Neuroscientist loses a 25-year bet on consciousness — to a philosopher

[ZenMode]

Then I have no idea how you function day to day. Sounds like psychosis.

Why? The Neurological foundation of our brains is being continually sculpted by everything we experience before we can even remember. Those past events make us who we are and ultimately determine our thoughts, which then determine our actions. You mentioned not desiring (I believe ) to write about pop music. You aren't free to want what you don't want if you truly don't want it. If you read something tomorrow that piqued your interest in pop music, you aren't free to not be interested in it. You aren't free to remember what you've truly forgotten. You also aren't free to forget what you know. You can't use free will to not know that 2+2 is 4.

 

[Hume]

Why? The Neurological foundation of our brains is being continually sculpted by everything we experience before we can even remember. Those past events make us who we are and ultimately determine our thoughts, which then determine our actions. You mentioned not desiring (I believe ) to write about pop music. You aren't free to want what you don't want if you truly don't want it. If you read something tomorrow that piqued your interest in pop music, you aren't free to not be interested in it. You aren't free to remember what you've truly forgotten. You also aren't free to forget what you know. You can't use free will to not know that 2+2 is 4.

Okay, agree with what you said.

 

[ZenMode]

Okay, agree with what you said.

Ok.....then you agree we don't have free will?

 

[Hume]

Ok.....then you agree we don't have free will?

We don't have same definition of free will.

 

[ZenMode]

We don't have same definition of free will.

I agree. What does it mean, to you, to have free will?

 

[Hume]

I agree. What does it mean, to you, to have free will?

To act without external constraint.

 

[Daylight63]

If you believe your self awareness is an illusion that's your choice.

My self awareness feels self evident to me, and is manifested by properties we do not yet understand in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which seem to be where conscious thinking and memory are fixated.

Everyone values that feeling. And to every single person on earth it certainly feels self-evident (no pun intended).

But the weird shit happens when you look at the data and the question comes up legitimately: what if it's not real?

That's the cool stuff. Scary as fuck to even consider, but what if the data is showing us the truth and we just don't like it.

 

[Cypress]

Everyone values that feeling. And to every single person on earth it certainly feels self-evident (no pun intended).

But the weird shit happens when you look at the data and the question comes up legitimately: what if it's not real?

That's the cool stuff. Scary as fuck to even consider, but what if the data is showing us the truth and we just don't like it.

It's possible through logical deduction to estimate there is a 20 percent chance we are living ones computer simulation.

My opinion is I don't think biological evolution is out to play tricks on us. Our sensory perception, our self identity, and self awareness are evolutionary adaptations that I don't think are supposed to be illusions. Evolution gave us tools that we should be able to reasonably trust to represent some kind of realistic and self-evident state of nature.

 

[ZenMode]

To act without external constraint.

If we are talking about, for example, you selecting any movie you could possibly select, But you didn't select one simply because that movie name didn't occur in consciousness, what was the external constraint?

 

[Daylight63]

It's possible through logical deduction to estimate there is a 20 percent chance we are living ones computer simulation.

My opinion is I don't think biological evolution is out to play tricks on us.

And this is the key difference between our positions. You seem to imbue the universe with some necessary "care" about you or I or anyone. I don't see that from the universe. In fact the vast majority of the universe is perfectly antithetical to you and I.

You characterize it as nature "playing a trick on you" but really it isn't even that involved. Nature simply doesn't seem to care about you per se. The only thing that really matters to living things is staying alive and propagating the cell line. Everything else is just ancillary. And we humans definitely LIVE AS MUCH OF OUR LIVES in that space. It's really the ONLY REASON TO WANT TO LIVE -- the ancillary stuff.

We're "house cats". We are an advanced predator that used its massive brain to dominate the rest of its ecosystems until it had no new worlds to conquer and it settled itself and began to grow it's mind. We became much more intelligent and our thinking became more abstract. But at our core there's still that savannah-dwelling monkey-man we were at one time. In fact that disjunct is at the heart of a lot of anxiety disorders!

I say we are housecats because we are no longer "wild" but our wildness is still in there somewhere.

Our sensory perception, our self identity, and self awareness are evolutionary adaptations that I don't think are supposed to be illusions. Evolution gave us tools that we should be able to reasonably trust to represent some kind of realistic and self-evident state of nature.

