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It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific parts of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of consciousnes

It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific parts of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of consciousness that point outside the brain or ones that look at consciousness as something pre-existing. It leads weight to those theories that claim consciousness and the self are emergent phenomena (meta abstractions) and do not really "exist" below a certain level of complexity/abstraction which doesn't have to be physiological (e.g. neurons) but also something emergent, software rather than hardware. Interestingly, this messes extremely well with buddhism and non-duality in hinduism and the various annihilatory experiences that one can produce via these practices (but also meditation and certain psychedelic drugs). It is also interesting for those who follow AGI/deep-learning and especially those who treat these two fields as an orthogonal dichotomy claiming that one can't lead to the other, no matter the computational resources we have at our disposal. If consciousness and self-awareness are emergent phenomena, there is nothing that, in theory, mechanistically forbids AGI.

deleted 10y ago
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appleflaxen 10y ago
> It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific parts of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of consciousness that point outside the brain or ones that look at consciousness as something pre-existing. It leads weight to those theories that claim consciousness and the self are emergent phenomena (meta abstractions) and do not really "exist" below a certain level of complexity/abstraction. If all the parts are present and connected (albeit stressed), how does that mean that they are not responsible for a particular phenomenon, or mean that consciousness is not emergent? I don't understand your reasoning.
- armitron 10y ago
  Even if we assume that all the parts are present and connected (not clear), surely having 90% reduced neural availability would lead to observable defects (e.g. psychosis, dissociative disorders/schizophrenia) if the neurons were directly responsible for consciousness. Yet this doesn't seem to be the case here (and in the other example someone else mentioned in this thread) which leads weight to the theories that treat consciousness as meta and emergent.

deleted 10y ago

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appleflaxen 10y ago

> It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific parts of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of consciousness that point outside the brain or ones that look at consciousness as something pre-existing. It leads weight to those theories that claim consciousness and the self are emergent phenomena (meta abstractions) and do not really "exist" below a certain level of complexity/abstraction. If all the parts are present and connected (albeit stressed), how does that mean that they are not responsible for a particular phenomenon, or mean that consciousness is not emergent? I don't understand your reasoning.

armitron 10y ago
Even if we assume that all the parts are present and connected (not clear), surely having 90% reduced neural availability would lead to observable defects (e.g. psychosis, dissociative disorders/schizophrenia) if the neurons were directly responsible for consciousness. Yet this doesn't seem to be the case here (and in the other example someone else mentioned in this thread) which leads weight to the theories that treat consciousness as meta and emergent.