EPTArtificial Intelligence Thread - Page 2
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
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Uldridge
Belgium4838 Posts
Obviously the human brain does very many things next to just regulating our bodily functions and processing internal and external inputs, but that doesn't necessarily mean a consciousness arises out of all of that. You could have emotions, reactions, regulation and even (distant) future planning without having an internal thread of consciousness imo. This thing that confronts us, makes us stand still, makes us do counter intuitive and often self destructive things seems like an emergent property of all this aspects working in concert. | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On December 12 2018 03:31 Uldridge wrote: In a sense we should delve into current neuroscience work if we want to address consciousness in itself. I don't think it's just a description of our experiences, for we can use them as a resource to be creative or use them to look into the future, which, you might argue, is a form of being creative. but there is no evidence that we use consciousness. everything that is physically done could be done without being experienced as consciousness. think cold robots with complex programming. any action we take could be programmed into such robots. I don't think we use consciousness.... because we are not in control of what we do in that way. If anything it seems more like consciousness is using us. There is no doubt that every human lives a life of never-ending cognitive dissonance - a battle between what we want in terms of fears and sensation versus what we want in terms of what we think is virtuous. People think they are in control of one thing or another until they find out they aren't. Then they come up with excuses or blame their own weakness. But that isn't accurate - there was no weakness - that implies they can transcend what they are. They were never in control in the first place, just experiencing. Obviously the human brain does very many things next to just regulating our bodily functions and processing internal and external inputs, but that doesn't necessarily mean a consciousness arises out of all of that. You could have emotions, reactions, regulation and even (distant) future planning without having an internal thread of consciousness imo. This thing that confronts us, makes us stand still, makes us do counter intuitive and often self destructive things seems like an emergent property of all this aspects working in concert. I think it seems this way because of an obsession with the physical world. When you say it *seems* this way, I have to ask *why* does it seem this way? What evidence is there for this emergence? From where does it emerge? At what point does it go from nothing to something? What even is *it* ? | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4838 Posts
I merely believe that being conscious is being able to reflect on actions and emotions and being able to extrapolate that to the future and to other humans. That it could be "just" the set of all the programs working together is definitely possible, as there are many programs to account for, probably some that haven't been figured out yet. I just don't know enough about neuroscience to definitely say if it's an emerging property or not. I just think that when dissecting every system on its own, it doesn't really explain what we call consciousness, but it somehow comes into existence when all these things work. For instance, you can more or less quantify it, some people are "more" conscious than others and it's even more pronounced when being affected by alcohol for example, where it gradually shuts you down until you just wake up without any recollection of the time before. Is that your memory letting you down? Or is it, through a bunch of mechanisms failing (your short term memory for one), that you lose consciousness (try having a discussion with someone that's blackout drunk, it won't be rational either, so some kind of basal mechanism sets in to preserve the self somehow)). Are high IQ people more conscious than below average IQ people, or what about mentally disabled people? What about people that are mentally ill or people that have taken hallucinogenic drugs? What about people that have taken caffeine/amphetamines/cocaine/other stimulants that are now hyperconscious (might be an overstatement, but hyperreflexia is a thing)? What about the dissociation of your consciousness when you fall asleep? To reiterate, I don't know if it's emergent or not, for all we know it's just the neocortex making this possible, or looping through the short-term->medium-term->limbic system->short-term->... via some kind of neuronal architecture that's most advanced in humans. If there's an obsession with the physical world, why are there such spiritualists out there? Why is Buddhism even a thing? There are great explanations on what the ego is and how/when it sets in at a certain point in our development (like at the age of 4 I think?) and how it keeps us at the center of our lives. An interesting question could be: what if it didn't exist, what kind of creatures would we be? | ||
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