From: jimruttshow8596
Defining Consciousness
Consciousness is described as the subjective, immediate experience of the world, something that can be experienced rather than measured [00:05:15]. It is defined as “being aware that you are aware” [00:05:31]. This distinction is made between “self-consciousness,” which is limited to a very small number of animals like humans, chimpanzees, elephants, and orcas, and “primary consciousness,” which is believed to be much more widespread, potentially since reptiles [00:06:07]. Gerald Edelman, a researcher on consciousness, made a similar distinction between primary consciousness (shared with dogs) and extended consciousness (higher up the evolutionary timeline, including humans) [00:06:17]. A simple test case for self-consciousness is a mirror test: dogs bark at their reflection, while apes and elephants eventually recognize themselves [00:07:28].
The User Illusion
The concept of the “user illusion” likens the mind to a graphical user interface in computing [00:08:18]. Just as a desktop, folders, and files on a computer screen are metaphors for underlying data, the mind provides an “illusion” of manipulating objects that are not literally present [00:09:12]. This illusion is a way to help the user interact with complex systems [00:10:10].
The analogy extends to our perception of the world: our mind’s image of the world is not an attempt to perfectly reproduce reality, but rather to create a relevant “myth” or illusion that aids the survival of the organism [00:10:51]. The criterion for this mental model is not accuracy, but its utility for survival [00:11:21]. This aligns with a Darwinian view of evolution, where the cognitive model’s payoff is measured in terms of reproduction [00:11:51]. Consciousness is considered a “clever hack” or trick that evolution found to enable high-quality decisions at relatively low cost [00:12:09]. The human brain, despite consuming 20% of the body’s energy, and the significant genetic cost for the emergence of consciousness, demonstrates its survival value [00:12:51].
Information Bandwidth and Reduction
A surprising finding in consciousness studies is the narrow bandwidth of conscious awareness [00:14:19]. While the human brain receives approximately 11 million bits of information per second from the environment (mostly vision), conscious awareness processes only about 16 bits per second [00:16:44]. This represents a compression factor of about a million times [00:16:48].
This massive reduction of information is essential because most incoming data is not immediately relevant; for example, the ceiling not falling down [00:17:21]. Consciousness, therefore, is largely about discarding information and reducing it to what is meaningful [00:17:49]. This understanding was aided by advances in the “physics of information,” which showed that information is physical and subject to physical laws [00:18:33]. A key insight is that erasing information is physically expensive, unlike merely transferring it [00:20:32]. This concept was central to resolving Maxwell’s demon problem [00:22:01].
The “I” and the “Me”
A key distinction proposed to understand the conscious and unconscious mind is between the “I” (consciousness) and the “me” (the person as a whole, including unconscious processes) [00:29:10].
Libet’s Experiment and Free Will
This distinction helps explain the results of Benjamin Libet’s famous experiments on the delay of conscious awareness [00:25:36]. Libet built upon earlier findings by Kornhuber and Deecke, who showed that brain activity (electric potential) begins approximately one second before a person makes a conscious decision to perform a simple action, such as flicking a finger [00:27:23]. Libet’s experiments revealed that the conscious decision to act occurs roughly half a second after the brain has already begun preparing for the action, and half a second before the action is executed [00:28:21].
This implies that the conscious “I” does not initiate actions; rather, the “me” (the entire person’s system, including unconscious processes) does [00:29:49]. Therefore, while the conscious “I” may not have free will in initiating actions, the “me” still does [00:29:52]. This perspective resolves the perceived conflict with free will: decisions are made by the person as a whole, even if not consciously initiated [00:30:03].
Most complex human actions, such as walking, talking, dancing, or playing with children, are performed without conscious awareness [00:30:31]. Conscious awareness often interferes with these automated processes, leading to clumsiness or stuttering if one becomes too aware of how they are performing the action [00:30:40]. The conscious mind (the “I”) acts more like a CEO who is unaware of the day-to-day operations of the company, with the “staff” (unconscious processes) handling most tasks [00:31:19].
While Libet proposed a “veto power” for consciousness—the ability to consciously stop an action that has already begun to be prepared [00:39:34]—the deeper argument is to relocate the concept of free will from the “I” to the “me” [00:39:46]. This perspective acknowledges that causality exists at a fundamental level, but that the complexity of emergent phenomena makes it computationally impossible to predict higher-level behaviors from basic physics [00:43:01].
Historical Evolution of Consciousness
Julian Jaynes’s theory, outlined in “The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” suggests that consciousness (specifically, self-awareness or the “I”) is a relatively recent development in human history, perhaps arising around the time of Homer [00:56:57]. Jaynes hypothesized that before this development, humans operated without conscious self-awareness, acting based on “parliaments of voices” in their heads, which they interpreted as gods [00:57:54]. The idea of an “inner space” for decision-making was historically new [00:58:16]. People who exhibit this older form of mind today, hearing voices that direct their actions, might be diagnosed as schizophrenic [00:58:33].
This theory aligns with observations that characters in earlier texts like The Iliad appear more “alien” and less self-reflective compared to those in later works like The Odyssey [00:58:51].
Exformation: The Unspoken Context
Communication involves not just explicit “information” but also “exformation”—the vast amount of information that is implicitly assumed or condensed within a message [00:50:41]. An example is the shortest correspondence in history between Victor Hugo and his publisher: a question mark from Hugo (“How is my book doing?”) and an exclamation mark back (“It’s a huge success!“) [00:48:36]. These simple symbols convey immense meaning due to the shared context [00:49:09].
All communication relies on this principle: a small amount of information is exchanged, but a large amount of exformation is produced both by the sender (compressing a mental state into a symbol) and the receiver (unfolding a symbol into a mental state) [00:51:08]. Literary fiction, for instance, evokes rich mental models in the reader with relatively few words, assuming a vast amount of shared understanding [00:51:51].
Implications for Living
Modern life, often called the “Information Society,” is ironically characterized by an emptying of information from our environments, particularly analog information [01:03:55]. Simplified, controlled environments like cities and suburbs contain less information than wild or natural landscapes [01:05:08]. This reduction in environmental dimensionality leads to a craving for information, which is often sought unfulfillingly through digital means like smartphones [01:04:43].
To enhance well-being, humanity needs to seek out more “otherness” and things that cannot be controlled or foreseen, such as wilderness or unpredictable interactions with other human beings and species [01:06:01]. The pursuit of happiness through the removal of all annoying things (like rain, wind, pests) has paradoxically led to a lack of genuine happiness, which comes from engagement with the complex, uncontrolled aspects of existence [01:07:05].