What is difference between thoughts and consciousness?
post by Olitness · 2021-08-19T11:41:05.428Z · LW · GW · 2 commentsThis is a question post.
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Could there be thoughts without consciousness? Could there be consciousness without thoughts? If so, what would be consciousness conscious of without thoughts? What would thought be without consciousness, would it be just regular bit of information?
I know there are no answer to this, so far. But I would be curious about your, well, thoughts on this!
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One quick thing is to consider animals-- I bet my dog is conscious, but I'm not sure she has "thoughts" as we conceive of them.
I bet you can have thoughts without consciousness though. I'm imagining consciousness as something like a computer program. The program is written such that various sub-modules probabilistically pitch "ideas" based on inputs from the environment, etc. ("Pay more attention to that corner of the room!" "Start running!") Another module sort of probabilistically "evaluates" these ideas and either initiates behavior or not. With enough complexity and inter-connectedness, consciousness emerges.
In theory, you could write a program where there are only a couple of commands that are being "evaluated." These are thoughts, but the system isn't complex enough to be conscious.
Obviously this is all massive bull-shitty conjecture and there a million caveats but that's my immediate reaction.
Thinking more about the animal example, I might say that you can't have consciousness without thoughts, but it depends how you define "thoughts". So I bet that an iguana is conscious, but I bet its thoughts are mostly "ah fuck I hate how this feels" or "oooh nice I like how this feels". Obviously not in words. I would basically consider these to be thoughts, and as long as you define thoughts like that it seems impossible to have consciousness without thoughts. My guess is that ppl who have taken drug trips would say consciousness can exist without thoughts, but I bet it's a semantic thing-- those trips might create a state of consciousness totally alien to me for instance but I bet it's still a "thought" given how widely I would define what a thought is.
↑ comment by Olitness · 2021-08-20T15:15:24.467Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Thank you fo this reply! As you mentioned, it is mostly about how we define thoughts. In this case, I would define it as you did. It does not have to be expressed in words, it can be mostly feelings. I think consciousness then seems to be way of processing thoughts.
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comment by shminux · 2021-08-20T01:57:04.056Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How would you define thoughts? Is it something you can notice happening, as opposed to a feeling or an urge, that just bubbles up?
Replies from: Olitness↑ comment by Olitness · 2021-08-20T15:20:11.400Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Noticing would be thoughts, but instinctive urges like fear or hunger I wouldn't probably consider to be thoughts unless it is being noticed and processed somehow, because this can be happening automatically without consciousness and awareness. But once that urge or feeling is noticed then there is some "image" or "thought" of it, some indirect interpretation of the event.
In such case, I am thinking of consciousness as way of processing complex thoughts.