WTF is Consciousness (Primer)

Welcome to the first edition of “WTF is Consciousness.”

This is an introductory blog post to explain what this series is about. We will start by laying out the kind of content that will be published here and the questions we’ll be seeking answers to.

I can’t guarantee that everything I post here will be factually correct, as understanding this complex world requires a leap of faith. Some things I share will be speculations, personal opinions, and niche theories that may sound mystical or non-scientific at times.

What I can promise is that every idea, every intuitive step we take, will be thoroughly researched before being published, with proper references and citations.

Like you, this is a journey for me and I in no way mean to pose as an expert in this field. I see this as my digital imprint: a record of my attempt to understand the nature of reality, meet interesting people with different perspectives, explore new theories and interpretations of life, and discuss and grow along the way.

A bit about myself: I’m a technologist, startup founder, fan of fiction, and most importantly, a curious human.

The world we live in is changing at a breathtaking pace. We are living in times when AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) feels within reach perhaps in just a few years. The economy has shifted to being attention-first; geopolitical tensions are rising; loneliness is becoming an epidemic; limbic capitalism drives us toward endless stimulation; and the dopamine economy is on the rise.

Meanwhile, humans are spending less and less time simply sitting with themselves. Like everyone else, I’m part of this world, and sometimes it feels overwhelming so much so that we forget to appreciate its beauty.

And yet, this is also a time when nearly every piece of human knowledge is at our fingertips. Instead of being gate-kept, knowledge now flows freely; anyone can connect with anyone, anywhere on the globe, with just a single message.

With so much happening around me, I often find myself pondering questions about the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, and the nature of reality. That curiosity is what sparked my journey into learning, researching, and exploring different schools of thought.

In an age where human-level intelligence may no longer sit at the top of the pyramid, what makes us truly human? We are the culmination of 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution, survivors of multiple mass extinction events, and the only known species capable of language, complex cognition, imagination and truly experience the life. Out of trillions of planets in the observable universe, why does it seem that only Earth has given rise to human-like intelligence?

Can AI ever reach a stage where it can consciously feel experiences as we do? And where, in the midst of all this, are we headed as a species?

In the age where answers to everything will be in our pocket, asking the right questions will be the most important skill.

A quote attributed to Einstein goes like -

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

Here are a few questions/mysteries that make me curious -

Now all these topics are very complex in themselves, I believe AI will play an important role in helping humanity answer many of these questions in the coming decades (presuming it doesn’t kills us all). Jokes aside AI is one of the “Great Filters” and creating Safe AI systems should be a priority (more on that sometime later).

But as the name in this series suggests we will be specifically focusing on the question “WTF is Consciousness”

In the coming months I will be consistently documenting my learnings trying to answer just this question. The stuff (don’t mind my crude language) that exists in all of us, the feeling of experiencing something, the subjective experience of living (from a first person perspective) and yet for which there is no single explanation.

As a simple example let’s take a red rose. If I ask you what do you see, you will say “red”

Physics tells us red = 700nm wavelength light. Biology tells us cones in the eye fire, and the brain processes the signal.

But science doesn’t explain why seeing 700nm feels like the “redness” of red. That feeling is consciousness, the inner experience of experiencing redness of a colour is the Qualia. Same goes for pungent taste of garlic or pain from touching a thorn.

Physics tells us the objective description of what happens using various models, but consciousness is the first person feel of experiencing it.

This explanatory gap between objective and subjective experience as to why physical processes in brain like neurons firing or hormones releasing give rise to an inner/subjective experience, is termed as the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” by philosopher David Chalmers.

This is a problem that has been puzzling mankind for generations and several scientific theories ( > 400 prominent theories have been published ) explaining mental states ranging in a broad spectrum -

Illusionism —> Materialism —>……—> …—> Idealism

We will try to stay away from the spiritual aspects of consciousness, god, religion as much as we can and take a more scientific discourse towards this problem. And while answering this question we will also touch some other deeper questions we talked about.

For more resources go to my resource portal.

All the coming posts on consciousness will have WTFC tag in the titles.

We might not find final answers, but we’ll sharpen our questions. And sometimes, asking the right question is the most radical thing you can do. STAY CURIOUS