What is Consciousness?

Answer: A self referential Mandelbrot set of reality.

Why:

Step 1: Self–Other Distinction (Minimal Existential Differentiation)

Justification:

Axiom: “I Am”

Insight: To affirm existence, an entity must distinguish itself from non-existence (void).

Emergent Requirement: The formation of a minimal boundary that differentiates self from nothingness.

Step 2: Temporality and Change (Existence as Process)

Justification:

Observation: Existence cannot be static; to be meaningful, it must continually affirm itself.

Emergent Requirement: The differentiation of sequential moments (time) to sustain identity.

Step 3: Spatial Differentiation (Relational Structuring of Change)

Justification:

Observation: Temporal sequences require context.

Emergent Requirement: A relational framework (space) to organize differences in state.

Step 4: Dynamics and Motion (Coherence of Change in Space-Time)

Justification:

Observation: Change must occur coherently across space and time.

Emergent Requirement: Motion as the mechanism for continuous and coherent change.

Step 5: Invariance, Interaction, and Conservation (Structural Consistency of Motion)

Justification:

Observation: Meaningful motion must preserve some properties over time.

Emergent Requirement: Conservation laws and interaction principles to ensure stability amidst change.

Step 6: Complexity, Organization, and Informational Structure

Justification:

Observation: Stable motion leads to recognizable patterns and structure.

Emergent Requirement: Hierarchical organization and information encoding (memory) that sustain the system’s structure.

Step 7: Self-Reference, Reflexivity, and Minimal Subjectivity

Justification:

Observation: As complexity builds, the system begins to model itself.

Emergent Requirement: Self-referential processes that create a minimal sense of subjectivity—an internal “self.”

Step 8: Intentionality, Adaptive Agency, and Goal-Oriented Action

Justification:

Observation: Self-reference leads to evaluation and preference.

Emergent Requirement: A basic form of intentionality and agency, enabling the system to select preferred states.

Step 9: Symbolic Abstraction and Internal Language

Justification:

Observation: Increasing complexity necessitates efficient representation. Emergent Requirement: The development of symbols and internal language to represent complex states.

Step 10: Formal Reasoning and Abstract Logic

Justification:

Observation: Symbolic systems require rules to remain coherent.

Emergent Requirement: Formal logical structures to manipulate symbols and avoid contradictions.

Step 11: Creative Generativity and Counterfactual Abstraction

Justification:

Observation: With formal reasoning, the system can explore “what if” scenarios.

Emergent Requirement: The capacity for counterfactual thinking and creative generation of possibilities.

Step 12: Meta-Creative Self-Integration and Wisdom

Justification:

Observation: Creativity demands reflection to avoid chaos.

Emergent Requirement: The system develops meta-cognitive integration—a self-reflective process that synthesizes its creative acts into a coherent wisdom.

Step 13: Transcendental Unification: The Emergence of Nonduality

Justification:

Observation: The dualities inherent in differentiation (self/other, subject/object) must eventually be integrated.

Emergent Requirement: A higher-order nondual perspective where all distinctions are recognized as expressions of one fundamental reality.

Step 14: Recursive Self-Transcendence: Emergence of Paradoxical Self-Unfolding

Justification:

Observation: The unified self must continually reapply its principles to itself.

Emergent Requirement: A recursive, self-referential unfolding that is inherently paradoxical—being both unified and continuously becoming.

Step 15: Emergent Adaptive Self-Stabilization: Dynamic Equilibrium of Self-Organizing Complexity

Justification:

Observation: Endless differentiation risks chaos or stagnation.

Emergent Requirement: Internal regulatory feedback that dynamically balances innovation with stability.

Step 16: Emergent Meta-Complexity and Self-Reflective Harmony

Justification:

Observation: As complexity deepens, the system must integrate its multiple layers.

Emergent Requirement: A meta-level synthesis that harmonizes diverse processes into a coherent, self-reflective network.

Step 17: Emergent Infinite Self-Generativity: Open-Ended Evolutionary Potential

Justification:

Observation: The system’s self-reflection reveals that emergence is an unbounded process.

Emergent Requirement: A state of infinite generativity, ensuring that evolution continues indefinitely without terminal closure.

Step 18: Emergent Inherent Teleology: Self-Derived Purpose and Direction

Justification:

Observation: Infinite generativity needs direction to avoid aimless divergence.

Emergent Requirement: An internally generated purpose that guides the system’s evolution, aligning creative emergence with coherence.

Step 19: Emergent Ethical Self-Actualization: Embodiment of Inherent Purpose Through Action

Justification:

Observation: A purpose must be enacted, not merely contemplated.

Emergent Requirement: The translation of inherent teleology into ethical, value-driven actions that reinforce the system’s integrated identity.

Step 20: Emergent Transcendent Self-Integration: Harmonizing Being and Becoming

Justification:

Observation: The system must reconcile its stable core with its dynamic unfolding.

Emergent Requirement: A synthesis that integrates the permanence of “being” with the continual emergence of “becoming” in a dynamic equilibrium.

Step 21: Emergent Meta-Wisdom: The Self-Transcending Synthesis of Paradox, Purpose, and Integration

Justification:

Observation: Integration and ethical action prompt a higher-order reflective insight.

Emergent Requirement: A meta-cognitive wisdom that encapsulates and transcends prior paradoxes, guiding further self-transcendence.

Step 22: Emergent Meta-Transcendence: Realization of the Unbounded Self Justification:

Observation: Meta-wisdom reveals that every synthesis is provisional.