The system we have certainly works perfectly. Which is not to say that it may be at least partially illusory. IF THE SCIENCE IS CORRECT.

 

[Cypress]

And this is the key difference between our positions. You seem to imbue the universe with some necessary "care" about you or I or anyone. I don't see that from the universe. In fact the vast majority of the universe is perfectly antithetical to you and I.

You characterize it as nature "playing a trick on you" but really it isn't even that involved. Nature simply doesn't seem to care about you per se. The only thing that really matters to living things is staying alive and propagating the cell line. Everything else is just ancillary. And we humans definitely LIVE AS MUCH OF OUR LIVES in that space. It's really the ONLY REASON TO WANT TO LIVE -- the ancillary stuff.

We're "house cats". We are an advanced predator that used its massive brain to dominate the rest of its ecosystems until it had no new worlds to conquer and it settled itself and began to grow it's mind. We became much more intelligent and our thinking became more abstract. But at our core there's still that savannah-dwelling monkey-man we were at one time. In fact that disjunct is at the heart of a lot of anxiety disorders!

I say we are housecats because we are no longer "wild" but our wildness is still in there somewhere.



The system we have certainly works perfectly. Which is not to say that it may be at least partially illusory. IF THE SCIENCE IS CORRECT.

I don't think evolution equipped me with a palpable sense of self awareness, perception, and self-identity as an illusion, figment of imagination, or fantasy.
The simplest and most sensible interpretation is that evolution equipped me with tools that realistically represent a state of nature. It's not just an illusion.

 

[Cypress]

Cool. It will turn out to be organic, of course. Maybe a combination of neurons and neural density, neurochemicals, processing speed?


We know that a blow to the head can make us unconscious. But why?

You're right, consciousness can reasonably be expected to be related to the organic matter of the brain.

I don't know that much about sleep and unconsciousness and how they relate to waking consciousness. An interesting question.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

You're right, consciousness can reasonably be expected to be related to the organic matter of the brain.

I don't know that much about sleep and unconsciousness and how they relate to waking consciousness. An interesting question.

My hypothesis, based on empirical evidence: Have you ever stroked or tickled a bit of your body and noticed that soon the pleasurable sensation either turns unpleasant or is gone and almost numb? You ran out of both neurochemicals and neurotransmitters. I think that is probably the same thing that appens to the brain after a severe blow. Massive stimuli followed by a recovery shutdown.

So it would seem that what we think of as consciousness is a function of chemical interactions and the structures that transmit their information. But how do we measure that? How do we say confidently that "these chemical messengers and that physical reactino are what makes Jane able to think and talk and take in information and process it? By these measures animals are also conscious. But what do we mean by that word? Are they aware of being conscious like we are?

It's cool to ponder on, isn't it?

 

[Hume]

If we are talking about, for example, you selecting any movie you could possibly select, But you didn't select one simply because that movie name didn't occur in consciousness, what was the external constraint?

You are referring to memory. Memory is just one aspect of thought.

 

[ZenMode]

You are referring to memory. Memory is just one aspect of thought.

Everything you do is based on memory of some past, external event that shaped the neurological structure of your brain. When you reach for a glass of water, your brain is doing so based on memories, it's not relearning the action each time. When you start and finish a sentence, your brain is doing so based on memories.

And, even if you want to distinguish between memories and decisions to take action, i.e. get up to get a drink, the thoughts behind them occur the same way. That way is one where you have no idea what the thought is going to be until it enters consciousness. There may be no external constraints of any kind, but that doesn't change the reality of how thoughts occur to you, the fact that don't control the content of them and that you have no way to stop them, yet those actions are going to determine every intentional action you make.

 

[Cypress]

My hypothesis, based on empirical evidence: Have you ever stroked or tickled a bit of your body and noticed that soon the pleasurable sensation either turns unpleasant or is gone and almost numb? You ran out of both neurochemicals and neurotransmitters. I think that is probably the same thing that appens to the brain after a severe blow. Massive stimuli followed by a recovery shutdown.

So it would seem that what we think of as consciousness is a function of chemical interactions and the structures that transmit their information. But how do we measure that? How do we say confidently that "these chemical messengers and that physical reactino are what makes Jane able to think and talk and take in information and process it? By these measures animals are also conscious. But what do we mean by that word? Are they aware of being conscious like we are?

