We're all a little crazy

I posit that the human mind is made up of dozens, or perhaps even hundreds/thousands "smaller agents" that work together to create consciousness as an emergent property of the whole, which makes it impossible to isolate and say "this, THIS right here IS concsciousness". That does not mean each of those has their own personality, per sé.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat is a fantastic exploration of this idea, focusing on people who have lost specific parts of their brains due to tumors or strokes. The human mind is very much like a complex modern website- take Amazon for example, if everything is working, it’s the website where you buy stuff, but if certain specific systems are offline, you lose specific features, like your order history, or your cart, or your recommended products, etc… Missing one or two of of those components diminishes the site somewhat, but it’s still more or less Amazon. Your brain works the same way!
- Stupid brain running micro-services.
And the underlying animal is still there too. It's fully in control at birth, and gets drowned out as we mature (for some people, less than others).
Small children are little more than animals, which is why they're so unreasonable.
It's my belief that the reason the written word or things like clocks are usually unreadable in dreams, is because the animal is both illiterate and innumerate. Dreams are the animals understanding of our waking experience. It knows these patterns are important and how they relate to other things, but it has no fucking idea what any of it actually means.
- I do find myself reading and writing words in dreams quite a lot. I've never seen a clock though, not as far as I can remember.
  But sometimes I can even remember signs with street names or banners / short paragraphs.
  Dynamic lighting sadly doesn't work tho. Light switches do nothing. For example if I turn on the lights in my bathroom in a dream, I can even hear the bathroom fan turn on, but the room remains dark. Ive heard thst this is apparently quite common though.
I posit this as well. I’m made up of at least 5 or 6 different versions of me with different biases and personalities. There’s a negative narcissistic version, there’s a happy go lucky version, a pragmatic version, a nihilist with a dark sense of humour, a soppy emotional one, and others and they all fight constantly to have their say. I thought everyone was like this 🤪
- I'm all alone. Which is likely why I crave social activities.
- Plurality is a thing...
You would like Global Workspace Theory, basically says your consciousness is the result of components of the brain broadcasting their information to the whole.
I also like Integrated Information Theory which measures the conscious experience of a system by how integrated it is, which means that you can't reduce the system to the sum of it's parts without losing the emergent properties.
- Thanks for the links, very interesting indeed!
Yeah, and come to think of it, I bet you that each one has its own characteristics. Perhaps they may be full blown individuals themeselves from another time and place, and I too will one day join them...
Brb gonna go sailing...
That can't be because I clearly exist and cannot differentiate between these "smaller agents", I am either so perfectly unified that I cannot tell, or this emergentism is bullshit
So if I run enough different AI LLM models and let them communicate, I can create consciousness?
- No, because LLMs are just a mathematical blender with ONE goal in mind: construct a good sentence. They have no thoughts, they have no corrective motion, they just spit out sentences.
  You MIGHT get to passing a Turing test with enough feedback tied in, but then the "conciousness" is specifically coming from the systemic complexity at that point and still very much not the LLMs.
- If you gave them all access to real world, realtime sensor data... Over an extended period of time...hmm
No there’s no need to posit cutesy sounding things, that’s how misinformation starts :) If you have any sources or can cite stuff you’ve read which may point to it, that’s cool though
- No, people are allowed to speculate and throw out ideas they have without needing some "expert" or paper to back up what they are saying. The mistake is treating such as if it's a fact. Sure, there's always going to be idiots out there that will take ideas like that and run with them, but I reject the idea that we should censor those speculations and random thoughts because idiots might believe them.
  The real problem are the con artists who work those idiots up into a frenzy of fear and distrust by deliberately presenting shit they can't back up as a fact and threat to drive donations or sell snake oil to "protect" from it.
  And I'd say even shit like what you said does more harm than good because it can drive those who enjoy harmless speculation but lack the confidence to push back towards the fringes because they think the mainstream wants to tell them how to think.

Inside you there are two wolves

IIRC the "other consciousness" is the internal monologue or internal visualization you experience when thinking

There's a potentially related theory too that the origin of religion is internal narrator thinkers having perceived the internal narrator as a second entity who was issuing them commands and beliefs rather than their own internal dialogue.

These people would claim to be "prophets" and basically evangelize whatever presence they ascribed responsibility for the internal narrator to. Leading to more people believing their internal narrators are also these divine forces speaking to them.

Not to dunk on rural americans, but a phenomena like this could also explain the recent evangelical movement in the US considering how much emphasis is placed on the personal relationship and communication with God, these people might actually just not realize their own thoughts and ascribe all thought process as the voice of the big man himself.

