1To ken and to wit

I have to talk about this because I will define "conscious" in terms of "ken".

In the rest of this document, when I use "know", I usually mean "ken" only and not to mean "wit".

German has "kennen" and "wissen". English has "ken" and "wit".

To ken something is to have experienced something.

To wit something is to remember or infer something.

"I know that water is H2O" means "I trust the book that says water is H2O".

"I know how beef tastes" means "I have experienced the taste of beef, and I believe that all beef tastes that way".

"I don't know what 2 times 1234567 is" means "I know how to compute the result but I don't bother to".

"I don't know whether the Riemann hypothesis is true" means I don't know.

"I know the Pythagorean theorem"

"I know a proof of the Pythagorean theorem"

"I know a person who can do that"

In all cases, knowledge implies memory.

2Consciousness is the ability to ken

Consciousness is the ability to ken, that is, to experience, but not necessarily to wit.

On the etymology of the word "conscious", Wiktionary1 says that it comes from Latin "con-" (together) and "scire" (to know).

Something is conscious iff it can know.

But that is trivial: If it knows, then it can know. I think we take it for granted as an axiom in alethic modal logic: If X is true, then X is possible.

Therefore, we are interested is whether something can know, not whether something knows.

While I'm sleeping, I'm unconscious (I have low consciousness), because I can only know very little while I'm sleeping.

I have more consciousness when I'm awake than when I'm asleep, because I can know more when I'm awake than when I'm asleep. But is that true? What if I can know in my sleep, but I just don't remember it?

Why are we so sure that a rock doesn't know anything?

3On separating the double meaning of "consciousness"

Confusingly, we use the word "consciousness" for the subjective experience itself, besides for the ability to have such subjective experience.

We need two words for those two senses. What are good words?

We use the word "quale" ("qualia") for subjective experience.

We use "consciousness" for the ability to have qualia.

"X can Y" is true iff there is something X can do to make "X does Y" true.

"X can Y by Z" is true iff X's doing Z makes "X does Y" true.

"X can Y" is true iff there exists Z such that "X can Y by Z" is true.

Example: Power is the ability to unleash harm, but is not harm itself. Indeed, when you unleash harm, your power is temporarily reduced, because you have to recharge your power for unleashing the next harm.

That makes me think.

A conscious being can unleash quale, in the same way a powerful being can unleash harm.

A conscious being can experience, in the same way a powerful being can harm.

How do we increase power? By weapons (harm multipliers), increasing our physical strength, and so on.

How do we increase consciousness? What are the consciousness multipliers? Meditation?

4Consciousness and epistemology

In Kantian parlance, perhaps consciousness is the ability to have synthetic a-posteriori knowledge.

Defining consciousness as "the ability to know" raises two questions: What does it mean to know something? What does it mean to be able to do something? Those questions are the questions that epistemology aims to answer. Thus defining consciousness requires epistemology.

5Hypothesis: Consciousness requires sense, memory, and feedback.

This hypothesis assumes materialism. This will be false if it turns out that consciousness is fundamental in Nature.

  • Imagine something.
  • Imagine that you are imagining something.
  • Imagine that the imagined you are in turn imagining something else. Is this even possible?
  • To manipulate your consciousness, you must consciously intend to manipulate your consciousness. Can you consciously manipulate your consciousness?
  • Consciousness needs sensory input.
  • Consciousness needs feedback.
  • Self concept needs feedback.
  • If there is not a feedback, a system cannot distinguish itself from its environment. The self concept will never arise.
  • If a brain can immediately control a thing, then that thing is part of the brain's self concept. If the brain can't, it's not.
  • If a brain often gets certain input shortly after it produces certain output, it will associate the output with its self concept.
  • The self is the thing under conscious control.
  • It seems that:
    • Consciousness requires sense.
    • Consciousness requires memory.
    • Consciousness requires feedback.
  • It seems that consciousness is (itself, or is caused by?) the feedback of information from the immediate past.

5.1Memory is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness.

  • If I don't have memory, I can't bunch my past self and my present self into the same identity.

5.2Identity?

  • Cutting off the legs of a person does not change the identity of that person. All of his memories are intact. Veterans who lost their legs in war retains their pre-war memories.
  • Some brain damage changes the identity of the person.

5.3Prerequisites of consciousness?

  • His brain.
  • His mind / thought / soul / spirit.
  • His behavior. (His externally visible behavior.)
  • His memory.
  • His identity.

