Contents of Consciousness

When I see a red apple, my system asserts it to be red.  That is, there is a mental entity with aboutness that mediates my relation to the color of the apple.  When I become alert, feeling like I heard or felt something, my system is asserting that something experiential occurred.  These are perceptions.

When I imagine a red dragon, I employ such a mental entity, asserting redness of something imaginary.

I believe that the contents of consciousness are limited to perceptual entities such as these – that everything in the conscious stream is an intentional entity related to perceptual claims.  Thus, when I think verbally, any consciousness of my processing might employ visual or aural perceptual entities, but not wholly abstract entities.

When I ride a bicycle, my mind employs proprioception and motor skills that are outside of consciousness.  On the other hand, proprioception might be accompanied by a visual sense of being tilted (perhaps in your imagination when your eyes are closed).

This suggests that a great many mental items are not directly conscious, such as desires, emotions, beliefs and choices.  This view has been around a long time, and is expressed in the James-Lange theory of emotion.  That theory proposes that the appearance of a predator produces the tendency toward certain physiological responses and flight.  Those tendencies then promote the inference of fear in consciousness by means of cues, such as a racing heart, hair standing on end and possible ways of fleeing arising in the imagination.

The notion that action tendencies can precede consciousness suggests a reduced role for the conscious self in choices.

William James, (Psychology), in support of his view that a thought is causal of behavior unless inhibited, described the decision to get out of bed into a cold room in the morning.  His point was that he got up, not as a result of a conscious act of will, but as an automatic consequence of some thought of an action planned for that day, in cases in which that thought was not then inhibited.  In modern terms, he seemed to see the thought of arising as the stimulus and the arising as the response, with no intervening variable; or, more carefully, the neuron cluster of the thought automatically activates the efferent nerves which innervate movement out of bed.  Of course, his emphasis was on all of the exceptions to this:  to the inhibitions to movement which are activated before the thought becomes the action.

But one does get up, despite the cold floor and the comfort of the covers.  James nicely described the getting up as a connectedness to the day, which has been my own experience.  Lying there, a succession of thoughts passes through my mind.  One thought, of an expected event or a job to be done, suddenly thrusts me from my bed.  Presumably, the facilitations and inhibitions to arising were fairly well balanced, so that this one thought, used by the active decision rule, overcomes the reluctance to get up.  The point is that the conscious portion of my self discovers me getting up; this is very different from the popular image that I force myself up through an act of will.  Perhaps, then, there is no conscious experience of desire in the chain of covert events.  It is a future goal which leads me to rise, and there is consciousness of that goal, but without additional consciousness of desire or decision.

Consciousness of Desire to Breathe

I have done personal introspection on the conscious correlates of desire over a ten year period, often convinced that there must be direct consciousness of desire itself, but never quite able to find it.

Most of this work has been done with oxygen deprivation, which is a tissue deficit.  That is, I have held my breath, watching for the arousal of desire, and trying to determine how I could tell whether it was present, and how intense it was.  More recently, I discovered a Buddhist monk who has run the same sort of experiments on himself.  His results seem entirely consistent with what I will now report.

Holding one's breath activates internal conflict.  Some parts of the decision system push toward breathing, while other parts push toward continuing to hold the breath.  Much of what is considered conscious desire occurs when there is internal conflict or a barrier to one’s goal.  In my breathing trials, the intense desire to breathe was, for a while, fully offset by an intense determination to continue not to breathe (I call each instance of holding my breath a "trial", which it certainly was).

In my early experiments, my recordings of self-ratings as to the changes in intensity of my desire to breathe on each trial closely tracked with certain more-or-less involuntary behaviors.  As the desire to breathe arose, I would begin to tense various muscles.  As the desire increased, I would begin to fidget, and then experience involuntary movements reminiscent of the attempt to escape being physically restrained.  Finally, my legs would begin to flail wildly.  Over several hundred trials, these muscular activities continued to decline, until they disappeared almost completely.  Similar diminutions in panic and gross reaction over many trials are experienced in various sorts of psychological experimentation, such as with the application of pain to nonhumans.

