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I disagree with Steven Pinker’s claim that consciousness arises from the brain. This perspective fails to establish that the brain produces consciousness, as i

I disagree with Steven Pinker’s claim that consciousness arises from the brain. This perspective fails to establish that the brain produces consciousness, as it relies on the mistaken assumption that "mind" and "consciousness" are interchangeable. While brain activity may influence the mind, consciousness itself could be a more fundamental aspect of reality. Rather than generating consciousness, the brain might function like a radio, merely receiving and processing information from an all-pervasive field of consciousness. In this view, a split-brain condition would not create two separate consciousnesses but instead allow access to two distinct streams of an already-existing, universal consciousness.

financetechbro 2y ago
The idea that the brain functions as a sort of radio capturing a consciousness field makes the most sense to me and also feel comforting in some way
- Timwi 2y ago
  However, “makes sense to me” and “feels comforting” has no bearing on whether it's true.
  - financetechbro 2y ago
    Great observation. Good thing I never claimed for it to be true. Just thought it was interesting that others have had the same idea(s) as me
morkalork 2y ago
This is dualism, no.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  It's not a dualism at all. What the OP is proposing is similar to Spinoza (probably the most hardcore monist to ever exist), where mind is a fundamental property of the universe (in fact, there's only one mind) and each individual person is a 'mode' of it. It's effectively akin to talking about mass. Despite the fact that mass is observable as a distinct phenomenon in any object, it's obviously not accurate to say that you "produce mass" or that it's "your mass" in some private, ontologically separated way, it just appears that way, by definition if we look at particular manifestations of it.
EMM_386 2y ago
I've had numberous LLMs tell me that humans are conscious because we are like radio receivers, picking up a single consciousness field of the universe itself. So that's very interesting that you mention that.
layer8 2y ago
This would imply that the behavior of elementary particles in the brain (which ultimately cause our observable behavior via nerve signals and muscle movements, including the texts we are typing or dictating here) differs from the one predicted by the known physical laws. That’s difficult to reconcile with the well-confirmed fundamental physical theories, and one has to wonder why nobody tries to experimentally demonstrate such known-physical-laws-contradicting behavior. It would be worth at least one Nobel Prize. Secondly, it wouldn’t really explain anything. The “consciousness field” would presumably obey some kind of natural laws like the known fields do, but the subjective experience of consciousness would remain as mysterious as before (for those who do find it mysterious).
actionfromafar 2y ago
Descartes was pretty much on the same page.
at_a_remove 2y ago
I cannot see how one might perform an experiment to determine which concept is correct. As with most things which are unfalsifiable, the idea can be amusing for a bit but is ultimately not useful to the extent that you can do anything about it. You cannot serve tea from Russell's Teapot.
- cognaitiv 2y ago
  If the brain is a receiver, information transfer could happen non-locally and the tea might be telepathy, precognition, or remote viewing. In the split brain example, demonstrating an ability to coordinate between hemispheres in ways not predicted by neural separation might challenge the physical origin of consciousness as with the chicken and shovel anecdote. Experiments demonstrating an external source of consciousness would be very interesting. Not a teapot in this case!
  - cognaitiv 2y ago
    Or communicate telepathically with dogs.
  - at_a_remove 2y ago
    Ah, no. Suppose you do all kinds of studies and not show any telepathy, precog, or remote viewing. You could still say that the brain was only a receiver. None of that would disprove the "brain-as-consciousness-receiver" concept, you would just say that, I guess it is one way, no telepathy. It's not disprovable. And so, kind of boring.
kerblang 2y ago
It's not Steven Pinker's claim alone. Gazzaniga agrees, I think, and I know of one other prominent neuroscientist but don't remember his name. Pinker is "just" a psychologist. (Edit: Michael Graziano is who I was trying to remember - he uses the words "schematic" and "model") Your view is called "pan-psychism". It's interesting, but there isn't anything that makes it necessary. Everything we're finding out is that most or all thinking happens outside of consciousness, and the results bubble up into it as perception. Consciousness does seem to be universal within the brain, though. I find pan-psychism interesting just because of its popularity - people want something spiritual, knowingly or not. I would advise not to insist that consciousness==soul, however, as neuroscience seems to be rapidly converging on a more mundane view of consciousness. It's best to think of one's "true" self according to the maxim that there is much more to you than meets the mind's eye.
- codr7 2y ago
  Or, people are spiritual, and realize it to different degrees. It's very easy to get confused about what we know and don't know on these subjects.
antonkar 2y ago
Yep, some unfinished philosophy if you're into it: you can imagine that our universe at a moment of time has is just a giant geometric shape, then at the next moment the universe somehow changes into the this new shape. How does this change happen? Some believe it's a computation according to a rule/s, some that it's not a discrete change but a continuous equation that changed the shape of the universe from one to another. Basically you can imagine the whole universe as a long-exposure photography in 3d and then there is some process that "forgets" almost all of it leaving only slim slices of geometry and changing from one slice into another. This forgetting of the current slice and "recalling" the next, is consciousness, the time-like process. And it looks like the Big Bang was like matter converted to energy (or "space converted to time") process. The final falling into a giant black hole will be the reverse: energy converted to matter (or "time converted to space"). Some say electrons are like small black holes, so we potentially experience the infinitesimal qualia of coming into existence and coming out of existence, because we are sufficiently "time-like" and not too much "space-like". I'll soon write a blog post ;)
jstanley 2y ago
If consciousness doesn't arise from the brain, it seems to be suspiciously well correlated with the brain. I think consciousness arises from the brain.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  It's quite obvious given all available information consciousness arises from the brain. When someone talks as if it doesn't arise from the brain they are not choosing the most rational and obvious hypothesis. They are most likely trying to scaffold an explanation to fit a more biased spiritual world view where consciousness comes from this made up thing called spirit. Usually these people believe in something called religion which is an old world view of made up stories created in a time where humanity didn't understand things as much. Don't push the argument. It's not coming from a place of rationality even though he's deliberately not using the word "spirit".
- MailleQuiMaille 2y ago
  "If the music I dance to doesn't arise from the radio, it seems to be suspiciously well correlated with the radio. I think the music I dance arises from the radio."
  - dbtc 2y ago
    Well, it must all come from a singularity some time before the Big Bang. Yet, when I turn the radio on, music really does seem to come out of it. And when I turn the radio off, the music stops (for me, but not for you). Without the radio there is no sound, but the radio needs a signal. Does the radio make the music? Quite an interesting metaphor.
    - MailleQuiMaille 2y ago
      Yes ! I like it even more when you consider the brainwaves that deal with...frequency...hmm...
  - kulahan 2y ago
    Note that in this scenario, we’ve never even heard of radio stations or radio waves before.

