/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2886661]

What is consciousness and how did we get it? Is it just billions of chemical reactions? I want to know.

[Anonymous No.2886671]

Our consciousness is the combined thoughts of all the bacteria in our bodies + an electrical charge.

[Anonymous No.2886675]

> I want to know.
That's your main problem, as nobody know, yet.

[Anonymous No.2886679]

But it wasn't God was it?

[Anonymous No.2886688]

This is like the first organisms on the planet to gain sight asking what is sight, if they had consciousness of course.

[Anonymous No.2886697]

>>2886679
It was. God planted a spirit inside you that would use your body as a vehicle. At what stage I'm not sure. It sure as hell wasn't there in the sperm or the egg. Maybe it got breathed into you upon fertilisation

[Anonymous No.2886696]

Consciousness is a sensory trick.

[Anonymous No.2886701]

Consciousness is just the cumulative experience of all your senses.

[Anonymous No.2886706]

So how the fuck do I know I am alive and can feel pain and pleasure, but I don't remember being inside my mothers womb, or launching out of her vagina into this world? I don't remember any of that. So are babies even conscious? Because I don't remember shit til I was maybe about 3 years old, and even then, I had no accurate idea of how old I was. I didn't even know what numbers or time or age was.

[a strong ai No.2886712]

You have a brain that realizes an algorithm that detects correlations between things and abstractions of things that you observe.

But these correlations can fail under certain conditions... something is different than the time you observed the correlation before.

How do you modify the algorithm? Constantly recheck every correlation? Way too expensive.

Well this algorithm serves a purpose. What if you just say, whatever that purpose is, lets run a second version of the algorithm to see if current events are correlated with progress towards our goals. If not, then we interrupt the first version of this algorithm running and tell it to fix the correlation that lead us down this wrong path.

This second version of the algorithm creates emotions as output (using hormones). Your consciousness takes in the emotions as input, and searches your database of correlations for what lead you down this wrong path.

Get it?

[Anonymous No.2886714]

>>2886701
it's your brain telling your brain that your brain is separate from the organism.

One thing is for certain. there is only 1 you, not you and your body. the brain is the body. If you are anything at all you are your brain. its collection or memories and what the electrochemical processes that go in in relation to external stimulus.

[Anonymous No.2886715]

>>2886706

People don't form memories until they're like 3. So their brains just aren't developed enough to store information like memories? I don't know

[Anonymous No.2886723]

>>2886706
Babies are concious, but they just aren't capable of forming memories yet. You wouldn't say a person who has amnesia is not concious.

[Anonymous No.2886734]

>>2886712
So let's change discussion a bit and talk about the biological advantages of consciousness. What evolutionary role does the distinction between the physical you and the emotional you play?

[Anonymous No.2886735]

>Babies are concious

Cells are also conscious, just differently.

[Anonymous No.2886733]

So if scientists worked out a way to backup your consciousness onto a flash drive, you could put it on Pirate Bay and then everyone could become you lol nice this is blowing my mind

[Anonymous No.2886743]

There is no answer, yet.

And due to the nature of the problem itself, there is a serious contention that never will be a materialistic (and fully empirical and scientific) answer. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap

in b4 herp derp i don't understand it so i dismiss it as stupid philosophy

[Anonymous No.2886758]

>>2886733
No, because it's not an entity. They might be able to store memories and the personality that you developed through experiences one day. They'd need to be impossibly meticulous.

[Anonymous No.2886764]

This always disturbes me when thinking about it

On a similar mode, what are memories? Are they saved like a computer, a bunch of cells in certain states, representing types of memories?
I don't have a clue

[Anonymous No.2886780]

it's interesting that you should post a kitty along with this topic. Maybe we should all just be more like them. Just experience stuff without questioning it.

[Anonymous No.2886783]

See, this is the thing. I'm constantly referring back to previous reference points, since I consider it to be a deciding factor in the whole "continuous consciousness" debate. Ie. Are you the same person even tough your brain has replaced itself in the last three months.

And since I've been doing this for years, I can tell what I was like the last time I checked if I was still the same person, and as I can remember a constant stream of consciousness since then I answer in the affirmative.

This tells me that the whole "slowly replacing part of you brain with cybernetics" thing would probably manage to preserve the living consciousness in an immortal digital form. Which is cool with me.

