What do we know about consciousness and how we perceive the world
What is Consciousness
Should we fear the Extinction of our Conscious mind?
We were extinct a little more than a day ago; this occurs rather often during our lifetimes. Typically, while we are resting in bed or seated in a chair, we have a sense of relaxation throughout our bodies. We are at perfect ease. Along with the feeling of isolation and estrangement that surrounds us, we drift off into nonexistence, often known as the dream world.
Then we awoke, refreshed and vibrant, but with irrefutable evidence that our conditions had not changed. When you emerge from a deep sleep, you may be confused about the time or fear of oversleeping, but there is always a sense of time passing, of continuity between the past and the present. When you awaken from a deep slumber, you may be concerned that you’ve overslept or confused about the time.
When you regain consciousness after anaesthesia, you will feel quite different. We may have been immersed for five minutes, five hours, five years, or even fifty years. It may have occurred at any of these times. We were unable to go there for any reason. A widespread lack of awareness existed.
Anaesthesia is a modern example of the magical arts. People are transformed into inanimate things, but we can only hope that they will return to their human shape in the future. This procedure includes one of the most important concerns in science and philosophy, which cannot be satisfactorily answered. What caused the emergence of conscious experience?
Inexplicably, the coordinated movements of many billions of neurons, each of which is a microscopic biological machine, generate conscious experience in all of our brains. These movements occur in the cerebral cortex, situated in the brain's centre.
And not just any conscious experience, but the one you are experiencing right now. What causes lead to this occurrence? Because the only thing that exists for each of us is our conscious experience, we must find a solution to this problem.
There would be no cosmos, no self, and nothing else in the world if it did not exist. And when we submit to pain, we do it on purpose, regardless of whether the agony is the result of a physical or mental disorder.
If humans are the only species capable of simultaneously experiencing happiness and suffering, what about other species? Is it even somewhat feasible that they are aware of their environment? Additionally, do they show symptoms of self-awareness? And if the processing power and intellect of computers continue to progress at the present pace, it may not be long before our iPhone acquires its awareness.
We have concluded that the presence of a conscious is very improbable. According to our study, which indicates that awareness is more directly tied to our biological makeup than to a brain-centric process, we believe that this is the case.
Intellect and awareness are two separate components of the human experience. Intellectual ability is not a need for endurance, but it is very probably required for survival.
Our conscious perceptions of the world and ourselves within it are hallucinations that occur with, through, and as a result of our live bodies. Because our conscious perceptions are hallucinations, this is the case. I will address the current state of affairs around the globe.
You may have heard that the interaction between the brain and body that generates awareness is a riddle that no one completely comprehends. Some individuals assert that it cannot be explained by scientific means. In contrast, the quantity of scientific research undertaken in this field during the last quarter-century has increased dramatically.
Everyone in this room is attempting to comprehend what occurs when awareness is lost and how it may be returned. Additionally, the concept is uncomplicated and simple to comprehend. I would want for you to consider consciousness in the same manner that we normally consider life.
People formerly believed that the attribute of being alive could not be defined by physics and chemistry; they believed that for life to exist, there must be more than a simple mechanism. Despite this, a substantial percentage of individuals continue to maintain this perspective.
Physicists and chemists began to uncover the inner workings of biological systems using their respective fields, so beginning to answer the basic mystery surrounding the nature of life. Metabolism, reproduction, and homeostasis are mentioned among these characteristics. As a direct consequence, no explanations involving the supernatural, such as vital force or élan vital, were presented.
Existence and consciousness are equivalent phrases due to their similarities. If its qualities are described in terms of what occurs inside our brains and bodies, the seeming unsolvability of consciousness should begin to diminish.
What characteristics constitute the phenomenon known as the state of consciousness? What are a few of the goals that a science of consciousness should strive to achieve? Today, I would want to examine the topic of awareness from not one but two distinct angles.
Several films fully immerse the audience in an interior location by appealing to several senses, adopting a panoramic point of view, and/or using 3D. We refer to the last component as the conscious self. The clear feeling of being identical to either you or me.
Our awareness is the protagonist of this mental film and the component of consciousness with which the great majority of us undoubtedly feel the strongest connection. Let’s begin with our impressions of the external world and the basic concept that the brain acts as a prediction engine.
Think about it for a second as if you were a brain. You are now confined inside a bone cranium, and your mission is to find out what is located outside of it. There are no lights that can be seen on the interior of the skull. In addition to that, there is no sound. The only information that can be obtained is in the form of streams of electrical impulses that are only indirectly related to items in the surrounding environment, regardless of what those things may be.
