Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking <comment><USER2> I really like the article author's description of the subconscious:

> Focus is required to learn to put together puzzles or execute a tennis serve > or even play the piano. But after a skill is mastered, it recedes below the > horizon into the fuzzy world of the unconscious. Thinking about it makes it > harder to do.

It makes me think of consciousness like training AI neural networks. Consciousness is akin to training a neural net by testing the result and triggering the reward function accordingly, whereas the subconscious is when you don't bother checking the result, you just "execute" the neural net from the control signal and take whatever result.

I'm sure the analogy breaks down quite heavily, but it works pretty well as a simplification: when you're learning you're constantly providing yourself feedback to try to strengthen the neural pathways that led to a positive result through a reward system ("good, that was the right note", "bad, that was the wrong note"). But presumably once those neural pathways are satisfactorily shaped, trying to use that reward system (ie. "thinking about" what you're doing) could serve to just mess you up. Because you don't want to modify those neural pathways further if they were already "good" to begin with. (Problem is, I don't think you're ever not conscious of whether your piano playing sounds right, so your brain is always going to be mutating those pathways whether you want to or not. But if you're already good at the piano, the less you can think about your playing, the better.)

<comment><USER3> The Brain is like XXXX technology, where XXXX is: 1) Clockwork (18th century) 2) Factory (19th century) 3) Computer (10th century) 4) Nueral Net (21st century) 5) None of the above! Ding Ding Ding

<comment><USER4> The brain is quite literally a neural network (in a more traditional sense of the word "neural"). A biological brain (especially a simple one) could probably be modeled somewhat accurately and with reasonable efficiency by a cyclic NN.

Unless you have religious objections, it's also quite reasonable to call the brain a computer.

<comment><USER5> A model containing only neurons may be too simplistic - glial cells also seem to modulate cognition in ways that haven't yet been fully elucidated. Then you also have rather more asymmetric synaptic behaviours such as volume transmission, where the neurotransmitter is diffused across a less well- defined area, rather than being kept neatly within a shared synaptic cleft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ancient Hindu monks have pondered on the question of consciousness forever. Ancient Hindu texts elaborate on differences between Self, Consciousness, Experiences, Knowledge. Some of this is intertwined with the Hindu concept of souls. All of Hindu philosophy is based on the concept that Self (pure consciousness) and Brahman (total reality, universe) is the same if we dig deeper and our goal as a human being is to find that union. In Sanskrit, the term itself is similar to "same yet different" \- Advaita Vedanta ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta))

Lot of spirituality and even if you do not believe in those religious teachings, monks who wrote those texts thousands of years ago were conscious and questioning their consciousness.

<comment><USER7> So I just poked briefly through Wikipedia on the dates; your link suggests a time of ~200-300 BC for those writings, the Iliad ~760-710 BC. Given the slow rate of diffusion of ideas at the time, it strikes me as just as likely that _even if_ this idea is true and the Iliad was written by humans with a profoundly different psychology than ours, it was some peculiarity of Greek culture rather than a universal human condition. The spread of consciousness at this time in history can hardly occurred that quickly.

(By no means am I claiming that these areas are _entirely_ isolated from each other, but note the bandwidth of the cultural communication from the travel between them is so low that the net effect is that the various areas of the ancient world were basically unaware of each other. Even if some travelers occasionally made the hikes they didn't amount to much at the civilizational scale.)

And I find it far more parsimonious an explanation that this is just a crazy idea from a too-close reading of a work of literature that thematically chooses to be about "the gods" to imbue the work with mythic power, just the fact our culture has Star Trek does not mean that we have warp drive or that Gene Roddenberry's vision of happy coexistence has been realized. A fun idea, a great idea to build some sci-fi on, but not really a serious idea supported by the _totality_ of the evidence we have from history, in which humans have been musing about the nature of consciousness for basically all of recorded history.

<comment><USER8> > _So I just poked briefly through Wikipedia on the dates; your link suggests > a time of ~200-300 BC for those writings, the Iliad ~760-710 BC. Given the > slow rate of diffusion of ideas at the time, it strikes me as just as likely > that even if this idea is true and the Iliad was written by humans with a > profoundly different psychology than ours, it was some peculiarity of Greek > culture rather than a universal human condition. The spread of consciousness > at this time in history can hardly occurred that quickly._

It didn't. The very idea that Ancient Greeks didn't have an inner self- consciouness (as proposed in the book) is invalid (even the article says so).

That said, what ancient civilizations didn't have, and was developed culturally and through time, is the kind of complex self-introspection we have now.

In a way the Ancient Greeks (and other people) were more like James Stewart (straightforward and simple) than Woody Allen or Orson Wells (full of clashing thoughts, ideas about guilt, sin, self-introspection etc). Their inner thoughts they externalized to some degree (which is also the basis behind the book). E.g. guilt was seen as external entities "haunting you" (e.g. "furies" in ancient greek tradegy). Of course in a degree they understood it was coming from them, but they didn't have a fully developed framework to talk and introspect those feelings.

A lof of those ideas only developed fully in the 2.5 centuries since then, and Christianism played some role in that, as did religions like Zen Budhism etc in the East, that re-examined and explored lots of things about the "inner self".

<comment><USER8> > _in the 2.5 centuries since then_

That would be "millenia".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So here's my takeaway from the article: concious thought is the evolutionary advantage of being able to modify our own subconscious thoughts. The simple fact that we are aware of our subconscious gives us the profound ability to actually change it - nothing else seems to be able to do this. An earthworm can't suddenly realize that all its day-to-day routines exist in a tangible sense and make an effort to change those. A dog can't do this, apes can't do this. They might exhibit strangely human behaviours sometimes because their subconscious can get quiet advanced, but they still can't change it, they have no control over it. When you think of it in those terms, that our concious thought is just this thin veneer that sits on top of our unconscious thoughts (which might make up more of our day to day choices than we expect), it's kinda creepy. Could we meet someone who seems human in nearly every way, but they have no awareness of their subconscious? Would that person be a concious being?

<comment><USER10> What does it even mean to modify a subconscious thought? The notion of a subconscious thought is contradictory.

I am increasingly drawn to the idea that there is no difference between the so called conscious and subconscious mind. It seems more natural for me to think that experience literally is processing millions of tiny things at the same time. The idea is still muddy but the concept of a level of abstraction observing itself seems very compelling to me. Douglas Hofstadter explores this concept in his book "I Am a Strange Loop".

<comment><USER11> If I offered you bites of savoury meat, and halfway through the meal announced that you were eating my beloved horse (or dog...) would you get nausious?

A visceral reaction caused by cultural programming (e.g. taboos against consuming the flesh of certain animals) is a great example of subconscious thought.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I agree, it seems like more the absence of any thought is replaced by an unpleasant thought. It's not as if our subconscious is constantly churning unbeknownst to us over how the meat that we are eating is non horse meat.

<comment><USER12> >It's not as if our subconscious is constantly churning unbeknownst to us over how the meat that we are eating is non horse meat.

Actually, that is exactly what your subconscious does. You are literally thinking vocal thoughts to yourself constantly. You could be having a conversation at the dinner table while your subconscious mind vocally (internally) remarks about the colour of someone's tie and the taste of the meat you're eating all at the same time. You don't usually hear these thoughts or realize that you're thinking them. Through meditation anyone can come to hear the actual vocal versions of these subconscious streams of thought.

Psychotropic drugs can help too.

<comment><USER10> > You don't usually hear these thoughts or realize that you're thinking them.

So we can't sense them, but they exist? Seems questionable to me.

> Through meditation anyone can come to hear the actual vocal versions of > these subconscious streams of thought.

Isn't it possible that meditation isn't "unlocking" our subconscious but rather just changing the process by which we think consciously?

A thought is something that is brought about by thinking, and thinking is something that is done consciously. A subconscious thought is a contradiction.

<comment><USER12> >thinking is something that is done consciously. A subconscious thought is a contradiction.

That is a ridiculous assertion. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22subconscious+t...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22subconscious+thought%22)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bicameralism is no more than a difficult-to-test hypothesis at this point and should not be mistaken for factual. Jaynes' work is basically pure speculation. It happens to be speculation that has piqued the interest of some high-profile scientists, but until there's some hard evidence for or against the idea, it's basically useless.

There's a good amount of information here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29#R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29#Reception)

<comment><USER14> I don't think anyone anywhere regards it as fact. It's completely speculative, and acknowledged as such in the book. The evidence laid out in the book is narratively compelling but totally circumstantial. For example, the way it so perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols in such a huge and disparate array of cultures around the world is really profound, but of course is no proof at all.

It's just that it's one of the most utterly original and compelling bits of speculation ever written about the mind. It's almost certainly off-base, but I still think it's invaluable reading for anyone interested in consciousness and the mind, if only as an example of how strange a satisfactory explanation may end up being, and as a way of exposing one's own unstated assumptions about consciousness.