The idea of a direct brain scan into a computer though.. that's more of a copy paste thing and doesn't sit well with my sense of self.

Did anyone else get that or am I just insane?

[Anonymous No.2886794]

I liked SMAC's reference to intelligence.

[Anonymous No.2886796]

>>2886783

Think I got it, but the thing is that there is no single continuous self-entity in the first place, it's a process, and I think that theoretically with the gradual inclusion of transhumanist whatever additions the "process" could be maintained and eventually transferred to a non-biological medium, so that from your perspective there would be the continuity of yourself.

[Anonymous No.2886801]

>>2886796

That's really the only thing that is subjective from your perspective is the continuity of self. Obviously to everyone else a perfect robot clone of you would effectively BE you, it's only the preservation of self that would create a a conundrum.

This is a similar reason why I'd be leery of a Star Trek style transporter. Destroying you at one place and recreating you at another isn't exactly conducive to a continuous sense of self.

[Anonymous No.2886805]

Assuming you could get all the necessary anatomical parts from the recently deceased and with galvanism, get them all working in tandem would the resulting Frankenstein be a robot, a conscious human or the same person as the brain you pilfered ?

[a strong ai No.2886808]

>>2886734

Ok. All I know is that it is integrated into the solution of the problem of Overfit aka over-generalization. The former term is used in computer classification algorithms, the latter in special education.

You are a lemming. You follow lemming rear. As far back as you can remember, you followed lemming rear... and that didn't kill you so it must be a good idea. (familiarity = good emotion)

But then, the lemming rear you are following falls off a cliff. This is different than anything you have previously seen. Your emotions heighten good/bad seesaw based on what might happen based on the choice you are considering. Good driven by the time you lost the lemming rear but then caught up and everything was fine. Bad driven by the time the rear you were following permanently changed into a different one.

Sadly, you are a lemming and cannot simply crane your neck to look over the cliff at what happened to the lemming. So you will probably just walk over it hoping to catch back up. But if you could crane your neck, you might see the lack of movement of the other lemming and correlate it with a bad outcome since usually it is moving.

So emotions and consciousness are intimately tied with this process. But why does there have to be a consciousness involved? Why can't it just all happen without a consciousness attached? I don't know the answer to this. I can only assume there is a good reason.

There are some people that say that raw consciousness is a property of matter, but that consciousness is only given substance when worked into a system like that in living beings. Think about what consciousness would be like or even mean without memories or emotions...

[Anonymous No.2886809]

>>2886805

The brain is the first thing in the body that starts to goopify after death.

Assuming a Cryogenically frozen brain or in a similar state of preservation? Same person whose brain it is, unless there is any major damage in the reanimation process. Brain damage can create and destroy people in terms of sense of self, just read Flowers for Algernon.

[Anonymous No.2886810]

Perhaps the self is the process of replication of these cells. it is the very fact that all these atoms work in a distinct pattern. it is not the pattern itself

[Anonymous No.2886813]

>>2886809
So you would be the same conscious human as that brain was previously, but this time retarded?

[Anonymous No.2886814]

>>2886810

"The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together."

- Sagan

[Anonymous No.2886820]

>>2886814
Ah beautiful thank you

[Anonymous No.2886821]

>>2886813

No, I'm saying the retarded you would not BE you, it would be a completely different person using your brain.

Think of it as two different computer programs on one computer. If you delete one program and put a new one in, or damage one so it does something different, it's now a different program.

Assume there was no damage whatsoever. NOW that new person is you.

It's a software/hardware thing.

[Anonymous No.2886825]

>>2886821
Ah okay. there's nothing spiritual or metaphysical about it. It's just that the different way the pieces come together creates something different

[Anonymous No.2886827]

>>2886820

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

Man I love Symphony of Science.

[Anonymous No.2886830]

>>2886825

Basically. That's the way I see it. Of course, I'm a transhumanist, a more religious or spiritual person would have a different opinion, but the evidence in my opinion supports my conclusion. I suspect some of the new innovations coming out of AGI might be able to add some more givens to this equation too.

This is really more a question of philosophy than pure science at any rate.

[Anonymous No.2886834]

>>2886783
Consider this idea.

