When I used play soccer regularly, I'd occasionally experience being "in the zone". It's a blissful experience where my body is able to execute incredibly complex set of moves in perfect coordination as my mind enters a state of zen-like calm.<p>The sensation is almost like a being spectator in my own body. My brain feels like it's been relieved of the task of managing the moment-to-moment decision. Instead I start noticing moves 3, 4 steps ahead as time slows to a crawl around me. I don't know if this type of experience is related in any way to the theory of consciousness, but it feels like the unconscious mind holds a lot of secrets that I'd love to see unlocked in my lifetime.
There's a rumored experiment called the "precognitive carousel", supposedly run by Grey Walter, where:<p>(1) Subjects are told to push a button to advance a slide projector carousel, but not told that the button is inert<p>(2) The carousel advances based on electrical signals measured by wires on the subjects' scalp.<p>(3) Subjects supposedly report the uncanny feeling that the projector advances "just before" they were about to push the button -- 300-400 milliseconds before, a pretty long time.<p>I read about this a long time ago in a since-deleted post on an old timey internet forum (everything2).<p>The writer suggested this research supports the idea that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own.
I realize that the link between consciousness and quantum effects are far from proven but if you will entertain the idea that they are...<p>Delayed-choice experiments demonstrate the seeming ability of measurements in the present to alter events occurring in the past. eg. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser</a><p>Now I'll throw out another completely unprovable thought...<p>Perhaps consciousness has the ability to affect how wavefunction collapse occurs, perhaps it even has the ability to influence the observed outcome.<p>I'm not going to try to prove these two ideas but together they can help form an idea that perhaps observations on the past actually influence the past and perhaps despite this 'observation after the fact' there's still free will.<p>It's not provable but then neither is the "there's no such thing as free will" arguments that this sort of research leads to. The point of the above is to highlight that there's still a way out for free will.
I'm not a psych expert, but I thought this was long established. I mean we've known about the delays in processing for quite some time and thus the system can't be "real time". I mean everyone has experienced things where they are doing something, walk by, then turn around to check what they just saw because the process delay (not everything is put on the fast track).<p>Or am I misunderstanding the novelty of the research here? Hoping someone can help me understand better.
I fail to see the helpfulness of describing or defining something we do not understand in terms of something related we equally do not understand, „understand“ here in the sense of „have a clear theory that gives meaning to the words we use“.
In relation to the problem of how qualitative self-aware experiences can arise in a biological information system this article does not seem to help at all.
Is the statement really „consciousness“ in the sense just vaguely described is just „memories“? Then what are memories? How can they have qualities and where does the self awareness come from? How to model it mathematically?
I feel we’re still in the age of the humoral theory of consciousness.
I have an analogy that for me defines the difference between conscious and unconscious.<p>I imagine myself sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee in front of me. I wonder how that cup makes it to my mouth and eventually the contents to my stomach? What part of me does the work of picking up the cup, guiding it to my mouth, swallowing and ensuring it does not end up in my lungs and finally ensuring that the cup returns to the table.<p>All I do in that instance is consciously think to myself: "I want a drink of coffee" (not even politely). The rest is done by the unconscious. The next morning I attempt to get out of bed <i>conscisously</i>, trying to remember in which order, which muscles need to be triggered to move my legs. Eventually I just give the command "I want to get out of bed" and in an instant I'm out of bed.<p>Riding a bike: how times to I <i>conscisously</i> think to push down my right leg while pulling up my left and reversing that order for the next stroke?<p>I find it fascinating what the unconscious does: muscle memory, instinct, reflex, feelings etc are all things that are controlled by the unconscious. I try to do meditate as a way to connect to that unconscious, to obtain some of its advice - since I believe that the unconscious is not just the muscle-driver, there is a lot more intellectually that my unconscious does.
