Why are we no soulless automatons?

[Terxpahseyton]

I brought this up before, but this time I wanted to dedicate to it its very own thread. It deserves this because to me it is the only grand mystery of our time.

Why are we no soulless automatons?

I just can not make sense of it, I have no answer, it just seems utterly strange and mysterious to me.

The more we know about our bodies and specifically about our brain the more everything seems to indicate that there is nothing mysterious about how our bodies function. It is just a particular organized and at the same time complex conglomerate of matter following the same old laws of nature as everything else.
There is no "soul" controlling things. No magic.
Yet - somehow - a new sphere of reality is born by it. This sphere is our stream of consciousness. "It is alive!" And not just in the biological sense, but in a sense natural science can not begin to comprehend. And frankly, nor can I.

Why are we alive? Why is our body not a soulless automaton?
"It is the brain" you may say, believing to have answered my question. But it is only a specification of the question. Why is our brain not a soulless automaton, then?

We have some hints. The brain has a very unique structure. It sorta is a stable interacting electricity grid. So one may say being alive is related to electricity and interaction. On the other hand, feelings seem to rest on chemical compounds. So perhaps electricity is just the carrier, and the chemical... I stop right there. It gets me nowhere. I can think about it all I want - in the end it is an utter mystery.
There is soulless matter - BAM - there is awareness? How does this make sense. Where did it come from?

 

[Borachio]

Dunno.

Consciousness, and more especially self-consciousness, is a profound mystery. I suspect it will remain one for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, the mystery may unravel very soon.

 

[Kyriakos]

FWIW there are very obvious relations between 'abnormal' mental states (eg unhealthy ones, like major depression) and gradual collapse of the rest of the body. Moreover we do not consciously control the body functions to any significant degree. Some realms of the mind which are not conscious to us (and for good reason) direct how much of X substance is sent to what organ and so on, to maintain a good bodily state

 

[warpus]

Maybe we are? Who's to say?

Personally I think we have a bit of an illusion of free will, while for the most part we are highly complex pattern recognition machines with digital watches on our hands and pants on our butts. We walk around and think that we're making decisions, but for the most part those have been made behind the scenes by "automated" subconscious processes. All the conscious part of your mind does is look around at stuff and every once in a while override one of or two of those decisions.

How would a "soulless" automaton behave? Maybe it'd behave exactly like one of us?

I also think that one of the big keys to consciousness is the meta nature of our brain. It's got layers stacked on top of layers, each one more complex. And somehow near or at the top of all that complexity is your consious - a thread of your mind that's almost analogous to a computer's clock.

I guess maybe you should ask yourself whether a dog is a soulless automaton? How about squirrel? A plant? A bacteria? Where do you draw the line? I don't think there is a line, it's just that our brain's structure has given rise to a conscious that is far more able than the conscious of a dog or a squirrel. Why? I guess complexity, but the details I have no idea about. I've heard it explained as parts of the brain looking in on themselves, each layer looking down below, and the mind being constructed in such meta way, in the end breaking some threshold and giving us that illusion that "we" are fully in charge.

I also think that this is just a good way of doing things, in terms of evolution. A central conscious thread that gets to override decisions? Sounds a lot better than just an animal responding to its stimuli automatically. It often works, but sometimes you need to be a bit more clever than that. So maybe the answer is just "this is what we turned into, because this is what helped us adapt and survive." Imagine if you were intelligent, but didn't have a conscious - everything running behind the scenes in subconscious threads? That seems a bit crazy to me. Maybe a creature just needs that central feeling of "me". Maybe without it there would be no balance and the creature would just not get anything done. Maybe that's why we have no direct access to our subconscious - imagine how many decisions get made behind the scenes without you knowing. Now imagine having to listen to every single decision. It would be insane. Maybe this is just the optimal setup for survival for a creature with a complex brain like ours.

 

[Borachio]

There is soulless matter - BAM - there is awareness? How does this make sense. Where did it come from?

