varying levels of consciousness

[Cavernio]

My last thread on consciousness was closed because someone decided that it either was or wasn't, apparently. This is not necessarily true. However, even if it was, we still have no way to actually determine whether something is conscious or not, something which could also be discussed.

For one, just as individuals we actually experience varying levels of consciousness. The best example is dreaming versus undreaming consciousness. Drugs also change our consciousness.

Secondly, our consciousnes is clearly linked to memory in a couple of ways. Whatever we remember at any given moment is our consciousness for that moment. So obviously whatever we've learned from the past plays a huge role in what our future consciousness may be. If I've only ever experienced life in a box, my consciousness is going to be hugely different from most people. But, you say, I'm still aware, so I'd still be conscious and that's it. But I would not be aware of the same things as you, and I suggest it might even be possible for someone to not be self-aware in a seriously restricted environment.

Another thing about consciousness related to memory, the most important one in my argument, is that our consciousness is restricted by how much information we can hold in our working memory at once. There's clearly individual differences in how much this is, and yet there's still a standard in how much someone can have, about 7 pieces of information. If someone can think about a huge number of things at once, then they have higher consciousness than someone who can't. If someone could hold all the information they've ever known in their head at once, they'd be approaching god levels of intelligence from their godly consciousness. I do not think fish are of the same level of consciousness as people are, yet I believe that they are self-aware in that they see themselves as something. I think that babies develop consciousness as they grow.

So, like I said, maybe you don't agree with this. Maybe I'm just using the term 'consciousness' too loosely. However, I have a hard time imagining how consciousness suddenly evolved out of nowhere, and evolve it must have. Furthermore, I can't imagine how you can say that it either is or isn't when we don't actually know what has it and what doesn't.