Games of Consciousness - How Do We Know That We Know That We Know
How do we know that we know that we know? Before heading into inner space to look for consciousness we must become fully aware and comfortable with the feeling of ‘knowing’, itself. We’ll need to have that answer so we can recognize when we have found what we're looking for.
At issue is not what parts of the brain perform the functions of knowing. That answers the question of how we know in a technical way that can be left to the cognitive scientists to map out. Of interest to us here is the question of how we, as functioning human beings, are aware that we know in an experiential way. What does ‘knowing’ actually feel like.
One way to go about looking for the feeling of knowing is to compare it to the feeling of not knowing. Asking questions is a good place to start. When there is something we do not know we ask questions about it. Lack of questions, of course, does not mean we actually know. We may think we know or we might not care to know about a particular subject, but that’s another story. However we can be pretty sure that when we hear ourselves asking questions it’s a clue that there is something we do not know.
Sometimes questions are directed externally toward others as we look outside ourselves for the answer. “Do you know where the library is?” Sometimes they are inner directed as we seek the answer within for something we know we knew but just cannot seem to remember. “What was the name of that movie?” The feeling is the same.
Thinking and knowing should not be confused, for they are two separate and distinct experiences. Thinking, like asking a question, may lead to the point of knowing, but it is not the experience of knowing, itself. Thinking is a sequential process that focuses on the particular subject in question and feels as if it is taking place inside our heads.
Knowing on the other hand is sudden, a...
...feeling that seems to be located in our solar plexus and is the same no matter what the question.
We know that thinking and knowing are different because when we get the answer we are looking for, i.e. when we experience knowing, we stop thinking about the particular subject we had been focusing on. And we stop asking questions about it, too.
There is also a different kind of thinking that we do just for the pleasure it gives us, evoking an image of a person or place we like, or the inner sound of some music we enjoy. But this is more of a memory of prior experience rather than a questioning process working through to an answer. It does not turn to questioning until we come to a part of the memory that is a blank, that we do not remember. "Where did that happen?" "Who said what?" In that case we have to think in a questioning sense, to bring back to mind what we want to remember that we know we previously knew.
And this brings up the question of how we know what we already know. How did we get the information we have placed on the blank mental screen with which we started life. Clearly, there must have been many moments in space, points in time, when we did not know something and then we found the answer and suddenly...
...we knew.
Each of us has memory experiences we can tap into where we remember the feeling of not knowing someone's name, directions to a particular location, or some bit of academic information and then getting the information and knowing it. The content of that experience is different for each of us, but the container of the experience, the feeling of completion that accompanies that knowing, is the same.
Memory and knowing converge. Since there was a point in time when we did not know what we now know, without the memory that we once knew a particular bit of information, there would be no reason to presume that we know it now. Let’s face it, there was a first time you learned that 1 + 1 = 2. Before that, you didn’t know it.
We can also pretend we know something, like when the professor starts talking about an assignment we were supposed to have read and we nod our head in agreement. Even though he does not know that we did not read it and do not know what’s in it, we know... we know that we do not know... and that is what matters as far as self-awareness goes.
Interesting, is it not, that it is possible to know that we do not know. In fact our knowing that we do not know produces a definite feeling of not knowing. This feeling, however, is something we know. As a result, the phenomenon of knowing we do not know feels the same as that of knowing we know. Fascinating.
When it comes to the experience of knowing, what we think about does not matter. That is just content. And as we’ve discussed, to know content, we simply think... that is, we focus on the subject and ask questions until finally something clicks and...
...we know it. Or not. Sometimes, we give up from mental fatigue, from chasing some elusive answer that just does not want to reveal itself. That is when we know that we do not know, just as assuredly as we would know that we know, if we knew. Confused?
Luckily, knowing about knowing is not nearly as hard as talking about knowing. And so we will stop talking long enough to experience it via an experiential game, called ...
...
...
...
Rules of Play:
Answer the following questions one at a time. Proceed as rapidly as you can, however no guessing. Knowing is important... knowing that you know... or not.
