The illusion of consciousness

[Cognisant]

As I've explained self awareness is a feedback loop, without this self awareness we would be like p-zombies, we would functional but our behaviour would only only adapt by direct trail-&-error experiences, we would seem like soulless automatons and really that would truth of it.

However interestingly our minds don't just have one feedback loop, there's many hundreds operating at an unconscious level, they keep you balanced while standing, they regulate the tightness of your grip, they're the reflex that holds your glass of beer upright when you fall over, they're the voice of inspiration, indeed they're telling me what to write right now.

You don't notice of course, it's like that fad of agent based AI (no relation to Smith) the individual agents approach a problem from many different angles simultaneously and whichever finds the best solution determines the course for the entire swarm until the next problem arises. Seen as a whole this swarm results in a single adaptive intelligence with a consolidated pool of memory that each individual agent draws upon and contributes to, kind of like the Borg from Star Trek.

Indeed if we could communicate our thoughts/memories directly or better yet share our memory in a communal cloud we would quickly become an actual hive mind, our memories of individuality superseded by the collective identity as you would have access to everyone else's identities as well.

Anyway the point I'm getting at is that our brains are already a collective of neurons and our sense of consciousness is the net result of their collaboration so there is no real you, only the perception of self, a lie you have no choice but to believe because it's hardwired into you.

 

[TimeAsylums]

...and?

Spoiler

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhatIsConsciousness

http://www.physixfan.com/wp-content/files/GEBen.pdf

http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-are-oughts.html

Spoiler

And yeah, the mind is a product of the brain and the brain is embedded in physical reality. That's called meta-circularity. The fact that inside of physical reality is a brain that has a(n incomplete) model of all of physical reality. But meta-circularity is a strange beast and that's why all sane people pretend it doesn't exist unless they're actually talking ABOUT meta-circularity.

Consciousness (both multileveled and unileveled) is an artifact of meta-circularity.

http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/pdfs/Julian_Jaynes_The_Origin_of_Consciousness.pdf


[*] see other INTPf thread(s) on AoC (Awareness of consciousness (aka perception of consciousness) vs consciousness) <- I mention this because it seems like we've seen this here before...again and again and again

Architect would probably throw in kurzweil

yada yada yada


though none of them are necessary to read through fully because you can sum it up in a few sentences

 

[Black Rose]

If we have knowledge through consciousness and consciousness is illusion then so is knowledge. Because illusion is a wave nothing is ever lost only transformed. The abstract things we know of basically means we are mathematical objects. The substance of thought is in existence of all mathematical constructs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijñāna

http://youtu.be/fpViZkhpPHk

 

[TimeAsylums]

mathematical objects

yeah mane tegmark!


[2]

Spoiler

Q: Isn't mathematics just a language that we invent rather than discover?

A: This is a famous controversy among mathematicians and philosophers. The way I see it, we humans invent the language of mathematics (the symbols, our human names for the symbols, etc.), but it's important not to confuse this language with the structure of mathematics that I focus on in the book. For example, any civilization interested in Platonic solids would discover that there are precisely 5 of them (the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron). Whereas they're free to invent whatever names they want for them, they're not free to invent a 6th one - it simply doesn't exist. It's in the same sense that the mathematical structures that are popular in modern physics are discovered rather than invented, from 3+1-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifolds to Hilbert spaces.

Q: Aren't you conflating the description with the described when saying that our physical reality *is* mathematical rather than just being *described* by math?

A: This distinction (which I explore in detail in chapters 11 and 12) is crucial both in physics and in mathematics. Our language for describing the planet Neptune (which we obviously invent - we invented a different word for it in Swedish) is of course distinct from the planet itself. Similarly, we humans invent the language of mathematics (the symbols, our human names for the symbols, etc), but it's important not to confuse this language with the structure of mathematics. For example, as mentioned above, any civilization interested in Platonic solids would discover that there are precisely 5 of them (the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron). Whereas they're free to invent whatever names they want for them, they're *not* free to invent a 6th one - it simply doesn't exist. It's in the same sense that the mathematical structures that are popular in modern physics are discovered rather than invented, from 3+1-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifolds to Hilbert spaces. The possibility that I explore in the book is that one of the structures of mathematics (which we can discover but not invent) corresponds to the physical world (which we also discover rather than invent).

