Hacker News Reader

Comment by ly3xqhl8g9 | Hacker News Reader

First of all, our own explanations about ourselves and our behaviour are mostly lies, fabrications, hallucinations, faulty re-memorization, post hoc reasoning:

"In one well-known experiment, a split-brain patient’s left hemisphere was shown a picture of a chicken claw and his right hemisphere was shown a picture of a snow scene. The patient was asked to point to a card that was associated with the picture he just saw. With his left hand (controlled by his right hemisphere) he selected a shovel, which matched the snow scene. With his right hand (controlled by his left hemisphere) he selected a chicken, which matched the chicken claw. Next, the experimenter asked the patient why he selected each item. One would expect the speaking left hemisphere to explain why it chose the chicken but not why it chose the shovel, since the left hemisphere did not have access to information about the snow scene. Instead, the patient’s speaking left hemisphere replied, “Oh, that’s simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed”" [1]. Also [2] has an interesting hypothesis on split-brains: not two agents, but two streams of perception.

[1] 2014, "Divergent hemispheric reasoning strategies: reducing uncertainty versus resolving inconsistency", https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204522

[2] 2017, "The Split-Brain phenomenon revisited: A single conscious agent with split perception", https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/25987577/Split_Brain.pdf

View on HN

I'm not understanding the connection between your paragraphs here even after reading the first article.

Even if you accept classic theory (e.g. hemispheric localization and the homunculus) which most experts don't all this suggests is that the brain tries to make sense of the information it has and in sparse environments it fills in.

How does this make our behavior "mostly lies, fabrications, hallucinations, faulty re-memorization, post hoc reasoning" as most humans don't have a severed corpus callosum.

The discussion starts with:

"In a healthy human brain, these divergent hemispheric tendencies complement each other and create a balanced and flexible reasoning system. Working in unison, the left and right hemispheres can create inferences that have explanatory power and both internal and external consistency."

He didn't say behavior. He said explanations of behaviour. Split brain experiments aside, this is pretty evident from other research. We can't recreate previous mental states, we just do a pretty good job (usually) of rationalizing decisions after the fact. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3196841/

I'm reading this as our explanations for our own behavior as in why am I typing on this keyboard right now, in which case it's not evident at all.

The existence of cognitive dissonance suggested in your citation is in no way analogous to "our own explanations about ourselves and our behaviour are mostly lies, fabrications, hallucinations, faulty re-memorization, post hoc reasoning" and in fact supports the opposite.

One primary explanation of ourselves is that there is in fact a "self" there, we feel this "self" as being permanent, continuous through time, yet we are absolutely sure that is a lie: there are no continuous processes in the entire universe, energy itself is quantized.

In the morning when we wake up, we are "booting" up the memories the brain finds and we believe that we have persisted through time, from yesterday to today, yet we are absolutely sure that is a lie: just look at an Alzheimer patient.

We are feeling this self as if it's somewhere above the neck and we feel like this self is looking at the world and sees "out there", yet we are absolutely sure that is a lie: our senses are being overflown by inputs and the brain filters them, shapes a model of the world, and presents that model to the internal model of itself, which gets so immersed into model of the world that starts to believe the model is indeed the world, until the first bistable image [1] breaks the model down.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amanda-Parker-14/public...

I think the point is that, in a non-healthy brain, the brain can create a balanced and flexible reasoning system that creates inferences that have explanatory power, but which may not match external reality. Oliver Sacks has a long bibliography of the weird things that can go on in brains.

But the bottom line is that introspection is not necessarily reliable.

Not supported by neuroimaging. Promoted without evidence or sufficient causal inference.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/right-brainleft-brain-ri... :

> But, the evidence discounting the left/right brain concept is accumulating. According to a 2013 study from the University of Utah, brain scans demonstrate that activity is similar on both sides of the brain regardless of one's personality.

