User illusion
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The document discusses the limited capacity of human consciousness compared to the vast amount of information our brains process. It notes that we are only consciously aware of about 50 bits of information per second from our senses, while our brains actually take in much more data. Several examples are given showing that our actions and perceptions occur below the level of consciousness. The document considers different views on what purpose consciousness serves, with some arguing it has no real adaptive function while others see it as a way to resolve conflicts between cognitive systems or enable enduring long-term goals over instinctual responses.
![David Rosenthal:
“[...] the consciousness of these states itself adds
no significant function to that of those
other developments.”
Which means:
Consciousness is just a side-effect, with no real
adaptive value.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/userillusion-120526180356-phpapp02/85/User-illusion-26-320.jpg)
User illusion
- 2. Are you conscious right now?
- 3. Are you sure about that?
- 4. How much of what we see are we actually conscious of?
- 5. The human brain takes in more information than we are conscious of.
- 6. That is: When we see letters on a screen, we are conscious of meaning.
- 8. Consciousness is very low bandwidth.
- 9. Some numbers: Silent Reading: 45 bits/sec Reading Aloud: 30 bits/sec Proofreading: 18 bits/sec Piano Playing: 23 bits/sec
- 10. No, really. One page in 2.5 minutes 1 page = 40 lines 1 line = 60 characters 2400 characters in 150 seconds 16 bits raw, 32 bits per char ~40 bits/sec just by the letters.
- 11. The upper limit seems to be 50 bits/sec for words.
- 12. Same with sound and light.
- 13. Make sounds at 16 pulses a second. You hear pulses. Make sounds at over 16 pulses a second. You hear a tone.
- 14. Show images at 16 slides a second. You see slides. Show images over 16 slides a second. You see moving images.
- 15. And you don't need consciousness.
- 16. Blindsight People with brain damage that can't see in parts of their field of vision. But then they “guess” absolutely correctly.
- 17. They are not conscious of what they are seeing. But they still duck if they're about walk into something.
- 18. We do not see what we sense. We see what we think we sense. Our vision is interpreted long before we are conscious of it.
- 19. Also, your conscious lags behind.
- 20. Not just what you perceive, but how you act.
- 21. Kornhuber and Deecke hook people to an EEG. They ask people to move their fingers at intervals. They see the readiness potential when a finger is about to be moved. The signal happens a second the finger actually moves.
- 22. The act of moving a finger happens a second before we actually move it. When do we actually decide to move the finger?
- 23. Around 0.35 seconds AFTER the potential starts.
- 24. By the time we decide to do something, we're already moving.
- 25. So what good is consciousness?
- 26. David Rosenthal: “[...] the consciousness of these states itself adds no significant function to that of those other developments.” Which means: Consciousness is just a side-effect, with no real adaptive value.
- 27. Well, maybe not quite a side-effect.
- 28. Ezequiel Morsella: “a senate, in which representatives from different provinces are always in attendance, regardless of whether they should sit quietly or debate.” Consciousness resolves conflicts between different systems.
- 29. Peter Watts: “The more cognitively sophisticated you become, the more able you are to suppress hardwired aversion responses in favor of long-term agendas. The more sublime your awareness, the more pain you can withstand.”
- 30. Consciousness: you usually don't need it, and when you do, you'll probably wish you didn't.