Was I conscious when I was younger?
I had ~half the kinds of “consciousness” that humans believe in
I mentioned yesterday that I didn’t feel like I was conscious when I was younger. And so, I feel the need to elaborate upon that, despite not quite having enough knowledge on consciousness for my own taste.
For the most part, I am inclined to thinking that consciousness is something that is continuous. That it’s kind of a vague concept and points at slightly different things in different contexts. I feel like it is some generalized feeling of awareness, and we can try to pin down some things that are as a result of it, but that it’s not fully described by those things.
There is one post on “Consciousness as a conflationary alliance term for intrinsically valued internal experiences” explaining some of the facets of experience that people describe as consciousness. They tried to apply it to LLMs, but I instead apply the criteria to my past self for fun.
Criteria
I wouldn’t take this as too serious/rigorous, I spent less than a day on this post. I plausibly didn’t interpret some of these correctly either. I guess it’s just a useful thing to and briefly try point at what I mean.
introspection - no
1. (n≈3) Consciousness as introspection. Parts of my mind are able to look at other parts of my mind and think about them. That process is consciousness. Not all beings have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
Note: people with this answer tended to have shorter conversations with me than the others, because the idea was simpler to explain than most of the other answers.
I basically didn’t have introspection. I didn’t think about other parts of my mind, or think about my day, or just think about whatever was not in front of me or whatever thing I wanted to do next. I would often get stuck in loops about thinking the same thing and just enjoy it and not really notice or care that this was happening. I didn’t even really think about what was happening in longer books to really understand the plot.
purposefulness - no
2. (n≈3) Consciousness as purposefulness. These is a sense that one’s live has meaning, or purpose, and that the pursuit of that purpose is self-evidently valuable. Consciousness is a deep the experience of that self-evident value, or what religions might call the experience of having a soul. This is consciousness. Probably not all beings have this, and maybe not even all people, but I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
I don’t think I had purposefulness either. I just did whatever was in front of me for the most part, or whatever I was told, or play the game or whatever. I just had urges to do things and followed those urges. I didn’t feel like an agent with ability to shape my environment.
experiential coherence - partial?
3. (n≈2) Consciousness as experiential coherence. I have a subjective sense that my experience at any moment is a coherent whole, where each part is related or connectable to every other part. This integration of experience into a coherent whole is consciousness.
I guess this one is partial? If someone asked me what happened earlier, I would be able to remember and answer, but I basically never thought about things that had happened earlier, so would usually forget things pretty quickly.
holistic experience of complex emotions - no?
4. (n≈2) Consciousness as holistic experience of complex emotions. Emotional affects like fear and sadness are complex phenomena. They combine and sustain cognitive processes — like the awareness that someone is threatening your safety, or that someone has died — as well as physical processes — like tense muscles. It’s possible to be holistically aware of both the physical and abstract aspects of an emotion all at once. This is consciousness. I don’t know if other beings or objects have this, but I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
I don’t think I had this. If something sad happened I would just feel sad, if food tasted bad, it tasted bad, if I felt sick I would feel sick, and I would act upon this, but I wasn’t really holistically aware of my emotions other than this.
distinctive affective states - no
5. (n≈2) Consciousness as experience of distinctive affective states. Simple bodily affects like hunger and fatigue are these raw and self-evidently real “feelings” that you can “tell are definitely real”. The experience of these distinctively-and-self-evidently-real affective states is consciousness. I don’t know if other living things have this, but non-living objects probably don’t, and I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
I didn’t ever really noticed my emotional states, instead of feeling hunger I would usually just have a drive to eat food. If I had to play soccer I would just walk around bored. If someone took away my video games I would get sad. But I wouldn’t really think about the emotions or try to feel them specifically?
pleasure and pain - yes
6. (n≈2) Consciousness as pleasure and pain. Some of my sensations are self-evidently “good” or “bad”, and there is little doubt about those conclusions. A bad experience like pain-from-exercise can lead to good outcomes later, but the experience itself still self-evidently has the “bad” quality. Consciousness is the experience of these self-evidently “good” and “bad” features of sensation. Simple objects like rocks don’t have this, and maybe not even all living beings, but I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
Yeah I had this, I would have things that I did enjoy vs not enjoy.
perception of perception - no
7. (n≈2) Consciousness as perception of perception. Inside the mind is something called “perception” that translates raw sense data into awareness of objects and relations, e.g., “perceiving a chair from the pixels on my retina”. There’s also an internal perception-like process that looks at the process of perception while it’s happening. That thing is consciousness. Probably not all beings have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
I could see objects and understand where they were if prompted. I could see items rather than pixels. I wouldn’t think about this process though, or try to understand it, I just like lived life or something. Maybe if I was prompted I could have, but I was not prompted to do this successfully.