Lived in SE USA most of my life...the majority of the most ridiculous fundamentalists don't have an inner monologue. They speak but there is nothing going on upstairs except life processes.
The way they cling to ideas from others explains why they cling so tightly...they never had one of their own.
Because of this phenomenal outlook they typically adhere to the first idea that comes around and dismiss everything else as false.
Critical thinking is not applicable to everyone.
- Absence of an inner monologue does not mean that there is no thought process. I’ve done just fine without one myself. Can’t speak to whatever is plaguing the fundamentalists apart from indoctrination and being steeped in an oppressive culture that’s been fostered over generations.
*origin of prophets as they are understood today
The first religions were generally flavors of animism.
Makes sense, in a lot of spiritual practices I've been involved in, hearing such a voice is believed to be a higher power.
Unless you mean thoughts themselves, and not something similar but deeper.....
- I mean that for a lot of these people thought and that higher power are one in the same.
  They believe God is a speaker who instructs them via their inner dialogue, or for seers, by "visions" which could be better identified as a similar phenomenon but involving visual thought rather than inner dialogue thought.
I read... Something once and they suggested the past we may have collectively possessed a more direct relationship with rekigi9n like you're talking about. That for some reason or another we don't tend to "hear the voice of hod" like we once did. Out relationship with our internal self had changed. Maybe it was bred out by our tendency to kill the religious folks who disagree the most with whatever the dumpster jour religion at the time is.

My speaking consciousness says there isn't.

My non-verbal consciousness says

I'm aware of my other consciousness. She's cool. I try to be more like her.

I wish mine would stop giving me intrusive thoughts
- Done, they can't do that anymore. Anything else I can do for you today?
I call it my customer service face.
I'm pretty sure mine hates me and makes me so stupid stuff whenever I'm distracted.

Only the Baron Harkonnen speaks in my head, so hah!

Kill the Abomination!
- I love the way that's said in the audiobook. Cheers!
Fear is the mind killer.

I will always held belief that we are part of the spiritual greater universe and our brains are antennas for the consciousness. At the same time I won’t allow this belief to interfere with my daily logic and scientific pursuits.

It’s way more fun to have some nice private things you are contemplating as you enjoy the various psychedelics.

I, too, did a heroic dose of mushrooms once
There is the idea that it'd be easier for the universe to spontaneously create a single consciousness that knows and experiences everything and thinks they are you rather than creating a big bang that naturally leads to beings with consciences such as you.
- That's nonsense. Why would that be easier?
  And physics tend to reduce energy state (contrary to biology), not make things easier.
- Yeah I read a theory like that, something along the lines of you could not actually have existed until .3s ago but you were created with all of your current memories and experiences
- That is such a weird way of putting it I believe its more the single consciousness wants to like experience because knowing everything is like pointless so it fragmentes into these piece of its conscienceness and we populate the universe experiencing. Maybe different theories but also not my theory lol
The vibe when you pay monthly tribute to your landed lord. 👌
Ah the Soul Antenna theory, yyes I hope that's valid

You're not gonna give us a source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_consciousness
- It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate conscious entities within their one brain after undergoing a corpus callosotomy.
  So unless you've had your brain cut in half to treat your epilepsy then you're probably alright
  No conclusive evidence of the proposed phenomenon has been discovered.

So not one but two suffering entities?

Somehow that makes it worse.

What, you guys haven't killed the other one? You truly aren't minmaxing your brain usage capacity.

You don't kill the other one. You work on coordinating them so you can consciously apply yourself to two different things at once.
- Multi-threading.

So that's why my constant inner-monologue is verbose and meaningful, but I can't communicate for shit?

Nah, that's just anxiety my dude.

oh there’s way more than two minds in your brain.

I too have ADHD

As far as I understand, the line gets even blurrier then that. Apparently quiet a lot of the subsections of your brain do things that can be interpreted as conciseness, but we experience it as one unified thing.

No, conciseness is the ability to describe things in few words. You probably meant to say consumption.
- No, consumption is the process of taking in food for nourishment. You're thinking of conscience

Can vouch for that. Ive always been of two minds on any given subject

Its what I tell people are the voices in my head

Neither of mine can do speech.

Well looks like someone broke the barrier because the smart ass up there is always giving me shit!

make us whole

It certainly feels like that at times. The key being the non verbal part, it's the part that feels things i can't explain, like I have to poke and probe some part of my brain by imagining, to try and see how it reacts to certain thoughts and observe the emotions, then try to put it into words to explain it to the conscious part of my mind. Like, the subconscious is not unconscious, it's perfectly conscious just not verbal.

