Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight” | Hacker News Reader

Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

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95 pointsd_a_robson43 comments

The hard SF novel Blindsight, by Peter Watts, is an excellent and extremely interesting exploration of this idea and its ramifications.

Not just this idea, almost every question of consciousness/intelligence/self awareness is approached in some form or another, from different angles.

I could go on about it, but I'll just say it's the best SF I've read in a long while.

I love it too. Conscious self-awareness is arguably not very useful. It pretends to be in control, but mostly it's just observing what the mind has already done, and makes up stuff to rationalize it. At best, that's merely superfluous. But at worst, consciousness gets in the way, and generates counterproductive emotional states. But fortunately, ones mind can trick its consciousness into being useful :)

This is the epiphenomenal position, that consciousness is just along for the ride.

However, it strongly requires that consciousness be not detrimental (at least not overall), because otherwise, evolution probably would have weeded it out.

The novel Blindsight kind of suggests that humans are a local evolutionary maxima, that we achieved mastery of our planet due to our other talents, despite being burdened with consciousness. But again, this runs afoul of evolutionary fitness. Even if animals lacking consciousness couldn't surmount our other abilities, if a mutant human arose without consciousness, presumably it would have an advantage over other humans, and its genes would spread throughout the populace.

The book is really interesting, but having studied this for 7 years of my life, there's no way the author is correct. It's much more likely that other animals experience conscious awareness too. We don't know for sure, and we don't know where to draw the line (fish, insects, aplysia, bacteria?), but it seems reasonable to believe higher mammals have awareness (which is distinct from language, tool use, self-reflection, Theory of Mind, etc).

> if a mutant human arose without consciousness, presumably it would have an advantage over other humans

The book actually does address this. ROT13 to avoid spoilers:

Vg vf fgebatyl fhttrfgrq gung gur inzcverf bs gur abiry ynpx pbafpvbhfarff, juvpu tnir gurz n fvtavsvpnag nqinagntr bire 'onfryvar' uhznaf gung gurl uhagrq.

It's been a few years since I read it, so I didn't recall that. Is it stated or just implied?

Still, I remain unconvinced of the author's depictions of a lack of consciousness. The problem is the "philosophical zombie". It looks and acts, to all accounts, like a normal human, but has no internal experience. Since I can't even prove anybody else has experience (despite acting a lot like me), what's the basis for different behavior just because an organism lacks consciousness?

I found it intriguing but unlikely, based on evolutionary fitness.

Your selection arguments make sense to me. We are conscious, so consciousness must increase fitness. Maybe impulse control is a key aspect of it. And thinking of Hofstadter, maybe it's just the top of the self-referential stack.

Impulse control could be part of it, but it's not clear that that requires consciousness, either :)

We know that perceptual awareness has some connection to biology (sleep, seizures, drugs, etc), so to the extent that consciousness requires energy, it has to justify its caloric expenditure.

Lrf. Ubjrire, ng gur fgneg bs Rpubcenkvn, V trg gung inzcverf fvzhygnarbhfyl eha frireny ernyvgvrf. Ohg vg'f abg lrg pyrne gb zr jurgure gurl'er nygreangr fpranevbf, whfg sbe nzhfrzrag, be jungrire.

Worth trying to differentiate between "consciousness", which I think it's obvious cats and many other animals have, and the human "voice inside your head" / narrative self, which is much more a tower of babel built on symbolic cards, which is a very recent human invention, and arguably that moreso than "consciousness" is what can cause us so much harm.

That's a good point. I was thinking of narrative self. And I am conscious of my narrative self, so they're distinct. So arguably they're all levels in a self-referential stack.

Exactly. Perceptual awareness does not require self-consciousness.

Consciousness is only useless when performing tasks that you have already mastered. Think of your brain as a box containing a programmer (the conscious) and a computer (the subconscious) - the programmer only gets in the way of a program's execution once the program is written, but is indispensable when a new program is required.