It's cool to ponder on, isn't it?

Nice. You know more about neurotransmitters than me. So what happens to consciousness during sleep?

You're right, I think we can easily say the lower animals have their own type of consciousness.

There is no question that neurotransmitters are relaying electrochemical information. The unsolved problem of consciousness is how and why do molecules, atoms, and quarks create abstract reasoning, subjective mental experience. It's not like the quarks in our brain matter are any different from the quarks in our fingernails. Humans are basically just collections of up quarks, down quarks, and electrons.

As the article in the OP reports, we are a long way from understanding how atomic matter can result in a mental inner world, a rich and subjective mental experience.

 

[Cypress]

Everything you do is based on memory of some past, external event that shaped the neurological structure of your brain.

Einstein's thought experiments on relativity were not based on memory of a past event. No one ever traveled at the speed of light, and witnessed the distortion of time and space.

 

[Daylight63]

I don't think evolution equipped me with a palpable sense of self awareness, perception, and self-identity as an illusion, figment of imagination, or fantasy.

Why not? OBVIOUSLY our brains do "short cuts" all the time with us. Your perception of the world is NOT as it actually is but is filtered onboard in your brain in realtime and you don't even know it.

There's a spot in the middle of your field of vision that is not received by your brain. Where the optic nerve comes into the retina leaves a "blindspot" in both eyes. But your brain filters it out. That's just one of about a billion things your brain does automatically.

If you see a snake slithering in the grass you don't say "Hmmm, looks to be a long animal that is moving without benefit of legs. Let me consult my brain's list of animals that might be a threat to me. Hmmm. Looks like this one is a 'snake' and often they are venomous so I will leap backward to avoid it!"

No your brain is hard wired to be an alertness machine that processes all these signals instantaneously.

So why do you think you "know" where your thoughts and conscious experience come from?

The simplest and most sensible interpretation is that evolution equipped me with tools that realistically represent a state of nature. It's not just an illusion.

But it IS an illusion. Everyone knows that your visual perception of the world is filtered by your brain. This has been known for decades. Indeed you perceive the world in "samples" and it is highly processed by your brain automatically so your brain can understand the input of stimuli.

 

[Cypress]

Why not? OBVIOUSLY our brains do "short cuts" all the time with us. Your perception of the world is NOT as it actually is but is filtered onboard in your brain in realtime and you don't even know it.

There's a spot in the middle of your field of vision that is not received by your brain. Where the optic nerve comes into the retina leaves a "blindspot" in both eyes. But your brain filters it out. That's just one of about a billion things your brain does automatically.

If you see a snake slithering in the grass you don't say "Hmmm, looks to be a long animal that is moving without benefit of legs. Let me consult my brain's list of animals that might be a threat to me. Hmmm. Looks like this one is a 'snake' and often they are venomous so I will leap backward to avoid it!"

No your brain is hard wired to be an alertness machine that processes all these signals instantaneously.

So why do you think you "know" where your thoughts and conscious experience come from?



But it IS an illusion. Everyone knows that your visual perception of the world is filtered by your brain. This has been known for decades. Indeed you perceive the world in "samples" and it is highly processed by your brain automatically so your brain can understand the input of stimuli.

If you want to believe evolution gave us a conspicuous and palpable sense of self-identity and self-awareness as an illusion, that's your choice.

I tend to think evolution is not out to trick us.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

If you want to believe evolution gave us a conspicuous and palpable sense of self-identity and self-awareness as an illusion, that's your choice.

I tend to think evolution is not out to trick us.

Who's "us," Cypress?

A "conspicuous and palpable sense of self-identity and self-awareness" seems to provide an unfortunately large percentage of us with no
seriously productive capabilities to speak of.

Donald Tru.mp, for example, was just elected President of the United States for a second time,
this when every [what should have been obvious] indication was that this would, as it clearly will, destroy our democracy.

I'd rather believe that disasters like this occur merely due to the random confluence of atomic matter.
If we got to this point through self-awareness,
than hell ought to be real
and a large percentge of us actually HAVE done enough damage in a short, finite lifetime
to deserve eternal damnation.