Just blindly bought this book because I think consciousness is one of the most fascinating unexplained aspects of our universe.
I wish I got the appreciation.. would you be able to describe what is fascinating about it?
What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
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Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#12Consciousness vs awareness vs sentience are terms that really need some society-scale effort to nail down what we mean by one or another. The conversation circles round and round because many folks talk past each other or interpret discussions in ways that the writer didn't intend. (I'm not saying the answer is available today if only we solve this dialectical issue.) Philosophers of consciousness define "consciousne…
"Metacognition" is a better term for what many refer to as consciousness.
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#13Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#14Just blindly bought this book because I think consciousness is one of the most fascinating unexplained aspects of our universe.
I wish I got the appreciation.. would you be able to describe what is fascinating about it?
Here is a good overview of the problem (and the controversy):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousnes...
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#15Aeon just had a great article on the consciousness, "Seeing and somethingness" https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-probl... It argues that consciousness evolved out of sensation, where we developed an "inner self" to predict how sensations would affect us, and it's that inner self that became our conscious. Don't miss out on the comments section, the author answers a lot of question in there.
Like Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained", the Aeon article falls into the category of explaining what we are conscious of, not how it is possible to be conscious of anything at all. It does not really tackle Chalmers "hard problem of consciousness", despite the subtitle.
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#16It's time to upgrade this folk philosophy of mind and its obsession with ever-elusive "consciousness" with theories of intelligence build on neuroscientific, cellular and developmental underpinnings.
intelligence is not the target I take it. The target is self-experience/qualia
intelligence creates and experiences all that
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#17Aeon just had a great article on the consciousness, "Seeing and somethingness" https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-probl... It argues that consciousness evolved out of sensation, where we developed an "inner self" to predict how sensations would affect us, and it's that inner self that became our conscious. Don't miss out on the comments section, the author answers a lot of question in there.
Just as handwavy as any other explanation of consciousness. I can make an electronic device that runs a Python program that predicts how input affects the device. That doesn't make the device conscious.
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#18Right off the bat it seemed like it was saying experts have changed their tone recently. Saying "we're further from understanding consciousness than we thought we were". It never goes on to elaborate this point. Great book review. If I had more time, I would snap up the book immediately. The review left me wondering if the book elaborates on the above ^^^. I might make the time to read it.
I am glad, because for years the prevailing attitude was that there's nothing special or interesting about consciousness at all, that it doesn't really exist, it's an illusion, etc.
I don't think we'll ever be able to fully explain it in scientific terms, because not everything is in the realm of scientific knowledge.
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#19Aeon just had a great article on the consciousness, "Seeing and somethingness" https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-probl... It argues that consciousness evolved out of sensation, where we developed an "inner self" to predict how sensations would affect us, and it's that inner self that became our conscious. Don't miss out on the comments section, the author answers a lot of question in there.
These theories just dont' even try to prove that the brain creates consciousness. They just assume it's the case.
Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness
#20Maybe we have two system, an imaginary layer and an accepted reality layer, dreams happen in the first one, experience in the other one. Mania happens when first former leaks in the latter.