The questions:

  • Which can exist without which?
  • Which requires which? Which suffices which? Which is necessary but not sufficient for which? Which is sufficient for which?

https://www.quora.com/How-does-consciousness-arise-from-an-electrochemical-system-like-the-human-brain-What-is-the-expectation-that-artificial-intelligence-will-achieve-consciousness

https://www.iflscience.com/brain/long-term-memories-may-not-be-stored-synapses-afterall/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/consciousness-does-not-reside-here/

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/210/4475/1232

What we know: Altering the brain alters the behavior of the body that contains the brain. Machine analog: Physically altering the machine without altering the software alters the output of the machine. Example: Firing electrons at a transistor.

6Brain? Biology? Materialism?

7Knowledge

This chapter discusses knowledge, epistemology, and consciousness.

7.1Properties/behaviors of knowledge, propagation

We don't know what "knowledge" is. But, for this section, assume that we know.

We think we can share or transfer some knowledge.

We can transfer some knowledge by simulation. Simulator-trained pilots know how to fly planes: If they can fly the planes in the simulator, they can fly the planes in reality.

We can transfer some knowledge by teaching. School teachers transfer knowledge to their students.

Language enables some knowledge transfer.

We don't know how to transfer other knowledge. The taste of salt. The hue of green.

Perhaps someday technology will enable transferring all knowledge.

7.2Knowledge, software, copy, and move

We can copy knowledge, but not move knowledge. This is similar to software: it can be copied but not moved. By move I mean: when you move your car from place A to place B, the car is now at B, and is no longer at A. But we don't move software from hardware A to hardware B; we copy it from A to B, and then delete the copy at A. The same with knowledge: We don't move it from person A to person B; we copy it; we spread it; and we don't know how to delete knowledge from a person.

Books are not knowledge. Books contain text, not knowledge. Destroying a book is like destroying a computer disk that contains a program.

7.3<2018-11-05> Attention is the direction of consciousness?

7.4TODO What is knowledge?

7.4.1Plato JTB theory: Knowledge is Justified True Belief.

Gettier problem / epistemic luck? Can we believe something right for the wrong reason?

Justifying justifications?

7.4.2How do we know? Ways of obtaining and justifying knowledge

  • Through our senses.
  • By logic?
  • By divine revelation?
  • Telepathy?
  • Mind upload?

7.4.3TODO What does it mean to know something?

Example sentences:

  • "I know the taste of salt."
  • "I know you did it."
  • "We know that the decimal expansion of pi begins with 3.141659…"
    • We know that pi is an irrational number.
    • We know that the decimal expansion of an irrational number doesn't end.
    • We know that we will never know all digits of pi.
    • But we know how to compute each digit of pi.
  • "I know John."
  • "John knows a lot about philosophy."
  • "I know where you hide the money."
  • "I know how to boil eggs."
  • "I don't know how eggs boil."
  • "I didn't know you were there."
  • "I didn't know you could do that." (Now I know.)
  • "I used to know his phone number." (I no longer know.)

Reading queue:

  1. Language issues

    1. If we place a blind between a camera and a person, does the camera become unaware of the person?

7.4.4TODO Knowledge justification dilemma

Knowledge without justification is "dumb luck": https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/384314/is-there-a-word-for-an-unjustified-true-belief

Thus, a true belief isn't always a knowledge.

Knowledge with justification suffers the Gettier problem.

7.4.5TODO What is the difference between knowledge and belief?

  1. Knowledge is a subset of belief?

    Every knowledge is a belief. There are beliefs that are not knowledge.

    My knowledge of the taste of salt is a belief.

    Language is not necessary for belief. For example, I can falsely believe that I have a shirt with this color that I can see in my mind but I can't describe to you.

  2. Wrong: Knowledge is belief that agrees with reality.

    "We know S" means "we believe S, and S is true".

    When we say "S is true", we mean that S is true in objective reality.

  3. Belief is not binary

    "If an acquaintance suddenly contacts you after a long time of silence, he is trying to sell you insurance."

    "If the cloud looks gray, it's going to rain."

  4. Distinguishing the absence of belief and the belief of absence

    There is a difference between "S does not believe P" and "S believes that P is false".

  5. Beliefs that go against reality

    False negative: S is true but I believe that S is false.

    False positive: S is false but I believe that S is true.

  6. Unread

  7. Beliefs about conditionals and probabilities

    Example belief: Car crashes kill drivers.

7.4.6TODO We can imagine some things we have never experienced.

7.4.7TODO Can we imagine a color we have never seen?

7.4.8TODO What do we believe about our imagination?

7.4.9Knowledge argument, Mary's room: Argument against physicalism

  1. <2019-10-27> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/conscious↩