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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4480280 No.4480280 [Reply] [Original]

How do you deal with the fact that consciousness is an illusion and that you don't exist? This stuff scares me infinitely more than cosmic irrelevance or mortality or whatever.

>> No.4480292

>>4480280
>consciousness is an illusion
prove it

>you don't exist
prove it

>> No.4480294

No, YOUR consciousness is an illusion. YOU don't exist. I and only I exist.

>> No.4480302
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4480302

>>4480280
>consciousness is an illusion

>> No.4480304

Illusion of self is ultimately irrelevant in day-to-day life. It's ultimately not important enough to dwell on.

>>4480292

>prove it

Easy. Otherwise, paradoxes would arise with multiple identical brains. One cannot perceive two brains at once. Sense of self is ultimately "illusionary" in the sense that your consciousness is not metaphysically tied to one locale.

>> No.4480309

>>4480304
>your consciousness is not metaphysically tied to one locale
just stop

>> No.4480315
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4480315

>>4480304
>dat virtual construction

ITT: solipsism

>> No.4480325

Consciousness is an illusion? Orly? Explain plz.

I think, therefore I am. regardless of what you extrapolate "existance" to mean, we all exist. Obviously.

>> No.4480326

I believe that the external physical world is real, but the only thing in it that's conscious is me, and I'm only conscious at this one moment.

>> No.4480343

>>4480280
I have no problem with this.

>> No.4480346

>>4480309

You have evidence supporting an alternate notion?

>> No.4480352

>>4480346
Consciousness emerges from brain structure and chemistry just like the image on your computer screen emerges from electrons on its hard disc. If you recreated your brain somewhere else, it would have its own emergent consciousness, just like two identical hard drives don't interfere with each others' processing.

>> No.4480362

>>4480325
How can one know that he/she isn't the only one who exists? You cannot prove that others are thinking, they could be projections or something similar and you would be none the wiser.

>> No.4480363

Try lucid dreaming, OP. That might give you some insights on "conciousness".

>> No.4480364

>>4480352
But it's still the same image stored on both hard drives.

Mass Effect 3 is the same game as Mass Effect 3, even though played on separate independent computers.

>> No.4480368

>>4480352

That was exactly what I was implying. If the hard drives somehow had capability of processing a sense of "I", they would logically be incapable of perceiving each other. Sense of "I" can therefore be described as "illusionary".

>> No.4480394

>>4480280
I do exist, I'm just not the thing that people seem to think I am.

>> No.4480399

>>4480364
But the two copies can be played differently simultaneously and thus are not the same thing.

>>4480368
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. It is physically impossible and therefore useless to try to look at reality as if the "I" does not exist. Sure, it's possible that we don't actually exist, but we do exist at some level (be it brains in vats or whatever), and the psychological model the self helps us function.

>> No.4480402

>>4480280
>science board
>everyone is a dualist and nobody understands the burden of proof

>> No.4480411

>>4480364
Same with cloning.
Your clone may be 100% identical to you, down to the memories, but it is not fucking you.
You fucking dualist.

>> No.4480413

>>4480411
Define you. This is a semantic dispute.

>> No.4480414

cogito ergo sum.
really the only thing i can be certain of is that i am alive and "conscious" right now.

>> No.4480420

>>4480362

Even if I was the only one who was consciously existing and everything else is an illusion of my consciousness, I still exist. And I am still concious. Even if consciousness is an illusion, that doesn't mean we aren't concious.

>> No.4480422

>>4480399

My point is that sense of self is easily (relatively, of course) reproducible and therefore not tied to one locale. This could be called "illusionary" in nature, as opposed to, for example, an objective soul that requires one physical location. Ultimately the question is irrelevant in every-day life, at least until we perfect atomically recreating human beings.

>> No.4480428
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4480428

>>4480413

>> No.4480429

people are things

cars are things

you can copy a person

you can copy a car

they are both examples of things that are the same in structure but different in location

If you copy how a person thinks then the copy will also be like that

If you don't they won't.

There's no supernatural link between a thing and the copy of a thing.

>> No.4480430
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4480430

>>4480413
When isn't it?

>> No.4480433

>>4480422

How is the sense of self easily reproducible?

>> No.4480434

>>4480428
HAHAHAHAHAHA

>> No.4480443

>>4480433

It is ultimately reducible to a complex combination of electrochemical signals and neural networks/overall brain structure. Atomically reproduce this environment and sense of self will be effectively duplicated.

>> No.4480487

>>4480422
oh, okay. so we're both arguing the same thing, i.e. that dualism is stupid?

>> No.4480500

>>4480487

Absolutely. A misunderstanding resulted in unnecessary debate.

>> No.4480501

>>4480487
What's dualism? I thought i understood, but then i got called a dualist and now i don't know anymore.

>> No.4480512

>>4480500
alright, good. case closed!

>>4480501
Dualism is the belief that the mind and the body are separate - i.e. that there is some sort of nonphysical component to consciousness. The opposite idea is monism - the belief that all the features of consciousness emerge from the biochemistry of the brain. Dualism could be true, but it is unfalsifable and thus useless, whereas monism is testable.

>> No.4480514

>>4480501

Dualism is the belief that mind and brain are distinguishable, usually through some metaphysical process such as a "soul", although that is only but one possibility for dualism.

>> No.4480532
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4480532

>this thread
You guys are all wrong, I am the perspective. But I don't care if you think you are, I really don't. Just letting you know.

>> No.4480556

>>4480512
>>4480514
Um, so what about me?

I believe the mind is fully emergent from the physical structure of the brain, but the mind is an abstraction that that can be thought of in and of itself without the need to consider the hardware that generated it.

Am i a dualist?

>> No.4480564

>>4480556
Like how the internet is brought to you by your computer accessing it, but it in itself is not a part of your computer?

>> No.4480570

>>4480556

It would be impossible to "think" about the emergent phenomenon without the neural structure. It is still reducible to monism. No brain, no consciousness to perceive and understand itself.

>> No.4480620

>>4480564
No, not like that.

More like if i have three apples in a basket, then the number 3 is an abstraction of the amount of apples that is independent of the actual apples. Sorry, i couldn't think of a better example.

Maybe sort of like the pictures i see are a direct result of the photons hitting my retinas, but the pictures themselves are abstractions that are not concerned with how they were generated.
That games on my hard drive can not exist without the physical medium that stores it, but i can still think of the games as abstract entities, independent of the hard drive.