Q: Isn't this mathematical universe idea old hat, dating back to Pythagoras?

A: The roots of this idea are indeed very old, and I give ample credit to Pythagoras and Galileo in my book! But they didn't have the benefit of knowing all the amazing mathematical clues that nature has subsequently revealed, from general relativity to quantum mechanics and math behind the Higgs boson, which is why we can now explore the idea and its implications in greater detail.

Q: Surely "stuff" can't be mathematical?

A: As a thought experiment, imagine that we one day develop super-advanced computers, and that you're a character in a future computer game that's so complex and realistic that you're conscious and mistakenly think you exist in a physically real world made of "stuff". Now you start studying your virtual world like a physicist, and gradually discover that the entities in your world seem to fundamentally have no properties except mathematical properties (since that's how your world is programmed), just as we've discovered here in our world. If you could perceive your virtual world as made of stuff even thought it was purely mathematical, then we need to be open to the possibility that the same might be happening here in our cosmos. Sure, the computer in this example is itself made of stuff, but the feeling that the objects in the game were made of "stuff" was completely illusory and independent of the substrate out of which the computer was built.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzCvlFRISIM

 

[Cognisant]

...and?

Mainly just recapping.

The more succinct and straightforward I can make my point the harder it is to ignore.

 

[OrLevitate]

Celine Dion: Near.. far... whereEVERR YOU ARE... I believe that the heart does go on.

Was that your voice singing the song in your head, or hers. Most of the information we perceive is about us, we see what our eyes see and hear our voices from birth and over time we attach "I" to literally being this entity, "you" as popularly defined. I am conciousness, inside a breathing rock. My body is not me, all my incoming data is not me, what I am is perception. We are all the same entity, of conciousness and sloshing matter through time, stewards of space time.

*licks barf off lips*

 

[Black Rose]

yeah mane tegmark!


[2]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzCvlFRISIM

insubstantiation of life after death is the full implication as all per singularity we have the means to develop metamaterials that reconstruct the equations of your soul. Multiple instances of your "soul" could exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection

Resurrection (anglicized from Latin resurrectio) is the concept of a living being coming back to life after death. It is a religious concept, where it is used in two distinct respects: a belief in the resurrection of individual souls that is current and ongoing (Christian idealism, realized eschatology), or else a belief in a singular resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The resurrection of the dead is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions. In a number of ancient religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and resurrects. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the central focus of Christianity.

The soul is believed by some to be the divine and immortal part of the human being, and some believe it is the actual vehicle by which people are resurrected.[1]

Theological debate ensues with regard to what kind of resurrection is factual – either a spiritual resurrection with a spirit body (i.e. Heaven), or a material resurrection with a restored human body.[2] While most Christians believe Jesus' resurrection was in a material body, a very small minority believe it was spiritual.[3][4][5]

There are documented rare cases of the return to life of the clinically dead which are classified scientifically as examples of the Lazarus syndrome, a term originating from the Biblical story of the Resurrection of Lazarus.

 

[JansenDowel]

Anyone read Julian Jaynes thesis on the origin of consciousness? He proposes that consciousness is a mental space - a metaphor of real space - which we use to manipulate objects that are metaphors of real objects. The key idea here is "metaphor". And what is metaphor without language?

 

[Cognisant]

Sounds like wildly unsubstantiated speculation to me.

What if, and stay with me here, the metaphors are themselves metaphors of an endlessly metaphorical reality? Or y'know it could just be a stupid idea.

Edit: Just read your intro thread, are you not a crackpot?
I might have jumped the gun there.

Are you talking about the mind using metaphors or reality being a metaphor?

 

[JansenDowel]

What if, and stay with me here, the metaphors are themselves metaphors of an endlessly metaphorical reality? Or y'know it could just be a stupid idea.

The best we can do here is to define exactly what is meant by "consciousness" and look to the evolution of language for clues. This is the approach that Julian Jayne's takes.