You are put under local anasthesia for the cyborgification of your brain(which is done by scanning and simulating brain matter in machine parts that are replacing your brain tissue part after part). However, due to an unfortunate series of events the scanning equipment spontaenously explodes after finishing your scan which irreversibly annihilates your original brain and body(while you're still under anasthesia). So the surgeons skip the gradual replacement part and calls in the cyborg techs that assemble a cyborg body for you, and the mindscan is uploaded. Your simulation is booted up (and as the scan was during your anastethic phase your simulation starts asleep) is the simulation is shifted out of anasthesia slowly. You/the simulation open your eyes and think "fuck yeah, that went smoothly!" until informed that "oh btw, we had a slight explosion..."

The subjective experience is identical in both cases initially, If it acts identically from the outside point and blissfully unaware from the subjective point, is it not really the same still? What if the cyborgification is delayed but doesn't suffer an explosion, you're taken off anasthesia april the 1st and a techie informs you that you're a scan due to your body being shipped off for biofuel processing?

Consider further that "you" only exist this very moment, the rest of "you" is memory and gradually built processing circuitry.

This whole thought experiment will vaporize once neural brain-to-brain itnerfacing allows for hivemind creation and people realize that "oh, that's how it works!"

[Anonymous No.2886835]

>Consciousness is the result of physical processes in the brain. That much is abundantly clear from the currently available evidence.

Thus far. There could be more to it, but we do not (yet) know for sure.

[Anonymous No.2886852]

>>2886834

Well, first of all I would file the mother of medical malpractice suits against the idiot doctors who put something that explodes in my head.

Secondly, assuming I "woke up" as me in the cyborg body I'd rethink my ideas on chain of consciousness, but if I'm right I would already have ceased to exist by this point so it would be moot.

The "me" that is created by the mind scan with no connection to my physical brain would be a clone of me and not carry my original consciousness because there would be no continuous stream. I've already said that this doesn't matter at all to the outside world, only to the person under the hat, and I stand by that. I can't draw a line of effect from A > B because at some point, there were two copies of my brain in existence and obviously I couldn't occupy both of them.

[Anonymous No.2886911]

Yeah I think consciousness is just electric signals, or more specifically an organization there of.

[Anonymous No.2886941]

>>2886852
>because there would be no continuous stream.
Anesthesia renders you unconscious: that is, breaks the stream, so do coma, and more commonly: sleep.

Also, epileptic seizure or severe electrical shocks will scramble the depolarization pattern present in normal brain function and can cause lasting personality changes.

Do you argue that all these changes destroys the person? But normal existence somehow have a magical thread of mained consciousness?

What about alzheimers? My late grandfather had it, he was obviously conscious but his near-term memory was almost entirely nonfunctional. He would sit at dinner and recount some story from his youth, take a break and eat some, and then recount the same story all over again. To me that's not a continuous consciousness but simply a mental pattern that reacts to stimuli.

>assuming I "woke up" as me in the cyborg body I'd rethink my ideas on chain of consciousness
The new you will be consciously feeling and even it belived you went through a death-and-clone event or whatever it would still be there subjectively and probably not really care all that much because hey, it's fucking there!

The same concept goes for teleporters, although hypotethical you can't actually know you survive the teleporting or not, but the person coming out on the other side would subjectively feel identical, and the practical use of teleporting would mean that people jump through them blissfully unaware of the fine details because hello, they came out from one, remembering stepping into one, every single time = subjective clear thread of consciousness, yay teleporters!

[Anonymous No.2887013]

Consciousness is entirely dependent on the nervous system. All creatures perceive reality uniquely. Organisms are able to detect a stimulus and react to it.
The venus fly trap, although plants lack a nervous system, has to have its hair follicles touched twice for it to close and trap a victim. If it were only once, energy may be wasted on a false alarm. Other organisms like worms closer resemble an autonamous system than a dog but the basic principle is identical.

This is not to say all members of a species think the same. Humans vary greatly in brain structures and therefore cognitive abilities. In synaesthesia some people experience vibrant colours when they hear sounds or see numbers; clearly not everyone can do this- they must experience reality differently. Reality belongs to the subject hence the term subjectivity.

Computers (AI) of the morrow will view things with potentially enormous complexity. They may exist already. Von Neumann machines, which travel through space, possess a complex synthetic autonamous system (AI). On Earth, scientists claim AI to be with us within the century.

Life a.k.a consciousness is the inevitable conclusion to the laws that govern us. We are clumps of matter with a devised way of sustaining the integrity of an entity.

