Do you have a pet theory for consciousness? I'm really interested in how the sense of "self" arises in the mind. I feel like most of the other stuff going on in the mind is rather mechanistic - it gathers information from the senses and encodes it as concepts and memories. But the self is a mystery.
From what I've noticed, true consciousness and self-reflection only rises intermittently, when we aren't dealing with more pressing problems. Sort of like an idle state for the mind, or a focused daydream. And the "self" itself seems little more than a mix of memories to draw our personality from, plus current emotional state and some learned patterns of thought. Is the "me" thinking about this just a bunch of idle free association and recurrent thoughts? Anyone have some personal insights about how the "you" that thinks about this right now, operates? Any interesting patterns you've noticed?
The self is just the external layer of many, many more primal layers, that extends till the reptile brain. I don't recall on any pattern from my own experience, but I know this:
-This "self" layer is very irrelevant, survival wise. -This "self" layer actually affects the performance of other brain capabilities. For example, the less it takes control in physical activities, the better.
I always thought it could be even de-attached, for example, to pure logic processing. The bigger your concentration in one task, the less you are aware of yourself. Not a fan of it, told be truth. Consciousness is usually overestimated.
Luis Hughes
consciousness is only the combination of all the senses mixed with an analytical mind, that's what gives the illusion of the self.
Eli Russell
First you must understand quantum physics. Consciousness is closely related to the collapse of the wave function.
Jeremiah Fisher
My personal "headcannon" is that consciousness is a relatively (in evolutionary timescale) process which purpose it to predict future and plan ahead. To do so it needs to be able to: 1. gather information from previous experience (ability to have memories and dwell in them). 2. to evaluate personal ability (self reflection). 3. Be able to make predictions and actual plans (think ahead).
Because it is so new in evolutionary sense it is still very much not perfect tool. But the bigger problem for us is that our world and socio-economic situation is very much different from the one our ancestors were in. From the one that our conciousness actually evolved to solve. Because of it, there is very many toxic and confusing stimuli and interactions. Because of it our consciousness could be hyper or hypo active. Such errors manifests themselves as daydreaming, pessimism, neurosis, depression, complexes, low self esteem.
Thomas Baker
This was born from my meditation attempts. So it's not scientific at all. First just observe thoughts as they appear in mind Then by letting thoughts whiz by you start feeling empty. Every sound trigger images inside all images take you to other images and sounds. Eveey nerve is actively disturbing you all the time After half an hour I felt like I was a pond of water being disturbed by outside forces like sound heat etc. But you are not the pond...you observe the pond somehow. So that's it.Something inside is monitoring all brain activity.
Ethan King
I agree with most of your points, the part about consciousness reducing performance rings especially true. AFAIK it has to do with the neocortex of the brain, which has essentially hijacked the limbic and motor system during evolution. What we gain in purposeful actions we lose in reaction speed and smoothness.
I'm still not sure if you can have intelligence without consciousness though. Blindsight by Watts dealt with this, but I wasn't totally convinced. Abstract discoveries seem to require more than just reacting to stimuli.
Why do you think the self is an illusion? Whatever the process going on is, it's more than just processing sensory inputs. I'm still conscious in an isolation tank, without the senses. If anything, I'm even more conscious if I can ignore my biological body.
Benjamin Ross
>I'm still conscious in an isolation tank Even if you get put in an isolation tank you'll still have memories that trigger emotions that will give you that sense of self, you still have the knowledge that you inhabit a space and are the owner of the something (your body) that ocuppies that space,so is that hability of us to think critically that figures out all of this and gives the self illusion to the whole machine that the individual is.
Leo Parker
read something once along the lines self is just a concept which has been aquired.
There was a monkey once who had been taught sign language. Eventually the monkey was asked what she thought of other monkeys. Her responds was they were dog monkeys.
This lets you draw the conclusion that the self can be refined by more and more amounts of data into something what we call self nowadays.What you think you re is actually just a plotted line of memories in the human struggle.
blabla - does it matter ?
