Ask HN: Where does consciousness come from?

[SgtKhalor]

I don't mean where does human consciousness come from, I'd guess it is a biological reaction in our brains. But monkeys are conscious, and dogs and plants. Bacteria is conscious, it moves and replicates. Where does that consciousness come from?

Or because bacteria is unaware of itself, is it not conscious? Perhaps consciousness was just a part of evolution and was created during it.

[codeonfire]

What you're describing is not consciousness. That's just a machine responding to inputs. If all matter including monkeys, dogs, and plants is removed from the universe and there was only blackness, consciousness would be the thing that is still there. Meaning that simple presence of matter interacting in certain ways is no proof of consciousness.

[informatimago]

Douglas Hofstadter, of "Gödel, Escher, Bach" fame, has is own idea on the question: "I Am a Strange Loop". (Both good and highly recommended books).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Published_w...

[sharemywin]

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness?la...

[davelnewton]

You'll need to define "conscious" first before the discussion can even begin.

[blueflow]

Probably: It doesn't because its some kind of illusion.

[SgtKhalor]

Can you speculate more on this? I'd love to hear more on the idea of it being an illusion.

[mlitchard]

What is your basis for claiming consciousness is an illusion?

[sudo_free_cake]

I think the research is in regarding consciousness, self, free will, and identity being illusions created by the mind, but I doubt heavily the terminology will ever fall out of the vernacular because it's integral in our expression and sharing the conscious experience. Even though we know there is no agent in the brain making decisions we won't stop saying, what did YOU DECIDE? or I CHOOSE...blah blah blah. Actually breaking down all the processes in the brain and forming a scientific theory of consciousness as a merger of neuroscience and philosophy of mind could take a long time, perhaps not even in our lifetime. There are all sorts of crazy theories out there about self-organizing maps, and critical size structures, but none of it is really falsifiable at this point. Bacteria I feel I can safely say are not conscious, whatever consciousness is, it appears to require a brain(or computer if you will) of certain attributes to posses it. I think that much is clear. If you look at the behavior of lower organisms, bugs, lizards, things with basic brains and nervous systems, all the behavior is reaction, there is no plan. Higher order brains have the ability to formulate some picture of the future, this helps a lot with survival, if you can envision what is about to happen based on past experience instead of preprogrammed reaction, it increases your fitness. Same as identity can tie you to tribal grouping; having identity, sense of self, working as a group, increases fitness. Personally, my theory of consciousness (of which i have no professional training or merit or evidence in any way) is that it is simply another adaptation for survival. And judging by fitness of organisms with consciousness it seems to be hit and miss. In many parts of the brain we can see pre-existing structures giving rise to algorithms of unconscious behavior controlling all manner of bodily functions. It is my view that the phenomenon of consciousness is like a self-rewriting algorithm to improve our behavior for fitness, basically giving us the ability to learn and reflect. Experiments show that even the behavior we perceive as consciously made is actually triggered milliseconds before we become consciously aware of it. This is where the whole consciousness/free will is an illusion idea comes from. However, subjectively, we know something is going on. As soon as you become consciously aware of your actions you can start analyzing, well what was the outcome?, how does this compare to past attempts? I think that when we are thinking, when we are conscious, as consciousness accesses various parts of the brain it does some rewriting, this is basically learning at the lowest level, making adjustments to improve the outcome. Consciousness, whatever it is, is not the dominant player though, just by flooding the brain with various neurotransmitters behavior completely changes. Often we engage in behavior we don't even consciously desire, where you are left wondering "why did I just do that?" or planning "I am definitely going to work out today, thats the best decision to stay healthy" but then the time comes and you don't. So as an adaptation, in order to store, analyze, and compare memories, review current environment conditions through awareness, and plan for the future you gotta have consciousness, or least, that appears to be the correlation from what we've seen so far.

[shoo]

one tiny fragment of your interesting block of text caught my eye:

> If you look at the behavior of lower organisms, bugs, lizards, things with basic brains and nervous systems, all the behavior is reaction, there is no plan.

Spider. "Portia" ~600k neurons. able to solve basic pathfinding problems to reach prey, avoiding detours.

Here is Peter Watts' take on it:

http://www.rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards-bethle...

[SgtKhalor]

Holy shit snacks - great answer!

[amberjs]

yes animal conscious, but they doesn't have conscious awareness

[mlitchard]

1) How do you know animals don't have conscious awareness. What about Coco the gorilla? What about dolphins?

2) Humans are animals. Humans have conscious awareness. So, some animals have conscious awareness. Which ones?

[SgtKhalor]

I am in agreement with you. I think consciousness is more basic than having the complex consciousness that humans exhibit. Some animals are closer to humans on the spectrum, but what is at the edge? Bacteria - with their incredible base consciousness?