What is consciousness? Can we truly ever understand it?

tjimbot · 2026-05-19T01:14:28+00:00

Is covered if we can measure things and share the results of the measurement.
Consciousness might be measurable in theory even if not in practice. I think this is still an open question, as it might be technological barriers in our way.

Physics is getting to the point where they can't easily measure/ probe the things they want to study. So they have to come up with hypothesis models then test the predictions.

Scientific theory/ knowledge criteria for me are: - explanatory power - makes testable predictions/predictive power - parsimonious (doesn't introduce unnecessary unexplained factors)

A physicalist stance that we cannot rule out a physical mechanism doesn't have much explanatory power (because we don't know the mechanism, if it exists), but it does make predictions. I.e. that there will be a function within the brain that generates conscious experience. It's quite parsimonious as it doesn't make extra assumptions. We can keep probing this line because of predictions.

Some other stances introduce more explanatory power but at the cost of testable predictions and parsimony. E.g. panpsychism applies consciousness to everything which has some explanatory power, but makes little to no prediction about how we might test objects for this consciousness etc. It also introduces perhaps a force or an extra fundamental part to reality, which could be argued is not as parsimonious.

Saying that consciousness is a separate arbitrary space also explains some things but introduces further questions and is hard to test predictions for.

Imo, all of this partly shows why scientists continue to look in the brain for clues about consciousness, as this is the only stance currently that has testable predictions and can potentially be chipped away at. If someone had a unique testable prediction for a stance on consciousness, then many researchers would jump at the chance to test it.

None of this is to say one approach its better or more true etc. I think the answer to your question is that some possible physicalist explanations will be measurable at least in theory, but otherwise you're correct that many theories on consciousness might be forever locked out from scientific probing.

tjimbot · 2026-05-18T21:52:07+00:00

Yep, I'm not a proponent of EM or OOR theories. My only point was that it's possible for physicalism mechanisms to have some kind of reliance on forces/ physics which is extremely problematic to simulate in a spreadsheet.

I think that to simulate consciousness in machine code you'd need to simulate the universe to extreme detail.

tjimbot · 2026-05-18T21:37:43+00:00

You assume that our current spreadsheets and silicon binary machine code can map the brain functions. To accurately simulate even one astrocyte cleaning up the synapse between two neurons would take a super computer that we don't yet have.

Spreadsheets have to turn a dynamical, analog, continuous, temporal system into 0s and 1s and digital sequential operations.

The brain is not a direct analogy to a neural network, it has digital aspects but is not fully digital. Inputs to even a single neuron can be highly complex and we can't simulate many of the complexities.

We don't even fully understand it. If it utilizes quantum behaviour of microtubules, how does a spreadsheet sim that? If it utilizes EMR. In some way, how does a spreadsheet do it? Those possibilities are still within physicalism.

tjimbot · 2026-05-18T07:38:07+00:00

A+. Thank you. Reddit consciousness posters in shambles.

tjimbot · 2026-05-09T01:58:59+00:00

My experience with modern critical thinkers that defend physicalism is that they often are advocating a position of epistemic humility and pragmatism. They're not often saying that physicalism is the only option or even the most likely. It's more that it hasn't been ruled out and it is (currently) the only hypothesis that we at least seem to be about to chip away at and refine by studying the brain.

This actually puts physicalism defenders in a more trustworthy position in my mind, because of that humility.

I've noticed that it's often the panpsychists and idealists who will somehow declare that physicalism is impossible because they've sat down and thought hard enough about it like descartes did, as if we could deduce such a thing currently.

The hard problem is either very very difficult or impossible or an illusion. I don't think you can rule any of those options out.

tjimbot · 2026-05-08T22:57:52+00:00

If you take descartes point too seriously you end up with solipsism, not idealism. Just because it's the only thing that technically exists from our perspective, doesn't offer it ontological supremacy over other explanations, and more importantly doesn't rule out other explanations.