Option 1: If you know you know the answer to a given question, say "I know the answer," out loud, with conviction... but only if you know you know. Note what it feels like to know you know and where that feeling is located. Then go on to the next question.
Option 2: If you know you do not know the answer to a given question, say "I do not know the answer," out loud, with the same level of conviction... but only if you know you do not know. Note what it feels like to know you do not know and where that feeling is located. Then go on to the next question.
Option 3: If you are unsure about whether or not you know the answer to a question, take a few minutes to try discover it by whatever means you wish. As you do, note what it feels like to search for an answer and where that feeling is located. After finding the answer, or deciding you do not wish to spend any more time searching for it, with conviction say, "I know the answer," or "I do not know the answer," whichever is the case. Then go on to the next question.
Note: Take time to play the game, otherwise you will only be able to talk ‘about’ knowing without really ‘knowing’ it.
Here are the questions:
. How much is two plus two?
. What are the colors of the American flag?
. Who was the first human in space?
. What is my wife’s middle name?
. How many squares are there on a chess board?
. What did you have for dinner two nights ago?
. What does a zymometer measure?
If you played the game and were paying attention to what you were experiencing as it was happening you should now be able to talk about knowing from within an immanent, shared, human experience.
For those questions you knew you know, you probably just said "I know the answer," with conviction without thinking. Similarly, where you knew you did not know an answer, it was just as easy to say "I do not know the answer," with the same conviction. In either case, there was no questioning and no thinking about the response. The feelings were gut reactions and should have felt just as certain even though one answer had content and was a knowing, while the other was blank and a not knowing.
However, the feeling when you knew for certain one way or the other was probably different than the feeling when you were unsure and had to go searching. That is when the mind came into play as you thought about what you know to see if it matches up with what you were looking for.
The chances of finding all the answers in one reference source were slim, not even counting the question about your eating habits. If you reached up on the shelf for an encyclopedia, you still had to look in different volumes, or at least different pages. More likely you undertook several different Google searches. In other words, the focus of your attention varied based on the content of what you wanted to know, even though the process of looking was the same.
Upon finding an individual answer to a question you had not known before, you no doubt acted the same in each case, regardless of which question you were working on. You lost interest in what had captured your attention to that point and moved on to the next question. Why shouldn’t you? You knew the answer.
When you tried to find answers by looking them up internally in your brain/mind instead of externally in books or on-line, your intentionality still had to focus in different directions even though the looking process was the same for each question. And the moment the answers came there was that immediate and comfortable gut feeling of completion, of knowing. Then you let go of that question and went on to the next one. And that feeling was the same no matter which question you had just answered.
Therefore, having played the game, you should now be able to say with complete conviction that you know several facts about knowing that you may not have known before, not because you read it somewhere but because you experienced it personally. You...
1) Knowing is different from the content of knowing;
2) The feeling of knowing is the same regardless of the content of knowing;
3) Knowing we do not know is an experience of knowing.
[Just in case you had not experienced the flush of knowing to the above questions, aside from the one about your dinner which only the ’I’ reading these words can know, or not, the answers are: four, red white-and-blue, Yuri Gagarin, Mae, 64, and degree of fermentation.]
...
...
[[There, now you know.]]
...
...
[[[provided these are the correct answers]]]
...
...
They don’t have to be, you know. It is my author's privilege to give any answer I want. The only way you can know for certain whether they are right is if you already know them on your own, or if you go look them up somewhere else where they do not play mind games like this.
Yet there is a method to this madness. You do know that if I had not just warned you that I might have given false answers, chances are such a thought would have never crossed your mind. You would now think you knew somethings and conceivably would have told them to a friend as truth adding, "Oh, I read it in a book somewhere," the very kind of knowing Descartes' rules of reason bracket out.
Liars can write and liars can preach. This is why you should no longer feel you know something just because you read it in a book or someone else told you so. Absolute knowing remains an individual experience. We must experience it for ourselves, from the inside out, at least everything we really want to say we know for certain.