awareness of awareness - no
8. (n≈2) Consciousness as awareness of awareness. A combination of perception and logical inference cause the mind to become intuitively aware of certain facts about one’s surroundings, including concrete things like the presence of a chair underneath you while you sit, but also abstract things like the fact that you will leave work and go home soon if you can’t figure out how to debug this particular bit of code. It’s also possible to direct one’s attention at the process of awareness itself, thereby becoming aware of awareness. This is consciousness. Probably not all beings have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
No I did not have this. I basically never felt things or was aware of anything. Nor was I aware of my awareness since I was rarely aware anyway.
symbol grounding - maybe?
9. (n≈2) Consciousness as symbol grounding. Words, mental imagery, and other symbolic representations of the world around us have meanings, or “groundings”, in a reality outside of our minds. We can sense the fact that they have meaning by paying attention to the symbol and “feeling” its connection to the real world. This experience of symbols having a meaning is consciousness. Probably not all beings have this, but I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
I’m not fully understanding this. I could read letters and translate this to words? There were some things that were like good or bad like desert or bitter food, or that spiders were scary. But I didn’t think about the “feeling” of these things rather than just experience this directly.
proprioception - probably?
10. (n≈2) Consciousness as proprioception. At any moment, I have a sense of where my body is physically located in the world, including where my limbs are, and how I’m standing, which constitutes a strong sense of presence. That sense is what I call consciousness. I don’t know if other beings have this, but objects probably don’t, and I definitely do, and I consider it valuable.
I’m not fully sure what this means. If I needed to move my arms and stuff then I could do this. I never thought about the location of my arms, unless they got really tired or something. I didn’t really think on any meta level beyond this. Plausibly could if I was prompted.
awakeness - yes
11. (n≈2) Consciousness as awakeness. When I’m in dreamless sleep, I have no memory or sense of existing or anything like that. When I wake up, I do. Consciousness is the feeling of being awake. Probably not all beings or objects have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
Ok yeah I was awake vs sleeping sometimes.
alertness - probably not?
12. (n≈2) Consciousness as alertness. When I want, I can voluntarily increase my degree of alertness or attunement to my environment. That sense of alertness is consciousness, and it’s something I have more of or less of depending on whether I focus on it. Probably not all beings or objects have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
I don’t think this is something I really did? I guess I could play hide and seek and hide and listen if anyone was coming. But it didn’t feel like I was choosing to do this so much as the sounds became more pronounced. It didn’t feel voluntary so much as situational. But perhaps I am misunderstanding what is meant here
detection of cognitive uniqueness - maybe?
13. (n≈2) Consciousness as detection of cognitive uniqueness. “It’s like something to be me”. Being me is different from being other people or animals like bats, and I can “tell” that just by introspecting and noticing a bunch of unique things about my mind, and that my mind is separate from other minds. I get a self-evident “this is me and I’m unique” feeling when I look inside my mind. That’s consciousness. Probably not all beings or objects have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
It was something like it to be me. But I didn’t look inside my mind to find it. I don’t think I really got the self-evident thing.
mind location - yes
14. (n≈1 or 2) Consciousness is mind-location. I have this feeling that my mind exists and is located behind my eyes. That feeling of knowing where my mind is located is consciousness. Probably not all beings or objects have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
I guess the world does just look like I am observing through my eyes from behind them, so this seems to apply to me.
sense of cognitive extent - probably?
15. (n≈1) Consciousness as a sense of cognitive extent. I have this sense that tells me which parts of the world are part of my body versus not. In a different but analogous way, I have a sense of which information processes in the world are part of my mind versus external to my mind. That sense that “this mind-stuff is my mind-stuff” is consciousness. Probably a lot of living beings have this, but most objects probably don’t, and I consider it valuable.
I could, if prompted, tell you what is part of my body vs not.
memory of memory - probably not?
16. (n≈1) Consciousness as memory of memory. I have a sense of my life happening as part of a larger narrative arc. Specifically, it feels like I can remember the process of storing my memories, which gives me a sense of “Yeah, this stuff all happened, and being the one to remember it is what makes me me”. Probably not all beings or objects have this, but I do, and I consider it valuable.
