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Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

nautil.us

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Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#271

Post by NHQ »

ajuc wrote: post #251
NHQ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating abstract reasoning with consciousness. Your invisible line has no effect on the substrate, because the line does not exists. Consciousness effects the mind/brain/body complex. The lines you describe are placed by your intuition. Most math is intuitive as such, and exists outside of mind, which is why anybody can "discover" axioms, ratios, etc. If your notion was correct, only a perfect atomic order…

> Consciousness effects the mind/brain/body complex. Or so it seems. It's entirely possible that consciousness is just post-factum rationalization of what the body did. Have you noticed that sometimes you make a decision but don't do it, and sometimes you make a decision and do it? > If your notion was correct, only a perfect atomic ordering inside the brain would create a precise and useful thought, such as how to f…

> It's entirely possible that consciousness is just post-factum rationalization of what the body did.

If that were the sole reality my case would still stand, for you then become aware of something you did, and react; ergo consciousness does effect the body, etc. This is basic physics.

Nor does your argument exclude mine. Why would you need consciousness if it was merely "post-factum rationalization" with no feedback effect? By your logic, we could live exactly the same without the consciousness.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#272

Post by Splognosticus »

I was under anesthesia a few years back and it really opened my eyes to what death actually is. You don't dream. You don't experience anything. It's not scary. You just... stop being.

I went under and then next thing I knew they were wheeling me back to my room. No pain. No fear. I was simply transported from one instant to another.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#273

Post by Hayarotle »

layer8 wrote: post #266
Hayarotle wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some forms of panpsychism (such as panprotopsychism) aren't much different from emergent materialism. Emergent materialism states human consciousness originates from the state of a physical brain, while the constituent parts of the human brain (and its physical interactions) have nothing resembling consciousness. Some forms of panpsychism would argue the physical interactions between the parts are already proto-consc…

The problem of panpsychism is that it doesn’t explain anything. It postulates some sort of mechanism that builds up our consciousness based on what amounts to a dual realm of psychic mechanics, but it doesn’t explain at all how this nonphysical mechanism is supposed to be able to account for consciousness in a way that the known laws of physics allegedly can’t.

That's a problem that affects all theories about the metaphysics of consciousness. All of them share the burden of explaining how a world where "consciousness" exists would be different from a world without it. The ones which claim a distinct consciousness does exist then also have to explain how this consciousness either originates from physical parts with limited or non-existent consciousness(emergent theories like panprotopsychism and emergent materialism), exists outside physical matter (dualism), or exists fully in the smaller parts, somehow getting combined into one (traditional panpsychism).

That's part of why it can be attractive to leave aside concerns about metaphysical consciousness altogether.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#274

Post by kubanczyk »

bowsamic wrote: post #69
kubanczyk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Occam's razor = the theory with the fewest parameters should be preferred, or often interpreted as the simplest theory. > Do you think that humans universally or even have historically interpreted physicalism as a simpler theory than a non-materialist one? I don't think so Backtracking a bit from that little word "theory", it's foremost about being able to formulate predictions about the real world. So, designing a…

I think you are getting confused between the word theory and the word model, which are often interchanged in physics unfortunately. A "model" is predictive, but a "theory" explains. A theory of consciousness has no need to predict the future. A model of consciousness would. This word has just been mixed up a lot in science. The reason is that theories in physics are almost always also predictive models. However, this…

> A theory of consciousness has no need to predict the future.

If you don't feel the need to predict anything about consciousness in the real world, I'd say I won't be interested in such a "theory" (or "explanation"). But glad to see your take on the definition of the term.

Going back to Occam's razor, if you only apply it to get the simplest map (in some sense of "the simplest"), and abandon verifying whether it predicts the territory or not, it seems a blank map always wins.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#276

Post by dr_dshiv »

fny wrote: post #134
dr_dshiv wrote: post #129

I finetuned GPT3 with the complete works of Plato and posed the question: "How is the soul different from consciousness or sensation?" "The soul, I think, is like a sphere, and consciousness or sensation are like circles which move round another centre which moves round yet another centre, and so on in endless cycles." "And the definitions of the soul which you were mentioning," I said, "like that of the circle, were…

This reads like nonsense.