<comment><USER15> >so perfectly explains the obsession with physical idols

Those primitives! (clutches cross around neck and looks out window at the towering skyscrapers, all of them flying American flags on the ground level).

Personally, I think the narrative of ancients being that different from us is fairly out there and deep into crackpot territory. Seems to me that a lot of STEM majors haven't read the ancient sources. The idea that Herodotus, Plutarch, or Aurelius had some pre-modern mind is asinine. I can't see how someone who sat down and read The Meditations would walk away with such a conclusion. Jayne's Illiad argument stating that every character has no freewill and playthings of the gods is super weak sauce. Greeks simply weren't that devout in real life, and stuff like he's seeing is a story telling narrative. Not understanding something that simple about the Greeks further discredits him. Imagine if our society and entire conscious structure was judged by the Twilight books.

Even if we step back another couple thousands years, Egypt had a full blown society with professional tradesmen, government, militaries, etc 2500BC. Before that, Mesopotamia had all those things in 3100 BC. The Code of Hammurabi invalidates this guy's thesis pretty easily, although I can imagine him weaseling a more technical and strict definition of "consciousness" to avoid being completely discredited, but at that point this is all useless sophistry.

Also, are we ignoring ancient Hinduism and Buddhism's near obsession with consciousness here?

> perfectly explains

I find geeks seeks out "perfect" and "simple" solutions, which make sense in code, but in the world of history, anthropology, etc are reductionist and wrong. There's also quite a bit of atheistic evangelism here, which I think is why its on HN and not in the dustbin of bad history.

<comment><USER14> There's no need to be so confrontational about this. Everyone agrees it is speculation; I think we need to have room for people to speculate and discuss speculation without being ridiculed about the fact that it's not fact (which of course everybody already knows).

Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book.

And a considerable portion of the book is devoted to exploring the possibility of consciousness being something very different from what we imagine it to be, yes; something not necessarily required for civilization or law. Calling that "useless sophistry" isn't really proof otherwise, it's just dismissing the idea out of hand.

Hinduism is made of a large array of different traditions evolving together over thousands of years. The early texts do not have that "obsession with consciousness" (and this, also, is discussed extensively in the book). Buddhism, also, post-dates his proposed "bicameral" period by millenia.

Nobody thinks this explanation is _true_ , just extremely interesting and worthy of discussion.

<comment><USER15> >Herodotus, Plutarch, and Aurelius all lived thousands of years after the period discussed by the book.

The article cites him citing the Iliad as evidence of his theory. That's a 1200BC story. Homer lived around 800BC.

<comment><USER16> Jaynes uses the Odyssey as a _post_ bicameralism work. The Odyssey was written well before any of those people were alive.

<comment><USER15> Article:

So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren't capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. He writes that the characters in The Iliad do not look inward, and they take no independent initiative. They only do what is suggested by the gods.

\--

The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.

<comment><USER16> > So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to > look for signs of people who aren't capable of introspection—people who are > all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad.

Right, not in the Odyssey. And I've read the book; he specifically contrasts the Iliad with the Odyssey.

>The Iliad is from 1200BC story, so that means he calling a good chunk of written history and those civilizations (Egypt, early Greece, Mesopotamia) as having this ridiculous pre-modern consciousness.

Yes, that is correct. But not the people who you listed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is actually rather disturbing on multiple levels. Is there any actual basis for this science, or is the guy a crackpot? The article kinda seems vague on it, which makes me think the guy straddles that fine line between insanity and genius.

I mean, I'm sitting here rather terrified that I can't comprehend such a state without saying everyone back then was 100% schizoid (or whatever you'd call this in modern psychological medicine), and could be fixed with a few pills (in theory, anyways).

I know HN frowns on macro memes and all, but [http://goo.gl/5FQ0kI](http://goo.gl/5FQ0kI), this is the only way I can currently describe my mental state.

<comment><USER18> I wish to simplify your question: Is there any actual basis for this?

Or in other framework: I there an experiment that can prove that this theory is wrong? I this theory falsifiable? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

From the article:

> _A psychology based on rats in mazes rather than the human mind, Jaynes > wrote, was "bad poetry disguised as science."_

Ok, let's forget rats for a moment. Try to apply this to a closer relative: chimps

Does this theory imply that chimps are conscious xor they have gods? (Or chimps are too dumb for any of them?)

<comment><USER19> I don't know why you're being downvoted. I truly enjoyed Jaynes' book, but I think you hit the mark. His theory is not falsifiable, and that's the biggest flaw. I don't think there's a single experiment we could make that could refute it, short of travelling back in time and... and I'm not even sure _that_ would help. How would you check, upon meeting the ancient Greeks, whether they are bicameral? Definitely not by chatting with them, or even dissecting their brains!

I love the book, though. Even if you disagree with the premise, I really recommend you read it. It's an amazing (if inconclusive) thought experiment.

<comment><USER20> The trouble is that even if Jayne is right, none of the people who experienced life like this still exist. We've contaminated the pool of test subjects, 100%.

This isn't the same as being non-falsifiable, we understand what resources would be required to test it... we just don't have them available.

> How would you check, upon meeting the ancient Greeks, whether they are > bicameral?

Interviews. Observation. There would be communication anomalies. Some would no doubt claim these were merely translation errors, but it would become increasingly apparent that explanation was insufficient.

It would probably filter through our preconcpcetions such that they were universally (and profoundly) mentally ill or defective.

The big trouble here is, having met them, we might only have a few years to study them. I suspect that our form of consciousness might be contagious, especially to their younger demographic. So by the time we would almost start understanding it, it would be gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> T-A Unmentioned in the article, but quite possibly the most enjoyable consequence of Jayne's work, is that it provided the back story for Snow Crash [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash)

<comment><USER21> I loved _Snow Crash_ , but Peter Watts' more recent _Blindsight_ is a fascinating and more direct exploration of this theme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> >humans were not fully conscious until about 3,000 years ago, instead relying on a two-part, or bicameral, mind, with one half speaking to the other in the voice of the gods with guidance whenever a difficult situation presented itself

Sounds well nuts to me.

<comment><USER23> Indeed, I find it hard to believe that unconscious beings would be capable of art and self-reflection.

<comment><USER24> Have you ever tried to create art through conscious effort? It's ineffective to the point of masochism.

<comment><USER23> What I meant is, you don't create art if you are not conscious of your existence and of your mind in the first place.

<comment><USER19> Why? And is religious/burial/ceremonial art "art" in the sense you mean it? Maybe ancient people didn't think they were creating "art". And what beauty we find in it -- and they found it too, I'm sure -- can be quite _unconscious_! You don't need to be aware of your own mind in that case.

You can create something beautiful out of inner impulses, without "thinking" about it or even intending it. Maybe it is religious awe for someone, and artistic beauty for another, but the end result is the same!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Did the bicameral mind ever exist in Polynesia? If it didn't, why not? If it did, then when and how did it disappear? Are Polynesians actually conscious after all? If consciousness is an artifact induced by "cultural development and knowledge about the world", then are people born into deprived circumstances perhaps not as conscious as the rest of us? If consciousness is a psychological development induced by specific linguistic features, then what are those features? Are people capable of consciousness if they can only speak an insufficiently advanced language?

<comment><USER26> This is my issue with the theory - it's very euro centric. Somewhere like Papua New Guinea where the millions of highlanders had no contact with the rest of the world until the 1930s just don't fit the theory. Presumably they'd have to be bicameral before and in a very small period of time full conscious - doesn't sound plausible.

<comment><USER27> Or the various tribes, such as those in the Andaman Islands, who have NEVER been contacted. Do they have no consciousness at all, even now?

<comment><USER21> It seems possible, but if so one would expect some indirect indications from those Westerners who've written of their experiences with "first" contacts. There probably haven't been many neurologists among them, but one would at least expect a number of linguists, who could have been expected to notice _something_.

<comment><USER25> Well, in many instances the primary source material we have for initial Western contacts with ethnic groups in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific refer to them as "primitive savages" or "unthinking brutes," and historically, such peoples were generally regarded as sub-human by many of the Westerners most familiar with them. So if a lack of consciousness on the part of those not previously contacted by Westerners is something that seems possible to you, then these might be the sources of evidence you were looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've described this to someone as "The most interesting wrong idea I've ever heard".

</comment><comment><USER29> Just about everything I've read about this book has gotten it wrong in the particulars. Jaynes's is a nuanced argument, with many caveats and exceptions. It may be impossible to do justice to it with a summary.

Anybody interested should just read Part I of the book. Parts II and III are where he starts to run off the rails a bit.

