Consciousness & Space-Time

[Angrboda]

Now, from here, this is where we bring in ideas about consciousness. If we think of our consciousness as being the same thing as the brain, then because the brain has a volume, it implies that we are in fact in the past from ourselves at any given time. The sorts of questions I personally have about this conclusion are: is this even possible?! Can I exist in the past from myself relative to a certain point in my brain from the other part of my brain? If the answer to these questions is "no" and therefore our consciousness can only be in one place at any given time, then I propose that the consciousness must therefore be like our notion of "the present" i.e. the volume where our consciousness is located -> 0 i.e. it exists at a singularity i.e. it isn't located anywhere in physical space. I know I exist though, which means I must have consciousness, so therefore it must be an independent entity from the brain.

You've done a wonderful job of confusing me, particularly with the trailing part.


This recalls a conversation I had with ChadWooters recently. My question to you would be, why not simply turn this around and suggest that, a) because we have evidence that the brain causes consciousness, and b) consciousness appears to itself as a zero dimensional point, then c) consciousness is mistaken about its own nature. I asked ChadWooters if he thought that there was anything about consciousness itself about which consciousness itself could not be wrong. I pointed out that the evidence for this infallible dimension of consciousness could not come from consciousness' own opinion of itself, but he ignored that objection and suggested that consciousness could not be mistake about, say, the brute fact that it is "experiencing" pain. For my part, I think the bulk of difficulties in unraveling the nature of consciousness stem from a category error; specifically placing it in the wrong ontological category. Consciousness, on my view, is not a "thing" or existent such that its properties have to correspond to some objective property or properties somewhere. Since it's not a thing, but more a "mere idea" that the brain has, the brain can assign it whatever properties it feels like, as all properties it has are simply the consequence of the brain's imagining. The brain, essentially, lies to itself about "what it is."

In practice, the properties tend to be tightly constrained by evolution, as, on this view, consciousness is just a cognitive model for organizing and developing behaviors in relation to the body; the "self" or consciousness is just a model of an imaginary pilot at the helm of the body, used to create a coherent and adaptive set of behaviors for the body. This is why you have out of body experiences, dissociation, the Alice effect, NDEs, changes in the perception of time and so forth; these are all simple effects of a "parameter" of the model which is normally held stable in a certain range (where the self is, size of the body, etc.) for one reason or another taking on an unusual value outside its normal range (my 'self' is six feet above my head, for example).