The "Blind Brain Theory of Consciousness" and the Consequences of Eliminativism

[naut]

sub-systems [...] working together[.]

Every brain center has several "information nodes" that are connected to other "information nodes" from other centers in a spiderweblike structure.

I.e. Society of Mind?


Some tidbits:

We may only ‘see’ an absurd fraction of what is going on, but we can nevertheless assume that it’s the fraction that matters most...

Can’t we?

There is an incredibly more exciting way of realising that than reading a wall of text.

The spectator is encapsulated, which is to say, stranded with information that appears sufficient.

Say, for example, I recall that there were various sections of the text that either: made me smile, made me 'glaze over', made me marvel. As I am recalling I lack access to the specificities, but my brain has computed the details and what I have left is the residual effects in my active mind, i.e. information that is sufficient for my active mind to say, "yes there were parts that made me, etc., etc., etc."? So to extrapolate the 'stranded' metaphor, a little like a man on an island, surrounded by a horizon of printing presses, receiving the few sheets that the tides bring ashore?

especially the way the mental seems to ‘disappear’ when we look over the brain’s shoulder.

Honestly, this matches my experiences with creative thought processes. When an idea is needed and you strain and strain, you hit the old creative block. But, realisable ideas will bubble into view at any given time, apparently of their own accord. (That isn't to imply that they come from nothingness, usually they are get "shook loose" or are casually prompted).

Which leads me to:

How is it possible for you to not be aware of a given word's meaning, and then to suddenly recall it? How is it possible for you not to access any given memory on demand?

Although this is the reverse, the notion is the same. As I was writing the above I could not recall the word "extrapolate", however, I was able to recall words with similar meaning and construct a phrase out of those which lead to the actual word I wanted to 'suddenly appear'. With certainly no regard to any 'conscious demand'. But, aren't there a great deal of examples of this? Such as, a person taken back to the scene of a crime perpetrated against them and the memory of the crime comes flooding back. Suggesting recall is a manifold function by (and/or of) association(s)?


In any case this has ruined my appetite for Trivia Nights irrevocably.

[Montmorency]

Three cheers for reading it.

I recommend that everyone follow suit, or this will work in the following manner:

Someone challenges one of the philosophical conclusions that can be drawn from the theory.

I counter by, piece by piece, over numerous posts, putting the theory together and trying to show that these conclusions must follow from the theory, and that furthermore the theory itself has strong empirical (if for the moment circumstantial) support.

Someone challenges some part of the theory that is addressed elsewhere.

I reiterate the theory from the broad view and try to bring in immediately-relevant details.

Everyone ends up reading and writing a lot more than if they'd just read the darned spoilers in the OP in the first place and structured their response/rebuttal using it as a basis, asking questions to clarify what it is the theory precisely states.

[Kadagar_AV]

I'm to stupid to get much of this...

Can someone write a summary in layman's English?

[Montmorency]

1. The brain processes environments.
2. We have evolved such that parts of our brain process the rest of the brain in the same way the rest of the brain processes environments.
3. Those parts are much weaker than the rest of the brain, and in general it is impossible thermodynamically and in other ways for a system to track itself perfectly.
4. Those parts, due to their limited nature, can't see where the information they get comes from, or how they figure in a larger system - they seem to just float around by themselves, to themselves.
5. As a byproduct of this nature, conscious awareness is produced, but it is entirely epiphenomenal and predicated upon systems within systems that can't process the larger system.
6. We expect a system with this structure to produce precisely what we commonly call "experience".

Here's a very rough and exaggerated diagram - don't take it too literally - to point you in the direction:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Husar]

Unfortunately I overlooked a few posts, and naut's looks promising.

There is an incredibly more exciting way of realising that than reading a wall of text.

+3000, less Klingon and more graphical models please.

Say, for example, I recall that there were various sections of the text that either: made me smile, made me 'glaze over', made me marvel. As I am recalling I lack access to the specificities, but my brain has computed the details and what I have left is the residual effects in my active mind, i.e. information that is sufficient for my active mind to say, "yes there were parts that made me, etc., etc., etc."? So to extrapolate the 'stranded' metaphor, a little like a man on an island, surrounded by a horizon of printing presses, receiving the few sheets that the tides bring ashore?

I realized long ago that my brain works like this, most prominently when I knew that a person had wronged me numerous times but as time went on it became harder to recall the single events. I like to equate it with the aggregation of information in an InfoCube ever since I started to learn about BI solutions. You basically just keep an aggregate result of many single events to save storage and gain faster/simpler access.

So does this theory claim that the granular information of the single events is still entirely stored in the larger brain but your conscious does not get access to it and is only fed with the aggregate information whenever the larger brain sees fit according to incoming environmental information?

----

As for the whole memory process, I can at the moment only relate that to remembering names, which can be problematic for me. It does however work on demand, which does not refer to recalling the name immediately (it may not be stored in connection to the person at hand yet) but to initiating the process of getting the name from memory. And therein lies the free will I would say, which is quite a lot more limited than the name may suggest but nonetheless there is some decision-making going on in our conscious part of the brain that is not entirely predetermined by the larger brain.

In this theory, the point is that consciousness is merely a byproduct of systems that track the brain the way the brain tracks environments, and so doesn't actually effect anything of itself.

The point is that consciousness is literally much less than what you assume.

Yes, it is less, but is it actually nothing? If the conscious is just a bystander, watching things happen while having the illusion it could influence them, wouldn't that destroy all purpose in life? If I lost my job it would not be my fault and you shouldn't call me a loser for it, yet you would because you're pretermined to do it and the fact that I could foresee it now may not make it happen and yet I have no power to not write this, as pointless as it may be. Full predetermination creates a mind-boggling scenario that my conscious does not like.
As such this theory is false as far as my conscious is concerned and there is nothing you can do. Which really shows how helpless your conscious really is.

In other words, free will is a construct our brain-overlords have created for our conscious to make us able to live with ourselves even though our conscious could never decide to make us kill ourselves against the will of our brains, which strangely would agree with killing ourselves upon relaying the information that life is meaningless to our conscious. If there is no decision anywhere there then humanity has finally reached its end of lifecycle or will not accept this theory out of self-preservation.

I suggest reading Kant instead, the conclusions you will draw from that are most definitely wrong, but less likely to be futile.

But if I understand this theory correctly by now, you will not draw any conclusions, your brain will and your conscious may be so lucky to experience some of them while the brain-automaton works entirely on auto-pilot which is the only mode it knows. Meanwhile your consciousness will indulge itself in the illusion of actually being able to influence the information processing.