Lucas Nguyen
>theory for consciousness
John Garcia
Consciousness is part of the mental world. It is not reducible to phenomena in the physical world as demonstrated by qualia. Consciousness interacts with the physical world by collapsing the wave function.
Camden Roberts
>consciousness
Jackson Gutierrez
I'm leaning toward panpsychism.
David Murphy
What the fuck? source
Colton Sanchez
>This lets you draw the conclusion that the self can be refined by more and more amounts of data into something what we call self nowadays.What you think you re is actually just a plotted line of memories in the human struggle. I don't see how you get to this conclusion based on an uppity monkey.
Jacob Richardson
Thinking about thinking is a distraction in most cases but sometimes useful.
Lucas Moore
Cant find source right now. I am pretty sure it was an orang utan. Who had been taught sign language eventually she came off track broke out of her home and was eventually put behind bars and later on in zoo.
Anyway there is this test which has been done with a variety of animals if they recognize themselves in a mirror. And it turns out animals can be taught to recognize themselves. Its like you can teach them to develop a concept their self. Through interaction with this one specific monkey she learned a refined concept of her self.
Like this user said the less "self" there is in a task the more the better you re engaged. Maybe with monkeys its the same that they re solely relying on living without a sense of self but are working better in the activities which require no mental flexibility.
The self therefore would be a tool to create more mental flexibility for tasks that require planning and adaption.
Aaron Sanchez
I thought the self was the part that just watched the show.
It does not act -- it cannot. Decision were already made before the self realises.
Gavin Martin
I agree. "Free will" is a myth. This will be proven once we can perfectly model the human brain.
Benjamin Walker
Free will to what degree? Humans have free will to modify their own thoughts, the fact that their thoughts could be predicted if we had perfect knowledge doesn't change anything.
Jordan Stewart
>Why do you think the self is an illusion? Whatever the process going on is, it's more than just processing sensory inputs. >I'm still conscious in an isolation tank, without the senses. If anything, I'm even more conscious if I can ignore my biological body.
All your consciousness IS in an isolation tank is the memory of who you are from the input of all your senses over a lifetime.
Aaron Davis
I cant really imagine how consciousness can be non-magical. As someone who is otherwise a strict materialist its creates quite a bit of cognitive dissonance
Ian Powell
Reflection is not modifying your thoughts at will. You are still basicly riding the traintracks of your thoughts linearly. In the end, you can't predict what thought will plop into awareness. Or where your desire to change a previous thought came from. You can't cause thoughts to happen, they just do.
Isaac Hernandez
Wouldn't the easier explanation be that you think its something that its not? Having a body doesn't make you an expert at using it, except if you train like an athlete for years. Having a conciousness, same thing. People who train long enough to observe their own conciousness, apparantly all come to the same conclusion: its not actually there. The feeling of self is just just another input generated by the brain.
Ignoring all the mystical bullshit, insights from meditation seem to overlap with neuroscience quite well.
Cameron Rodriguez
I struggle to choose what sounds most plausible: dualism (which, yuck) or determinism. Growing up in a neo-pagan household, it was easy as a kid to just assume that it was some weird magic shit or whatever, but as I grew into adulthood toward philosophical physicalism it's been hard to reconcile. Emergentism is appealing, but also tends toward woo-woo non-explanations.
The idea of the quantum mind is ludicrous at best, but so is the idea of full-blown magic. I dunno, thoughts are weird.
Kayden Price
Considering how it usually goes with shit we don't understand and our selfcentered narcissism: earth must be made just for us, we must be special! earth is center of universe, we must be special! naw we are not animals, we must be special! naw everything dies but people, our thoughts don't die, we must be special! naw
our thoughtprocess feels so weird, it must be special!
Not betting on it honestly.
Noah Howard
It's the byproduct of your brain trying to process the data you've collected/collecting, each layer in the neuron layers tries to take you into (possibly) different direction and these paths are the thoughts that you are having.
When on drugs the layers have a harder time to prioritize a "legitimate" direction, so your thoughts are all over the places, sound triggers colors colors trigger smell, it's all a big mess.
