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> virtually no one is positing that a rock is conscious in the same way a human being is. Well, I would argue that virtually no human is actually conscious in

by shkkmo 7y ago

> virtually no one is positing that a rock is conscious in the same way a human being is. Well, I would argue that virtually no human is actually conscious in the way we tend to posit that humans are conscious. I think we tend to underestimate the link between our understanding of our experience of consciousness and how memory formation and recall works. Our own experience of our consciousness is as much an illusions as our experience of the world. When we consider and attempt to discuss our own experience of redness, we are generally left with only our memory of that experience which influenced be a great deal of post-processing, compression and abstraction. I believe the mental states in which you can actually experience pure redness is very different from the state in which you can attempt analyze and discuss that experience. Thus I would posit that perhaps it is so much that the conscious experience of being a human and being a rock are different, but that they are processed, stored and understood differently.

memling 7y ago
> Our own experience of our consciousness is as much an illusions as our experience of the world. When we consider and attempt to discuss our own experience of redness, we are generally left with only our memory of that experience which influenced be a great deal of post-processing, compression and abstraction. I believe the mental states in which you can actually experience pure redness is very different from the state in which you can attempt analyze and discuss that experience. How do you know that your experimentation that reveals this disconnect isn't subject to the same problem? I'm not sure how to word it artfully, but I mean the question sincerely: how do we avoid invoking turtles-all-the-down?
- shkkmo 7y ago
  To abuse that analogy, it's turtles all the way down until eventually it's not turtles but the border where that transition happens is blurry because "Turtle" is just an artificial human created category. Like the "chicken and the egg" paradox, reality is most likely that things change a little with each step until the category "chicken" eventually doesn't apply. I do think that, like with our perception of color, there are likely fairly concrete inaccuracies in our memories of our experience of consciousness that we might be able to measure that might improve our understanding of the underlying phenomenon with fully explaining it.
optimuspaul 7y ago
> Well, I would argue that virtually no human is actually conscious in the way we tend to posit that humans are conscious. Word. I don't have much more to add to that other than yes. I think that humans are delusional in their understanding of how advanced we are as a conscious form of life. We are not that much different from simple machines.

by shkkmo 7y ago

memling 7y ago

> Our own experience of our consciousness is as much an illusions as our experience of the world. When we consider and attempt to discuss our own experience of redness, we are generally left with only our memory of that experience which influenced be a great deal of post-processing, compression and abstraction. I believe the mental states in which you can actually experience pure redness is very different from the state in which you can attempt analyze and discuss that experience. How do you know that your experimentation that reveals this disconnect isn't subject to the same problem? I'm not sure how to word it artfully, but I mean the question sincerely: how do we avoid invoking turtles-all-the-down?

shkkmo 7y ago
To abuse that analogy, it's turtles all the way down until eventually it's not turtles but the border where that transition happens is blurry because "Turtle" is just an artificial human created category. Like the "chicken and the egg" paradox, reality is most likely that things change a little with each step until the category "chicken" eventually doesn't apply. I do think that, like with our perception of color, there are likely fairly concrete inaccuracies in our memories of our experience of consciousness that we might be able to measure that might improve our understanding of the underlying phenomenon with fully explaining it.

optimuspaul 7y ago

> Well, I would argue that virtually no human is actually conscious in the way we tend to posit that humans are conscious. Word. I don't have much more to add to that other than yes. I think that humans are delusional in their understanding of how advanced we are as a conscious form of life. We are not that much different from simple machines.