In the early trials, when I began to be desperate to breathe, I would ask myself, "do I want to breathe now?  How can I be sure?"  These questions struck me rather funny, at first.  Any doubt that I wanted to breathe was purely academic.  And yet, I could never quite answer the second question.  My legs would flail wildly, but I was able to watch them objectively, and I could never figure out what about them could give me assurance that I wanted to breathe.  Sometimes I was able to see my flailings as automatic, conditioned responses, perhaps with no current meaning or value.  What made me so sure of my desire?  Was there a sensory element of desire in consciousness -- a direct neural firing analogous to green, or middle C, or the smell of turpentine?

It always seemed that my estimates of the intensity of the desire were pretty accurate, because the course I charted was reasonable; because the course correlated well with actual oxygen starvation (that is, when I took in less air, the course was proportionately steeper), and because I had some tendency to give up at fairly similar levels of subjective intensity.  This ability to note my subjective desire led me to believe, for a long time, that there was a pure experience of desire, and that my problem in noting it was simply in expecting it to resemble other sorts of sensory elements.  But I was never able to discover any conscious content which seemed to be a pure desire.  From time to time I came to suspect that there was no more to the experience than the ability to record its intensity, although I could never make any sense of such a statement.

Unfortunately, the experience of desire tended to vary with my latest hypothesis.  With no hypothesis at all, I seemed to make no progress in its investigation.  With a given hypothesis, I tended at first to see confirming results; that is, watching for symptoms in the chest usually resulted in accurate observation of such symptoms; watching for the tendency to gasp for air usually found such a tendency; that these things were there is not in question, but whether any one of them was the desire itself was more difficult to determine.  In each case, persistent observation would lead me to realize that there was actually no objective support for the hypothesis.

It seems clear that my desire does not occur as images or memories or thoughts.  I watched with great care for any of these, but they rarely came.  Physiological symptoms were all that I regularly observed.

Affected by James' views, I believed for some time that the desire might exist in subtle tendencies to move, faintly recognized in consciousness by changes in muscular tension.  In the early years of doing these trials, there was clearly a tendency to remove my fingers from holding my nose.  The strength of these tendencies did vary directly with what I felt was the intensity of my desire; I was quite convinced that such tendencies were some or all of the desire.  But as I relaxed into the experiments, such muscular activities disappeared, while the nature of the desire did not change.

I also dealt for some time with the view that careful introspection weakens the desire, and its indicants.  This is very likely true, up to a point.  Much of what seems to be the desire is panic, and it is difficult to maintain panic at full force and also watch it dispassionately.  But when all the effects of introspection are at their maximum, in the genuine absence of panic, there continues to be a gradual rise in intensity of the tendency to start breathing again.  The gross indications decline with introspection, but the ability to notice subtler indications increases.

Throughout the trials, I repeatedly came back to the hypothesis that the desire was identical to the physical symptoms.  Two fairly consistent symptoms were a "burning" sensation in my lungs, and a vacuum-like pressure on what felt like a diaphragm voluntarily closed to block the passage of air to my nose.  Other symptoms that commonly appeared and increased with desire were involuntary attempted inhalation and exhalation in my lungs, head pressure near my forehead, stomach tension, and so on.

While there were strong physical symptoms for every trial, which symptoms would appear, or in what order, was not consistent.  Sometimes there was virtually no lung burning throughout; on other trials, lung burning was almost the only symptom.

After ten years of trials, off and on, I performed an intensive course of almost two hundred trials.  In these, I eventually made the discovery that a very subtle breathing rhythm (ie, a continued breathing motion of my chest and diaphragm) always seemed to remain present as I held my breath.

It occurred to me to play on this subtle breathing tendency.  When the desire became intense, I would voluntarily initiate simulations of inhalation and exhalation in my lungs.  As soon as I began to "breathe", the desire would decline.  I would feel myself relax, and the period of ability to hold my breath would extend.  This trick, of course, would succeed only for a short time, but I was able a couple of times to hold my breath for three minutes, and when I started to breathe, I was neither desperate nor gasping.