Yup, was going to pimp this as well. Absolute banger, and terrifying on a level of the 1978 Alien.

Well then I absolutely must inform you that Peter Watts from a fan fiction version of The Thing from the viewpoint of the alien: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

!! thanks

I just finished reading Blindsight and Echopraxia (as the omnibus release 'Firefall') a couple of days ago, they're both great reads. I don't agree with his conclusions about sentience but I think they're well worth exploring nonetheless.

Edit: Oh wow, not only is Blindsight available online, but all of his short stories are up as well! http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

And it's free!

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

If you look at the visual system[1] the signal passes through many preliminary nodes before it reaches the back of the brain aka the visual cortex (which is responsible for the conscious visual field, i.e. "seeing").

For example, one of these preliminary nodes is the Superior colliculus, which is part of the 'midbrain'[2]:

> The general function of the tectal system is to direct behavioral responses toward specific points in egocentric ("body-centered") space. Each layer of the tectum contains a topographic map of the surrounding world in retinotopic coordinates, and activation of neurons at a particular point in the map evokes a response directed toward the corresponding point in space. [...]

> Even in primates, however, the tectum is also involved in generating spatially directed head turns, arm-reaching movements, shifts in attention that do not involve any overt movements. [...]

> Thus, cats with major damage to the visual cortex cannot recognize objects, but may still be able to follow and orient toward moving stimuli, although more slowly than usual.

That is just one of the preliminary areas. The SC is part of the brainstem. People think of the brainstem as just controlling essential functions like breathing, but it's also capable of more complex motor function.

[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Gray722-... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_colliculus#Function

I studied blindsight in grad school, and actually analyzed the data of patient GY, probably the most widely-studied blindsight patient.

I forget the authors, but there was an anatomical paper showing that blindsight requires all the secondary connections in order to happen.

So, everything from the retina synapses onto the thalamus first, and then 97+% goes on to the primary visual cortex. The last few percent go to areas like the SC, the frontal eye field, and V5/MT. This paper showed that if the damage was prior to, or including the thalamus, no blindsight was ever shown, but if the damage was between the thalamus and V1, or involving V1 itself, blindsight was possible.

The real question still is, why are these minor regions capable of supporting tasks, but not experience?

I would not expect the part of a brain that deals with self-awareness is all-pervading and all-entwined. I would expect that you could disconnect cognition from self-awareness. Apparently we don't even need a self to synchronize emotions! That is a fantastic find!

I also think we can see a huge bias about some of our theories of what human beings are: Many emphasize the self; a self-aware brain can become self-obsessed. Many societies are obsessed with selves. Clearly human beings are more and less. Decentralized. A plurality of cognitions embodied in one brain.

What is the implication for sociology? Has the emphasis on individuals been too strong? The human fabric is ensembles interacting with each other, not atoms. Models of rationality talk about discrete agents. What if we can't be modeled as discrete agents? What is rationality now? Processes in my brain have competing interests, but also cooperate. Cognitive processes are probably not discrete. Can one come up with a model of rationality where the 'agents' form a continuum?

> I also think we can see a huge bias about some of our theories of what human beings are: [...]

I agree. A common theme in articles like this is the suggestion that when our subconscious mind does something, it's "not us doing it", as if your conscious experience is all that counts as "you".

There is a study that made the rounds back in 2008 where scientists claimed they could prove that people’s brains make decisions about 7-10 seconds before they consciously “decide,” suggesting that cognitive thought is really just rationalizing decisions that our brain already made for us. blah blah free will we’re all turing machines, no but it’s interesting stuff

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.ht...

My old labmate works with them as a post-doc now.

I would argue that most of what we do is automatic, and we are quite good at post-facto rationalizing our decisions.

BUT, I would also argue that consciousness allows us to make fully-conscious decisions, so we are not 100% automatic.