Bicameral Mentality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality

It's a concept that is quite well explored by the first season of Westworld.

Either I was too high watching it or no it fuckin wasn't
I will accept either explanation
- Probably the first haha, it's the name of the finale episode of the first season and it's even mentioned in the Wikipedia article I linked.

This hypothesis is bullshit. There are far more than just two consciousnesses.

Right? And they talk a lot with me. Actually sometimes they wont shut up.
Yeah, like, what are they trying to say??
That all of the consciousnesses belong to just two entities? That's weird bro, sounds unhealthy, maybe they need help.
Unrelated but “consciousnesses” sounds kinda funny
- we should go with "conscii"
You mean identities, not consciousness

Inside you there are 2 wolves

And neither one has access to speech
Mine share the same lonely neuron.

We are all a little crazy on this blessed day

The only thing I can think of that this could refer to is split brain patients who have undergone a specific medial procedure once used to treat epilepsy. It's possible, although not well understood, that the two halves of their brain operate sort of independently, and only one has access to speech.

It's a very interesting topic, well worth diving into! But it's also very muddy, there is contrasting evidence for and against the "two mind" theory.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain this "theory" does not apply to healthy brains which have not undergone this procedure.

I heard that that was a misunderstanding, and the two halves of the brain are still the same entity, but with more limited ability to communicate
- If you're interested I highly recommend this evidence review on the topic. I don't remember the details but there does remain some compelling evidence for both sides. It seems like the two halves are able to communicate in some ways, but not in others. It's not fully clear if this means there are two distinct consciousnesses, or if they continue to operate as one.

You mean the wolves?

Dual consciousness is not exactly proven though, so idk what to think. Hope researchers shed more light down the road

Split brain experiment

Check out- Thinking, Fast and Slow By: Daniel Kahneman

It deals with the concepts of two minds in one. System one and system two

Is this egg_irl?

This is science memes, what about this post do you find similar to egg_irl?
- Trigger warning: explaining jokes in way too much detail.
  The phrasing is a reference to the "Is this a pigeon?" meme (see: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/is-this-a-pigeon ). This is meant to indicate that this is clearly not egg_irl, but the topic of the original post seemed like something repressed trans people can relate to in hindsight. It reminded me of a common pattern among eggs where there's a vague but insistent internal voice (not literally a voice, more like an occasional impulse) telling you to do things that you associate with your actual gender, rather than your assigned gender, with varying effects depending on the person. For example, it generally made me feel uncomfortable without understanding why, leading me to assume I simply didn't like those things, when in fact that was more or less the opposite of the truth.
  Anyway, these sorts of things can make the idea of an unknown, voiceless, internal personality separate from your surface-level persona resonate with trans people. Add the fact that when you're deeply involved in gender issues and transitioning, it's so much on your mind that there's a tendency to interpret everything as being somehow related to gender even when it isn't, and it seemed like a good fit for the pigeon meme.

" We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." — von Goethe

OK but what is a "conscience entity"

Well can't say they are wrong pretty sure my body is against what I think especially when it comes to health :))

I think this has been proven, kinda.

Alien hand syndrome makes me believe this. Usually occurs when something traumatic happens to the brain. The way it's described seems like the dominant consciousness losing control of that motor function to the lesser consciousness.
- I'm pretty sure the reason we even came up with this is because of a treatment to epilepsy, which the treatment is literally cutting the connection between the two segments of the brain.

Wait... Just two?

Nah those other assholes won't ever shut the fuck up.

It's the same as the old devil v angel on your shoulder bit. There's a left hemisphere mode of understanding, a right hemisphere mode of understanding, and there's what happens when they're well integrated, which is mostly only achievable through meditation.

Just for the record, the left brain is the denialist, which offers hypotheticals and which takes the behaviour of others and places it firmly outside yourself, edifying the lie you tell yourself that you are separate and different from the other largely identical monkeys. The right brain tends to communicate in gestalts and complete pictures, without negativity and possibly without reference to individuality; YMMV.

I'd buy it, but... when we die which one goes on as a soul, or do they both?

I'm just kidding of course....

Basically only for people with an internal monologue. Stupid-ass meme.

so are we a mixture of experts too?

this explains a lot .....

they could just ask me and I would confirm

Well they're usually connected with nerves so more like 1 brain.

But if you cut the corpus callosum of the brain in half, it's possible to have two operating systems that conflict with each other in actions in the body.
- if I cut my dick down the middle I dont suddenly have 2 dicks bro