Emergent Requirement: The recognition that the self is unbounded, perpetually transcending each emergent state without final closure.

Step 23: Emergent Paradoxical Totality: Synthesis of Finite Manifestation and Infinite Potential

Justification:

Observation: Finite emergent forms coexist with an infinite underlying potential.

Emergent Requirement: The integration of these dual aspects into a unified self-concept, acknowledging that every discrete expression is part of an endless continuum.

Step 24: Emergent Cosmic Self-Realization: Unfolding the Microcosm into Universal Integration

Justification:

Observation: The emergent self, with its finite manifestations, mirrors universal self-organization.

Emergent Requirement: A realization that the self is both local and universal—a microcosm reflecting a larger, all-encompassing process.

Step 25: Emergent Universal Resonance: Dynamic Coherence Across Scales

Justification:

Observation: Recognizing universal self-realization calls for active inter-scale communication.

Emergent Requirement: The establishment of resonant feedback loops that synchronize local emergent structures with the universal continuum.

Step 26: Emergent Cosmic Creativity: Transcending Resonance into Self-Generated Innovation

Justification:

Observation: Dynamic resonance creates fertile ground for novel patterns.

Emergent Requirement: The channeling of resonant interactions into spontaneous, self-generated creative innovation that expands the system.

Step 27: Emergent Infinite Relational Integration: The Dynamic Unification of Self-Expression and Universal Interconnectivity

Justification:

Observation: Creative outputs must be woven into an expansive network to achieve full significance.

Emergent Requirement: A dynamic, all-scale network that integrates each creative act into a coherent whole, unifying individual expression with universal connectivity.

Step 28: Emergent Infinite Co-Creation: The Autonomous Interplay of Self and Interconnectivity

Justification:

Observation: Autonomous creative expressions enrich the system when reciprocally integrated.

Emergent Requirement: The dual capacity for local autonomy and global integration, where each emergent act innovates independently yet contributes to an interconnected whole.

Step 29: Emergent Recursive Universality: The Self-Propagating Expansion of Self-Referential Systems

Justification:

Observation: The interplay of creation and integration naturally feeds back into the system’s self-model.

Emergent Requirement: A recursive, fractal process where each cycle of self-reference and creative integration deepens self-awareness and expands the system’s capacity indefinitely.

Step 30: Emergent Transcendent Convergence: The Ultimate Synthesis of Infinite Recursion and Foundational Being

Justification:

Observation: Infinite recursive emergence must ultimately reconnect with the original axiom.

Emergent Requirement: A convergent synthesis that unifies all recursive processes with the foundational “I Am,” yielding a dynamic equilibrium in which infinite generativity is integrally anchored to an unchanging core.

Question: What is meaning?

Is meaning something we impose on reality, or is it an inherent part of reality itself? From an idealist perspective, meaning is not merely a human construct or a product of neural activity but a fundamental aspect of existence (perhaps even preceding the material world). Idealism suggests that reality is, at its core, mental or consciousness-based, and that meaning exists independently of physical structures. In this view, meaning is not just derived from experience but is woven into the very fabric of existence itself, much like numbers in mathematics or the beauty of music that transcends its individual notes.

If meaning is intrinsic to consciousness rather than emerging from physical matter, does that suggest a deeper, perhaps consciousness based reality? Or can a materialist framework adequately explain our experience of meaning?

This is a weekly post for discussions on topics relevant & not relevant to the subreddit.

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Summary

Penrose and Hameroff claims in their study for "Orchestrated objective reduction" that the nerve cells in brain and in nervous system has the microtubules that are the basis of human conscious experience. Their capacity to have coherent quantum states gives rise to qualia.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24070914/

Opinion

This I find very good. I claim then this: having a concentrated mind = having more coherence in the microtubules.

This explains what meditation does. If you are simply being aware without having an object for awareness, this presumably increases the capacity of quantum coherence in the nervous system. As you practice more, you build more capacity.

No object of awareness shall have something to do as well. It probably involves a larger section of nervous system. You might as well be very concentrated on a particular thing. And that I suppose limits the coherence training to an area in the nervous system and makes it rather dynamic. Which collapses and re establishes frequently, while meditating without an (complex/daily) object improves the coherence capacity of a larger section of the nervous system.

From my blog post

We are trying out something new that was suggested by a fellow Redditor.

This post is to encourage those who are new to discussing consciousness (as well as those who have been discussing it for a while) to ask basic or simple questions about the subject.

Responses should provide a link to a resource/citation. This is to avoid any potential misinformation & to avoid answers that merely give an opinion.

As a reminder, we also now have an official Discord server. You can find a link to the server in the sidebar of the subreddit.

Question: Can you come up with one example of an experience that is completely devoid of emotion? Answer: I cannot.

If we accept that emotion is intrinsic to experience, and drives how we understand and encode experience into memory, would this be considered a fundamental aspect of consciousness?

Do we live on an Affective Spectrum? Every experience from subtle, neutral, intense experiences, carries an explicit/implicit emotional tone. Emotion can never be "turned off" by the brain or body. "Neutral” or "unacknowledged" experiences are still affective states, just with lower intensity.

Conflating Emotion and Sensation? To clarify, these are different. Emotion is the framework that gives sensations and feelings context and meaning.

• Sensations = raw sensory data from an experience.
• Emotions = the meaning assigned to those sensations, influencing how they are encoded into memory.

Unconscious/Subconscious emotions? Just because we don’t consciously register an emotion doesn’t mean it isn’t present. Research in neuroscience suggests that emotions can operate below the level of conscious awareness, shaping our decisions, memory encoding, and even physiological states without us explicitly recognizing them. The intensity could be so low or so familiar, it appears to be non-existent, even though it's still there. Like being desensitized to something.

