Summary of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke, Chapter 10: Consciousness

Summary

Chapter 10 of John Vervaeke's "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" discusses the functions of consciousness, particularly relevance realization, and the transformative power of altered states of consciousness.

Abstract

The chapter delves into various theories of consciousness, emphasizing the role of consciousness in selecting and transforming relevant information from the environment and memory. It introduces the Global Workspace Theory and the Integrated Information Theory, both of which suggest that consciousness is involved in pattern recognition and complexity tracking. A core concept introduced is relevance realization, which is the process by which consciousness coordinates attention to focus on pertinent information, facilitating insight and adaptation to novelty. The chapter describes the construction of salience, presence, and depth landscapes, which are mental models that help in understanding the world. It also discusses the transformation of these landscapes during altered states of consciousness, leading to wisdom acquisition. The chapter highlights that certain altered states, termed higher states of consciousness (HSCs), are perceived as more real and can profoundly influence one's life by providing a deeper sense of meaning, challenging individuals to align their lives with these experiences—a concept known as ontomormativity. The focus on HSCs is on their functional aspects and wisdom rather than metaphysical content. The chapter concludes by setting the stage for exploring the cognitive, information processing, and neurological mechanisms underlying HSCs.

Opinions

Consciousness is instrumental in selecting relevant information and transforming it to gain insight.
The Global Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory offer frameworks for understanding the function of consciousness.
Relevance realization is a key function of consciousness, coordinating attention to optimize insight and manage novelty.
The construction of salience, presence, and depth landscapes is crucial for navigating and understanding one's environment.
Altered states of consciousness can lead to systematic insights and the acquisition of wisdom, akin to maturing cognitively.
Higher states of consciousness (HSCs) are considered more real and functional, providing a means to make more sense of experiences.
HSCs are not solely about metaphysical beliefs but are significantly about enhancing functioning and wisdom.
The chapter prepares the reader for a deeper dive into the mechanisms that underlie HSCs in subsequent discussions.

Summary of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke, Chapter 10: Consciousness

What are the functions of consciousness and why are altered states so powerful for transformation? While there is currently no consensus on what consciousness is, several theories exist to account for its function.

Global workspace theory claims that the core function of consciousness is selecting and transforming the relevant subset of information from the world and from memory. Integrated information theory accounts for the nature of consciousness as a process of complexification, or making sense of patterns in the world and tracking its complexity.

What these theories of consciousness have in common is the notion of relevance realization. That is, consciousness seems to coordinate attention and awareness to zero in on relevant information, enabling one to optimize insight and deal with novelty.

Relevance realization begins with the construction of a salience landscape. This process consists of featurization, foregrounding, figuration, and framing. The salience landscape is optimized into a presence landscape by the creation of affordances, or points of potential interaction between agent and arena. Further exploration of this presence landscape to discover causal patterns (remember flow?) results in a depth landscape.

During a transformation of consciousness, all of the above landscapes are likewise transformed, leading to a systematic insight. This is essentially the acquisition of wisdom. This can be compared to “growing up”, in which a child learns to eliminate systematic errors of cognition. It is training the salience landscape to better hone in on relevant information, which ultimately results in the significance landscape.

While many altered states of consciousness are rejected as being less real (or less functional) than normal waking consciousness, a subset of these altered states actually seem “more real”. These can be referred to as higher states of consciousness, or awakening experiences. Although HSCs are usually temporary and have varying metaphysical content, what they invariably provide is a means to make more sense of experience, thereby challenging people to change their lives to be more aligned with the HSC experience. This is the property of ontonormativity.

HSCs are not about beliefs and science, they are about functioning and wisdom. Subsequently, we will explore the cognitive, information processing, and neurological mechanisms of HSC.