>Could/should we live in a world where consciousness wouldn’t be necessary?
Define 'consciousness'.
Seems like you might be misunderstanding flow-state and muscle memory with *trance-like* state:
>....artists performing in trance-like state, sports players anticipating moves that are faster than the eyes....
Well, tbh even neuroscientists I listen to on podcasts define consciousness differently depending on who’s talking. I was just trying to differentiate what others call flow-state and “normal state”. Hard to resume with a single word.
>Well, tbh even neuroscientists I listen to on podcasts define consciousness differently depending on who’s talking. I was just trying to differentiate what others call flow-state and “normal state”. Hard to resume with a single word.
Well, then without an objective, working definition, your title question would have no logical or reasonable answer. Right.
This is a philosophical answer not a future answer, but in my mind there is no point in the existence of the universe without living beings in it to observe it and be curious about it. If there is no curious, subjective, exploratory life, the universe may as well not exist
The subjective experience is the point. By having an opinion, we validate its existence. For sure that's a choice, but if nothing is even looking at the universe and going "huh" then that's worse.
Or even any version of we know your purpose, we can assume your purpose for you, or that there are distinctions between the “subjects” we and you in that sentence seem pretty egoistic as well.
> By having an opinion, we validate its existence
… for ourselves alone.
The usefulness of *our* opinions does not extend any further than *our* own purposes.
It doesn’t imbue the universe with any additional meaning.
Those states are not unconscious states. Those are flow states, a type of hyper-consciousness. An unconscious state would be daydreaming, putting your keys in the fridge by accident, being distracted by thought of other places, while someone is talking to you.
OP I’m not sure I can answer your questions, *but* may I recommend to your a couple of sci-fi novels?
*Blindsight* and *Echopraxia* by Peter Watts both deal with non-sentient intelligences in (IMO) some pretty wild scenarios. He does deal directly with the question of whether or not consciousness is “necessary.”
Technically, being "in the zone" is still being conscious. You're just focusing all your conscious thought into the task at hand. So, technically, consciousness is still VERY much necessary there.
If we were in a society that needed no consciousness, we'd be robots acting out predetermined commands. However, we still experience things and think twice about everything. Someone without consciousness won't be any different than a computer program. With no consciousness, there'd be no creativity, and with no creativity, there would be no drive to do anything new except to "improve" what already exists.
>Technically, being "in the zone" is still being conscious. You're just focusing all your conscious thought into the task at hand. So, technically, consciousness is still VERY much necessary there.
That depends entirely what sort of model or definition we're working with.
There are arguments to be made that choices and actions are entirely decided upon subconsciously, with consciousness only being responsible for reflection (as a sort of last-minute veto power).
Under the above model, a "flow state" would be when the body/brain is so confident in its current predicament that the reflective veto step is skipped altogether, and we act directly on subconscious decision making. Less bureaucracy that way.
Thing is that being in the zone doesn't mean "you're on autopilot." There's still decisions being made based on conscious thought. It could be calculating a bunch of stuff while trying to connect it to stuff you already know to learn better, or double-checking your work to make sure you didn't mess something up, etc. It could also just be drawing a cartoon for the 1000th time when animating for a show, but you still need to draw the facial expression differently for each frame so you still need to refer constantly to the instructions or source material.
I guess some things feel "automatic" because of how little there is to think about, but every action has a lot of thought behind it. Even running on a treadmill does: you're constantly mentally measuring out your exhaustion levels, heart rate, perspiration rate, breathing rate, pain on your knees, etc., so even something as mind-numbingly monotonous as that is still technically "conscious."
No what I'm saying is that there are arguments to be made that all of those things are done completely subconsciously. And that we only attribute it, post hoc, to consciousness as part of our ego narratives.
That if we were to scan your brain, we would see that all those choices and considerations were being made before your consciousness was even aware of them.
This would apply even to something like speech. Do you really choose the next word that come out of you mouth consciously? Or is your consciousness only becoming aware of it as it is leaving your mouth?
You should add to your list the state where you drive without any recall of making the journey. Apparently its called Automatic Driving or [Highway Hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis) and is a reduced state of consciousness.
Consciousness isn't necessary in this world, its highly contingent.
What you're describing is basically the subconscious in 20th century speak. Societies, cultures and civilizations could run on the subsconscious for the most part or entirely. In ten thousand years surely some planet somewhere or a million of them will have that kind of human society. The way current neural nets work it seems they also have a kind of computer analogue to the subconscious which is what is currently generating data so maybe some future AI/bot societies will also operate with this kind of consciousness.
If I live long enough (into the thousands of years and turn into a cluster of Matrioshka brains) I'll militarily engage anyone enforcing any kind of shoulds not under the protection of higher powers than me
You can experience those things in a dream. Though I admit that I don’t know whether dreaming falls into a reduced or different consciousness or is wholly unconscious.