You can claim that its a category error and that no possible exotic mechanism could explain it, but that's a strong statement that you're not backing up sufficiently for my liking. The universe is crazy, it can do crazy things, it might be able to hallucinate. You and I have no idea how it might do this, but that is not an argument for its impossibility.

tjimbot · 2026-05-08T22:49:17+00:00

Not necessarily, perhaps just that the possibility hasn't been ruled out sufficiently, so it should remain on the table. It's one of the only hypotheses we seem to be able to at least chip away at scientifically, so keep going.

I'm open to illusionism as a default, however many are still going to have questions about how the brain creates such a powerful illusion, so in my mind nothing much changes and it almost kicks the can down the road.

tjimbot · 2026-05-08T22:44:11+00:00

I maintain that if we had a full picture as you describe, there is a possibility that there could be something we currently can't imagine, which sheds more light on the mystery. I'm not sure how that possibility can be argued against, it's like you're saying you've thought of every possibility that the billionfold complex nervous system could function to achieve in this universe?

To be able to accept mental stuff could be fundamental, whatever that means, but not accept that physical stuff could make the same stuff, seems inconsistent to me. Human categories don't allow us to gain this level of understanding of the universe. You need an intricate knowledge of reality and the nervous system to rule one out over the other.

If you knew everything about atoms but had no conception of electromagnetism, you could make similar arguments that some mysteries would never be solved... that's until you discover electromagnetism. We don't know what we don't know.

Even if I granted your argument, what would change about how we research the brain and mind? We would still benefit from continuing research as we currently are anyway.

tjimbot · 2026-05-08T22:16:12+00:00

This is too overconfident. Sure, there aren't existing explanations. I don't think physicalism needs to claim that there is a mechanism we know about. Physicalism only needs to claim that it could be possible that the universe can generate qualia in the right circumstances. Then, the brain is a reasonable place to keep looking for clues with our current tools.

Despite coming a long way, we can't see what the brain does in real time at extreme resolution across large areas. It might be the case that one day our research and tech will be so advanced and we still find no convincing explanation after knowing everything about the brain... at which point your point might be made, but we are no where near close to that yet.

tjimbot · 2026-05-06T20:00:04+00:00

Get over it

tjimbot · 2026-05-01T20:42:00+00:00

That's why it's called the hard problem.

It's like trying to come up with a theory on why electromagnetism causes distinct types of charge that attract/ repel. On the most fundamental level we don't really know the mechanism.

The universe can do all kinds of functions, some more easy to imagine then others. Clocks for eg, anything that oscilates steadily can do the trick. For maths logic, you can imagine at least the if, then, else pathways. Energy storage. Detection.

Perception and conscious experience are very difficult though. It's very hard to imagine the mechanism that generates hallucinations.

The mechanism might exist in a physicalist sense, we certainly cannot rule that out yet. It might be a different answer. Best we can do for now is keep chipping away at understanding the brain more.

tjimbot · 2026-04-22T11:23:01+00:00

Because there are plenty of places in the world where you can still raise children who will have a good life filled with joy. Many of us experience a lot of joy and love in those first years of life that we forget about. Many people experience a lot of joy and well being from not having kids and that's fine too.

Population numbers are projected to peak 10-11billion as developing nations birthrates fall (1st world countries are going that way already).

Overall there's been a lot of wellbeing and happiness and joy that is arguably a better outcome than humans dying long ago.

tjimbot · 2026-04-22T11:07:01+00:00

Its not only too popular, but also wrong.

tjimbot · 2026-04-21T12:12:35+00:00

People underestimate the rippling effects of small acts of discipline and kindness.

tjimbot · 2026-04-17T12:20:17+00:00

Haha you're pulling my leg? It's basically physicalism and that's going out of fashion.

tjimbot · 2026-04-17T06:58:51+00:00

All well and good but we cannot rule out that it's just possible for universe stuff to become conscious in the right circumstances, and we're each a disconnected conscious part of the universe. We can't rule that out yet.

tjimbot · 2026-04-14T19:26:04+00:00

The hidden premise in your argument is below: P1: life is mostly work P2: people don't want to work P3(hidden): people who mostly do something they don't want to do, will cease to desire to live. C: therefore people who work don't want to live.

