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xamdam comments on Conflicts Between Mental Subagents: Expanding Wei Dai's Master-Slave Model - Less Wrong
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It sounds like our two theories make different predictions.
Yours suggests (if I understand right) that the function of the conscious mind is to reflect upon things. If reflecting on things is evolutionary necessary, then the conscious mind's reflections ought to be used to make decisions or something. So you predict that when a person gives reasons for eir decisions, those reasons should always be correct. It also predicts that our decisions will usually be those that would be arrived at by logical reflection.
Mine predicts that the conscious mind's reflections should be only loosely correlated with actual decisions, and more likely to be ex post facto justifications, and that even though we may have logical-sounding reasons for our decisions, on closer inspection they will look less like logic and more like the sorts of things an unconscious selfish heuristic process would arrive at.
Is that fair, or am I doing that thing where I fit the evidence to say what I want it to again?
Stating your opponent's argument in absolutist terms and then rejecting it in support of your theory is not a good method ;). Did you read the "Good and Real" description of the C function? It's not really to "think logically" but being a selectively active supervisor process IIRC. The override might be seldom, but important.
Almost unquestionably there is a lot of rationalization and self deception going on, this is crystal clear from famous split-brain experiment. It's just not obvious that this is the raison d'etre for consciousness, esp. in light of lacking a plausible evolutionary path for this as was pointed out by several people.
|It's just not obvious that this is the raison d'etre for consciousness, esp. in light of lacking a plausible evolutionary path for this|
The debating tactic you highlight would fit a public-relations function for the unconscious nd . And a public relations facility; explaining to others one self's unconscious-driven behaviour could be of survival value among humans, yes?