Are Concepts of Consciousness Metaphysically Objective?

[William Parker]

I'm trying to sort out in my head the relationship between existential concepts and concepts of consciousness. Their differentiae are: existential concepts are formed from sensation while concepts of consciousness are formed from introspection. Does it make sense to say that when I note my state of consciousness at a given point in time that is a introspective percept? Is it valid to use the concept percept with introspection?

Next, I try to apply objectivity to concepts of consciousness. From "Who is the Final Authority in Ethics?":

Objectivity is both a metaphysical and an epistemological concept. It pertains to the relationship of consciousness to existence. Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. Epistemologically, it is the recognition of the fact that a perceiver’s (man’s) consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by certain means (reason) in accordance with certain rules (logic).

I see the epistemological objectivity -- I acquire knowledge of a part of reality (states of my consciousness) by reason and apply logic (non-contradictory identification) to those states to form concepts of consciousness. However, while I recognize that the reality of my states of consciousness exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness, they seem entangled with my own consciousness because they are an inseparable part of it. Is there a contradiction in viewing introspection as an objectification of my states of consciousness? I would appreciate any clarification anyone has to offer.

[Grames]

Does it make sense to say that when I note my state of consciousness at a given point in time that is a introspective percept? Is it valid to use the concept percept with introspection?

Yes and yes. No concepts come to you directly, they have to be created out of referents. States of consciousness are perceptual.

Objectivity is willful adherence to a correct method. If Objectivity required the complete absence or separation of self from the observation then it would be impossible to be objective about yourself, or anything at all. Even in external perception, the nature of your self determines what is possible to be perceived in that only a certain range of light is visible, only some sounds are perceptible.

In chapter 4 of ITOE, Rand starts by saying that consciousness is an epistemologically active process, a sequence of actions.

To form concepts of consciousness, one must isolate the action from the content of a given state of consciousness, by a process of abstraction. Just as, extrospectively, man can abstract attributes from entities—so, introspectively, he can abstract the actions of his consciousness from its contents, and observe the differences among these various actions.

Rand goes on in the next paragraph to give several concepts of consciousness: perception, evaluation, emotion, thought, reminiscence and imagination.

The formation of introspective concepts follows the same principles as the formation of extrospective concepts. A concept pertaining to consciousness is a mental integration of two or more instances of a psychological process possessing the same distinguishing characteristics, with the particular contents and the measurements of the action's intensity omitted—on the principle that these omitted measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity (i.e., a given psychological process must possess some content <ioe2_32> and some degree of intensity, but may possess any content or degree of the appropriate category).

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology 2nd ed. is your prime reference for these kinds of technical questions.

[John McVey]

Their differentiae are: existential concepts are formed from sensation while concepts of consciousness are formed from introspection.

That's focussing on the method of obtaining the data about the instances, whereas the differentiae lie in the instances themselves. Existential concepts are concepts referring to something in the external world outside of the mind (which external world includes the brain), while concepts of consciousness are concepts referring to states and processes of the mind (which excludes states and processes of the brain).

Does it make sense to say that when I note my state of consciousness at a given point in time that is a introspective percept? Is it valid to use the concept percept with introspection?

Yes. A percept in this instance would be observing within yourself an instance of being happy or using logic or focussing your attention on something, and so on. A concept of consciousness is formed when you take a number of commensurate instances and unite them to form the concept of happiness or focus or thinking etc, just the same as is done with percepts of existential objects.

However, while I recognize that the reality of my states of consciousness exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness, they seem entangled with my own consciousness because they are an inseparable part of it. Is there a contradiction in viewing introspection as an objectification of my states of consciousness?

No contradiction. The instances you observe would have been real events that actually took place. Further, we are pre-set to be able to have emotional responses (with the triggers being under our longer-term volitional control), so concepts of them are as entirely valid as any external activity. Similarly, so long as you been objective in acting where you had the volitional control to act the observations of what you did in your mind are also objective. The fact that they happened to take place in the same location as the means by which you observe them does not detract from their reality, and hence does not detract from the objectivity of the concepts you form from those observations. An example of what wouldn't be an objective concept of consciousness would be where you arbitrarily invented some meaningless mental practice, observed yourself doing it a number of times, and created a concept for that practice.

JJM

[Grames]

An example of what wouldn't be an objective concept of consciousness would be where you arbitrarily invented some meaningless mental practice, observed yourself doing it a number of times, and created a concept for that practice.

I agree with all you've written, but this example doesn't illustrate an invalid method. If this meaningless mental practice can be performed then those instances constitute the referents of a concept about that practice. The are perfectly legitimate concepts for invalid practices, for example rationalism, or logical fallacies.

[John McVey]

If this meaningless mental practice can be performed then those instances constitute the referents of a concept about that practice.

Hmmm... I think you're right, even if I would make extra emphasis on the arbitrarily-invented part as first occurred to me.

JJM

[JMeganSnow]

As a side note, "metaphysically objective" is a meaningless term, because objectivity is an epistemological term and metaphysics precedes that. Objectivity describes a certain kind of relationship between consciousness and existence, it doesn't describe a trait of existence independent of consciousness.