Although not a neuroscientist, my understanding is that a quite a few of his observations in Part I have been reproduced, along with a few of his speculative hypotheses.

In my experience, the main benefit of reading the book was in gaining a more precise definition of consciousness. We tend to have many different things in mind when we talk about consciousness. :-) Jaynes gets very precise about what he means by "consciousness" before he introduces his theory. Within the scope of his narrow definition, I find compelling his argument that consciousness developed after and as a result of language.

Also, for those who are also familiar with and fans of Tim Gallwey's _The Inner Game of Tennis_ you should note that Gallwey first published a few years before Jaynes.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're interested in an (even more) heavily fictionalized version of this sort of thing (specifically a historical transition from following gods' orders to independent conscious thought), it's the primary subject of Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_.

</comment><comment><USER31> The bicameral mind sounds a lot like an early type of consciousness. I think Jaynes' timelines are off, but it is possible that our consciousness worked differently back in the day. After all, we've seen how much humanity changed after switching to agriculture and farming.

Also _" The picture Jaynes paints is that consciousness is only a very thin rime of ice atop a sea of habit, instinct, or some other process that is capable of taking care of much more than we tend to give it credit for"_

Isn't this more or less the current theory of what consciousness is?

That it's a small part of the brain, and has little direct control over the brain/body, instead controlling it through indirect means such as habits, reflexes, instincts and other subconscious activities?

I mean, excluding all the "soul" and "God" theories, of course.

<comment><USER32> > The bicameral mind sounds a lot like an early type of consciousness. I think > Jaynes' timelines are off, but it is possible that our consciousness worked > differently back in the day.

I agree, I see no reason that consciousness wouldn't follow evolutionary processes over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The majority of people in this day and age are still not conscious most of the time (if you consider consciousness as self awareness or awareness that one is conscious).

Generally people act out of habit, conditioning, or mechanical stimulus/response. This lack of actual consciousness is the cause of many tragedies, accidents, cruel behaviors and downright stupid decisions.

Maybe the evolution of consciousness is just getting started. I hope anyway.

<comment><USER34> I'd say the lack of actual consciousness is something we aspire too - we want to get in the zone for that game or for the work task - we want to perform automatically where time flies by. We want to be untroubled by conscious thought which causes worry and fear and escape via entertainment, or yoga, or sex etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Richard Dawkins about "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind": "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets." Whoa !

<comment><USER36> Also, used as the premise to Neal Stephenson's early novel "The Big U" and part of the plot for "Snow Crash."

<comment><USER37> And the excellent "Wake, watch, wonder"-trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Here is an interesting thought experiment that came to me: some persons live with only half a brain, for example after a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispherectomy). And they can sometimes still execute actions that the missing hemisphere was normally responsible for, like speech or motor control, because the other hemisphere learns how to do it due to plasticity. What if we had the medical ability to take the hemisphere that is removed from person A and to transplant it into another person, B? Would the consciousness of the original person now be 2 independently functioning consciousnesses, A and B? Would your memories be split, eg. person A remembering half of your life, and person B remembering the other half? Would A and B feel they have the same consciousness? Could we go further and split a brain in 4? Would splitting a brain more and more progressively degrade the quality/complexity of consciousness? If so what is the smallest part of the brain that can still be capable of self-awareness, introspection, etc?

So many questions...

On an unrelated note, I have a crazy idea, but bear with me for a second:

A central point of the New Testament is that the "Holy Spirit" was given to men when Jesus died. Could the "Holy Spirit" be a term used by people to describe what it felt like to have consciousness appear in their mind? Jaynes says consciousness appeared ~3000 years ago, but if he is right, if society caused consciousness to appear, then it did so at different points in time for different societies, because each society develops at a different pace. So it could be that to the people living around Jerusalem consciousness appeared 2000, not 3000, years ago.

</comment><comment><USER39> One of the most interesting books I have ever read. If nothing else it helped me change perspective on how I think about consciousness.

</comment><comment><USER40> Or maybe gods providing directions was the narrative structure of the time.

I do like the idea that consciousness is learned and that it replaced a less effective system, if only because it allows us to imagine a system better beyond what we have now...

</comment><comment><USER41> Reading that brings to mind Peter Watts' Blindsight.

[http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm](http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm)

Watts seems to have a real obsession with consciousness.

<comment><USER42> Peter Watts is certainly aware of Julian Jaynes work [http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104) and the sequal to Blindsight seems to be more specifically about this: [http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/enemywithin.htm](http://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/enemywithin.htm) which has probably generated interest in Julian Jaynes and so I suspect Echopraxia is partially responsible for the commissioning of the submitted article.

<comment><USER41> Seems he gave up on reading it after some pages (if that).

[http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104#comment-1346](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=104#comment-1346)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It was a kook idea then and is still one now. No scientific support, just conjecture.

</comment><comment><USER43> If you're interested in a more rigorous analysis of what is known about consciousness today, I'd recommend the book Consciousness and the Brain: [http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering- Codes-...](http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Brain-Deciphering-Codes- Thoughts/dp/0143126261)

</comment><comment><USER44> This is very interesting, in large part for the reason the author of the article mentions -- it's not the sort of thing most of us think about very often. And when we do, we usually leave off having no more insight than when we started.

Anyway, I've seen some other comments here wondering about how "consciousness as an evolutionary adaptation" could have spread so rapidly, or going so far as to suggest that they've met people who were (to paraphrase) "less evolved".

I wonder if rather than it having been an evolutionary process, consciousness may have been meme-like in its' spread. That is, perhaps humans had the brains required to handle consciousness for many generations before it really sprang up, and when it did, it occurred because of the spreading of the _idea_ of consciousness, and not some particular set of genes.

</comment><comment><USER45> Despite its non-falsifiablity, Jaynes will still be read when every hopelessly vapid and uninspired fMRI 'breakthrough' is long forgotten. Modern neuroscience assumes the brain is like a computer and proceeds from there, failing to see that that itself is a hypothesis.

<comment><USER46> I don't think any modern neuroscientist "fails to see" that modeling the brain as a computer is a hypothesis. Many wouldn't even subscribe to that theory, and those who do undoubtedly treat it as a working model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Well, there is no proof of Consciousness as Epiphenomenon that's why Panpsiquism is gaining traction. If Consciousness is not Computation, then we need a better framework.

[http://youtu.be/hTIk9MN3T6w](http://youtu.be/hTIk9MN3T6w)

<comment><USER48> The classical argument against an immaterial soul is that something material CAN NOT interact with something material. BUT, we don't know what matter is. Attributing properties of supposedly immaterial substances to material substances is just as bad. One has to account for why matter has those properties, that is, the contingency of the fact that electrons are capable of posting cat pictures on the on the internet.

I believe that the contingency of the matter itself points to intelligence, thus consciousness, metaphisically prior to matter. But this comment box is not sufficient for me to prove this novel statement of mine, made for the first time in history.

<comment><USER49> The interactionist problem was solved by Berkeley when he proved, without refutation, that matter is the fiction while mind is the obvious empirical fact.

Quantum mechanics came along and re-confirmed what he already proved.

"Matter"\--something solid, mechanical, deterministic--is nothing but an ancient Greek myth. There is nothing in nature that has the properties of matter, therefore nothing is matter, therefore matter doesn't exist.

Quantum randomness is not deterministic. Bosons refute materialism. The wave- function itself refutes materialism.

Materialism is an ancient greek faith-based religion. Berkeley killed it a long time ago but people were so shocked they still haven't accepted that their God is Dead.

<comment><USER33> Nonsense.

Anyone who believes the state of consciousness exists independent of matter should put their theory to test with a bottle of vodka.

<comment><USER49> It's not that consciousness exists independent of matter, it is that what materialists keep calling matter... does... not... exist...

Matter just doesn't exist. In what way is the quantum wavefunction material? It's not deterministic, it's random. It's not solid, you can have two bosons in the same place at once. It doesn't have precise position or momentum but exists as a kind of smudge. It doesn't even move through time in the way that matter is defined as moving.

"Matter" has mass, yet photons don't even have mass. Massless particles take up no space. Matter takes up space. Therefore massless particles are not matter. Massless particles underpin all of reality, yet people want to say reality is made up of matter.

Wavefunctions are not matter. Photons are not matter. Electrons are not matter --they behave like waves and the properties of waves are incompatible with matter.

So where is this matter? It's just a fiction. Berkeley already called it in 1830. There is no way you can be an empiricist materialist these days, without being ignorant.

<comment><USER50> This is so confused and ignorant of modern physics. Yet matter has precise definition in physics

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter)

Of course physical fields or bosons aren't matter, no one said they were (this is a strawman, if I ever saw one). By the way, electrons do have mass and charge and occupy space (i.e. have volume).

