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

[Montmorency]

It's the executive

This is highly unlikely.

To write this, I need to think on what to write (my thoughts), what words to use, how to write it (fingers on a keyboard). I'm also very much helped by vision. So I now have at least 4 sub-systems that needs to be working together for it to work.

...

Did you even read anything in the OP? You can't just rely on your metacognitive intuitions wholesale given that your metacognition does not constrain neural fact.

but that is very important information.

This has been addressed.

As for the rest, well, Bakker discusses the problem-ecologies that may have spurred the evolution of consciousness elsewhere, and it's not directly relevant to the matter at hand, which is the fundamental character of consciousness as a lack of information. Consciousness is what happens when your brain lacks information about itself, but gets just a taste. It's not a specific discrete *thing*. This is crucial.

[Ironside]

This is highly unlikely.

It's the point of it. You need something that can decide that gnawing off your own paw to escape the trap (yes I'm intentionally using an animal) is a good thing. Causing yourself extreme pain and mutilation as a good thing is way above basic stimuli.

The amount of information given to it is the same a giving two A4 of company information to the CEO of say GE and he'll have to decide the future of the company from it.

From what I got from the BBT theory is basically that our CEO brain got very little control on what's written on those papers. Well duh. It's still the executive though. We can loose 50% of it and not notice. It's still the executive. It can be ran by 95% by a single sub-system (say at panic). Still the executive.

I'm saying it's made to be the decision maker, not the judge. We have sub-systems telling us that the thing happing 0.1 seconds ago was probably important, maybe you should react on it. Obviously it's the sub-system making the judgement of importance here, but whatever we run or not when the starting pistol was shot is when the thought of the sound reaches our conciousness. Training to let the sub-system decide is exactly how you get inhuman reflexes.

The judging the conciousness do make, is based on sub-systems. That's why losing those gives stupid judgements.

[Montmorency]

You need something that can decide that gnawing off your own paw to escape the trap (yes I'm intentionally using an animal) is a good thing. Causing yourself extreme pain and mutilation as a good thing is way above basic stimuli.

I'm doubting that this is the case. And you "intended" to attribute low-grade consciousness to other mammals?

The amount of information given to it is the same a giving two A4 of company information to the CEO of say GE and he'll have to decide the future of the company from it.

The CEO analogy is a bad one, since the CEO is aware of where the information is coming from. No CEO assumes that the reports he receives are self-generated, unless he's insane.

I'm saying it's made to be the decision maker

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.

[Ironside]

I.e. Society of Mind?

"Skims the wiki". Pretty much yeah. I can't comment fully on the book, but I agree on the quotes.
I'll steal the agents to mind terminology.

I'm doubting that this is the case. And you "intended" to attribute low-grade consciousness to other mammals?

Since they display behaviour that we do attribute to out own conciousness when shown in humans, yes. Those track the brain systems (ttbs) are where the environmetal information is combined correct? Essentially, if conciousness a side effect of ttbs, it should start to appear when ttbs becomes a factor.

The CEO analogy is a bad one, since the CEO is aware of where the information is coming from. No CEO assumes that the reports he receives are self-generated, unless he's insane.

The CEO (mind) consisting of the sum of agents acting at the moment, pretending to be of one mind. In human terms, the CEO is very insane.
But if unity is the goal (so no self-strangulation for you split-brains) then accepting information without a source makes sense. In particular since massive self analysis of the source do prevent quick actions.

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.

And I say it's false. I can see the points leading there, but I disagree with the conclusion. Agent A can indeed send a sole idea into the mind that the rest of the agents find so good that the mind agrees on it. If I do math, I can suddenly jump to the answer without passing the calculations in between. That's blatant agent work.

The point is that we need systems to process combined information and use this information to make a singular decision that our mind as a whole agrees with. Consequences of such a failure is obvious. This is going to require different agents from different times. To prevent different agents to interfer with the action, a sort of centralised structure is needed. That system doesn't need to have detailed control. To juggle is enough, while the muscle agents do the practical work. That means that it doesn't require much data, but condensed data.
That tiny 7 numbers vs 38 petaflop of data our conciousness uses are indeed very small datawise. Yet remembering that 4 digit code that you almost never use but is extremly vital can be troublesome. Something you know is vital can still be very hard. Evidently those track the brain systems are as stupid as our conciousness.

We also have systems designed with our conciousness in mind. So this side-effect is very important.

Short version. IMO he's going with "our conciousness isn't in control, but something exactly like our concious, except it's subconcious, is in control". He's mixing up what being in control means. It does not mean knowledge, nor ideas, nor thoughts.

[Husar]

Short version. IMO he's going with "our conciousness isn't in control, but something exactly like our concious, except it's subconcious, is in control". He's mixing up what being in control means. It does not mean knowledge, nor ideas, nor thoughts.

