1mo ago

I'm literally a thinking lump of fat

114 comments

You're an electrified hunk of fat piloting a meat-covered skeleton riding on a damp rock that's hurling through space and time.
- It's actually a lump of lava with a thin crust. Any time the crust breaks we have a very bad time.
  
  Lava is just liquid rock
  
  Obligatory "um, akhtually, it's magma".
- I enjoy Marcus Aurelius paraphrasing Epctetus...
  "You are a little soul bearing about a corpse."
- It's weird that we, as people, think that our being or self ends at our skin. And we're just a consciousness controlling a meat cube.
  What about all the bacteria living on and inside of us? People would die without their microflora.
  What about our subconscious/unconscious doings/thoughts? Are we in control of them? Or are they in control of us? Could consciousness be an illusion? One created by our senses' interpretation of external stimuli.
  
  anyways this sandwich tastes great
- Be fair. You are an abstraction layer; a subsystem running on that electrified hunk of fat. There's plenty of stuff that evolution has delegated as non-conscious functions of the fatlump.
- So you're saying humanity is a mecha space opera?
  
  Yes.
- “At thе end of the day, your brain is just a meat computеr in a bone cockpit piloting a skin robot You think the world makes sense? Nothing makes sense! So you might as well make nonsense!”
- And I want off.

A CPU is just a rock we hit with magic lightning...
- And inscribed with runes
  
  Well yes, it's the lightning that makes the inscription.
- This is covered pretty well in the Discworld series with the druids.
  
  One more series I need to read...

Calling it a lump of fat is a bit like calling the Milky Way a very sparse field of hydrogen
- That's true tho
  
  Right, but it doesn't capture the whole story, namely that it's arranged in a very particular way
  
  It's accurate, but not precise.

I never understood this weird hangup, it's like people struggling to reconcile free will with deterministic actions to a being outside normal time. Of course you'll make the same choices if you rewound time and changed nothing... You're the same, the universe is the same down to the last particle - how does that conflict with the idea of agency?
Consciousness is an emergent property. One neuron is complex, but 1000 can do things one could never do alone. Why is it so surprising that billions, arranged in complex self organizing structures, would give rise to something more than the sum of its parts?
Maybe there's a quantum aspect to it, maybe there's not... It seems like it's all based in this idea humans are so extra special that surely there must be special laws of the universe just for us
- Maybe there's a quantum aspect to it, maybe there's not...
  I see what you did there, intentionally or not.
  
  Heh. It was unintentional, next time it won't be
- To be honest the thing that confuses me is that I am conscious. That’s weird, how am I aware, there is no explanation of this. Assuming we pretty much understand all physics and science and there isn’t anything surprising around the corner. Consciousness has to be a physical thing, a computation. But that’s weird as hell too? What rule of the universe governs whether or not something is aware. A brain could do everything it does now without being really aware just pretending. And if that’s true does that mean it’s just the flow of information that can become conscious? Could anything become conscious? If I made a marble Rube Goldberg machine complicated it enough and doing the right calculations could it be conscious?? It feels wrong it feels like we are missing something
  
  This is exactly what puzzles me. Or at least you seem to be talking about what puzzles me. The problem is that when I mention this to others, most missunderstand what I mean by "being aware" or "conscious", and im not sure its possible to refer to this phenomena in a much better way. But that is exactly the argument i usually make, that an automata could behave exactly like me, following the supposed physical laws, but without being aware, or having any sensation, without seeing the images, hearing the sounds, only processing sensorial data. Processing sensorial data isnt the same as feeling/hearing/seeing it.
  
  We absolutely are missing something. Clearly it requires more than just a lot of intelligence, otherwise we'd have seen a computer become sentient by now instead of ChatGPT proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they absolutely will not be anytime soon.
  
  Consciousness is the AI assistant in meat mecha suit.
  It seems like we make decisions, but we don't. Think of a decision you've made - you think over it, you sleep on it, you imagine outcomes and might decide intellectually - but you don't lock it in. That just happens - sometimes it even flips at the last second, and you don't know why you did it - for better or worse
  Our brain does a lot of preprocessing - vision, hearing, balance, walking, language...
  Our conscious minds preprocess time. It turns our senses and our experiences into stories, abstract predictions, laterally pattern matching, and ultimately - analysis and recommendations
  
  Also, I am very interested in the question of, why me? Why am I in charge of this body's consciousness. How was it decided that of all conscious being that ever and will exists, I am conscious of this world from my point of view, at this point of time.
  This is the only existential question I can't seem to let go, especially since I am a non-theist. It will be easier to answer if I am a believer, or at least spiritualist.
- Yep. This was the issue people took with Chomsky's approach to language, basically the same sentiment. Humans are "special" in some way. It underlines the basis of almost all cognitive, neuroscience, and language research for decades.
  
