If you could switch off your consciousness, would you?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been thinking about a scenario for a story in which a pill is invented that allows you to effectively ‘switch off’ your consciousness, while retaining your outer functionality – i.e. you become essentially a ‘philosophical zombie’ for a while. The effect is similar, perhaps, to sleepwalking, only on a higher functional level: you perform any task just the same way you would have in non-zombie form, you’re just (at that time – let’s presume you create memories just like usual, which you can then access afterwards) not aware of it. After some time has elapsed, you simply ‘wake up’, and return to your normal conscious self – the gap in your conscious is similar to the one that occurs during sleep. There’s also a stronger version of the pill that allows you to switch off permanently – committing effectively ‘suicide’ without any grief or harm inflicted on your loved ones.

This has some great applications, I think: just think of dentist visits – pop a pill, ‘wake up’ refreshed after the visit is over; no pain, no fear, no nothing. Or all those interminable chores you have to go through that bore you out of your skull – with the pill, you won’t be in your skull to be bored out of it. Every single unpleasant aspect of daily life may be effectively skipped, or fast-forwarded through this way. Nobody notices a difference; you will go through that boring meeting, to everybody’s eyes, as alert and able as ever, however, you won’t actually be there.

However, it also has some disturbing implications – if the car runs but the front seat is empty, then who’s driving? Is the person that suffers through your pain, anguish, or simple boredom actually you? If not, who is it? Is it a person at all? Is it less wrong to hurt a ‘zombified’ person – after all, there’s nobody there to ‘feel’ the pain?

As for the poll, please use your own discretion as to what exactly ‘rarely’, ‘occasionally’ and ‘often’ exactly mean – perhaps as a rough guideline, ‘rarely’ might be your annual dentist visit, and ‘often’ those boring staff meetings every Wednesday and Friday.

I don’t know what an option ‘other’ should cover, but since there’s always some contrarian, I figure I should include it anyway… :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I don’t really see it as being a lot different. Right now, I can remember what happened yesterday as if I was there (although I am no longer there now - I’m here). Presumably if I let the zombified me go to the dentist or be bored waiting for something, I’ll still have the memory of those unpleasant experiences, when consciousness clicks back in. And presumably, the zombified ‘me’ will still scream in pain in the dentist’s chair, or sigh and fidget in the queue - so the only real difference is the immediacy of the experience.

3

Looking back, yes, things would be pretty similar, but from the first person perspective, what you’d experience would be: pop a pill, whoops, it’s afternoon, rather than all the grueling details of the dentist appointment (of which the crappy art and unsatisfactory magazine choices in the waiting room are the least). The experience itself is qualitatively very different from the memory of it – if I remember the worst pain I ever had, I don’t cry and writhe, as I did when I experienced it.

(Hey, that reminds me – sort of the complement to this pill, which erases memories rather than skips experiences, already exists. So if you want to get rid of that dentist appointment completely, that’s also not out of the question.)

4

I think I’m a ‘yes, rarely’ in that case. And it would be in cases of toothache or other great physical distress. I’d be scared stiff that zombie-me would make some fatal or otherwise grievous mistake that the real me wouldn’t, though.

5

Never. It’s bad enough I have to waste time sleeping. I want to experience more, not less . . . and not just the pleasant stuff either.

6

What makes you think that my consciousness doesn’t switch off regularly?

7

This. Some of my most enjoyable and productive times are when my consciousness is turned off!

I wouldn’t do it permanently. Sometimes its useful to be self-aware. But I already do it temporarily. And I doubt that I’m unique in this regard. Our brains are just really good at papering over gaps.

8

Well, there are certainly periods of diminished attention (to one’s internal state), but that’s not quite what I’m talking about (for instance, times when your consciousness is turned off can’t be enjoyable, as to enjoy something presumes experiencing something). Even if you’re not reflecting upon it, you constantly experience – yourself, the world around you (or the data about it you receive through your senses). You can’t, for example, not be aware of pain, as pain itself is the awareness of the presence of a pain-inducing stimulus; but after having taken the pill, there would be no pain, because for a time, there’s no you to feel it.

9

Every day for 10 hours, encompassing my drive to work, work itself, and the drive home from work. I’d give anything to not have to experience it.

10

No, not like this. If it would guarantee I wouldn’t remember what happened, maybe. But then I might as well just go to a hypnotist.