Direct link, dodging the Reader-mode-defeating pop-science piece:<p><a href="https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consciousness_as_a_Memory_System.19.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consci...</a>
<i>New</i> theory? You can find this claim at the Encyclopedia, in Condillac, in La Mettrie, in last Descartes’ works, etc. Imagination and Memory has been pivotal to explain consciousness for a long time…
The phenomenologists, most notably Husserl, had this figured out about a hundred years ago.<p>What the authors did here was reground it in neuroscience (scientific materialism) rather than the generic philosophical primitives of phenomenology (which in this case fade into the background a bit, although they remain relevant to all empirical work per se), and draw out some of the impacts of that shift.
This reminds me of Bergson's theory of memory and present consciousness. In his essay "Memory of the Present and False Recognition", he argued that memory and present consciousness are the same, and what changes is a sort of "past tag" that is associated with the memory flow. He saw déjà vu as a mistaken tagging of the present flow, which we then perceive as past
I heard before that consciousness thinks it's the president, but is actually the press secretary.<p>When I think about why I did something, I always have an answer. But, like the press secretary asked about the president, maybe its just a confabulation based on the evidence at hand?<p>Is consciousness just retroactively rationalizing the things that take place and thinking it did them?<p>I'm not even sure how to process that.<p>Stranger To Ourselves is a fascinating book about the ways experiments have shown that many things happen outside conscious control.
I might be missing something, but this feels like a nothingburger to me. Obviously our understanding, reasoning and perception of reality is a kaleidoscope of memories and previous perceptions.<p>We couldn't ever "manually" or "consciously" parse raw sensory input and craft the proper neural responses to everything. It has all been pre-processed to hell way before it reaches our conscious little guy in the high tower.<p>Same thing the other way, the decisions of our mind are mere nudges to more autonomous systems. Even now, you aren't consciously and methodically scanning these words. You decided to read it, and the actual physical and mental operation of reading takes care of itself more or less. It has been delegated.<p>Likewise, it seems logical that these autonomous systems could act on their own if the input is too dank or if you are trained enough. I'm thinking of panic responses, reflexive behavior, flow states, etc. Sometimes it's not optimal to wait for the little guy to make a decision.<p>Isn't it obvious that our consciousness sits on top of a layer cake of abstractions? You could call it an "inner simulation" or a "hall of memories" if you want, it's all the same.
This reminded me of the Bicameral Mind - where (in humans pre-conscious state) memories in half the brain got triggered by experiences and were presented to the other half as commands/words of god.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality</a>
A (probably insane, ill-conceived) question I’ve been entertained by for as long as I can remember is <i>whether or not “qualia”, which I understand to be “the experience itself of consciousness”, is a physical phenomenon that could ever be directly engaged with on physical terms.</i> I suppose it’s basically a mix of relativity and Descartes. For instance, I can “feel myself here in my mental space”, however where is that mental space in relation to the physical world I’m using it to observe, what would be the SI units for such a measurement? If we assume consciousness itself is a physical phenomenon, wouldn’t the reality from the perspective of consciousness be equally as… how do I say this, “mechanically relevant”?<p>I doubt an answer will come in my lifetime or my great grandchildren’s but it seems like a crowning achievement for mankind to understand in physical terms if possible from whence consciousness came, and to where it goes when the body dies.<p>Like I said, insane.
For all its use of the term time, for example “backward in time” or “does consciousness flow linearly with time,” there is no definition of time itself provided in the article. I had hoped the Definitions section would at least acknowledge some concept of time.<p>I suppose we all collectively agree on some generic concept of a fourth dimension with a strictly forward movement of instances, a progression toward entropy, but if the theory is going to argue temporal transcendance I’d expect a more formal thesis around what time itself is.<p>I’ve picked up this book but yet to read it. It’s on my list when I get the time.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book)" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book)</a>
My favourite consciousness theory is panpsychism, where consciousness is a property of the universe which all things have - given that a personal experience is by definition not measurable, there's no reason it's not as valid as others.
