Comment by telmo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by telmo | Hacker News Reader

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I have a first person experience of the world. You probably do too. Everything that I know, including all of the science I have learned, all of the books I have read, all the music I have listed too, all of the people I loved and even this post that you wrote and me replying to it exist for me purely within my first person experience of reality.

My subjective experience of reality is the only thing I have direct knowledge of. Everything else I must doubt. If you think about it, I am sure you will come to the same conclusion.

My paycheck says that I am a scientific researcher, and I have a deep appreciation for science. It provides me with models that go all the way from the subatomic world to societies, that expose regularities in reality, that allow me to understand how many things fit together, and to make predictions. But these are the things that are "just words" or, better yet, symbols. My conscious experience is the thing that I DO KNOW. Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe I'm a brain in a jar. Maybe I was created one nanosecond ago, and I am just a random fluctuation in some process and all of my memories are part of that.

And yet, and yet, the most fundamental phenomena of them all, the thing that I have experience of, is not predicted by any of the scientific models. There is no reason why a bunch of atoms should "become conscious" once their interactions are complex enough. There is no way to build a scientific instrument that measures consciousness. Sure, you can build a scientific instrument that detects brain states that we assume to be correlated with consciousness, but this is just crude analogy. Firstly we can never be sure, and secondly we don't know where the boundaries of the phenomenon are. Is a star conscious? Is the universe? Are the individual cells in your body? How do you know? How could you tell?

That is the mystery. I find that the people who deny the mystery have something equivalent to a religious belief, and that they are not necessarily aware of it . Believing that matter -> ??? -> consciousness is not so different from believing in creationism. A comforting story that makes reality seem intelligible, but that has no basis other than one's wishful thinking and group think. It certainly has nothing to do with science or rationality, at least so far.

>I have a first person experience of the world.

What is that composed of? I would say thoughts, feelings (somatic, sensory, psychological, psycho-motor state) and memories. Ok so - now supposedly fundamental atomic "consciousness" is actually composed of reducible parts. At least three, thoughts, feelings, memories. Which of these is scientifically unexplainable in principle? Thoughts are models of something, like an equation, image, or a program. Feelings are the product of sensory-thought integration. Memories are simulations of past thoughts and feelings. I think subjectivity is an illusion. Probably in a minority here though.

With a sufficiently powerful scanning tool i.e. super fMRI you could measure the neurocorrelates of thoughts and feelings.

Consciousness is a word. Subjectivity is an illusion existing in living people. Obviously past historical figures are not subjectively conscious because they are dead. So where did this supposedly existing thing "consciouness" go? Wouldn't a simpler, more scientific explanation be that it never existed to begin with. You say denying consciousness as a real extant thing is akin to religious belief but then you agree there is no possible mechanism for how it could arise materialistically. Isn't it simpler just to say it doesn't exist as something separate from the ensemble of functions of a living brain after all?

> I think subjectivity is an illusion.

If subjectivity is an illusion, then who or what is being deceived? It seems like even a false subjective experience would have to be experienced by someone or something, subjectively.

See this the fundamental problem with verbal reasoning about certain topics. I guess "illusion" was my imprecise attempt to say "something analogous to an illusion." What do I mean by that? Basically I mean that consciousness seems like one thing but perhaps it is not. I do not not agree that seems requires a "subjective" observation. Basically I am arguing subjectivity is incorrect but useful model of our selves that the brain creates on its own. It does not exist independent of a living brain.

If an "AI" image recognition algorithm classifies a zebra print couch with four legs as a zebra, the animal does that mean that the algorithm is experiencing a subjective deception or that it is just wrong?

I suspect the algorithm isn't experiencing anything at all. I know I am experiencing something even when I'm wrong or being deceived. I strongly suspect other people experience things.

What does "I know I am experiencing" actually mean? Can you define it in concrete terms? How would it differ from "I believe I am experiencing," or "I see myself as experiencing?" I think subjectivity is fundamentally unexplainable and does not require an explanation. I also think a belief in subjectivity is indistinguishable from the actuality of subjectivity. You believe you have subjective experience specific to you. Despite the fact that subjective, experience, and you is undefined apart from the functioning of your mind, i.e. the program running on your brain. Therefore if consciousness == mind why not just call it that? Mind can be broken down into various functional components. Why do you believe you have conscious experience? Because that is the way your mind is wired and that is what that word means to you at this point in space time. Is this indistinguishable, objectively from an illusion? I say no. If you say yes by what criteria would it be distinguished? If we define "illusion" as perceiving something as different from what it actually is, does the existence of an illusion require a "conscious" observer? I would say no. Now, as an aside, an astute reader will see in another comment I said the existence of this particular universe as a collapse of a superposition of universes may depend on consciousness, by that I simply meant a certain degree of information structure resulting in structure perceiving itself, not necessarily subjectivity.

