[ExI] Possible seat of consciousness found

Henrik Ohrstrom henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com
Sun Feb 16 12:38:59 UTC 2020


Seems like the discussion is back at :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
Again........

My personal take on this is that consciousness is variable and subject to
conditions surrounding the person/subject.
When I am stressed enough, tired enough or in other ways impaired (not
drunk since university) I do not think that I am properly conscious.

At the same time I do know that I can exhibit a behaviour that my
surroundings interpretate as intelligent.

(How is that I know such things?
As an senior anesthetist, I do get to experience that level of stress more
often than I enjoy.)

Anyway if in an situation where your physical incarnation ( what is the
term for everything you that is not the conscious part ?)  needs to act
fast and follow a more or less automated program, then your consciousness
is a hindrance and if it interferes with proceedings you loose time and
effectiveness.

So when writing a lecture my consciousness is up front, when my RN has
fumbled an intubation, or in the trauma room,  I most certainly am not
leading with conscious thought.
The rest of the day my conscious is dealing with logistics and some other
part of me is handling the hands on stuff.

Do this answer anything useful about qualia? Heck of I know.
But I would like to. Know about true qualia that is.

Next thought, in my daily grind there are also patients with chronic and
acute pain, most of which are not pain free and won't ever be. What can be
done to help them? (Painlessness is an illusion, not an option.)
Modify the qualia of their pain and existence, that is what we can work
with. Change the pain qualia from unbearable pain to bearable pain and you
have done the patient a great service.

Can a subject with disputable consciousness feel the qualia of pain?
This is in the same category as tree fall forest sound stuff. If we block
the expression of pain in a sedated body (is there an consciousness? I
don't know) is there pain if there's no one to feel it?
Seems like there's not. When we quit sedation and allow whatever level of
consciousness to return, the patient do not express any signs of problems
related to the pain.
IE perform surgery on a patient who is treated with propofol ( hypnotic
agent with dubious pain effectiveness) block sympathetic response to pain
with ultrafast beta-blocker ( that is surgery without pain medication) and
both surgeon and patient are happy afterwards.
This always make me feel qualia-schmalia.......

/Henrik

Den sön 16 feb. 2020 12:34John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev:

> On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 8:08 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> > *Hi John, **What does evolution and all you are saying here, have to do
>> with whether something is bound into you composit conscious awareness or
>> not?*
>>
>
> Can intelligent behavior exist without consciousness or can it not?
>
> If it can then consciousness is not needed from Evolution's point of view
> and so could not have produced it. So how did a conscious being like you
> get here?
>
> If you can not have intelligent behavior without consciousness then logically
> you'd have no more reason to think a AI was a zombie than to think a
> intelligent human was a zombie. As for me I don't believe in zombies.
>
>  John K Clark
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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