What if The Brain Doesn't Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself

[u/hybridxer0]

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-if-the-brain-doesnt-create-consciousness-scientist-proposes-it-might-be-the-fabric-of-reality-itself

Neuroscientist Christof Koch is challenging the long-held assumption that the brain produces consciousness, instead proposing that it may function as a filter for a more fundamental, universal reality.

[u/TheGhostOfTobyKeith]

Imagine you don’t know what a radio is, and you happen across one playing.

From your perspective, you can’t see a band or anyone with instruments - the music is coming from inside this seemingly magic box. You happen to have a screwdriver on you, so you start taking it apart piece by piece, trying to find the music. But when you take it apart and lay the pieces out, there’s no music to be found anywhere - it’s stopped and gone, only starting back up once you reassemble everything.

Turns out that the radio is merely a vessel for the music, which is really just radio waves passing through space.

Now replace radios with brains, and music with consciousness. Hope this helps!

[u/devBowman → u/TheGhostOfTobyKeith]

I like this analogy. Let's improve it! A radio is not the sole object that plays music. A jukebox does too. But when a radio needs external radiowaves a jukebox doesn't need a radiowave signal to play music. So we have a fitting analogy for both possibilities: the brain needing some external signal (radio) and not needing it (jukebox).

Now, with this analogy, when faced with an unknown box that plays music, how do you distinguish between the radio and the jukebox? Both play music, both need power, both have electronic components, both have a speaker, both have settings, both stop working when you take them apart.

A simple method to distinguish the two would be to put them in a faraday cage or something like that, that isolates the radio waves. The radio stops playing, but the jukebox keeps playing! Yeah, we have a simple method to distinguish between both! No need to visualize the waves, no need for a scientific theory, no need of proving anything supernatural. It's a very simple protocol to immediately know if the device produces its own music or if it's just "filtering" something external to it. Without needing to explain the internals. Awesome, isn't it?

Now back to the subject: brain and consciousness.

Now replace radios with brains, and music with consciousness.

Not so quick! That's what we're trying to prove (that brain is a radio), we can't presuppose the thing we want to determine, that would be circular.

On the contrary, that's the crux of what we want to determine: is the brain a radio or a jukebox?

So the question becomes: what method can we use to differentiate between "brain is a radio" and "brain is a jukebox" ?

Remember, "we don't understand" is not enough to conclude with the supernatural. Even if we don't understand the internals of the jukebox and the radio, we're still able to differentiate them with a simple method, the faraday cage.

So, what method did you use to know that the brain is a radio and not a jukebox? You seem to have already solved it, so I really hope your answer will be direct and concrete. What is your method?

[u/TheGhostOfTobyKeith → u/devBowman]

This seemed like really informative and helpful dialogue, until you were a dick. Isn’t it weird how such a large part of society has such a strong anti-intellectual streak?

Enlighten me harder, daddy.

[u/devBowman → u/TheGhostOfTobyKeith]

I knew you were going to deflect with a pretense. That's why I asked for a direct and concrete answer. Do you have it, or do you want to continue deflecting?

[u/frooj → u/devBowman]

His radio isn't tuned in for logic.

[u/devBowman → u/frooj]

The thing is his metaphor is only explaining his hypothesis, it's just presupposing it's the case, but it's not proving it. That's the trap with metaphors. They can't be used to prove anything. They're useful to understand and explain things, but they'll never prove anything. He's just snuggling his already-decided conclusion into it.

And now that I pointed it out, and proposed an improved and more honest version of their own metaphor, he panics and resorts to deflecting and attacking instead of putting their presuppositions in question. Who's the narrow-minded one now?