2.8 Consciousness and Self-awareness

Consciousness versus Self-awareness

If we consider Human existence in reality as Humans perceive and experience it, then it seems the only way to experience reality is through Consciousness and Self-awareness. Notably, these are closely related, but they may not be the same state of cognitive information processing. 

Below Consciousness and Self-awareness, Humans experience many different layers of perception including a perception of energy, atomic matter, the sub-atomic, and the quantum realms.

Creating reality with the power of Consciousness and Self-awareness 

Through Human Conscious Self-awareness as beings that exist, Humans can change physical reality with thoughts. This is achieved through the inception of idea using Conscious Self-awareness, and Humans then use physical tools to build the idea and make it appear in reality. 

Humans also possess the Consciously Self-aware ability to influence other Humans to do their bidding. Using this approach, Humans change the reality as it is perceived without using any physical tools. There are ideas Humans have created and applied to other Humans in order to govern their behaviour, control their thoughts and actions. It has happened for a very long time. Humans each operate under this framework of ideas, and come to believe the illusion of ideas is real.

Altered perceptions of existence in reality

In relation to perception of existence in reality, Self-awareness is a functional extension of Consciousness. 

Sleep state

For example, when a Human is sleeping, they can effectively cease to exist, because they are neither Conscious or Self-aware, and have no perception of themselves or time. When a Human experiences a dream, they can be Conscious and Self-aware, however their perception of identity, time, and reality can be manipulated and inexplicably changed.

Flow state

When a Human is in operating in a very deep state of concentration, usually needed when trying to reach an objective goal, the Human can enter what is called a ‘flow state’. In a flow state, a Human is Conscious and extremely focused on achieving an objective that consumes a very high level of cognitive computational information processing. However the Human is generally not Self-aware. In a flow state, the Human retains a Conscious perception of their objective goal and tasks required to achieve it, however the Self-aware perceptions of identity, time, and most of external reality can momentarily disappear from existence.

Manifestations of extreme Information Processing 

Consciousness and Self-awareness are fundamental properties that seem to become manifest as a result of extremely powerful information processing. In Human Brains, this information processing occurs within Neurons and between Neurons in a massively complex parallel network of connections. 

There is also a theory of Consciousness that goes deeper and considers quantum states and information processes interacting with Neural connections via cellular features called Microtubules. 

Microtubules

Microtubules are a type of cytoskeletal filament found in eukaryotic cells (ie. cells that have a nucleus enclosed within a membrane-bound compartment called the nuclear envelope), including those of the Human Brain. They are composed of a protein called tubulin and play crucial roles in cell division, intracellular transport, and cell shape maintenance. 

Microtubules have a diameter of about 25 nanometers (nm), which is roughly 100 times smaller than the diameter of a typical Human hair. The length of microtubules can vary depending on the cell type and stage of the cell cycle, but they can be several micrometers long in some cases. Microtubules are considered one of the largest components of the cytoskeleton, which also includes microfilaments and intermediate filaments.

cytoskeltal filaments:

A cytoskeletal filament is a type of protein structure that helps to provide mechanical support and maintain the shape of cells in living organisms. The cytoskeleton is composed of three main types of filaments: microfilaments, intermediate filaments, and microtubules.

• Microfilaments - also known as actin filaments, are the thinnest of the cytoskeletal filaments, with a diameter of about 7 nm. They are composed of the protein actin and play important roles in cell motility, cytokinesis, and maintenance of cell shape.

• Intermediate filaments - have a diameter of about 10 nm and are composed of various proteins such as keratin, vimentin, and lamin. They help to provide mechanical strength to cells and tissues and are especially important in cells that are subject to mechanical stress, such as skin cells and muscle cells.

• Microtubules - have a diameter of about 25 nm and are composed of the protein tubulin. They play important roles in intracellular transport, cell division, and maintenance of cell shape.

Together, these three types of cytoskeletal filaments help to maintain the structural integrity of cells and enable them to carry out a wide range of cellular functions.