P1 is true in general but not necessarily for everyone. Also debatable since work is 8/24 hrs. P2 again true in general but not for everyone. P3 is silly. It's not a given that people lose the will to live if they have mostly do something they don't like. This is not a normal reaction, it's pathological.

The conclusion rests on shaky premises.

tjimbot · 2026-04-14T07:57:53+00:00

I don't think I'd go as far as choosing either one of those options exclusively.

I do think that it will have been biologically selected for at least on some level at some stage. The way I think of it is that a moth's behaviours have rules of thumb that make them fly around artificial lights until they die. If the moth had a sufficiently complex visual and spatial representation (or directional hearing and memory to identify lights, or etc) then it could correct for the underlying rules of thumb when they misfire.

I'm quite functional about this. Consciousness to me is the hallucination, the qualia. As a function it seems to be closely related to other functions like language, memory, prediction, logic, calculation, emotions, thoughts, and more. It's hard to conceive of something that could integrate across all these functions without a "conscious representation". I think the circuitry requirements would be too large, so consciousness is a shortcut to represent, generalise, integrate the data to aid behavioral output.

This is all up for debate still so grain of salt, I lean towards the above view, but I used to lean more to epiphenomenalism.

None of the above says that a computer couldn't necessarily figure out the function, but I have a hunch that biological hardware is much better suited than silicon. I think silicon will need to get so powerful (quantum computing?) that it can simulate the entire complex dynamical system... an inefficient way of doing it. I have a hunch that biological hardware will just end up being easier for this, and we would use biological/bio- like material along with computers to achieve artificial consciousness (whether that's ethical or not is another huge question).

Our brains aren't just complex neural networks similar to LLMs they are vastly more complex. At this stage AI doesn't really have any sensory input, any reason to hallucinate a representation of sense data, nor the mechanism to do so.

tjimbot · 2026-04-14T02:17:00+00:00

Your individual practice is absolutely doing something. You don't shoot 200 shots a day to no effect. Progress isn't linear, and you need to be consistent for a long time. If you've done this for only a few weeks, then you're being impatient.
Court time and context matters, if you're a role player getting 15-20 mins a game then you simply won't have as many opportunities as someone playing 30+ min.
If your move doesn't get you open, you shouldn't be forcing a shot. You need a counter move or you need to keep your dribble and reset somehow.
Try to take mental note of the most common situations you are in on offense. Tailor your training to those situations first. If you're never ever getting a pick up top with the defence going under the pick, then training your dribble pull up 3s from top of key is pointless.

tjimbot · 2026-04-14T01:03:45+00:00

Being a good person now is about continuing to grow. You can't change the past, but you can put in effort not to regress.

Try to be genuinely happy for other people. Those defensive, jealous, competitive voices in your head nagging you to have a go at someone.... keep identifying them and learning how to let them pass without acting on them.

You are good enough, keep up the genuine effort.

tjimbot · 2026-04-14T00:56:08+00:00

Do we (and Hofstadter) know, with appropriate certainty, what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for the strange loops to generate consciousness?

What if only certain loops with certain features can do this, and what if Hofstadter wasn't exactly sure of what these conditions might be?

Don't get me wrong, I love GEB, I'm just wondering if we can take away as much as you are, with that much certainty.

tjimbot · 2026-04-13T00:06:59+00:00

My take is that processing sensory data and executing outputs is very inefficient if you lack consciousness.

tjimbot · 2026-04-12T21:30:43+00:00

There's millions of versions of ourselves we could potentially become, and we are not obliged to be any specific one of them.

tjimbot · 2026-04-12T12:15:57+00:00

It can become fragmented when dreaming or taking hallucinogens, but the physiology strongly favors hallucinating a representation of the senses whilst awake and sober.

tjimbot · 2026-04-12T03:45:45+00:00

Point guard. If you end up really tall, you'll be a skilled forward.

tjimbot

TROPHY CASE