My hot take of the day is that sleep is not truly unconsciousness, because you’re still to some extent aware of your surroundings. If you weren’t, then you wouldn’t react to light, or alarm clocks, or cold water on your face, or any number of other external stimuli
My second hot take of the day is that Last Thursdayism is a fun idea, but is disruptive to actual conversations about reality
I don’t think Last Thursdayism is a truly valid model of reality because it’s also deeply rooted in our own ideas of causality and consciousness. But it’s an important tool for attacking the real question which you touch on here, which is what exactly IS consciousness, if you can be unconscious and woken up by an alarm clock, even if you’re not dreaming or experiencing anything at all, how tf does that work? What parts of consciousness actually make up our sense of awareness and being alive? Is there wiggle-room? There are conjoined twins who can “travel” in each other’s brains, does that mean consciousness is a distinct “thing” almost like a soul? Or is that also a trick by the brain to preserve continuity? And if so, why? Why does the brain need to simulate the experience of being a singular entity even when presented with an alternative? What happens if we start attaching upgrades and RAM chips to our brains and slowly start spending more of our conscious thought in those upgraded regions, and start Ship of Theseus’ing our brains? When can we let go of biology and would that interrupt the conscious experience if you do it very slowly?
We have far more questions than answers, and my point is that we don’t know enough about our conscious experience to define what it is and how to preserve it. We might be missing something really huge about the universe that is just simply being edited out of our perceptions by a brain designed to survive animals and weather and to only present us with information to that end.
My hot take of the day is that sleep is not truly unconsciousness, because you’re still to some extent aware of your surroundings. If you weren’t, then you wouldn’t react to light, or alarm clocks, or cold water on your face, or any number of other external stimuli
My second hot take of the day is that Last Thursdayism is a fun idea, but is disruptive to actual conversations about reality
I don’t think Last Thursdayism is a truly valid model of reality because it’s also deeply rooted in our own ideas of causality and consciousness. But it’s an important tool for attacking the real question which you touch on here, which is what exactly IS consciousness, if you can be unconscious and woken up by an alarm clock, even if you’re not dreaming or experiencing anything at all, how tf does that work? What parts of consciousness actually make up our sense of awareness and being alive? Is there wiggle-room? There are conjoined twins who can “travel” in each other’s brains, does that mean consciousness is a distinct “thing” almost like a soul? Or is that also a trick by the brain to preserve continuity? And if so, why? Why does the brain need to simulate the experience of being a singular entity even when presented with an alternative? What happens if we start attaching upgrades and RAM chips to our brains and slowly start spending more of our conscious thought in those upgraded regions, and start Ship of Theseus’ing our brains? When can we let go of biology and would that interrupt the conscious experience if you do it very slowly?
We have far more questions than answers, and my point is that we don’t know enough about our conscious experience to define what it is and how to preserve it. We might be missing something really huge about the universe that is just simply being edited out of our perceptions by a brain designed to survive animals and weather and to only present us with information to that end.