In recent years, Microtubules have been proposed to play a role in information processing within the Human Brain. The hypothesis, put forward by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, is known as "orchestrated objective reduction" (Orch OR). According to this hypothesis, Consciousness arises from quantum processes within the Microtubules of Neurons.

The idea is that the tubulin proteins in Microtubules can exist in two conformations, and that these conformations are stabilized by van der Waals forces. When a sufficient number of tubulins flip into one conformation, it creates a state of quantum coherence that can propagate along the microtubule. This coherence is proposed to be the basis of Conscious Self-awareness, with the quantum states collapsing in a process called orchestrated objective reduction (OR).

While the Orch OR hypothesis remains controversial and is not widely accepted by the scientific community, it has sparked interest in the potential role of microtubules in cognitive processes.

conformations of the tubulin subunits in a Microtubule, and van der Waals forces:

Microtubules are composed of subunits called tubulin, which can exist in two conformations: a straight conformation and a curved conformation. The straight conformation is more stable and is associated with the polymerization of tubulin subunits into the microtubule structure, while the curved conformation is less stable and is associated with depolymerization.

The two conformations of tubulin are stabilized by weak intermolecular forces known as van der Waals forces. These forces arise from the interactions between the electrons in neighboring atoms or molecules and can lead to attractive or repulsive interactions between the atoms or molecules.

In the case of tubulin, the van der Waals forces help to stabilize the straight conformation by promoting the alignment of the subunits in the microtubule structure. Conversely, the curved conformation is less stable because the van der Waals forces between the subunits are weaker, leading to a greater degree of flexibility and a higher probability of depolymerization.

The stability of the two conformations of tubulin is important for the dynamic properties of microtubules, which can rapidly switch between polymerization and depolymerization in response to cellular signals. This dynamic behavior is critical for a wide range of cellular processes, such as cell division, intracellular transport, and maintenance of cell shape.

Quantum computational information processing

Penrose argues that Conscious Self-awareness is not a function of computational information processing. However it seems that the Orch OR theory, simply takes the information processing to a much deeper quantum level.

There are many examples of extremely rudimentary quantum information processors being developed for a range of research, military and commercial applications.

Human understanding of the entire domain of quantum physics, coherence, decoherance, and superposition of states, applied to computer science is only just beginning.

It seems that regardless of how Penrose and others may prefer to consider the role of Microtubules, all of this is still computational information processing that follows highly esoteric rules of physics that just happen to exist beyond the present Hard Limits of Human Intelligence.

The Conscious thought forms of Opinions and Facts

Nearly all fields of science consist of cleverly assembled canonical, sequential, layered, and inter-supportive theories, with some totally bizarre speculations thrown in when science truly has no clue. This is all somehow held together by artificially wrapping these theories in the beautiful language and extreme logical perfection of mathematics. This clever mathematical logic-wrapping technique tends to strongly bias Human Consciousness toward perceiving scientific opinions as true facts. Most of science is pure scientific opinions, brilliantly dressed up as facts. This is easy to prove because all you need to do is keep asking questions that keep digging deeper and deeper, and the result is nearly always the same: "OK, well actually, we reeeaaally don't know"... usually in combination with a pained face and eye rolls.

In Human existence within reality, it is important to always Consciously remember, there seem to be far more intangible opinions, than there are tangible cold hard provable unequivocal facts. Facts are perfect and unassailable and very very rare.

Both opinions and facts exist as conceptual thought forms in Conscious Self-awareness, and Humans can sometimes give them both the same weight of importance, which can be a huge mistake. It is important to recognize that opinions and facts are very different and must be treated as such.

This point is important, as it relates to how opinions can and are being cleverly Consciously engineered to appear as facts about AI and the development of AGI. Always remain skeptically Self-aware, and try to look beyond the veil and anticipate the Human Conscious motives of others working to develop AI.   (Here's a clue: a basic self-profit and/or egocentric motive.)