Care to say which part specifically? And, is this more nonsense than most discussions of soul?

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#277

Post by EMM_386 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #215
simonh wrote: post #8

How to approach loss of consciousness is one of the problems I have with non-materialist theories of consciousness like dualism and panpsychism. If consciousness is not generated by my physical brain, how come physical chemicals can manipulate my conscious state? If the brain is a receiver for consciousness, surely my consciousness should exist independently of my brain? Interfering with a radio doesn’t change what’s…

It's a sensitive topic for a lot of people (mainly because it contradicts world views they might have) but I don't think you are wrong. Consciousness, in so far it is definable at all, seems just an emergent property of our brain. We're pretty sure it resides in our brain and not for example your toes or other parts of your body since there are plenty of nasty accidents where people lose various parts of their body;…

> I have no memory of the whole thing and was apparently "conscious" throughout. Great stuff; would have that again if the need arises.

"Twilight anesthesia"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_anesthesia

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#278

Post by ajuc »

NHQ wrote: post #271
ajuc wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consciousness effects the mind/brain/body complex. Or so it seems. It's entirely possible that consciousness is just post-factum rationalization of what the body did. Have you noticed that sometimes you make a decision but don't do it, and sometimes you make a decision and do it? > If your notion was correct, only a perfect atomic ordering inside the brain would create a precise and useful thought, such as how to f…

> It's entirely possible that consciousness is just post-factum rationalization of what the body did. If that were the sole reality my case would still stand, for you then become aware of something you did, and react; ergo consciousness does effect the body, etc. This is basic physics. Nor does your argument exclude mine. Why would you need consciousness if it was merely "post-factum rationalization" with no feedback…

> you then become aware of something you did, and react; ergo consciousness does effect the body

consciousness can be a side effect, like log files. Every time you send an email you get a line in log files, but the email wasn't sent BECAUSE of log files.

> Why would you need consciousness if it was merely "post-factum rationalization" with no feedback effect?

This is a good argument. It could be like the concept of color. We needed a way to distinguish good and bad food, so we have color vision and we created the concept of colors (which are simplifications and abstractions of real world, but useful ones).

And when we have these abstractions we use them sometimes in ways that have no relation to reality, like talking about feeling "blue".

Similarly we needed a way to know where to stop when searching for root cause on cause-effect tree. When somebody hits you with a stick it's useful to attack that person and not the stick (too early termination) or their mother (too late). So our models of the world had to have the concept of agency and consciousness. It doesn't matter that the concept is correct, it just needs to be useful. Just like naive understanding of physics like "everything thrown falls down and everything slows to a halt if not pushed" is wrong, but useful so we have it built-in.

These calculations don't need to be conscious, consciousness can still be an illusion, but the distinction remains useful.

If you insist we learn from our memories that are constructed around the concept of consciousness - therefore consciousness have effect on our lives - I can grant you that, but that doesn't mean consciousness is real any more than kids behaving well to get presents prove the existence of Santa Claus.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#280

Post by dwd »

amkkma wrote: post #123
dwd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would highly recommend listening to Anil Seth or reading his book "Being You". He is also highly critical of dualism and panpsychism, and justifiably so. As one of the leading researchers on consciousness, I'm surprised he's not mentioned at all in this. He is extremely fascinated by how consciousness goes away under anesthesia.

Sounds like he's ultimately agnostic on the issue: " But I’m agnostic about whether at the end of this programme of trying to account in physical terms for properties of experience, there will still be some residue of mystery left, something more to explain." https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/21/neuroscienti...

Hedging his bets.

He doesn't believe there is a "hard problem" as described by others and dismisses that as shorthand for there being something mysterious we don't get. In a chat with Sam Harris the two argue that one out in depth.

I have heard him make the analogy to the Unifying Theory of Physics and admitting that even after all his work there could potentially be some aspect that could have weird quantum qualities, or is bound to dimensions of reality outside of perceivable 3d+t.

And while he doesn't agree with Douglas Hoffman as to there being conscience agents outside of space/time, he is fully in agreement with reality as perceived and currently observable being a whole cloth construction with our senses serving to adjust our individual construct.

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