5 ms·

Many of us share the experience that we have been driving for an hour, and end up safely at home, but do not remember anything about it. So we can fully operat

Many of us share the experience that we have been driving for an hour, and end up safely at home, but do not remember anything about it. So we can fully operate in some kind of wakeful "sleep" state. This tells us that "consciousness" is not constant, but fluctuates, and above certain threshold we can remember what happened. Unless we specifically observe this phenomena while it happens, we will reconstruct a "memory" of being conscious. According to some meditation traditions, it is possible to learn to slowly increase the consciousness, mainly by learning to stop leaking out attention. Attention is the key to the consciousness.

martin-adams 3y ago
What this makes me think is that consciousness is the non-autonomous part of our experience. I now wonder if we are in a ‘learning mode’ when we’re having a conscious experience.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if), then why would it disappear on the long drive home? Just because you've tasked some lesser software routine with the responsibility of not turning you into road pizza doesn't mean you're functionally unconscious? I've heard this described before, and those people are daydreaming. Or chewing on a particular problem they couldn't crack in the work day. Or hell, some of them seem to "listen to music" in their head. The trouble with "consciousness" is that humans can't really define it in a meaningful way, but they're absolutely certain that it's a real thing and it makes them important.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  >then why would it disappear on the long drive home? Thinking is expensive, so it's optimized with reflexes.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Maybe we could define consciousness as a threshold of attention. Maybe some complex systems exhibit what we call consciousness when it can muster enough attention to become reflexive.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Thinking is certainly expensive for some. Sprinting is expensive for fat people because they don't do as much of it as they believe themselves to.
- adastra22 3y ago
  > If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if) How is that a big if? As Descartes showed, it is literally the one thing each of us can be absolutely certain about.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    We don't have a definition of consciousness that allows you to determine whether a rock is conscious or not.
    - namaria 3y ago
      Moot point, following Descartes definition you can only ascertain you own consciousness, you can't even determine if another person is conscious.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Sure, but consciousness as a phenomenon does exist. I know this with absolute certainty, because I'm conscious typing this right now.
      - kukkeliskuu 3y ago
        How do you know this with absolute certainty?
        adastra22 3y ago
        That I exist as a thinking, feeling, observing entity? That’s kinda self-evident, no?
        joquarky 3y ago
        The trick with this is that most people do not question what "I" refers to in such a statement.
        3y ago
- jstanley 3y ago
  > If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if) There plainly is such a thing. The only people who would question it are those who don't have it, and those who haven't noticed that they have it. You might not notice you have it, in the same way that fish might not notice the water. Just consider that it's not automatically the case that you are aware of your own existence. Inanimate objects, and lesser lifeforms, aren't aware of their own existence, so something about you makes you different from them. If you call that thing something other than "consciousness", then that's fine, but it's just a different name for the same thing.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > There plainly is such a thing. The only people who would question it are those who don't have it, and those who haven't noticed that they have it. How is that different than a soul? > aren't aware of their own existence, so something about you makes you different from them. I I see no discernible difference in that regard. That I string words together in a way that seems interesting isn't evidence that I'm conscious. It's evidence that there's some interesting algorithm hardwired into my brain meat. There's no magic there, no spirit, and it's embarrassing that you believe there is and that it's somehow akin to rationality for you to believe it.
    - rytis 3y ago
      > There's no magic there, no spirit Just for the sake of argument. If there was "magic" and "spirit", how would you tell? What properties would you expect to observe?
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        I would expect elements of those phenomenon to exist outside of human skulls, and to be manipulable in such a way that instruments could be constructed that use those principles to detect souls in human skulls. They'd also be empirical in that no other simpler/more-rational explanation exists for the properties they exhibit. This is plainly obvious. You're incapable of coming up with something like this, because you're a p-zombie. Like those LLMs we read about on this site, you can't imagine anything that hasn't been part of your training corpus. Novel, intelligent ideas are beyond you unless they previously existed and you have been exposed to those already. Why did you even have to ask your rhetorical question? Your consciousness is an illusion. You can't even properly understand this comment I've written. The manner in which you'll respond to it is perfectly predictable.
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  "why would it disappear on the long drive home?" The phenomenon exists and may be observed regardless of whether we know why it exists. We are complex beings and there is probably no simple explanation for this. "Just because you've tasked some lesser software routine with the responsibility of not turning you into road pizza doesn't mean you're functionally unconscious?" I am not claiming the driver is functionally unconscious, but that there is a distinct level of consciousness between unconscious and fully conscious where you are able to carry out complex operations without being fully conscious. Obviously you cannot drive a car if you are functionally unconscious. You can also say some subsystem is handling the driving. But calling it "tasking" means you consciously decide to delegate the work. My experience is that I have not consciously decided to delegate the work in such situations. "The trouble with "consciousness" is that humans can't really define it in a meaningful way, but they're absolutely certain that it's a real thing and it makes them important." The phenomenon can be observed and experienced, if you are open to it, regardless of whether we call it consciousness or not. And once you have the experience, it is easier to talk about consciousness in sensible manner.
SanderNL 3y ago
Your ability to remember later does not diminish your consciousness in the present. Was all of life in hindsight lived unconsciously after developing dementia? I have had many lucid dreams that I did not immediately recall, but only a bit later after something reminded me of them. Suddenly I remember being conscious, whereas before I assumed I was out. Again, memory is a tricky thing and I would be cautious in linking it to consciousness - the experience - itself.
tgv 3y ago
People can be conscious and not remember. Alzheimer patients are a clear example. A model of memory (there are more) says that we form "traces" of events by transferring from short-term to long-term memory, but that these traces need to be fixed to stay memories. This process can go wrong in many ways, but traces can also be forgotten or replaced. E.g., when I go to bed, I know/remember that I've locked the front door, but I can't remember that I locked it yesterday. I suppose I did, but I have little to no recollection of it. In computer metaphors, it's as if this event only has a trace to a single place in memory.

