Posts
What is consciousness? Where does it come from?
I don't know. But I do firmly believe that it is not magic. Whatever it is, it is purely physical.
And I do know a story about how it may have arisen. Don't take it as a scientific explanation. It's not. It's just a story, which might have a hint of validity about it, but then again, might not.
It begins with life. Living organisms capable of reproducing and reacting to stimuli. Organisms that react to stimuli appropriately would be more likely to survive and reproduce than organisms that didn't.
But what response is appropriate can be hard to determine. Is that a predator, or a mate? Should I go towards it, or away from it, or play dead? And so the brain evolved. An organic computer to make decisions.
For a brain to make good decisions, it needs to model the world around it, and predict consequences of different possible actions. If I jump over this hole, can I make it to the other side? If I chase that prey, will I be able to catch it? The more accurately the brain models the world, the better the decisions it can make.
Then a species of social primates evolved. For social creatures, it's helpful to model the others in your group with more detail than other animals, because you interact with them more often. The better your model of them, the more likely you can get them to share their food with you.
But since you're all the same species, they're modelling you too. So the most accurate model of them is to recursively model them modelling you. In other words your brain has to have a model of itself. And that's essentially what consciousness is. It's the brain thinking about itself, trying to predict its own actions before it makes them.
This story doesn't answer everything. Particularly not the hard problem of consciousness. But I think it does a decent job of addressing the easy ones. Assuming, of course, that's it's even remotely true, which it might not be.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I was wondering if this was in response to something specific.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder what the statements, "For social creatures, it's helpful to model the others in your group with more detail than other animals, because you interact with them more often. The better your model of them, the more likely you can get them to share their food with you." came from exactly. These links don't seem entirely obvious to me.
Would you mind delving into exactly what you think the "easy" questions of consciousness are that your story answers?
The main thing I get out of the story is that everything including consciousness in life is directly linked to survival or reproduction and that consciousness is a form of modeling the external world. Correct?
Thanks for the thoughts.
This was not in response to anything specific.
ReplyDeleteSuppose you want another individual to help you. That would be good for you, and good for your survival. But that other individual isn't likely to help you spontaneously. You need to do something to which they will react in a helpful manner. Maybe if you scratch their back, they'll scratch yours. Maybe if you attack them, they'll help you out of fear. Or maybe something else. The better you know them, the better you'll be able to predict how they will respond to your actions.
I don't think the story "answers" much of anything, because it's simply not detailed enough. By "addresses", I mean "points in the right direction to look for an answer". And that direction is the ability of the brain to model things in order to make predictions, in order to make decisions.
Consciousness arose through evolution, which favors things that aid survival and reproduction, but not everything that is produced by evolution does so. Consciousness is not only a form of modelling the external world, but also oneself.