week four

1. Explain the virtual simulation theory of consciousness.  

The virtual simulation theory of consciousness is comparing our consciousness to a virtual simulator where we play out different scenarios and predict what would happen corresponding to different actions. According to the film Brain Burn, "consciousness is a way around pure chance by developing an internalized map of probabilities which can be visualized internally without having to be outsourced prematurely." Also, consciousness can be understood as dissociation. In order to solve this dissociation, we use our internal machination, what we call imagination daydreaming. The reason we ask question about the universe is more about our evolutionary needs as "the best way to survive chance contingencies" is "developing statistically deep understanding of what varying options portend" (Brain Burn). And it is this ability to daydream and visualize the situation in our  head without carrying out directly that enhances our chance to survive the nature. From my perspective, our consciousness, as a virtual simulator, can also be compared to a video game. We play the game in our head, trying out different paths and estimating the result before we actually doing it. Each failure eliminates one choice, but it also increases the chance of succeeding in one time in the reality. In a nutshell, consciousness can be regarded as our virtual simulation of the reality.

2. How does the brain trick us and for what benefit is it for our genetic survival? 

Our brain has developed in a way that will help us to survive and, often time, its means are by tricking us. According to Is the Universe an App, "our brains are tilted in seeing the world at large a certain way, but in so doing it doesn't immediately inform us of this requisite fact" (111). For example, as the book mentions, when we are making the decision of going left or right in a car, it may be common that our unconscious processes has already made the decision. These premade decisions are usually the choices that will put us in a safer position. Besides that, our brains also place deception on us as "Deception is part and parcel of nature and is an intrinsic and necessary feature of human existence" (111). For example, we sometimes fill in an imagery that does not exist. In the experiment conducted by Ronald Siegel, participants were shown a series of slideshow before they took the psychotropic drugs. Because they saw a psychedelic portrait of eyes among the slideshow, their brains filled in a Demon's image which had multiple eye balls staring back at them. Another example is that we always feel like our dreams are "deeply real and rich ith episodic narratives, except when we wake up and soon realize their wholly imaginative nature" (114). Under many conditions, "the brain tricks us into believing its own machinations as something that is not sui generis (115).  However, even though these tricks that our brain place on us put an veil on our sense regarding the reality and sometimes hinder our progress on the study of science, "all this trickery does serve one underlying purpose: keeping our organism intact long enough to recapitulate itself" (115).