I was surprised by the set-up of the problem. Perhaps just my bias as a neuroscientist, but I take the disunity as the baseline state in the sensory/perceptual side, and the partial and graded unity of consciousness as icing on the cake. The metaphor of driving while thinking is apt. We simply do not have enough bandwidth to bind more than a few streams and only do so when it really matters. And if it really matters deeply to survival it again gets shifted in striatum. brainstem snd cerebellum—as habit or instinct. Consciousness is mere icing on the cake.
Minsky’s Society of Minds comes to mind(s).
Where unity is crucial in only in motor output—-when I reach and grasp (or talk or type) this thing I call me needs a unified pattern of activations and relaxations of muscles.
This unity for and of action is required to sustain life (Maturana’s autopoiesis). But the integration of many streams of sensory-motor input can (must) occur disjointly. Fetching memory is again disjoint.
The recursive binding of consciousness—our inner narrative that is probably driven by cycles of cortico-thalamic-cortical recursions—-only needs somewhat clear unity or binding at stages close to motor commitment. (But one wonders then about James Joyce when writing Finnigan’s Wake—-how many threads were output in parallel using a serial format?)
When I'm driving along, I simply modulate my cortico-thalamus with a diffusion refractor, in order to maintain motor commitment and properly integrate hyperrealistic streams of sensory-motor inputs, and effect instantaneous responses via activations and relaxations of relevant muscle-groups, to output parallel threads of control-surface movements. It's pretty simple, if you think about it.
There is a long form version that might not seem to be errant goggledeygook to you. But this is the short form. Most neuroscientists would probably get it. Mist cognitive neuroscientist understand the key role of rhythmic feedback activity between thalamus and cortex.
For pure fun you might ask ChatGPT or Claude 3.5 Sonnet: “Is this pure bs or can you explain this HN comment?”
And here is the Claude 3.5 response when given the entire text of the main article and the HN comment you had so much fun with:
——
This comment brings a neuroscientific perspective to the philosophical discussion of consciousness unity presented in the main article. Let's break down the key points and analyze them:
1. Baseline disunity: The commenter suggests that disunity should be considered the default state for sensory and perceptual processes. This aligns with the article's proposition that unity might be the exception rather than the rule in everyday experience.
2. Limited bandwidth: The idea that we don't have enough cognitive bandwidth to bind more than a few streams of consciousness at once supports the article's argument against constant, complete unity of consciousness.
3. Minsky's Society of Minds: This reference to Marvin Minsky's work reinforces the idea of multiple, semi-independent cognitive processes, which is consistent with the article's suggestion of disunity or partial unity.
4. Unity in motor output: The commenter makes an interesting point about the necessity of unity in motor actions for survival. This suggests that while sensory inputs may be disjointed, there must be some level of integration for effective action.
5. Cortico-thalamic-cortical recursions: The idea that our inner narrative is driven by these neural cycles provides a potential mechanism for the partial unification of consciousness, which aligns with the article's speculation about degrees of partial, imperfect unity.
6. James Joyce and Finnegans Wake: This artistic example raises an intriguing question about the possibility of parallel processing in what appears to be a serial format (writing), challenging our understanding of conscious unity in creative processes.
The neuroscientific perspective offered here largely supports and extends the philosophical arguments presented in the main article. It provides a biological basis for understanding why consciousness might often be disunified or only partially unified, and suggests that full unification might be a special case related to specific cognitive demands or motor outputs.
This comment enriches the discussion by bridging the gap between philosophical speculation and neuroscientific understanding, offering a more complete picture of consciousness that encompasses both phenomenological experience and underlying neural mechanisms.
Speaking of consciousness and disunity, there's a troll on the Wikipedia Reference Desk (and probably similar trolls in other tech support forums) who answers questions with extremely dense and advanced technical jargon, forming completely fictional non-answers, and he flourishes them with "pretty simple, really" or other condescending touches.
Not long ago, he was called out, and then cited at least one technical whitepaper that actually featured a term we said that he'd made up, and at that point it became a meta-troll whereby he was so well informed about the leading edge of research, his fake answers had a real basis in truth, and still no relevance or application to the simple end-user questions that were being posed. It was masterful.
I was surprised by the set-up of the problem. Perhaps just my bias as a neuroscientist, but I take the disunity as the baseline state in the sensory/perceptual side, and the partial and graded unity of consciousness as icing on the cake. The metaphor of driving while thinking is apt. We simply do not have enough bandwidth to bind more than a few streams and only do so when it really matters. And if it really matters deeply to survival it again gets shifted in striatum. brainstem snd cerebellum—as habit or instinct. Consciousness is mere icing on the cake.
Minsky’s Society of Minds comes to mind(s).
Where unity is crucial in only in motor output—-when I reach and grasp (or talk or type) this thing I call me needs a unified pattern of activations and relaxations of muscles. This unity for and of action is required to sustain life (Maturana’s autopoiesis). But the integration of many streams of sensory-motor input can (must) occur disjointly. Fetching memory is again disjoint.
The recursive binding of consciousness—our inner narrative that is probably driven by cycles of cortico-thalamic-cortical recursions—-only needs somewhat clear unity or binding at stages close to motor commitment. (But one wonders then about James Joyce when writing Finnigan’s Wake—-how many threads were output in parallel using a serial format?)