Huggs
Wish for peace
- Jul 6, 2023
- 209
I'm not an expert on the topics I'm about to briefly touch on and this is most likely over simplistic thinking, but from what I've read and seen consciousness seems to me in basic terms to just be a very complicated combination of different processes and building blocks that have assembled over time and are functioning together. I don't believe it's a spontaneous phenomena, rather something that builds up. I think there are also varying degrees of consciousness.
From what I recall reading our vision has evolved from these rudimentary divots that could only detect basic light and darkness. Detailed vision is one of many aspects of our consciousness. Another one is self awareness, which newborn babies for example don't possess. Babies experience consciousness differently than an adult does, though they are still highly conscious. Cells aren't complex enough on their own to experience consciousness, but together they can form structures like plants. Plants don't feel pain but are able to sense their surroundings and feel stress. We wouldn't consider them conscious but there is a small building block of consciousness there in the form of sensation.
Conway's Game of Life demonstrates how very simple patterns can create more complex processes, in a similar way our bodies can be broken down into tiny, more simplistic parts that interlock and create vast and complex chains of moving structures, mechanisms, reactions and the like. I don't believe it's that much of a stretch to claim that every single one of our processes, even the most intense thoughts, sensations and emotions, can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts that are relating among one another.
When sleeping, you are experiencing an altered level of consciousness, there's much less depth in terms of awareness for example. Consciousness also dissipates momentarily when our body is put under anesthesia. Clearly an actively synthesizing combination of things are essential. We define red as a whole other color than blue and similarly there is being conscious and there is being unconscious, however color is a spectrum wherein blue and red are simply points and I believe consciousness is similar to this, with consciousness and unconsciousness being points on a spectrum with gradients in between.
If we did not have any memories and different forms of communication and languages at all our experience of consciousness would likewise be crippled, we'd experience everything moment to moment without any understanding, sense of self or identity, there would be a perception of stimuli like pain but no ongoing organization of thoughts and we'd in a way be melting into our surroundings with purely unconscious processes working and dragging the conglomeration of "us" around.
Just some of my thoughts there…I don't feel very confident on my conclusions knowing the staggering body of information I'm probably missing but I feel a kind of comfort in mulling over these ideas. They counter the idea that consciousness is mystical. They paint a picture of us simply being a chunk of reality, a harder rather than softer but still permeable boundary within which are complex processes that relate and exchange information with everything within and outside of themselves. In this case, once certain processes stop, "we" simply stop existing. It could be possible for all of reality to eventually re-arrange and create something like us again, but that would warrant more of a philosophical discussion in terms of whether that would really be us. I don't know…it would be tangential to arguing that everything that exists is a form of "us" because we're made of similar material and similar processes, which is an interesting argument but doesn't serve us well. Really, wouldn't conceding that that hypothetical person that reality could bring forth is "us" lead to a slippery slope ship of Theseus argument? If they are us, then at what point would "we" become someone else? Say that that future person ends up being short a literal single eyelash, if everything else outside of that missing eyelash—memories, experiences, feelings, etc. was the same, would they still be us? If yes, you could get so ludicrously far with that argument to the point where you claim every person on the planet is just another iteration of "you", and logically in the scope of our personal experiences at least that's a silly claim. There is clearly a hard and distinct physical, mental and emotional separation between us and others in our experienced reality. To me that's grounds enough to believe that any future iteration of consciousness, even if its processes perfectly mirror our own, is not "us" but someone else, though I say that tentatively. I've heard people argue we could basically be in a loop of constantly experiencing life without pause, but without memory of previous consciousnesses, wouldn't it be a whole other person experiencing life?
Oh brother. I just hope I don't wake up again.
I have much crazier, borderline schizophrenic ideas on the nature of reality that I might share here eventually, though they are more fictional thought experiments than things I truly believe. I really think science is our best gauge of reality to date, though highly flawed it's more refined and based in present and past human reality than for example religion.
What are your thoughts?
From what I recall reading our vision has evolved from these rudimentary divots that could only detect basic light and darkness. Detailed vision is one of many aspects of our consciousness. Another one is self awareness, which newborn babies for example don't possess. Babies experience consciousness differently than an adult does, though they are still highly conscious. Cells aren't complex enough on their own to experience consciousness, but together they can form structures like plants. Plants don't feel pain but are able to sense their surroundings and feel stress. We wouldn't consider them conscious but there is a small building block of consciousness there in the form of sensation.
Conway's Game of Life demonstrates how very simple patterns can create more complex processes, in a similar way our bodies can be broken down into tiny, more simplistic parts that interlock and create vast and complex chains of moving structures, mechanisms, reactions and the like. I don't believe it's that much of a stretch to claim that every single one of our processes, even the most intense thoughts, sensations and emotions, can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts that are relating among one another.
When sleeping, you are experiencing an altered level of consciousness, there's much less depth in terms of awareness for example. Consciousness also dissipates momentarily when our body is put under anesthesia. Clearly an actively synthesizing combination of things are essential. We define red as a whole other color than blue and similarly there is being conscious and there is being unconscious, however color is a spectrum wherein blue and red are simply points and I believe consciousness is similar to this, with consciousness and unconsciousness being points on a spectrum with gradients in between.
If we did not have any memories and different forms of communication and languages at all our experience of consciousness would likewise be crippled, we'd experience everything moment to moment without any understanding, sense of self or identity, there would be a perception of stimuli like pain but no ongoing organization of thoughts and we'd in a way be melting into our surroundings with purely unconscious processes working and dragging the conglomeration of "us" around.
Just some of my thoughts there…I don't feel very confident on my conclusions knowing the staggering body of information I'm probably missing but I feel a kind of comfort in mulling over these ideas. They counter the idea that consciousness is mystical. They paint a picture of us simply being a chunk of reality, a harder rather than softer but still permeable boundary within which are complex processes that relate and exchange information with everything within and outside of themselves. In this case, once certain processes stop, "we" simply stop existing. It could be possible for all of reality to eventually re-arrange and create something like us again, but that would warrant more of a philosophical discussion in terms of whether that would really be us. I don't know…it would be tangential to arguing that everything that exists is a form of "us" because we're made of similar material and similar processes, which is an interesting argument but doesn't serve us well. Really, wouldn't conceding that that hypothetical person that reality could bring forth is "us" lead to a slippery slope ship of Theseus argument? If they are us, then at what point would "we" become someone else? Say that that future person ends up being short a literal single eyelash, if everything else outside of that missing eyelash—memories, experiences, feelings, etc. was the same, would they still be us? If yes, you could get so ludicrously far with that argument to the point where you claim every person on the planet is just another iteration of "you", and logically in the scope of our personal experiences at least that's a silly claim. There is clearly a hard and distinct physical, mental and emotional separation between us and others in our experienced reality. To me that's grounds enough to believe that any future iteration of consciousness, even if its processes perfectly mirror our own, is not "us" but someone else, though I say that tentatively. I've heard people argue we could basically be in a loop of constantly experiencing life without pause, but without memory of previous consciousnesses, wouldn't it be a whole other person experiencing life?
Oh brother. I just hope I don't wake up again.
I have much crazier, borderline schizophrenic ideas on the nature of reality that I might share here eventually, though they are more fictional thought experiments than things I truly believe. I really think science is our best gauge of reality to date, though highly flawed it's more refined and based in present and past human reality than for example religion.
What are your thoughts?
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