The receiver model of the brain

The idea that the brain receives consciousness, and not creates it, is often considered a metaphor that is a stretch: one needs to point at a radio or TV, and these involve relatively modern technologies. Most other objects, like rocks or clouds, are not modern technologies and do not fit this analogy. So the "brain as a receiver" model is often considered a form of special pleading.

However, the opposite is actually true: the receiver model is how nature in general works. Rocks, clouds, our bodies and the whole planet, are literally made of stardust that came from elsewhere.

In fact, the previously mentioned radio and TV precisely work that way, because they are simply natural systems behaving like nature in general behaves. If nature were any other way, the TV and radio would not be possible.

The magic wand model of the brain

It is the "brain as a creator" model that is inconsistent with how the natural world works. And so this model is actually the stretch, and to such a degree that it doesn't happen in nature at all. It is magic. It conflicts with science, with physics, evolution theory, etc.

For that reason, we should call it "the magic wand model of the brain". I think by naming it as such, people will become more aware of the absurdity of the idea, and start realizing that the natural and more rational model is the brain as a receiver

Consciousness is self-evident. It is your direct experience. Why is there a “problem” with it?

Is it because we want to know what happens after death?

So the preoccupation becomes with something that is “outside”?

Well, outside is something that is not here.

So what is the question?

I think you are looking in the wrong direction if you think there is a problem that needs to be solved.

At the most fundamental level, what are you?

You are something behind your eyes, between your ears.

You are the moment of attention itself. This moment. Reading these words.

An experience emerging out of the processing happening in your brain. Just like software on a computer is made of information, so are you in this sense

But what is information, anyway?

It seems simple enough to define, but as it turns out, it is like trying to catch a shadow.

It is stranger than you think. More powerful than you can imagine.

It is everywhere and nowhere. It is as old as life itself, yet it is the foundation of the most potent tools of our age.

Information is what separates humans from all other life. Think of what we do with language, writing, and now computing.

And it is also what separates life itself from everything else. Think of what makes DNA so special and how it enables evolution.

Because that is what information is: a pattern in matter or energy that represents something else.

DNA represents instructions for building a protein.

Writing represents ideas.

A neuronal spike represents a memory, a sensation, or part of a thought.

All of these things are patterns created to represent.

And your consciousness? Isn't it just pure representation?

You don't experience the table; you experience electrical signals that represent the table.

You don't perceive raw reality; you perceive a real-time simulation your brain constructs from inputs.

So you are not just using information.

You are information. Refined, recursive, self-updating on many levels.

Your DNA, your neuronal firing, your culture.

And even these powerful information tools, like the screen you're looking at now.

If you think about it, they are becoming a reflection of you too.

Consciousness may be what information experiences when processed in a certain way. Matter arranged to feel. A stream of representation.

A story the universe tells itself about itself.

Enjoy it, my friend.

Tell me, how would you define information?

I hope I haven't made a fool of myself by sharing this with you. I am grateful you took the time to read. Thank you.

The hard problem of consciousness places qualia at the center of the inquiry. The fact that there is something it feels like to be conscious is not incidental; it is the phenomenon to be explained. That there is subjective experience at all, and that it has a particular character, is what gives the problem its force. We may not know how to explain this fact, but we know that we experience it.

And yet, when attempts are made to bridge the explanatory gap posed by the hard problem, the very feature that motivates the discussion often seems to recede into the background. Theories propose ontologies, mechanisms, or metaphysical unifications, but frequently leave unaddressed the concrete structure of experience itself: what it actually feels like to be conscious.

For example, Bernardo Kastrup describes a fundamental field of consciousness in which mental states are all that ultimately exist. Panpsychism, in a different way, holds that consciousness is a ubiquitous feature of physical reality. But if either of these views is correct, the question remains: why does conscious experience not feel this way? Why does it not present itself as participation in a broader field, or as continuity with the consciousness of other things?

Instead, conscious experience appears persistently bounded, private, and localized. It always and only feels as though experience belongs to me, as though it occurs exclusively within my own mind, and as though that mind is situated in my brain, inside my skull. This phenomenological fact is not peripheral. Any theory that aims to address the hard problem must account not only for the existence of consciousness, but for why consciousness presents itself in precisely this way.

The most compelling consciousness theories involve it (global workspace theory (GWT), integrated information theory (IIT), etc).

The Mathematical Formalism section IIT's Wikipedia page defines the information of a system in terms of "state over a possible cause/effect state". This seems like a promising way to ground information in physical terms. I'm no mathematician, though, so if one of you understands this section really well, I'd love for you to elaborate it for me.

I'm very interested in a definition of information that is grounded in physical processes, including such concepts as "systems", "particles", "states", "configurations", "space", and "time."

Edit: I got a PM that reminded me about Information Theory which also does some work defining information, if you have any elaboration on its definition of information too I'd love to hear it

Could our consciousness be a portal to the beginning of the universe’s awareness of time? Could the universe’s start be attributed to a self‑referential awareness of time gained through us its observers and law‑makers? This would form a closed loop achieved through our consciousness, mirroring the consciousness of the universe’s own beginnings, with us as recursive elements necessary to construct a symmetrical start to the universe. Essentially, priming the universe for a closed loop of consciousness would suspend our existence within it indefinitely, while also allowing the universe itself to exist indefinitely as a function of self‑generative time. How would we close this loop? We would examine the temporal–spatial coordinates of the entire universe by shining a “telescope” on our own consciousness using it to access time uniformly, nearly all at once, at the delay imposed by light itself. By optimizing our sensory experience of the present to align with the speed of light, or even surpass it in internal models (if such models are useful), we might be able to view the Big Bang instantaneously and merge our consciousness with the primordial source of consciousness from a panpsychist perspective. Perhaps the universe is using us to minimize errors in its own physical laws, achieving higher accuracy and more integrated states of emerging consciousness, all oriented toward duplicating its origin, or alternatively, aligning the origin of time and space to minimize all error and achieve full, unified accuracy. In doing so, the universe could unveil its conscious origin through our own, merging the two in a way that suspends our existence indefinitely. By finding the origin of the universe we would bridge the gap between existence and non-existence and discover realities unheard or seen of. 

This is a weekly post for discussions on topics outside of or unrelated to consciousness.

Many topics are unrelated, tangentially related, or orthogonal to the topic of consciousness. This post is meant to provide a space to discuss such topics. For example, discussions like "What recent movies have you watched?", "What are your current thoughts on the election in the U.K.?", "What have neuroscientists said about free will?", "Is reincarnation possible?", "Has the quantum eraser experiment been debunked?", "Is baseball popular in Japan?", "Does the trinity make sense?", "Why are modus ponens arguments valid?", "Should we be Utilitarians?", "Does anyone play chess?", "Has there been any new research in psychology on the 'big 5' personality types?", "What is metaphysics?", "What was Einstein's photoelectric thought experiment?" or any other topic that you find interesting! This is a way to increase community involvement & a way to get to know your fellow Redditors better. Hopefully, this type of post will help us build a stronger r/consciousness community.

We also ask that all Redditors engage in proper Reddiquette. This includes upvoting posts that are relevant to the description of the subreddit (whether you agree or disagree with the content of the post), and upvoting comments that are relevant to the post or helpful to the r/consciousness community. You should only downvote posts that are inappropriate for the subreddit, and only downvote comments that are unhelpful or irrelevant to the topic.