u/cimocw

This idea has been popping up in here several times a week lately.

I get it, you think because time is infinite and the universe is super big, some things are bound to repeat at some point. First of all, entropy doesn't work that way. But even ignoring that, just think about it for a minute.

Your mind, built by your consciousness, is the product of a very specific chain of events and experiences, from before the moment of your conception to the act of reading this words. This means it can only exist as it is if your exact mother birth you, and for her to exist there's a similar set of things that needed happening, sans you, and this extends all the way back to the beginning of time. How can you have that twice in the same universe?

Here's another angle of this impossibility: imagine you have the power to clone yourself, exactly 1:1 to the point you won't even know if you're the original or the clone. The two of you will actually have achieved same exact consciousness, yay, but only during the very first instant. A second passes and you're different people, because you are not occupying the same place in space and your chain of thinking would have already diverted. Even in this perfect scenario you can only achieve it for an infinitesimal fraction of time, like a tangent touching a circle.

And lastly here's a math angle: There's an infinite amount of numbers between one and two but none of them is three. Also you can keep counting infinitely, but you'll never count the same number twice.

People looking for esoteric explanations tend to put consciousness in contexts where it behaves like it occupies a place and is made of something and can interact with stuff and turn into something different.

I've seen countless examples of this here and every day there are more. They ask where does consciousness go after death, or if it can be copied, or if it turns into energy, or how does it interact with reality.

But consciousness is ultimately not a thing but a process, and a process can stop without having to "go" anywhere, it just stops happening. Energy is used in order to make it run, but it's not "made" of it. If we consider consciousness as a stream of experiences this helps explain why we can't "find" the redness of red or the taste of fanta, since these are not stored data but experiences that only last while they're happening (remembering is also a form of experience).

This is why I like the computer analogy (even though most people discard it assuming it's about comparing every single aspect of both systems, which is a waste of a thought exercise because it kills any argument). It helps explain the relationship between matter and mind better than any other analogy (is there any?). Mark Solms defines consciousness as an abstract space for decision making and creativity, and I think software is also an abstract space that we created to take on some abstract processes (computing) that utilize symbols and meaning, which are outside the realm of matter. And more importantly to this discussion in particular, when you turn off the computer, software also doesn't go anywhere, it just stops happening.

Younger players might not know this but for many of us who grew up with N64 and GameCube (in particular SSB Melee), Sheik appeared to be presented as a fully male character who turned out to be Zelda *magically transformed* to male (think Ranma ½).

Later with the addition of the 3ds version as well as the Hyrule Warriors games, the official Nintendo canon was that Sheik was Zelda *magically crossdressed* as male (think Mulan).

Well, some of us never bothered adjusting our head canon and still like to think Sheik was a guy for our own reasons or for no reason at all, but in any case this will end with the new remake because with current tech there's more than enough polygons to be anatomically accurate lol

One thing I've noticed in this community is that we often talk about our expectations for upcoming models as if there should be one ideal device that satisfies everyone, but that's not how phones worked before smartphones took over.

The pre-smartphone era wasn't just Nokia bricks that did calls and SMS. There was a huge spectrum of devices aimed at different people. Some focused on music, some on photography, some on email and productivity, some on messaging, some on fashion and style, some on ruggedness. You chose based on what mattered to you, or what you wanted to try for a while.

What's interesting is that the modern dumbphone market seems to be recreating that diversity, but our expectations haven't caught up. Every time a new device is reviewed, the comments often become a list of contradictory requirements:

"It doesn't need GPS, but it needs great music playback."

"It doesn't need a camera, but it has to support WhatsApp."

"It doesn't need apps, but it should have maps."

None of these preferences are wrong. The problem is expecting every device to satisfy all of them at once.

If manufacturers are going to experiment and explore different ideas, some phones will be music-first, some communication-first, some minimalist, some productivity-oriented. That's healthy!

To me, the ideal dumbphone world isn't one where everyone carries the same phone. It's one where there are enough different phones that everyone can find the one that matches their own priorities and style.

Imagine in 2100 being born to a family that still gets paid from tutorials from 2005

I'm thinking, a couple generations from now inheriting a number of terabytes of selfies and pet videos each time one of them passes will start to become a common adult life annoyance. I can see a Seinfeld or Curb episode about it.

Language is a funny thing. Please feel free to add your own pairs of words that went through a similar process.

Our consciousness provides a great deal of things to do at any time, from picking our nose to running a marathon. But surprisingly, not even going to sleep is a voluntary action to execute, rather we provide the best possible conditions and wait for the slumber to take over.

There's very little we can actually do about controlling our bodily functions, most of it is jut about stopping something that happens regardless, like breathing or blinking, and even that barely lasts since our attention is best used elsewhere.

Do you think this sheds a light on the search for a more accurate idea of the role of human consciousness within the brain?

I wouldn't playing the game with slightly improved sound effects and deeper music.

Language is losing depth so fast we can't even realize until it's too late.

In Avengers, dr Strange famously finds only one reality where their plan worked. In Rick and Morty they have to be really careful about ditching a dimension and replacing themselves in a new one because there's a limited amount of similar enough ones.

But according to basically the only thing that the multiverse idea has going for it, the amount of universes/dimensions/realities is not a fixed number but an infinite amount. Meaning you'll always be able to find another one that's exactly like yours except for something so small or far away it can't really matter.

The idea that the brain works like a very advanced computer seems to be very divisive amongst people who discuss the nature of consciousness.

A typical argument about consciousness states that you can take everything that constitutes a conscious person down to the atoms and beyond, but you will never find the taste of a coke or the redness of red.

So here's my angle: you can do the same with a working computer, you can look into every single transistor and you will never find a codec library nor a single .DLL. (edit: the Windows startup chime was a bad example because a sound is a sensory experience that requires someone to perceive it).

Any condition you would need to make this second scenario falsifiable would also apply to the first one.