Are you talking about the mind using metaphors or reality being a metaphor?

I am referring to your mind using metaphors.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

Anyone read Julian Jaynes thesis on the origin of consciousness? He proposes that consciousness is a mental space - a metaphor of real space - which we use to manipulate objects that are metaphors of real objects. The key idea here is "metaphor". And what is metaphor without language?

I've not read Jaynes but I've read a similar connection of language which can only take place in the social sphere that allows for the emergence of consciousness. Maturana and Varela regard cognition as an active process rooted in human biology (evolution), in which we create our world of experience (rather than merely developing an internal mirror image of an objective "out there" reality). They suggest that cognition permits an awareness of "self" to emerge only when we know that we are seeing ourselves. For instance, self-awareness comes when one realizes that all sides of a situation have not been perceived; one recognizes that one's reality is a reality but not the only reality. At such a point, there is the (1) acute awareness of self, and (2) realization of one's inherent inability to perceive Reality. In the process, we experience our immutable isolation from even our most intimate partners. This awareness creates an inherent paradox: We are dependent on interaction with other people to expand our knowledge of ourselves and the surrounding world but this simultaneously reinforces our awareness of our immutable aloneness. This exacerbation of existential loneliness and self-awareness, however, also potentiates our capacity and motivation for intimate union with another human being. The relationship between interpersonal systems and intimacy is not as simple as it might appear. Maturana and Varela state there is no "self" outside of relationships with others, and yet the concepts of "self" and "others" reveal the existential separateness of human existence. Communication is a form of coordinated social behavior, in which people contribute their individual neurological capacities to bring forth a higher-order system (e.g., the development of complex language). The emergence of language, a manifestation of the recursion between evolution and social contact, is a crucial step in the emergence of the capacity for self-observation and self-consciousness.
...there is no self-consciousness without language as a phenomenon of linguistic recursion. Self-consciousness, awareness, mind-these are phenomena that take place in language. Therefore as such they take place only in the social domain. (Maturana & Varela, 1987)
...it is in language that the self, the I, arises as the social singularity defined by the operational intersection in the human body of the recursive linguistic distinction in which it is distinguished. This tells us that in the network of linguistic interaction in which we move, we maintain and on going descriptive recursion which we call the "I". It enables us to conserve our linguistic operational coherence and our adaptation in the domain of language. (Maturana & Varela, 1987)

This idea has merit.

 

[Cognisant]

Still there's many self regulatory mechanisms that occur on a subconscious level where I think it can be safely assumed that there is no abstract internal dialogue.

Although it wouldn't surprise me if after a certain point certain parts of the human brain are operating at such an abstract level that it interferes with the brain's overall capacity to communicate with itself, hence why we often find ourselves thinking one way and feeling another or battling with unwanted thoughts and obsessive compulsive behaviours.

 

[Reluctantly]

Let's say I agree with you, then what? What's the message you're conveying with this?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

The mere fact that I experience consciousness means that it is not an illusion.

 

[Cherry Cola]

The mere fact that I experience consciousness means that it is not an illusion.

I agree. Though illusions are abound when people try to understand consciousness it is no illusion in itself, the illusions are all the silly preconceptions.

 

[TimeAsylums]

The mere fact that I experience consciousness means that it is not an illusion.

By "experience" I assume you mean "perceive"

So what you perceive makes it not an illusion?

Good luck with that

Not arguing against consciousness, but your argument is flawed

 

[Cherry Cola]

No it isn't, being conscious is to perceive. If you perceive you are conscious, you can't "perceive that you are conscious" without being conscious.

 

[TimeAsylums]

No it isn't, being conscious is to perceive. If you perceive you are conscious, you can't "perceive that you are conscious" without being conscious.

You misunderstand me.

Let's say you take LSD, you hallucinate a bunch of visions or aliens or whatever? Now without being too philosophical, we're those aliens real?

Or in a dream where you "perceive" your dreams as real

Just because you "perceive" something doesn't make it real.

Better examples being if you "perceive" something being closer or farther than it really is (various psychological phenomena )

 

[Cherry Cola]

No, you misunderstand me and Proxy. It doesn't matter whether what we perceive exists or not, whether it's illusion or reality, all perceptions require a perceiver and all perceivers are conscious because to perceive something is to be aware of something. Perceiving reality is not necessary for being conscious, only for being conscious of reality.