On some trials, I charted my involuntary tendency to simulate breathing, and found that it declined briefly after voluntary simulations.  On other trials I charted my sense of the intensity of desire; there appeared to be a close correspondence between ups and downs of desire and of breathing tendency.  I do not assume that my conscious sense of desire always depended entirely on this subtle cue; there is lots of evidence that grosser physical symptoms were key on earlier trials; but I do find it likely that, after careful observation increased my sensitivity and decreased the power of some of the other symptoms, this involuntary, simulated breathing tendency was the primary determinant of my consciousness of desire.

After many years of searching, I have become convinced that there is no sensory element of desire.  Instead, the inferential processes of consciousness create the construct "desire" to denote increasing motivational tendencies.  Any sort of clue might activate the "desire" construct as, "maybe this physiological sensation (or whatever) means that I want X", and any additional clues will reinforce that hypothesis.  In other words, you don't need consciousness to have the increasing motivation to breathe.  If it appears in consciousness, it appears as an inference from physiological and other cues.  Motivation is not an event or a feeling at all.  It is a state -- an increased likelihood of attempting something.  And likelihoods are constructs -- invented entities.  Desire to breathe need be no more than a "priming" of thoughts about breathing, searches for techniques for making air available, certain body motions, etc.  As such primed clusters actually activate, one after the other, it is rather obvious that the desire must be there.

The human system is designed such that increasing oxygen deficit tends to result in such tendencies becoming increasingly dominant, until all of one's attention is taken up by breathing-related activations.  Some of these are powerful physiological symptoms, evolved to be effective warning signals.  But even the associated panic is not a conscious desire.  It is consciousness of a generalized syndrome of extreme behavioral tendencies and physiological activity.

Calling desire and panic constructs makes it seem like they should feel less real than the solid things of which people are conscious.  But a large portion of what is real is mirrored in consciousness as constructs, to one degree or another.  The self, for example, is a construct.  So is pleasure; so very obviously is happiness.  So are truth, morality, the universe, science, and the mind itself.

There is, of course, an experience of desire, but that experience is inference:  it is a proposition.  It need not be verbal, but it is pretty well represented in words by "I want".  This experience is different from what a sensory element of desire would be, in that it usually comes after the actual desire.  The desire arises, and then makes itself known by whatever means, such as physical symptoms; consciousness then infers the desire from the clues.  This is important because the desire often takes a different course from the conscious "I want".  People say in all honesty that they don't want something, but outside observers are able to note indications that are very opposite.  I am convinced that I want something desperately, but as it becomes available, I realize that I don't want it at all:  this was only a false inference.

When I imagine a piece of chocolate, sometimes it is a cold, neutral representation; at other times, it is accompanied by a sense of either "revulsion or desire.  In people for whom all body sensations have been blocked off, either by means of a drug, or as the result of severance of the spinal cord, desire still occurs; it is, however, diminished.  Those who lack physical symptoms learn to watch for other sorts of clues.

But what can I possibly mean by the claim that there is no conscious desire?  How else can my self control my direction? The self is made up of all that is involved in intentionality, rather than primarily that which is conscious.  Motivation, emotion and pleasure originate outside of consciousness, and are not directly represented there.  Intelligent behavior is initiated by a whole self which uses consciousness, rather than consciousness always using the rest of oneself.

I argue that my subjective experimentation is evidence that there is no sensory element of desire.  But "no sensory element" is what is called a null hypothesis:  a claim that something does not occur.  There is no way ever to prove a null hypothesis.  Although my diligent searching failed to turn up a sensory element of desire, that result might simply have resulted from my prejudices, or my formulation of the question.  The sensory element might have been completely obvious all the time, but in a form that I never looked for.  Others may be able to report on the sensory element in a manner that makes it easy for each of us to identify it in ourselves. 

Acrophobia

One difference between a concept (including a construct) and a desire is that the desire is actually motivating, while the concept is merely a neutral representation.  Part of my view that desire is outside of consciousness is inter-related with my belief that everything in consciousness is perceptual in nature, and thus is neutral.  We turn now to the discussion of non-neutral things other than desire, such as an emotion.