Yes, something like that, but why would it matter? And where does the "no free will" come from that was mentioned?
If our subconscious has a free will and the conscious only serves to make us aware of it, how is that different from the decision being made in the conscious? The subconscious and the conscious are always and will always be one brain and one person anyway and that our brain cannot observe 100% of itself was always a given so I don't see how that fundamentally changes anything.

The advertisement industry and others have long understood that a lot of what we think are conscious decisions are actually subconscious or at least heavily influenced by that. Where's the news then? That this has finally arrived in the circles of lyrically high-flying Philosophers?

[Montmorency]

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?

Would there really be any purpose otherwise?

If I lost my job it would not be my fault and you shouldn't call me a loser for it

I seem to recall a certain post you thanked recently...

Full predetermination creates a mind-boggling scenario that my conscious does not like.

Not predetermination, but stimulus. It works this way no matter how stochastic the universe, and if it's to the point of randomness, well...

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.

That's actually the prediction of the theory's creator.

Those track the brain systems (ttbs) are where the environmetal information is combined correct?

Well, sort of. If ttbs ttbs, then it must get some environmental information, or more precisely, metainformation. But it also should, upon processing this information, output information of its own into the larger brain.

But if unity is the goal (so no self-strangulation for you split-brains) then accepting information without a source makes sense. In particular since massive self analysis of the source do prevent quick actions.

Exactly. This could certainly be part of the explanation for why such metacognition arose in the first place.

If I do math, I can suddenly jump to the answer without passing the calculations in between. That's blatant agent work.

I don't understand. That could very easily be explained as the larger brain performing the calculations and the ttbs catching wind of the result. Not agentive at all, unless you want it to be...

To prevent different agents to interfer with the action, a sort of centralised structure is needed.

Yet that's the thing - if ttbs is indeed distributed throughout the brain, and not confined to a single discrete structure, then your thesis for an executive role of consciousness makes little sense. Also, remember that metacognition is continuous with cognition, meaning that one does not wait for the other - it all flows together.

Evidently those track the brain systems are as stupid as our conciousness.

But that's the idea - that consciousness is merely a byproduct of the limitations of ttbs, namely the informatic asymmetry you acknowledge.

IMO he's going with "our conciousness isn't in control, but something exactly like our concious, except it's subconcious, is in control".

Nooo, he's saying nothing is in control. There is no such thing as control. But if you want to fall back on this intentional vocab to make things easier, then say that it's the brain at large that is in control, which is pretty much an ineluctable truism.

If our subconscious has a free will

And how would that possibly work? Does a termite's "subconscious" or even brain in general have free will? Of course not. Humans are not special wonderful glorious exceptions to anything, admit it. As I said, the usefulness of this theory is that it gives an account for why the "free will delusion" arose in the first place. Free will in itself is pretty much impossible in any context, unless you're the one and only GOD...

[Husar]

Would there really be any purpose otherwise?

There would be a purpose in improvement and in defining what is an improvement.
Now I can just stop studying and tell people it's what the outside factors made me do, not my fault that my brain read this paper after you posted it.

I seem to recall a certain post you thanked recently...

I do not.
Or maybe I do but my brain won't tell you for reasons my conscious is not aware of.

Not predetermination, but stimulus. It works this way no matter how stochastic the universe, and if it's to the point of randomness, well...

But all stimulus was sparked by the Big Bang if you consequently follow it back through time.

That's actually the prediction of the theory's creator.

Great, and then he published it. What outside stimulus made him so evil? Did he get beaten as a kid?

Nooo, he's saying nothing is in control. There is no such thing as control. But if you want to fall back on this intentional vocab to make things easier, then say that it's the brain at large that is in control, which is pretty much an ineluctable truism.

Yes, but the brain is a neural network and neural networks are really hard to understand, even very, very simple ones in computers can lead to unpredictable results when confronted with stimulus they never got before. The brain at large also contains the conscious as an integral part, why is it necessary to see them as seperate or to assume that everyone always thought the conscious somehow controls everything? As I mentioned previously a lot of people were aware for a long time already that not every decision we make is a completely free decision, it is always based on a mixture of things we know, and things we know are historical stimulus. So in that sense I'm not sure where the revolution is?
The decision making process could still lead to two different results given the same stimulus and the same brain because of the way a neural network operates.

That we do not have a soul (conscious) that controls how the neural network operates should be clear by looking at people with neural defects, who also cannot behave normal even if their conscious may want to. I've also long wondered whether mentally ill people have the same or a different conscious than mentally healthy people? Does our friendly doomsday philosopher have anything on that?

And how would that possibly work? Does a termite's "subconscious" or even brain in general have free will? Of course not. Humans are not special wonderful glorious exceptions to anything, admit it. As I said, the usefulness of this theory is that it gives an account for why the "free will delusion" arose in the first place. Free will in itself is pretty much impossible in any context, unless you're the one and only GOD...