I don’t think I ever remembered remembering something. I could maybe if I was doing a test remember that I got a question wrong and would think about the question many times, but I’m not sure I like specifically remembered what it was like to remember thinking the questions was wrong. I thought about my dreams sometimes, but I didn’t think about how I remembered my dreams, just would think about the dream multiple times.
vestibular sense - yes
17. (n≈1) Consciousness as vestibular sense. At any moment, one normally has a sense of being oriented towards the world in a particular way, which goes away when you’re dizzy. We feel locked into a kind of physically embodied frame of reference, which tells us which way is up and down and so on. This is the main source of my confidence that my mind exists, and it’s my best explanation of what I call consciousness.
Note: Unlike the others, I don’t remember this person saying they considered consciousness to be valuable.
yeah I probably had this.
I guess I wrote this in somewhat of a rush, so the criteria are maybe not quite perfect, but the results we get are then:
introspection - no (I)
purposefulness - no (II)
experiential coherence - partial? (II-i)
holistic experience of complex emotions - no? (III-i)
distinctive affective states - no (IV-i)
pleasure and pain - yes (IV-i-I)
perception of perception - no (V-i-I)
awareness of awareness - no (VI-i-I)
symbol grounding - maybe? (3.0) (VI-ii-I)
proprioception - probably? (V-ii-II)
awakeness - yes (V-ii-III)
alertness - probably not? (VII-ii-II)
detection of cognitive uniqueness - maybe? (VII-iii-II)
mind location - yes (VII-iii-III)
sense of cognitive extent - probably? (VII-iii-IV)
memory of memory - probably not? (VIII-iii-V)
vestibular sense - yes (VIII-iii-VI)
Under slightly generous classifications, it’s 8-no, 3-maybe, 6-yes.
So I guess, similar to LLMs, I have ~half of the kinds of “consciousness” that humans believe in. But it’s a pretty different half.
I’m not sure that this is that useful of an analysis. I could likely have been “more conscious” if I was prompt engineered correctly. I distinctly remember going from, not having any crush on in late primary school, to then being asked who I might have a crush on, to then starting to have a crush. And this happened with other aspects of taste. I mostly didn’t realize or think otherwise about having preferences, or thinking about any topics other than ones I was prompted into. I wasn’t really agentic or good at exploring.
What prompted me to actually write this post was the question:
What do you mean by conscious? A part of me thinks you're describing your memories of being unconscious in this post, but I'm not sure. Mostly it seems like you weren't very agentic as a kid. Is there a strong relationship between consciousness and agency?
I think there is some extent to which I mean “yeah I was really non-agentic”, and didn’t really have the ability to put in effort to optimize to achieve my preferences or something. But I also often didn’t have preferences on things, because I didn’t think to form any preferences, or think to notice whether one felt better or worse.
I was occasionally prompted to choose preferences on a specific thing, but I didn’t generalize this, or learn any of the other skills until later.
There is a slightly pseudo-scientific take by Julian Jaynes asking “Were Ancient People Conscious”? The theory somewhat makes the observation, that in old writing, people had their inner voices attributed to divine entities “the gods will me to x”, while later writing became more like “I thought about wanting x”.
To some extent, I feel like I kinda went through something kind of similar to this process.
I don’t really buy many aspects of the argument by Jaynes, but I think there is some extent to which some “aspects of consciousness” are just behaviors learned through environmental prompting, and different people need different samples to generalize the skills. And it seems conceivable that there were some cultures which were better at prompting out “more conscious behavior” out of people than others.
There are still just ways in which I feel more conscious in the past few months or so, than I feel that I was when doing things a year or two ago, just getting better at introspection, mostly through forcing myself to think more by writing things down more and talking to people who are better at prompting me.
And I feel that there were phases where I was maybe more conscious or less conscious. Looking at like primary school and much of secondary school, and there are routines in university or adult hood too, I lacked many “consciousness” to a relatively large extent. There were some phases of secondary school I had more consciousness. But other times it feels so little to the point that it basically feels like I wasn’t conscious by some of the definitions / thresholds of consciousness.
The specific phrasing “not conscious” is kind of meaningless if you consider consciousness as something that is continuous. Thus, I should probably find a more precise way to point at what I am trying to say when I say this other than things like “I think my past self was basically a p-zombie”.
Perhaps something like this:
There are levels of meta-cognition that people can do feel like “more conscious”, and I could do the base level experiences of having pain or pleasure or being awake vs asleep, but struggled with anything more meta than that, like directly noticing what was more pleasurable or painful than others VS just choosing to do actions in those directions in some markovian way.
Someone else has a better description for what I mean for this though. And I guess “not conscious” still does capture a lot of what I mean.