<comment><USER49> You can't resolve the interactionist problem by just fuzzing the definition of matter.

Materialism is the philosophy that all things are matter.

Quantum physics refutes the philosophy of materialism because it's incompatible with the philosophy of materialism.

If photons are not matter, then something is not matter, and if something is not matter, then materialism is wrong.

From that Wikipedia page:

'there is no single universally agreed scientific meaning of the word "matter". Scientifically, the term "mass" is well-defined, but "matter" is not. Sometimes in the field of physics "matter" is simply equated with particles that exhibit rest mass (i.e., that cannot travel at the speed of light), such as quarks and leptons. However, in both physics and chemistry, matter exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties, the so-called wave–particle duality.'

Modern physics does not actually define matter. Matter was once synonymous with mass, but redefining mass to include properties that are incompatible with matter/materialism does not bolster matter/materialism's existence.

If mass is defined in such a way that it is incompatible with matter, then either mass or matter have lost their meaning. In fact, it is the word "mass" that has lost its meaning, while the word "matter" has been dropped by science.

It's not me that is confused, it is the materialists who are confused.

Quantum physicists and popularizers of science go around claiming to be materialists when quantum physics is completely incompatible with materialism and nothing in quantum physics behaves like matter. Feynman 'sum over histories' applies to all things, both macro and micro, and anything that behaves in that way is incompatible with the properties of matter. Since all things behave like quantum wave-particles, all things have properties that are incompatible with the properties of matter. If all things have properties that are incompatible with the necessary properties of matter, then no things can have sufficient properties for those things to be matter. If no things can have the properties of matter, then no things can be matter. If no things can be matter, then no things are matter. If no things are matter, then matter doesn't exist. If matter doesn't exist, then materialism is wholly refuted.

The logic against materialism is bullet proof from every angle. People just keep it up out of inertia.

<comment><USER50> I think you are getting to hang up on technicalities of definition of matter.

Is your thesis that there are things that are non-physical? If so what evidence is there for that thesis?

<comment><USER49> The technicalities are the entire point!

If the fundamental nature of reality can't be analyzed technically, what can be?

The evidence that things are non-physical is quantum physics experiments showing that the fundamental components of existence lack the properties of physical things.

The two slit experiment shows that photons behave in non-physical ways.

The indeterministic wave function shows that reality does not depend on strict physical laws but on randomness, and randomness is not mechanisitic. Materialism is based on mechanics but quantum strangeness violates mechanics, therefore mechanics is empirically wrong.

The Schrodinger's cat situation shows that reality is dependent on observers-- but matter is said to exist without regard to observers at all. The physical moon still exists when you aren't looking at it. The Schrodinger's moon does not--just as Berkeley claimed in 1713.

Bosons show that two objects can take up the same space at the same time.... but physical things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This is like saying that you can drive a bulldozer into a house but the bulldozer and house don't have to destroy each other, that they have the option of happily occupying the same space. The materialism hypothesis would say this is impossible. "Physical" things do not behave like bosons, therefore bosons aren't physical things.

The evidence that the materialism hypothesis is wrong is quantum physics, where things don't behave in the ways that the materialism hypothesis claims they should. Therefore the materialism hypothesis has been falsified and refuted and is wrong.

<comment><USER50> Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by definition. Quantum wave function is a physical object as are all the other fundamental fields we know about. Photons behave in very physical ways, just not in classical ways like you would expect them based on experience with macroscopic objects we face every day. Likewise, bosons are physical objects that have physical and measurable/observable properties (but they don't have volume) etc.

So now you are getting a bit confused here.

<comment><USER49> >Entire quantum physics is a mathematical model of physical things by definition.

Quantum physics doesn't follow from definition, it follows from experiment. You are confusing a priori statements with a posteriori statements.

>Photons behave in very physical ways, just not in classical ways

What are "physical ways"? What are the properties of "physical ways"? When confronted with a hypothetical 'way', how can we know if that 'way' is physical or non-physical?

The answer is that physicists assume that all existents are physical and then conclude, based on that assumption, that materialism is correct. This is circular logic because materialism is simply the doctrine that everything is physical. So all they have done is assume that materialism is correct and then conclude that, because materialism is correct, materialism is correct.

In order to argue that materialism is correct you first have to define what materialism is, and what it is not. Is the materialism hypothesis even falsifiable? Or is it the kind of hypothesis that changes as soon as it is refuted?

<comment><USER50> Actually quantum mechanics can be formalized and derived entirely from a few simple and reasonable axioms (that allow for negative probabilities), but yes historically quantum mechanics has been developed through empirical experiments. After all physics is (empirical) science unlike mathematics.

What I meant to convey was that all elements of the theory like quantum wave function, elementary particles (bosons, fermions etc), are elements of that physical model and hence real in that model by definition. It kind of makes no sense to talk about model independent reality, as quantum mechanics so nicely demonstrates.

This is why your statement that bosons are not physical is nonsensical.

In any case most real scientists are entirely open to new evidence of what you would call non-physical things (historically these were usually spirits, souls, demons, gods etc), but historically no convincing evidence has ever been provided for these. On the contrary each time mysterious phenomena turned out to be completely physical and explainable within normal physical framework, and in other cases clearly dreamed up.

It really isn't correct to say materialism or science is doctrinal. After it is not required to believe everything has to be material or explainable within our current framework (it would be akin to saying we already know everything).

However, opposite of materialism is dogmatically imposed in a lot of religions. It is a tenet of Catholic Church for example that materialism can not be true since souls and spirits must exist. This is not open for debate you must accept this to be a catholic. Just so we understand distinction between dogmatism and experience that everything we ever encountered so far has turned out to be physical. I will take evidence over dogma any day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I propose a thought : If, as the sciences would have us believe, consciousness is born out of the unique biological structuring of matter in that jelly atop your shoulders, would it not seem logical that there are varied degrees of consciousness formed among us? Magnify a blade of grass to its 'simplest' form and you'll see incongruency ? Then why not across the landscape of human consciousness formed by even more complex structuring ?

and then what....

<comment><USER14> There's nothing about the idea of physical consciousness that says it _has_ to be a continuum -- there could just be some critical mass or qualitative attribute of brains that puts us "over the threshold", so to speak. Nobody can give any kind of a definitive answer. For ideas about a "continuum" of consciousness, you might read Phi:

[http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul- ebook/dp/B0078...](http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul- ebook/dp/B0078XCPQY)

Or for other views, you might check out V.S Ramachandran (neuroscience): [http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Tour-Human-Consciousness- Imposto...](http://www.amazon.com/Brief-Tour-Human-Consciousness- Impostor/dp/0131872788)

Jeff Hawkins (computer science): [http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff- Hawkins/dp/080507...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Intelligence-Jeff- Hawkins/dp/0805078533)

Hofstadter (mathematics, cognitive science): [http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal- Golden/...](http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal- Golden/dp/0465026567)

Those are some of my favorite popular-press books on the subject.

<comment><USER51> * Read Jeff Hawkins (On intelligence)

* Have GEB (Covered enough of it)

My point was to bring out the implicit belief that there is :

> Some critical mass or qualitative attribute of brains that puts us "over the > threshold"

> If consciousness is indeed a variable quantity, then every single able > bodied adult human has more "units" of consciousness than, say, a dog.

> The variation within a species is also probably pretty small compared to the > gap between species.

None of which are proven in any scientific way yet many believe it to be the truth. We haven't even resolved what consciousness let alone its range of existence.

> Just like intelligence, the amount of consciousness that a person has is not > a measure of their value.

And yet, one draws lines to distinguish human intelligence/consciousness from that say of a dog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I heard Jaynes speak in the early 1970s when I was a grad student at Dalhousie, and I bought the book when it came out. At the time it sounded crazy but it was also inspiring. The behaviourism of the time was suffocating and his ideas told us we could dream and think big. I hope to reread the book when I am retired, but as great literature, not science.

</comment><comment><USER53> God once told me (not audibly, but "uploaded" to my mind is a more appropriate way of saying it) precise things I didn't know before. Facts that I validated later to be exact. I also felt a strong feeling ("Powerful" is the closest word to describe how it felt) of God's presence during that moment.

</comment><comment><USER54> The Greek oracles had all fallen silent. The final voice heard by the bicameral mind was "the great god Pan is dead."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_%28god%29#The_.22Death.22_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_%28god%29#The_.22Death.22_of_Pan)

</comment><comment><USER55> In the beginning, unthinking man existed, on Earth below the heavens. To man's eye, the Earth was without form and void, darkness covered the well of mans potential for he held no words to name it, but was lifted when man came to the water's edge.

And the God Voice on the water, saw the light of the morning, saw it was good, and separated the light from the darkness in man's mind. The light was named "day", the dark was named "night", and man was concious of morning, and concious of night - aware of the first day as a thinking being.