 

[TimeAsylums]

you MAY be correct in what he MIGHT be saying, but his verbatim words are different from what you say his words ARE.

"If I experience x it is not an illusion"

^This is to say that the perceptions are infallible.

...which they aren't.

People do experience illusions.

 

[Reluctantly]

Just in case anyone is wondering, Cog frequently argues that there is no mind-body dualism, that there is an objective reality that is real and a subjective reality that is an illusion. Thus he regards the fact that we are self-aware as a subjective illusion of an objective reality that is supposed to supersede it.

Of course, if you call him out on his own preconceptions there's a good chance to get regarded as a solipsist that disregards objective knowledge, though that doesn't automatically make one such, which almost makes me wonder if this is a trolling attempt he likes to bring up from time to time, quite honestly. We'll see, I guess.

 

[Reluctantly]

you MAY be correct in what he MIGHT be saying, but his verbatim words are different from what you say his words ARE.

"If I experience x it is not an illusion"

^This is to say that the perceptions are infallible.

...which they aren't.

People do experience illusions.

It's true that perception can be fallible, but perception is also what we use to verify reality. And if reality can be verified through perception, then how are perceptions inherently an illusion?

 

[Cherry Cola]

you MAY be correct in what he MIGHT be saying, but his verbatim words are different from what you say his words ARE.

"If I experience x it is not an illusion"

^This is to say that the perceptions are infallible.

...which they aren't.

People do experience illusions.

Any and all experiences are experiences of consciousness. To experience consciousness you just need to experience.

Thus when Proxy says he experiences consciousness it doesn't matter he's actually experiencing, he's right to say he experiences consciousness. There is no illusion which Proxy could perceive without experiencing consciousness in some form.

 

[Black Rose]

It's true that perception can be fallible, but perception is also what we use to verify reality. And if reality can be verified through perception, then how are perceptions inherently an illusion?

For a comical satire:

Raw experience itself is illusion, you think you see green of feel that chair but really its illusion. I realize my consciousness is illusion the same way i realize blue is not red or yellow. In other words your consciousness which is the the ability to discern one experience from another is flawed because your experience is not real and is not never has happened. Math is an illusion, logic and reasoning are illusion. Definitely the sweet taste of cherry pies are an illusion because raw feels are not real and discernment is impossible. The only thing to realize is that consciousness has no causal power. Its only one perspective but i think with consciousness being illusion you still can make judgments about reality as if cause and effect do exist so you cannot understand tasks requiring your ability to complete the video game if there is no consciousness.

 

[Cherry Cola]

you MAY be correct in what he MIGHT be saying, but his verbatim words are different from what you say his words ARE.

"If I experience x it is not an illusion"

^This is to say that the perceptions are infallible.

...which they aren't.

People do experience illusions.

Another way to put it is that you would be right with your quotation if it wasn't because the X can be any form of specific experience. But, Proxy didn't say he was certain he experienced anything specific, only that he experienced, since experiencing is being conscious.

"If I experience experiencing experience isn't an illusion"

Saying that consciousness might be an illusion is like saying that the universe might not exist. It's stupid because if we are here to perceive a universe that doesn't exist then we as well as out illusions certainly exist, and what are we part of if not the universe?

 

[Cognisant]

Of course, if you call him out on his own preconceptions there's a good chance to get regarded as a solipsist that disregards objective knowledge, though that doesn't automatically make one such, which almost makes me wonder if this is a trolling attempt he likes to bring up from time to time, quite honestly. We'll see, I guess.

Not trolling, just aware that people come and go so we need to repeat certain discussions every now and then so we remain on the same page so to speak.

Just in case anyone is wondering, Cog frequently argues that there is no mind-body dualism, that there is an objective reality that is real and a subjective reality that is an illusion. Thus he regards the fact that we are self-aware as a subjective illusion of an objective reality that is supposed to supersede it.