Emotions such as fear are powerful, but are not conscious entities.  I don't deny that there can be the sequence, "That's a dangerous dog, I am scared, I will run".  I do deny (with William James) that the "I am scared" is necessary to cause the running.  And I say that the conscious sequence can be merely, "That is a dangerous dog, I will run", without consciousness of fear as a causal factor.  Measuring one's internal state consciously is not always necessary.  The fear is the motivation, and need not always pass through consciousness in order to activate a response.

I had a fascinating experience some years ago, on a visit to the top of Half Dome, which is a rock rising thousands of feet above the floor of Yosemite National Park.  I love to climb, but I have acrophobia.  My specific fear is that the structure on which I am standing, if at a great height, will give way under me, allowing me to plunge to my death.  At the top of Half Dome, my ten year old son and twelve year old daughter spent a lot of time leaning over the overhanging edge, looking at the valley below.  Watching them, I was terrified that they would fall.  At last, I tried to look over the edge myself.  My fear stopped me.  Even lying on my stomach, I could not get my head within two feet of the edge.

This struck me funny, and was of great interest.  I asked my kids to hold my feet as I lay there, thinking (correctly, as it turned out) that this would give me a false sense of security.  For twenty or thirty minutes, I worked to convince myself to inch forward.  At all times the experience was enjoyable; there was great repartee with my kids; but I could not overcome my fear sufficiently to get my head out beyond the edge of the overhang.  When I finally gave up, I found myself very glad to quit.

During the entire experience, I had been unable to locate my fear in consciousness.  Seven years later, with considerably more background on the whole subject, I decided to repeat the experiment.  This time, I went to Eagle Rock, a smaller version of Half Dome, near Pasadena, California.  On two occasions almost two months apart, I conducted an intensive investigation of the contents of my consciousness while trying to approach the edge of Eagle Rock.

When I first reached the top of Eagle Rock, my heart rate was about 100 beats per minute -- not surprising for the climb.  For the hour and a half I stayed up there, my heart rate never slowed.  Clearly fear had an impact.  Interestingly, my heart neither raced nor slowed from that 100 beats per minute in response to momentary increases and decreases in the fear.  At some moments, I was in great terror as I tried to take a step, or seemed to have gone too far, but my heart seemed to be at a steady state of racing.

As with Half Dome, images of the ledge crumbling and of me tripping played a large role.  My fear would intensify as a result of graphic images appearing.  It is interesting that no memories seemed to occur:  only images based on the current topography.

I recorded both experiences on audiotape.  The notable feature of each tape is the repeated groaning of all kinds.  I pushed myself to the point that these more or less involuntary groans interrupted my words at the rate of perhaps a dozen groans per sentence, as I reported the contents of consciousness.  It may be that the fact that I was verbalizing facilitated a verbal expression of fear as a groan.  What I later found to be the role of my stomach muscles may also have had an influence.

After many trials, it became clear to me that the images were not the primary causes of the fear:  it came often in the complete absence of imagery.  There were many physical symptoms, but they changed from one trial to the next, much as with the breath-holding trials.  Also like desire, I found it easy to report fine discriminations in the intensity of my fear.

By the end of the second trip to Eagle Rock, I was convinced that there is no conscious sensory element for fear.  What finally convinced me was a discovery that was similar to the discovery of breathing rhythms that correlated with my breathing desire.

In the middle of the second trip, I began to focus on contractions of my abdominal wall of muscle (and perhaps my stomach diaphragm as well).  These contractions were not rhythmic. But as I observed, I realized that their intensity seemed to correspond very well to my fear.

Recalling my simulation of breathing, I tried to exaggerate the stomach contractions; it did not seem to affect my fear, but it is possible that I did not succeed in mirroring the particular kinds of contractions that were occurring.  Then I tried focusing on complete relaxation of all my abdominal muscles; with my meditation background, I did not find this difficult.

Remarkably, as I relaxed the stomach muscles, my fear disappeared.  Completely.

