Based Camp: You Probably are Not Sentient

Embark on a deep exploration of the nature of consciousness, self, and the human experience in this thought-provoking video. We dissect the intriguing notion of consciousness as an emergent property of a memory compression system, comparing the mind to a building security system with diverse inputs. Our dialogue delves into how consciousness could influence automatic responses, the deceptive role of consciousness as a 'lying historian', and the perplexing interplay of actions, conscious awareness, and free will.

We challenge common assumptions about universal human experiences, shedding light on the absence of an internal monologue or mental imagery in many individuals. We probe into the role of language and narrative in shaping emotions, and how understanding our mental processes can foster improved interpersonal relationships.

Part of the conversation focuses on the potential decline in IQ due to genetic markers, the role of language acquisition in the development of consciousness in children, and how narrative building might be detrimental. There's a look at the future of humanity, discussing how integration with technology could enhance human experience and our consciousness's susceptibility to modeling others' behaviors and emotions.

The final segment delves into anthropomorphism, artificial intelligence, and our emotional reactions to robots. We share personal experiences with academia, independent research, mental health, the autism-schizophrenia spectrum, and our personal lives and relationship. Join us in this captivating dialogue that blends philosophy, neuroscience, technology, and personal reflections.

Below is a poorly translated transcript of the video. Maybe one day we will have fans to fix these up but for now this is what you get:

Hello Malcolm. Hello Simone. I love your response. I love that it is, Your signature greeting with people.

Very high energy, but I also think it is an element of your social autopilot. Not that I don't have a social autopilot, I'm on that right now, but I think that's a really interesting part of human existence because for the vast majority of our lives, I don't think we're actually. Let alone not sapien, not even really conscious, not even really aware of what's going on.

Oh yeah. And I think it's so arrogant when people pretend that they are aware of most of their lives. We talk about something called road hypnosis. Where they look back on a drive and they're like, I don't remember what I was doing during the drive.

Their brain just shuts off recording. And the question is how much of our life is road hypnosis?

And I think it's a huge portion of our life and it's something, this is what initially got us talking about consciousness early in our relationship was how do we at least enter moments of lucidity where we are. Aware of what's going on. Somewhat sentient, just long enough to be able to change things about the internal self model that does run our autopilot so that at least in the majority of the life when we are on autopilot, we are better serving our values better, better people, more productive, more emotionally in control, et cetera.

And I think our thought on consciousness really evolved in interesting directions from there. When we started really thinking about what consciousness means and why maybe it exists. So I think this'll be really fun to talk about.

So why don't you talk a bit about what you think sentience is.

Think sentience our experience of consciousness, in other words, is really an emergent property of a memory compression system. So imagine you have a building security system with tons of different inputs. It's a feed of doors opening and closing within the building, a bunch of different camera feeds a chemical monitoring system coming in.

Everything's feeding into this one control room. And then being, put into a camera feed and then being stored in memory and there's a man watching the security feed. And I think that's our experience of consciousness is that. Our minds are synthesizing, smell, sight, hormonal fluctuations, going on a lot of very complex inputs.

They're synthesizing them into something that can be compressed in a unified memory, which if relevant will be stored in long-term memory, and then made in turn influence sort of automatic instinctual responses. And because, This memory is being codified and in the moment it's being run through like a camera system.

We're getting the impression that there is some kind of observed conscious driver that is running consciousness.

If I'm gonna run this back to you, it's almost like what you're saying is this guy who is.

Sitting at this feed he is collecting all of these different camera inputs, all of these different sensory inputs, and they are encoded in this single quote unquote experience, which is being written into the hard drive of this computer. And when he is referencing what happened in the past when anybody is referencing what happened in the past within this big security array, they are referencing this encoded, and it is because they are referencing this encoding.

It creates the perception falsely so that the way this encoding works is the way that these things are being experienced in the moment. But it isn't actually well, and that the, that there's some intentional driver that's shaping each decision intentionally through that interface essentially.

Whereas the interface only actually affects insofar as

the memory itself influences like automatic reactions. So I. And I think the research supports this. We automatically respond to things. We automatically start taking action in response to stimulus. Before we have some kind of conscious understanding that we're doing that.

Yes, it does. And our memories. Absolutely. Yeah. Mri. Yeah. MRI missions have, shown this as . And while our memories will influence those responses, Our current experience of consciousness is not in the driver's seat. It is just passively experiencing this encoding of memories.

It believes it's in the driver's seat. And I think that this is what's really interesting is it will apply this feeling of consciousness to any experience that you're doing or any action that you're taking. So when you're doing open brain surgery on someone you need to keep them awake to prevent accidentally cutting part of the brain.

You're not supposed to. So they'll check, right? You can do things like apply a small amount of electricity to a part of the brain and get the person to move their hand, and then you ask them, why did you move your hand? And they'll say, oh, I felt like moving my hand. And you can also see this with split brain patients.

Either patients with a corpus callosum is split in their head and their right brain and their left brain actually function pretty independently of each other when this happens, right? So you can cover one eye and communicate with part of their brain and not the other part of their brain.

So you can tell part of their brain pick up a Rubik's cube and try to solve it. Then you put something on the other eye and you ask, okay, why did you do that? And they'll say, oh, I always felt like solving a Aruba's cube. I always wanted to do this. And you can do this with more complicated things.

So there's this experiment, really great one where they would give people pictures of like attractive women, and they'd say, which is the most attractive? And then they'd do a little slight of hand leader and say, okay, why did you say this one was the most attractive? But it wasn't the one they chose.

You'd actually replace it with another picture. And you could do this with political beliefs as well and all sorts of other things. And most people will say, oh, I chose this person for X, y, and Z reasons, and go into detail about why they chose that person.