Consciousness as a brain function

[Alan V]

The hard problem's existence is more poorly demonstrated than any of the things hard problem accepters say can't explain consciousness.

We experience subjective states because we are subjective lifeforms.  Our various layers of evolved consciousness are simply registering what was already there before.  So I believe that the hard problem was not correctly framed for consciousness studies.

While there are all sorts of issues which are still unresolved in consciousness research, many difficult technical details, I personally don't count the "hard problem" as one of them.

So my solution, such as it is, is to transfer the hard problem from consciousness studies to life studies, where it really belongs IMO. I think it has more to do with biosemiotics, or how information can be organized by biology (DNA for example), than about consciousness per se.

Per Google: "Biosemiotics is a transdisciplinary field that investigates the study of meaning-making processes within living systems. It explores how signs, codes, and communication shape biological processes, from the molecular level to animal behavior and human cognition. Essentially, it examines how life is built upon and operates through various forms of semiosis, or the creation and interpretation of signs. "

The brain is a biosemiotic system because life is a biosemiotic system.

[The Grand Nudger]

Dennet had a fun term for it. Intuition pumps. When we prime the brain to search for incorrect conclusions it does so. Imagine if someone insisted that we could figure out how every nut and bolt and system and surface in a C130 worked - but that wouldn't solve the hard problem of flight. Similarly, when we begin with an ideological split between "consciousness" and "mere information processing" we should not be surprised to find that "mere information processing" does not explain "consciousness".

It's the 21st century version of diabolical mimicry.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think, looking back many years in the future, one particular set of studies will stand out as when the dam broke. Between 95 and 05 there was a flurry of work on the systems basis of social cognition. To make a long story short, we discovered that there were specific regions of the brain recruited in creating models of other people. The thing we're thinking of when we say we "know" a person. When we can, often very accurately, predict their behaviors. When we can imagine how they would feel and experience an event. When, in the theater of our mind, there they are twirling around in that floral print and cackling at the most unfunny shit ever spoken, animated and independent of us. These studies got very little pushback at the time, because their full implications to theory of mind would not become apparent until we connected those findings to a bit of little disseminated work from the 80's..andofc better data collection methods from the 10's to today. Damage to those regions of the brain that construct models of other people have deleterious effects on our own awareness. Our sense of self, and our perception of external events and objects.

There is a literal person making machine in there, and it's making people all the time. We're probably one of them. This is the work that lead to model based control theories and to illusionism.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Both true and not true. Much problem-solving happens while consciousness is focused on something entirely different. Unconscious processing occurs, and once the conscious mind turns back to the issue, the answer is sitting inside your stack-pointer.

Erased? I'm not sure. I've had a few songs where I wrote two parts, knew it needed another, couldn't come up with a third part, and then one day several years later the solution popped up. Perhaps I was more open-minded that day? Perhaps I imported another little sniglet? Or perhaps, as in a couple of cases, my brain said "fuck it, go for broke" and I surprised myself.

I think human neural processing is largely unconscious, until our forebrains, you know, get around to sweeping up the shop and emptying the dustbins. Suddenly there's this understanding that pops to light, but we just haven't bothered to get back to it until now.

This happens with me on the reg. If I find myself stuck over a problem with a build and getting frustrated, I'll lay it aside before I reach the tool-throwing stage and work on something else. After a few hours (sometimes days), my brain will send me a message like, 'Rotate that part thirty degrees' or 'Try a longer bolt' and all is sweetness and light.

Boru

Right, I get it a lot with crossword puzzles too.

[Alan V]

There is a literal person-making machine in there, and it's making people all the time.  We're probably one of them.

If this is true, then I guess we inevitably will treat robots like people (along with spiritual beings and other fictional characters), whether they really are subjective creatures or not.

[Alan V]

I've had a few songs where I wrote two parts, knew it needed another, couldn't come up with a third part, and then one day several years later the solution popped up. Perhaps I was more open-minded that day? Perhaps I imported another little sniglet? Or perhaps, as in a couple of cases, my brain said "fuck it, go for broke" and I surprised myself.

Some musicians are notably creative in their dreaming minds, since that kind of mind wandering is well-suited to generating new information.

[The Grand Nudger]

There is a literal person-making machine in there, and it's making people all the time.  We're probably one of them.

If this is true, then I guess we inevitably will treat robots like people (along with spiritual beings and other fictional characters), whether they really are subjective creatures or not.

The second half of that is what we've been wrong about the entire time.  Things that act like us act like that because they are like us.  They're not imitators.

Musicians provide an excellent example. It turns out playing alot of instruments is more than our conscious programming can accomplish. We lose ourselves in the music...the complexity of the tunes physically overwhelming the bandwidth of our biological circuitry. We cannot contemplate self and music at the same time. This may be why we have so long believed that music connects us to "gods". To the sense of the numinous.

[Alan V]

Things that act like us act like that because they are like us.  They're not imitators.

I don't think animated characters are like us, though the people who draw them are.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've had a few songs where I wrote two parts, knew it needed another, couldn't come up with a third part, and then one day several years later the solution popped up. Perhaps I was more open-minded that day? Perhaps I imported another little sniglet? Or perhaps, as in a couple of cases, my brain said "fuck it, go for broke" and I surprised myself.

Some musicians are notably creative in their dreaming minds, since that kind of mind wandering is well-suited to generating new information.

I've had three or four songs come to me in a dream ... I'd wake up, grab a guitar, and figure it out before even starting my coffeemaker. Those moments are ephemeral.

[The Grand Nudger]

Things that act like us act like that because they are like us.  They're not imitators.

I don't think animated characters are like us, though the people who draw them are.

-measures of distance, no more..no less. Some of the people we've imagined...like jesus fucking christ, are more consequential than real flesh and blood joes.