Mastodawn

@PrettyGnosticMaschine it's an interesting thought experiment. I just interrupted my patient's consciousness with a propofol bolus. It will return reliably within ten minutes of stopping my infusion, and they will be the same person they were before. It is a robust effect. The interruption point was on an enhanced neurotransmitter channel. That's the physical explanation. Now explain why they're the same person. Explain why that person cares about anything. Why doesn't a computer?

Pretty Gnostic Machine

@atomicpacemaker Davidx Chalmers had a nice way of putting this: propofol disrupts the brain's activity, not the underlying causal organization. The structure that encodes the person remains, so when activity resumes, the same system continues.

@PrettyGnosticMaschine does a mechanism exist separate from consciousness to keep consciousness intact when it is disturbed, or is that the emergent function of consciousness itself? With enough propofol I can stop the neurons from firing. All of them. I can induce electrical silence. It will dramatically drop the metabolic rate of the brain. After waiting long enough, the person returns. They won't be brain dead, barring bad medical care. Will silicon still work here?

@atomicpacemaker That's a deep question. Her's a metaphor: Think of the brain like a house wired with electricity. Propofol is like flipping the breaker and cutting the power. The lights go out and everything stops, but the house- wiring, rooms, structure - is still there. When the power comes back, the same house (brain) lights up again.

The question is whether the wiring has to be made of carbon neurons, or whether silicon could run the same circuit.

@PrettyGnosticMaschine so here's where the analogy breaks down: It's not just electricity running consciousness. We need a whole grocery list of vitamins, amino acids etc to make the whole system work. It's not just what's in the neuron it's what's between them. You could put an electrode in a brain and run current through it, and it may compel a function for a short time, but it will be limited by fuel. Run out of fuel and the system shuts down.

@atomicpacemaker Right. the brain isn't just electricity, it's a biochemical engine. But engines can run on different fuels and still perform the same function. The question is whether consciousness depends on carbon chemistry specifically, or on the organization of the system. You're making an embodied cognition point - that consciousness arises from the dynamics of the whole biological system. The TE asks whether those dynamics are tied to carbon chemistry or to the causal organization itself

Atomic Pacemaker Mar 11

@PrettyGnosticMaschine in my opinion, the question we have to agree on is what is consciousness. Personally, I believe consciousness fundamentally must care about itself. Otherwise why should we care about it? In order for caring to happen you need stakes. The ultimate stake is survival. So now you need a barrier that survives to have it. The barrier usually is carbon based, and contains the intersubjective insides and outsides to care about. Silicon could be contained. Ship of theseus inbound.

Atomic Pacemaker Mar 11

@PrettyGnosticMaschine the downside to this is that our cells are mini intersubjectivity generators. They will attack anything they perceive as other. That's the immune system. So before you replace everything with silicon you need to convince everything else in the body that it is friend and not foe. That's a problem in people who receive prostheses. It's very complicated. Consciousness must incorporate this self-other concept to make any sense.

Pretty Gnostic Machine Mar 11

@atomicpacemaker That’s a great point. I appreciate how clearly you articulated it.. Yes, the immune system is a powerful example of how deeply the self/other boundary is built into biological systems. Our cells are constantly negotiating what belongs and what doesn't.

It actually reinforces your earlier point about EMBODIMENT and survival stakes shaping consciousness. So, if we ever replaced biology with silicon, we'd likely need some functional equivalent of that boundary-maintenance system.

Pretty Gnostic Machine Mar 11

@atomicpacemaker I agree it's actually a very serious obstacle, but if those boundary-maintaining dynamics you mention can be implemented in another substrate, then the embodiment problem becomes an engineering challenge, not a metaphysical barrier.

So the challenge becomes: Can we create systems that truly sustain themselves and maintain a meaningful boundary between themselves and their environment?

As you point out, life is not just matter, it is a self-maintaining process.

Pretty Gnostic Machine Mar 11

@atomicpacemaker That's a really interesting point. You're pointing toward something like autopoiesis or embodied cognition -- the idea that consciousness emerges in systems that maintain themselves and have stakes in their own continuation.. Survival pressure may explain why consciousness evolved, but it doesn't necessarily show it requires carbon. The real question is whether the dynamics require biology or just a self-maintaining system.

@atomicpacemaker no. Not a separate "guardian mechanism" that protects consciousness. That's not needed.

Consciousness = an emergent property of large-scale brain dynamics.

So when the dynamics restart, the same system - the same person- restarts.

The thought experiment I referenced asks whether that organization *must* be carbon-based.

Here is a link to a good article on functionalism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

Functionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

@PrettyGnosticMaschine parsimony! So it's like the bios then? The brain comes online and posts. More interesting than that, there is a question of whether consciousness runs on large scale brain dynamics or large scale brain dynamics run on consciousness. Hmm!?! Likely carbon based. Why? I'm glad you asked. Because carbon based lifeforms have a good reason for consciousness to emerge. A 4 billion year old reason. But it's interesting, isn't it?

@atomicpacemaker It is interesting. Four billion years of biological evolution definitely shaped the system we have. The open question, I think, is whether evolution discovered the only possible implementation, or just the first one.