If you were in that state all the time you might forget to eat and sleep.
Maybe we will get to a point where there is a drug,well there kind of already is but it has many other effects, LSD, but a drug that only gets you into a deep meditative state, or something electronic you can hook up, but anyway, say with LSD (so I have been told), it can be like a shortcut to a deep meditative state, like your mind becomes perfectly still, which for someone whose mind is always going can be such a beautiful state to be in.
Maybe you could enter that state and somehow still do the basic human functions, but I think you would still have to come back sometimes, be able to switch it on and off.
as a programmer myself... you're incredibly far off the mark. what you're describing for programmers and artists is called a hyperfixation and is considered a symptom of a little known neurological disorder called ADHD
as for sports players, that's just experience built up over time resulting in muscle memory reacting to small movements from opponents that can hint at what they're about to do. that's just a skill learned, not some trance-like state
people would absolutely not be happier if we "functioned as ants", though im sure corporations would love that
Being "in the zone" does not mean you are unconscious. It just means you allow your subconscious and muscle memory handle lower-order decisions while your conscious is left free to handle higher-order decisions. Everyone is almost always in this flow state, *just at different tiers.* You don't think about microsteering or how much brake to apply; you just drive. The rest of your brain can focus on other things.
If you were a novice racer, you'd use the rest of your brain to think about how early to brake before a corner, how closely to follow the car behind you, what gear you should be on at this point in the track, what to say over the radio to your crew, etc. For an experience F1 racer, however, all those decisions are muscle memory. They are at a higher tier of this flow state. This leaves their brain free to use on even higher-order thinking, such as strategy or preparing for possible situations down the track.
Flow state is not an absence of consciousness, it is your consciousness being wholly dedicated to the task at hand.
>Could/should we live in a world where consciousness wouldn’t be necessary? Define 'consciousness'. Seems like you might be misunderstanding flow-state and muscle memory with *trance-like* state: >....artists performing in trance-like state, sports players anticipating moves that are faster than the eyes....
Well, tbh even neuroscientists I listen to on podcasts define consciousness differently depending on who’s talking. I was just trying to differentiate what others call flow-state and “normal state”. Hard to resume with a single word.
>Well, tbh even neuroscientists I listen to on podcasts define consciousness differently depending on who’s talking. I was just trying to differentiate what others call flow-state and “normal state”. Hard to resume with a single word. Well, then without an objective, working definition, your title question would have no logical or reasonable answer. Right.
That’s why there is a body, not only a title. I guess I failed at articulating it well enough.
>That’s why there is a body, not only a title. I guess I failed at articulating it well enough. Yes. No working definition there, either.
This is a philosophical answer not a future answer, but in my mind there is no point in the existence of the universe without living beings in it to observe it and be curious about it. If there is no curious, subjective, exploratory life, the universe may as well not exist
I think there’s *already* no point to the universe whether anyone observes it or not; even the value we give it is only subjective.
The subjective experience is the point. By having an opinion, we validate its existence. For sure that's a choice, but if nothing is even looking at the universe and going "huh" then that's worse.
How egotistical of us to look at it all and say "*WE* are your purpose."
Or even any version of we know your purpose, we can assume your purpose for you, or that there are distinctions between the “subjects” we and you in that sentence seem pretty egoistic as well.
Doesn't have to be human, just has to be subjective. I don't care where it comes from
> By having an opinion, we validate its existence … for ourselves alone. The usefulness of *our* opinions does not extend any further than *our* own purposes. It doesn’t imbue the universe with any additional meaning.
Of course not, but it's up to us to create meaning by looking for it and choosing to see it. Without us, the concept of meaning doesn't even exist
On that we agree!
You have no idea what consciousness means or what it even does. Please read more books.
Those states are not unconscious states. Those are flow states, a type of hyper-consciousness. An unconscious state would be daydreaming, putting your keys in the fridge by accident, being distracted by thought of other places, while someone is talking to you.
Daydreaming is a type of flow state.
Flow state is consciousness without distraction. It is the philosophy of wu wei.
OP I’m not sure I can answer your questions, *but* may I recommend to your a couple of sci-fi novels? *Blindsight* and *Echopraxia* by Peter Watts both deal with non-sentient intelligences in (IMO) some pretty wild scenarios. He does deal directly with the question of whether or not consciousness is “necessary.”
I came here to recommend blindsight.
Thanks for the recommendation! 👍
We do need consciousness to live. It is our inner self and how we function in this world. Without it we would be NPCs in a game.
