Why is my consciousness me and not someone else? Does the matter

The matter which makes up your brain is physically disconnected from all the other brains. That is what makes your consciousness be associated with your flesh in particular. As a kid I was a bit weirded out by this, but once you weed out the dualism it's not complicated.

>>7653698
But why am I me?

>>7653689
What if consciousness is unrelated to your brain?

>>7653758
>>>/x/

>>7653763
Nice argument bro

>>7653732
I don't know any better way to resolve that question than that it is a tautology.
>>7653758
Studies on effect of brain damage suggest a very strong connection at least. There's some kinds of dualism floating around in the philosophy community but nothing too extreme anymore.

>>7653689
Your identity in this life is a consequence of karma you have accumulated in your past lives.

>>7653698
This. Its what makes us "human". We don't have hive mind like other animals. Why you are you is the result of your parents getting freaky one night. You were the strongest sperm cell to make it inside your mothers womb. So you beat out other cells to become a person.

>>7653732
Cuz everyone is himself duh.

>>7653778
It's likely to be a long time before dualism is or can be disproven. What's to say the machinery of the brain isn't simply a proxy for something beyond the material to interface with? Or even something of the material, but just located somewhere else?

Even then, consciousness as an experience can't be "solved". If anything, consciousness is created by and stored in, time.

>>7653805
I didn't mean to say dualism is disproven, sorry. What I mean is that it's mostly the church which says stuff like the mind is distributed throughout the body. It's commonly accepted that, one way or another, minds have an association with the brain.

>>7653689
>>7653758
>why does x=x and not something else
Retarded question tbqh.

>>7653894
Meant to reply to >>7653732 instead of >>7653758
But >>7653758 is dumb too.

>>7653732
Because of the unique arrangement of the matter in your brain.

>>7653907
Why is the matter arranged in a unique way and what are your thoughts on tabula rasa?

>>7653961
Not that anon, but
>Why is the matter arranged in a unique way
That's how physics and the universe works.

>what are your thoughts on tabula rasa?
Not the case. We're born with genetic biases towards certain conclusions and behaviors. Environment certainly makes you as well, but the slate is hardly clean.

your brain is indexing what your body experiences through the 5 senses. those are memories, and they have probabilistic connectivity from which your consciousness emerges for that one point in time. you're you because your brain was built with your parents' DNA and only you have experienced everything that you have experienced

there are theories that are entirely speculative on supernatural phenomenon, but that doesn't belong on this board

>>7653758
>>7653778
>Studies on effect of brain damage suggest a very strong connection at least
there are also some weird studies involving pipes through heads, corpus collosum (sp?) severing, and regrown tissue retaining memories

>>7654015
No, anon. You don't get it.

Everything is meta.

>>7654049
...or is it?

>>7654049
I'm So Meta, Even This Acronym

>>7654057
Yeah it is anon! What's inside an atom? And inside of that? And that? What defines the behavior of anything? Is there such thing as "matter" or "things"?

It's all meta, bro. Science can't help us understand nuffin.

>>7653689
We are all one consciousness. Your perspective can experience nothing beyond consciousness. As such, your conscious experience is eternal, your death may be acknowledged by other perspectives, but you can not escape your eternal consciousness. You think of yourself as someone separate from me, and your body is separate, but we are two perspectives of the same consciousness.

If there was a single consciousness that suddenly existed, experienced, and then died, throughout the entire timeline of the universe, what would that consciousness experience? The sum total. It would not experience anything before its birth or after its death, but to suppose that it's experience ends (or had a beginning) requires the introduction of a second consciousness to witness these events relative to its own.

>>7654165
420 blaze it xDD

>>7654067
It's not about what's inside of them ,it's about how they are arranged

>>7654165
And why that can't be the case?

you concept of you is an illusion, you only feel like you were the same consciousness yesterday or last hour is because you that persons memories. prove me wrong.

>>7654383
Why can't what be the case?

>>7654378
LOL!!! XD

>>7654381
What makes them arranged? What determines the behavior of this arrangement?

>>7654714
Physics. The nature of the universe itself. The same things that make all machines function.

>>7654473
DX|]>~o

>>7654715
What *is* being arranged? What is the fundamental from which all "things" are made?
What *is* physics arranging? What determines the nature of the universe?

>>7654731
That can't be answered yet, and might never be. A top down approach is the only means to approach it. We don't know know if particle subdivision ever ends, nor do we know that universe itself is the most macro macro. It may loop back into itself, rendering scale some kind of illusion.

