4 ms·

Consciousness Is Worth Thinking About

8 points by ca98am79 12y ago

api 12y ago
IMHO consciousness is an area where science is "chickening out." "This is too puzzling and bizarre and possibly spooky, so let's pretend it doesn't exist even though we are experiencing it right now..."
ppod 12y ago
I don't understand what kind of answer is sought, and I don't understand why there is a question. As a species, we have done well by being unusually good at processing and communicating information. Our senses receive information and pass it through a highly complex processing system with memory and motor functions. When we talk about this we call it "experience", or "first person observation". What's the problem? It's not 'fear or the unknown', it's that I don't know what you think you don't know. If you want to use the word 'observer', then we have a field of study for that, it's called human biology. Or anthropology, or psychology, neuroscience, or physics, depending on which level you're interested in understanding.
- ca98am79 12y ago
  From my perspective, consciousness is too profound to be simply created by matter. Check out this video by David Chalmers, who explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo Also there is a great book called "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza which explains a lot of the scientific reasons why consciousness may not come from the brain.
  - kevin42 12y ago
    I'm curious what you find profound about consciousness? There are plenty of theories about why we have consciousness and what it is that do not require mystic explanations. I'm sincerely curious if there are other concepts you think are too profound to be 'created by matter'
    - ca98am79 12y ago
      to be honest I think it is more like gravity - a fundamental part of nature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction It's just that consciousness is so different than anything else I have seen created by matter - it is so profoundly different. From my experience and point of view, I don't believe it is created by matter.
      - jqm 12y ago
        Consciousness certainly is affected by matter. Anyone who doubts this can do a little informal research with a bottle of vodka.
      - kevin42 12y ago
        How do you explain how our consciousness can be interrupted and/or fooled so easily with matter? We can't change the rules of gravity or any other fundamental force, but we can easily alter consciousness. We can predictably alter the way someone's consciousness works with chemicals and electric signals, so how would the rules of matter cross over to something that doesn't follow the rules of matter?
        ca98am79 12y ago
        Hi Kevin, it appears that we alter consciousness, but are you sure? People could be fooled into thinking they alter electricity itself by breaking a light bulb, but it is obvious they just affect the tool that is used by electricity. I think it is the same when we alter the brain. Why do we all share the present moment? Why does consciousness affect matter at the quantum level? There are a lot of questions like this that don't have reasonable answers until you begin to think of consciousness as a fundamental part of nature.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jobposter1234 12y ago
The "I am disappointed in you HN" intro was offputting. Say what you're going to say, I don't need to be shamed by the principle for it. Practically, it also makes your article less relevant to the population as a whole, and it will feel out of date a month after this discussion. Regarding the content: the reason I don't find discussions about consciousness particularly stimulating is because they feel more like philosophy than science. The people who address it scientifically (who are named in the article - Kurzweil, Dawkins, Munroe) - are also the ones dismissing it.
jobposter1234 12y ago
The "I am disappointed in you HN" intro was offputting. Say what you're going to say, I don't need to be shamed by the principle for it. Practically, it also makes your article less relevant to the population as a whole, and it will feel out of date a month after this discussion. Regarding the content: the reason I don't find discussions about consciousness particularly stimulating is because they feel more like philosophy than science. The people who address it scientifically (who are named in the article - Kurzweil, Dawkins, Munroe) - are also the ones dismissing it.
jedharris 12y ago
When Gopi Krishna says of the scientist "when we ask him how did it take a leap, he is dumb" and then references Darwin, he's revealing a lack of understanding of the scientific process. Darwin knew he lacked a lot of crucial knowledge -- including how heredity works. Some of the blanks have been filled in, some have not -- or only partially. Darwin's ignorance doesn't undercut his greatness or imply the limits of science. There has been a lot of good scientific work done on consciousness in the last few decades. Bernard Baars helped to make the topic respectable with _A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness_ which is still a very good analysis of many of the issues. Currently I think the best theoretical grip on consciousness is summarized in Graziano's _Consciousness and the Social Brain_, interestingly discussed at (http://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/10/16/the-attention-schema-theory-of-consciousness-deserves-your-attention/ http://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/10/16/the-attention-schema...). These scientific approaches to understanding consciousness have the advantages of helping us understand our subjective experience, helping us understand how that experience maps into brain anatomy and activity, and helping us explain why and how evolution would have produced consciousness in animals like us. Also, these approaches don't require any new work in physics or metaphysics -- they work just fine at the level of neuroscience and cognitive science.