martin-adams 3y ago

What this makes me think is that consciousness is the non-autonomous part of our experience. I now wonder if we are in a ‘learning mode’ when we’re having a conscious experience.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if), then why would it disappear on the long drive home? Just because you've tasked some lesser software routine with the responsibility of not turning you into road pizza doesn't mean you're functionally unconscious? I've heard this described before, and those people are daydreaming. Or chewing on a particular problem they couldn't crack in the work day. Or hell, some of them seem to "listen to music" in their head. The trouble with "consciousness" is that humans can't really define it in a meaningful way, but they're absolutely certain that it's a real thing and it makes them important.

GoblinSlayer 3y ago
>then why would it disappear on the long drive home? Thinking is expensive, so it's optimized with reflexes.
- namaria 3y ago
  Maybe we could define consciousness as a threshold of attention. Maybe some complex systems exhibit what we call consciousness when it can muster enough attention to become reflexive.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Thinking is certainly expensive for some. Sprinting is expensive for fat people because they don't do as much of it as they believe themselves to.
adastra22 3y ago
> If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if) How is that a big if? As Descartes showed, it is literally the one thing each of us can be absolutely certain about.
- adrianN 3y ago
  We don't have a definition of consciousness that allows you to determine whether a rock is conscious or not.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Moot point, following Descartes definition you can only ascertain you own consciousness, you can't even determine if another person is conscious.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Sure, but consciousness as a phenomenon does exist. I know this with absolute certainty, because I'm conscious typing this right now.
    - kukkeliskuu 3y ago
      How do you know this with absolute certainty?
      - adastra22 3y ago
        That I exist as a thinking, feeling, observing entity? That’s kinda self-evident, no?
        joquarky 3y ago
        The trick with this is that most people do not question what "I" refers to in such a statement.
        3y ago
jstanley 3y ago
> If there is such a thing as consciousness (a big if) There plainly is such a thing. The only people who would question it are those who don't have it, and those who haven't noticed that they have it. You might not notice you have it, in the same way that fish might not notice the water. Just consider that it's not automatically the case that you are aware of your own existence. Inanimate objects, and lesser lifeforms, aren't aware of their own existence, so something about you makes you different from them. If you call that thing something other than "consciousness", then that's fine, but it's just a different name for the same thing.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > There plainly is such a thing. The only people who would question it are those who don't have it, and those who haven't noticed that they have it. How is that different than a soul? > aren't aware of their own existence, so something about you makes you different from them. I I see no discernible difference in that regard. That I string words together in a way that seems interesting isn't evidence that I'm conscious. It's evidence that there's some interesting algorithm hardwired into my brain meat. There's no magic there, no spirit, and it's embarrassing that you believe there is and that it's somehow akin to rationality for you to believe it.
  - rytis 3y ago
    > There's no magic there, no spirit Just for the sake of argument. If there was "magic" and "spirit", how would you tell? What properties would you expect to observe?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      I would expect elements of those phenomenon to exist outside of human skulls, and to be manipulable in such a way that instruments could be constructed that use those principles to detect souls in human skulls. They'd also be empirical in that no other simpler/more-rational explanation exists for the properties they exhibit. This is plainly obvious. You're incapable of coming up with something like this, because you're a p-zombie. Like those LLMs we read about on this site, you can't imagine anything that hasn't been part of your training corpus. Novel, intelligent ideas are beyond you unless they previously existed and you have been exposed to those already. Why did you even have to ask your rhetorical question? Your consciousness is an illusion. You can't even properly understand this comment I've written. The manner in which you'll respond to it is perfectly predictable.
kukkeliskuu 3y ago
"why would it disappear on the long drive home?" The phenomenon exists and may be observed regardless of whether we know why it exists. We are complex beings and there is probably no simple explanation for this. "Just because you've tasked some lesser software routine with the responsibility of not turning you into road pizza doesn't mean you're functionally unconscious?" I am not claiming the driver is functionally unconscious, but that there is a distinct level of consciousness between unconscious and fully conscious where you are able to carry out complex operations without being fully conscious. Obviously you cannot drive a car if you are functionally unconscious. You can also say some subsystem is handling the driving. But calling it "tasking" means you consciously decide to delegate the work. My experience is that I have not consciously decided to delegate the work in such situations. "The trouble with "consciousness" is that humans can't really define it in a meaningful way, but they're absolutely certain that it's a real thing and it makes them important." The phenomenon can be observed and experienced, if you are open to it, regardless of whether we call it consciousness or not. And once you have the experience, it is easier to talk about consciousness in sensible manner.

SanderNL 3y ago

Your ability to remember later does not diminish your consciousness in the present. Was all of life in hindsight lived unconsciously after developing dementia? I have had many lucid dreams that I did not immediately recall, but only a bit later after something reminded me of them. Suddenly I remember being conscious, whereas before I assumed I was out. Again, memory is a tricky thing and I would be cautious in linking it to consciousness - the experience - itself.

tgv 3y ago

People can be conscious and not remember. Alzheimer patients are a clear example. A model of memory (there are more) says that we form "traces" of events by transferring from short-term to long-term memory, but that these traces need to be fixed to stay memories. This process can go wrong in many ways, but traces can also be forgotten or replaced. E.g., when I go to bed, I know/remember that I've locked the front door, but I can't remember that I locked it yesterday. I suppose I did, but I have little to no recollection of it. In computer metaphors, it's as if this event only has a trace to a single place in memory.