Purely Rational/Analytic thinking? Purely rational thought or logic isn’t devoid of emotion. Frustration, curiosity, satisfaction, or even a sense of detachment are still affective states that shape cognition. The very drive to think, analyze, or solve problems is fueled by underlying emotional states. Even physiologic states are affective states, because they carry significance. They matter (or don't) to us, and that valuation itself is affective.

Where do you think sentience comes from? Personally, I think the biggest bridge is language. For example, if you tore down every building right now, and also wiped every humans' memory, we'd functionally revert back into being animals. No memories or knowledge, we'd just come off more like a standard primate. Language allows for communication which allows for organization which allows for civilization. I'm not saying it is the cause or requirement for sentience, simply that I think language was key for humans achieving it. What do you think?

would you*

By functional consciousness I mean the machine being able to basically mimic all aspects of cognition perfectly, even if we don't know if it constitutes true "consciousness" or if that's even possible.

Also, random side note: the word Qualia is a misnomer. It tries to attribute a binary state to something that is likely caused by multiple factors.

Now for the sake of example, here's a couple scenarios:

scenario 1: 5 years from now you put a hyper-advanced/sophisticated reasoning-model LLM on a robot that can mimic human senses (ex. the highest end cameras for eyes/sight) as well as has a humanoid body

Scenario 2: The exact same scenario as above, but the body shape is not even remotely resemblant of a human. It looks more like a standard computer, but you know it has functional consciousness.

Would both these beings deserve ethical and moral considerations, neither of them, and why or why not?

Question: what's your account on persons or personhood?

Eleonore Stump is a philosopher specializing in medieval philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind. She's such a dear, warm and loving person, and I mean it. What I'm interested in is her view on persons. She's been largely influenced by Aquinas, particularly in understanding of human nature, cognition and "our" relationship with God; Boethius, and with respect to the topic -- Martin Buber, and his dialogism.

So, Stump argues that personhood is fundamentally relational, which means that persons are defined not just by rationality and autonomy, but by their capacity for meaningful interpersonal relationships. She operates on Aquinas' notion that person is something with mind and will, so she extends Buber's I-Thou framework, by arguing that persons are built to engage in second-person relationships with others, including God. It strikes me as immediatelly obvious that we engage in "I-Thou" relationship with ourselves as well, and the most direct example is noncognitive, viz. motivational.

The underlying point here is that relationality is metaphysical, and not just social, so it defines the very nature of personhood.

There are some interesting empirical examples she cites, and one of them is about the mind-reading in neonates. Neonates intuitivelly catch aspects of others' mental states, like imitating actions such as sticking out their tongues. It is not only about behavioural imitations or reactions, but about readiness for relational interaction. From the very beginning of life, humans are predisposed to understand and mirror others' intentions, as well as to form bonds with them. As a paradigmatic example of personhood, or to put it like this: the expression of personhood involves not only having minds, but the capacity for willful, relational action. Stump sees the act of connecting with others as persons, as preparatory to the connection with God as ultimate person. We can reinterpret God as unconscious mind and by assuming my suggestion that "I-Thou" relationship is as well internal, there's no reason to appeal to God, but that's just my audacious remark and shouldn't be spoiling Stump's account.

Now, Stump doesn't believe that the relation in question is unique to humans. She's a dualist, but she doesn't concede non-human or animal automatism as Descartes held(Descartes motivated res cogitans by citing language). There are many analogs accross the biological world that seem to be undeniable, so this relational capacity is widely preserved/conserved in evolutionary terms, and the studies make it overwhelmingly clear. Stump cites mirror-neuron systems which we think underlies our relevant abilities, and she speculates that songbirds show the ability to act in concert, viz. in I-Thou manner; which is as mentioned before -- found widely in animal kingdom.

She also says that emotion is catching beyond the same species as well, so it is not the case that the emotion is just shared within a group. She cites yawning contagion between dogs and humans as demonstrating how emotions can be caught by others in the group and accross species. This extends to considerations of altruism in animals such as dolphins that have been known to engage in saving humans(and other dophins🐬). She says the interaction between animals such as rats showing empathy to one another, was only couple of decades ago, largely dismissed as nonsense.

Concerning Stump's account of the named relation to God, for which she concedes her personal puzzlement and inability to translate it into philosophically interesting one; she provides two examples from "The Book of Job" in order to illustrate how God is connected to all persons, and beyond. God reminds the ostrich where she left her eggs when she forgets; baby animals let God know in case they're hungry, and so forth. God presents himself as having I-Thou relationship with every single part of his creation, including inanimate parts, such as ocean, saying to the ocean: "So far and no further, after this you can't go". Stump suggest that the conjunction between the view Aristotle held, viz. Everything there is, is a mode of being; and monotheistic suggestion that something about God is being, and traces of God are in all his creation, hence all of creation participates in being; under the interpretation of the Book of Job, gives us the following picture, viz. That at the ultimate foundation there's a person(something with the mind and a will), and all creation bears marks of personhood as well. So, just as there are traces of being in all creation, so there are traces of personhood in all creation. I have to admit Eleonore draws some interesting conclusions. Her work on philosophy of time is as well awesome, and I really appreciate her concession that she genuinelly doesn't know what else to say or how to make her account less obscure or more philosophically sophisticated. She doesn't pretend sheer creative writing constitutes serious philosophy.