At issue is not what parts of the brain perform the functions of knowing. That answers the question of how we know in a technical way that can be left to the cognitive scientists to map out. Of interest to us here is the question of how we, as functioning human beings, are aware that we know in an experiential way. What does ‘knowing’ actually feel like.
One way to go about looking for the feeling of knowing is to compare it to the feeling of not knowing. Asking questions is a good place to start. When there is something we do not know we ask questions about it. Lack of questions, of course, does not mean we actually know. We may think we know or we might not care to know about a particular subject, but that’s another story. However we can be pretty sure that when we hear ourselves asking questions it’s a clue that there is something we do not know.
Sometimes questions are directed externally toward others as we look outside ourselves for the answer. “Do you know where the library is?” Sometimes they are inner directed as we seek the answer within for something we know we knew but just cannot seem to remember. “What was the name of that movie?” The feeling is the same.
Thinking and knowing should not be confused, for they are two separate and distinct experiences. Thinking, like asking a question, may lead to the point of knowing, but it is not the experience of knowing, itself. Thinking is a sequential process that focuses on the particular subject in question and feels as if it is taking place inside our heads.
Knowing on the other hand is sudden, a...
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
...feeling that seems to be located in our solar plexus and is the same no matter what the question.
We know that thinking and knowing are different because when we get the answer we are looking for, i.e. when we experience knowing, we stop thinking about the particular subject we had been focusing on. And we stop asking questions about it, too.
There is also a different kind of thinking that we do just for the pleasure it gives us, evoking an image of a person or place we like, or the inner sound of some music we enjoy. But this is more of a memory of prior experience rather than a questioning process working through to an answer. It does not turn to questioning until we come to a part of the memory that is a blank, that we do not remember. "Where did that happen?" "Who said what?" In that case we have to think in a questioning sense, to bring back to mind what we want to remember that we know we previously knew.
And this brings up the question of how we know what we already know. How did we get the information we have placed on the blank mental screen with which we started life. Clearly, there must have been many moments in space, points in time, when we did not know something and then we found the answer and suddenly...
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
...we knew.
Each of us has memory experiences we can tap into where we remember the feeling of not knowing someone's name, directions to a particular location, or some bit of academic information and then getting the information and knowing it. The content of that experience is different for each of us, but the container of the experience, the feeling of completion that accompanies that knowing, is the same.
Memory and knowing converge. Since there was a point in time when we did not know what we now know, without the memory that we once knew a particular bit of information, there would be no reason to presume that we know it now. Let’s face it, there was a first time you learned that 1 + 1 = 2. Before that, you didn’t know it.
We can also pretend we know something, like when the professor starts talking about an assignment we were supposed to have read and we nod our head in agreement. Even though he does not know that we did not read it and do not know what’s in it, we know... we know that we do not know... and that is what matters as far as self-awareness goes.
Interesting, is it not, that it is possible to know that we do not know. In fact our knowing that we do not know produces a definite feeling of not knowing. This feeling, however, is something we know. As a result, the phenomenon of knowing we do not know feels the same as that of knowing we know. Fascinating.
When it comes to the experience of knowing, what we think about does not matter. That is just content. And as we’ve discussed, to know content, we simply think... that is, we focus on the subject and ask questions until finally something clicks and...
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
...we know it. Or not. Sometimes, we give up from mental fatigue, from chasing some elusive answer that just does not want to reveal itself. That is when we know that we do not know, just as assuredly as we would know that we know, if we knew. Confused?
Luckily, knowing about knowing is not nearly as hard as talking about knowing. And so we will stop talking long enough to experience it via an experiential game, called ...
...
...
...
* * *
THE KNOWING EXPERIENCE
Rules of Play:
Answer the following questions one at a time. Proceed as rapidly as you can, however no guessing. Knowing is important... knowing that you know... or not.
Option 1: If you know you know the answer to a given question, say "I know the answer," out loud, with conviction... but only if you know you know. Note what it feels like to know you know and where that feeling is located. Then go on to the next question.