Are you sure that matter is "soulless"?

If consciousness is an intrinsic molecular attribute, human consciousness becomes less of mystery.

As for how one might determine whether a single molecule has "soul" or not, I couldn't begin to guess.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe we are? Who's to say?

Personally I think we have a bit of an illusion of free will, while for the most part we are highly complex pattern recognition machines with digital watches on our hands and pants on our butts. We walk around and think that we're making decisions, but for the most part those have been made behind the scenes by "automated" subconscious processes. All the conscious part of your mind does is look around at stuff and every once in a while override one of or two of those decisions.

How would a "soulless" automaton behave? Maybe it'd behave exactly like one of us?

I also think that one of the big keys to consciousness is the meta nature of our brain. It's got layers stacked on top of layers, each one more complex. And somehow near or at the top of all that complexity is your consious - a thread of your mind that's almost analogous to a computer's clock.

I guess maybe you should ask yourself whether a dog is a soulless automaton? How about squirrel? A plant? A bacteria? Where do you draw the line? I don't think there is a line, it's just that our brain's structure has given rise to a conscious that is far more able than the conscious of a dog or a squirrel. Why? I guess complexity, but the details I have no idea about. I've heard it explained as parts of the brain looking in on themselves, each layer looking down below, and the mind being constructed in such meta way, in the end breaking some threshold and giving us that illusion that "we" are fully in charge.

I also think that this is just a good way of doing things, in terms of evolution. A central conscious thread that gets to override decisions? Sounds a lot better than just an animal responding to its stimuli automatically. It often works, but sometimes you need to be a bit more clever than that. So maybe the answer is just "this is what we turned into, because this is what helped us adapt and survive." Imagine if you were intelligent, but didn't have a conscious - everything running behind the scenes in subconscious threads? That seems a bit crazy to me. Maybe a creature just needs that central feeling of "me". Maybe without it there would be no balance and the creature would just not get anything done. Maybe that's why we have no direct access to our subconscious - imagine how many decisions get made behind the scenes without you knowing. Now imagine having to listen to every single decision. It would be insane. Maybe this is just the optimal setup for survival for a creature with a complex brain like ours.

I agree with all the above (apart from the free will intro)

In fact it seems there are trillions of processes running in the mind all the time, and only the tiniest fraction can ever become 'conscious', since after a point you would have to consciously keep track of thousands of patterns and choices each minute. Which is obviously quite dangerous, and pretty much (in the end) against your ability to survive...

 

[Borachio]

Yes, but...

This self-consciousness is what we call ourselves, isn't it? This is the experience we have of ourselves. It seems to be endlessly recursive.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, but...

This self-consciousness is what we call ourselves, isn't it? This is the experience we have of ourselves. It seems to be endlessly recursive.

I am not sure what that word exactly means, but:

re·cur·sion (rĭ-kûr′zhən)
n. Mathematics
1. An expression, such as a polynomial, each term of which is determined by application of a formula to preceding terms.
2. A formula that generates the successive terms of a recursion.

I suppose it means that something is examined in relation to a specific part of it already 'defined' in an axiom? So all other parts follow the original definition?

Well, a person's consciousness is the only actual "personal" sense one has of his existence. The unconscious may be vast, but does not have to be sensed, a bit like a typhoon won't be sensed if you are quite away from it despite being in the same weather system.

Of course the unconscious is linked to the conscious in many more pronounced ways too..

 

[Borachio]

It's endlessly recursive in the sense that you're self-conscious i.e. conscious of yourself, but also conscious of your own self-consciousness, and conscious of being conscious of your own self-consciousness, and so on.

At some stage, though, the mind refuses to think anymore about it. And becomes strangely quiet.

Paradoxically, it seems, at that moment you become more truly yourself.

At least, if I've understood the matter correctly. Which is very far from certain.

 

[IglooDame]

I brought this up before, but this time I wanted to dedicate to it its very own thread. It deserves this because to me it is the only grand mystery of our time.

