[qudat]

I have some takes on this topic. The reason why I think we find consciousness so mysterious is because we are so intimately biased that we are blinded by what’s plainly understandable.

Consciousness is an emergent property of nervous systems.

https://bower.sh/what-is-consciousness

[Shikadi]

The answer provided to the hard question doesn't answer the hard question. There is no reason we're aware of that a ton of computations should lead to a subjective experience, it's akin to people saying flies spontaneously generate around decaying food because they do. At the time it was plausible, but insisting it's the answer to the question is human arrogance

[qudat]

I can see how it might seem like it doesn’t explain the hard problem, but what I’m trying to articulate is that awareness or the self or subjective experience is just that system I described happening really fast. There’s nothing mystical happening here. It’s chaos theory sitting on top of a information processing system that has memory, decision making models, and the ability to learn.

Again we are searching for something more that doesn’t need to be there.

[Shikadi]

And what I'm saying is, you have absolutely no evidence or way to prove that. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I am saying it has as much scientific evidence as spontaneous generation did

Of course, articulating what the subjective experience being referred to is another problems on its own. All of your comment can exist independent of that perception that's being described. There's no reason for us to have a centralized feeling of it all happening, and the fact that it can be turned off temporarily while the rest mainly still functions is actually mild evidence against the idea that they're one and the same

[qwertywert_]

I think so too, and the fact we put human consciousness far above other animals like elephants and dolphins is human ego imo. If we really believe in evolution then what else could the answer be?

It's a processing loop that helps with executive function, self-reflection etc. which I think lots of animals have some basic version of.

[CloudRecondite]

No one here is saying animals aren’t conscious. An interesting question is when does it start? Is a worm conscious, an insect, a single cell, an atom? There’s no obvious dividing line which is what makes it so mysterious. What is the building block that enables more complex conscious beings?

[taberiand]

Consciousness as an emergent property of the billions of neurons and trillions of connections between them (and the complex chemical soup they slosh around in) makes sense to me as well.

There was an interesting article on HN a while ago about memory and its relationship to the aggregate electrical field generated by our neurons - https://picower.mit.edu/news/neurons-are-fickle-electric-fie...

Which I suppose, if people are looking for a singular "entity" to ascribe consciousness to, then something like an emergent electrical field might be a good candidate?

[akomtu]

And software is an emergent property of transistors? Math must be an emergent property of paper, then.

[qwertywert_]

Emergent property through evolutionary selection, do you not believe in evolution?

If the brain is just processing things in complete chaos an animal would be completely useless, but with a part/thread dedicated to processing inputs and checking memory I think it is very obvious this function of consciousness would emerge through natural evolution.

[CloudRecondite]

You should read about philosophical zombies if you haven’t heard the concept

[qwertywert_]

Yes, to me they sound like similar questions as can a human-level AGI robot experience consciousness like we do, or is consciousness a purely physical thing. My opinion is yes to both but I guess i'm a physicalist/materialist.

Actually another comment points out something interesting, when we get black-out drunk we are basically in this zombie-state. We can talk and hit our head and physically our brain still reacts, but it was like we aren't actually there and our body is just on autopilot mode.