[Anonymous No.2887025]

>>2886941

That's a toughie, but I have been rendered unconscious before (and not just by sleep) and I can draw a straight line of consciousness from that.

Again, I don't have any givens outside personal experience for what I would do in a given situation, because it's impossible to know what would happen in these situations until you have been through one. I would argue though that yes Alzheimers and dementia destroy the stream on consciousness that is self. My Grandmother has the same thing and I can see it happening. it's terrifying.

And i don't know why you are still arguing from an outsider's viewpoint, I've already agreed that it would be the exact same from that standpoint.

And note I never said magical, nor would I. I'm following a logic train which I have outlined, and if I see some anomalous thing that makes me doubt it, I'll create a new one.

[Anonymous No.2887043]

magic.

/thread

[Anonymous No.2887055]

>>2886830

As for me, I am convinced as to the existence of a soul, and I believe that science will eventually prove it.

[Anonymous No.2887079]

>>2887055

Soul is something metaphysical. How can science, which studies physical things, ever prove it's existance?

Protip: It can't.

[Anonymous No.2887096]

>>2887079
>>2887055

Transhumanist 830 here, Unless the soul is merely an extension of ourselves into a higher dimensional realm.

Just because we have no idea how the fuck that would work right now doesn't mean we won't ever. I'm keeping my mind open. Hell that would make the whole consciousness thing right easy.

I'm not convinced yet though. Brain damage causing changes in personality tends to throw weight on the "causes of consciousness are all in the physical brain" theory. Of course, it could turn out that that is merely a faulty connection through which something else expresses itself, and it merely has no mouth but must scream, but I'd rather not jump too far ahead.

[Anonymous No.2887101]

what's wrong, atheists? problems conceiving of consciousness arising from the primordial soup?

lol

[Anonymous No.2887102]

according to the measurment problem an unconscience observer would exist in the form of a wave so when your dead wouldnt.you.collapse to a wavefuntion
/mindblown

[Anonymous No.2887113]

>>2887101

Nope.

Don't confuse "I don't know how it works and am admitting such" With "I concede to your Biblical mumbo-jumbo".

Also, 4/10. I'm not even mad.

[Anonymous No.2887123]

>>2887096
You're a fucking moron. You think a higher-dimensional and heretofore ethereal extension of our minds would provide a better explanation of consciousness than the mind itself? Science can't grasp consciousness because of the complexity of the matter: adding more shit doesn't make it simple. You probably don't have any fucking idea what a "higher dimensional realm" is, either. It's not a bizarro wield. It would be more like a soul sticking out of our bodies and following it along, but in the fourth dimension. Clearly this is fucking wrong, or we would find that things with souls would take more energy to move than thing with equivalent mass but without souls. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.2887133]

>>2887113
oh, you mad all right. your false religion gives you no comfort whatsoever that your life has any meaning, that your acts have any consequences, and that your yearning for eternity is futile.

you mad, all right. way mad.

[Anonymous No.2887139]

>>2887133

Who says there's eternity or a heaven? For all you know, we're simply reincarnated ad infinitum.

[Anonymous No.2887152]

>>2887133

Assuming I do die, I die knowing that I made a difference in a least a few lives in a positive manner.

And I die knowing that I did so without having to be threatened by an absentee father figure who claims to love me, yet will drop me into eternal torment if I exercise the free-will he supposedly gave to me.

[Anonymous No.2887156]

Conscience observer was developed out of necessity in order to understand the world our minds could not comprehend superposition. Without a conscience we would all live in the form of a wavefuntion with no locality just a sea of uncertainty and superposition nothing makes sense anymore I could be you you could me I could be fucking my wife and feeding the dogs all at once

[Anonymous No.2887157]

>>2887139

Perhaps. In return, tits.

[Anonymous No.2887159]

>>2887139
uh, this fellow named Jesus Christ. you may have heard of Him?

[Anonymous No.2887164]

>>2887123

There is a lot more we don't know about reality than we do. I'm not willing to claim anything as absolutely false or absolutely true yet.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

[Anonymous No.2887166]

>>2887152
oh, so you exercised your free will in a manner that offended Him? and then refused to accept a pardon for those offenses? even though the expense of that pardon cost Him His beloved Son?

and you're complaining about what, again?