Why are we no soulless automatons?

"we"? Please speak for yourself.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's endlessly recursive in the sense that you're self-conscious i.e. conscious of yourself, but also conscious of your own self-consciousness, and conscious of being conscious of your own self-consciousness, and so on.

At some stage, though, the mind refuses to think anymore about it. And becomes strangely quiet.

Hm, during my early uni years (when i was 18,5 years old) i was very focused on similar issues, and more specifically an attempt to define what a thought is in relation to the thinker of the thought. Ie i tried to distance myself from the thoughts i was making, so as to notice what relation they have in consciousness in regards to my 'Ego' consciousness.

It was a very dangerous topic to be examining, and I have not returned to it since many years now. One can create horrible destabilisations in one's own mental world, and that is always a bad idea cause (as said) no one can actually be an Atlas and take conscious control of any significant part of his own unconscious mental world..

 

[Kennigit]

curse you parallel processing!

 

[Borachio]

I'm really not sure there's a good analogy to be made between software and mental processes.

My thought processes are more than just rather complicated routines. Otherwise one would have to admit that computers are in some sense conscious. I rather think they simply aren't. (Unless, of course, all matter can be thought of as being conscious to some, albeit primitive, degree.)

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm really not sure there's a good analogy to be made between software and mental processes.

My thought processes are more than just rather complicated routines. Otherwise one would have to admit that computers are in some sense conscious. I rather think they simply aren't. (Unless, of course, all matter can be thought of as being conscious to some, albeit primitive, degree.)

And even if all matter could be seen as "conscious" like that, it is highly unlikely it would be including any consciousness of the aspects/traits or procedures we attribute to it. Whereas we always can discuss with other people about our personal consciousness.

Of course maybe on another plane we are the rocks and the rocks there are highly sentient and talking and throwing us up and down or building stuff with us

 

[Perfection]

I'm really not sure there's a good analogy to be made between software and mental processes.

My thought processes are more than just rather complicated routines. Otherwise one would have to admit that computers are in some sense conscious. I rather think they simply aren't. (Unless, of course, all matter can be thought of as being conscious to some, albeit primitive, degree.)

Even if thought processes are software, there is no need for all software to have consciousness. Thus is perfectly cogent to say that human brains are conscious while all current computer software routines are not.

 

[warpus]

I agree with all the above (apart from the free will intro)

In fact it seems there are trillions of processes running in the mind all the time, and only the tiniest fraction can ever become 'conscious', since after a point you would have to consciously keep track of thousands of patterns and choices each minute. Which is obviously quite dangerous, and pretty much (in the end) against your ability to survive...

It's like when you're walking down the street and start thinking "left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg", and end up sucking at walking somehow by actively trying to be really good at it. Then it takes a while for you to get back into a good walking rhythm and you end up feeling like an idiot. Yes brain, I get it, I should not be in charge of walking.

Yes, but...

This self-consciousness is what we call ourselves, isn't it? This is the experience we have of ourselves. It seems to be endlessly recursive.

Recursion is a funny thing. I have a hunch that it's key to the mystery somehow, but I don't dare speculate. I guess it might be tied to the whole layers of the brain thing, and each layer "looking down", but who knows.

 

[CavLancer]

Humanity needs a hive mind. Or... maybe not.

 

[Borachio]

Even if thought processes are software, there is no need for all software to have consciousness. Thus is perfectly cogent to say that human brains are conscious while all current computer software routines are not.

I can only draw your attention to this sentence of mine:

(Unless, of course, all matter can be thought of as being conscious to some, albeit primitive, degree.)

I suggest that if human brains are conscious and their workings are analogous to software, then computers must also be so in some proto-conscious way.

 

[Cutlass]

"we"? Please speak for yourself.

That is almost character for character what I was planning on posting.

 

[Borachio]

But wait... is the question for you, then, "Why are we soul-less automatons"?

Or do you perhaps take it for granted that you are soul-less automatons?