  It's crazy to me how much this holds us back, and the amount of cognitive dissonance involved
  Take pets. We look at them acting shifty around the sock they know they aren't allowed to play with, and say "she's thinking about it". We avoid words like "walk" because they've understood one of the meanings of it. And usually not just the meaning, but the difference between tone and context - most won't react the same to "should we take her for a walk" and "is he able to walk". My mom's dog knew all of our names, and the difference between "soon", "tomorrow", and "the day after tomorrow" - she would watch the door all day on the right day
  And yet, most people will share all of these observations and turn around to dismiss it as "she's just a dog". For them it's just association and behavioral conditioning, but the same things are different for humans because we're extra special. Clearly her acting shifty before stealing the sock isn't planning or considering, it's instincts fighting against training
  But only humans can ever understand, only we make choices. Because we're extra special
- It seems like it’s all based in this idea humans are so extra special that surely there must be special laws of the universe just for us
  I never got that argument against the soul as it were. What makes you think that these special laws would only exist for humans? Aren't there plenty of people who believe all things have some kind of soul or spirit? Isn't that most Eastern Religions and quite a few Western Pagan ones?
  
  Panpsychism

consciousness is stored in the balls
- Next to the microplastic.
- hm, but how do you explain post-nut clarity then?

The brain is not a "lump of fat". If you desiccate the brain, most of what's left are lipids, yes, but at that point you are not conscious anymore. The brain is a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, water and fat.
- A lump of mostly fat then? Seems needlessly specific.
  
  I’M NOT FAT I’M JUST BIG BRAINED!!
  
  Mostly water, in that case
- Also fairly sure that electrical impulses alone cannot account for consciousness. If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now. There's a few theories about quantum processes being involved but this isn't exactly easily proven.
  
  If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now.
  Didn't it take them a long ass time to do this for a fruit fly brain?
  
  To simulate a human brain, we would need a complete map of it. We don't have that yet. If the quantum theories around neurons are correct, then the map would be incomplete without it.
  I doubt we could simulate it directly without a very specialized ASIC.

Sorry Natural Intelligence bros, but meat can't think. You've been duped into thinking human beings are conscious by Big Omega 3. Intelligence can only exist in computers using real electricity. Not that piddly ion pump stuff.
- What about photons, hmmm? They're used for quantum computing and don't (technically) need "real electricity".
  
  Hmm, still a boson particle, the same as electrons. Organic neurons don't transmit boson particles, they create a fake electromagnetic field by equalising ions in solution. It's lame and not real intelligence.

Don't sell yourself short. It's a salty lump of fat.
- Who said I'm salty, jerk?

We are ALL thinking lumps of fat on this blessed day :)

To my knowledge there are interesting quantum-mechanical effects at play as well though. There's a lot of esoterical nonsense around that of course, however first discoveries pointing into this direction are quite promising.
I always remember a quote from Alan Watts talking about this topic: "You are the universe experiencing itself". The idea of consciousness being an emerging property of the universe itself makes most sense to me, and the non-deterministic properties of quantum mechanics open this possibility.
Definitely more inspiring to think about it this way than just as a lump of fat.
- Gnosticism, one of the oldest known religions that is thought to be the forefather of all religion, taught about that.
- I can only hope that when this flesh dies, that my consciousness returns to the cosmos and persists free from the limitations of the body.
  
  If it is an emerging property then the sense of "self" is most likely bound to this "lump of fat"; more precisely its inability to have connections to someone else except through physical barriers. the most interesting aspect of this is probably what siamese twins once described who were connected at their head. They said that they could "hear the other one's thoughts".
  if we could share our minds with one another it would most likely completely change our understanding of consciousness. Likewise, if something can survive the death of the body (the "emerging property" part) then most likely not as an individual given that part is more of a property of our brains.
  It's self-evident why esoterical stuff got hooked on these things. The idea of closure on one of the most central religious questions is really appealing.
  