> They looked at the brain scans of more than 1,000 young people between the ages of 7 and 29 and divided different areas of the brain into 7,000 regions to determine whether one side of the brain was more active or connected than the other side. No evidence of "sidedness" was found. The authors concluded that the notion of some people being more left-brained or right-brained is more a figure of speech than an anatomically accurate description.

Here's wikipedia on the topic: "Lateralization of brain function" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_functi...

Furthermore, "Neuropsychoanalysis" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychoanalysis

Neuropsychology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology

Personality psychology > ~Biophysiological: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology

MBTI > Criticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...

Connectome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectome

Agree I'm not a neuro subspecialist but I've listened to some talks at conferences out of interest and I don't think anyone still believes in this anymore. Anecdotally the few fMRI's I reported as a trainee didn't support this either.

You are talking about the popular narrative of “left brain” thinking being more logical and “right brain” thinking being more creative. You are correct this is unsupported.

The post you are replying to is talking about the small subset of individuals who have had their corpus callosum surgically severed, which makes it much more difficult for the brain to send messages between hemispheres. These patients exhibit “split brain” behavior that is well studied by experiments and can shed light into human consciousness and rationality.

Your response doesn't seem to be directly related to the previous poster's split-brain comments, but rather the popular misuse of the lateralization idea.

This is not relevant to GP's comment. It has nothing to do with "are there fixed 'themes' that are operated in each hemisphere." It has to do with more generally, does the brain know what the brain is doing. The answer so far does not seem to be "yes."

Says who? There is actual evidence to support that our brain doesn't "know" what it is doing on a subconscious level? As far as I'm aware it's more that conscious humans don't understand how our brain works.

I think the correct statement is "so far the answer is we don't know"

The split brain experiments very very clearly indicate that different parts of the brain can independently conduct behavior and gain knowledge independently of other parts.

How or if this generalizes to healthy brains is not super clear, but it does actually provide a good explanatory model for all sorts of self-contradictory behavior (like addiction): the brain has many semi-independent “interests” that are jockeying for overall control of the organism’s behavior. These interests can be fully contradictory to each other.

Correct, ultimately we do not know. But it’s actually a different question than your rephrasing.

Given that functional localization varies widely from subject to subject per modern neuroimaging, how are split brain experiments more than crude attempts to confirm functional specialization (which is already confirmed without traumatically severing a corpus callosum) "hemispheric" or "lateral"?

Neuroimaging indicates high levels of redundancy and variance in spatiotemporal activation.

Studies of cortices and other tissues have already shown that much of the neural tissue of the brain is general purpose.

Why is executive functioning significantly but not exclusively in the tissue of the forebrain, the frontal lobes?

Because there’s a version of specialization that is, “different regions are specialized but they all seem to build consensus” and there’s a version that is “different regions are specialized and consensus does not seem to be necessary or potentially even usual or possible.”

These offer very different interpretations of cognition and behavior, and the split brain experiments point toward the latter.

Functional specialization > Major theories of the brain> Modularity or/and Distributive processing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_specialization_(bra... :

> Modularity: [...] The difficulty with this theory is that in typical non-lesioned subjects, locations within the brain anatomy are similar but not completely identical. There is a strong defense for this inherent deficit in our ability to generalize when using functional localizing techniques (fMRI, PET etc.). To account for this problem, the coordinate-based Talairach and Tournoux stereotaxic system is widely used to compare subjects' results to a standard brain using an algorithm. Another solution using coordinates involves comparing brains using sulcal reference points. A slightly newer technique is to use functional landmarks, which combines sulcal and gyral landmarks (the groves and folds of the cortex) and then finding an area well known for its modularity such as the fusiform face area. This landmark area then serves to orient the researcher to the neighboring cortex. [7]

Is there a way to address the brain with space-filling curves around ~loci/landmarks? For brain2brain etc

FWIU, Markham's lab found that the brain is at max 11D in some places; But an electron wave model (in the time domain) may or must be sufficient according to psychoenergetics (Bearden)