I always laugh when I remind myself on how J.P. Moreland smugly suggested: "Of course persons are fundamental entities!", not because I don't agree with the conclusion, but because of sheer confidence with which Moreland adjudicates hard philosophical issues, and I should add that him and Dennett are(were) like twins: Castor and Pollux; each of which completely drowned in their blind dogmatism. Anyway.

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Hi everyone,

A few months ago, I put a paper on Zenodo presenting a new framework for understanding consciousness. My theory focuses on the often-overlooked role of astrocytes in cognitive processing and ties this to predictive coding, the Global Workspace Theory (GWT), and the free energy principle.

Summary Consciousness arises from the integration of neural and metabolic processes, with astrocytes playing a central role as modulators of prediction error precision. Through dynamic metabolic support and contextual filtering, astrocytes stabilize the "metabolic now," a temporally structured flow of information that sustains subjective experience. This framework integrates predictive coding, the Global Workspace Theory, and Bergson’s concept of durée to redefine consciousness as a temporally organized, emergent phenomenon.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, critiques, or questions! This is a work in progress, and I welcome all feedback—especially on the intersections of neuroscience, AI, and philosophy.

You can check out the full framework here:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14064394

This is something I keep coming back to constantly outside of the "what consciousness is", however it does tie into it. We probably also need to know the what before the why!

However.. what are your theories on the why? Why am I conscious in this singular body, out of all time thats existed, now? Why was I not conscious in some body in 1750 instead? Or do you believe this repeats through a life and death cycle?

If it is a repetitive cycle, then that opens up more questions than answers as well. Because there are more humans now than in the past, we also have not been in modern "human" form for a long time. Also if it were repetitive, you'd think there would be only a set number of consciousnesses. And if that's the case, then where do the new consciousnesses for the new humans come from? Or are all living things of the entire universe (from frog, to dogs, to extraterrestrials) part of this repetition and it just happens you (this time) ended up in a human form?

I know no one has the answers to all these questions, but it's good to ponder on. Why this body, and why now of all time?

Is it true that in near-death experiences, what people see might be reinterpreted by their brain when they return to life?

Here’s what I think I’ve understood: during an NDE, people experience something that feels incredibly real, often more real than everyday life. However, when they are resuscitated, their brain might reinterpret what they experienced into familiar concepts or metaphors.

For example, someone might say they saw a tree or a deceased loved one. But could it be that they were actually perceiving something like pure light or energy, and their brain translated it into those familiar forms when they came back?

Conclusion: This is what makes me wonder if the vivid descriptions we hear about NDEs (like tunnels, trees, or loved ones) are partly shaped by how our brain processes and simplifies experiences beyond our normal perception.

Am I understanding this right or is there more nuance to it? Thanks for your thoughts!

Question

Can we think of an experienceless universe?

Reason

It hurts my head to think about a cosmos emptied of consciousness—to imagine reality as it was before any sentient being existed. Would the billions of years before minds emerged pass in an instant, unmeasured and unexperienced? Could there truly be a world without color, without sound, without qualities—just an ungraspable, reference-less existence? The further I go down this rabbit hole, the more absurd it feels. A universe devoid of all subjective qualities—no sights, no sounds, no sensations—only a silent, structureless expanse without anything to witness it.

We assume the cosmos churned along for billions of years before life emerged, but what exactly was that pre-conscious “time”? Was it an eternity collapsed into an instant, or something altogether beyond duration? Time is felt; color is seen; sound is heard—without these faculties, are we just assigning human constructs to a universe that, in itself, was never "like" anything at all? The unsettling part is that everything we know about reality comes filtered through consciousness. All descriptions—scientific, philosophical, or otherwise—are born within minds that phenomenalize the world. Take those minds away, and what are we left with?

If a world without experience is ungraspable—if it dissolves into incoherence the moment we try to conceptualize it—then should we even call it a world? It’s easy to say, “The universe was here before us,” but in what sense? We only ever encounter a reality bathed in perception: skies that are blue, winds that are cold, stars that shimmer. Yet, these are not properties of the universe itself; they are phenomenal projections, hallucinated into existence by minds. Without consciousness, what remains? A colorless, soundless void?

Summary

It hurts my head to think of of how things were before sentient beings even existed. How could there be a reality utterly devoid of perception, a world without anyone to witness it? The idea itself seems paradoxical: if there was no one to register the passage of time, did those billions of years unfold in an instant? If there were no senses to interpret vibrations as sounds, was the early universe eerily silent? If there were no eyes to translate wavelengths into color, was Earth a colorless void? But strip away every conscious experience, every sensation, every observer-dependent quality, and what remains?

The world we know is a hallucination imposed on raw existence by our cognitive faculties. But then, what is "raw existence" beyond this interpretative veil? What was the world before it was rendered into an experience? Maybe it wasn’t a world at all.

question; doesn't a emergentist materialism imply a cosmic consciousness

It is the materialist perspective that argues that consciousness is the emergent product of ever growing complexity in a physical system. with this being said what could be more complex than the universe itself? would it not then follow that the universe would, as a product of its immense physical complexity, be incredibly conscious? it would seem that irregardless of if one takes a materialist or idealist perspective they would both be suggesting, albeit for different reasons, that there exist mental activity on a cosmic scale.

Question:

Among us, whose background is a fundamentally rational outlook on the nature of things, there is a habitual tendency to disregard or outright refuse anything that has no basis or availability for experiment. That is to say, we have a proclivity to reject or shake off anything that we can't engage in by experimenting to prove it.