\--

Neat, that was a quick 0. I ought to build a probabilistic post measurement tool to evaluate the response to taboo language among apes. Perhaps scrape and measure behavior and activity inside this virtual environment. How strongly does topic manifest upward / downward vote velocity vs chosen virtual expression environment? How is level of taboo evaluated in their little bone casings? Can I manipulate and influence their level of taboo response through word choice, telegraphing, inflammation method, or meta-level domino puppetry? Requires more thought.

</comment><comment><USER26> There is a must read series on Julian Jaynes's ideas here, the concept of the 'selfish neuron' in particular is fascinating [http://www.meltingasphalt.com/series/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/series/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Human consciousness is a reflection of the only conscious entity that exists. That consciousness is able to perceive life as it happens in the present moment. Something impossible for a corpse, the body, to do. We are each, one of the infinite reflections.

</comment><comment><USER57> The Gods began when consciousness created them.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't understand this big mystery around consciousness.

Here is my take. The brain simulates the reality. That is we don't see or hear directly but instead the electro-chemical impulses go to our brain from our eyes and our ears. Our brain is big enough to simulate ourselves. Our brain is capable of noticing that the simulation of "me" is distinct from the surrounding simulation of the reality.

<comment><USER59> I don't see the big deal either.

Our brain is able to observe some of its own functioning and that is called consciousness. We can only observe a tiny fraction of that functioning, mind you.

Practising Buddhists, who train at observing the mind, have categorized the same 5 senses as the western tradition does, but they also add a sixth sense that perceives 'mental formations.' The sixth sense isn't more magical than sight or smell, or hearing.

With training one can extend the range of the internal brain mechanisms we can observe. It's called 'expanding your consciousness' a really straightforward concept. Not some wishy washy trippy experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Now the markets speak instead of the gods.

</comment><comment><USER61> His theory may be bunk, but it ties into something that's been bugging me for a while. How come every recorded or reconstructed earlier version of every language spoken today is _more_ complex than the contemporary version? It's completely illogical, language couldn't have come out fully formed with a case system, gender system, definite/indefinite forms of words, dual forms, a ton of verb tenses, etc. How come we only have a record of languages _losing_ features and never _gaining_ them?

<comment><USER62> I'm not a linguist, but it's possibly because the timeline of language did not develop in isolation. E.g., when villages were more separated from each other and few people could read, idiosyncrasies flourished. But with the advent of strong nation-states, the printing press, and widespread literacy, languages standardized and became simpler.

In this case, it's not that languages naturally simplified, but that there were external forces driving it.

<comment><USER63> In linguistics, the terms are _esoteric_ and _exoteric_.

And it helps to remember that reconstructed languages only take us back so far (where they can be reconstructed at all); there's no reason not to believe that language (as opposed to "mere" communication) has been around at least as long as the species has been, so it's had a lot of time to fester, grammaticalize common concepts, overgrow, rot, have chance encounters with other, equally-esoteric languages at levels below those that would force simplification, etc. (We only have to go back to the 15th century to find William Caxton complaining that "English" was really a set of almost mutually- incomprehensible languages, and realising that he would be guiding the language in one way or another by the words he chose when making his translations.)

Language may have started out simple, but it rarely stays that way unless it needs to be shared with "outsiders". Cree, Tsez or Nama/Khoekhoe would melt the average adult American's or European's brain, but their native speakers can handle them while tired, ill and intoxicated. If by some fluke of history any of them were to become a dominant language learned by outsiders (after childhood), they'd become a whole lot less, um, _interesting_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I just made this up. Feel free to downvote because this is complete speculation....he he..

May be each incarnation of a non trivial consciousness (soul) is invocations of some kind of recursive function call in some cosmic machinery. Nirvana is attained when the base case is reached and there wont be any more incarnations of the soul, and the result goes all the way back to the source of the call..

And may be our bodies are like a main function in Haskell where the IO operations of the result of some computations are just carried out. That would explain the concept of fate...

hehe..I always loved to think about this stuff...

<comment><USER59> You may like this:

[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/resona...](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/resonance.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> One of many incredible books from the 70's, when science and humanities were interconnected and writers were exploring the edges of possibility.

Then Reagan came around, fear was restored, and corporations took ovet education. So much great work from the 70's and 80's and early 90's has already been lost, as young people assume everything worth learning is on Google or will get you a Valley job.

Is this how the Dark Ages began?

<comment><USER66> The Dark Ages began with the Islamic conquest.

Reagan, too, was a religious nutter, so you might not be so far off: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#Modern_apocalypt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#Modern_apocalypticism)</comment></comment>


Conquering Bézier Curves for Stanford's CS193P - <AUTHOR> http://familiarcycle.net/conquering-bezier-curves-cs193p.html <comment><USER2> Any chance you can post the code for your ad-hoc editor? Would be interesting to see.</comment>


The patent minefield is already patented. - <AUTHOR> http://www.triplepointrobotics.com/blog/2012/6/21/the-patent-minefield-is-already-patented.html

<comment><USER2> I agree with everything you said about patents and this is completely off topic, but have you ever actually tried projecting onto a whiteboard with a projector? We had the bright idea of using the whiteboard in a conference room as a screen as well but the glare off the board's shiny surface made everything unreadable.

As for patents: This bit by Don Lancaster (from 1990!) seems to be the definitive work on how startups should relate to patents. It definitely changed my mind as to how I proceeded in my own ventures.

<http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf>

<comment><AUTHOR> We have tried a few times (before this company was established) and yes, it can be crap. However, we've got a few ideas on how to fix this such as matte overlays, light filters, anti-speckle laser projectors, etc. We're very early stage so I can't tell you whether any of those will work at all, but I'm confident we can solve the technical problems - it's the business side I'm finding hard!

<comment><USER2> Good luck then. Sound like an exciting project.

Oh and; Whiteboards are white. You don't have to re-project the white part. (Didn't see that in your list. Sprang to mind)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well yes and no actually. Projectors can't produce black (absence of colour) so they typically do so by increasing the contrast with respect to surrounding areas (that, and you turn the lights off). So to draw black text, you need to shine white around it.

But yes, in general you're right. If we draw text in blue for example, we should be able to get away with this. Again, more testing required... :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The truth is, patents are not a poorly executed good idea; they are a morally indefensible, heinously evil idea. They are a more sophisticated feudalism, but feudalism nonetheless.

There obvious moral truth is that no human being has the right to tell another that he can't independently think, create, and sell a given product, and that truth holds regardless of whether he thought of an idea that someone else happened to think of first.

Patents are based in pure mythology, they are a sign that humanity still hasn't gotten out of barbaric intellectual ruts (along with a number of other litmus tests of human barbarism, such as the War on Drugs, the non-consensual forms of government we have, and many other things).</comment>


Lunar crash may have seeded indestructible 'water bears' on the moon - <AUTHOR> https://globalnews.ca/news/5730770/tardigrades-on-moon/ <comment><USER2> Don't like the title (which is direct from TFA) as well as the beginning of the article. It implies that it's the crash per se which caused the dispersal. Whereas, the mission was to intentionally take these and leave them on the moon.

</comment><comment><USER3> I for one, welcome our new indestructible masters.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I learn WhatsApp chatbot development? - <AUTHOR> I am trying to create a Whatsapp bot for testing some ideas. My requirements are: 1. Chat with the bot using a predefined phone number. 2. Show a list of available menus to the user. Eg. "check request status" menu option and then ask the user to input the request id 3. Connect to a database to extract result based on the user request and send that result to the user. 4. Use Free Services and API as much as possible.
1. What are the technologies I need for these? 2. Where can I learn the required technologies?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Also, telegram could be a quick one for this

</comment><comment><USER2> Pining this</comment>


Dark Patterns are designed to confuse and enroll - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/dark-patterns-are-designed-to-trick-you-and-theyre-all-over-the-web/ <comment><USER3> Stamps.com is so scammy. You sign up for a free trial, then get enrolled without asking you into their payment plan. Then when you go to cancel, you can't. You have to call. But guess what? It has weird hours. When you finally do call during their hours it's a machine that you're talking to, not a person.

Ok, so you have hours of when I can cancel...clearly not because you have shift hours, since I'm talking to a machine. So why do you have specified hours?

Stamps.com billed me for 8 months before I noticed they were billing me. I only noticed it because I was doing my taxes. The billing size was just small enough to fly under my radar, but just big enough to hurt a bit. I feel that chose that pricing for that reason.

Anyhow, I saw they were in this story, so I felt I would expand upon their "dark patterns."

<comment><USER4> I have yet to work out whether "limited hours for an automated system" is a dark pattern, or sheer stupidity.