Precisely, the ability to perceive doesn't necessarily mean the one who perceives is real, or rather our definition of "real" as it applies to a state of personhood is quite arbitrary, if the ability to feel makes us real then what about a photovore robot whose behavior is determined by the biases of its analog circuitry, it may not be conscious or even remotely self aware but so long as it has those implicitly goal orientated biases it essentially "feels" in almost exactly the same way we do.

Of course treating it as a person and giving it rights is just as absurd as doing the same for an insect but that's not really what I care about, I want to know what I am, I want to know how much of myself I can change before I stop being myself if indeed that distinction even exists in the first place.

The more I think about it the less I think it does and the more I'm beginning to believe that we only are who we are because we believe that's who we are based upon our non-objective memories, in other words we are mechanistically predisposed to create these arbitrary identities around an illusionary sense of inherent selfhood.

 

[DIALECTIC]

Seen as a whole this swarm results in a single adaptive intelligence with a consolidated pool of memory that each individual agent draws upon and contributes to, kind of like the Borg from Star Trek.

Indeed if we could communicate our thoughts/memories directly or better yet share our memory in a communal cloud we would quickly become an actual hive mind, our memories of individuality superseded by the collective identity as you would have access to everyone else's identities as well.

Isn't it anyway what we, as a species, are evolving into thru technology especially with the coming of the "Singularity" ? A collective consciousness / hive mind encompassing the universe...

In Judaism, there once used to be only ONE soul that shattered into a multiplicity of pieces / separate souls but, in the end, they are meant to (re)form that single ONE souls...

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

Not trolling, just aware that people come and go so we need to repeat certain discussions every now and then so we remain on the same page so to speak.


Precisely, the ability to perceive doesn't necessarily mean the one who perceives is real, or rather our definition of "real" as it applies to a state of personhood is quite arbitrary, if the ability to feel makes us real then what about a photovore robot whose behavior is determined by the biases of its analog circuitry, it may not be conscious or even remotely self aware but so long as it has those implicitly goal orientated biases it essentially "feels" in almost exactly the same way we do.

Of course treating it as a person and giving it rights is just as absurd as doing the same for an insect but that's not really what I care about, I want to know what I am, I want to know how much of myself I can change before I stop being myself if indeed that distinction even exists in the first place.

The more I think about it the less I think it does and the more I'm beginning to believe that we only are who we are because we believe that's who we are based upon our non-objective memories, in other words we are mechanistically predisposed to create these arbitrary identities around an illusionary sense of inherent selfhood.

Objective reality. Subjective reality. If one is an illusion, then you can't tell which it is.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

A more holistic view of consciousness might be an emergent real phenomenon that is the result of social and language development that is recursive and becomes the reference point from which the individual interacts, changes and learns that in turn affect others, society as a whole and through evolution, co-create objective non-static reality.

Maybe I'm missing something or interpreting what I read incorrectly...

 

[Reluctantly]

Precisely, the ability to perceive doesn't necessarily mean the one who perceives is real, or rather our definition of "real" as it applies to a state of personhood is quite arbitrary, if the ability to feel makes us real then what about a photovore robot whose behavior is determined by the biases of its analog circuitry, it may not be conscious or even remotely self aware but so long as it has those implicitly goal orientated biases it essentially "feels" in almost exactly the same way we do.

Of course treating it as a person and giving it rights is just as absurd as doing the same for an insect but that's not really what I care about, I want to know what I am, I want to know how much of myself I can change before I stop being myself if indeed that distinction even exists in the first place.

The more I think about it the less I think it does and the more I'm beginning to believe that we only are who we are because we believe that's who we are based upon our non-objective memories, in other words we are mechanistically predisposed to create these arbitrary identities around an illusionary sense of inherent selfhood.

I'm not sure what you mean. Those things you described lack an ability to reflect on their own behavior, as you admitted. They are then incapable of having any self-awareness because they simply act deliberately based on some algorithmic instinct, rather than on an awareness of their instincts.

