Option 4: there is no such thing as consciousness. Its all just an elaborate hoax our minds play on us. In reality we are ‘just’ state machines with complicated caches that give the appearance of a conscious mind acting. The illusion is good enough to fool us all, and works well enough for real life.
The more i learn off neuro science the more I get the impression that there is no real ‘person’ hidden in the body, just a shell, that runs lots of software over data storage, and seems to act somewhat consistent. So the closer you look, the less consciousness is left to see.
Please note that I still have trouble understanding how qualia work.
Is an illusion something other than a system failing to correctly represent its otherwise accurate sensory input?
Particularly if it happens in a specific and reproducible way, so that even though the information it gathers is accurate, said information is internally represented as being something different and inaccurate.
Because I can write programs that have bugs that are pretty much that.
Something is making us talk about consciousness. Until we come up with a definition, we really have no business saying that this very real something is a fake version of some undefined ball of vagueness. It’s like saying that trees are just big wooden things pretending to be snumbas. It’s a lot better to just find out what makes us talk about consciousness and say, “Let’s call it consciousness!”
Option 4: there is no such thing as consciousness. Its all just an elaborate hoax our minds play on us. In reality we are ‘just’ state machines with complicated caches that give the appearance of a conscious mind acting. The illusion is good enough to fool us all, and works well enough for real life.
The more i learn off neuro science the more I get the impression that there is no real ‘person’ hidden in the body, just a shell, that runs lots of software over data storage, and seems to act somewhat consistent. So the closer you look, the less consciousness is left to see.
Please note that I still have trouble understanding how qualia work.
My problem with that sort of explanation is that I don’t see how there can be illusion without a consciousness present to be mistaken.
Is an illusion something other than a system failing to correctly represent its otherwise accurate sensory input?
Particularly if it happens in a specific and reproducible way, so that even though the information it gathers is accurate, said information is internally represented as being something different and inaccurate.
Because I can write programs that have bugs that are pretty much that.
I’m not sure, but that’s an interesting and possibly valid point.
Something is making us talk about consciousness. Until we come up with a definition, we really have no business saying that this very real something is a fake version of some undefined ball of vagueness. It’s like saying that trees are just big wooden things pretending to be snumbas. It’s a lot better to just find out what makes us talk about consciousness and say, “Let’s call it consciousness!”
Well yes. A good definition matters.
Option 2 makes the least sense to me. It should be possible to have consciousness with any kind of computational device.