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They're conflating episodic memory retainment with consciousness. Consciousness process may result in things to store in memory, but, not being able to store th
by nomel 2y ago
They're conflating episodic memory retainment with consciousness. Consciousness process may result in things to store in memory, but, not being able to store those things long term doesn't necessarily mean consciousness was missing in that moment.
After a brain injury, I had my memory truncated to around 30 seconds for a short time. I would claim I was probably less conscious because the time I could perceive and predict was truncated so incredibly small that I couldn't make sense of the past or future. I could perceive the present just fine, but it relatively meaningless/without context, so couldn't be extrapolated. I think something related to that will end up being a definition of consciousness: meaningful extrapolation of past experience. Or, maybe simply, a meaningful persistent world model, with an update loop.
- cupcakecommons 2y agoI think the self can be disrupted by significant alterations in memory storage among other things. I think memory is one of many key ingredients in having a self. When your memory is adequately disrupted your self is disrupted. Without a self subjective experience is radically different than with a self. It's radically different in that it's often described by the self (who stops being blackout drunk at some point) as being a discontinuity similar to sleep. The interesting thing here is that people who are blackout drunk continue to do things that a clinically-conscious person does (eat, talk, stumble around). Your experience is really interesting too - you seemed to still have an intact self, just not extended memory beyond 30 seconds. I think maybe we are talking about different things or my view is wrong.