  Depends upon what you mean by "consciousness." A lot of the literature seems to use "consciousness" just to refer to physical reality as it exists from a particular perspective, for some reason. For example, one popular definition is "what it is like to be in a particular perspective." The term "to be" refers to, well, being, which refers to, well, reality. So we are just talking about reality as it actually exists from a particular perspective, as opposed to mere description of reality from that perspective. (The description of a thing is always categorically different from the ontology of the thing.)
  I find it bizarre to call this "consciousness," but words are words. You can define them however you wish. If we define "consciousness" in this sense, as many philosophers do, then it does not make logical sense to speak of your "consciousness" doing anything at all after you die, as your "consciousness" would just be defined as reality as it actually exists from your perspective. Perspectives always implicitly entail a physical object that is at the basis of that perspective, akin to the zero-point of a coordinate system, which in this case that object is you.
  If you cease to exist, then your perspective ceases to even be defined. The concept of "your perspective" would no longer even be meaningful. It would be kind of like if a navigator kept telling you to go "more north" until eventually you reach the north pole, and then they tell you to go "more north" yet again. You'd be confused, because "more north" does not even make sense anymore at the north pole. The term ceases to be meaningfully applicable. If consciousness is defined as being from a particular perspective (as many philosophers in the literature define it), then by logical necessity the term ceases to be meaningful after the object that is the basis of that perspective ceases to exist. It neither exists nor ceases to exist, but no longer is even well-defined.
  But, like I said, I'm not a fan of defining "consciousness" in this way, albeit it is popular to do so in the literature. My criticism of the "what it is like to be" definition is mainly that most people tend to associate "consciousness" with mammalian brains, yet the definition is so broad that there is no logical reason as to why it should not be applicable to even a single fundamental particle.
  
  That would be preferable to my current existence though I think I still might prefer non-existance in the long term.
- maybe but he's a skinny guy

people don't like this idea because if that's all we are, then who is anyone to say that the inevitable equivalent man-made lump of fat with electrical activity isn't entitled to all the same rights and status that we are
also jeebus doesn't want you to think you can't go on getting punished even after you're dead
- honestly I never got this. Same with the simulation thing. What's it matter if we're in a simulation or all I ever do is the result of some salty fat firing off neurons? I mean what am I going to do about that?
  
  people used to get burnt at the stake for this shit. and dont' forget how butthurt people got over the suggestion that --gasp-- the earth isn't the center of the universe

There's a lot of water and ions (IONS!) besides that lump of fat.

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lmao so true

Depends on what you mean by 'consciousness'. If you mean the actual biological process that is happening in our brains - yes. If you mean something different, it is probably not a scientific meaning but more a philosophical or religious one, which is ultimately not a bad thing but you should separate this from actual science.

This gets explored a bit in The Talos Principle and it's sequal. Working on the 2nd one now, it's been fun

No, you're the electrochemical interactions happening inside the lump of fat.

I've never understood why people think the most sophisticated and complex technology humans have ever been aware of is too mundane just because we have scratched the surface of understanding it.

What if life's evolutionary end point is always sentience?
- Then life is even more pointless and cruel than it appears.
  
  That would be poetically fitting for an universe determined to die a heat death.

"The material, sensuously perceptible world to which we ourselves belong is the only reality.... Our consciousness and thinking, however supra-sensuous they may seem, are the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is merely the highest product of matter." — Karl Marx
- presses X to doubt
  
  See for yourself.
  https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

I'm still rooting for Idealism or the immortal soul to somehow be a thing.
Go Banana!

Speak for yourself. I try not to think.

It’s OK. Consciousness is but a brief anomaly in the vast sea of time.

Action potential doesn't do thinking. Thinking happens at neuron junctions and that shits chemical and analogue. The electrical part just moves the data to the next synapse. There are some gap junctions but those aren't really associated with thinking.

br-
rrrrr

If by consciousness, you just mean thinking, then sure.
But if you mean awareness — “phenomena”, if you prefer — then I don’t see why an experiential state would (or could) be entirely secondary to a physical state.
It is, after all, possible for me to write words and perform other physical actions based on my experiential state. In many ways, my mental world is more “real” than the physical world.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think rejecting physicalism necessarily requires embracing the idea of a soul. I’m an atheist, and a neutral monist, for example. But if I had to choose between only physicalism and idealism, idealism makes more sense. Before anything else, I’m conscious.

114 comments