> Distributive processing: [...] McIntosh's research suggests that human cognition involves interactions between the brain regions responsible for processes sensory information, such as vision, audition, and other mediating areas like the prefrontal cortex. McIntosh explains that modularity is mainly observed in sensory and motor systems, however, beyond these very receptors, modularity becomes "fuzzier" and you see the cross connections between systems increase.[33] He also illustrates that there is an overlapping of functional characteristics between the sensory and motor systems, where these regions are close to one another. These different neural interactions influence each other, where activity changes in one area influence other connected areas. With this, McIntosh suggest that if you only focus on activity in one area, you may miss the changes in other integrative areas.[33] Neural interactions can be measured using analysis of covariance in neuroimaging [...]

FWIU electrons are most appropriately modeled with Minkowski 4-space in the time-domain; (L^3)t

Neuroplasticity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity :

> The adult brain is not entirely "hard-wired" with fixed neuronal circuits. There are many instances of cortical and subcortical rewiring of neuronal circuits in response to training as well as in response to injury.

> There is ample evidence [53] for the active, experience-dependent re-organization of the synaptic networks of the brain involving multiple inter-related structures including the cerebral cortex.[54] The specific details of how this process occurs at the molecular and ultrastructural levels are topics of active neuroscience research. The way experience can influence the synaptic organization of the brain is also the basis for a number of theories of brain function

"EM Wave Polarization Transductions" Lt. Col. T.E Bearden (1999) :

> Physical observation (via the transverse photon interaction) is the process given by applying the operator ∂/∂t to (L^3)t, yielding an L3 output.

"Representational drift: Emerging theories for continual learning and experimental future directions" (2022) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095943882... :

> Recent work has revealed that the neural activity patterns correlated with sensation, cognition, and action often are not stable and instead undergo large scale changes over days and weeks—a phenomenon called representational drift. Here, we highlight recent observations of drift, how drift is unlikely to be explained by experimental confounds, and how the brain can likely compensate for drift to allow stable computation. We propose that drift might have important roles in neural computation to allow continual learning, both for separating and relating memories that occur at distinct times. Finally, we present an outlook on future experimental directions that are needed to further characterize drift and to test emerging theories for drift's role in computation.

So, to run the same [fMRI, NIRS,] stimulus response activation observation/burn-in again weeks or months later with the same subjects is likely necessary given Representational drift.

You're ignoring several confounders and conflating several loosely related things that I'm not even sure what the point you're making is anymore.

To begin with, the split-brain experiments don't provide clear or strong evidence for anything given the small sample size, heterogeneity in procedure (i.e. was there complete comissurotomy or just callosotomy) and the elapsed time between neuropsychiatric evaluation and initial procedures which relies on the assumption that adaptation does not occur and neuroplasticity is not a thing. The split-brain experiments are notable because the lab experiments SUGGEST the lack of communication between two hemispheres and a split conscious however this is paradoxical with everyday experience of these patients, far from providing evidence for anything.

Ignoring that for a moment, how do the split-brain experiments support 'the brain has many semi-independent “interests” that are jockeying for overall control of the organism’s behavior'?

How is addiction self-contradictory exactly and what does this have to do with split-brain?

If your point is that different parts of the brain (e.g. the reward system and the executive function regions) have different roles this isn't really debatable, obviously different parts of the brain are all doing their individual jobs and the most widely accepted theory is that these are integrated in some unknown mechanism by a single consciousness which remains in control.

Your original statement of: does the brain know what the brain is doing. The answer so far does not seem to be "yes."

Suggests you're arguing that the brain has many different consciouses that are in a constant battle, i.e. there is not a unified consciousness in control of behavior.

To take your addiction example, the brain is very much aware of what it is doing and addiction is not self-contradictory because short term rewards are being valued above long-term ones and health of the organism. The reward system model provides an excellent neurobiological explanation for addiction.

This is not directly evidenced by either addiction or the split brain experiments and is at best a hypothetical model hence why it's a theory and my original response to your statement.

I'm not "ignoring" them at all. I'm saying that they point to interesting questions that are not answered.