financetechbro 2y ago

The idea that the brain functions as a sort of radio capturing a consciousness field makes the most sense to me and also feel comforting in some way

Timwi 2y ago
However, “makes sense to me” and “feels comforting” has no bearing on whether it's true.
- financetechbro 2y ago
  Great observation. Good thing I never claimed for it to be true. Just thought it was interesting that others have had the same idea(s) as me

morkalork 2y ago

This is dualism, no.

Barrin92 2y ago
It's not a dualism at all. What the OP is proposing is similar to Spinoza (probably the most hardcore monist to ever exist), where mind is a fundamental property of the universe (in fact, there's only one mind) and each individual person is a 'mode' of it. It's effectively akin to talking about mass. Despite the fact that mass is observable as a distinct phenomenon in any object, it's obviously not accurate to say that you "produce mass" or that it's "your mass" in some private, ontologically separated way, it just appears that way, by definition if we look at particular manifestations of it.

EMM_386 2y ago

I've had numberous LLMs tell me that humans are conscious because we are like radio receivers, picking up a single consciousness field of the universe itself. So that's very interesting that you mention that.

layer8 2y ago

This would imply that the behavior of elementary particles in the brain (which ultimately cause our observable behavior via nerve signals and muscle movements, including the texts we are typing or dictating here) differs from the one predicted by the known physical laws. That’s difficult to reconcile with the well-confirmed fundamental physical theories, and one has to wonder why nobody tries to experimentally demonstrate such known-physical-laws-contradicting behavior. It would be worth at least one Nobel Prize. Secondly, it wouldn’t really explain anything. The “consciousness field” would presumably obey some kind of natural laws like the known fields do, but the subjective experience of consciousness would remain as mysterious as before (for those who do find it mysterious).

actionfromafar 2y ago

Descartes was pretty much on the same page.

