This is a great example in support of something I often think about. We see our consciousness as “me” and as “the thing in charge” of the body, but really it’s more of an ancillary subprocess that the body runs for its own benefit. It’s just a special subprocess that does its job best when it mistakenly thinks of itself as being the boss of the body.
Consciousness is 100% an emergent property.
Like why Reubens are so good. I don’t like salty protein, bread with caraway seeds, thousand island dressing or Swiss cheese, but fuck is a Reuben delicious.
Reubens are the only beef food I used eat in my 20s. I’ve since switched to seitan, but there’s something about the combo that just works. The rye bread is a key part of it.
That’s why I said salty protein :) Swiss cheese is imo so unremarkable that the dairy free version is just as good, and a vegan Reuben is still a perfect sandwich.
Can you explain what this means?
There’s no biological structure the creates consciousness to the ppint where you can say “if you have x, you’re conscious”, to the point where saying “humans are conscious” or even “only humans are conscious” aren’t always true. Many elephants are conscious. Some dogs are consciohs. Some humans aren’t. And no, the split between humans are/aren’t conscious ARE NOT CORRELATED WITH DEMOGRAPHIC (fuck Nazis and racists), nor is it easy to draw a line in the sand because it’s a spectrum.
It comes from having a brain that’s complex enough. Decision making process start interacting together in unexpenced ways, with subtle variations caused by genetics and history. Literally just read the wikipedia page the previous person posted and apply that same logic to brains and minds.
Conscious (sentience / sapience) is an ineffable, unmeasurable, quality. There is no way to say that one sentient being is more or less sentient than another. In fact there is no way to tell that I am not the only consciousness in existence but it feels rude not to give others the benefit of the doubt. We can create neurons and even small brains in the lab but we don’t have any way to instill life into that neuron. Consciousness simply emerges out of the constituent parts of being alive, possibly even as a result of the interactions of such a complex system.
It would be strongly emergent then. And strong emergence is basically magic.
I don’t see how either sentence follows. Rephrasing your comment and supplementing it with context to explain your reasoning may better communicate your point.
Weak emergence has qualities that arise from the fundamental features of the parts and the rules that connect them. For example, the shapes made by flocks of birds can be reduced to simple local interactions among the birds.
Strong emergence has qualities that cannot, even in principle, be reduced to the parts and their rules. These qualities are genuinely novel and bring powers that are not found in the constituents alone.
Strong emergence is like mixing two chemicals in a lab and, instead of producing a new compound, discovering an entirely new fundamental force of nature. Consciousness, in particular, seems to lack any physically grounded ontology. While this is a divisive claim, it is hardly original. Physicalists who appeal to weak emergence have not yet shown—nor may they ever be able to show—that consciousness is physically emergent. If strong emergence is to be taken seriously, it must be framed in a way that avoids looking like something from nothing, which would be indistinguishable from magic.
As of now, the physicalists have to demonstrate weak emergence. Failing that, we cannot dismiss strong emergence so that we don’t close the investigative and theory making space.
That makes more sense. Thanks for the response! I’m not sure if can agree with your conclusions. It may be that I’m still missing context you’re working within. My best guess is you’re assuming some axioms that I am not. That doesn’t necessarily mean I think you’re incorrect. We might just be operating with different frameworks.
I agree that strong emergence and weak emergence seem different by your definitions. I’m not convinced strong emergence is a thing. Is there a compelling argument that the perception of strong emergence is actually a more complex weak emergence that the observers have not fully understood?
Something something Occam’s Razor / god of the gaps something. I find these sorts of discussions quite compelling. Thanks again for engaging. :)
Original flavor MAGA
Finally understand republicans
Average US voter
Same. It’s why I hate change. You know how much it hurts to regrow your brain? It hurts a lot!
I hear ya, squirt. I hear ya.
This hurts, I got denied for a loan for a house a few years ago.
You should find a rock and then digest your brain.
Seeing your reply out of context made me think “what did I do to get hatemail this time?”
I wonder if we can get the fortnite/counterstrike kids too use this instead of the old classic: KYS
There’s just something more refined about it
Some of my colleagues fit the description. Been there for ages producing virtually nothing, and you can’t squeeze an ounce of thinkign out of them.
