The Mystery of Being Aware

Why it attracts me

Most of what I study can be checked from the outside. A production line has a throughput I can measure. A proof either holds or it does not. Awareness is different. It is the one thing I know without any instrument, and it is also the thing I find hardest to explain. Everything else on this map, from the systems I model to the choices I weigh, shows up for me inside it.

The idea

The philosopher Thomas Nagel put the question simply in 1974: a creature is conscious if there is something it is like to be that creature. Brain science has made real progress on what happens when we see, remember and decide, and it can link particular brain activity to particular experiences. What remains open is why any of that activity comes with an inner point of view, instead of running "in the dark." The sharpest version of that question has its own place on the map: Why Brain Activity Feels Like Something.

What I think (and don't know)

I don't know what consciousness is. I am fairly confident about a few things around it. Attention shapes what enters experience (Attention Shapes Experience). Perception is built from incomplete signals and expectations (How the Mind Builds What We See). Much of the mind's work happens below awareness (The Mind Working Below Awareness). These are findings from psychology, and they are useful. On their own, they do not answer the deeper question.

I am also drawn to a bigger possibility: that separate minds might be perspectives of one shared awareness (Many Minds, One Shared Awareness). For me that is a personal possibility, not a conclusion. The mystery of consciousness leaves room for that idea. It does not support it any more than it supports the opposite.

Where it connects

When I reason from the ground up (Reasoning From the Ground Up), consciousness is where that habit meets its hardest test. I am not sure that explaining the mind by its parts will be enough here. It is also where I most need a clear line between physics and philosophy (Where Physics Ends and Philosophy Begins). Quantum measurement does not require a conscious observer, and I do not want my curiosity about the mind to blur that.

An example

My Queueing Simulation Lab plays out a service counter one customer at a time. Each simulated customer arrives at a random moment, waits in line and is served. The program records every wait and checks the averages against a formula. Nothing in it is impatient. I don't think the simulation feels the wait, and almost no one would say it does. But I find it surprisingly hard to say exactly why not, or what a system would need before the answer changed. That small question is the whole mystery in miniature.

Questions I am still carrying

• Is consciousness one thing, or several abilities that share a name?
• What would count as evidence that a machine is aware, rather than only acting as if it were?
• If I never solve this, how should the mystery shape the way I treat other minds (Understanding Other People's Inner Lives)?

Questions I'm still exploring

• Could a complete map of brain activity ever explain why that activity feels like something?
• How would I know whether a machine, an animal or another person is aware in the way I am?
• Is awareness one thing, or several different abilities grouped under one word?

Sources and further reading

• Thomas Nagel (1974), "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", The Philosophical Review 83(4) — The classic statement that a being is conscious if there is something it is like to be that being.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Consciousness" — A broad survey of the questions and the main theories.