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> One point on which you both clearly agree is that consciousness is an embodied phenomenon, It probably is but I wouldn't be so sure it is. I have neither a f

> One point on which you both clearly agree is that consciousness is an embodied phenomenon, It probably is but I wouldn't be so sure it is. I have neither a feeling nor a rationally logical proof of this idea. It's just an intuitive guess. > we have the ineffable experience of being alive in this world The experience of being, and the experience of attributes like "alive" and in "somewhere in particular" are separate things. AFAIK the latter even is attributed to specific parts of the brain scientifically and it's known these can be broken. I certainly feel like "I am" but I have no idea of whether I am alive and in which world I am the first seconds after the alarm clock rings. I feel my being and also have visual perception but judgement/semantics in what I see emerges 0.5-10 seconds later.

noduerme 5y ago
Well, being on delay doesn't detract from consciousness. Think of it this way: No matter how incredibly fast a monstrous AI ever becomes, it will always suffer some delay. >> in which world I am the first seconds after the alarm clock rings. Do you actually believe those are real, other worlds? I'm tempted to, sometimes. But if they are, it's more an argument that consciousness is real and something even grander than we acknowledge, if it can flip states and universes like that.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  > Do you actually believe those are real, other worlds? Logically this depends of how do you define a world. Even if you imagine them as parallel universes with physics similar or mindboggingly dissimilar to that of our world, you can still say there is just one world in which all these sub-worlds exist. So, talking seriously I wouldn't say there are other worlds or there are not. I would just say "observable world" and assume there are many things beyond what we can comprehend or imagine. Even if we agree, just for the sake of argument, that the very consciousness itself is not a product of the material brain, our abilities to perceive, memorize and reason surely are and this way have limitations. Believing these limitations don't render us futile in trying to understand all the phenomena of existing universe and their nature seems absurdly naïve to me. Practically I just mean I have no idea (or even question) about the world or anything the moment I wake up. As soon as I wake up I feel like "I am" but not "I am in this world". The idea of where I am comes after a variable non-zero delay.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Waking up is an interesting thing, and that's why your post caught my attention. I often feel like I'm standing on the edge between two fully functioning worlds. >> Believing these limitations don't render us futile in trying to understand all the phenomena of existing universe and their nature seems absurdly naïve to me. I don't so much agree. Yes, "all the phenomena" may never be understandable. But if I think about the cognitive ability we have now (to look at a star and understand it's plasma; what plasma is; to see that the sun rises and know we are rotating on an axis while orbiting it; to be able to visualize where we are on that axis and plane; to move electrons around tiny circuits, create images and sound by controlling these things we can't see) it seems to me that you could have looked at humans 10,000 years ago and thought they would never be able to understand these things, but we're not very different from them. I'm less pessimistic on it. I think if we have another 10,000 years we'll probably be quite good at understanding the universe. Maybe even the universe of dreams?
zozbot234 5y ago
> The experience of being, and the experience of attributes like "alive" and in "somewhere in particular" are separate things. Yes, you can have the former without the latter - it's a key component of attaining "enlightenment" or "stream entry", which is perhaps most feasibly achieved through vipassana meditation. This gives you a reasonably direct experience of anatta or "non-self" (where 'self' actually means something like personal identity and the attributes thereof, not phenomenological experience per se).
erokar 5y ago
If consciousness is not embodied that would imply metaphysics and body/mind dualism, e.i. something countrary what one might term the scientific world view.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The most common naïve view among scientists is in fact quite close to body/mind dualism, much as phrased by Descartes. People who have examined the problem in depth tend to go for some form of pan-protopsychism, where the substrate for subjective phenomenology has to somehow be a part of the physical universe (since it clearly enters into causal relations with the rest of it!) but can also be expected to be rather physically simple, so that it can be consistently endowed with both "physical" and "subjectively experienced, phenomenological" features or states.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    This is kind of where I'm at. To me clearly qualia are part of the physical world, but no amount of understanding of neurophysiology is going to account for their existence without positing "something else". My best guess is qualia and consciousness are like an EM field, something that exists and has some relationship with known physical entities but is distinct at the same time. It may be amplified by, say, some computational structure, but exists independent of it. At one time I had convinced myself that qualia were related to time, in the sense that it was the "substantive" manifestation of time as a dimension, but now I'm not sure what I was thinking. I suspect in the end consciousness will end up in the domain of physics rather than neurobiology and psychology alone.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Can consciousness be a part of "what one might term the scientific world view" at all? Is there an instrument (or a human expert) capable to measure consciousness and reliably tell a really good neural network vs a conscious human apart? What about a conscious vs an unconscious human? "what one might term the scientific world view" is great and very practical but not perfect. There certainly are legitimate questions it probably has no way to address. I feel pretty skeptical about exploring the nature of consciousness without employing techniques available in Buddhism, psychonetics[1] or something like that. These are fundamentally unscientific (although not imaginary - execution of the practices can be easily detected with EEG) but can at least let us observe the object of the study with at least some basic degree of objectivity, reason about it and do something useful with it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838445
misja111 5y ago
> I have neither a feeling nor a rationally logical proof of this idea. It's just an intuitive guess. This intuition, that there is something special and unique about what 'we' are, is baked into our brains by many thousands of years of evolution, and this makes it so extremely difficult for us to believe that there's nothing more to us then a bunch of molecules. This is why people have invented theories about souls, reincarnation, collective consciousness and what not.
- stevofolife 5y ago
  We are unique as humans if you compare us to any biological being. Saying we are not is a very big understatement.
  - Layke1123 5y ago
    What do you mean by unique?
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    My interpretation of the GP's use of 'unique' here isn't specific necessarily to humans, just to conscious beings. Still, if you take the set H of properties of humans and the set B of the properties of all other Earth creatures, you'll find that H is a proper subset of B. What makes humans 'unique' in the regard you mean isn't kind, but scale and combination.
- bcgraham 5y ago
  Aren’t you describing exactly the kind of “intuitive guess” he referred to, for why consciousness is embodied?
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  It's difficult to believe we are nothing more to us then a bunch of molecules because I still am me if I loose an arm, a memory or any given part of my brain. One can gradually replace every tiny part of his body with prosthetics and the point at which he will stop being them and become an imitation both exists and does not. What's the difference between me and a perfect imitation? I believe I am going to remain where I was if someone just makes an atom-perfect copy of mine and puts it near so the copy will probably have exactly the same memories I have and believe it is me but will not be me actually.
davidhs 5y ago
I don't think consciousness is an embodied phenomenon. It's probably just a property or set of properties of the simulated world that we find ourselves in (the simulated world running on the brain). To me, embodiment such and such seems pseudoscientific. How is it possible at this point in time that anything inside your pinky toe might be influencing the activity of your brain without sending nerve signals to the brain or secreting something into its surrounding which might eventually signal the brain? By some spooky magic?

