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Comment by syphilis2 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a simple explanation for why consciousness (as an idea, or something distinct from unconsciousness) is necessary?

I think my wording was poor. I don't mean necessary for things that may exhibit consciousness. I mean why should consciousness even be considered to exist? Why is it a necessary complication to understanding the mind?

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Does the idea of consciousness have any explanatory power? Does it pick out something substantively different than unconscious processes? If we were to replace all talk about consciousness with talk about molecules swirling about, would we lose something? I think the answer to these questions is yes. It seems that consciousness is a necessary feature of a complete explanation of the world in the same way trees and tables are. That is, even if these things can be reduced to more fundamental things, talk of tress and tables, and consciousness is still important.

You could probably use few more specific words to a greater effect. Such as self-model, world model, memory, information processing, directed action, responsiveness. Consciousness is a bit too underdefined a word. It is probably not as much of a whole as a tree or human as an organism is - it is not even persistent nor stable - and leaves no persistent traces in the world.

You don't get a consciousness carcass left behind or a "monad" as some current theorists postulated. At least we haven't found any.

But consciousness picks out something different from self-model, world model, information processing, etc. That is to say, none of these things sufficiently describes the processes we refer to when we talk about consciousness. A replacement concept would need to capture everything real about the term. We can replace water with H2O in any context and it makes sense. But there are contexts where we can meaningfully speak of consciousness where self-model (apparently) doesn't completely fit, e.g. "the pain of my stubbed toe overwhelmed my conscious experience".

Replace by "overrode my decision capability" (meaning you cannot act beyond reflex) or "overran my symbolic capability" (it was so big you cannot describe it) or perhaps overrode your other senses (couldn't sense anything else physically) or perhaps "stopped your self model from updating" (blocked integration of other perceptions).

Better? Definitely less poetic but perhaps more accurate.

This is a great question! I have some slides that may give some background on the evolutionary themes of this question. ( Starts at slide 20 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pDZLkFTFjuZzM8lIKkuC... ). I personally don't have a real answer. But my understanding is that consciousness emerges as a simulation of the world in which we can test decisions without impacting our survival in the world, and is thus an evolutionary advantage. Why do we experience consciousness in the way that we do? I.e. why do we have a sense of self and agency? I think this has to do with the fact that we have a limited mental capacity and the complexity of the world requires us to focus on particular things, thus bringing all of our mind to a point -- which we experience as our identity. Is it possible for there to be intelligent beings that don't experience consciousness in the way we do? I think so, but now I think we are going into SciFi territory.

No, and some philosophies deem consciousness unnecessary/irrelevant. To them, consciousness is a byproduct of brain activity, much like the heat generated from a burning lamp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism

I've a different question: why talk about necessity? Not all things that are, are "necessary". Also, necessity has a hint of teleology, which brings along its own host of issues.

It may just be a feature of this Universe, gradually being uncovered.

Perhaps from an evolutionary perspective being conscious helps you survive better than being unconscious?

Almost nothing is necessary. Frogs are not necessary. Calculus is not necessary. Yet these things exist, so we can ask what and how they are.

You sense that your own consciousness exists. so you can ask, what is this thing you sense? And what is this think sensing?

It is necessary, otherwise we wouldn't be observing this world, and nothing would seem to exist.

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