> The split-brain experiments are notable because the lab experiments SUGGEST the lack of communication between two hemispheres and a split conscious however this is paradoxical with everyday experience of these patients, far from providing evidence for anything.

It is not "paradoxical" but yes it does conflict with some reported experience. However, even healthy individuals often report being "of two minds" or struggling to "make up their [singular] mind." Why are these utterances to be dismissed while the also-subjectively-reported sensation of unitary experience is taken as fact?

> Suggests you're arguing that the brain has many different consciouses that are in a constant battle, i.e. there is not a unified consciousness in control of behavior.

I wouldn't characterize my position as "many different consciousnesses," but rather that consciousness is dispersed across (at least) the brain. In some scenarios (such as a corpus callosotomy) and perhaps in more everyday scenarios - perhaps all day every day - that dispersed activity can fall out of internal "synchronization." Anyway, you provided the exact same interpretation in the previously quoted section: "the lab experiments SUGGEST the lack of communication and a split consciousness."

You just go one step further of prioritizing the subjectively reported sensation of unitary consciousness over also-subjectively-reported sensation of non-unitary consciousness. That's your prior taking hold, not mine, and not actual evidence.

You yourself admit we do not know the mechanism (if any exists) by which the activity in various parts of the brain are integrated. We do not know if this process actually even occurs!

Regarding addiction, it is very, very commonly reported that addicts will go into "autopilot" like states while satisfying their addictions and only "emerge" when they have to face consequences of their behaviors. Again, subjectively reported, but so is the experience of unitary consciousness! If we cannot trust one then we shouldn't take it as granted that we can trust the other.

I get the sense you think you're arguing against some firmly held belief or a model I'm proposing as fact: you're not! We're both saying "we don't know much about how this works." And no, neurochemical mechanisms are not complete answers to how brain activity ladders up to conscious experience, similar to how a molecular model of combustion cannot explain much about urban traffic patterns.

I'm arguing against the strength of your statements based on methodologically unsound experiments that do not "very very clearly indicate" anything beyond pose a few questions for which there are several different hypothetical answers. All of which have zero evidence behind them.

Similarly, the initial comment of 'does the brain know what the brain is doing. The answer so far does not seem to be "yes."' is misleadingly suggesting there is a shred of evidence supporting that the answer is 'no' or that the answer is 'not yes'. There are no answers so far, just questions.

If anything, there are more unified consciousness hypotheses than otherwise, although if you refer back to my original reply I did not make this assertion: 'I think the correct statement is "so far the answer is we don't know"'

> It is not "paradoxical" but yes it does conflict with some reported experience.

Rather than belabour the experiment results and implications here is a great peer-reviewed article by experts in the field: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/

> Regarding addiction, it is very, very commonly reported that addicts will go into "autopilot" like states while satisfying their addictions and only "emerge" when they have to face consequences of their behaviors. Again, subjectively reported, but so is the experience of unitary consciousness! If we cannot trust one then we shouldn't take it as granted that we can trust the other.

The dopamine reward system understanding (which by the way is probably the most well-validated and widely believed model in neurobiology) provides a rational explanation for addiction.

You haven't explained what is self-contradictory, that a few case reports exist of patients claiming they went in and out of consciousness? That's not a contradiction.

The split brain experiments clearly indicate exactly what I said they clearly indicate. To refresh: "that different parts of the brain can independently conduct behavior and gain knowledge independently of other parts".

From your own linked article: "In short, callosotomy leads to a broad breakdown of functional integration ranging from perception to attention."

If the dopamine reward system is the full answer, then what explains drug addicts anguishing about their addiction while simultaneously actively seeking out their next hit? What part of the brain is producing the anguish if the whole behavior is conclusively described by the dopamine reward system?

Breakdown of functional integration =/= different parts of the brain can independently conduct behavior and gain knowledge.

Still not sure what the contradiction is, is it regret now? Cause that isn’t contradictory.