It depends a lot on how you define free will, animals also decide between flee or fight for example and will usually choose to live over choosing to die and so on. Now you will probably say those are not choices but the results of chemical reactions in the larger brain but noone of us can prove that it really is so. If the theory is right, then I would say everything would have to be predetermined since the big bang or even before that.

For me free will is when the brain can choose several pathes to follow and decides on one.
Is the decision influenced by stimuli? Of course it is.
Is the result absolutely predetermined? I would say no, even the weighting of factors can change during the decision making process and to say this is predetermined goes a bit far.
Is the conscious in control? Yes and no, because the conscious is an integral part of the brain, you have no conscious without the brain and possibly no brain without the conscious. The conscious does not need all the information and that is part of the design, the more I think about it (sorry, the more my brain subconsciously computes the stimulus given in this thread) the less I understand what the earth-shaking implications of this theory are?

Let's move on to sleep, our brain is capable of wandering around and making decisions while we sleep, it is however not able to act in exactly the same way then as it does when we are awake, is that because the parts that make up our conscious are actually vital for full functionality and how could that be so if our conscious is just a useless side-effect?

[Ironside]

Well, sort of. If ttbs ttbs, then it must get some environmental information, or more precisely, metainformation. But it also should, upon processing this information, output information of its own into the larger brain.

What do you define as the larger brain? I'm agreeing that processed information gets reprocessed several times in the brain. For example, sight passes through several centers, with only that last ones sending information to the conciousness. That's why you have things as blind-sight.

I don't understand. That could very easily be explained as the larger brain performing the calculations and the ttbs catching wind of the result. Not agentive at all, unless you want it to be...

An agent is a specialised part of the brain that can send information to the conciousness.

Yet that's the thing - if ttbs is indeed distributed throughout the brain, and not confined to a single discrete structure, then your thesis for an executive role of consciousness makes little sense. Also, remember that metacognition is continuous with cognition, meaning that one does not wait for the other - it all flows together.

Then you only moved the executive role to the TTBS. Who in turn only acts on the information in the same moment the conciousness gets it. Something in the mind needs to choose the cause of action, from all the alternatives given by the different TTBS, agents, larger brain or whatever you call those subsystems. In particular if this action matters greatly.
I say that this central cohesion structure is the conciousness, while he says that this central cohesion structure is part of the TTBS, while the conciousness is kind of an illusion, pretending to be this central cohesion structure.

I do agree that the conciousness pretends to be more in control than what it is (we have many-semicouncious behaviors that we do, but will only conciously control if we focus on it). But what he calls a bug that exists for unknown reasons, I call a feature.

Nooo, he's saying nothing is in control. There is no such thing as control. But if you want to fall back on this intentional vocab to make things easier, then say that it's the brain at large that is in control, which is pretty much an ineluctable truism.

By control, I mean the sender of the excecutive order (for actions deemed to be needing some thought). I don't talk about a metaphysical soul beaming in actions into the mind. Free will exist or not depending on how you define it. Overwriting a human brain should be possible (and terrifying).

So do animals have this special brainy-brain thing or just people?

The whole thing seems overly complex in the way that only theory jumping way ahead of available information can be.

However, if indeed the information we get is strategically filtered by some kind of background program, it stands to reason that we have altered our environment to the point where that could be a serious flaw in civilization itself. So there's that at least. Most of that was way over my head...

If I've red him right, only people. Which I find ridiculous, since there's no place in the human brain that's essential for conciousness. Or at very least, multiple places can be the key piece.

He's at least treating modern conciousness as a uniqish thing, rather than an advanced version.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Given the developmental gradient of evolution, we can presume a gradual increase in capacity, with the selection of more comprehensive sourcing and greater processing power culminating in the consciousness we possess today.

There’s the issue of evolutionary youth, for one. Even if we were to date the beginning of modern consciousness as far back as, say, the development of hand-axes, that would only mean some 1.4 million years of evolutionary ‘tuning.’ By contrast, the brain’s ability to access and process external environmental information is the product of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection

And then there’s its relation to its object. Where the brain, thanks to locomotion, possesses a variable relationship to its external environment, allowing it to selectively access information, the RS is quite literally hardwired to the greater, nonconscious brain. Its information access is a function of its structural integration, and is therefore fixed to the degree that its structure is fixed. The RS must transform its structure, in other words, to attenuate its access.

These three constraints–evolutionary contingency, frame complexity, and access invariance–actually paint a quite troubling picture. They sketch the portrait of an RS that is developmentally gerrymandered, informatically overmatched, and structurally imprisoned–the portrait of a human brain that likely possesses only the merest glimpse of its inner workings. As preposterous as this might sound to some, it becomes more plausible the more cognitive psychology and neuroscience learns.

I mean sure, I suspect the reason why mental illness among humans are because of rapid evolution, so that robustness hasn't catched up yet. But I say that limitations of the conciousness is there from the start and intended.