"Just how many of our decisions occur out of our awareness, even when we have the illusion of control? And if the conscious mind is not needed to direct our actions, then what is its purpose? Why did we evolve this vivid internal life, if we are almost “zombies” acting without awareness?"

Slow thinking vs fast thinking?

IMO, conscious thought is the result of being a social animal. Keeping up with social relations is simple but when it comes to one-on-one situations you have to drop everything and focus. Such focus has the side effect of allowing us to reflect on ourselves (how we function, why we exist, etc). So, instead of assuming why we're conscious at all, maybe it's better to ask why socializing requires so much focus? Just a wild idea, I know.

I think you mixed up the complexity and cognitive demand of many to many and one on one relations, in the second sentence. You present an intriguing idea, anyway.

No, think about it. Handling a group of people as a society is easier to handle in the background since it's more about who you know not what you know about them in precise form. In a one-on-one setting you're responding to continually changing behaviors of that person (day-to-day life changes like mood, health, and so forth). In that situation you have to put all your effort to focus on them. It's why some people are better at picking up those cues than others (personal example for me would be not picking up on when someone is feeling ill or down about something). The more you get personal with someone the more you have to get to know them, basically.

Counterpoint: the more personally involved you become with someone, the more you are expected to devote your attention because it's getting easier as the number of participants in the social interaction decreases.

I agree. Social animals need to be able to model other members of their group. Once that model evolves to include their internal models (including their model of you) then recursive self-awareness pretty much comes for free.

I've personally experienced this decoupling of vision and second sight. When I've had bad migraines in the past, I typically experience scintillating scotoma, which isn't that unusual.

But the odd thing is: even though I can visually "see" certain objects, I don't feel like I'm observing them. For example, I can look directly at text on my screen, but have a difficult time reading the text. It's quite an odd experience.

Reminds me of Julian Jaynes' ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology) (And if I remember correctly, the original study is referenced in his book)

It's referenced in Echopraxia, but only to explicitly state that the Bicameral Brotherhood isn't named for that study. :)

Julian Jaynes is interesting, but wildly outside the mainstream. He offers little evidence, and nobody in my lab took him seriously.

Advertisers use what is known as the Low Attention Processing Model.[1] With this particular advertising strategy, brand information, and even an emotional attachment to a brand, can be 'acquired' at low and even zero attention levels using implicit learning.[2] Implicit learning cannot analyse or re-interpret anything. The information goes directly to the subconscious mind.

Depending on the message, this can be positive or detrimental to our well-being, and it puts into question how much free-agency we are really exercising in our lives. The fact we are silently influenced by ambient images and messages around us was the inspiration for these posters I designed: http://zenpusher.com

Basically, if anyone is going to advertise to my subconscious mind, it's going to be me. And I'd rather acquire positive habits and character traits than an emotional connection to a product.

[1] http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_learning

Regarding zenpusher: From my armchair, It seems like you should make the contrast higher for the fonts. I've been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, and his research shows that text that is hard to read activates the conscious part of our brain, and makes it harder to get messages into the subconscious.

Actually, what happens isn't much different than a magician's slight of hand. The eyes are drawn to the underlying image, thereby suspending the critical faculties of the mind and creating an opportunity for implicit learning.

Thinking Fast and Slow is one of my favorite books. Read it twice!

They Live. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

I had no idea. And it's starring Rowdy Roddy Piper! I'll have to check it out.

Well done. This could be a sub-genre across all media formats: intentional supraliminal messages overlaid on carrier media.

Silly example: a paid subscription service to insert contextualiy appropriate supraliminal images into online articles, with revenue split between the article publisher and the image creator.

You might enjoy reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants

Thanks for the kind words. I'm definitely thinking along those lines. Your example is intriguing and certainly worth looking into btw.

Yes! This is why I very carefully avoid viewing ads. I avert my gaze. If necessary, I close my eyes. When driving, it's the same skill that we learn to avoid being blinded at night by oncoming headlights.

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