It’s pretty simple, drugs feel really good when you take them so a single consciousness prioritizes that feeling over long term interests. When one is not taking them and facing the consequences of those decisions they feel bad. To make the bad feelings go away one takes more drugs and the cycle repeats.

Phantoms in the Brain is a fascinating book that deals with exactly this topic.

that is absolutely fascinating and also makes me extremely uncomfortable

Same. We are so, so profoundly not what it feels like we are, to most of us anyway.

I am morbidly curious how people are going to creatively explain away the more challenging insights AI gives us in to what consciousness is.

It's probably way worse than we can imagine.

Reading/listening to someone like Robert Sapolsky [1] makes me laugh I could have ever hallucinated about such a muddy, not even wrong concept as "free will".

Furthermore, between the brain and, say, the liver there is only a difference of speed/data integrity inasmuch as one cares to look for information processing as basal cognition: neurons firing in the brain, voltage-gated ion channels and gap junctions controlling bioelectrical gradients in the liver, and almost everywhere in the body. Why does only the brain has a "feels like" sensation? The liver may have one as well, but the brain being an autarchic dictator perhaps suppresses the feeling of the liver, it certainly abstracts away the thousands of highly specialized decisions the liver takes each second solving adequately the complex problem space of blood processing. Perhaps Thomas Nagel shouldn't have asked "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" [2] but what is it like to be a liver.

[1] "Robert Sapolsky: Justice and morality in the absence of free will", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvAAvwS-UA

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

The biggest problem with the current popular idea of “free will” is that people think it means they’re ineffably unpredictable. They’re uncomfortable with the notion that if you were to simulate their brain in sufficient detail, you could predict thoughts and reaction. They take refuge in pseudoscientific mumbling about the links to the Quantum, for they have heard it is special and unpredictable.

And that’s just the polar opposite of having a meaningful will at all. It is good that you are pretty much deterministic. You shouldn’t be deciding meaningful things randomly. If you made 20 copies of yourself and asked them to support or oppose some essential and important political question (about human rights, or war, or what-have-you) they should all come down on the same side. What kind of a Will would that be that chose randomly?

This is why I suggest that curious individuals try a hallucinogen at least once*. It really makes the fragility of our perception, and how it’s held up mostly by itself, very apparent.

* in a safe setting with support, of course.

I can confirm lucid dreaming does the same.

Neurology is full of very uncomfortable facts. Here's one for you: there are patients who believe their arm is gone even though it's still there. When the doctor asks whose arm that is, they reply it must be someone else's. The brain can simply refuse to know something, and will adopt whatever delusions and contortions are necessary. Which of course leads to the realization that there could be things we're all incapable of knowing. There could be things right in front of our faces we simply refuse to perceive and we'd never know it.

Oliver Sacks' A Leg To Stand On is a lengthy discussion of that, including his own experiences after breaking a leg---IIRC, at one point after surgery but before he starts physical therapy, he wakes up convinced that a medical student has played a prank by removing his leg and attaching one from a cadaver, or at least sticking a cadaver's leg under his blanket. (ISTR he tries to throw it out of bed and ends up on the floor.)

Famously, our nose is literally right in front of our faces and the brain simply "post-processes" it out of the view.

After breaking my arm, split in two, pinching the nerve and making me unable to move it for about a year, I still feel as if the arm is "someone else's", as if I am moving an object in VR, not something which is "me" or "mine".

Just wait until you notice how much humans do this day to day

If that makes you uncomfortable you definitely should not go reading the evidence supporting the notion that conscious free will is an illusion.

https://www.mpg.de/research/unconscious-decisions-in-the-bra...

My impression is that the understanding of that research that comes up with statements like "But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings" is based on dualistic reasoning.

The idea that there should not be any neural activity before a conscious decision is straight-up dualism---the intangible soul makes a decision and neural activity follows it to carry out the decision.

