December 18, 2016
Book review: In The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down To
Size (Penguin Books, 1991, English translation 1998), Danish
science writer Tor Norretranders dissects the powerful illusion that
humans believe that what they see and think is accurate or real. The User Illusion (TUI) relentlessly describes
human consciousness and the biological basis for the false realities
that we believe are real. TUI is about the constraints on knowledge. The
2nd law of thermodynamics and the curse of always increasing disorder
(entropy), information theory and mathematics all make it clear that all
sentient beings in the universe operate under severe information
constraints. That includes the limits on the human mind. To believe
otherwise is a mistake, or more accurately, an illusion.
TUI’s chapter 6, The Bandwidth of Consciousness,
gets right to the heart of matters. Going there is an enlightening but
humbling experience. When awake, the information flow from human sensory
nerves to the brain is about 11.2 million bits per second, with the
eyes bringing in about 10 million bits per second, the skin about 1
million bits per second, with the ears and nose each bringing in about
100,000 thousand bits per second. That’s a lot, right? No, it isn’t. The
real world operates at unknowable trillions of gigabits/second, so
what we see or perceive isn’t much.
Fortunately,
humans needed only enough capacity to survive, not to know the future
10 or 100 years in advance or to see a color we can’t see through human
eyes with just three different color sensing cell types (red, green,
blue). For human survival, three colors was good enough. Evidence of
evolutionary success is a planet population of about 7.4 billion humans
that’s rapidly heading toward 8 billion.
Given
that context, that 11.2 million bits/second may sound feeble but things
are much weirder than just that. The 11.2 million bits/second are
flowing into our unconscious minds. We are not conscious of all of that.
So, what is the bandwidth of consciousness? How much of the 11.2
million bits/second we sense do we become aware of?
The answer
is about 1-50 bits/second. That’s the estimated rate at which human
consciousness processes the information it is aware of. Silently reading
this discussion consumes about 45 bits/second, reading aloud consumes
about 30 bits/second, multiplying and adding two numbers consumes about
12 bits/second, counting objects consumes about 3 bits/second and
distinguishing between different degrees of taste sweetness consumes
about 1 bit/second.
What’s going on?: It’s fair to ask what's really going on and why
does our brain operate this way. The answer to the last question is that
(i) it’s all that was needed to survive, and (ii) the laws of nature
and the nature of humans, which are severely limited in data processing
capacity. The human brain is large relative to body size but nonetheless
only it processes information at a maximum rate of about 11.2 million
bits/second, most of which we never become consciously aware of. That's
human bandwidth because that’s what evolution resulted in.
What’s
going on is our unconscious mind taking in information at about 11.2
million bits/second, discarding or withholding from consciousness what’s
not important or needed, which is about 50 bits/second or less, and
then presenting the little trickle of important information to
consciousness. That’s how much conscious bandwidth (consciousness) that
humans needed to survive, e.g., to finagle sex, spot and run away from a
hungry saber tooth cat before being eaten, find or hunt food, or do
whatever was needed to survive. In modern times, our mental bandwidth is
sufficient to do modern jobs, build civilization and advance human
knowledge.
If
one accepts the veracity of the science and Norretrander’s narrative,
it is fair to say that the world that humans think they see is more
illusion than real. Other chapters of TUI and the science behind the
observations reinforce this reality of human cognition and its limits.
For example, chapter 9, The Half-Second Delay,
describes how our unconscious minds make decisions about 0.5 second
before we become aware of what it is we have unconsciously decided.
Although there's room for some disagreement about it, we consciously
believe that we made a decision about 0.5 second before we became aware
of it. Current data suggests that decisions can be made unconsciously about 7
to 10 seconds before we're aware of the decision.
In other words, we operate under an illusion that our conscious mind
makes decisions when that's the exception. The rule is that our
unconscious minds are calling the shots most of the time. When it comes
to perceiving reality, the low-bandwidth signal the brain uses to create
a picture is a simulation that we routinely mistake for reality. As
Norretranders sees it, consciousness
is a fraud. That’s the user illusion.
Questions: Is some all, some or none of this credible? Why? Can conscious reason or
thinking contradict an unconscious decision once it becomes conscious,
i.e., if free will is defined as conscious control of decisions, is
there such a thing as human free will?
Pragmatic politics focused on the public interest for those uncomfortable with America's two-party system and its way of doing politics. Considering the interface of politics with psychology, cognitive science, social behavior, morality and history.
Etiquette
DP Etiquette
First rule: Don't be a jackass.
Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.
No comments:
Post a Comment