The most horrifying variant I've seen recently was a government __website __that kept 9am-5pm hours. No human interaction or real-time events anywhere, but logins were locked after business hours. I 'm guessing they didn't want to arrange special downtime periods for changes, and the only alternative they could think of was 16 hours/day of scheduled downtime.

It's a bad day when registered mail would be _easier_ than using the automated system.

<comment><USER5> > ...a government website that kept 9am-5pm hours...

Sometimes this is done because the "opening times" are baked into existing process, (or in some cases, legislation), and so the digital replacement for the old meat-and-paper process must be subject to the same seemingly crazy time restrictions.

It seems mad, but if you're an underfunded branch of the state, trying to replace a paper-based process with a website, on a staff of junior developers and over-stretched project managers, well....

EDIT: or the process hinges on an aging perl/oracle/Solaris stack, with a pile of cron jobs which process the day's activities overnight. And of course, the definition of a "business day" is baked into the legislation, so the first job needs to start at 5:10 sharp.

Source: I've seen it with my own eyes.

<comment><USER6> Actually the reason usually is parity across digital divide. So those without access to digital services are not disadvantaged by being forced to use business hours, while digitally-enabled get access 24 hours.

Free internet at libraries could've been a way to work around this inequality of access, but the libraries have business hours too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The thing about dark patterns is that feels like an abuse of the commons. Because of scummy practices like this I am absolutely less willing to explore a site that requests my email, or buy something from a random site (I just see if it's on amazon and buy it there).

For example, a few days ago there was a Show HN about PlateJoy, which sounded really interesting. But, the only way I could learn about it was to enter my email and take a quiz. Now enters the part where the antics of countless other bad actors takes its toll on an otherwise innocent website; I decide it isn't worth the risk and move a long.

<comment><USER8> Yep, AllTrails recently went with a dark-pattern, want to see any info on the trail? Sign-up. If you don't you'll get a brief flash of the detail page before redirecting to a sign-up form.

<comment><USER9> This is basically what any discussion on dark patterns i have ever seen devolves into: "a service i use has an interaction i don't like. it's a dark pattern." the whole term is basically a meaningless buzzword now.

requiring an email address to access a service is no more of a dark pattern than requiring payment to access a service. they're taking something of value in exchange for providing something of value. it's only a "dark pattern" if they trick you into providing your email address somehow.

<comment><USER10> Loading the content then redirecting to or popping over an uncloseable email form is a bait and switch, especially if you are coming from a search engine result.

<comment><USER11> Exactly, its a SEO scam. I'm sure Google will figure out a way to stop it and give them the 40th page result they deserve.

<comment><USER8> Also it used to not be this way, there were more details hidden behind the login but the general info used to be accessible with no login, it's only in the recent months that they switched to hiding most content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not just the web either. This morning Cortana turned green and said "Oh hey!" in my taskbar. I clicked it and it gave me the regular interface - there was no alert or anything, they just wanted to boost their Cortana interaction numbers for the day. That's wasting my time and making it less likely that I will pay attention if there is an actual alert later.

<comment><USER13> I can't stand Cortana. I honestly, genuinely don't want to talk to my computer. I realize I might be in the minority on that, but I actually type fast enough and know what I'm doing enough not to need to ask an "assistant" to do it for me. Unless and until my computer is Samantha from _Her_ , I don't need to talk to it.

What's worse, Cortana has ruined Windows search. Searching from the Start Menu is way less expansive and useful in 10 than was in Windows 7. (I never used 8, so I can't comment there.) It's like it's punishing me for not using something that breaks how I want to work anyway.

<comment><USER12> So, just type then? I use Cortana to set reminders occasionally, but I can't remember the last time I used the voice interface. My PC at home doesn't even have a microphone.

<comment><USER13> Oh yeah, I do. The problem is that Cortana has supplanted basic search functionality. As far as I can tell, when you type a search in the Start menu you're still going through Cortana, technically (that's why she's always running even when she's turned off from listening to you). Cortana has access to a limited subset of your computer. She can't search things outside your C:\Users\\[your username] directory. Regular Windows Search doesn't have that limitation, but to get to regular search you have to explicitly go looking for it now.

So while I used to be able to search for a folder on my D:\ drive by hitting start and typing its name, now I have to either go to the actual Windows Search, or navigate to the folder manually. Even if that folder is indexed in Windows Search, and I have full permissions on it.

<comment><USER14> You're upset that search got rebranded to Cortana? It can definitely search your entire PC. I just typed the name of a script I have sitting on my D: drive and pressed enter and it opened it.

<comment><USER13> It can't. I have a Super User post [1] that describes the problem in detail. Windows Search and Cortana appear to be two separate things. If what I describe in my post is working on your computer, we should talk... I need to find a solution to this issue and Microsoft Support couldn't help.

Can you tell me - do you have Cortana's voice stuff enabled? Do you have her "learning" about you enabled in settings? Did you upgrade to W10 or do a fresh install?

[1] [http://superuser.com/questions/1105529/cant-search- folders-o...](http://superuser.com/questions/1105529/cant-search-folders- outside-of-c-users-you-from-the-windows-10-start-menu)

<comment><USER14> I'm running the Anniversary Update. Maybe things got better. It also sounds like you might need to rebuild your search index and make sure all the folders you want to be searchable are indexed.

<comment><USER13> Yeah... I did that, and sfc /scannow, which was also recommended. All the necessary directories are fully indexed. If the Anniversary Update fixes it I'll be a happy camper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Experienced this recently with Hello Fresh. The 'Cancel Subscription' button was so hard to find that I had to spend 10 minutes Googling it (the placement had changed over time and was always difficult to find, so a lot of the search results were no longer relevant). You had to click a button to reveal the cancellation link, and it was a tiny line of grey text on a beige background.

Then, to make it better, they started calling me every day after I canceled my subscription.

I was going to recommend them to all my friends and family, but instead I did the opposite -- I told everyone to avoid them and only mentioned the negative aspects of their service.

<comment><USER16> AOL was notorious for almost being impossible to cancel. I remember when I had Netflix for a while and decided to cancel it was really easy to do so. Although I canceled that alone gave me a positive impression of Netflix.

<comment><USER17> Ditto to this. I realized I had an unused Netflix subscription, and not only did they cancel it, the rep apologized, said that happens a lot, and helped me negotiate a full refund with no questions asked. I came back a few months later when the Flash came out, re-subscribed, and have been happy turning it on once in a while to watch shows, then back off again when I'm less interested.

It's been lovely. More companies should do this, because it makes me actively want to support them.

<comment><USER18> I worked for a company that offered a software product that was paid on a monthly subscription. Since a number of the companies in this industry were seasonal, we made it possible within the software to make their own license inactive. No phone call was necessary, but they could if they wanted. So as long as their license was inactive they wouldn't be charged. If they reactivated their license they would start being charged again. They would also immediately get any updates they missed out on while inactive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> AVG had (possibly still does) a dark pattern with their free AV software, and I fell for it once.

I was in the middle of a game when the stupid ad for Web TuneUp[0] appeared from my task bar over the screen. The linked image is exactly how it appeared with the auto-confirm box pre-checked. In a rush to dismiss the ad to get back to my match, I accidentally clicked the OK button instead of the tiny decline.

Of course, uninstalling that travesty was a nightmare.

[0]: [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/01/avg-putting-millions-of- chr...](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/01/avg-putting-millions-of-chrome-users- at-risk/)

<comment><USER20> I install Unchecky on every PC that comes near me....

[https://unchecky.com/](https://unchecky.com/)

<comment><USER10> Then there was the dark pattern (in BitTorrent Inc's official client IIRC?) where you had to check some boxed and uncheck others to avoid all malware. Does Unchecky handle those situations?

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I haven't seen that. I would guess not....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The worst thing I've seen is G2A Shield - it takes 10 steps to deactivate it, and each step has the "cancel" button much more dominant than the "continue" button, see: [http://imgur.com/a/PUwPC](http://imgur.com/a/PUwPC)

<comment><USER22> This looks remarkably similar to Audible's unsubscribe flow. I was a member, but I've had less time to listen and increased my podcast count, so I decided to cancel and pick it back up in a year or so.

They ask a million times if you're sure and then offer another million other options (suspend the account for a few months, after which they will automatically charge you again). After you get through that, including a screen warning that you will lose unused credits, they offer a plan that will let you keep the credits you've already paid for by paying them another, smaller sum (I think $10 a year).

I will definitely think hard before reactivating.

<comment><USER23> What really pissed me off about Audible is that they offered me a special offer after initiating the cancellation process, in a fully automated process.

Maybe other people like that, but this basically tells me that their good customers pay more than they have to, because they are fools that don't complain, possibly subsidizing the grumpy ones. And I find this to be totally unacceptable.

