5 ms·

I think “subjective experience” in the everyday human sense is something that we learn / are taught to have — we are taught as children that there is this thing

by trevyn 7y ago

I think “subjective experience” in the everyday human sense is something that we learn / are taught to have — we are taught as children that there is this thing called “me”, how it works, and how to put sensory experiences into its context. Unlearning that — understanding that this model is one interpretation, but not the only interpretation — is indeed terrifying and exhilarating. I personally wouldn’t call my experience “not conscious”, but it can be a very different experience than what we consider normal everyday waking consciousness.

ganzuul 7y ago
The root of this puzzle is described by Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." 'Thinking' here does not need to be rational thought. Perhaps it does not even need to be the ability to form new memories. It is hard to say anything meaningful about the dichotomy of one's personal existence but for the purpose of my question it should not matter. In altered states of awareness such as dissociation or 'ego death' this conscious 'eye' which observes one's experiences remains unchanged. It is not the idea of the self described by "I am I", but the self which only asserts its own existence as "I am".
- trevyn 7y ago
  In my mind, once you strip down “I am” to “There appears to exist a repeating neural process that is creating a compressed embedding and record of sensory inputs”, it’s just not very mysterious or worthy of much further philosophical analysis. So these other humans in the world are probably just deterministic robots just like me, that may or may not feel like they have magic conscious aliveness. But my personal experience tells me that I can turn the “sense” of magic conscious aliveness on or off, and so it too is likely just a neural process that is not particularly interesting. I observe that the vast majority of other humans do not seem to be able to disable this sense at will, which does not to me imply that they are somehow more magically conscious, just that they have not experienced that particular switch flipping. Add in the historic social knowledge of “consciousness”, the historical record of neuroscience knowledge, and the rates at which scientific knowledge is processed and absorbed by the public at large, and it really seems like an obvious non-problem.
  - ganzuul 7y ago
    That's an absolutely fascinating thing to claim... Your description sounds like what I have very recently read about research into artificial neural networks, which would have vast implications for the future of the field. I have not ever seriously considered the ability to turn consciousness on and off at will. In my experience consciousness is absolute and once deep in reverie when I happened upon a mental switch to turn seemingly everything off I instead experienced a brief 'no-mind' blank state and a moment later my mind basically 'rebooted'. During no-mind, "I am" was definitely there but there was no thought to reflect this fact. There was an observer with nothing to observe. Normally, the only interruption to consciousness that I experience is for the time between wakefulness and dream and for this period I have no recollection. Is this no-mind state what you mean by turning off consciousness?
    - trevyn 7y ago
      I mean turning off the sense of intention or agency (i.e. “conscious” decision-making), as well as the sense of self (i.e. self-“consciousness”). There is still awareness of sensory inputs and memory of events, but there is no sense of making deliberate choices, personal identification with the sensory data or events, or emotional response. So there is, for linguistic convenience, “a body” doing things, but it doesn’t feel like it’s “mine” or that “I can control it”. Overall it feels lightly dissociative, and I can carry on normal everyday interactions in this state; it feels like everything is on auto-pilot and the body knows what to do, probably mostly by habit. I mention this particular state because it seems to reveal that the feeling of being an agentic self is a specific construction of mind, and that it can be intentionally deconstructed while maintaining other brain functions. There are lots of related directions one can go with this; the “no-mind” state you mention and the techniques to achieve it are excellent to practice with.
      - ganzuul 7y ago
        I understand. However self-consciousness is not what I mean by consciousness. If you observe 'your' actions there is still something there along for the ride. It is this which I surmise is common for all humans.

by trevyn 7y ago

ganzuul 7y ago

The root of this puzzle is described by Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." 'Thinking' here does not need to be rational thought. Perhaps it does not even need to be the ability to form new memories. It is hard to say anything meaningful about the dichotomy of one's personal existence but for the purpose of my question it should not matter. In altered states of awareness such as dissociation or 'ego death' this conscious 'eye' which observes one's experiences remains unchanged. It is not the idea of the self described by "I am I", but the self which only asserts its own existence as "I am".

trevyn 7y ago
In my mind, once you strip down “I am” to “There appears to exist a repeating neural process that is creating a compressed embedding and record of sensory inputs”, it’s just not very mysterious or worthy of much further philosophical analysis. So these other humans in the world are probably just deterministic robots just like me, that may or may not feel like they have magic conscious aliveness. But my personal experience tells me that I can turn the “sense” of magic conscious aliveness on or off, and so it too is likely just a neural process that is not particularly interesting. I observe that the vast majority of other humans do not seem to be able to disable this sense at will, which does not to me imply that they are somehow more magically conscious, just that they have not experienced that particular switch flipping. Add in the historic social knowledge of “consciousness”, the historical record of neuroscience knowledge, and the rates at which scientific knowledge is processed and absorbed by the public at large, and it really seems like an obvious non-problem.
- ganzuul 7y ago
  That's an absolutely fascinating thing to claim... Your description sounds like what I have very recently read about research into artificial neural networks, which would have vast implications for the future of the field. I have not ever seriously considered the ability to turn consciousness on and off at will. In my experience consciousness is absolute and once deep in reverie when I happened upon a mental switch to turn seemingly everything off I instead experienced a brief 'no-mind' blank state and a moment later my mind basically 'rebooted'. During no-mind, "I am" was definitely there but there was no thought to reflect this fact. There was an observer with nothing to observe. Normally, the only interruption to consciousness that I experience is for the time between wakefulness and dream and for this period I have no recollection. Is this no-mind state what you mean by turning off consciousness?
  - trevyn 7y ago
    I mean turning off the sense of intention or agency (i.e. “conscious” decision-making), as well as the sense of self (i.e. self-“consciousness”). There is still awareness of sensory inputs and memory of events, but there is no sense of making deliberate choices, personal identification with the sensory data or events, or emotional response. So there is, for linguistic convenience, “a body” doing things, but it doesn’t feel like it’s “mine” or that “I can control it”. Overall it feels lightly dissociative, and I can carry on normal everyday interactions in this state; it feels like everything is on auto-pilot and the body knows what to do, probably mostly by habit. I mention this particular state because it seems to reveal that the feeling of being an agentic self is a specific construction of mind, and that it can be intentionally deconstructed while maintaining other brain functions. There are lots of related directions one can go with this; the “no-mind” state you mention and the techniques to achieve it are excellent to practice with.
    - ganzuul 7y ago
      I understand. However self-consciousness is not what I mean by consciousness. If you observe 'your' actions there is still something there along for the ride. It is this which I surmise is common for all humans.