>The first thing that jumps out here is: what purpose does consciousness serve in this system
I dont know, but could throw out a few ideas. One is that consciousness is part of a post processing step for memory storage, abstract analysis, or feedback loops. Another possibility is that is an unnecessary artifact or emergent property, more the laryngeal nerve than the appendix of the brain.
>I assert that your position compels you to hold the very boundary between consciousness and subconsciousness to be "illusory" as well.
I don't think that the boundary is illusory as much as arbitrary, from a functional perspective. The Ego is clearly not aware of processing below a certain level, but where that level lies is meaningless to an outside observer.
The biology of consciousness is a funny thing. Brain imaging has been able to detect what decision a person makes up to seven seconds before they are conscious of it [1]. You can perform a hemispherectomy removing half of the brain and people are still conscious.[2] IF the removed half was put in a second body, could it be conscious as well??
As far as I am aware, there is no scientific evidence for free will, and no plausible mechanism is physics.
It is noteworthy that the defining aspect of human experience in your model is an "unnecessary artifact".
The issue is not the precise boundary between unconscious and conscious mind, the point is that there is, in fact, such a boundary. You dream, do you not?
What you fail to address is what 'function' would require this otherwise inexplicable asymmetric partion of mind. Why this asymmetry? Why this duality?
Your principle error, imo, is that you simply assert that un- and sub-conscious psychological action is deterministic. You, nor anyone else for that matter, has any basis for making this determination. "We can't explain it so it doesn't exist". All we have observed in some experiments is that psychological signals that engender action occur before the conscious mind 'thinks' it has made a decision. To choose to label one's own mind's actions "deterministic" in that modality is merely an assumption. The simpler view is that one's 'self' has both unconcious and conscious aspects. This continuity does not require any assumptions; it seems self evident that 'it' is a unified 'thing'.
It is entirely irrelevant what physics has to say, today, about consciousness. Physics is having rather significant problems addressing a coherent, unified, treatment of simple matter, nevermind self-conscious minds. I think it is both prudent and rational to have a bit of humility in terms of what we actually know and understand, as a species.
[p.s. in context my OP, to be precise: I assert that it is "my unconscious self that has made a decision; my conscious mind becomes of aware of my decision, and a bit of continuity theater of the mind make my ego think it is the one that made my decision." It is an error to confuse 'ego' for the 'self'.]
I dont know, but could throw out a few ideas. One is that consciousness is part of a post processing step for memory storage, abstract analysis, or feedback loops. Another possibility is that is an unnecessary artifact or emergent property, more the laryngeal nerve than the appendix of the brain.
>I assert that your position compels you to hold the very boundary between consciousness and subconsciousness to be "illusory" as well.
I don't think that the boundary is illusory as much as arbitrary, from a functional perspective. The Ego is clearly not aware of processing below a certain level, but where that level lies is meaningless to an outside observer.
The biology of consciousness is a funny thing. Brain imaging has been able to detect what decision a person makes up to seven seconds before they are conscious of it [1]. You can perform a hemispherectomy removing half of the brain and people are still conscious.[2] IF the removed half was put in a second body, could it be conscious as well??
As far as I am aware, there is no scientific evidence for free will, and no plausible mechanism is physics.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-decision/ [2] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17092-hemis....