Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 393 posts

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#261

Post by davidhs »

Osiris wrote: post #196

I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and a common submission technique is to cut off blood flow to the brain (known as a blood choke). I've lost consciousness twice after being put into a blood choke. The experience of regaining consciousness is visceral. For those that haven't experienced it, it's very much like a turning on a computer. Initially, your brain does not (or cannot) process input like vision, sound, touch, etc. Slo…

I have orthostatic hypotension, which doesn't affect me as much since I've gained weight, and I've lost consciousness from standing to quickly up, but sometimes it doesn't all go away. I black out, a moment later I am somewhere, I don't know who I am or where I am, a moment later the rest fills in.

The way I understand it as the blood pressure drops your brain stops to function properly but it might still somewhat function. As blood pressure goes back up more parts of the brain resume normal function but the "functional" state of the brain might still be abnormal. The current state is unstable, especially when new functionality starts to come back online and resume normal behavior, and the state of the brain quickly moves from a unstable state to a more stable normal state.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#262

Post by davidhs »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #93

Like Dennett in "Consciousness Explained", both of these authors seem almost entirely focused on what we are conscious of rather than the fact that we are conscious of anything at all. Their descriptions of their work are all centered on the question of what it is that we actually experience. This is is a fascinating question, and entirely worthy of investigation. But it is not the same question as: how is it possibl…

Well, the reason we have experience at all is because that is being simulated by the brain. For me a more interesting question is how it is being simulated by the brain.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#263

Post by mensetmanusman »

contravariant wrote: post #244
CallidusAsinus wrote: post #239

In my experience, when reading about consciousness there are a couple types of claims you should be cautious of: 1) Claims that the causes of consciousness can be easily explained. As far as I can tell, they can't. Usually these explanations use the word "emergent" a lot, and tend to be linguistically impenetrable. Often more poetic than scientific when scrutinized closely. 2) Claims that consciousness doesn't exist.…

I suppose if consciousness is indeed an illusion then that would at least explain why it's so hard to understand. Or rather it may not be that it's hard to understand but understanding an illusion usually means dispelling it, which is problematic when that illusion is consciousness. Then again claiming something is an illusion is usually less than helpful. Colour is an illusion of sorts (or a qualia if we're being te…

It’s kind of pointless to consider whether it’s an illusion, because it still comes to the question of who is it an illusion for? Heh

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#264

Post by chasd00 »

foobarian wrote: post #233
webmaven wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is, why did the FPV-experiencing consciousness happen to bind to the body you are in? And why does it stick? You're asking questions equivalent to "why does the interior of a box happen to bind to that particular piece of folded cardboard? And why is the same interior there when the box is closed and reopened?" If each brain has a consciousness, and each is uniquely generated by that brain, the 'bindin…

That line of explanation doesn't do it for me, because there is only one brain that has my FPV consciousness. Why this particular one? I think it's a question related to the topics of breaking symmetry, or nondeterminism. It's also a great unsolved question that many smarter people than me couldn't answer so I'm not hopeful I'll live to see it answered. But I will continue to wonder at it now and then, like when arti…

> there is only one brain that has my FPV consciousness. Why this particular one?

to me, the answer is because you were born with that one.

Maybe it's better to think about how your FPV consciousness didn't exist prior to your birth. It came into being when you came into being. I don't think there's a separation between your FPV consciousness and physical brain. If your metabolism stops your FPV consciousness stops

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#265

Post by mensetmanusman »

zubspace wrote: post #23

What I find fascinating about consciousness is that it seems to be bound to your location. But how and why? Why are you inside of your body and not in someone elses? The article poses this question, but leaves it unanswered. For me it begs the question: If conscousness is bound to a location, is it possible to transfer consciousness from one entity to another? Is there some kind of thing we did not yet detect? What h…

My consciousness does not seem bound to my body; my senses do, but it is trivial to travel to other imaginary places with consciousness.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#266

Post by loganmhb »

naasking wrote: post #228
GeorgeKangas wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you don't have conscious experience, you only think you do." That's what illusionism , the position of Keith Frankish, asserts. Dennett mostly seems to support it, as you note, but more equivocally than Frankish. For those of us who have subjective experience (SE), and are aware of it: SE is the thing, which we know must exist (as noted by Descartes). Anyone doubting the existence of SE, either is not having SE (i.e…

> Dennett mostly seems to support it, as you note, but more equivocally than Frankish. I believe Dennett is an eliminative materialist, so he would consider qualia to be an illusion. > For those of us who have subjective experience (SE), and are aware of it: SE is the thing, which we know must exist (as noted by Descsartes). Descartes begged the question. Just deconstruct it: " I think therefore I am" presupposes the…

The question is not whether perceptions are true -- that's irrelevant. Undoubtedly perceptions present a skewed and unreliable view onto reality. It's whether they exist at all. You can't trick someone who isn't looking.