Ideas don't have a noumen part and can't appear different from what they are. The error in your example is in association between the idea of zebra and an external object, the idea of zebra itself isn't wrong and isn't illusion and isn't different from some kind of true form of itself.

I am having difficulty understanding your point. Please feel free to clarify. To me "noumen" means mental or "thought" derived part.

Yeah the couch looks like a zebra. The idea it looks like a zebra is not wrong. However the conclusion that it therefore is a zebra is wrong. It is a visual misidentification. What distinguishes this from an illusion? We are not looking at true forms versus reality. We are looking at perceived form versus reality. When perceived form diverges from reality that seems like an illusion to me. Maybe you could call it something else, a mistake. What's the point here that you are trying to make?

Memories and feelings are merely constructs of the brain. Even those can be doubted. The "first person experience" goes deeper, it's the observer of these parts.

And beyond being an observer, the brain is aware of the observer, so it is not merely an observer (observer effect).

(It's also interesting (with controversial implications) that there are people who know precisely what's meant by consciousness, and others who only seem to understand it conceptually.)

>Memories and feelings are merely constructs of the brain...

So what does the first person experience when it has no memories or feelings or sensory-motor input? Obviously no living people can answer this barring perhaps some Buddhist monks or the like if they have truly managed to dissociate so profoundly. Remember if "nirvana" feels good then you got a feeling. I would argue that consciousness is also a construct of the living brain. It is possible that it also exists in other contexts (e.g. ghosts, demons, jin, characters in a novel, etc) but this has never been proven or even suggested by evidence and does not seem intuitively plausible to me. If I ever experience a ghost or demon in a convincing way maybe I will change my view. So as far as we can tell what we clumsy call consciousness is inseparable from a living brain running the program "human mind" or perhaps dog consciousness is inseparable from a living dog brain running the program "dog mind." So consciousness is also a mental construct. It comes from the mind.

I am interested in this statement >(It's also interesting (with controversial implications) that there are people who know precisely what's meant by consciousness, and others who only seem to understand it conceptually.)

Can you explain what you actually mean by this? It is not clear at all to me.

Are you suggesting some of us may be NPCs?

Assuming you are in the first group, those who "know precisely what's meant by consciousness," what is it that is meant by consciousness. "meant" means signified, what does consciousness signify that is not covered as a construct of the mind? Would you argue brain dead people are conscious, what about dead people, incorporate entities? Does consciousness not imply the ability to process information how does the energy to do that derive if not attached to a metabolising body? If consciousness,is a recursively self aware observer nested Russian doll style, as you seem to suggest how deep does the nesting go?

I think there is an observer in your mind, and it is part of your mind, but it tricks you it into thinking that it is not. That is the nature of consciousness. It is kind of like empathy turned inward.

>Are you suggesting some of us may be NPCs?

Yes. Although it's of no consequence, since nobody can prove they have a consciousness. It may be a non-binary state as well. (Ever lived for a few days "on automatic"?)

On the extreme ends, consciousness may logically appear anytime between existing in the womb (or even earlier?) and the first years of our lives. (There are anecdotes online of people who remember suddenly being self aware around 3 years old.) It might disappear anytime during the last years of our lives and on or before our death (I doubt any later, but who knows...). (Elderly people who suddenly regress into a purely reactive state, no longer taking conscious decisions, come to mind.)

(Appearing and disappearing could either mean coming into and out of existence, or attaching to our body from some greater or external mass of consciousness.)

>I think there is an observer in your mind, and it is part of your mind, but it tricks you it into thinking that it is not.

That is possible too.

Or the mind tricks the consciousness into thinking it's part of the body.

>So what does the first person experience when it has no memories or feelings or sensory-motor input?

I cannot imagine. Memories are a physical state of the brain, so perhaps any physical shape can qualify as memories. Senses are electrical signals, so perhaps any electrical signals can qualify. Perhaps something else entirely. It definitely would not be anything like the human experience, though.

Lightning striking down a tree is an electrical signal changing physical state.

Just as well, maybe there's just one single consciousness that exists beyond time, taking turns to experience everything for its eternity.

Or... Perhaps there's a million consciousnesses in your brain, and all of them, including you, are convinced that they're the one true consciousness in your brain.

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