Option 2: If you know you do not know the answer to a given question, say "I do not know the answer," out loud, with the same level of conviction... but only if you know you do not know. Note what it feels like to know you do not know and where that feeling is located. Then go on to the next question.
Option 3: If you are unsure about whether or not you know the answer to a question, take a few minutes to try discover it by whatever means you wish. As you do, note what it feels like to search for an answer and where that feeling is located. After finding the answer, or deciding you do not wish to spend any more time searching for it, with conviction say, "I know the answer," or "I do not know the answer," whichever is the case. Then go on to the next question.
Note: Take time to play the game, otherwise you will only be able to talk ‘about’ knowing without really ‘knowing’ it.
Here are the questions:
. How much is two plus two?
. What are the colors of the American flag?
. Who was the first human in space?
. What is my wife’s middle name?
. How many squares are there on a chess board?
. What did you have for dinner two nights ago?
. What does a zymometer measure?
* * *
If you played the game and were paying attention to what you were experiencing as it was happening you should now be able to talk about knowing from within an immanent, shared, human experience.
For those questions you knew you know, you probably just said "I know the answer," with conviction without thinking. Similarly, where you knew you did not know an answer, it was just as easy to say "I do not know the answer," with the same conviction. In either case, there was no questioning and no thinking about the response. The feelings were gut reactions and should have felt just as certain even though one answer had content and was a knowing, while the other was blank and a not knowing.
However, the feeling when you knew for certain one way or the other was probably different than the feeling when you were unsure and had to go searching. That is when the mind came into play as you thought about what you know to see if it matches up with what you were looking for.
The chances of finding all the answers in one reference source were slim, not even counting the question about your eating habits. If you reached up on the shelf for an encyclopedia, you still had to look in different volumes, or at least different pages. More likely you undertook several different Google searches. In other words, the focus of your attention varied based on the content of what you wanted to know, even though the process of looking was the same.
Upon finding an individual answer to a question you had not known before, you no doubt acted the same in each case, regardless of which question you were working on. You lost interest in what had captured your attention to that point and moved on to the next question. Why shouldn’t you? You knew the answer.
When you tried to find answers by looking them up internally in your brain/mind instead of externally in books or on-line, your intentionality still had to focus in different directions even though the looking process was the same for each question. And the moment the answers came there was that immediate and comfortable gut feeling of completion, of knowing. Then you let go of that question and went on to the next one. And that feeling was the same no matter which question you had just answered.
* * *
Therefore, having played the game, you should now be able to say with complete conviction that you know several facts about knowing that you may not have known before, not because you read it somewhere but because you experienced it personally. You...
*
*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
...that...*****
***** ***** *****
*****
*
1) Knowing is different from the content of knowing;
2) The feeling of knowing is the same regardless of the content of knowing;
3) Knowing we do not know is an experience of knowing.
* * *
[Just in case you had not experienced the flush of knowing to the above questions, aside from the one about your dinner which only the ’I’ reading these words can know, or not, the answers are: four, red white-and-blue, Yuri Gagarin, Mae, 64, and degree of fermentation.]
...
...
[[There, now you know.]]
...
...
[[[provided these are the correct answers]]]
...
...
They don’t have to be, you know. It is my author's privilege to give any answer I want. The only way you can know for certain whether they are right is if you already know them on your own, or if you go look them up somewhere else where they do not play mind games like this.
Yet there is a method to this madness. You do know that if I had not just warned you that I might have given false answers, chances are such a thought would have never crossed your mind. You would now think you knew somethings and conceivably would have told them to a friend as truth adding, "Oh, I read it in a book somewhere," the very kind of knowing Descartes' rules of reason bracket out.
Liars can write and liars can preach. This is why you should no longer feel you know something just because you read it in a book or someone else told you so. Absolute knowing remains an individual experience. We must experience it for ourselves, from the inside out, at least everything we really want to say we know for certain.
* * *
posted by Anonymous | 10:46 PM
1 Comments:
Oh, are you now?
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