Because of this, I'd say that understanding our instincts can lead to an objective sense of self because that's what drives all that we do. But what we choose to associate with because of our instincts probably is an illusion because correlation doesn't always imply causation. Of course, if you can change instincts, then the idea of a self becomes a bit more sketchy, being able to choose evolution at pure will and all. But such a person also wouldn't have a very continuous sense of self and this could create its own problems as they try and find meaning in their own existence, a meaning that they would have no inherent inclinations towards. And then how would such a person function without some sense of self to base a meaning off of?

 

[OrLevitate]

I've not read Jaynes but I've read a similar connection of language which can only take place in the social sphere that allows for the emergence of consciousness. Maturana and Varela regard cognition as an active process rooted in human biology (evolution), in which we create our world of experience (rather than merely developing an internal mirror image of an objective "out there" reality). They suggest that cognition permits an awareness of "self" to emerge only when we know that we are seeing ourselves. For instance, self-awareness comes when one realizes that all sides of a situation have not been perceived; one recognizes that one's reality is a reality but not the only reality. At such a point, there is the (1) acute awareness of self, and (2) realization of one's inherent inability to perceive Reality. In the process, we experience our immutable isolation from even our most intimate partners. This awareness creates an inherent paradox: We are dependent on interaction with other people to expand our knowledge of ourselves and the surrounding world but this simultaneously reinforces our awareness of our immutable aloneness. This exacerbation of existential loneliness and self-awareness, however, also potentiates our capacity and motivation for intimate union with another [all of them!!!!!!!] human being. The relationship between interpersonal systems and intimacy is not as simple as it might appear. Maturana and Varela state there is no "self" outside of relationships with others, and yet the concepts of "self" and "others" reveal the existential separateness of human existence. Communication is a form of coordinated social behavior, in which people contribute their individual neurological capacities to bring forth a higher-order system (e.g., the development of complex language). The emergence of language, a manifestation of the recursion between evolution and social contact, is a crucial step in the emergence of the capacity for self-observation and self-consciousness.
...there is no self-consciousness without language as a phenomenon of linguistic recursion. Self-consciousness, awareness, mind-these are phenomena that take place in language. Therefore as such they take place only in the social domain. (Maturana & Varela, 1987)
...it is in language that the self, the I, arises as the social singularity defined by the operational intersection in the human body of the recursive linguistic distinction in which it is distinguished. This tells us that in the network of linguistic interaction in which we move, we maintain and on going descriptive recursion which we call the "I". It enables us to conserve our linguistic operational coherence and our adaptation in the domain of language. (Maturana & Varela, 1987)

This idea has merit.

THIS IS WHaT IVE BEEN SaYING THE WHOLE GODDaMN TIME IVE BEEN HERE. -jesus, muhammed, buddha, oreo, humanity

good to know other people get it.

On the metaphor thing, i don't know what's been said already but;
if all the cells in your body are cyclically replaced so that you are a full new bunch of cells every decade or whatever; the physical memory's existence is in it's structure/shape, not its matter, and it is expressed in picture or auditory form to be summoned by whatever other part of the brain, so memory literally IS metaphor of what's being memorized.

as for a communicatory medium expressing all form of perception, well, life, amirite? music (emotions), touch, etc, it's all reversible, aren't we already in the perfect vessels for communication? I know what might be said, that we can't translate our exact reality to another's perfect understanding. I think it's just really hard to do, but if two's Perception are of the of the same limit, and the space-time is as close as possible, such as clones (i.e. soulmates), then you might just get that perfect union, which a utopia would be heavily conducive to (the similar inculcation of identity-comprising data) which i must admit animekitty probably said something along these lines about the internet doing this and i probably missed it.

or we could just ll get rly drunk n we'd pretty much be the sme.

 

[Cognisant]

I'm not sure what you mean. Those things you described lack an ability to reflect on their own behavior, as you admitted. They are then incapable of having any self-awareness because they simply act deliberately based on some algorithmic instinct, rather than on an awareness of their instincts

Well that was just one example to show that "feeling" is a mechanism even if we don't perceive it that way, a self regulatory feedback loop could also be included and indeed often is to prevent unnecessary oscillation in self balancing systems.

And then how would such a person function without some sense of self to base a meaning off of?

From a practical standpoint they'd function poorly, from a philosophical standpoint they wouldn't be restrained by inherent self interest.