noduerme 5y ago

Well, being on delay doesn't detract from consciousness. Think of it this way: No matter how incredibly fast a monstrous AI ever becomes, it will always suffer some delay. >> in which world I am the first seconds after the alarm clock rings. Do you actually believe those are real, other worlds? I'm tempted to, sometimes. But if they are, it's more an argument that consciousness is real and something even grander than we acknowledge, if it can flip states and universes like that.

qwerty456127 5y ago
> Do you actually believe those are real, other worlds? Logically this depends of how do you define a world. Even if you imagine them as parallel universes with physics similar or mindboggingly dissimilar to that of our world, you can still say there is just one world in which all these sub-worlds exist. So, talking seriously I wouldn't say there are other worlds or there are not. I would just say "observable world" and assume there are many things beyond what we can comprehend or imagine. Even if we agree, just for the sake of argument, that the very consciousness itself is not a product of the material brain, our abilities to perceive, memorize and reason surely are and this way have limitations. Believing these limitations don't render us futile in trying to understand all the phenomena of existing universe and their nature seems absurdly naïve to me. Practically I just mean I have no idea (or even question) about the world or anything the moment I wake up. As soon as I wake up I feel like "I am" but not "I am in this world". The idea of where I am comes after a variable non-zero delay.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Waking up is an interesting thing, and that's why your post caught my attention. I often feel like I'm standing on the edge between two fully functioning worlds. >> Believing these limitations don't render us futile in trying to understand all the phenomena of existing universe and their nature seems absurdly naïve to me. I don't so much agree. Yes, "all the phenomena" may never be understandable. But if I think about the cognitive ability we have now (to look at a star and understand it's plasma; what plasma is; to see that the sun rises and know we are rotating on an axis while orbiting it; to be able to visualize where we are on that axis and plane; to move electrons around tiny circuits, create images and sound by controlling these things we can't see) it seems to me that you could have looked at humans 10,000 years ago and thought they would never be able to understand these things, but we're not very different from them. I'm less pessimistic on it. I think if we have another 10,000 years we'll probably be quite good at understanding the universe. Maybe even the universe of dreams?