For anybody interested in an Audible alternative, check this out: [http://downpour.com](http://downpour.com)

That's DRM-free, high quality audio books at comparable prices.

<comment><USER24> You only get that special offer the first time you cancel as far as I can tell. But really, nothing about Audible is in any way defensible, I know this because I happily tried to take advantage of that special offer thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's my most recent dark pattern fail.

I tried to use Uber for the first time yesterday (in Moscow). The car wouldn't come for way too long, so I clicked cancel and thought that was it. I even selected a reason for cancelling. As I was walking home, a driver called me saying that he had arrived. I said that I had cancelled the trip a long time ago. Then the app showed that my trip cost 0 and asked to rate the driver, which I did.

When I came home, I discovered that they sneakily took money for that trip! I complained to the support and they said it's working as intended, but they refunded me... in bonus points that can only be used to pay for Uber, which I never intended to use again after this "experience".

<comment><USER26> Write them back and tell them you don't want credits, and they'll refund your money.

<comment> nommm-nommm Its a dark pattern that you have to ask specifically to get your money back in the form of currency and not credit. I was actually really surprised about this too when I had to get a trip refund from Uber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some of these cases are not only dark patterns, they constitute was it legally known as fraud. If you deceive someone in order to gain a financial advantage, it is fraud. The problem is that going against those gigantic companies is very difficult.

<comment><USER28> And then others aren't dark patterns. One of the first examples, British Airways, is pretty unfairly called out.

The article says that they imply "cheapest at the top". No, the flights aren't shown "cheapest at the top", and they never imply they are. They're sorted in chronological order.

There is a summary item that says the lowest fare for a booking class that day, but that's all.

<comment><USER29> The author used it as an example of something that may just be an unintuitive UI.

<comment><USER30> " British Airways lists flights that are the second-lowest price as the lowest,"

That sentence makes it sound like they deliberately always put the 2nd lowest price as the lowest every time. It was pretty misleading or poorly written.

<comment><USER31> See [http://darkpatterns.org/british-airways-distract-from- cheape...](http://darkpatterns.org/british-airways-distract-from-cheapest- option/).

<comment><USER28> I think that's still really stretching. "In fact, it's only the lowest price in that ticket class".

If I saw those boxes across the board, like in their example image, it doesn't take a second thought, it's "obvious" (to me anyway), that those are the "lowest, per class".

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that's why I described it as an examples of a bad design choice that may be accidental rather than a dark pattern. I do still think it's misleading, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Adobe flash update notification always have the McAfee Antivirus trial installer pre-selected by default.

Pisses me off every time.

<comment><USER33> Reader has the same thing :(

<comment><USER34> I uninstalled Reader when in started forcing UI toolbars to be open an visible every time a PDF was opened even after I'd explicitly hidden them. I haven't looked back either.

I have yet to encounter a PDF that doesn't render correctly in FireFox's built in PDF.JS. I know Reader has additional features but I've honestly never used them. You can easily set FireFox as your default PDF view and you're off to the races.

My only gripe is the PDF icon is now FireFox's icon.

<comment><USER35> I can show you several form-fillable PDF files which FF does not merely break, but absolutely destroys. Then again, I'm not interested in my Web browser invading my offline activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One pattern I've seen recently that's been increasingly prevalent (but I haven't seen discussed anywhere) is of a form where a site gives you two options in a dialog box along the lines of:

Would you like to sign up to our newsletter? o [[[ OK!! ]]] o No I'm an idiot and I don't want to save money or hear about the latest job offers that may change my life

(Exaggerated slightly.)

I'm not sure this if this technically counts as a dark pattern as it's fairly transparent but I find it is very annoying because it is an attempt to force a user to state an opinion they probably don't hold if they don't want to sign up for whatever service.

I assume it does work or it wouldn't spread so widely but exploiting people's reluctance to criticise themselves seems quite unpleasant: I imagine this affects people with the weakest self-esteem the most.

<comment><USER37> From a previous HN discussion...IMO, obnoxious and genius.

[http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/](http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11855787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11855787)

<comment><USER4> I'd be more willing to call it genius if it weren't so popular with sites that can't deliver. Forcing people to click "I don't want to get rich" when your site is pushing crappy stock tips just seems like a way to make users hate you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you're in the UK, ordering a pizza from a chain gives you forms with a ton of these patterns. Like the incredibly misleading 'tick the boxes below if you don't want to receive an email/text message with future promotions' thing.

Or the awkward auto coupon set up, which seems like it was designed to minimise the amount of money people were saving through codes. It's as if they realised "hang on, lots of people are using 30-40% off codes" so stuck a cheap 5% off one in my default. The user then has to deliberately remove the auto applied one to get the better offer, which is something many people won't bother to do. Or maybe I'm just overly suspicious, who knows.

Either way, they make the sites rather awkward to use.

<comment><USER39> If you're talking about the one starting with a D and ending in ominos - <USER2> all fake data in except for address and pay cash on delivery. In my experience even firstname.lastname@example.com and 00000 555 555 for phone number works a treat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm happy to see mainstream technews bringing this topic to a wider audience. As I'm sure most HN regulars are aware, we've had many high ranking posts on this topic

For those wanting to go right to the source: [http://darkpatterns.org/](http://darkpatterns.org/)

<comment><USER41> Things were pretty cool until 1994. Then Canter and Siegel unleashed one of the first commercial dark patterns: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel)

It's been a race to the bottom ever since. Dave Egger's fine and breezy novel "The Circle" illustrates the ethical issues quite nicely.

</comment></comment><comment> nommm-nommm Those extra fees at the very end infuriate me the most - it makes comparison shopping impossible. Thats including not giving me a shipping estimate until after I enter my shipping address and payment info. I want to know what I am going to pay before entering my payment details!! Hotel "resort fees" and cable or Internet subscriptions are the worst offenders, I honestly can't believe either is legal.

<comment><USER42> As someone currently paying a $22/day parking fee at a hotel, I know exactly what you mean. However, in my case it was a booking through Hotwire, so I didn't even know the hotel name in advance.

<comment> nommm-nommm 22 dollars is absolutely ridiculous for parking (except maybe in NYC...) but at least you can opt out of parking by not bringing a car. "Resort fees" are not optional thus should be included with the cost of the room. Same with booking/processing fees when buying tickets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What about those 'free' WiFi access points that require you to login with Facebook for 'prevention of abuse', and then abuse your Facebook account by posting you were there.

<comment><USER19> Do you have an example of that? That _can 't_ be a thing.

<comment><USER44> It's essentially another dark pattern. In accordance with the use policy of the Facebook APIs you can't require a like in exchange for something. If you see that, definitely report the offender to Facebook.

Source: I used to be involved with a WiFi company that offered Facebook "login".

Edit: clarified my involvement

<comment><USER45> > In accordance with the use policy of the Facebook APIs you can't require a > like in exchange for something.

Unless you're Facebook, I guess: [https://www.facebook.com/business/facebook- wifi](https://www.facebook.com/business/facebook-wifi)

<comment><USER44> Sure, they can make/break their own rules. It's been a while since I've looked at this in detail, but my understanding is the "Like" aspect of it is optional. On that page:

>After checking in, people will be asked if they also want to like your Page so you can continue to connect with them on Facebook.

Of course, if using Facebook WiFi, you do check-in to the location which triggers a host of other "features" within your Facebook account and experience. Similar to if you check-in to a location with the standard Facebook App.

I can see the argument that it's an extension of that experience, while providing WiFi service in exchange for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Though perhaps the worst class of dark pattern is forced continuity, the > common practice of collecting credit card details for a free trial and then > automatically billing users for a paid service without an adequate reminder.

The fact that this is even possible makes me feel like I'm in the middle ages.

<comment><USER47> Oh God, there's a special place in hell for stamps.com.

I did not read the fine print, but made the mistake of thinking that it was a partnership with USPS and did not incur extra fees (like a crazy $13 monthly fee, even if you're not using the service).

By the time I discovered that, I also discovered that you can sign up on line, but you have to cancel by phone (or "being on hold", I discovered it).

Seriously. Never stamps.com.

<comment><USER48> I never understood why stamps.com existed.

* Anything that isn't first class mail can be accommodated by USPS.com, Paypal and others.

* If you mail enough letters to justify a label printer, you can get a better deal on a meter.

* If you hate going to the post office, you can spend the same money that you spend on Stamps.com bullshit to buy a bunch of stamps from the post office, which are now good forever.

My mom fell into this trap a few years ago. The easiest way to disengage: Use a good credit card like Amex. Call twice, hold for 60 seconds, hang up. Dispute the charge. Do this 2-3x.

<comment> nommm-nommm >* Anything that isn't first class mail can be accommodated by USPS.com, Paypal and others.

Even PayPal does first class mail too! and they allow you to buy shipping for non-ebay packages too! And the rates are _better_ than stamps.com.

