This was very strange for me to read. I don’t think I can quite imagine what it must be like to not be conscious all the time (though I tried).
Let me explain why, and how I experience ‘being conscious’.
For me, being conscious and aware of myself, the world aroung me and what I am thinking or feeling is always ON. Being tired or exhausted may narrow this awareness down, but not collapse it. Of course, I don’t remember every single thought I have over the day, but asking wether I’m “conscious right now” is pointless, because I always am. Asking that question feels just like every other thought that I deliberately think: a sentence appearing in my awareness-of-the-moment, that I can understand and manipulate.
I’m also almost always aware of my own awareness, and aware of my awareness of my own awareness. This is useful, because it gives me a three-layered approach to how I experience the world: on one level, I simply take in what I see, feel, hear, think etc., while (slightly time-delayed) on another level I analyze the contents of my awareness, while on a third level I keep track of the level my awareness is at. For example, if I’m in a conversation with another person, there is usually only one-to-two levels going on; if I’m very focused on a task, only one level; but most of the time, all three levels are ‘active’.
The third level also gives me a perspective of how ‘involved’ I get over the day. Whenever I pop out of being immersed in one-to-two level situations, I immediately notice how long I was ‘in’, and wether it served the goal I was following at the time or if I lost track of what I was doing.
Over the years I learned to use my consciousness with more deliberation: I can mark certain thoughts I want to contemplate later; I have the habit of periodically checking wether there is anything in my ‘to think about’ box; I can construct several levels of meta-structure that I can pop in- and out of as I complete tasks; I can prompt my subconscious to translate intuitions into more concrete models for my contemplation, while I think on other things; …
On summaries of thought:
Moments of introspective awareness are summaries of the system’s previous mental activity, with there being a dedicated subagent with the task of preparing and outputting such summaries. Usually it will only focus on tracking the specific kinds of mental states which seem important to track.
I use this summary function in order to remember the gist of my detailed thoughts over the day. When the theme of my thought changes, I stick a sort of ‘this was mostly what I thought about’ badge on my memories of that time. Depending on how important the memories or the subject are to me, I make an effort to commit more or less details of my conscious experience to memory. If it is more feelings-related or intuitive thinking, I deliberately request of my unconscious (in the post: subagents) a summary of feelings to remember, or an intuitive-thingy I may remember it by. This works surprisingly well for later recollection of intuitive thoughts, meaning thoughts that aren’t quite ready yet for structured contemplation.
There are other functions, but those are the ones I use most frequently.
I would be curious to hear what you thinking of this. By the way, I am greatly enjoying this series. Especially the modelling with robots helps to recognize ideas and think of them in a different perspective.
Huh! That’s very interesting. Has your mind always been like that? As I’ll discuss further in the next post, there are meditation techniques which are intended to get people closer to that level of introspective awareness, but I don’t know whether anyone has reached the kind of a level that you’re describing through practice.
I’m curious—to what extent do you experience things like putting off things which you feel you should do now, or doing things which you know that you’ll regret later (like staying up too late)? (My prediction would be that you basically don’t.)
No, it developed over the years. Honestly it just feels normal for me. I like being in control of my mind, so everything I do is somehow related to that. What I described in the previous comment is a somewhat idealized description. When I was younger, I used to experience consciousness as a stream-of-thought. I had much less control. Here are a few examples:
• I used to be annoyed at myself for forgetting important thoughts, so I got into the habit of writing them down (which now I no longer need all that much).
• At age 11, I began developing stories in my mind every evening until sleep. This eventually developed into the habit of introspective thinking every evening before sleep, where I would go through the day and sort everything out, make plans, etc.
• When I discovered ‘important’ new thoughts, through reading or introspection, I would focus on these and make them the object of my attention; but this happened frequently (every few days), so of course I jumped quite a bit from topic to topic. This annoyed me, so I started writing down goals; but it took me years to learn how to mentally prioritize thoughts, so that I’m now able to recognize when I can investigate a new topic or when it is prudent to finish the project I’m working on.
• I had several competing behaviors, some that I wanted to get rid of, only I didn’t know how: on the one hand, I could start a project and work on it steadily until I finished; on the other hand, I would endlessly put off starting work. Finding strategies to control my behavior took several years of trial-and-error. I’ve only recently started to become good at it. Now I can (mostly) control my activity throughout the day.
Putting things off: Used to be a problem, hasn’t been for some time. I’m still learning better scheduling though, and getting used to working effectively.
