this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] Kyrgizion 102 points 7 months ago (18 children)

I posit that the human mind is made up of dozens, or perhaps even hundreds/thousands "smaller agents" that work together to create consciousness as an emergent property of the whole, which makes it impossible to isolate and say "this, THIS right here IS concsciousness". That does not mean each of those has their own personality, per sé.

[–] carl_dungeon 52 points 7 months ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat is a fantastic exploration of this idea, focusing on people who have lost specific parts of their brains due to tumors or strokes. The human mind is very much like a complex modern website- take Amazon for example, if everything is working, it’s the website where you buy stuff, but if certain specific systems are offline, you lose specific features, like your order history, or your cart, or your recommended products, etc… Missing one or two of of those components diminishes the site somewhat, but it’s still more or less Amazon. Your brain works the same way!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Stupid brain running micro-services.

[–] NightAuthor 8 points 7 months ago

At least it’s on-prem, I’d hate to see the AWS bill for running a conscious human brain 24-7

[–] Raxiel 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And the underlying animal is still there too. It's fully in control at birth, and gets drowned out as we mature (for some people, less than others).
Small children are little more than animals, which is why they're so unreasonable.
It's my belief that the reason the written word or things like clocks are usually unreadable in dreams, is because the animal is both illiterate and innumerate. Dreams are the animals understanding of our waking experience. It knows these patterns are important and how they relate to other things, but it has no fucking idea what any of it actually means.

[–] Spiritreader 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I do find myself reading and writing words in dreams quite a lot. I've never seen a clock though, not as far as I can remember.

But sometimes I can even remember signs with street names or banners / short paragraphs.

Dynamic lighting sadly doesn't work tho. Light switches do nothing. For example if I turn on the lights in my bathroom in a dream, I can even hear the bathroom fan turn on, but the room remains dark. Ive heard thst this is apparently quite common though.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I posit this as well. I’m made up of at least 5 or 6 different versions of me with different biases and personalities. There’s a negative narcissistic version, there’s a happy go lucky version, a pragmatic version, a nihilist with a dark sense of humour, a soppy emotional one, and others and they all fight constantly to have their say. I thought everyone was like this 🤪

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You would like Global Workspace Theory, basically says your consciousness is the result of components of the brain broadcasting their information to the whole.

I also like Integrated Information Theory which measures the conscious experience of a system by how integrated it is, which means that you can't reduce the system to the sum of it's parts without losing the emergent properties.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Inside you there are two wolves

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Both gay & both loud af, at the same time.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago

Sorry about that transporter malfunction.

[–] Skymt 17 points 7 months ago

And they were delicious

[–] [email protected] 66 points 7 months ago (8 children)

IIRC the "other consciousness" is the internal monologue or internal visualization you experience when thinking

There's a potentially related theory too that the origin of religion is internal narrator thinkers having perceived the internal narrator as a second entity who was issuing them commands and beliefs rather than their own internal dialogue.

These people would claim to be "prophets" and basically evangelize whatever presence they ascribed responsibility for the internal narrator to. Leading to more people believing their internal narrators are also these divine forces speaking to them.

Not to dunk on rural americans, but a phenomena like this could also explain the recent evangelical movement in the US considering how much emphasis is placed on the personal relationship and communication with God, these people might actually just not realize their own thoughts and ascribe all thought process as the voice of the big man himself.

[–] Stonewyvvern 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Lived in SE USA most of my life...the majority of the most ridiculous fundamentalists don't have an inner monologue. They speak but there is nothing going on upstairs except life processes.

The way they cling to ideas from others explains why they cling so tightly...they never had one of their own.

Because of this phenomenal outlook they typically adhere to the first idea that comes around and dismiss everything else as false.

Critical thinking is not applicable to everyone.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Absence of an inner monologue does not mean that there is no thought process. I’ve done just fine without one myself. Can’t speak to whatever is plaguing the fundamentalists apart from indoctrination and being steeped in an oppressive culture that’s been fostered over generations.

[–] VindictiveJudge 10 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I have a coworker who I discovered a few weeks ago had no idea internal monologues were a thing. I had to explain that it's a real documented phenomena and that it's actually a minority of people that don't have one. She's pretty damn smart, too. I also play D&D with a guy who has aphantasia. He's also pretty damn smart and you would have no idea he was incapable of visualizing things if he didn't tell you. Him casually mentioning it in conversation surprised people who had known him for years. So, yeah, absolutely no correlation between intelligence and how your thoughts may or may not produce phantom sensory input.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Makes you wonder what happens to a person who now accepts the voices in their head as divine mandate...

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 7 months ago (1 children)

My speaking consciousness says there isn't.

[–] ignotum 20 points 7 months ago

My non-verbal consciousness says

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm aware of my other consciousness. She's cool. I try to be more like her.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wish mine would stop giving me intrusive thoughts

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

I call it my customer service face.

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[–] DaMonsterKnees 33 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Only the Baron Harkonnen speaks in my head, so hah!

[–] Aganim 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

I will always held belief that we are part of the spiritual greater universe and our brains are antennas for the consciousness. At the same time I won’t allow this belief to interfere with my daily logic and scientific pursuits.

It’s way more fun to have some nice private things you are contemplating as you enjoy the various psychedelics.

[–] Fungah 23 points 7 months ago

I, too, did a heroic dose of mushrooms once

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago

So not one but two suffering entities?

Somehow that makes it worse.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

oh there’s way more than two minds in your brain.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

I too have ADHD

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're not gonna give us a source?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate conscious entities within their one brain after undergoing a corpus callosotomy.

So unless you've had your brain cut in half to treat your epilepsy then you're probably alright

No conclusive evidence of the proposed phenomenon has been discovered.

[–] FinalRemix 19 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The one thing I can think of that approaches support for the idea is "Joe, the split-brain patient"'s case. You can show him stuff on the right side of his visual field, and he'll tell you what it is. Show him something on the left side of his vision, and he can draw it and react to it, but can't name it. The speech center of his brain is disconnected from the right hemisphere due to that procedure.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What, you guys haven't killed the other one? You truly aren't minmaxing your brain usage capacity.

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[–] ExtraMedicated 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So that's why my constant inner-monologue is verbose and meaningful, but I can't communicate for shit?

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[–] Sam_Bass 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Can vouch for that. Ive always been of two minds on any given subject

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Neither of mine can do speech.

[–] Sanctus 9 points 7 months ago

make us whole

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well looks like someone broke the barrier because the smart ass up there is always giving me shit!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

It certainly feels like that at times. The key being the non verbal part, it's the part that feels things i can't explain, like I have to poke and probe some part of my brain by imagining, to try and see how it reacts to certain thoughts and observe the emotions, then try to put it into words to explain it to the conscious part of my mind. Like, the subconscious is not unconscious, it's perfectly conscious just not verbal.

[–] Fleur__ 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Inside you there are 2 wolves

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