> Except everybody knows there is no "I", you're just a bundle of atoms, and a bundle that's changing from moment to moment.

This is begging the question in the other direction.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#267

Post by mensetmanusman »

krapp wrote: post #26
zubspace wrote: post #23

What I find fascinating about consciousness is that it seems to be bound to your location. But how and why? Why are you inside of your body and not in someone elses? The article poses this question, but leaves it unanswered. For me it begs the question: If conscousness is bound to a location, is it possible to transfer consciousness from one entity to another? Is there some kind of thing we did not yet detect? What h…

This is only fascinating if you refuse to accept a non-supernatural or non-metaphysical definition of consciousness. Otherwise, most of these questions become trivial when consciousness is considered as a physical, biological process bound to the brain. Why is consciousness bound to a person's location? Because their brain is bound inside their skull. Why are you inside your body and not someone else's? Because your…

The universe is incredibly intelligible and follows invisible laws. That, per definition, is a supernatural observation since we can’t touch the invisible laws.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#268

Post by mensetmanusman »

foobarian wrote: post #167
zubspace wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can completely follow your logic. And I completely agree that going supernatural or decending into a soul-debate is not constructive. That was not my intent. Still, you and I can probably agree to some extent, that there is an inner eye inside of our heads looking outside. It also makes sense to me, that those processes could spawn from a feedback loop inside of a brain. Still. why did this inner eye spawn in this…

I have a lot of trouble with that exact question. It's no wonder the concept of a 'soul' is so pervasive over the ages - it explains things so neatly. It's like there is a cosmic Kubernetes cluster and at birth a process gets randomly assigned to a CPU.

Once you decide whether you believe in free will, which is supernatural by any interesting definition, things fall into place:)

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#269

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

naasking wrote: post #228
GeorgeKangas wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you don't have conscious experience, you only think you do." That's what illusionism , the position of Keith Frankish, asserts. Dennett mostly seems to support it, as you note, but more equivocally than Frankish. For those of us who have subjective experience (SE), and are aware of it: SE is the thing, which we know must exist (as noted by Descartes). Anyone doubting the existence of SE, either is not having SE (i.e…

> Dennett mostly seems to support it, as you note, but more equivocally than Frankish. I believe Dennett is an eliminative materialist, so he would consider qualia to be an illusion. > For those of us who have subjective experience (SE), and are aware of it: SE is the thing, which we know must exist (as noted by Descsartes). Descartes begged the question. Just deconstruct it: " I think therefore I am" presupposes the…

> I believe Dennett is an eliminative materialist, so he would consider qualia to be an illusion.

That's correct, mostly, but it also means this position is nonsensical.

What is notable about qualia is that it is possible to have them at all. An illusion is definitionally a qualia. You cannot have an illusion without qualia existing.

Dennett tries to finesse this, but in my opinion fails. I think he wants it to be possible that you can somehow experience things in a non-mysterious way, and this this non-mysterious experience explains the mysterious experience stuff. I think he's wrong.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#270

Post by mckeed »

davidhs wrote: post #262
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #93

Like Dennett in "Consciousness Explained", both of these authors seem almost entirely focused on what we are conscious of rather than the fact that we are conscious of anything at all. Their descriptions of their work are all centered on the question of what it is that we actually experience. This is is a fascinating question, and entirely worthy of investigation. But it is not the same question as: how is it possibl…

Well, the reason we have experience at all is because that is being simulated by the brain. For me a more interesting question is how it is being simulated by the brain.

Isn't that just layering an extraneous concept on top without explaining anything? Is there a difference between experiencing something (real) and having a "simulated" experience of experiencing it?
Post reply on HN