Doing things I know I will regret later: This is basically just reading for too long, which was a coping mechanism for many years. I recently installed an app used for children on my tablet, so now I have a bed-time. This is very effective!
This was very strange for me to read. I don’t think I can quite imagine what it must be like to not be conscious all the time (though I tried).
Let me explain why, and how I experience ‘being conscious’.
For me, being conscious and aware of myself, the world aroung me and what I am thinking or feeling is always ON. Being tired or exhausted may narrow this awareness down, but not collapse it. Of course, I don’t remember every single thought I have over the day, but asking wether I’m “conscious right now” is pointless, because I always am. Asking that question feels just like every other thought that I deliberately think: a sentence appearing in my awareness-of-the-moment, that I can understand and manipulate.
I’m also almost always aware of my own awareness, and aware of my awareness of my own awareness. This is useful, because it gives me a three-layered approach to how I experience the world: on one level, I simply take in what I see, feel, hear, think etc., while (slightly time-delayed) on another level I analyze the contents of my awareness, while on a third level I keep track of the level my awareness is at. For example, if I’m in a conversation with another person, there is usually only one-to-two levels going on; if I’m very focused on a task, only one level; but most of the time, all three levels are ‘active’.
The third level also gives me a perspective of how ‘involved’ I get over the day. Whenever I pop out of being immersed in one-to-two level situations, I immediately notice how long I was ‘in’, and wether it served the goal I was following at the time or if I lost track of what I was doing.
Over the years I learned to use my consciousness with more deliberation: I can mark certain thoughts I want to contemplate later; I have the habit of periodically checking wether there is anything in my ‘to think about’ box; I can construct several levels of meta-structure that I can pop in- and out of as I complete tasks; I can prompt my subconscious to translate intuitions into more concrete models for my contemplation, while I think on other things; …
On summaries of thought:
I use this summary function in order to remember the gist of my detailed thoughts over the day. When the theme of my thought changes, I stick a sort of ‘this was mostly what I thought about’ badge on my memories of that time. Depending on how important the memories or the subject are to me, I make an effort to commit more or less details of my conscious experience to memory. If it is more feelings-related or intuitive thinking, I deliberately request of my unconscious (in the post: subagents) a summary of feelings to remember, or an intuitive-thingy I may remember it by. This works surprisingly well for later recollection of intuitive thoughts, meaning thoughts that aren’t quite ready yet for structured contemplation.
There are other functions, but those are the ones I use most frequently.
I would be curious to hear what you thinking of this. By the way, I am greatly enjoying this series. Especially the modelling with robots helps to recognize ideas and think of them in a different perspective.
Huh! That’s very interesting. Has your mind always been like that? As I’ll discuss further in the next post, there are meditation techniques which are intended to get people closer to that level of introspective awareness, but I don’t know whether anyone has reached the kind of a level that you’re describing through practice.
I’m curious—to what extent do you experience things like putting off things which you feel you should do now, or doing things which you know that you’ll regret later (like staying up too late)? (My prediction would be that you basically don’t.)
No, it developed over the years. Honestly it just feels normal for me. I like being in control of my mind, so everything I do is somehow related to that. What I described in the previous comment is a somewhat idealized description. When I was younger, I used to experience consciousness as a stream-of-thought. I had much less control. Here are a few examples:
• I used to be annoyed at myself for forgetting important thoughts, so I got into the habit of writing them down (which now I no longer need all that much).
• At age 11, I began developing stories in my mind every evening until sleep. This eventually developed into the habit of introspective thinking every evening before sleep, where I would go through the day and sort everything out, make plans, etc.
• When I discovered ‘important’ new thoughts, through reading or introspection, I would focus on these and make them the object of my attention; but this happened frequently (every few days), so of course I jumped quite a bit from topic to topic. This annoyed me, so I started writing down goals; but it took me years to learn how to mentally prioritize thoughts, so that I’m now able to recognize when I can investigate a new topic or when it is prudent to finish the project I’m working on.
• I had several competing behaviors, some that I wanted to get rid of, only I didn’t know how: on the one hand, I could start a project and work on it steadily until I finished; on the other hand, I would endlessly put off starting work. Finding strategies to control my behavior took several years of trial-and-error. I’ve only recently started to become good at it. Now I can (mostly) control my activity throughout the day.
Putting things off: Used to be a problem, hasn’t been for some time. I’m still learning better scheduling though, and getting used to working effectively.
Doing things I know I will regret later: This is basically just reading for too long, which was a coping mechanism for many years. I recently installed an app used for children on my tablet, so now I have a bed-time. This is very effective!
I’m looking forward to you new post!