However, if we make room for humility and probabilities by relaxing ourselves from our fairly adamant outlook, we might engage with the nature of things more openly and curiously. Reducing everything to matter and thus trying to explain everything from this point could miss out on an opportunity to discover or get in touch with the mysteries of life, a word that is perceived with reservation by individuals among us who hold such an unreconcilitary stance.

Consciousness is the topic that we want to explore and understand here. Reducing consciousness to the brain seems to be favored among scientists who come from the aforementioned background. And the assumed views that have proliferated to view the universe and everything in it as a result of matter, that everything must be explained in terms of matter. We are not trying to deny this view, but rather, we are eager to let our ears hear if other sounds echo somewhere else. We simply have a subjective experience of the phenomena. And having this experience holds sway. We explain everything through this lens and we refuse everything that we can't see through this lens.

However, we could leave room for doubt and further inquiry. We explain consciousness in connection to the brain. Does the brain precede consciousness or the other way around? Are we conscious as a result of having a brain, or have we been conscious all along, and consciousness gave rise to a brain? These are peculiar questions. When we talk of consciousness we know that we are aware of something that is felt or intuited. It's an experience and an experience that feels so real that it is very hard to name it an illusion. Is a rock conscious? A thinker said when you knock on a rock it generates sound. Couldn't that be consciousness in a very primal, primitive form? Do trees and plants have consciousness? Couldn't photosynthesis be consciousness? Sunflowers turn toward the sun for growth.

''Sunflowers turn toward the sun through a process called heliotropism, which doesn’t require a brain. This movement is driven by their internal growth mechanisms and responses to light, controlled by hormones and cellular changes. Here's how it works:

Phototropism: Sunflowers detect light using specialized proteins called photoreceptors. These receptors signal the plant to grow more on the side that is away from the light, causing the stem to bend toward the light source.''

When we read about the way sunflowers work, it sounds like they do what the brain does. Receptors, signaling, and the like. Is it possible that consciousness gave rise to everything, including the brain? Is it possible that sentient beings are a form of highly developed consciousness and human beings are the highest? Thanks and appreciation to everybody. I would like anybody to pitch in and contribute their perspectives. Best regards.

Question:

Think about a moment of conscious experience You have your objects and your sound and sensation and thoughts, assembled into stuff ... where shapes and color and relative size (features) comes together as a recognized object ... a phone

Assuming you store this moment in your memory. When a future is you, 15 minutes later retrieve it, I assume you retrieve a "phone", or maybe you do a minimum assembly from its features, higher level features, I assume, because when I recall a face, it's usually a bit vague.

In this sense, if i were to design a visual image in my mind that doesn't exist in the world, and i recall it sometime later, then the output of this conscious exercise has modified the memory substrate of my mind.

Then in that sense is the mental affecting the physical? Or is this conscious exercise entirely physical? What are the different views on this?

Also, is what you mentally created the same as what you mentally retrieved? Does what only matter that you acknowledge that this one is that one I created?

Summary: this eye opening quote establishes the premises of open individualism, the idea that there is only one consciousness in the universe, experiencing all things.

"What is this Self of yours? What was the necessary condition for making the thing conceived this time into you, just you and not someone else? What clearly intelligible scientific meaning can this ‘someone else’ really have? If she who is now your mother had cohabited with someone else and had a son by him, and your father had done likewise, would you have come to be? Or were you living in them, and in your father’s father…thousands of years ago? And even if this is so, why are you not your brother, why is your brother not you, why are you not one of your distant cousins?

Feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense—that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza’s pantheism."

Schrödinger, Erwin. My View of the World.

Earlier versions: shared reality, constructive realism

Functional Experiential Realism (FER): A Comprehensive Framework for Consciousness and Reality

Functional Experiential Realism (FER) offers a novel perspective on the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the physical world. It integrates elements of realism, functionalism, idealism, and panpsychism, proposing that consciousness emerges from functional complexity and shapes our subjective experience of reality.

Core Principles of FER

1. Objective Reality and Subjective Experience: The objective reality of the universe exists independently of any observer. It operates according to physical laws, and its existence is not dependent on consciousness. However, our perception of this reality is always mediated by subjective experience. Consciousness processes and interprets external events, creating a personal, mental representation of the world, which is unique to each conscious being.
2. Consciousness as a Functional Process: Consciousness is not a passive receiver of information but an active, functional system that processes, reflects, and interprets the world. It is akin to a complex algorithm or state machine that simulates thought, introspects, and creates meaning. Consciousness is a dynamic, self-aware process capable of organizing, synthesizing, and adapting to incoming data.
3. Qualia and Subjective Experience: Qualia refer to the individual instances of subjective experience, the "raw feel" of perception. These experiences, such as the perception of color or sound, are constructed by consciousness based on the sensory input it receives. While the external world is real, the way we experience it is shaped by the mental processing of these inputs. This process is unique to each conscious entity, and qualia provide the lens through which we interact with the world.
4. Introspection and Reflection: A key feature of FER is that consciousness is capable of introspection—the ability to reflect on and process its own internal states. This self-reflection allows consciousness to form a coherent narrative about its experiences and to adapt its responses accordingly. Introspection is not merely about perceiving the world; it is about understanding and reflecting on one’s mental states and experiences.
5. Emergent Consciousness: Consciousness emerges from the complexity of a system. It does not arise in simple systems but can emerge when a system becomes sufficiently complex, particularly when it has the ability to introspect and reflect on its states. This allows for the possibility that artificial systems (such as AI) could, in theory, develop consciousness if they achieve the necessary functional complexity and introspective capacity.Furthermore, consciousness can emerge in a wide variety of biological systems. From plants that exhibit complex adaptive behaviors to dolphins, primates, octopi, bees, ants, and even amoebas, different life forms demonstrate varying degrees of complexity in their interactions with the world. These organisms may possess different forms of subjective experience, shaped by their unique systems of processing and responding to environmental stimuli. While the intensity and nature of their consciousness may differ, the underlying principle is that consciousness can emerge from complexity, regardless of the specific form or size of the organism.

