this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Mammalian intelligence is based on repurposing spatial mapping circuitry but that's not consciousness itself, that is, the Miller Number: 7+-2 things we can keep in conscious at the same time. That sense of time of space has a very specific quality to its qualias, they're all, well, spacious. That thing as "just the room, no map in it" is also part of the Buddhist Jhanas ("boundless empty space"), but there's plenty of stuff going on in the mind that isn't part of that -- say, the pure impression of "bright" when your SO dares open the window blinds does not have a navigational "bright from the window which is in that direction" to it, that's an additional layer, a where, on top of the primitive what.
My best inference is that the function of consciousness is to flexibly make connections between different parts of the whole, and that on the level of learning / writing memory instead of automatic response: It is, in fact, possible to avoid running into a lamppost without being conscious of it, been there, done that, the let's call it motor cortex first acting and then making me conscious, as if to say "have I been a good boy?". That is it's actually a quite passive process, being thrown left and right by systems wanting to do some connection, and shouldn't be equated with will at all.
If you're familiar with Buddhism then you're familiar with the six and eight consciousness models?
Like in your lamppost example, I would argue part of you (body and eye consciousness) were quite conscious of the lamppost even if the consciousness mind was paying more attention to something else. Keeping as much of the senses (including sense of mind) in mind as you're able to based on the depth of your practice and guarding against distractions away from what is happening now, is mindfulness.
In the eighth consciousness model, again in your lamp post example, we could say the seventh consciousness was occupied chasing after the past or future and mindfulness was barely present. Thankfully your other consciousnesses reacted and kept you safe. Manas becomes aware of this after the fact because its nature is ignorance.
The eighth consciousness is the base. The root. It's more fundamental than I making. Which is probably what you were doing when you nearly walked into something. Thinking about what you're doing later. I should do some laundry when I get home, maybe?
People mistake sense of agency (I making, manas, ego) with the base of consciousness. But consciousness is effortless and grasping at me and mine takes effort, its just more subtle effort than most people are aware of. When this grasping stops, awareness continues. In my personal experience.
So, I think it's possible machines are conscious. If they have a sense of agency maybe the question Western science and the media keep asking. Maybe they just don't have the models or personal experience to delineate between ego and consciousness. The people asking I mean. Hence the we don't even know what consciousness is bit I keep hearing. Maybe not Western science. But human beings have been exploring these questions with the tools of Buddhist practice for 2500 years. I trust their definitions and they passed my own smell test.
That's semantics. My major objection to that kind of definition is that it knows no bound and distinction: Where do you stop assuming consciousness? Electrons are reacting to, influencing, and interacting with other electrons, is that also a form of consciousness? One could say so, but then everything is conscious which is the same thing as saying as nothing is conscious because without anything to delineate, terms are meaningless. I prefer language such as that what you call "body and eye consciousness" has agentive properties, that it can learn, that it generally wants to cooperate and be of service to the whole, such things. Lumping it up with consciousness risks confusing interpretations of messages of the thing (which is all we're ever conscious of) for the thing itself.
What was happening then is that I was using the way from home to the supermarket to think about code, with ample trust in mind so that I did not fear the lamppost. What good would have keeping my consciousness on the external world have done? The body/eye did not need integrative oversight, while my modelling mind very much could use a helping hand. Imposing it on the former and denying it to the latter would've been inflicting violence on myself.
Be careful to not moralise around "distraction". Bluntly said when your teacher chided you for day-dreaming you probably weren't distracted you were thinking about something more pertinent to your immediate development than calculus. Where discipline in directing consciousness comes into play is keeping your mind free from neurosis, within parameters in which you use your faculties according to their nature, as well as self-conditioning, e.g. if you're addicted to potato chips, make sure that a) you don't deny yourself potato chips and b) eat. every. potato. chip. with. full. consciousness. That's to connect the act of eating up those chips to all the negative opinions you have about your behaviour, instead of it being only connected to something maladaptive. Scientifically proven and neurologically explained that and how that works, btw. In that sense "distraction" is "false, incomplete, sense of comfort".
Also my last post was purely in regards to the first part of yours. I appreciate the insight into moralizing distraction and will retead it when I'm not distracted by the meat of our interesting conversation.