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> We assume that an "individual" is a single human being, because it's convenient and I guess because that's how our sentience works. I often hear that, but I
by cel1ne 9y ago
> We assume that an "individual" is a single human being, because it's convenient and I guess because that's how our sentience works.
I often hear that, but I think that's a wrong assumption. I think people fall in and out of being conscious all the time, and often they are semi-conscious in a distracted way.
Consciousness is this holy singular grail, but I think it's actually a muddy mixture of state of minds, like thinking usually is.
- vbuwivbiu 9y agoand, as Scott Aaronson points out, why assume the brain only hosts a single consciousness* ? Maybe there are multiple consciousnesses hosted by each person's brain, and "you" are one of them at any given time - you'd have no idea the others are conscious. * (not to be confused with multiple-personality disorder)
- alansammarone 9y agoAny normal person is able to remember, in any given moment, the "experience" (in a very broad sense - meaning cognitive and emotional processes) it had in its recent past (modulo memory limitations caused by various factors). Wouldn't that imply that there is a single consciousness inside each brain? i.e a single "state machine"?
- chongli 9y agoBladerunner did a fantastic job of challenging this idea. If your memories can't be trusted then who are you, really?
- vbuwivbiu 9y agoa thread of experience = a consciousness yes, but you'd have no consciousness of any other such threads of experience that may be instantiated by your brain
- monort 9y agoMultiple consciousnesses can have the same experience in parallel. Experiments with a split brain patients shows that they probably have two personalities concurrently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain#Case_studies_of_split-brain_patients https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain#Case_studies_of_sp...
- nikki93 9y agoThis is a good line of thought, and one recent practical utility I had for this was, while meditating, invite the others in your mind to meditate with you as you discover them. Another is to let them communicate with each other and empathize with each other subconsciously.