 

[doncarlzone]

From a practical standpoint they'd function poorly, from a philosophical standpoint they wouldn't be restrained by inherent self interest.

What is the difference between a practical and a philosophical standpoint in this particular case? I'm positively curious as to what you are getting at here. Say we perceive being restrained by inherent self interest as being negative. Would that conclusion even be possible in the first place without any inherent self interest? I can't think of one action, let alone a thought, which would come from a person without any inherent self interest.

 

[Cognisant]

Not being restrained by and not having self interest are two very different things, of course if you have no self interest you must either have no drives or only drives that serve others or perhaps no practical purpose at all (I don't know why that would exist but it could) but if you're aware of the illusionary nature of your own selfhood then though you may posses drives of a self interested nature you can choose whether or not to abide them.

In Scholock Mercenary there's recently been a character who can forcibly upload his mind into the brains of his organisation's "sleeper agents" and these uploaded versions of him are exactly like him mentally but they know they're expendable and presume to be disposed of once their mission is concluded. But they continue to do the mission anyway, the guy himself has accepted the nature of what he does but does it anyway because he knows it works and appears to take considerable pride in being an effective weapon.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-06-06

 

[Cherry Cola]

What is the big illusion? I don't get it.

 

[Cognisant]

You wouldn't.

Back on topic, I'd personally find it reassuring to have several copies of myself going at a time, I could have a more risky lifestyle if I knew that if one of me died the others would continue my work, indeed having long term productive goals is what would keep me from fighting with myself, eventually I suppose working towards the greater good of Cogs everywhere would become the primary goal.
...
Maybe I'm just very self interested

 

[Black Rose]

self is not synonymous with consciousness.
you can be aware you have no permanent self through consciousness.

 

[Cherry Cola]

You wouldn't.

Back on topic, I'd personally find it reassuring to have several copies of myself going at a time, I could have a more risky lifestyle if I knew that if one of me died the others would continue my work, indeed having long term productive goals is what would keep me from fighting with myself, eventually I suppose working towards the greater good of Cogs everywhere would become the primary goal.
...
Maybe I'm just very self interested

Yes I would. You haven't explained what the big illusion is yet. That the self consists of a bunch of different everchanging stuff doesn't mean that there is no self, it doesn't mean that there is no you, it doesn't mean that consciousness is an illusion. It just means that the self is the morphology of all the different ever-changing stuff.

Why wouldn't structures be things?

Consciousness is as real as anything else.

 

[Cognisant]

But that's just it, we're not one thing, not a thing, we're many things that are only perceived to be a single thing because our perception is inherently flawed. Self awareness in other words consciousness is a informational feedback loop (with other stuff to make it a regulatory mechanism) but the brain dosen't have just one feedback loop, there's many happening in parallel (hundreds, thousands, millions, I dunno) and we only perceive ourselves to be a consolidated consciousness because there's nothing to flag our memories as having come from different processes, it's all just there and we take it for granted.

So you only are who you are because you believe you are, so if I made something that absolutely believed that it was you would it be you, or if it isn't then why not?

In the pursuit of immortality this is an extremely important question.

 

[Cherry Cola]

But so are chairs, so are stars and so are atoms - yeah pretty much anything. But we don't call these things illusions so why would we call consciousness an illusion? It seems inconsequent.

Edit: Sorry I wrote inconsequential when I meant inconsequent

 

[Cognisant]

Two way neural interfaces are a thing now, it's still a technology in it's infancy but the progress that has been made in the last few years is staggering, in the next few decades I may be able to isolate the memories that make me believe I'm me and perhaps remove them to suddenly find myself in someone else's body with someone else's memories, maybe that could be the new death penalty? Identity deletion.

Or maybe I could upload these memories to someone else's brain, or the mind of some-thing else like an artificial intelligence or a chimpanzee, I could create an entire lineage of myself progressing from one body to the next.

If philosophy is the basis of law then we are totally unprepared for this and to become prepared we must first consider these things philosophically so just laws can be written and society can function in a world where I could be anywhere or anyone.

But so are chairs, so are stars and so are atoms - yeah pretty much anything. But we don't call these things illusions so why would we call consciousness an illusion? It seems inconsequential.

