Locked Mind Thought Experiment

[philosopher]

Your mind is locked to your body. That's weird. I'll explain below:

When you change your personality (for a variety of reasons, damage, drugs - whatever) you will still see the world through the eyes of that very same body - even though the body has replaced all the atoms over many years.

I find that a very weird thing. If consciousness is locked to your brain, it should fade away as the chemicals and other components of your brain gets replaced and changing over time. At the very least, you should not be able to see the world through your eyes or hear sounds through your ears. You should either stop experiencing the world from your local perspective, because the local perspective is ever-changing - or die (from your perspective), even if your body and brain keeps living. In some way or the other, "you" cease to exist when your components make even the slightest of changes.

Yet even if you get dementia or serious brain damage, you still see the world through that very same body even if you're not thinking the same thoughts or hold the same ideas/opinions/beliefs as before.

Let's come up with another thought-experiment:
Suppose we make an EXACT copy of you. Then we freeze the original you and put you unconscious (probably best the other way around )

Then we kill the original, and put the copy into life. What "you" should experience is a "flicker" or "lag" in your experience similar to a broken movie where you have one situation with A->B->C=D (current), but instead you experience something like: A->B = V - making no coherent connections to what just happened, like a broken movie that suddenly jumps to another scenery/situation (or even movie) as the conscious parts gets in an entirely different location. Like opening the door in your house in whever you live, expecting to see your neighbors house, instead you end up somewhere else entirely.

But I bet you won't. Because what if we keep the original alive while we awake the copy? Which body will "you" see through? The original, of course. At least that's what our experiences so far tells us.

Therefore the conclusion must be one of the two of the following:

The consciousness is originating deep inside the brain in some "core atoms" or "core molecules" that will never get replaced or change and which will experience black/darkness upon death of the brain. In that case, the "soul" can be said to be physically real and exists in some part deep inside the brain, it will then be measureable.

The problem with this idea is that atoms decay. So do all atoms, they emit energy (light) and therefore your consciousness should fade away over time.

But it doesn't.

OR

The core of the Consciousness is not really inside the brain but in some other dimension or reality or source. It should then be illustrated like the roots of a tree pointing the same way to a core source, and as you climb up the tree you see various branches (various conscious beings). Like a "brain in the vat"-scenario, just without the brain but only the consciousness. In other words, we exist in some other dimension, equivalent to watching a movie unfolding before our eyes with Virtual Reality.

[Scott Mayers]

Consciousness is the ACTIVITY of the brain in a unique phase. It would likely include the particular activity of all the physics and chemistry of the brain (or part of it) such that where the matter plays a role, it is again the ACTIVITY that describes the physics of all its parts. That is, for a particular atom that plays a role in some conscious experience, it is not the uniqueness of the particular but the form it represents when in action.

To extend you thought experiments on this, think of Star Trek's particle "Transporter". Technically, you should be able to be duplicated where the conscious sensation just splits as though in distinct worlds.

The key in understanding what consciousness is itself to understand that the sensation itself demonstrates it has its active components in a type of entanglement where you are able to 'feel' multiple sensations from different points in space simultaneously. As such, this factor HAS to be included as its significant property.

[commonsense]

As we age, the brain atrophies; the mind weakens. No matter where consciousness resides, if it is a thing, or begins, if it is an activity, it cannot thrive while brain and mind decay. Consciousness is not immune to change. It does indeed diminish over time.

[Arising_uk]

But I bet you won't. Because what if we keep the original alive while we awake the copy? Which body will "you" see through? The original, of course. At least that's what our experiences so far tells us.
...

Sorry did I miss something? I'd have thought in this scenario we'd have two 'you's who then over time and experience would be two 'me's'.

Therefore the conclusion must be one of the two of the following:

The consciousness is originating deep inside the brain in some "core atoms" or "core molecules" that will never get replaced or change and which will experience black/darkness upon death of the brain. In that case, the "soul" can be said to be physically real and exists in some part deep inside the brain, it will then be measureable.

The problem with this idea is that atoms decay. So do all atoms, they emit energy (light) and therefore your consciousness should fade away over time.

But it doesn't.

OR

The core of the Consciousness is not really inside the brain but in some other dimension or reality or source. It should then be illustrated like the roots of a tree pointing the same way to a core source, and as you climb up the tree you see various branches (various conscious beings). Like a "brain in the vat"-scenario, just without the brain but only the consciousness. In other words, we exist in some other dimension, equivalent to watching a movie unfolding before our eyes with Virtual Reality.

Never sure what people mean by 'consciounesses' here. Do you mean awareness or self-awareness? If the latter then why so small as an atom, why not consciousness as a set of neurons modelling other sets of neurons?

[SteveKlinko]

Could be. All Speculations are still on the table when it comes to Conscious Experience. I have tried to understand how Conscious Experience could be in the Neurons but can not find any good explanations of how that could be true. I agree with your last paragraph where you say that Consciousness must be in some other Dimension or Reality. I like to call the place where Consciousness exists, Conscious Space. Conscious Space is not a Physical Space but it is more of a conceptual place for Conscious Experience to exist in.

