slightly different approach.
Consciousness is that part of our mind that manages our mind as a whole to solve problems and to maximise our living benefit.
I won’t deepen this first attempt at a definition other than to point out that it is simple, it does not yet describe any internal workings of consciousness, it requires a better description of the rest of our mind, and that it does not yet explain anything like the full range of experiences available to us.
Core Consciousness
Some use the term ‘Core Consciousness’ to try and define that essential central part of consciousness that is essential to consciousness as a whole. This concept of a concentrated part of consciousness may help to simplify the study of consciousness as a whole and to locate those processes in the brain that host the essential experience of consciousness.
A Mind of Parts
As an alternative to the two-part traditional model of the human mind, it is also possible to define our mind as a collection of functional parts using a variety of approaches. For example, Freud suggested a Superego to include higher-motivations and Young talked of a Collective Unconscious which can be interpreted as adding archetypical cultural influences.
Elsewhere I describe a behavioural approach based on evolutionary principles that identifies five ‘Focuses of Mind’ covering social, cultural, creative, selfless, and logical-conscious processes. By defining ‘parts’ that support our consciousness, or can be considered available to consciousness, we can better describe consciousness as part of the complex behavioural structure that is created within our complex, structured, brain.
Does Intelligence Provide a Potential Solution?
We are, or can be, consciously aware of mental processing that feeds into our consciousness. We know that we reason, that we hold varied types of memory, that we learn, that we can understand many objects and concepts, that we can problem-solve, and that our thinking is adaptable. These mental qualities, when combined together, can be called general intelligence.
I suggest that we can usefully add ‘intelligence’ as an additional layer to our two-part traditional model of the mind. To represent high-functioning processing that directly supports our core consciousness.
I further suggest that intelligence can be considered as semi-consciousness. We can be conscious of the influences of intelligence on our core consciousness. We can concentrate our consciousness into our intelligent thinking both to generate further intelligent processing and to become more consciousness of that processing. Finally, we do not as yet have the ability to precisely define the limits of consciousness, whether physical (brain-based), theoretical, or experiential.
Intelligent Focuses
I use an approach to better define intelligence based on behavioural-evolution principles.
The Hemispheric Intelligence Mind Model is described more fully elsewhere.
The adoption of The H I Mind Model becomes easier to appreciate by re-drawing the mind model as follows:
In brief:
Semi-conscious focuses
The Social Focus provides knowledge and behavioural imperatives that support our abilities to live in family or tribal groups.
The Aspirational Focus provides us with creative abilities supporting play and resourcefulness.
The Cultural Focus provides knowledge and behavioural imperatives that support our abilities to live in large groups and develop learning and languages that are characteristic of human beings.
The Noble Focus provides us with creative abilities supporting selfless motivations and wisdoms necessary for cultural development and resilience.
Core-conscious focus
The Planning Focus contains core consciousness and provides for problem-solving and management of the other focuses of intelligence.
This approach is useful because it provides structure, based on behavioural capabilities, and it helps to define the broad nature of consciousness as well as core consciousness.
Tentative Definitions
Consciousness
Instead of describing consciousness from our experiences, or from trying to describe what processes might be involved, I suggest a slightly different approach.
For example, consciousness described from a functional point of view could be defined initially as:
Consciousness is that aspect of our mind that manages our mind as a whole to solve problems and produces behaviours that attempt to maximise our living benefit.
I won’t deepen this first attempt at a definition other than to point out that it is a simple definition, it does not yet describe any internal workings of consciousness, it requires a better description of the rest of our mind, and that it does not yet explain anything like the full range of experiences available to us.
But, these outstanding points can now be addressed.
Subconscious
This is the part of our mind which is purely automatic and not directly available to our conscious processes. I tend to use the term Subconscious, though some prefer the term Nonconscious. Our Subconscious can be described as that part of our mind that processes raw sensory data into forms that can be used by the basic Focuses of mind and the Core Consciousness. The Subconscious can be regarded as complex but basically automatic. It handles non-conscious processes such as habits, routines, some forms of memory (perhaps all other than Working Memory), interactions with our body, compulsions, and basic emotions.
Core Consciousness
The tentative definition of consciousness given above is focused on a simpler and smaller part of our mind than the traditional approach of trying to describe the full set of consciousness experiences and capabilities through a single functional model.
I suggest that consciousness can be described as a whole-brain quality, where different conscious activities can show as activity in different parts of the brain. It may be that while we concentrate on a social situation the rear of our left hemisphere will become active while it may be the left fore-brain that becomes active while we study academically. The right rear brain might become more active during creative activities whilst the right fore-brain might become more important whilst meditating on World issues.
However, this does not mean that the whole brain is involved in the essential production of conscious awareness and high-level conscious thinking. Conceptually I suggest that we can define the essential centre of the process of consciousness that would show up as brain activity whatever we are thinking about. I call this our Core Consciousness, which is a term that is widely used though still not precisely defined. In experiential terms it is perhaps easier to understand as that place where our conscious thinking happens and where our conscious self-awareness is most fully active.
Later, and elsewhere, I will further refine this essential part of consciousness as Hemispheric Consciousness, implying the possible importance of the central part of the brain joining the two major brain hemispheres in order to better understand our varied experiences of conscious activity.
Intelligent Focuses
From evolutionary principles we can deduce that our mind must contain characteristics that enable us to survive well. Simplistically this means getting on with the family that we are born into, being able to learn how to survive with that family, being able to grow to adulthood amongst a population of individuals beyond our family, and being able to make sense of our life in general in order to not just survive but to have the chance to prosper.
Working from these simplistic steps, we can conceive of parts of the mind, which I call Focuses, provide us with general intelligence as well as social, cultural, creative, and selfless motivations. The focuses, which may be based in the neocortex of the human brain, are at best semi-conscious. We can define internal characteristics associated with each of these focuses.
The exploration of focuses and their characteristics, including possible relationships to the brain, is described in The H I Mind Model which is described more deeply elsewhere, though I shall include a few example characteristics shortly.
The title “H I Mind Model” stands for Hemispheric Intelligence Mind Model. Hemispheric Intelligence refers to the fundamental structure of the human brain that hosts consciousness and intelligence. The brain is split between left and right and, functionally at least to some degree, between fore, mid, and hind brain. The characteristics described in the H I Mind Model can tentatively be mapped to the human Neocortex (intelligence, as described in the Thousand Brains Theory) and the hemispheres (Hemispheric Theories).