Comments by "चतुर्वेदी हर्ष" (@hershchat) on "Lex Fridman" channel.

  1. Lots of topics combined under “consciousness”. The simulation hypothesis is more about the nature of reality, and less about our perception. Wether it is a simulation, or “real”, we are apprehending what is presented to us. The bits presented can be digital, or physical. I might be a brain in a vet. The consciousness apparatus will arguably be the same, as if the inputs came in via neurons connected to sense organs. Are we all in Chalmers’ dream? Well, I believe that sounds like a big deal, but really isn’t. He can either come out of the dream, and realize it was all a dream, OR he stays comatose and dreaming. In the first instance we are talking about the nature of consciousness of a dreaming brain-mind, in the second of a dreaming brain-mind. The question about consciousness stays the same question. Just because he is dreaming might change what you think of the nature of my consciousness, me being a person in his dream. But, his consciousness is still equally as unexplained. They talk a lot about zombies and robots and problem solving. However, consciousness is NOT about feelings, problem solving, free will, or memories. Are you conscious of your free will? An example of “not” will be if our hearts and nervous system made decisions with agency, that we were not conscious of. Consciousness and free will are only linked if we establish what consciousness is created by, and how, and if there is any feedback from our subjectively aware faculty, to our decision faculty. For all we know, our organism makes decisions, with agency, but has no subjective experience, and our consciousness has subjective experience, but has no input into the decision making apparatus. That is actually my personal view. That’s the gist of the issue with all discussions on consciousness. They fail to clarify what consciousness is, and then fail to zero in on that. Instead, they discuss all manner of sensational topics.
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