8 points by ca98am79 12y ago

api 12y ago

IMHO consciousness is an area where science is "chickening out." "This is too puzzling and bizarre and possibly spooky, so let's pretend it doesn't exist even though we are experiencing it right now..."

ppod 12y ago

I don't understand what kind of answer is sought, and I don't understand why there is a question. As a species, we have done well by being unusually good at processing and communicating information. Our senses receive information and pass it through a highly complex processing system with memory and motor functions. When we talk about this we call it "experience", or "first person observation". What's the problem? It's not 'fear or the unknown', it's that I don't know what you think you don't know. If you want to use the word 'observer', then we have a field of study for that, it's called human biology. Or anthropology, or psychology, neuroscience, or physics, depending on which level you're interested in understanding.

ca98am79 12y ago
From my perspective, consciousness is too profound to be simply created by matter. Check out this video by David Chalmers, who explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo Also there is a great book called "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza which explains a lot of the scientific reasons why consciousness may not come from the brain.
- kevin42 12y ago
  I'm curious what you find profound about consciousness? There are plenty of theories about why we have consciousness and what it is that do not require mystic explanations. I'm sincerely curious if there are other concepts you think are too profound to be 'created by matter'
  - ca98am79 12y ago
    to be honest I think it is more like gravity - a fundamental part of nature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction It's just that consciousness is so different than anything else I have seen created by matter - it is so profoundly different. From my experience and point of view, I don't believe it is created by matter.
    - jqm 12y ago
      Consciousness certainly is affected by matter. Anyone who doubts this can do a little informal research with a bottle of vodka.
    - kevin42 12y ago
      How do you explain how our consciousness can be interrupted and/or fooled so easily with matter? We can't change the rules of gravity or any other fundamental force, but we can easily alter consciousness. We can predictably alter the way someone's consciousness works with chemicals and electric signals, so how would the rules of matter cross over to something that doesn't follow the rules of matter?
      - ca98am79 12y ago
        Hi Kevin, it appears that we alter consciousness, but are you sure? People could be fooled into thinking they alter electricity itself by breaking a light bulb, but it is obvious they just affect the tool that is used by electricity. I think it is the same when we alter the brain. Why do we all share the present moment? Why does consciousness affect matter at the quantum level? There are a lot of questions like this that don't have reasonable answers until you begin to think of consciousness as a fundamental part of nature.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jobposter1234 12y ago

The "I am disappointed in you HN" intro was offputting. Say what you're going to say, I don't need to be shamed by the principle for it. Practically, it also makes your article less relevant to the population as a whole, and it will feel out of date a month after this discussion. Regarding the content: the reason I don't find discussions about consciousness particularly stimulating is because they feel more like philosophy than science. The people who address it scientifically (who are named in the article - Kurzweil, Dawkins, Munroe) - are also the ones dismissing it.

jobposter1234 12y ago

jedharris 12y ago

When Gopi Krishna says of the scientist "when we ask him how did it take a leap, he is dumb" and then references Darwin, he's revealing a lack of understanding of the scientific process. Darwin knew he lacked a lot of crucial knowledge -- including how heredity works. Some of the blanks have been filled in, some have not -- or only partially. Darwin's ignorance doesn't undercut his greatness or imply the limits of science. There has been a lot of good scientific work done on consciousness in the last few decades. Bernard Baars helped to make the topic respectable with _A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness_ which is still a very good analysis of many of the issues. Currently I think the best theoretical grip on consciousness is summarized in Graziano's _Consciousness and the Social Brain_, interestingly discussed at (http://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/10/16/the-attention-schema-theory-of-consciousness-deserves-your-attention/ http://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/10/16/the-attention-schema...). These scientific approaches to understanding consciousness have the advantages of helping us understand our subjective experience, helping us understand how that experience maps into brain anatomy and activity, and helping us explain why and how evolution would have produced consciousness in animals like us. Also, these approaches don't require any new work in physics or metaphysics -- they work just fine at the level of neuroscience and cognitive science.