zozbot234 5y ago

> The experience of being, and the experience of attributes like "alive" and in "somewhere in particular" are separate things. Yes, you can have the former without the latter - it's a key component of attaining "enlightenment" or "stream entry", which is perhaps most feasibly achieved through vipassana meditation. This gives you a reasonably direct experience of anatta or "non-self" (where 'self' actually means something like personal identity and the attributes thereof, not phenomenological experience per se).

erokar 5y ago

If consciousness is not embodied that would imply metaphysics and body/mind dualism, e.i. something countrary what one might term the scientific world view.

zozbot234 5y ago
The most common naïve view among scientists is in fact quite close to body/mind dualism, much as phrased by Descartes. People who have examined the problem in depth tend to go for some form of pan-protopsychism, where the substrate for subjective phenomenology has to somehow be a part of the physical universe (since it clearly enters into causal relations with the rest of it!) but can also be expected to be rather physically simple, so that it can be consistently endowed with both "physical" and "subjectively experienced, phenomenological" features or states.
- derbOac 5y ago
  This is kind of where I'm at. To me clearly qualia are part of the physical world, but no amount of understanding of neurophysiology is going to account for their existence without positing "something else". My best guess is qualia and consciousness are like an EM field, something that exists and has some relationship with known physical entities but is distinct at the same time. It may be amplified by, say, some computational structure, but exists independent of it. At one time I had convinced myself that qualia were related to time, in the sense that it was the "substantive" manifestation of time as a dimension, but now I'm not sure what I was thinking. I suspect in the end consciousness will end up in the domain of physics rather than neurobiology and psychology alone.
qwerty456127 5y ago
Can consciousness be a part of "what one might term the scientific world view" at all? Is there an instrument (or a human expert) capable to measure consciousness and reliably tell a really good neural network vs a conscious human apart? What about a conscious vs an unconscious human? "what one might term the scientific world view" is great and very practical but not perfect. There certainly are legitimate questions it probably has no way to address. I feel pretty skeptical about exploring the nature of consciousness without employing techniques available in Buddhism, psychonetics[1] or something like that. These are fundamentally unscientific (although not imaginary - execution of the practices can be easily detected with EEG) but can at least let us observe the object of the study with at least some basic degree of objectivity, reason about it and do something useful with it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838445

misja111 5y ago

> I have neither a feeling nor a rationally logical proof of this idea. It's just an intuitive guess. This intuition, that there is something special and unique about what 'we' are, is baked into our brains by many thousands of years of evolution, and this makes it so extremely difficult for us to believe that there's nothing more to us then a bunch of molecules. This is why people have invented theories about souls, reincarnation, collective consciousness and what not.

stevofolife 5y ago
We are unique as humans if you compare us to any biological being. Saying we are not is a very big understatement.
- Layke1123 5y ago
  What do you mean by unique?
- cgriswald 5y ago
  My interpretation of the GP's use of 'unique' here isn't specific necessarily to humans, just to conscious beings. Still, if you take the set H of properties of humans and the set B of the properties of all other Earth creatures, you'll find that H is a proper subset of B. What makes humans 'unique' in the regard you mean isn't kind, but scale and combination.
bcgraham 5y ago
Aren’t you describing exactly the kind of “intuitive guess” he referred to, for why consciousness is embodied?
qwerty456127 5y ago
It's difficult to believe we are nothing more to us then a bunch of molecules because I still am me if I loose an arm, a memory or any given part of my brain. One can gradually replace every tiny part of his body with prosthetics and the point at which he will stop being them and become an imitation both exists and does not. What's the difference between me and a perfect imitation? I believe I am going to remain where I was if someone just makes an atom-perfect copy of mine and puts it near so the copy will probably have exactly the same memories I have and believe it is me but will not be me actually.

davidhs 5y ago

I don't think consciousness is an embodied phenomenon. It's probably just a property or set of properties of the simulated world that we find ourselves in (the simulated world running on the brain). To me, embodiment such and such seems pseudoscientific. How is it possible at this point in time that anything inside your pinky toe might be influencing the activity of your brain without sending nerve signals to the brain or secreting something into its surrounding which might eventually signal the brain? By some spooky magic?