2 ms·
I have this weird thought from time to time-- maybe it's dumb, but it nags at me. Think of any time when you've been unconscious, like when under anesthesia, o
by chaoticmass 5y ago
I have this weird thought from time to time-- maybe it's dumb, but it nags at me.
Think of any time when you've been unconscious, like when under anesthesia, or fainting, or knocked out for some other reason. You experience everything leading up to the event that knocks you out, but the only reason you can recall any of it is because you did eventually wake up and regain consciousness. Your experience of your current self now is only because a moment from now you can look back and remember it. Eventually though, you will die, and you won't be able to look back and remember, and for you, it's as if nothing ever happened. So given that we will all die some day, how is it we even have conscious experience at all? I might die 5 minutes from now, or 5 days, or 5 decades from now, but isn't all the same?
- bumby 5y agoAre you asking how or why? If it's the latter, one thought is there doesn't need to be any grand design, but merely that consciousness gives some sort of evolutionary advantage. It reminds me of Matthew Walker's potential hypothesis that sleep is our default state. So why would wakefulness exist? Conceivably because it confers some evolutionary advantage. Consciousness is sometimes referred to in the same terms of "wakefulness"