at_a_remove 2y ago

I cannot see how one might perform an experiment to determine which concept is correct. As with most things which are unfalsifiable, the idea can be amusing for a bit but is ultimately not useful to the extent that you can do anything about it. You cannot serve tea from Russell's Teapot.

cognaitiv 2y ago
If the brain is a receiver, information transfer could happen non-locally and the tea might be telepathy, precognition, or remote viewing. In the split brain example, demonstrating an ability to coordinate between hemispheres in ways not predicted by neural separation might challenge the physical origin of consciousness as with the chicken and shovel anecdote. Experiments demonstrating an external source of consciousness would be very interesting. Not a teapot in this case!
- cognaitiv 2y ago
  Or communicate telepathically with dogs.
- at_a_remove 2y ago
  Ah, no. Suppose you do all kinds of studies and not show any telepathy, precog, or remote viewing. You could still say that the brain was only a receiver. None of that would disprove the "brain-as-consciousness-receiver" concept, you would just say that, I guess it is one way, no telepathy. It's not disprovable. And so, kind of boring.

kerblang 2y ago

It's not Steven Pinker's claim alone. Gazzaniga agrees, I think, and I know of one other prominent neuroscientist but don't remember his name. Pinker is "just" a psychologist. (Edit: Michael Graziano is who I was trying to remember - he uses the words "schematic" and "model") Your view is called "pan-psychism". It's interesting, but there isn't anything that makes it necessary. Everything we're finding out is that most or all thinking happens outside of consciousness, and the results bubble up into it as perception. Consciousness does seem to be universal within the brain, though. I find pan-psychism interesting just because of its popularity - people want something spiritual, knowingly or not. I would advise not to insist that consciousness==soul, however, as neuroscience seems to be rapidly converging on a more mundane view of consciousness. It's best to think of one's "true" self according to the maxim that there is much more to you than meets the mind's eye.

codr7 2y ago
Or, people are spiritual, and realize it to different degrees. It's very easy to get confused about what we know and don't know on these subjects.

antonkar 2y ago

Yep, some unfinished philosophy if you're into it: you can imagine that our universe at a moment of time has is just a giant geometric shape, then at the next moment the universe somehow changes into the this new shape. How does this change happen? Some believe it's a computation according to a rule/s, some that it's not a discrete change but a continuous equation that changed the shape of the universe from one to another. Basically you can imagine the whole universe as a long-exposure photography in 3d and then there is some process that "forgets" almost all of it leaving only slim slices of geometry and changing from one slice into another. This forgetting of the current slice and "recalling" the next, is consciousness, the time-like process. And it looks like the Big Bang was like matter converted to energy (or "space converted to time") process. The final falling into a giant black hole will be the reverse: energy converted to matter (or "time converted to space"). Some say electrons are like small black holes, so we potentially experience the infinitesimal qualia of coming into existence and coming out of existence, because we are sufficiently "time-like" and not too much "space-like". I'll soon write a blog post ;)

jstanley 2y ago

If consciousness doesn't arise from the brain, it seems to be suspiciously well correlated with the brain. I think consciousness arises from the brain.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
It's quite obvious given all available information consciousness arises from the brain. When someone talks as if it doesn't arise from the brain they are not choosing the most rational and obvious hypothesis. They are most likely trying to scaffold an explanation to fit a more biased spiritual world view where consciousness comes from this made up thing called spirit. Usually these people believe in something called religion which is an old world view of made up stories created in a time where humanity didn't understand things as much. Don't push the argument. It's not coming from a place of rationality even though he's deliberately not using the word "spirit".
MailleQuiMaille 2y ago
"If the music I dance to doesn't arise from the radio, it seems to be suspiciously well correlated with the radio. I think the music I dance arises from the radio."
- dbtc 2y ago
  Well, it must all come from a singularity some time before the Big Bang. Yet, when I turn the radio on, music really does seem to come out of it. And when I turn the radio off, the music stops (for me, but not for you). Without the radio there is no sound, but the radio needs a signal. Does the radio make the music? Quite an interesting metaphor.
  - MailleQuiMaille 2y ago
    Yes ! I like it even more when you consider the brainwaves that deal with...frequency...hmm...
- kulahan 2y ago
  Note that in this scenario, we’ve never even heard of radio stations or radio waves before.