The illusionary nature of things is inconsequential because things don't do stuff, they don't have rights, they can't be held accountable for their actions.

If people become things how does society cope with this?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Okay so basically anything that has constituents but is seen as one thing is an illusion, ie everything.

I agree that we are totally unprepared for what the future might bring. Many people seem to think that it's okay to just say "no that's not ethical" when you talk about it, this buggers me because they can't really believe that ethics are going to stop the progress being made? That's not how humans work. When was the last time we didn't bother using something awesome with lots of potential because of ethical concerns? It wasn't when we discovered the atom bomb that's for sure, and nanotechnology hasn't stopped developing just because it could be used for unethical purposes.

 

[Cognisant]

Okay so basically anything that has constituents but is seen as one thing is an illusion, ie everything.

This is why I can't understand people who make a fuss about "authentic" experiences.

I don't go to concerts to be jostled, deafened and possibly puked on, I buy the online CD of the studio recording so I can listen to it while I'm running over simulated people in my simulated car in GTA's simulated world, because fuck reality

Actually fuck the studio too, I listen to Hatsune Miku singing dubstep in ways no human voice possibly can.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

@Cog. Is this post a real concern for laws that might be needed to coral a possible new technology? Or is it to justify retroactively the notion that this technology can happen ie if the 'self' is an illusion, then this particular technology can progress?

 

[OrLevitate]

You wouldn't.

Back on topic, I'd personally find it reassuring to have several copies of myself going at a time, I could have a more risky lifestyle if I knew that if one of me died the others would continue my work, indeed having long term productive goals is what would keep me from fighting with myself, eventually I suppose working towards the greater good of Cogs everywhere would become the primary goal.
...
Maybe I'm just very self interested

On path of light u r. Many oppressive make ego. Like nerd in jock strap.

 

[Cognisant]

@Cog. Is this post a real concern for laws that might be needed to coral a possible new technology?

Yeah, so?
I can't help it if I'm inadvertently brilliant.

Or is it to justify retroactively the notion that this technology can happen ie if the 'self' is an illusion, then this particular technology can progress?

You seem to be insinuating something but I can't bring myself to intentionally think such stupid thoughts.

*sigh* Go on try and justify the internally inconsistent notion of a soul.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

I'm not trying to justify a soul. I'm sure your brilliant at many things. I'm sure technology will move forward and will bring benefits and costs. And I'm fairly sure you'll have a hand to play in technological advancement. I was insinuating that you chafe at limitations and this post was the tail wagging the dog? The desire for this technology to move forward colors the way you perceive impediments to that technology. Just a thought as I read more.

This in not a personal attack. After all 'you' are an illusion

 

[Cherry Cola]

Yeah, so?
I can't help it if I'm inadvertently brilliant.


You seem to be insinuating something but I can't bring myself to intentionally think such stupid thoughts.

*sigh* Go on try and justify the internally inconsistent notion of a soul.

^This is happening too often, can some moderator tell this guy to stop assuming everyone who disagrees with him or writes something that goes above his head believe in souls/free will/is a subjectivist or in some other way incapable of rational discussion.

And calling some run on the mill transhumanism brilliance is just weird.

 

[Cognisant]

I'm not trying to justify a soul.

Sorry, I'm just tired of the same nonsense coming at me again and again, there comes a point when you just want to take a stand and say "NO! No more!" and I apologize to everyone that gets caught in the crossfire.

Yeah Cherry Cola I know I just did it to you too, my bad.

And calling some run on the mill transhumanism brilliance is just weird.

That's just me being an ass because I think I'm funny.
Well I amuse myself at least.

 

[Cognisant]

How many times can you repeat yourself before you start to go mad?

I was insinuating that you chafe at limitations and this post was the tail wagging the dog? The desire for this technology to move forward colors the way you perceive impediments to that technology.

Well the speculators do get the first say in things and what better topic to talk about than that which hasn't been covered before?
Having a philosophical discussion sucks when someone can randomly pop in at any time and link you to a wikipedia article that already says everything everyone wanted to say better than how they could have said it.