
Ask HN: Where should I start if I want to understand consciousness? - pi-squared
The point: what is the state of the &quot;science&quot;, where is the edge of research done so far? Ideally, I would like to understand it through simulating a brain on a machine and I have heard some attempts are done but I don&#x27;t know how much of that is a media hype.<p>Assume I am ready to dedicate my life to this - I think it&#x27;s the most interesting question in the world!<p>History &amp; bg: 24 year old, with CS degree, long time lurker here. I&#x27;ve been on a find-myself journey in the past 2-3 years, going through interning at Google MTV for a summer on an internal infra project for them (a long time dream, bit of a fan boy). Then I tried to start my own company - that didn&#x27;t go well (webapp for online reviews). Now I&#x27;m into consulting since my runway ended and found good opportunity to get myself stable for a while. Starting a company is still interesting for me but the idea can&#x27;t be that shitty as last time! :)
In high school I&#x27;ve been going and winning physics and astronomy Olympiads and competitions and loved understanding how the Universe works from first principles. Always had an interest in how the human body and especially the brain works but done nothing serious besides layman interest in the subject so far. I don&#x27;t know how relevant am I...<p>Any opinions?<p>Thanks!
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tgflynn
If by consciousness you mean the property of having subjective experiences I
don't think that is something that you will ever "understand" through a
computer simulation.

Personally I do not believe that a computer simulation can ever be "conscious"
in this sense. There are arguments for and against this thesis that I'm not
going to get into here but even if you believe that a computer simulation
could be conscious you will never find objective evidence of that fact because
consciousness isn't defined in objective terms.

By no means do I mean to imply that studying the neural basis for conscious
experience isn't a worthwhile thing to do. In fact I agree with you that it is
one of, if not the single most interesting thing science can study. However if
your goal is to "understand" what consciousness is based on such an
undertaking then I don't think you or anyone else can ever achieve that goal.

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ttyl0125
See reproducibility project (Nosek et al)... don't waste time reading psych
research. Aside from that, 'consciousness' is a term they won't ever use - too
hard to define...