Imagine that you were given a strange job where you rode along with the sensory experiences of a mute person, writing their dialog for them. They can hear the dialog you give, including inaudible asides left only for them. You saw and felt all that they see and feel but you can't control their behavior. The job requires you to never admit the situation to anyone, you have to always pretend to <i>be</i> the person under penalty of death, even when talking to them. They're 20 years old now and you've been doing this job your entire life.<p>How could someone distinguish this setup from how we normally perceive our minds as working?
> Yup, it’s a zoo of theories out there.<p>For a quick skim, this looks like a rehash of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism</a>
What is the premise of this first paragraph, why do people feel like they need to introduce this fluff:<p><pre><code> > "Sitting on the Marine Atlantic ferry, I’m watching the Newfoundland skyline disappear on the horizon as I type away. I see the rocking of the ocean waves, inhale its salty breeze, feel and hear the buzz of the ship’s rumbling engine. I try to focus on writing this sentence, but my eyes hopefully scan the ocean for a rogue, splashing whale."
</code></pre>
Nice, you took a boat once and you wanted to see some whales, not what I came here for.
I was thinking recently about how we seem to have an uncanny ability to remember shared information that is important to <i>us</i>. It's so easy to forget the myriad details of our lives and everyday interactions, but we always seem to be <i>keenly</i> aware of who we told what, and who knows what - at least about things we personally have an emotional investment in. I'll easily forget serious, significant information that a person has told me that has no specific bearing on me. For example, a loved one dying. Yet, I would never forget that I told that same person a comparatively trivial detail that happens to be important to me, like a potential damaging secret I've told them but few other people (such as cheating on a partner).<p>Our brains seem quit intent on remembering things that can result in an acute emotional response. And our brains seem incredibly unreliable on almost everything else! To the point that we have to develop tricks an strategies to get our brains to remember things that are emotionally arbitrary. Like math.<p>Also...<p>"In other words, it’s mainly the unconscious mind at the wheel."<p>But we all already know that, right?
The bottom line I think is that the brain is a complex assembly of parts responsible for a huge variety of cognitive processes, and only some of those are directly involved in conscious thought. Biological systems are often crazily interconnected with each other, with feedback loops on top of feedback loops, and the brain is no exception.<p>Sometimes we consciously think through what we are doing and make reasoned decisions, especially when learning to perform a new task. As we repeat the task and it’s variations we can learn to do it more automatically, less consciously. This could be a physical task like playing table tennis, but it can also be something like giving a public speech off the cuff.<p>When you’re having a conversation you often aren’t thinking it through word by word, you’re thinking at a high level consciously, but the stream of words just emerges far too fast for each phrase to be consciously selected and considered. So even speech, something we think of as most closely associated with consciousness, is in many cases an automatic activity. This is how we sometimes come to Mis-speak and say things we didn’t mean.
The problem with thoughts like these are they aren’t practical as anything but a source of speculative entertainment. If this theory was factual then knowing that doesn’t change how I perceive the world. Knowing this theory also doesn’t bring me any new definite insights in the study of life that I could sue to launch off more research into. This is an interesting thing to think about but it’s not too useful
> “We don’t perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them.”<p>> For now, the theory is just that—a theory. But viewing consciousness through the lens of a memory system ...<p>For me it is absolutely not surprising that consciousness follows an action, because it appears to be some sort of self observation, which is what philosophers at least since the enlightment period (the German idealists for exmaple) were speculating about. To proceed an action would be magic, because how could you experience something before the fact. And to happen at the same time would also be magic, because our brains are spacial systems were signals need time to travel through a (real) neural network.<p>So the only interesting question here is whether consciousness is based upon the same brain structures as "ordinary" memory, or on a distinct one, or a combination of both.
This seems intuitively true to me. Most of our conscious cognition works on and with memories, it's like a snapshot of what we think happened at any moment.<p>It's that feeling when you "discover" your reaction to something after the fact.. Like, someone says something unexpected and you've already answered before you become aware of what was said..<p>It also happens often whenever you're in the zone of doing something, you really get to take the backseat and watch the trip.. Like playing very fast paced videogames like devil daggers, you're observing yourself from a distance, as the stimuli is processed, and you make judgements on your reactions, notes for next time and so on.. Which demonstrates this temporal disconnect between your actions and your experience of them clearly.
