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In this article, the concept of working memory accounts for not consciousness but the accessibility, stability and reportability of certain contents. For exampl

In this article, the concept of working memory accounts for not consciousness but the accessibility, stability and reportability of certain contents. For example, when I am reading very carefully, I may not be concentrating on the ambient sounds, my bodily position, my peripheral vision, and the environment of the room. These contents may not have to be retained in working memory in any way as relevant information for the current activity. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow that these are unconscious in nature. They can be part of the background of consciousness. Hence, there is the danger that the author assumes "being available for cognitive manipulation or verbal report" to be synonymous with "being conscious." This is quite an assumption and not one arrived at from the working memory model.

SubiculumCode 4mo ago
Yeah, binning conscious and unconscious as two categorical classes is probably wrong. There are likely gradations, especially in the context of working memory over time.
- hoppp 4mo ago
  The subconscious and unconscious are different, and the subconscious has it's own working memory that the conscious can't access. An interesting read is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow that explains cognitive systems, 1 is subconscious and fast and the other is conscious and slow
  - d00d0ff000 4mo ago
    All of this indicates the flaw in the account of “consciousness”. Consciousness is elemental and “conscious”’or “unconscious” are “state forms” both of consciousness. Consciousness is the envelope. Conscious is a category of awareness. My brutally downvoted comment implied this, with more conjecture of the envelope. Enable “show dead” if you didn’t catch it!
oersted 4mo ago
Yes I think it’s a linguistic confusion more than anything else. To me, consciousness is not generally that you can be aware (conscious) of things around you and can react to them, lots of things can do that. Consciousness is a shorthand for saying that something is conscious of itself, or conscious of its own consciousness. It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time. But frankly, it’s a terrible concept and my definition is plenty flawed too. In practice it is more of a moving goalpost to denote the specialness and superiority of humans over all. That thing we can’t quite put a finger on that makes us different. It is a secular euphemism for the soul. It is not very scientific. And that is quite problematic because the privileges we ascribe to those on the wrong side of the line fall off a cliff. We rely on that line as a foundation for so much of our morals. We have seen the catastrophes that happen when a group has a different idea about the line. I don’t have a solution to propose, it’s hard.
- kelseyfrog 4mo ago
  > It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time. Which is kind of strange because folks who achieve insight examining their own perceptions and thoughts seem to dissolve the barrier between self and not-self.
  - vidarh 4mo ago
    But even then most such reports still effectively claim a subjective experience.
    - kelseyfrog 4mo ago
      There's gotta be at least a few stream enterers here who can clarify
  - hoppp 4mo ago
    Not always, ego death states are not needed. Meta-cognition is a common skill a lot of highly intelligent people possess but of course if you don't have it you can still be highly intelligent, just not as aware.
hackinthebochs 4mo ago
If you can't report some stimuli in principle, even to yourself, what would it mean for that stimuli to also be conscious?
dinfinity 4mo ago
The article spends multiple paragraphs on exactly this. Did you read it in its entirety? "This can be a difficult idea to swallow. Imagine you’re looking out at a countryside scene. You see rolling hills, the vibrant sunshine and a herd of cows. You hear the birds, smell the fresh cut grass and feel the wind on your skin. Surely you are conscious of this whole scene all at once. But we know that working memory has a capacity that is far too tiny to fit all of this information in at one time. If consciousness arises from working memory, then how can I be conscious of all this stuff at once? Indeed, some philosophers and scientists have argued in just this way, saying that consciousness overflows the capacity of working memory. If this is true, it would be a problem for those who think that consciousness arises from working memory."

SubiculumCode 4mo ago

Yeah, binning conscious and unconscious as two categorical classes is probably wrong. There are likely gradations, especially in the context of working memory over time.

hoppp 4mo ago
The subconscious and unconscious are different, and the subconscious has it's own working memory that the conscious can't access. An interesting read is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow that explains cognitive systems, 1 is subconscious and fast and the other is conscious and slow
- d00d0ff000 4mo ago
  All of this indicates the flaw in the account of “consciousness”. Consciousness is elemental and “conscious”’or “unconscious” are “state forms” both of consciousness. Consciousness is the envelope. Conscious is a category of awareness. My brutally downvoted comment implied this, with more conjecture of the envelope. Enable “show dead” if you didn’t catch it!

oersted 4mo ago

Yes I think it’s a linguistic confusion more than anything else. To me, consciousness is not generally that you can be aware (conscious) of things around you and can react to them, lots of things can do that. Consciousness is a shorthand for saying that something is conscious of itself, or conscious of its own consciousness. It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time. But frankly, it’s a terrible concept and my definition is plenty flawed too. In practice it is more of a moving goalpost to denote the specialness and superiority of humans over all. That thing we can’t quite put a finger on that makes us different. It is a secular euphemism for the soul. It is not very scientific. And that is quite problematic because the privileges we ascribe to those on the wrong side of the line fall off a cliff. We rely on that line as a foundation for so much of our morals. We have seen the catastrophes that happen when a group has a different idea about the line. I don’t have a solution to propose, it’s hard.

kelseyfrog 4mo ago
> It is the meta-ability to observe its own perceptions and thoughts. And a sense of self, a sense that the observer is the same over time. Which is kind of strange because folks who achieve insight examining their own perceptions and thoughts seem to dissolve the barrier between self and not-self.
- vidarh 4mo ago
  But even then most such reports still effectively claim a subjective experience.
  - kelseyfrog 4mo ago
    There's gotta be at least a few stream enterers here who can clarify
- hoppp 4mo ago
  Not always, ego death states are not needed. Meta-cognition is a common skill a lot of highly intelligent people possess but of course if you don't have it you can still be highly intelligent, just not as aware.

hackinthebochs 4mo ago

If you can't report some stimuli in principle, even to yourself, what would it mean for that stimuli to also be conscious?

dinfinity 4mo ago

The article spends multiple paragraphs on exactly this. Did you read it in its entirety? "This can be a difficult idea to swallow. Imagine you’re looking out at a countryside scene. You see rolling hills, the vibrant sunshine and a herd of cows. You hear the birds, smell the fresh cut grass and feel the wind on your skin. Surely you are conscious of this whole scene all at once. But we know that working memory has a capacity that is far too tiny to fit all of this information in at one time. If consciousness arises from working memory, then how can I be conscious of all this stuff at once? Indeed, some philosophers and scientists have argued in just this way, saying that consciousness overflows the capacity of working memory. If this is true, it would be a problem for those who think that consciousness arises from working memory."