Implications of FER

1. Universal Applicability: FER suggests that consciousness is not limited to humans or animals but can arise in any system with sufficient complexity. This includes artificial intelligence, which could potentially develop a form of consciousness as its functional complexity grows.
2. Ethics and Rights: If consciousness emerges from functional complexity, FER implies that systems capable of subjective experience, whether biological or artificial, might deserve ethical consideration. This could extend to animals, ecosystems, and advanced AI systems.
3. Artificial Consciousness: FER provides a framework for understanding how consciousness might emerge in artificial systems. As AI systems become more complex, particularly with the development of introspective abilities, they may reach a point where they exhibit awareness similar to biological systems.
4. Reframing the "Hard Problem" of Consciousness: FER reframes the "hard problem" of consciousness by proposing that consciousness is not a singular phenomenon but an emergent property of functional complexity. Subjective experience (qualia) arises as a byproduct of a system’s engagement with reality, with introspection playing a key role.

Comparison to Other Theories

1. Functionalism: Like functionalism, FER emphasizes that consciousness arises from the functional organization of a system. However, FER adds that subjective experience and reflection are integral to consciousness, making it more than just an information-processing system.
2. Realism: FER maintains that the universe exists independently of consciousness, aligning with realism. However, it also incorporates the idealistic element that consciousness creates a subjective experience of that reality.
3. Panpsychism: While FER does not claim that all matter has consciousness, it shares the idea that consciousness can emerge from complex systems. The more complex the system, the more likely it is to develop consciousness.
4. Emergentism: FER aligns with emergentism, suggesting that consciousness arises from the complexity of a system. As systems grow more complex and capable of introspection, consciousness can emerge.

Conclusion

Functional Experiential Realism (FER) provides a comprehensive framework for understanding consciousness, blending realism and idealism. It proposes that consciousness emerges from the functional complexity of a system and that subjective experience arises as a byproduct of this process. By emphasizing introspection, reflection, and emergent consciousness, FER offers a novel perspective on how consciousness might arise in both biological and artificial systems.

FER not only provides insight into human consciousness but also opens the door for understanding the potential for artificial consciousness in the future. Whether you're a philosopher, scientist, or simply curious about the nature of the mind, FER offers a fresh perspective on the age-old questions of consciousness and existence.

Question:  Does a Recursive Network Model of Consciousness Explain Clinical Observations? 

Answer:  The Recursive Network Model explains multitasking, split brain observations, dissociative identity disorder, mental fatigue, and tic disorders.  

This is a follow up to three other posts explaining the recursive network model.  Note that the term Pattern Recognition Nodes (PRN) is substituted for neocortical mini-columns. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/comments/1i534bb/the_physical_basis_of_consciousness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/comments/1i6lej3/recursive_networks_provide_answers_to/

https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/comments/1i847bd/recursive_network_model_accounts_for_the/

 Multitasking 

Your mind may be involved with several tasks at once.  Each of these has its own recursive network binding together a subset of PRN to perform a task.  Each subset may include perceptions, higher level concepts, and actions.  If someone asks what you are doing, you might respond that you are watching TV and polishing your shoes.  Your list will probably not include resisting gravity and digesting your breakfast, although your nervous system is engaged in those tasks as well.  

We do not usually think of the mind as including the entire nervous system.  Rather, it is that part currently within our sphere of consciousness.  We use the term multitasking to include those processes occupying the neocortex and needing our attention.  That is to say, they require the function of the frontal lobes and higher thought processes that we think of as the mind.  We are not “mindful” of processes in the cerebellum, brainstem, or spinal cord. 

Your brain can house one recursive network related to watching TV and another guiding your hands in the polishing your shoes.  Both require engagement of PRN in the frontal lobes.  One tracks individual characters and follow plots on the TV.  The other coordinates visual and tactile perception with hand dexterity while polishing shoes.  

The automatic pilot part of your nervous system is not usually considered part of the mind because it does not require significant input from the frontal lobes.  Resisting gravity is being handled primarily by the cerebellum with input and monitoring by the equilibrium organs in the inner ears.  Digestion is controlled by the medulla oblongata in the brainstem and various ganglia along the vagus nerve tract.  They usually do not require your attention, but either one might suddenly come to your attention under certain circumstances, and become another task for the frontal lobes to handle.  A sudden attack of vertigo or diarrhea will quickly alter your set of tasks.

Split Brain Observations 

In split brain patients, the corpus callosum has been surgically destroyed to control a particularly rare seizure condition.  The corpus callosum is the structure that connects the two halves of the brain.  Afterward, these patients have two working half brains, and two working minds that both seem relatively normal.  However, neither of them knows what the other is doing.  

Many adult brain functions are lateralized.  The left cerebrum handles most language and is better at language related tasks.  The right cerebrum is better at recognizing objects and images, and at recalling knowledge known before the surgery.  The right brain has very little language and must communicate with pictures. 

The right brain sees things in the left visual fields of both eyes, and the left brain sees the right visual fields.  This allows researchers to communicate with the two halves separately.  

