Thought Experiment about Consciousness

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m putting this here because I’m not sure it’s really seriously debatable enough for GD, just because it’s not subject to any sort of real-world experiment, only thought experiment.

For the purposes of this discussion, it is assumed that human consciousness is an emergent product of the human brain - the sense of self-awareness is just a thing that a working brain can do as a result of its biochemical functions and does not require any supernatural entities or forces - although the thought experiment itself will involve hypothetical technologies that may be indistinguishable form magic to us.

So I’m sitting here, thinking, being, aware and I am abducted by aliens with unthinkably advanced technology. They study me for a moment then decide it would be kind of cool to turn me into a piece of wall art. They have the ability to transmit matter from one place to another with high fidelity (but this is not the transporter question of self).

The first thing they do is to detach my feet from the end of my legs and mount them at some distance from where the rest of me is on display. They are very careful to set up matter transfer interfaces from each pair of severed ends of blood vessels so from my body’s perspective, blood is still flowing down the arteries in my legs, all the way to my feet and returning via my veins from my feet to my legs, ultimately back to my heart and lungs for recirculation. There is an air gap between the ends of my legs and my feet, but the blood vessels are all functionally continuous and uninterrupted by virtue of the matter transfer widgetry. My feet remain in good physical health.

They also bridge the nerve endings with similarly magical gadgets - so when they tickle my toes, the sensation is transmitted across the air gap without any loss of fidelity and I feel it. My feet feel like they are still attached.

They also bridge the mechanical parts with special force field thingumabobs attached to all relevant tendons and joints and other moving parts - so when I try to move my foot, my foot moves as if it were still attached.

They solve every part of the detachment issue in similar effortless fashion with their technology, to the point that, unless I look, I can’t tell my feet are off, and neither can my feet tell that I am somewhere else.

But this is just the first step and they continue upwards, dividing, separating and yet keeping effectively connected every part of my body - it all feels like it’s still in one piece, even though to any outside observer I am flayed open and apart like the specimen they regard me as.

Only my head remains and for this; the outer parts like ears and eyes and such, they treat as before - they remain fully functional at some short distance of separation…

But for my brain, they separate every cell from every other cell, maintaining at every moment perfect fidelity of logical interconnectedness - every little exchange of matter - fluids, electrolytes, hormones, etc - is maintained in working order, bridged across the gaps between the cells by unthinkably complex technology that works flawlessly. Every little puff of ions and neurotransmitters at every synapse is faithfully and perfectly still transacted as if the neurons were still huddled together in their original monolithic wet mass. No function is impaired because there is no chemical, mechanical, electrical or other physical phenomenon that these aliens are unable to manipulate in perfect and complete detail.

So I keep thinking, right? I continue to be me. Things feel a bit weird because my eyes are mounted too far apart now and they are not in the same spatial relationship to my ears as once they were, and when I talk, my vocal equipment is in the next room, so that’s really weird, but I’m still conscious. My brain is a mist of individual cells that can be arbitrarily divided (in fact they arrange it into a tunnel shape so they can walk through it, but the logic of interconnection and interrelation of all of the original parts, as they were before my abduction, is maintained)

But because consciousness is a function of the brain, and logically, nothing has actually happened to my brain (from the perspective of all of its parts), I am still conscious and aware and still me, right?

Or not, if not, why not?

2

I would think that significantly changing the distance between input sensors like eyeballs and ears and touch receptors would eventually run afoul of the evolution-driven mechanisms of our processing “circuits.” Some sort of mismatch there, and that might start to erode the fidelity of your self awareness and “you-ness.”

3

That’s a good point. Is any of what makes me ‘me’ absolutely dependent on timings? I mean it probably is by accident, but do we think consciousness inherently needs to be highly dependent on timings?

4

I would say in this hypothetical yes, you’d still be conscious and still you.

I mean, it would be a sucky experience, but if the mental and hormonal activity continues on uninterrupted, I’d say that was all that was necessary.

5

There’s a fairly well-exercised trope in science fiction that is similar to the OP’s scenario in which every cellular function of the brain is replicated in software, and “you” can be downloaded into a box and copied into unlimited additional boxes. Dennis E. Taylor’s “Bobiverse” series is a fun example that explores many of the themes and questions that arise from the idea.

It sounds like one key distinction from the OP’s scenario is copy-abililty and retention of some aspects of original organic material. But otherwise pretty close comparison and the question of “you-ness” is academic, not intrinsic. Folks will vary in their definitions of what constitutes “you.”

6

If the hypothetical has all the physical functions continuing identically then the personality and consciousness should continue identically. Until they don’t — the dearth of muscle movement, the emotional horror, and the radical alterations to sight and hearing might break down a mind quickly.