An alternative way of understanding that result is that the neural activity that precedes the "conscious decision" is the brain's mechanism of coming up with that decision. The "conscious mind" is the result of neural activity, right?

i always thought that the concept of free will didnt bother me. but it turns out i just didn’t understand what it implied. oh dear.

if it turns out that true, it’s truly amazing how well we convince ourselves that we’re in control.

but if our brain controls our actions and not our consciousness, then what is the purpose of consciousness?

Perhaps there is no purpose to consciousness.

Perhaps it's a phenomenon that somehow arises independently ex nihilo from sufficiently complex systems, only ever able to observe, unable to act.

Weird to think about.

Can conscious experience ever arise from matter? Even if the said matter is neural networks? This seems utterly nonsensical to me.

We are composed of matter and we are conscious, we take this as being axiomatic. Given we have one certain example, the question is then how does the body do it, and how could we do it in other substrates: how do we go from "just physics" to mind [1].

The short answer is: chemical reactions start a chain reaction of abstraction towards higher and higher forms of collective intelligence.

For some reason, perhaps something with the way the Hilbert space vector obeying the Schrödinger equation which we usually call "the universe" is [2], but also given the ridiculous breadth and depth of possible explorations of the biological pathways [3], "chunks" of matter tend to group together, they group and form stars and planets, but they also group and form formaldehydes and acetaldehydes and many more. Given enough tries, across multiple environments, in some lucky hydrothermal vents abiogenesis was probably started [4]. Once we had the first agential "chunk" of matter, a group of matter which has a definition of the boundary between a "self", no matter how tiny [5], and an exterior environment, it was more of a game of waiting (~4 billion years) for this tiny agent to grow into an agent with higher-order thinking, self-referentiality, metacognition, and the likes.

Neural networks, as in matrix multiplications, are not conscious because they have no mechanism for deciding what is the environment and what is their own, they are a hammer, sitting there, expecting to be used, not a lacrymaria olor [6], exploring the environment for survival and fun. Could we have neural networks in an agent-like architecture starting to behave more like thermostats, setting goals for themselves? Probably.

[1] "From physics to mind - Prof. Michael Levin", https://youtu.be/_QICRPFWDpg?t=85

[2] "Sean Carroll: Extracting the universe from the wave function", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOssfva2IBo

[3] "Nick Lane, 'Transformer : The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death'", https://youtu.be/bEFzUx_j7tA?t=279

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physarum_polycephalum

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq6Y54mxjOg

Please see my reply to your sister comment. Thanks for the links, especially 1 btw.

Do you consist of matter? Are you conscious? Are you aware the brain is a neural network?

Let's assume the premise that a form of neural network is necessary but insufficient to give rise to conscious experience. Then might it not matter whether the medium is physical or digital?

If you answer this with anything other than "we don't yet know", then you'll be wrong, because you'll be asserting a position beyond what science is able to currently provide; all of this is an open question. But hint: the evidence is mounting that yes, the medium might not matter.

Once you take on an information theoretic view of consciousness, a lot of possibilities and avenues of research open up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_correlates_of_conscio...

Sorry, my english is not the best and I don't think there is a word for the thing I'm trying to explain. Meaning of 'consciousness' is too messy.

I know brain is a neural network. I just don't understand how cold, hard matter can result in this experience of consciousness we are living right now. The experience. Me. You. Perceiving. Right now.

I'm not talking about the relation between the brain and our conscious experience. It's obvious that brain is collecting and computing data every second for us to live this conscious experience. The very experience of perceiving, being conscious? The thing we take for granted the most, for that we're not without it any time, except when we're asleep?

Matter is what it is. A bunch of carbon and hydrogen atoms. How does the experience arise from matter? It can't. It is a bunch of atoms. I know how NNs and biological neurons work, still I don't see any way matter can do that. There must be some sort of non-matter essence, soul or something like that.