As a result, perception, also known as finding out what’s there, must be a process of informed guessing in which the brain combines these sensory data with its previous assumptions or notions about the way the world is to construct an estimate of what caused these signals. In other words, perception is also known as discovering what’s there. To put it another way, perception is the process of identifying what is there.
The brain cannot perceive either light or sound. The picture of the outside world that we get through our senses is the one that is the most accurate. When taken together, all of this sheds a somewhat different perspective on the neurological roots of vision.
The information that enters the brain from the outside world is not the primary factor that defines perception; rather, it is the predictions that the brain makes about the information that enters the brain from the outside world that is the primary factor that defines perception. We do not just take in the elements of our surrounding environment; rather, we are actively responsible for the development of those elements. The internal world contributes just as much if not more than the outside world does to our sense of what constitutes genuine life.
If a hallucination is a form of experience that is not under the conscious control of the one having the hallucination, then what we are now experiencing is a type of hallucination that is under conscious control. When a person is experiencing this kind of hallucination, the sensory information from the environment around them hinders the predictions made by the brain.
Every one of us is now undergoing a delusion. After we conclude that our hallucinations are real, we start calling what we are going through a scientific endeavour. Now, I’m going to tell you that your experience of having a self, the sense that you have of being you, is also a hallucination that is formed by your brain. This is something that I’m going to tell you.
Do you agree that this is an interesting and novel approach to thinking about the problem? There is a possibility that optical illusions could affect our perception of reality; nevertheless, how will we be misled about who I am?
Because the experience of being a person is so universal, unified, and constant, the vast majority of us are unable to refrain from taking the experience of being a person for granted.
Despite this, we must never, under any circumstances, take it for granted. Our understanding of what it means to “be oneself” might manifest itself in a variety of forms. Both the sensations of having a body and the sensations of being a body are complementary aspects that make up the same whole. One is sometimes presented with the opportunity to see the world from the point of view of the first person.
There are times when one feels the need to act, as well as the awareness that they are the cause of things happening in the outside world. Additionally, despite the accumulation of a large number of memories and experiences gained via interaction with other people, there is a sense of continuing to be the same person over time.
Numerous studies have proven, and psychiatrists and neurologists are well aware of, the fact that the different ways in which we view ourselves may change, and this is something that psychiatrists and neurologists are quite familiar with. The idea that the background experience of having a unitary self is a fairly unstable brain construct has been given more weight as a result of this discovery. Another occurrence that, just like the others, calls for some kind of explanation.
Therefore, let us once again concentrate on our physical selves. How exactly does it seem like I have a body and am a body when my brain generates that sensation? Nevertheless, the same notions continue to be relevant. The brain can make precise determinations about which parts of the body are present and which are missing. In addition, a mind-blowing experiment in neurology explains this principle compellingly.
And in contrast to the vast majority of studies undertaken in neuroscience, this one can be carried out in the comfort of one’s own home. When a person is shown the rubber hand illusion, their real hand is covered up and a rubber hand is put in front of them to give the appearance that their hand is real.
After that, a paintbrush is used to concurrently stroke both hands while the patient looks at the fake hand. This continues until the desired effect is achieved. Now, after some time has passed, the majority of individuals have the exceedingly bizarre feeling that the mechanical hand is a part of their body. This is a feeling that has been reported by people who have had artificial hands for some time.
The reasoning behind this is that the brain will have sufficient evidence to conclude that the fake hand is a part of the body if it feels touched by an object that resembles a hand and is roughly located where a hand should be. This is because there is a congruence between seeing touch and feeling touch on the object. In other words, if the brain feels a touch on an object that resembles a hand and is roughly located where a hand should be, then it will be able.
This means that even our views of what our body is are just educated guesses — a type of illusion manufactured by the brain. For example, we may believe that our arms are longer than they are. There is one additional thing to take into mind.
When we look at our bodies from the outside, we have the experience of them as things in the world. When we look at our bodies from the inside, though, we get a different kind of experience entirely. Everyone feels that they have a body that starts from the inside and works its way out. In addition, the brain is continuously informed of the status of the body’s internal organs, such as the functioning of the heart, blood pressure, and a variety of other factors, through sensory impulses that emanate from within the body. This information is sent to the brain through the nervous system.
This kind of perception, which is often referred to as interoception, is frequently disregarded. Nevertheless, it is of the utmost significance since our awareness of and ability to control the interior state of the body is what enables us to stay alive.
As a result, the perceptions we have of the interiors of our bodies are profoundly rooted in the experiences of having a body. One other thing that we would like to bring to your notice is the fact that having an experience of the body from the inside is quite different from having an experience of the surroundings outside of oneself.