7

Needs answers fast?

If I understand the OP correctly, he’s basically asking if aliens wired your body so your arms and legs and eyes whatnot can be some arbitrary distance away from where they would normally attach to the rest of you.

I’m not so sure it would erode the sense of “you”. People suffer injuries like loss of one or more eyes or hearing or limbs without losing their sense of identity.

I do imagine it would feel really awkward.

Coincidently, this sounds similar to a thread I almost started yesterday about what would happen to a person’s consciousness if they were “one-ed” (like the Metallica song). For those unfamiliar, Metallica wrote a song called “One” off their 1988 album “…and Justice for All.” about a soldier who looses his sight, speech, hearing, arms, and legs so he basically can’t sense or communicate with the outside world.

Let’s assume that such an individual (either due to the injuries or medication) isn’t in a constant state of physical pain, and is essentially living life as a “brain in a jar” in a sort of constant sensory deprivation tank. What would they eventually experience over time (which they wouldn’t really have any sense of the passing of?

Or maybe to extend @Mangetout 's mad experiments, what if I seamlessly integrated a bunch of Ring cameras in various locations to the subject’s brain? Or gave them the ability to connect to ANY camera ANYWHERE (presumably their brain would only be able to ss a few streams at any time

So I guess the unifying question is how much is a person’s sense of “self” dependent on your perception of the world around you and your ability to interact with it?

8

The underlying question that the thought experiment seems to unravel is: do we have to be one contiguous mass of flesh to continue to exist as a conscious being?

Obviously the magical tech in the hypothetical makes it so that really, there is no difference (except maybe the latency).

The destination of the thought experiment is really: can there be such a thing as a singular conscious entity, whose parts are not materially joined together? Could something like a colony of insects have a singular consciousness, with the processing taking place in an assemblage of separate pieces which intercommunicate their complex signals across the whole hive, using means other than directly interconnected synapses?

(There would still be little clumps of neural network inside each individual, but interfaced together via different signals)

9

If you sever the corpus callosum that connects the left and right hemisphere, you can develop 2 consciousnesses in the same brain.

This article has criticisms of the idea though.

https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/5/1231/2951052#91046569

This preserved unity of consciousness may be especially challenging for the two currently most dominant theories of consciousness, the Global Workspace theory ([Baars, 1988](javascript:;), [2005](javascript:;); [Dehaene and Naccache, 2001](javascript:;)) and the Integration Information theory ([Tononi, 2004](javascript:;), [2005](javascript:;); [Tononi and Koch, 2015](javascript:;)). A core assumption of the Global Workspace theory is that cortical broadcasting of selected information by the ‘global workspace’ leads to consciousness. Thus severing of the corpus callosum, which prevents broadcasting of information across hemispheres, seems to exclude the emergence of one global workspace for both hemispheres. Rather, it seems that without a corpus callosum either two independent global workspaces emerge, or only one hemisphere will have a global workspace, while the other does not. In either case, an integrated global workspace, and thus preserved conscious unity, seems to be difficult to fit into this framework.

Also for Integration Information theory, conscious unity in the split-brain syndrome seems to be challenging. According to the Integration Information theory the richness of integration of information (called φ, defined by how much information is represented, and how integrated the information is) determines the level of consciousness. Moreover, only if the combined φ of two subsystems is larger than the φ per system, then the two subsystems combine to form one conscious entity. After removal of the corpus callosum, which all but eliminates communication between the cerebral hemispheres, integration of information is larger within each hemisphere than between hemispheres. Thus, according to the Integration Information theory, in the split-brain syndrome φ per hemisphere is larger than the combined φ, thus leading to two independent conscious systems rather than one conscious agent ([Tononi, 2005](javascript:;)).

It thus seems that the current results provide a challenge for the Global Workspace and the Integrated Information theory of consciousness. However, the current results may fit well with the local recurrent processing theory of consciousness ([Lamme and Roelfsema, 2000](javascript:;); [Lamme, 2006](javascript:;); [Block, 2007](javascript:;)). This theory claims that local recurrent interactions between neural areas (for example between V1 and V5 in the visual system) are enough to create consciousness, even if these interactions are not part of a larger integrated network, and do not project their outcomes to a central processing unit. Thus, according to this theory, even in healthy subjects, relatively isolated processing in one hemisphere can lead to normal visual experiences. Therefore, the local recurrent processing theory suggests that consciousness in split-brain patients may be similar to consciousness in healthy subjects (and thus equally unified).

There are also thoughts that the electromagnetic field of the brain may be involved in consciousness. If your neurons were separated all over a tunnel, the electromagnetic field of the brain would not function to interact with all the neurons since they were separated by distance.