There was a nail driven into the rock right at the edge of the overhang at which I had been doing my trials.  My goal, in the more than two hours I had spent on that ledge, had been to reach out to touch that nail with one finger, while lying on my stomach.  I had succeeded once.

Now I pulled myself up on all fours and moved my head up and out over the nail, looking approximately straight down at the ground below.  No fear.

I stood up, and walked almost to the edge, again looking out and almost straight down.  I felt great amazement.

To be fair, it took effort to keep relaxing my stomach muscles.  I didn't feel fear, but I still had feelings of some sort:  I took great care not to slip.  When I left the ledge completely, still with stomach muscles relaxed, I discovered that I was very glad to be away from it.

As I began my descent from the rock, I realized that I should try to replicate my experiment.  I returned to the ledge (with a little hesitation).  I allowed my muscles to contract, and tried to repeat my acts of bravery of a moment before.  My fear had returned, probably at slightly less than its old level.  After carefully assuring that all my old symptoms were there, and that the fear limited what I could screw up my courage to do, I again relaxed my muscles.  Again the fear disappeared, and I demonstrated my ability to approach the edge.

Then I tried to allow my stomach muscles to contract once more, but was not very successful in doing so.  I remained relatively fearless.

I have become convinced that my consciousness of breathing desire and of ledge fear were each largely underlain by their own  dominant physical symptom, at least after a lot of observation (which may have changed the cues), plus an array of less dominant physical symptoms.  I don't know how universal my symptoms might turn out to be across other people, but I find it interesting to speculate that groans may tend to relate to stomach contractions under certain conditions of tending to verbalize.

In both cases it seems like it was the physical sensation which created a conscious inference, and the inference seemed to be implicated as a cause of my behavior.  Breathing simulations enabled me to hold my breath longer, apparently by reducing the desire to breathe.  Stomach relaxation allowed me to approach the edge, clearly as a result of reducing the conscious fear.  One might well conclude that the only fear that existed was the conscious fear.  Clearly, consciousness is implicated, at least some of the time, in desire and fear.

Where was the limbic system (the emotion center) in my fear-ending relaxation of stomach walls?  My fear may have been a self-perpetuating loop, with physiological cues being part of the causal chain.

But there is a subtle homunculus fallacy in the idea that there is a feeling in consciousness (in this case, the feeling of the fear), which causes behavior. It is natural in our society to have the vague idea that there is a "me" in the mind which experiences the fear, and decides to run (or whatever), in order to reduce the fear.

No such model is necessary.  There is nothing added to our understanding of motivation by assuming that there are feelings in consciousness.  A simple model of the relationship of events to one's choice of behavior is that the mind (conscious and/or unconscious) develops the model of the situation, and a model of a possible response.  The model of the situation includes associations and beliefs.  We might well characterize a given model as, "that is a life-threatening situation" -- still a neutral representation.  The nature of the model of the situation associates to a possible behavioral response, and may also associate to various action-enhancing responses, such as limbic activity (emotion), and the flow of adrenalin.  The activation of possible responses typically associates to any known undesirable consequences to that response, which tend to inhibit its use.  If no inhibitions occur, the very activation of a possible response leads to its occurring.

In the case of my ledge fear, I knew that the fear was irrational, but somehow continued to create mental representations of the situation which activated the limbic system.  It is possible that the stomach contractions themselves were my mental representation of the danger, when combined with the view of a precipice, leading to an irrational, self-perpetuating loop.  Thus, contractions caused fear, which caused further contractions.

Psychological researchers in the area of emotion have given a little credence to the argument that emotions do not occur in consciousness.  There is some evidence that people depend heavily on external cues to infer the nature of their own emotions.  That is, an outside observer and I will each reach the same conclusions about my emotions, and investigation will suggest that we each depended on the same evidence:  the nature of the situation, and behavioral cues such as movement and facial signals.

In some cases, there is also evidence that outside observers are more accurate in inferring a person's emotional response, at first, than is the person.  Of course, this is partially explainable by the fact that emotion tends to turn one's attention to the stimulus, and away from self-awareness.