When we take the time to look at ourselves, we see that our immediate environment contains a wide array of things, such as people, rubber hands, tables, and seats. Even our bodies may be considered an object by someone looking in from the outside. Our interior body sensations, on the other hand, are in no way analogous to those that have been described. We are unable to feel our kidneys, liver, or spleen from our vantage point since they are located too far away.
There is a good chance that our spleen is situated somewhere other than where we think it is, but we do not know for certain. Our interior organs cannot be viewed in the same way as exterior things. The truth is that we do not experience nearly as much of life as we would otherwise until something goes wrong. This is something that we regard to be a significant consideration.
It is not about finding out what is within the body; rather, it is about control and regulation, often known as maintaining the physiological variables within the narrow boundaries that are required for existence. The control and management of one’s environment have a far greater influence on one’s perception of the internal state of the body than the actual contents of the body do.
When the brain makes predictions to identify what is there, we get the experience of seeing objects as the sources of sensations. When the brain makes predictions to manage and govern things, we can detect how well or how poorly this control is operating. These predictions are created to manage and govern things.
As a consequence of this, the fundamental components of our concepts of selfhood and embodiment are profoundly ingrained in the biological processes that contribute to the maintenance of our lives.
And if we take this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, we may start to understand that the underlying drive to remain alive is the source of all of our conscious experiences. Every one of our conscious experiences is contingent on the very same processes of anticipated perception.
Because our bodies are alive, we can have experiences of the world and ourselves with, through, and as a direct consequence of our bodies. These experiences may take place either directly or indirectly as a result of our bodies. Please permit me to organize everything in a manner that is rational and reasonable. The brain is responsible for performing the most accurate analysis of the present state of the world, and the results of this analysis serve as the foundation for our conscious experience.
It is more probable that a person will gain an accurate image of their surroundings if they gaze within at themselves while also looking forth at their surroundings at the same time. The rubber hand illusion illustrates how our perceptions of what is and is not a part of our bodies are related to one another. The illusion uses the hand to explain this relationship.
These self-related predictions, on the other hand, are strongly dependent on the sensory inputs that arise from inside the body. In embodied self experiences, the pursuit of what is there is less of a priority than the control and administration of what is there. This is in contrast to the disembodied self experiences.
As a result of this, our perceptions of the world and our role within it are, in a sense, a deception that has been formed by millions of years of evolution to keep us alive in environments that are both hazardous and rewarding. This has occurred for us to survive in environments that are both hazardous and rewarding.
Having the ability to produce our forecasts gives us the ability to determine the nature of our existence. Now, before we go our separate ways, I would want to briefly discuss three topics that are of the highest importance to me. To begin, if a person’s predictive processes are not operating as they should, they can have an inaccurate picture of themselves as well as a distorted perspective of the world.
As soon as this is understood, psychiatry and neurology will be confronted with a variety of new therapy opportunities. This is because, in the not-too-distant future, we will be able to treat not just the symptoms of mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression, but also the underlying factors that contribute to the development of these ailments.
Second, no of how advanced or intricate a robot maybe, I will never be able to extract or communicate the essence of who I am to a computer program. This is true even if the robot is very clever. This is the case regardless of the degree to which the machine is capable of displaying intelligence. The biological processes that are responsible for our continued existence affect all facets of our conscious experiences, including the fact that we continue to exist. Both flesh and blood make up every one of our bodies, just as they do in the bodies of all other living creatures.
No matter how brilliant they are, computers will never be able to create their sense of consciousness all by themselves, regardless of how intelligent they are. One of the many different ways to have the experience of being conscious is to consider the possibility that our internal reality and how we are aware are only two of a much larger number of possibilities. The significance of this thought cannot be underestimated in comparison to the others.
Even awareness in a more general sense, which includes the consciousness of human beings, is merely a very small piece of a large expanse that is filled with a variety of states of consciousness. This expanse is full to the brim with different types of awareness. It is essential to have an understanding that, even though our identities and living conditions are unique to each of us, they are all kept up by biological processes that are shared with a vast variety of other creatures. This is something that we all have in common.
Similar discoveries have been made throughout the history of science, beginning with Copernicus, who contended that humans are not the centre of the universe, continuing with Darwin, who postulated that we are related to all other living things and continuing up to the present day. In other words, the history of science is filled with discoveries that are very similar to one another.
The more one understands the more interested one is, and the more one may appreciate the reality that people are not separate from the rest of nature but are, in fact, an integral component of it. This understanding improves the more one learns. This comprehension deepens in direct proportion to the amount of information possessed by the individual. This is the case since increasing levels of comprehension are the natural consequence of having access to more information. When the moment comes to terminate one’s conscious life, there is nothing to be scared of, and as a consequence, there is no need to be concerned about the possibility since there is no reason to be worried about the future.