And, yes, I know people use the term "objective reality" to mean existence independent of consciousness, but that doesn't make it a good term.

[Capitalism Forever]

while I recognize that the reality of my states of consciousness exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness, they seem entangled with my own consciousness because they are an inseparable part of it.

Why do you think such "entanglement" would cause a problem? Do you have a definition of what you mean by "entangled" here?

Is there a contradiction in viewing introspection as an objectification of my states of consciousness?

I wouldn't say that introspection IS an objectification of one's states of consciousness, but it may certainly involve such objectification, i.e. forming concepts referring to your states of consciousness and thinking of your states of consciousness as units of those concepts. This is the same objective epistemological process that one uses in extrospection.

[DavidOdden]

Does it make sense to say that when I note my state of consciousness at a given point in time that is a introspective percept?

Nearly. The product of becoming aware of aspects of the state of your consciousness is an introspective percept. You need not be aware of your entire state of consciousness. An introspective percept is not the time at which you do this. (I'm using the really sharp razor blade here). In short, it is correct to apply the concept "percept" to vision, tactile, auditory but also mental-state sensations. The latter is not a very traditional statement, but it is correct. Often, people look at perception as being "about the external world", but that is not a necessary aspect of perception.

[William Parker]

Thank you everyone who replied. I have a few followup comments and questions:

While I completely appreciate the epistemological aspect of objectivity, Ayn Rand in the essay I quoted says there is a metaphysical aspect, namely "the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness". Are the reality of states of consciousness independent of my introspection of them? I think so because those states of consciousness exist whether or not I introspect. So, their existence independent of my introspecting them underlies the metaphysical objectivity of concepts formed from them. Since most of you respondents emphasized the epistemological nature of objectivity and Jennifer explicitly stated that the concept of metaphysical objectivity is "meaningless", do you think that "the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness" is not useful?

What caused me to use the word "entangled" was imagining a scenario where I am in a given state of consciousness, say experiencing an emotion, and, while still feeling that emotion, I introspect, note this emotion's similarity in kind but difference in degree with past emotions of the same type and form a new concept of emotion. The "entanglement" would seem to be simultaneously experiencing the emotion while forming the concept of it. I have no memory of ever having such an experience, and, thinking about it now, I see no reason that there would be "entanglement" in the sense that the concurrent experience of emotion and concept formation would affect the concept formation. Do you agree?

[Grames]

Yes, states of consciousness are independent of introspection. Emotions for example are real, they are "existents". It is as an existent that something can be metaphysically real, without being an entity.

"The recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness" is very useful, but it tends to be taken for granted by Objectivists and other people with common sense.

Entanglement would be an experience of a mental state such as an emotion as not independent of consciousness, the opposite of objectivity. It would make objectivity impossible for introspecting. Once you have a thought or experience the contents of consciousness are existents. It is as existents that they form the basis for concepts of consciousness.

[DavidOdden]

do you think that "the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness" is not useful?

I think it can be useful, as a means of focusing attention on the nature of objectivity. Which is to say, a subject perceives an object; we are interested in the object that is perceived, and not the subject who does the perceiving. Taking a simple example of visual perception, what interests us is the nature of the apple that you see, and not your personal experience of seeing.

However, if we were engaged in a scientific study of perception, we could be interested in your experience of seeing, but again we are interested in the "informational significance" of your brain state. In scifi land we would aim a PET scanner at your head and magically know what we need to know about the object that we are interested in; but in reality, it is impossible to know anything about your consciousness, except via some kind of behavior of yours. And that boils down to either highly inferential scantron forms and 100 questions and the like, or some form of introspection.

I introspect, note this emotion's similarity in kind but difference in degree with past emotions of the same type and form a new concept of emotion. The "entanglement" would seem to be simultaneously experiencing the emotion while forming the concept of it.

This is basically a memory question. Here's what I think is an analogous situtation. You hear a person say something; can you retain a representation of the acoustic event that is reasonably like a digitized sound recording? In fact, for a short time, you can, but that experience degrades over time. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that it's a matter of minutes, at least when you are dealing with "raw sound". However, if it can be retained in a conceptual form, then it can last much longer, to the point that you can fairly accurate remember a familiar person's (brief) statement for years. But even then, it's well known that people do this by retaining the "gist" of a person's utterance, and reconstructing the wording and voice properties.

The ability to form a concept (even one referring to tangible entities) depends on an ability to retain aspects of the existents in your memory, and to identify multiple instances. With a novel thing like a chirimoya, you may be able to retain the visual image over a long period and form a concept based on seeing one in 1980 and another in 1997. However, it does not actually require two concrete instances to be able to form the concept -- it's clear, when you see one, that it is something new that you have not experienced before, and you furthermore can be quite certain that other ones could exist.

I think the question for an emotional introspection would be whether what you are experiencing is covered by an existing concept of consciousness, or does it require forming a new concept because it is sufficiently unlike similar ones that it can't be correctly subsumed under the existing / older concept. (For example, if one is on the cusp of forming the concept "outrage" as distinguished from "anger"). You would have the experience first, then you would retrospectively wonder "What was that about?". Thus I doubt that you could be simultaneously having an emotional moment and rationally introspecting about it; but you could do the latter in response to the former.