Inspired by this video. It used to bug me a lot because I thought “well if none of this is me then what does it all mean”.
But then I thought “hang on, why ISN’T it me”? He never says why that is just says so. I mean all this would show is no free will.
I also noticed the distinction they tried to make at the beginning that “it’s something your brain does” implying that you aren’t the brain, which…well I mean we are.
Interesting video.
There is a definite part of the brain that isn’t you, and that is the homeostatic part. It continues to regulate the body’s electrochemistry that keeps you alive while YOU are unconscious altogether, as under anesthesia.
As I see it, consciousness of self is an emergent cognitive property of active data processing. IOW your brain thinks something and you become aware of it as that happens.
It is also true that if you deprive the brain from data as in “isolation chambers” the brain very quickly becomes confused and begins its own hallucinatory processes.
Watch the Anil Seth video on “controlled hallucinations”.
I am aware of Anil Seth and what he said, I emailed the guy myself. I don’t think that’s what the video is getting at.
What I think is that this just means there is no free will, not that any of this isn’t you. Like…at the start he seems to suggest that there is a difference between the brain and conscious you even though they’re the same thing.
Oh Anil Seth clearly states there is a difference.
He claims that the brain is a prediction engine and if the prediction is confirmed by observation that is when cognition and conscious understanding emerges .
When it comes to survival responses, these predictions are so deeply ingrained that the brain overrides any conscious choice.
Case in point:
The image depicts a checkerboard with light and dark squares, partly shadowed by another object. The optical illusion is that the area labeled A appears to be a darker color than the area labeled B. However, within the context of the two-dimensional image, they are of identical brightness, i.e., they would be printed with identical mixtures of ink, or displayed on a screen with pixels of identical color.[1] Checker shadow illusion - Wikipedia
The interesting part is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot see that A and B are identical . They look different. I have tried many times. It’s impossible, unless you cheat by overlaying the squares.
It is your autonomous brain that prevents you from seeing the same color. It is an old survival mechanism.
This whole post is completely irrelevant to the video and what I said.
No it isn’t irrelevant. It is consensus science, whether you believe it or not.
Once you can accept that the conscious YOU is an emergent property and result of data processing that produces cognition of “differences” and/or “agreement” between stored memories and incoming data.
YOU generate YOUR own personal controlled hallucination. (Anil Seth)
When your controlled hallucination agrees with other people’s controlled hallucination, we call that reality. Reality is experienced by general agreement.
And the ability to experience the same reality is called “empathy” (Roger Antonsen).
Note the agreement between these two scientists.
No it’s wildly irrelevant, that’s not what the video is about.
You’re also still wrong about controlled hallucination and what that means. Like I said I talked to the dude himself.
You’re still wrong because this isn’t relevant. It’s not about sensation. Also reality isn’t agreement, it’s a bit more complicated than that
Yes, it is all about “sensation”, a sensory experience.
I know reality is independent of your controlled hallucination.
It is your controlled hallucination that is dependent on sensory input as compared to your stored memory.
Anil Seth demonstrated this in the “sound cognition” experiment.
Play the video at that time (6:10)
A clear example of brain plasticity.
Again, not relevant.
But that’s all there is. How can it not be relevant?
Perhaps it is your refusal to accept the way it works that is creating the conundrum.
Please note that I am not speaking from a psychological perspective, but from a physical perspective. i.e. the data processing and memory function of the microtubule network in your brain.
No, just to be clear, your brain is an isolated autonomous organ, encased in a wet, dark, noiseless skull, and connected to the body only via neurons.
It cannot see, feel, hear, touch anything, except via neural input of electrochemical signals that represent data gathered by the senses.
The brain is You and your Experience of external reality.
Descartes analogy of the brain in a vat is pretty close to the actual facts. You could take the brain out the skull and place it in a vat filled with normal brain fluid, connect it via wires to a computer with a lens recording a park, and make the brain (you) believe you are taking a walk in the park.
A controlled hallucination. You would never know the difference.
From another website
Michael Soso, BA Berkeley Physiology/Biophysics 1967, PhD Neurophysiology UW 1975 and MD Stanford 1979, 30 years on U Pitt Neuro Faculty, Retired6y
The retina can loosely be considered to register the visual world in a pixelated pattern. But the Visual system totally abandons this scheme as soon as retinal signals reach the Visual cortex. In the visual cortex, objects are deconstructed into lines, edges, stripes, and other elements using coding that we do not yet fully comprehend.
No Cartesian theater exists inside the brain where the images of vision are “viewed.” Evidence suggests we use the same neural machinery to view external images and to view internally generated images.
I said it’s got nothing to do with sense and that’s not what the video is talking about. You’re unable to see beyond your vision.
This shows you don’t understand what he means by controlled hallucination. It’s nothing like a brain in the vat.
I understand Seth very clearly. It is you who is refusing to look at the data.
You have a negative mindset, and that clouds your “controlled hallucination”.
I normally try to be a little more diplomatic but don’t tell me I don’t understand a subject I have spent the last 6 years studying and gaining understanding.
If you want to talk about homeostasis, we can do that too.
btw. homeostasis is not You. It is autonomous control mechanism that regulates your body electrochemistry, even if You, your mind is unconscious and “not present”.
No you don’t if you likened it to Descartes brain in a vat, like I said I talked to the guy himself. You’re throwing the term out without understanding what it means.
Again this isn’t a matter of data, nothing you said has been relevant to the original video. It’s all been a detraction.
You haven’t been spending the last six years gaining understanding but rather delusions of understanding. You have info but lack comprehension and synthesis. Just like in very thread you post in. All that results in is irrelevant nonsense.
Sorry, you do not understand Seth. He specifically explains the brain’s separation from the rest of the body and it’s only connection to the body is via the neural net work .
Literally not what he said. Like I said, you don’t understand him or his work. I say this having e-mailed and talked to him myself. The fact you liken it to the brain in the vat shows you know nothing.
The fact that you cannot comprehend the analogy, shows you are on the wrong track.
Read ORCH OR and learn something about the function microtubules perform in the brain.
Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR )
Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) is a highly controversial theory postulating that consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons (rather than being a product of neural connections)
The mechanism is held to be a quantum process called objective reduction that is orchestrated by cellular structures called microtubules. It is proposed that the theory may answer the hard problem of consciousness and provide a mechanism for free will.[1]
The hypothesis was first put forward in the early 1990s by Nobel laureate for physics, Roger Penrose, and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff. The hypothesis combines approaches from molecular biology, neuroscience, pharmacology, philosophy, quantum information theory, and quantum gravity.[2][3]
And a promising response from Sabine Hossenfelder.