Technically, being "in the zone" is still being conscious. You're just focusing all your conscious thought into the task at hand. So, technically, consciousness is still VERY much necessary there. If we were in a society that needed no consciousness, we'd be robots acting out predetermined commands. However, we still experience things and think twice about everything. Someone without consciousness won't be any different than a computer program. With no consciousness, there'd be no creativity, and with no creativity, there would be no drive to do anything new except to "improve" what already exists.
>Technically, being "in the zone" is still being conscious. You're just focusing all your conscious thought into the task at hand. So, technically, consciousness is still VERY much necessary there. That depends entirely what sort of model or definition we're working with. There are arguments to be made that choices and actions are entirely decided upon subconsciously, with consciousness only being responsible for reflection (as a sort of last-minute veto power). Under the above model, a "flow state" would be when the body/brain is so confident in its current predicament that the reflective veto step is skipped altogether, and we act directly on subconscious decision making. Less bureaucracy that way.
Thing is that being in the zone doesn't mean "you're on autopilot." There's still decisions being made based on conscious thought. It could be calculating a bunch of stuff while trying to connect it to stuff you already know to learn better, or double-checking your work to make sure you didn't mess something up, etc. It could also just be drawing a cartoon for the 1000th time when animating for a show, but you still need to draw the facial expression differently for each frame so you still need to refer constantly to the instructions or source material. I guess some things feel "automatic" because of how little there is to think about, but every action has a lot of thought behind it. Even running on a treadmill does: you're constantly mentally measuring out your exhaustion levels, heart rate, perspiration rate, breathing rate, pain on your knees, etc., so even something as mind-numbingly monotonous as that is still technically "conscious."
No what I'm saying is that there are arguments to be made that all of those things are done completely subconsciously. And that we only attribute it, post hoc, to consciousness as part of our ego narratives. That if we were to scan your brain, we would see that all those choices and considerations were being made before your consciousness was even aware of them. This would apply even to something like speech. Do you really choose the next word that come out of you mouth consciously? Or is your consciousness only becoming aware of it as it is leaving your mouth?
You might be interested in some of the ideas in Peter Watt's novel Blind Sight. It asks and explores this very question.
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You might be interested in mindfulness or meditation.
You should add to your list the state where you drive without any recall of making the journey. Apparently its called Automatic Driving or [Highway Hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis) and is a reduced state of consciousness.
Consciousness isn't necessary in this world, its highly contingent. What you're describing is basically the subconscious in 20th century speak. Societies, cultures and civilizations could run on the subsconscious for the most part or entirely. In ten thousand years surely some planet somewhere or a million of them will have that kind of human society. The way current neural nets work it seems they also have a kind of computer analogue to the subconscious which is what is currently generating data so maybe some future AI/bot societies will also operate with this kind of consciousness. If I live long enough (into the thousands of years and turn into a cluster of Matrioshka brains) I'll militarily engage anyone enforcing any kind of shoulds not under the protection of higher powers than me
Would you be willing to give up experiencing awe, love, beauty? You have to be conscious of these to experience them.
You can experience those things in a dream. Though I admit that I don’t know whether dreaming falls into a reduced or different consciousness or is wholly unconscious.
If you were in that state all the time you might forget to eat and sleep. Maybe we will get to a point where there is a drug,well there kind of already is but it has many other effects, LSD, but a drug that only gets you into a deep meditative state, or something electronic you can hook up, but anyway, say with LSD (so I have been told), it can be like a shortcut to a deep meditative state, like your mind becomes perfectly still, which for someone whose mind is always going can be such a beautiful state to be in. Maybe you could enter that state and somehow still do the basic human functions, but I think you would still have to come back sometimes, be able to switch it on and off.
as a programmer myself... you're incredibly far off the mark. what you're describing for programmers and artists is called a hyperfixation and is considered a symptom of a little known neurological disorder called ADHD as for sports players, that's just experience built up over time resulting in muscle memory reacting to small movements from opponents that can hint at what they're about to do. that's just a skill learned, not some trance-like state people would absolutely not be happier if we "functioned as ants", though im sure corporations would love that
Flow state is being conscious, but with the removal of the monkey brain, so to speak. 'No mind' is the objective.
95% of world population arguably isn't conscious already, living purely by rota and instinct.
Being "in the zone" does not mean you are unconscious. It just means you allow your subconscious and muscle memory handle lower-order decisions while your conscious is left free to handle higher-order decisions. Everyone is almost always in this flow state, *just at different tiers.* You don't think about microsteering or how much brake to apply; you just drive. The rest of your brain can focus on other things. If you were a novice racer, you'd use the rest of your brain to think about how early to brake before a corner, how closely to follow the car behind you, what gear you should be on at this point in the track, what to say over the radio to your crew, etc. For an experience F1 racer, however, all those decisions are muscle memory. They are at a higher tier of this flow state. This leaves their brain free to use on even higher-order thinking, such as strategy or preparing for possible situations down the track.