I too can't understand stamps.com other than to fool people who don't know better. I signed up for their free trial in order to get a $10 postage scale and cancelled right away. I got to talk to a human who tried to convince me why I needed it. I was like "ebay/paypal/amazon/usps are cheaper."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This offers an opportunity - a browser plug-in that brings up a warning whenever a known page with a dark pattern is accessed. That would be a useful feature to add to an ad-blocker.

I've been thinking of writing a simple add-on just to get rid of that annoying "Get to Google Faster" box Google puts on every search result if Google isn't your default search engine. (Google _is_ my default search engine, but because I have their tracking blocked, their web site doesn't know this.)

Companies that do this sort of crap may not win much by it in the long run. One of the reasons for Amazon's success is easy order cancellation. That's what makes one-click ordering work. Their innovation was not that you can order with one click; it's that you can easily undo a one-click order. That makes it a safe feature for consumers. Most businesses still don't get this.

</comment><comment><USER50> Dark patterns need to start winning FTC attention, period. If it's somehow not already criminal to cunt people about, lie and mislead and steal from them on web pages that needs to change too.

</comment><comment><USER51> People should use the credit card dispute process more often. If a company has made it unreasonably difficult to cancel, or charged money that you didn't actually agree to pay (because they hid the notice too well), that's exactly what chargebacks are for.

<comment><USER52> I tried that with a so called credit checking agency in the UK called "Credit Expert". These [scumbags] deserve a Dark Pattern gold star. To see your credit score you have to sign up with a credit card for a subscription. They know full well that everyone wants to just make sure that their credit score is ok, not be charged a monthly rate. They tell you it will cost X a month so you try to cancel within the given time. You have to call a phone number- can't do it online. That's also deliberate. You have to wait x minutes on the phone until you get to their cancellations department. I tell them I want to cancel. They say I 'signed up' and cancelled a year before so they are going to charge me the first month anyway. I am forced to accept and I call my bank a perform a chargeback. 2 months later the chargeback is reversed and I'm charged the full amount because the bank apparently investigated and deemed it a valid transaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> How does Harry Brignull get his dark patterns site covered so regularly? About once a year for the past decade, somebody does an article about it. Weird.

Anyway. I'm a designer and my work has even featured on his site (after he did some freelancing with us - cheeky begger). His implication that people like me sit around trying to making life harder for customers is complete bollocks. We don't. Businesses just don't. It's bad business and nobody would willing do it.

Usually (and I grant their might be a tiny number of exceptions) they have to do things crappily because of constraints beyond their control. It may _seem_ malicious to the likes of a freelance design-and-run merchant like Brignull, but it's not. It can also just be clueless visual designers wanting to make things pretty at the expense of being usable. But mostly it's just hidden constraints.

But hey who cares. It's good rant material.

<comment><USER4> I did notice that the most common 'trick question' is a setup where "accept our emails" and "accept third-party emails" have opposite checkbox behavior, and it's the same behavior system in every example. My first thought was that it's probably a quirk in some shared service/template, or else regulatory weirdness. Hanlon's Razor and all that.

But the claim that no one is intentionally annoying/scamming customers is a bit of a joke. Good businesses don't, and mistakes happen, but a lot of the entries on that site are obviously, consistently screwing their customers (RyanAir, anyone?) There are, in fact, entire businesses that exist to screw unsuspecting customers with rollover billing, data sales, and opt-outs. Among other things, if you're extracting value from customers once each and they don't know your company name, there isn't any consequence to mistreating them.

Broadly, I see three things on that site. There are failures of design and constraint, but there are also dark patterns (where you're basically sincere, but manipulating people with things like opt-outs), and a fair amount of straight-up abuse (where you have victims instead of customers).

<comment><USER53> A very small number of people may intentionally sit down to design systems that purposefully trick users into doing things they don't want to do. However, to lump that in as he does with a load of other things that are basically not being done from choice is silly. Yes, they are not 100% good things, but they are not actively malicious either. Intent. Culpability..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is there such a thing as Yelp for websites where they are scored for their UX with DarkPattern being a scored attribute?

I would love to check a new website against this list, and I would also spend my expensive time to add to this list to report dark pattern websites as they upset me enough to take action.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm wondering if there would be any value in an Anti-Dark Pattern plugin? Basically a browser plugin that un-does all of the dark patterns companies use to try and trick people and give you a straight result.

<comment><USER56> The amount of work put into it may not necessarily be worth it the gains, given how many different websites there are with varying implementations of these patterns.

<comment><USER19> Make it open source, and the community will probably maintain it. I'm sure that if a list of sites were given, fixes for the dark patterns would be submitted regularly.

<comment><USER57> > Make it open source, and the community will probably maintain it

… or fill the issue tracker with troubleshooting requests, demands that someone else code something they think needs to exist, long rants about whether something should or should not be included, etc. Open source maintenance is far from free.

<comment><USER58> You don't have to be a BDFL, you can delegate maintenance work to community recruits as it scales up.

<comment><USER57> It's nice when that works out but it's unfortunately not uncommon to have projects which don't attract volunteers, attract volunteers who have time/interest in fixing one particular thing but not maintaining it smoothly over time, or which simply cycle through people as the cycle of enthusiasm->overload->burnout->resignation repeats.

As a community we tend to neglect this side of things since it's neither a fun technical problem nor something a one-time effort can fix, but it deprives the open-source world of too many good developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I can chip in my experience for hour of code event. I volunteered to help run some sessions. Most of the things that we did was to give a bunch of website out of Hour of Code website. We made sure that the usage of coding exercise doesn't have to make the users register. Alas, in spite of instructions, many students and parents still were not able to skip the page asking for registration. Of course, some sites were more deliberate to place registration as if without it, nothing is going to happen. They say it is growth tactic. I say it is abusive one.

</comment><comment><USER60> Some good examples of intentionally misleading web design patterns here.

As a counter, for those looking to create GOOD UI and UX or want to try and avoid unintentionally bad designs, I wholeheartedly recommend this video on UI tenets and traps: [https://vimeo.com/168472466](https://vimeo.com/168472466)

</comment><comment><USER61> Not sure if this is a dark pattern but on Airbnb the "report listing" link disappears the moment you scroll. Searching for it I couldn't find it.

</comment><comment> angry-hacker I feel like arstech way of splitting an article to two pages is also a dark pattern. Or very annoying at best.

<comment><USER62> I love Siracusa's Mac OS reviews, but it was a pain to try to queue one of those up for offline reading (26 pages or more!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The audio for his voice is so quiet.

</comment><comment><USER64> The site itself has a dark css theme. Made reading about "dark patterns" that much scarier. It's actually an interesting phenomenon -- how the experience is changed by the site you read it on.

<comment><USER65> TIL a grey background (despite the entire content area being white) is a dark theme.

<comment><USER34> You have to click on the hamburger menu and choose the dark theme. It uses the light theme by default.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does Google think I got assaulted recently? - <AUTHOR>

Or is this Google Ad spam ?
I know there is a lot of buzz around Google collecting personal info, albeit to give us very targeted ads.
I was searching (in Google Chrome's Incognito mode) for some jquery hover effects when Google Ads stunned me with this http://i.imgur.com/SaCOG.png on the Page 1
Why such an irrelevant ad ? I thought that Google has fairly smart algorithms in place for this. Am I missing something here? <comment><USER2> Think of the varying reasons why people use incognito mode.

The advertisers have chosen to show the advert to this group of people. I can forsee incognito mode users being targeted more and more for any adverts relating to personal security, cyber bullying and as - in this case personal attacks.

While people think incognito mode makes you anonymous it actually puts you in a sub group of people who are admitting they are highly aware of personal and online safety. The adverts shown will become more aimed at this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Keep in mind what Google does. They don't give away your personal details to advertisers. Rather they offer demographic profiles of an anonymous group to advertisers. In addition the advertiser does not know who sees their ad other then that Google thinks the viewers are within their target demographic profile.

Apparently that organization bought ads for a profile you fit. It does not mean Google thinks you are a victim of assault.

</comment><comment><USER4> More likely the advertiser is on a Google Grant and their SEM manager has created bids on a plethora of keywords since the money is free (and limited at $1/click).

</comment><comment><USER5> incognito: with the identity disguised or hidden

Google doesn't know who you are, so results are not as relevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> But still the ad is not even remotely related to jquery image hover effects.

Don't advertisers pay Google to deliver ads to people who are looking for relevant info ?

<comment><USER6> They tell Google which keywords the want their ads to show up for and related keywords. While it may seem completely irrelevant, someone might be bidding on random keywords that triggered the ad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh. I guess Google does not monitor if people are bidding for keywords relevant to their business.</comment></comment></comment></comment>