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uncoolcentral t1_iuglu92 wrote

Reply to comment by SwansonHOPS in Conscious Reality Is Only a Memory of Unconscious Actions, Scientists Propose In Radical New Theory by mossadnik

“At some point in our ancestral past, memory developed because it helped solve problems related to survival and ultimately, reproduction. An organism with the capacity to remember the location of food, or categories of potential predators, was more likely to survive than an organism lacking this capacity.”

https://thisviewoflife.com/adaptive-memory-evolutionary-influences-on-remembering/

Edit: would love to pick authors’ brains on their thesis vis-à-vis implicit memories of classical conditioning. I don’t have a specific question, but I bet I could prompt them to say some cool stuff!

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SwansonHOPS t1_iuhc7tl wrote

Yes, but I meant more: how is conscious remembering beneficial to evolution? Utilizing previously gained information does not require consciousness. So I was wondering, what would it add to the equation?

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RLDSXD t1_iuhdpl9 wrote

Seems like they’re proposing that they’re one and the same. Consciousness is just the byproduct of that remembrance.

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Monti_r t1_iui7skc wrote

Being able to remember and being able to willingly remember have far different consequences to solving problems. Say I buried an acorn 6 months ago but I can’t actively remember it, I can only remember it when I’m standing on it. How do I find it?

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thruster_fuel69 t1_iuibvkn wrote

By linking memories together in a chain. First I go to this tree, then beside that rock. I'd imagine it's the same for all animals, wiring memories together in a big relational web.

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fithbert t1_iuih6uz wrote

Not the same for all animals. Some memory, but a large web of memory is not required for seemingly complex “remembering.”

Salmon are barely grown when they head out to the ocean. They stay in the ocean up to seven years, then travel back based on earths magnetic field. No retracing remembered steps, just vibes, for hundreds or thousands of miles. This is just innate/unconscious. Salmon have very limited memory. Scientists think memory is only involved at the very end of that journey, remembering smells that tell them precise locations right around the spawning ground.

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[deleted] t1_iuhfn2o wrote

>Utilizing previously gained information does not require consciousness.

Oh really? Go ahead and knock yourself out and tell me how good you are at getting food.

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Extension-Ad-2760 t1_iuhiuxk wrote

I feel like you haven't actually read the previous comments. If you could unconsciously gather food, you would be just as good when not conscious.

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[deleted] t1_iuhj637 wrote

>If you could unconsciously gather food,

But you can't. So clearly your statement: "Utilizing previously gained information does not require consciousness.", is completely stupid.

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SwansonHOPS t1_iuhmqnp wrote

Lots of things that I think most of us assume lack consciousness gather food.

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[deleted] t1_iuhn74j wrote

Not complex organisms, there's a different category of existance.

Gathering food is just one thing.

Try knocking yourself out every single day, all day and keeping a shelter or any other function that keeps you from being wholly dead.

Sure if you can reduce yourself to a single cell organism you'll do fine just eating and shitting whatever falls into your path.

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FireDragon1111 t1_iuhu5lk wrote

They aren’t talking about conscious or unconscious, they’re talking about your active memory vs your subconscious memory (in science, they use the term “unconscious” to refer to the subconscious)

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BokUntool t1_iuj2ry0 wrote

Not just reproduction, but evaluation of similar choices. Game Theory describes this a little better than procreation/survival as top. Survival is incidental, we are pleasure seeking, often against our self-interests.

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