control

Our brain creates just enough of a sensation of consciousness to make us feel in control of our actions. Maybe this boosts the immune system?

conscious choice vs. instinct

Consciousness as a way to process complex options better than "instinct" can.

Workspace / conscious thought allows imagining the future and consulting the past. Instinct makes cruder choices.

Perhaps consciousness allows a time delay that permits more complex decisionmaking. "Hold that decision!" Think it over. Instinct does not think things over.

mirror neurons

Do mirror neurons help us "read" our own feelings? Example: event causes smile; mirror neurons receive facial muscle info about smile and conclude we are happy. This would be on a different pathway from unconscious feelings.

biology

Maybe we need consciousness to give us an illusion/experience of time that is relevant to our biology (as opposed to our physics in which the arrow of time can go in either direction).

body

Consciousness = a very complex way of feeling our body.

Free will = epiphenomenon. Our brain chooses a course of action and consciousness "wills" it (we feel our body choosing).

max tegmark's "shut up and calculate"

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4024v1

multiple consciousnesses

Multiple universes are created each time an electron has to choose the slit on the L or R to go through.

In the same way, multiple universes AND MULTIPLE CONSCIOUSNESSES are created each time our brains make a choice.

The illusion of free will comes from the fact that we are not aware of the splitting of consciousnesses and the creation of multiple universes.

What is in fact going on is that an endless number of universes is continuously being created and an endless number of consciousnesses are also being created at the same time.

This explains the illusion of free will.

We think we are choosing chocolate ice cream but another self is simultaneously choosing vanilla and creating a universe in which that choice took place. But we are unaware of the splitting that happens each time we make a choice.

winnowing

Consciousness is part of a winnowing mechanism. There is too much information and processing for an unconscious mind to deal with. Thought would become de-centered and our survival would become threatened (the Hamlet syndrome). Because we have a body, we need the brain to focus. Consciousness (with its limited capacity = attention span) automatically limits what we focus on. It's the limiting that is crucial, not so much the focus. Intentionality may boil down to a mere forced narrowing of focus (as in bandwidth). The brain focuses but also moves on. Threshholds are reached and decisions are made and new pressing issues rise to the surface. There is limited computing time and it needs to be managed.

interface

Consciousness is a synthesis of very complex calculations (most of them unconscious); it is like a Mac interface: a simple model of the world for the brain to use.