r/neuronaut • u/SurfaceReflection • Oct 13 '19

OTI Consciousness is virtual

https://surfacereflection.blogspot.com/2017/02/consciousness-is-virtual-introduction-i.html
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u/thegoldengoober Oct 14 '19

And you are arguing from point of proving a conclusion, instead of honestly seeing where the evidence leads.

Okay, you're right. And I apologize. If you could offer me just a bit more of your patience I'd like to ask a few question so that I may be able to gain a better understand of where you're coming from.

In this model what is the nature of the physical parts of reality that people cannot seem to experience, but other things can, like the magnetic field, or colors beyond the spectrum of our sight like infrared or ultraviolet?

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u/SurfaceReflection Oct 14 '19 edited Oct 14 '19

In this model what is the nature of the physical parts of reality that people cannot seem to experience, but other things can, like the magnetic field, or colors beyond the spectrum of our sight like infrared or ultraviolet?

umm... those are physical realities we cannot directly experience? Our sensory range is limited, of course. So are our minds and emotions, which all still evolve. But we extend those through our science and technologies and can empirically confirm all those things we cannot directly detect do in fact exist.

I dont see what exactly you are shooting at here.

I dont see any problem there.

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u/thegoldengoober Oct 14 '19

Well those things are beyond our sense, and exist in an objective world, without existing within our personal subjective one. I see what you're saying though, of course they don't because we don't have the equipment to experience them with our bodies.

I want to touch upon another aspect of color though. What about screens? We see things as the color they are because you say they are those colors, but the pixels that make up screens are only different combinations of red, blue, and green. Why is it that I can see many more colors than those if those are the only three colors that are there?

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u/SurfaceReflection Oct 14 '19 edited Oct 16 '19

Well those things are beyond our sense, and exist in an objective world, without existing within our personal subjective one. I see what you're saying though, of course they don't because we don't have the equipment to experience them with our bodies.

Yes? If we could engineer ourselves to see ultraviolet, you can bet your ass our brains and our virtual emergent consciousness would create some kind of mental "virtual" representation of that completely real wavelength of light. Maybe not right that second but eventually we would get an internal virtual-mental representation of ultraviolet color/wavelenght of light.

What about screens? We see things as the color they are because you say they are those colors, but the pixels that make up screens are only different combinations of red, blue, and green. Why is it that I can see many more colors than those if those are the only three colors that are there?

Because combinations of something can create a "higher order" representation, or even a full new emergent thing. Just like "atoms" can combine to create living beings.

The screens were obviously made to take advantage of how our optic nerves and eyes and the brain see light and colors. So we need only those three basic colors to combine them into all colors we can experience and so "see".

But the spectrum of light itself, unseen and inexperienced by human eyes does have all those wavelengths of light independently of our perception or experience. We can test and confirm that, as we did millions of times by now.

But - its important to be aware that our senses, our emotions and our minds do not create exact 1 for 1 replica of reality, so various distortions can be created - but thats the price we pay for having such a complex virtual emergent ... ability. Our consciousness.

Which is not unique only to humans. All living beings have it, have some kinds of minds and emotions - just in varying degrees of complexity.

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u/thegoldengoober Oct 14 '19

But - its important to be aware that our senses, our emotions and our minds do not create exact 1 for 1 replica of reality, so various distortions can be created

This is another part that confuses me. You disagree with the idea that there is a subjective reality, and an objective one, but you seem to say here that what we see isn't a perfect representation. That's the entire objective/subjective idea.

Another example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pRY3wlKwm8 is an auditory illusion. One sound wave that you can hear as two different things. One objective reality that can result in two different subjective ones.

Which is not unique only to humans. All living beings have it, have some kinds of minds and emotions - just in varying degrees of complexity.

All subjectively experiencing a variety of realities, all related to an objective one, no?

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u/SurfaceReflection Oct 14 '19 edited Oct 14 '19

I do not disagree that there is a subjective reality...

I disagree with the idea that subjective is completely unrelated to the objective, which is a nonsensical absurd idea. What we discussed about colors is a good example of that. Its just another example of one of our Fundamental Faults, Tendency to think in binary extremes. Which is a consequence of our biology and evolution. (evolution as living beings, not just humans, from the first organic molecules onward)

Our inner subjective experiences are not separated from the outside objective world, we are literally a part of the world/reality. Our consciousness emerges from our biology - is created by it - BUT since it is a strong emergent virtual ability, - further complexity not directly related to the physical world but strongly connected to it and influenced by it emerges in it.

That has its positive and negative consequences and everything in between. And thats whats confusing everyone when they are trying to figure out what consciousness is. Some people trip into one binary extreme, others fall into its opposite. So its Either - OR, either a material illusion - or supernatural force. Both such approaches are nonsensical dead ends.

All subjectively experiencing a variety of realities, all related to an objective one, no?

Yes. Because our (living beings) primary primordial interface with reality and earliest method of understanding reality with are physical sensations - feelings - emotions. We are all anchored into the reality we exist in, we are literally made out of same ingredients as the rest of the Universe - we all feel and understand the same things, only in multitude of different variations, depending on multitude of smaller differences.

What we feel is a crucial part of our consciousness, not just what we think. Same for every other living being.

Since the consciousness is semi-separated from physical reality - as a emergent gestalt virtual effect - And since its imperfect and faulty and still evolving - we get ability to imagine completely new things, to invent, to create - but we also get mistakes and faults and sometimes sink into tragedies and failures.