Is a bunch of electrochemical charges this thing/experience I am living right now? How can it be? Is Boltzmann brain [1] a sensible idea at all?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

You are referring to qualia [1]: feeling something as-is, subjectively. I had similar metaphysics just a few years ago, but in the end, it's just that: bad metaphysics. And it's not even your or my fault: with 2,400+ years of bad metaphysics it's almost only luck to be able to pierce the veil into the metaphysics of tomorrow.

The main point is that with the tremendous discoveries of people such as Church/Turing (matter can be organized in such a fashion as to produce computation) [2] and those forgotten from the first page of history, such as Harold Saxton Burr (matter can be animated through bioelectricity), we no longer are bound to a static metaphysics where objects are made from a material which just sits there. It was obviously never the case, but fighting the phantasms of our own speculation is the hardest fight.

Therefore, no, matter is neither cold, nor hard, and we are surely very far from comprehending all the uses and forms of matter. Just look at all the wood objects around you and think how the same material was available also to Aristotle, 2,400 years ago, and to Descartes, 400 years ago, when they were writing their bad metaphysics, yet they were completely unable to think 1% of the wood objects you have readily available nowadays, cardboard and toothpicks included.

And also, yes, you are electrochemical charges, we all are, what else could we be? We looked insanely deep into the brain [4], there is no magic going on. A caveat would be that, yes, probably, we are not running on the first layer, at the level of sodium ions and neurotransmitters, but that the machinery, the brain, gives rise to a simulation: "only a simulation can be conscious, not physical systems" [5].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Saxton_Burr

[4] "The Insane Engineering of MRI Machines", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlYXqRG7lus

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyVyirT6Cyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbNqHSjwhfs

I did not mean qualia, I knew qualia. I meant that my experience is not matter. Matter is matter and charges are charges, my experience right now is neither. Your perception, the act of you experiencing life right now is not matter.

> We looked insanely deep into the brain [4], there is no magic going on.

Indeed all computation and input collection and such happen in the brain. I just don't understand how I can experience anything if I'm composed only of matter. How come there happens to be a mind? Indeed the electrochemical charges from visual receptors in the eye will be transmitted and computed and memory and dopamine and all the neurons will fire regardless of whether I'm only matter or not. But how can the experiencing consciousness, 'me' arise from matter?

> only a simulation can be conscious, not physical systems

This is what I'm talking about, only that I don't see why simulations are not physical systems.

> yes, you are electrochemical charges, we all are, what else could we be?

It's nonsensical and unscientific to completely rule out the possibility that we can be something else as well, especially when we can't study it directly, like in the example of soul.

Simulations are physical systems just as much as running a "Hello World" program on your computer is a physical system: somewhere some transistors flip, but they are not relevant for the level of description we are interested when running the program, the program output, as simple or complex as it could be. Somewhere in the brain some molecules do "stuff", as a result of the "stuff" the brain sustains one agent, or more [1]. How exactly, in an engineering sense, the agent is constructed is yet to be discovered, hopefully we are only a few years, a few decades, away from building synthetic agents.

Sure, we have about 2,700 years of tradition speaking of souls (considering the major religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism). Where did those 2,700 years got us? Has any religion been able to build a conscious agent starting from basic materials (whatever they consider basic, pixie dust if they will)? Have all this years speaking of souls managed to achieve something meaningful, even as a side effect, that actually improves the quality of life? I'm talking hay [2], indoor plumbing, hook-and-loop fasteners, ibuprofen, GPS, voltmeters, extreme ultraviolet lithography, things that you and I can use and rely on daily. I have read pretty much all the major texts of the major traditions, from Mahābhārata to Summa Theologiae, call it intellectual curiosity. If not for the "bragging rights" to say that I know what filioque or bodhipakkhiyādhammā means, I would regret it, wasted time and pointless eye strain. So no, it's not nonsensical and unscientific to rule out a not even hypothesis such as the "soul" after 2,700+ years without any kind of results and absolute incompatibility with the way we actually interact with the world, scientifically or not: photons, atoms, electromagnetic fields and the like.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

[2] "The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay.", https://quotepark.com/quotes/1924489-freeman-dyson-like-many...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com