post by [deleted] · · ? · GW · 0 comments

This is a link post for

0 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by simon · 2023-02-17T18:43:06.700Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

If some part of your brain were conscious, but it didn't output the information concerning the consciousness to global awareness, would you be able to report it?

As I see it, your vocal system is generally outputting information from your global awareness. (If it isn't, you (i.e. your global awareness) will perceive it as an unconscious verbal tic). Admittedly, we don't, as far as I know, encounter verbal tics where someone says something like "help I'm a separate qualia-having entity trapped in this vocal system", but I think the vocal system would need access to the other parts of the brain through global awareness to form that sort of thought and intentionality. 

I had thought that global awareness would be necessary to consciousness after reading (most of) "Consciousness and the Brain", but then updated towards pan-psychism after considering what conscious experiences would and would not be reportable.

Consciousness also tends to be associated with memory, but likewise if we don't remember something, we will not report having been conscious of it if asked afterwards.

Replies from: Tommer Argaman
comment by Tommer Argaman · 2023-02-17T20:39:18.869Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

According to the view presented here, we cannot rule out that there are other parts of the nervous system that may maintain minimal separate foci of consciousness; each of these foci would have its own DSS, and they would not include each other in their DSSs (otherwise they would share a single global awareness). Since the ability to dictate speech is normally conserved for the main DSS, the contents of an additional DSS won't be relevant for speech unless the main DSS is affected by the side DSS and decides to speak becuase of this dependence. It is possible for two DSSs to affect each other without sharing global awareness, as happens for example when two people are talking. In this case, the conditions for inclusion in one DSS won't be fulfilled by parts of the two different DSSs with respect to each other; particularly the characteristic interaction time would be too long for inclusion in a single DSS.