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Consciousness: Games and Apps
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"Does the brain create consciousness, or does consciousness create the brain?"
If we consider what is the tool and what wields it, one would say that the brain is the tool that consciousness uses to manifest itself in the world. Our brains are wired to the physical, we enter the world with our brain plugged into it, and while we can use certain scientific measures to see how the brain works, as to understanding how consciousness works, things get very fuzzy. We do not have measurements we can take that will tell us much about consciousness, it is so removed from physicality and our current understandings of scientific principles. It is so much greater than that.
Of course there is flow in both ways, certain things that the brain picks up does have its effects upon consciousness and how it can then interact further with the world through the brain, and due to our upbringing and surroundings we can attain different approaches to consciousness, different abilities make themselves available, or we completely lose them. But it is consciousness that acts with the world through the brain, which remains under the control of consciousness.
While I don't think that anyone has succeeded in effectively reducing consciousness to the physical brain, I don't know how much more we can say about the question. I think what you say at the outset -- "while we can use certain scientific measures to see how the brain works, as to understanding how consciousness works, things get very fuzzy" -- is absolutely true! Well put. :-)
As I as see it all depends upon the paradigm, model, we are 'following' the answer would we completely different. Like the two models exposed in the interview will decline the balance for one of the answers.
Reductionism to physics
Everything can be ultimately reduced to physics hence brain create consciousness. This would be the the wide spread model in the western societies. Anything would be ultimately particles in motion an from it anything can be deduced. So human action, human economy , human culture, the biosphere . . . would be reducible to physics, particles in motion.
Emergence of Consciousness
Consciousness is emergent and a real feature of the universe if not all what it is, going through a long self organizing process. So we create our bodies hence consciousness create the brain and everything else. The evolution of universe, biosphere, human economy . . . is profoundly creative and thats beyond physics, and ocean of consciousness which is the source of all.
So I could actually see a "game" where you would have to choose a paradigm at the beginning ("reductionist" vs. "emergent") and somehow the different paradigms themselves would not exactly be clear until the players began to see the results in their "world." Or perhaps there would be different paradigms that could evolve as the players began to get boring results with the reductionistic one, but... could we build "chaos" into the system in a game?
Does anyone who is a programmer out there know the answer to this question?