[Arising_uk]

Could be. All Speculations are still on the table when it comes to Conscious Experience. I have tried to understand how Conscious Experience could be in the Neurons but can not find any good explanations of how that could be true. ...

Think about it this way. We know from research with computational neural nets that they can store, retrieve and match patterns, Now the CNS is a gigantic massively parallel neuronal net which quite clearly is what produces what we call perception or the 'happening' of the world, ie colours, objects, space, etc (although personally I think you need a body and an external world too). So to produce self-consciousness we could imagine another set of neurons that take those inputs and model them against themselves in a feedback loop and also continuously modelling them against the new inputs from the world.

I agree with your last paragraph where you say that Consciousness must be in some other Dimension or Reality. I like to call the place where Consciousness exists, Conscious Space. Conscious Space is not a Physical Space but it is more of a conceptual place for Conscious Experience to exist in.

Okay but why could this 'conceptual space' not be the CNS?

[Skepdick]

Your mind is locked to your body. That's weird. I'll explain below:

When you change your personality (for a variety of reasons, damage, drugs - whatever) you will still see the world through the eyes of that very same body - even though the body has replaced all the atoms over many years.

I find that a very weird thing. If consciousness is locked to your brain, it should fade away as the chemicals and other components of your brain gets replaced and changing over time.

This is an age-old metaphysical dilemma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

It brings into question the very meaning of the word "same". What are the necessary and/or sufficient criteria for any two things to be called "the same".

At the very least, you should not be able to see the world through your eyes or hear sounds through your ears. You should either stop experiencing the world from your local perspective, because the local perspective is ever-changing - or die (from your perspective), even if your body and brain keeps living. In some way or the other, "you" cease to exist when your components make even the slightest of changes.

If you interpret this from a temporal perspective - then you cease to exist all the time. Every moment-after-moment. The person you are while reading THIS, is different to the person who reads THIS.

Yet even if you get dementia or serious brain damage, you still see the world through that very same body even if you're not thinking the same thoughts or hold the same ideas/opinions/beliefs as before.

Some times you do. Some times you don't.

Some times your brain navigates around any/all damage.
Some times drastic personality changes occur.

But I bet you won't. Because what if we keep the original alive while we awake the copy? Which body will "you" see through? The original, of course. At least that's what our experiences so far tells us.

No. There are two "yous" now - the original and the clone. Which one are you referring to?

What I expect to happen is that the original and clone will have a shared memories/personalities but divergent futures.

Ripe for scientific experiment at that point if there were no ethical challenges...

[commonsense]

Is conscious space different than conceptual space?

[Skepdick]

Is conscious space different than conceptual space?

In what context? Any distinction may be drawn at any point during a conversation if it helps with clarity.

You could use them interchangeably during synthesis.
You can use them as juxtapositions during analysis.

It's a standard linguistic/rhetorical device. Divide-and-conquer. Separation of concerns.

[commonsense]

Is conscious space different than conceptual space?

In what context? Any distinction may be drawn at any point during a conversation if it helps with clarity.

You could use them interchangeably during synthesis.
You can use them as juxtapositions during analysis.

It's a standard linguistic/rhetorical device. Divide-and-conquer. Separation of concerns.

Thanks.

[commonsense]

Could be. All Speculations are still on the table when it comes to Conscious Experience. I have tried to understand how Conscious Experience could be in the Neurons but can not find any good explanations of how that could be true. ...

Think about it this way. We know from research with computational neural nets that they can store, retrieve and match patterns, Now the CNS is a gigantic massively parallel neuronal net which quite clearly is what produces what we call perception or the 'happening' of the world, ie colours, objects, space, etc (although personally I think you need a body and an external world too). So to produce self-consciousness we could imagine another set of neurons that take those inputs and model them against themselves in a feedback loop and also continuously modelling them against the new inputs from the world.

I agree with your last paragraph where you say that Consciousness must be in some other Dimension or Reality. I like to call the place where Consciousness exists, Conscious Space. Conscious Space is not a Physical Space but it is more of a conceptual place for Conscious Experience to exist in.

Okay but why could this 'conceptual space' not be the CNS?

Because conceptual space isn’t a physical space.

[Arising_uk]

Gotta be stored somewhere.

[Skepdick]

Gotta be stored somewhere.

Because conceptual space isn’t a physical space.

In computer science "space" is another name for "memory".

[Sculptor]

Gotta be stored somewhere.

Because conceptual space isn’t a physical space.

In computer science "space" is another name for "memory".

More irrelevant word play?
FFS!

[Arising_uk]

In computer science "space" is another name for "memory".

Sure, and this is why I'm puzzled why people seem to think this 'conceptual space' is needed for 'mind' as given the size of our CNS we have more than enough space for it.