/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10588572
"Emergence" is a meme word people use when they don't understand how something works.

It's fine to describe something as emergent when you have an actual mechanism for how it arises from simpler properties. But saying "consciousness emerges from neural activity" is equivalent to saying "consciousness magically appears out of neural activity."

>>10588572

> But as far as i know, it emerges on behalf of neurons, hormones, and neurotransmitters

People hopes so, since if something breaks in the head, people act weird or dead. A broken switch can also cause light to not work, but that doesn't mean switch has light in it.

> as anything been pinpointed it terms of "what" reacts with "what" to produce such and such pattern of thought

nope, there are some bad attempts though

>>10588587
Do we have a better explanation at the moment? I mean, this is why i made the god damn fucking post. Please help me remedy my ignorance.

>>10588594
Nope, we don't. It's startling how little we understand about consciousness

>>10588594
I'm not a neuroscientist, but I'm pretty sure there's basically no evidence for how consciousness actually works. Empirically, at least outside of our own experience, we might was well be p-zombies.

>>10588593
>People hopes so, since if something breaks in the head, people act weird or dead. A broken switch can also cause light to not work, but that doesn't mean switch has light in it.

interesting analogy.

>nope, there are some bad attempts though

well what's the best attempt we got so far?

>>10588606
>well what's the best attempt we got so far?
We don't have
The problem of consciousness is qualitatively different than something like the twin primes conjecture or Baryon Asymmetry. We don't even know how to define consciousness, let alone even comprehend what an answer to our question would look like. Even philosophers who commit themselves to this often frustrate each other because the language used to speak about the mind is so contentious. We can't even talk about it clearly

>>10588606
I'm almost tempted to suggest panpsychism as a "simplest explanation," but honestly it's too hypothetical and too much of a meme to take seriously.

I've always wondered if the entity that is me is the product of a repeatable set of events. If those events were to be repeated, would that create an exact copy of me through which I would experience life? Is that series of events malleable to some extent? Could I experience life many billions of years from now as something else in another place, or can I only experience life as I am now? Doesn't really change much either way, but it is fun to consider.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

>>10588601
so all im fucking left with is my own fucked up schizophrenic ideas of fate being channeled through me via intense emotional energy combined with constant rationalization? WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYTHING????? HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYTHING???? I WANT TO FUCKING KNOW

>>10588606

I have seen Jeff Hawkins going around giving talks according to youtube recommendation. There are some computational neoropsychology people making some algos. There's a group that once claimed to read memories from the brain which was bs. Even some nobel prize level neuroscientists making up bs about upward/downward causality, some psudo-bs about emergent properties explanation are also going around. None of them are "best", like maybe current theory of evolution/gravity can be said to be best, they are just attempts that completely failed their goal.

>>10588619
thanks /b/ro

>>10588611
>The problem of consciousness is qualitatively different than something like the twin primes conjecture or Baryon Asymmetry

OH SHI- im a fucking brainlet but i'll try to understand this heavy shit you dropped

>>10588612
>I'm almost tempted to suggest panpsychism as a "simplest explanation," but honestly it's too hypothetical and too much of a meme to take seriously.

fuck /b/ro, more heavy shit for my weak little brain to try and take in. i'm gonna try. thanks.

>>10588621
Maybe one day we will have a better understanding of consciousness, but honestly it seems like it just isn't our time in history. Each generation always leaves unanswered questions to the next, and just has to learn to be OK with not knowing some things.
Amazing things will be discovered in our lifetimes, and maybe even something about consciousness with advances in neuroscience, but we should learn to be content with the mysteries and discoveries of our slice of history.

>>10588634
A warning: people with panscychism bs doesn't have any evidence, when they say "simple" they actually mean "my favorite", there's nothing makes it "simple" and there is no reason to think the right explanation would be "simple" (QM for example).

>>10588627
God fucking damn /b/ro. That's some real serious fucking perspective your dropping like fucking BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD.

Do these Nobel prize tier scientists actually believe their own shit or are they just so hungry for glory that they don't give a fuck about being wrong?

>>10588572
>about how consciousness emerges
>emerges
No, we can't even agree on the concept of anything being emergent in the first place. The only promising leads for understanding a system that can generate variables on the fly to understand not just itself, but the world around it is in paradox modeling. That is, modeling it as if our minds can make up any bullshit that sounds logical (or illogical) and running with that assumption regardless of where it goes.


You are now exercising manual awareness of the fact that you don't know why people values things that make sense.

>>10588644
Can't tell if you trying to meme, but I was referring to people like Roger Penrose, Roger Sperry. Idk what got them to their ideas, everyone has some bad ideas, and these stuff are too much into unknowns, that's probably why.

>>10588637
>but we should learn to be content with the mysteries and discoveries of our slice of history.

im content for the most part. i just get overwhelmed by forces i dont understand that drive me fucking crazy trying to come up with an explanation of what the fuck i am or why i am etc etc.

>>10588641
> there's nothing makes it "simple" and there is no reason to think the right explanation would be "simple" (QM for example).

i have a feeling (lol a feeling DO YOU FUCKING SEE HOW FUCKING STUPID I AM AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH) that the answers are simple, just getting to them is complicated. Or maybe not even complicated, just difficult. Briane Greene explained some things very well for a literal retard like me to understand in some TED talks about string theory as well as how there could be physical evidence in terms of detecting vast amounts of heat in parts of the universe that may indicate a potential collision with another universe thus validating the multi-verse theory.

>>10588651
fucking heavy shit /b/ro. thanks.