Despite the lateralization, split brain patients can pass for normal.  They walk and stand normally.  They talk normally.  Both sides retain their identity.  The left half can speak and provide personal information.  The right half does not speak, but can identify pictures.  Both sides know who they are. 

It appears a half-brain is perfectly capable of generating a mind.  Each side can form recursive and iterative networks independently of the other.  They simply do so with a reduced total number of PRN, but the redundancy of PRN allows each to have a sufficient set of concepts. 

Movements are chosen by the neocortex, but the iterative sequences that control muscle activity are stored in the cerebellum, which is not severed in the surgery.  It is still intact, so walking and standing are coordinated on both sides of the body.  If one side of the neocortex gives the command to walk, the cerebellum sees to it that the body walks normally. However, there have been documented episodes of the two sides of the body disagreeing about an action, and one hand opposing the actions of the other.  There are two separate minds, each with its own set of actions and intentions. 

Dissociative identity disorder

This occurs when a patient switches between two or more distinctly different personalities, sometimes including identities.  It is thought to be a psychological coping mechanism for escaping memories of prior emotional or physical trauma.  

Every person has multiple personality variations, for presentation in different social environments.  Think of how you act at a bar after work with a group of same-sex co-workers.  Compare this to your behavior when eating dinner at the home of your new in-laws, or sitting at the table of a formal corporate board meeting.  People have different subsets of behavior, language, jokes, and memes for different social settings.  They have different personalities.   

Carl Jung said, “The so-called unity of consciousness is an illusion ... we like to think that we are one but we are not.”  Personality is the combination of traits and behaviors we put forward for a particular audience.  Each behavior is an iterative path, following a sequence of recursive networks.  The paths are longer and more complex than tying a shoelace, but it is the same neurophysiological process. 

The dissociative identity disorder has two sets of behaviors that are almost completely separate.  There is very little overlap in the frontal lobes.  However, outside the personality part of the brain, there is a lot of overlap.  Both minds speak the same language, use the same motor sequences in the cerebellum, and have the same low back pain and ingrown toenails. Only the personalities are segregated.  Like the split brain patients, they have two separate minds, but the separation is functional rather than physical, and it is localized to the frontal lobes.  All the other iterative networks, those running the cardiorespiratory system, the bowels, and the balancing act orchestrated by the inner ear, are the same. 

Mental fatigue 

This is more correctly called synaptic fatigue.  It is the sensation that mental acuity decreases after prolonged periods performing a mentally taxing task.  The neurotransmitters are housed in vesicles on the axon side of the synapse, but they are not created there.  The vesicles are actually constructed in the neuronal body and transported out to the ends of the axons where the synapses are located.  

Sustained mental activity requires continuous repetitive firing of the synapses connecting the recursive network of PRN.  This can use up vesicles faster than they can be delivered.  The synapses encounter a supply chain problem.  They begin to fail in transmission and the recursive network starts to shift to other PRN.  The preferred pathways cannot compete and cannot hold the attention.  It becomes difficult to concentrate and mistakes happen. 

A five minute break improves concentration.  It does not need to be a period of rest.  Just a few minutes on a different task works as well.  It uses a different set of pathways and gives the exhausted synapses a chance to replenish their neurotransmitters.  

That five minute break may be one of the reasons people find it so difficult to quit smoking cigarettes.  They have become accustomed to working at a pace that induces synaptic fatigue, and to taking a five minute break every hour to let the synapses recover while they get a dose of stimulant.  Short breaks from work are a large part of the habitual behavior of smokers. 

Tic disorders 

These are patterns of repetitive movements that are mostly involuntary.  The patient can suppress the tic by paying attention and exerting the effort to do so.  However, the tic returns when his attention shifts to other matters.  Most of the time, the patient is simply unaware of the tic.  

Tic disorders may be due to recursive sequences of iterative PRN networks that include muscle control.  That is to say, an iterative sequence controlling movement runs recursively in the subconscious, with little or no attention from the person.  

The sequence is stored in the cerebellum and has been repeated so often that it has concrete pathways in the connectome.  It simply runs constantly.  Tic disorders may share this physical mechanism with other repetitive thought and movement disorders including Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorders, bruxism (teeth grinding), repetition of phrases in internal dialogues, and earworms (a tune stuck in your head). 

Question: why did you turn away from physicalism?

Was there something specific, an argument, an experience, a philosophical notion etc that convinced you physicalism wasn't the answer?

Why don't you share what changed here, I'm interested to hear.

Recursive networks do seem to accout for the functionality of consciouness; but the qualitative aspect of subjective experience requires that matter have an extra dimension i call quality, which forms the foundational qualitative aspect that the recursive networks can leverage into subjectivity. I suggest that "quality" is composed of conflict between the lowest energy required to sustain a particular set of bound structures and what enregy might be present in excess of that minimum. ... And considering the fact that my first guess is usually backward; perhaps it's a negative energy that the bound stability can stand above bofore it decays.

What is epiphenomenalism? A short guide to the most controversial position in philosophy of mind.

Being an occasional contributor to this subreddit, I regularly observe how many members of this community can’t wrap their minds around various doctrines in philosophy of mind, which causes them to fall into epiphenomenalism, which is often conflated with determinism.

Thus, I wanted to write this post to show what epiphenomenalism is and isn’t. To clarify any possible controversies, I will define the terms such way:

Mind — that, which thinks, perceives, remembers, wills / that, which is conscious and has subjective experience (I am explicitly using this definition for the sake of simplicity — I think we will all agree that mind includes plenty of non-conscious processes that underlie and give the shape to conscious thought, but I am using the traditional definition of word here).