11

The ‘autopilot’ thing is explored in the surprisingly depressing Adam Sandler film Click, where it turns out to be a bad idea as the schmuck misses most of his life as he fast-forwards through it.

12

Yeah, I have enough trouble switching my consciusness ON. I’ve recently become aware of how much of my life is on autopilot. I once heard the the average person spends about 3% of their life actually conscious. I’m striving for more.

But then again, I had a dental appointment last night. I would have paid a hefty amount for that magic pill.

13

I turn my consciousness off every night.

14

YES! Every time I start panicking. Particularly every time I have to go to a doctor or dentist.
It would probably be a good idea for me to have a few hours every few days to get my work done because I get so distracted by my thoughts and anxieties.

15

I was tempted to vote “rarely,” as there are some circumstances where I can imagine it coming in handy (the dentist is a perfect example). But I went with “never” as it seems like a slippery slope, and I’m uncomfortable with the larger implications.

Want to skip that boring meeting? OK, but then what happens next week when the boss asks you for that report you agreed to prepare? What if your zombie-self gets in an accident while driving and your conscious self is later asked in court under oath to describe the incident? What if you take a phone call regarding a family emergency but have no memory of it an hour later? How will you feel on your deathbed when you realize your life has gone by a lot faster than it should have?

I have to believe it’s best to be present in one’s own life – the good parts, the bad parts, and the boring parts. It all adds up to who we are.

16

For unpleasant things like dentist appointments or getting my legs waxed, probably. I’d be tempted to for things like illness. I had a really bad cold last week and it took forever to go away. The whole time I just wanted time to go by so that it would be over, but then, the idea of missing whole days is scary to me. So probably not for more than an hour of a time. What if there are some wonderful experiences that I’d be missing?

17

I think if I could switch it off at night I might be able to get to sleep.

18

Take some benzodiazepine sedatives, and you’ll see how this would work.

It’s disorienting and freaky as hell; my doctor gave me some Versed before surgery once. I was sitting up on the gurney, talking to the nurse, who said “I’m going to give you some Versed.”

Then, in the blink of an eye, I was all swaddled, my knee hurt, and I was totally groggy. I have no recollection whatsoever of what happened in the intervening 2-3 hours, including what I did between sitting up on the gurney to being in surgery, etc…

19

I don’t know if it was Versed, but that happened to me too. When I sleep, I can account for the time I was unconscious. It feels like time has passed. But with anesthetic, it’s like that time was just… deleted. For some reason I felt really guilty about it.

20

Pain is actually motivation for zoning out. I will concede that it’s more ‘diminished attention’ than cut and splice timeshifting. Even when sliding into and out of sleep. Even when the morphine drip lets me push the button and fall asleep. (Previous post-surgery experiences - not anything current.)

I’ve had this happen. It does feel different than zoning out. The most confusing time was when I had my wisdom teeth out. The dental surgeon explained (as I was breathing the ‘relaxing gas’) that they’d remove the ones they had to cut out first, then drill and pull the ones that had managed to erupt. They put in an IV, then started drilling.

I didn’t really think anything about them switching the order of the procedure. Then I noticed that the IV wasn’t in the back of my hand. That puzzled me. I tried to touch the back of that hand with my other hand, to confirm that it really wasn’t there. Someone asked if my hand were hurting. They were knee deep in my mouth, though, so there wasn’t a hope of answering.

Not only had there been no sense of time passing, there was no feeling of discontinuity. It would have been spooky, if not for the other thing. The other thing was the feeling of disconnection. On the way home, my jaw was hurting pretty good, but whatever it was they gave me made it feel like the pain wasn’t any of my concern. Nothing to worry about at all. It’s a good thing that they made sure that there would be someone else to drive me home.

It was less good that they gave me all of the aftercare information after the procedure, and without anyone else in the room to hear the information. I nodded and said okay, and put the instructions in my pocket. When I got home, I went to bed without even thinking about the possibility of doing any of it. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to put my recovery back much.

I’m skeptical that the philosophical zombie can exist. If it’s acting like a person, I’d have to believe that it’s aware, even if it won’t remember later. Not giving it the benefit of the doubt sounds dangerous. It reminds me of a comment that the doctor made about my oldest son’s circumcision.

This was 1975 and they didn’t use any anesthetic, not even the swab-on kind. They just strapped him into a plastic baby-shaped holder and went at it. The comment was that he wasn’t really feeling pain, that screaming was just an automatic reaction. I didn’t buy that then, and I don’t believe it now.