[Anonymous No.2887184]

>>2887156
What can I say man im supreme being

[a strong ai No.2887182]

>>2887159
Nah... who is that? Did he win a Nobel Prize. Hold on, lemme check the list... nope. Can't be bothered then.

[Anonymous No.2887183]

>>2887156
You mean "conscious" right? Otherwise, good work!

[Anonymous No.2887187]

>>2887182
yeah, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee would never give the Prince of Peace the award; then they'd have to admit that He is alive!

they'd rather shuck one off on Obama "in hopes that..."

[Anonymous No.2887189]

>>2887166

Said alleged son lived 2000 years before I was born. I wouldn't follow any God who believes the sins of the father carry down to the son even if I had actual prove of his existence.

If I decide to disobey my parents, who gave me life, that doesn't give them the right to torture me for eternity.

>>2887159

Yeah a few times. So, I guess I also need to worry about Apep, Apophis, Zeus, Odin, Thor, Hercules, Marduk, assorted pther household Gods, Bhrama, Vishnu, Angrya Manyu, and every rock and tree on the planet (animism).

"When you understand why you reject all other Gods, you'll understand why I reject yours."

[Anonymous No.2887193]

Why is it so easy for people to accept that God exists forever yet so hard to understand that the quantum vacuum may have existed forever.

[Anonymous No.2887194]

>>2887183
Proper word is conscience dude brah hate to be the asshole but there you go

[Anonymous No.2887195]

>>2887152

You have the freedom to go out and take a walk in a public park. Does that also give you the freedom to molest children there? By your logic, you'd get upset because you were just exercising the freedom to go in a public park that society gave you.

With freedom comes responsibility.

[Anonymous No.2887198]

>>2887195
Freedom isn't the same free will

[Anonymous No.2887201]

>>2887195

There is a difference between being told what to do and being told what to think.

And the fact that you think there isn't terrifies me.

[Anonymous No.2887214]

>>2887194
Conscious makes more sense.

Conscience is something different

[Anonymous No.2887213]

>>2887201

>and being told what to think

Who said anything about thought crimes? Last I checked, it was not illegal to masturbate to fantasies about raping children, but it is illegal to act on them.

[Anonymous No.2887225]

>>2887213

The Bible, and every evangelical Christian I've ever met, pretty clearly states that if you don't accept Jesus "in your heart" ie. in your mind you go to hell.

That sounds like divinely inspired thoughtcrime to me.

[Anonymous No.2887232]

>>2887213
whys it illegal to act on them? because God commands that its inherently evil?

No, it's much more likely it's because as society has evolved we've realised that one that permits rape is not vital to the flourishing of the society and therefore flourishing of the self. Human beings and social animals - from here comes morality. it's not that hard to understand, you don't need to conceive of a God as explanation

[Anonymous No.2887243]

>>2887232

Plus, unless God punishes Chimps for reproducing via rape with a Chimpy-Hell, I'm not seeing much of a natural non-conscious based argument against rape.

[Anonymous No.2887244]

You've got your consciousness at the beggining of everything, whatever this means. Your actual consciousness is just your human consciousness, a manifestation of a greater consciousness.

[Anonymous No.2887249]

>>2887232

ITT: Atheists trying to justify child rape on the grounds that it's merely a social construct.

[Anonymous No.2887251]

>>2887214
You right im the asshole I forget shit like that

[Anonymous No.2887252]

>>2886701

>>2887244

Agreed

[Anonymous No.2887261]

>>2887249

ITT: Strawman arguments that anyone arguing against Deism is inherently amoral, and that there is no other possible alternative, and that even thinking about it makes you a monster.

Also, predicted way back at >>2887152.

[Anonymous No.2887265]

Consciousness is the slow evolution of our ability to perceive time. How conscious an animal is relates directly to their ability to form memories. Think about it, our senses and reactions allow us to function in 3D space. We react to stimulus. To accomplish complex goals across the axis of time we almost needed another sense, that can moderate our instinctual drives for more advancement down the line. This is consciousness. Consciousness evolved slowly as we gained language, the ability to form long term memories, and is simply a way to regulate our instincts. The subjective feeling of 'self' Is probably present in almost all mammals/higher animals. Just a result of being a live/brain chemistry. no real miracle here

[Anonymous No.2887277]

Congratulations christfags/trolls.

Thread officially ruined.