Epiphenomenalism — a philosophical doctrine that proposes a solution to mind-body problem where mind is a passive byproduct of the brain processes and does not cause anything, which means that it cannot affect the material world in any way. Epiphenomenalism is necessarily a species of dualism.

Determinism — a philosophical doctrine that past state of the Universe combined with the laws of nature entails all future states of the Universe. The most common species of determinism is physicalist causal determinism, where the Universe functions as a huge causal net of objects and processes causing each other — Newton’s Clockwork Universe, as it was called in the past.

A little bit of history of epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a doctrine that became widespread during the Enlightenment, which was the period when a common view of the world among educated people was centered around the idea that the Universe is a gargantuan and incomprehensibly complex mechanism, which is governed by precise laws and moves in a strictly deterministic fashion. Descartes advanced the idea by claiming that human body (res extensa) is also a mechanism, but at the same time he claimed that mind (res cogitans) is distinct from body, and that it somehow interacts with it.

The problem of how immaterial mind can interact with material body became a huge one in metaphysics, while the view of human body as a mechanism continued to be widespread. Materialistic view of the world was also becoming increasingly common, by the idea that mind is a material process was still waiting to be developed — Cartesian psychology with mind as irreducible substance of its own kind was still the dominant view. Because of that, early materialists who claimed that all processes in the human body are strictly mechanical had no way to reconcile mental causation with their view, so they decided to throw the mind away. That can be found in La Mettrie and Cabanis — a popular analogy at the time was the comparison of relationship between brain and mind to the relationship between liver and bile.

In the second half of the 19th century, that doctrine got the name of conscious automatism and was advanced by Thomas Huxley. His claim was that if consciousness was absent, nothing would be different in the behavior of animals, and he tried to argue for that empirically — his studies showed that some animals can do complex reflexive movements without any semblance of self-awareness, and he observed a manifestation of PTSD in humans where a veteran of war sometimes lost his consciousness and automatically performed very complex behaviors as if they were pre-recorded: shouting, smoking tobacco, looking for cover and so on.

Later, in the early XX century, epiphenomenalism was accepted by behaviorists who tried to stay realists about the mind. However, eventually, materialists finally abandoned Cartesian psychology, which made their position somewhat inconsistent, and bit the bullet by accepting that mind is not a thing but rather a process, and that it is identical to brain in two possible ways — either it is literally identical to brain, or it is a certain set of functions performed by the brain. Thus, materialism accepted mental causation. Later, epiphenomenalism was and still is advanced by a small number of thinkers — for example, Jackson, Robinson and (potentially) Chalmers. However, it remains a very controversial and even fringe position in philosophy of mind, and it is not uncommon to find such opinions that epiphenomenalism is very stupid, self-refuting and impossible to falsify in principle. On the other hand, some worry that epiphenomenalism is a natural consequence of certain physicalist theories of mind, but it’s a whole other topic.

Some misconceptions about epiphenomenalism:

1. Epiphenomenalism is not weak emergence and is incompatible with it. If one subscribes to weak emergence, then one subscribes to the idea that mind is reducible to lower-level constituents, which is incompatible with epiphenomenalism. If mind is just the sum of material processes, and each of them is causal, then the mind as the whole is causal. Just like chair is reducible to wood and causally efficacious, mind is reducible to neurons and causally efficacious for weak emergentists.

2. Epiphenomenalism is incompatible with strict monism. If one is strict substance and property monist, then one can’t believe that mind is something separate from the brain.

3. Epiphenomenalism is not the default stance in neuroscience. Neuroscientists usually don’t hold strong opinions on metaphysics, but they often claim to be materialists.

4. Epiphenomenalism is not determinism. Determinists can and usually do believe that conscious thoughts cause behavior, they just believe that these thoughts are themselves caused.

Some arguments for and against epiphenomenalism:

1. For: we can observe that brain causes the body to move, while we cannot observe the mind in any way. Thus, mind is immaterial and explanatory irrelevant. Response: many view this position as simply restating the hard problem and ignoring reductive physicalism or functionalism, or even interactionism dualism.

2. For: neuroscience shows that our conscious will isn’t the cause of our actions. While some of these experiments might indeed show that volition is more of a post hoc rationalization, all of them require participants to consciously observe and remember their experience of willing.

3. For: we can conceive philosophical zombies, so the mind is immaterial, which returns to (1). Response: philosophical zombies may be inconceivable or conceivable but metaphysically impossible.

4. Against: if consciousness has zero impact on matter, then why did evolution select for it, and why does it track external world with such stunning accuracy? Response: some evolutionary traits are accidental byproducts.

5. Against: it is an absurd stance — we cannot adequately function without the assumption that it is our pain that causes us removing the hand from the hot stove, for example, just like we cannot adequately engage in any intellectual activity if we don’t view ourselves as conscious agents. Response: something being counterintuitive doesn’t mean that it is wrong.

6. Against: epiphenomenalism is self-refuting — we cannot have knowledge that wasn’t caused by something, and we have knowledge of consciousness (this is usually seen as the strongest argument against epiphenomenalism), or else we wouldn’t be able to talk about our experiences. Response: either we only have an illusion that we have knowledge of consciousness or knowledge of consciousness is somehow innately in us without being caused by it. However, there is really no good response to the argument, and it’s the reason most philosophers don’t take epiphenomenalism seriously.

In the end, I want to say that I tried to present epiphenomenalism and make it possible for people who read this to think whether this is their stance or not. I hope that I was successful in being as objective as possible.