By what means are aspects of the universe afforded the ability to exist, and be as they are? What drives the universe and allows it to exist? We don't know. The best you can do is come up with your own working theories as you chip away at these ideas and accumulate information during your lifetime. You'll take most of it with you when you fizzle out, but probably not all of it. The same goes for physicists actively working in the field.

Everything is unique and forever will be, this is the happy ending : ). All that matters is that you're alive.. so let it be enjoy this. Would be stupid to ponder existence for your short life and don't actually enjoy it.. you are unique after all and your configuration will never repeat again.

>>7654759
If quantum fluctuations created the big bang and the existence of the universe is infinite, everything that can happen will happen and you'll experience everything a brain can experience with 100% probability.

File: IMG_5387.jpg (169KB, 800x800px) Image search: [Google]

169KB, 800x800px

>>7653769

He kind of has a point though, this should go to /lit/ though not /x/.

>>7654769
Well the universe existence will be infinite darkness once heat death, no potential for anything exists there.

>>7654783
You can't rule out the possibiliy that random quantum fluctuations or quantum tunneling can produce another Big Bang, even in heat death. That's how our universe might have started. If that's the case, then everything that can happen will happen infinite times.

>>7653689
Person 1 = X arrangement of matter (brain / consciousness / self-identity / you)
Person 2 = Y arrangement of matter (brain / consciousness / self-identity / somebody else)

Person 2 is not conscious as person 1 for person 2 is Y and person 1 is X. For 1 (you) to be replaced with person 2 (somebody else), X would have to be replaced with Y.

There is a finite amount of different patterns in which matter can be arranged. This means that given a size limit, the amount of people who could possibly exist is not infinite. You are 1 of a finite amount of different people who could exist. Once you realize this, the above is easier to accept. Why? Because now each possible person can be assigned a unique identifier. Each person is given a number that represents the arrangement of matter that is their brain. Eventually the highest number is reached and there are no more unique arrangements of matter. All possible brains have been accounted for. Now, why is brain #43335343534543 not conscious as brain #5444544554? Because brain #43335343534543 is not brain #5444544554.

>>7654795
That sounds so simple when you put it that way.
But what *are* quantum fluctuations? And if everything is "infinite", then how are we experiencing a present right in this moment, and not a different present in another moment?

>>7654165
Yew should publish bro.

>>7654795
>f that's the case, then everything that can happen will happen infinite times.
Nope.
That's not how probability works.

>>7654901
Thank you.

This kind of thing irritates me in the same way as the "if 1000 monkeys are typing randomly on a typewriter, eventually, one will write shakespeare."

Except true randomness doesn't seem to exist. The monkey is a mechanical system with certain traits, and its output is far from random. They might never even type a coherent paragraph. Not to talk down about chimps.

>>7654426
The existance of various consciousness, instead of only one

>>7654391
The idea that you "die" every second or "die" every time you go to sleep is mostly retarded.

It all hinges on the idea that "you" is and has to forever be the exact composition you are at any given second and the second that changes you've "died" only to be replaced with a new "you" which is some philosophical shit.

On a cellular level you're not even close to be the same as you were when you were born and your makeup is going to continue to change over your life. That doesn't mean that you ten years from now is any less you or that current you in rendered "gone" because of it. These are gradual changes that occur over a long period of time and if you want to say "well I'm not 100% the same I'm dead" you might as well go "well these changes are a part of me so I'm no less myself than when I started".

>>7655189
or, you know, the sense of self we have of ourself is an illusion

>>7654908
The difference between a monkey and the universe is that we know a monkey is a closed system with very specific traits.

The universe is assumed to be a closed system with traits we don't even fucking understand.

This doesn't mean you're magically going to be reincarnated after an assured next big bang as a creature one googolplex years from now because "all your particles" lined up but it does mean that heat death despite sounded the most likely end isn't an absolute.

>>7653698
> As a kid I was a bit weirded out by this
Man. And I thought I was the only 8 year old staring into the mirror wondering who he was

>>7655196
or, you know, it's not

The issue with applying "you're definitely not you" or "you definitely are you" is that "you" is almost always tied down to "consciousness" and that only results in a lifetime attempt to define what consciousness is and it's almost always whatever definition is closest to your pessimistic or optimistic outlook.

We're a single specific organism over the course of our lives and it's by going farther and farther down to a cellular level and then an atomic level that you ask yourself if you remain "you".

The big thing with that too is that "you're not you" has a foot farther into dualism since it's also "you're a separate existence from your physically body/you don't exist" and that relies on consciousness being a separate entity that can be "replaced" with a new instance of consciousness rather than a result of a multitude of physical functions.

>this thread
what even is the question?