The thing that we must remember is that evolution is not conscious.<p>It’s such a complex system that the functions of each part don’t fit the way we humans to talk about things.<p>We say “those are memories” but in the brain very few things are “one thing”. Almost always they <i>work similarly to</i> several things, interlinked in often seemingly random ways.<p>The way definitions work in the brain is similar to political parties; you might find one that you agree with in 70% of the time, but the other 30% is nonsense.<p>It could be that they are using the same circuit as memories <i>except for a series of very subtle change in one specific part of the brain</i> that makes them feel totally different from regular memories, similarly to how a little bit of salt can elevate one dish from regular to excellent.
My thoughts, from internal monolog to biases and other content make a lot more sense when I view them as my subconscious explaining action it has already taken or decided upon than as actual fresh thoughts. Similarly, there have been times (fist fights, emergencies etc) where some deep level of my brain has acted with no conscience thought at all. However these actions were still 100% aligned with the conscience me, the same motivations etc.<p>I have always wondered whether what we call consciousness is not just empathy directed inwards: Empathy is when I look at someone else and work out what they are feeling and what they will do, using the same process to explain my own feelings and behaviour to myself is just called consciousness instead...
Isn't this just trivially true? Obviously remembering past events is very similar to experiencing the present? We didn't even think we were clever when we stated this as teenage existentialists, how could it really be otherwise?<p>In a way it seems to be mostly a semantic question.<p>The interesting bit is to what extent it leads to the conclusion that our conscious mind is not in charge. In some sense that's again trivially true, we only consciously process a tiny fraction of the information we receive, yet we act on a lot more of it, for example when running on a stony trail.<p>But we can also obviously consciously control our actions on the multi-second timeframe, like "I should have a glass of water, let's go to the tap".
It's sort of obvious that these concepts of consciousness and memory are related. To be conscious (aware) of something, there must be a memory of it, right? Otherwise, does it really matter.<p>It makes me think about the drugs that disrupt memory, like midazolam. If you're undergoing a procedure with "conscious sedation," you may be, for fleeting periods, aware of certain things, but these drugs effectively reduce that memory duration to near-zero. And in that case, there's hardly a different between not feeling pain because you're unconscious and feeling pain for an infinitesimal period because you're unable to remember the prior period's experience.
> Rather than perceiving the world in real time, we’re actually experiencing a memory of that perception.<p>I’ve had a similar theory. I say that we perceive the world (or time) as if looking behind through the rear window of a forward moving car. We can only see past events.
Analogizing with software engineering, this stuff becomes funny:<p>- software is all about adding numbers, new study finds<p>- software is all about calling functions, says new theory<p>- software is all about objects, say scientists<p>- software is all about virtual machines, according to new discovery
This theory (basically that we act instinctively then after acting the process of remembering that action lets us form an explanation) won't surprise anyone who has read <i>Thinking, Fast and Slow</i>.<p>It has analogies the the field of "explainable AI" too, where systems take decisions neural networks make, probe the boundaries of them and attempt to present them in ways we can understand.<p>It strikes me as plausible that what we call consciousnesses (as well as "intelligence") arise from the information compression process this explanation requires.
It feels like this is just a play on words. Consider a camera connected to a monitor. The camera captures 24 frames a second and sends the images to the monitor via a cable. The monitor displays this "live" feed.<p>Is it really live though? There are multiple buffers and busses that the images have traveled through, sometimes even staying in one place for many milliseconds, as some resource lock is being acquired. Despite all this, would you say that the monitor is displaying stored data? Technically yes, but for all practical purposes no.
What a great theory, I really like this. It makes sense in the context of a lot of things, but one that stands out to me is blacking out while drinking. Drinking too much essentially causes you to enter a walking zombie state where you are behaving and acting essentially normally, but you don’t remember a bit of it later.<p>I always figured that was a result of memory not forming… so we just forgot all that stuff. But the idea that we are actually ‘unconcious’ during that time is an interesting alternative hypothesis.
