A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
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Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#2The last paragraph surprised me even though it shouldn't have. It's shocking to have a clever scientific story suddenly grounded in the reality that this person is rapidly dying. In some sense he has donated his body to science even before he died.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#3The last paragraph surprised me even though it shouldn't have. It's shocking to have a clever scientific story suddenly grounded in the reality that this person is rapidly dying. In some sense he has donated his body to science even before he died.
It was pretty jarring. You’re reading along, fascinated if you’re me, then jarringly reminded of the fact that this was a human being, not a Petri dish. Empathy’s gotta be one of the most important skills for an experimental social psychologist.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#4I know it's most likely real, but I just can't imagine how this must've felt to have your "eyes" lie to you actively and deliberately. It just doesn't sit well with me.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#5The last paragraph surprised me even though it shouldn't have. It's shocking to have a clever scientific story suddenly grounded in the reality that this person is rapidly dying. In some sense he has donated his body to science even before he died.
It was pretty jarring. You’re reading along, fascinated if you’re me, then jarringly reminded of the fact that this was a human being, not a Petri dish. Empathy’s gotta be one of the most important skills for an experimental social psychologist.
>Empathy’s gotta be one of the most important skills for an experimental social psychologist.
Or maybe the exact opposite? I would find it very hard to do research and empathize with the subject of my research at the same time.
This has also just made me realized that this problem with empathizing with my research is actually highly problematic when it comes to the research I am actually doing at the moment.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#6I have also seen this example, where a man blinded by strokes still avoids obstacles and recognizes emotions, without any conscious awareness[1]. Is this the same phenomenon?
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was pretty jarring. You’re reading along, fascinated if you’re me, then jarringly reminded of the fact that this was a human being, not a Petri dish. Empathy’s gotta be one of the most important skills for an experimental social psychologist.
>Empathy’s gotta be one of the most important skills for an experimental social psychologist. Or maybe the exact opposite? I would find it very hard to do research and empathize with the subject of my research at the same time. This has also just made me realized that this problem with empathizing with my research is actually highly problematic when it comes to the research I am actually doing at the moment.
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Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#8I think it was on this site that someone posted the very interesting perspectives on consciousness by Roger Penrose.[2] From that I found this video by Dr. Stuart Hameroff, M.D.: Microtubules & quantum consciousness.[1] Higly recommended.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#9A real life Flowers for Algernon :(.
Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness
#10This has some implications for artificial general intelligence. If consciousness does not automatically emerge from some sufficient high cognitive processing skills, those sci-fi super-human AI may never arrive.
Anyway, I feel sorry for this patient. This must be a tough disease to die with.