3 ms·

Let's pretend a thought or experience is in fact just memories, or rather recombinations and interactions of memories. The word "remember" [as in 'recall to mi

Let's pretend a thought or experience is in fact just memories, or rather recombinations and interactions of memories. The word "remember" [as in 'recall to mind'] is etymologically composed of "re-" [as in again, over time] and "memorari" ['being mindfull of']. Instead of focussing on consciousness, let's focus on the "first-person"-ness. Everyone else is an "I" too... Imagine [part of] your memory is dysfunctional in a similar way to amnesia. You are playing chess, and write down the moves on a piece of paper with some "private" notes like "beware of the horse on E5". After every move, your nurse turns the chess board and notes around, and "reminds" you with "it is your turn". You forgot you were black a few minutes ago, and then you forgot you were playing white after and so on. You would insist you don't have amnesia: indeed by looking at your paper you can "recall" every move, and how you felt about the moves. In physics forces and fields fall as 1/r^2 or faster (say dipoles). So as _I_ (your "I" or my "I" alike) evaluate how _I_ the universe could move say this electron, or fire that neuron, we predominantly take into account the 'local' information. So we all are under the impression that we are merely part of the universe, instead of an amnesiac decision process on the total universe. Even though we don't, suppose we all agreed with the statement "I am the universe", are we in agreement, or total conflict? Or is it only a paradox: a linguistic illusion of contradiction? Edit: I lost the cadence of my comment: intead of re-member to indicate carrying information over time, we could call the subjective "first-person"-ness here-member, carying information across space [but falling offf quickly]...

DoctorOetker 9y ago
A similar question/conundrum is this: From a reductionist perspective a civilization is a collection of humans, a human is a collection of cells. Why is my _I_ or first-person perception that of me the human [and I am convinced that others perceive it this way as well, even though I can't prove it off course] as opposed to a first-person civilization (scale above) or a first-person cell like a neuron (a scale below). Allthough once I did have a weird and exhilerating experience of fright and victorious excitement at the same time. I was lucky to always have been interested in cryptography and programming, so when I first read Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, I already knew the prerequisites or building blocks used, so merely seeing how they were combined to achieve the decentralization I immediately understood how it worked (except for a boatload of corner cases and pitfalls, which the paper did not explain, and only the source code was a guide). This high of a new insight, kept lasting and lasting, and implications and rammifications kept popping up in my head... The excitement part was a revolutionary feeling, originally just as in "humans against the system" but it was like suddenly millions of little voices (probably not individual neurons, but perhaps neuronal circuits) in my head were celebrating, and yelling that their supersystem i.e. my human-level I not only understood the plight for decentralization, but as if they somehow thought it would liberate and decentralize my brain as well. This lasted for a few hours, and I had a hard time thinking straight, I was just hearing barely comprehensible thoughts which felt like some old ancient message (not in english, but thoughts). I was elated for what decentralization meant on the human level, but at the same time many different parts of my brain were celebrating on the lower level. It's hard to describe the experience, but it was like how humans would celebrate if somehow our human civilizational top-down structures (nations/goverments/leaders/security services) would positively welcome crypto/decentralization etc. i.e. suppose congress openly starts talking about sponsoring and setting up decentralized provably secure social media, voting systems, ... and suddenly appear to actually think in the best interests of the people. That was what I was experiencing: small parts of my brain celebrating the incredulous. This was a very scary experience, during those couple of hours simple and mundane tasks like taking a sip because I was thirsty would get repeatedly postponed, but at the same time I would start cooking dinner. Luckily for me this revolt subdued afterwards and order was restored (I can only assume the normal order in my brain is some form of top-down approach society of neurons), which allowed me to function properly. Although the whole experience was scary, it was only scary in hindsight. While it was happening "I" felt elated, excited, and only after recovering did I notice something had gone horribly wrong in my brain. I am not eppileptic, and I have never experienced anything like it before or after (its many years ago now). The timing and similarity in subject makes me think it was in fact caused by reading the Satoshi paper. I am not a religious person, but I do consider this to be an experience which religious people would call a religious experience if it happened to them. Since I am not religious, I can only conclude that attention is some sort of top-down approach in how the brain functions [apparently not a democracy!].
- manjushri 9y ago
  Have you read the works of Carl Jung? Your experience reminds me of his theories. "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to even the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, show countless archaic traits." https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-following-quote-by-Carl-Jung-mean-In-all-chaos-there-is-a-cosmos-in-all-disorder-a-secret-order https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-following-quote-by-Carl-...

DoctorOetker 9y ago

A similar question/conundrum is this: From a reductionist perspective a civilization is a collection of humans, a human is a collection of cells. Why is my _I_ or first-person perception that of me the human [and I am convinced that others perceive it this way as well, even though I can't prove it off course] as opposed to a first-person civilization (scale above) or a first-person cell like a neuron (a scale below). Allthough once I did have a weird and exhilerating experience of fright and victorious excitement at the same time. I was lucky to always have been interested in cryptography and programming, so when I first read Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, I already knew the prerequisites or building blocks used, so merely seeing how they were combined to achieve the decentralization I immediately understood how it worked (except for a boatload of corner cases and pitfalls, which the paper did not explain, and only the source code was a guide). This high of a new insight, kept lasting and lasting, and implications and rammifications kept popping up in my head... The excitement part was a revolutionary feeling, originally just as in "humans against the system" but it was like suddenly millions of little voices (probably not individual neurons, but perhaps neuronal circuits) in my head were celebrating, and yelling that their supersystem i.e. my human-level I not only understood the plight for decentralization, but as if they somehow thought it would liberate and decentralize my brain as well. This lasted for a few hours, and I had a hard time thinking straight, I was just hearing barely comprehensible thoughts which felt like some old ancient message (not in english, but thoughts). I was elated for what decentralization meant on the human level, but at the same time many different parts of my brain were celebrating on the lower level. It's hard to describe the experience, but it was like how humans would celebrate if somehow our human civilizational top-down structures (nations/goverments/leaders/security services) would positively welcome crypto/decentralization etc. i.e. suppose congress openly starts talking about sponsoring and setting up decentralized provably secure social media, voting systems, ... and suddenly appear to actually think in the best interests of the people. That was what I was experiencing: small parts of my brain celebrating the incredulous. This was a very scary experience, during those couple of hours simple and mundane tasks like taking a sip because I was thirsty would get repeatedly postponed, but at the same time I would start cooking dinner. Luckily for me this revolt subdued afterwards and order was restored (I can only assume the normal order in my brain is some form of top-down approach society of neurons), which allowed me to function properly. Although the whole experience was scary, it was only scary in hindsight. While it was happening "I" felt elated, excited, and only after recovering did I notice something had gone horribly wrong in my brain. I am not eppileptic, and I have never experienced anything like it before or after (its many years ago now). The timing and similarity in subject makes me think it was in fact caused by reading the Satoshi paper. I am not a religious person, but I do consider this to be an experience which religious people would call a religious experience if it happened to them. Since I am not religious, I can only conclude that attention is some sort of top-down approach in how the brain functions [apparently not a democracy!].

manjushri 9y ago
Have you read the works of Carl Jung? Your experience reminds me of his theories. "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. Just as the human body connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to even the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, show countless archaic traits." https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-following-quote-by-Carl-Jung-mean-In-all-chaos-there-is-a-cosmos-in-all-disorder-a-secret-order https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-following-quote-by-Carl-...