This 'memories' theory is a well-established model of how our senses work anyway - your brain synthesises inputs from multiple sources into what feels like a single experience of your surroundings.<p>This is vital from a survival standpoint because 0.2 seconds of ping between seeing and hearing without your brain telling you they happened simultaneously would be debilitating.<p>The same thing happens with the sensation of "flavour" (smell + taste).
This is kind of obvious. All experience is tied to memory; this is nothing new. As far as immediate agency, there is most definitely a latency between a willful act, whether conscious or unconscious, and the perception of that act's accomplishment, and this latency is perceived by the memory of it being done. It is an illusionary mechanism and the brain has plenty of those.
The only thing I can add to this discussion is I know my consciousness exists and has causal powers. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you about it. If it didn't have causal powers, the consciousness would have no way of making ourselves talk about it. The body would have no idea it's there.
Recent article on this topic. Off late am curious to know more on consciousness. <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness" rel="nofollow">https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-probl...</a>
> In other words, it’s mainly the unconscious mind at the wheel.<p>I'm always surprised this is introduced as news.<p>It seems to me that since the first half of the 20th century, there has been a continuous stream of evidence that the consciousness is, at best, a first class citizen but certainly not the main driver anymore.
Well, I'm not sure I can agree completely because the way I think of consciousness is that it's the body's UI to the world, but it's obvious that memory plays a central role there. Pretty much everything the article proposes has analogies in computer UIs.
Ibogaine. A movie screen opens in your mind and every memory since birth is re/played. So they say. Authors may want to look into that one.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine</a>
I'm probably not the first to point this out, but isn't this crossing the spam line pretty hard?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=singularityhub.com" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=singularityhub.com</a>
I've always lived by 3 rules:<p>- This moment is only a memory, for me and others, try to make it one worth remembering.<p>- No one can change me except for myself.<p>- Do whatever you want, as long as you're willing to pay the price and accept the consequences.<p>It's funny to see the first rule is quite literal.
Interesting concept, and plenty of good discussion and criticism in other comments.<p>One thing in particular from the article that I found especially objectionable:<p>> For now, the theory is just that—a theory.<p>This is a <i>conjecture</i>. I expect better from science journalism.
People in comments mention that this is old news. But doesn't these findings reframe conversation about self-control and addiction, for example? Or about other , less harming personally traits?<p>What are consequences of this new knowledge?
Interesting, those looking for similar ideas may look into memetic theory. "The meme machine" by Blackmore and not exactly related but a great book that invented the word meme is "The selfish gene" by Dawkins
I choose to believe in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_tVzx_PIH8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_tVzx_PIH8</a>
My guess would be that this is highly dependent on personality type. It is certainly true for types, such as the INTJ, who holds sensory information at a distance, and instead orients himself using a constantly updated inner map of the world. but that doesn’t mean that they are not people out there for whom “being in the here and now“ isn’t their baseline experience.
I often wonder if humans spent as much time studying the brain as we do getting people to click on ads how much progress we could make in understanding consciousness. Seems like there is so much low hanging fruit and very few real breakthroughs. The biggest mystery in the universe is staring us right in the face.
I don't know how they reconcile this theory with everyday activities.<p>When I'm reading, my eyes movement scanning the page must be in sync with my perception and reading or the words. I'm not reading words that my eyes scanned half a second ago. Otherwise I'd be "reading" the last word of a line when my eyes are already at the start of the next line?<p>To take another example, when I'm cooking, my hands movement are certainly in real-time sync with what is happening at that very moment in the real world, otherwise I'd have few remaining fingers after cutting a few vegetables.<p>I'm no claiming that perception is instantaneous, but clearly we do many activities successfully that implicitly require perceptions to be near real-time.<p>If the theory is correct but the timing difference is small enough that these objection go away, then I feel the theory is just a change of nomenclature. What they call memory is just the perception delay.