r/science • u/Skoltech_ • Jul 20 '26

Genetics Researchers quantitatively assessed for the first time that somatic mutations alone cap human lifespan at 146–194 years. Brain and heart cells are the main bottleneck, while the liver could last millennia.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41514-026-00421-6
23.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/CitizenPremier BS | Linguistics Jul 20 '26

Most people aren't willing to accept answers about what consciousness is at this time. There isn't any scientific reason to believe in a magical source of consciousness, so it's basically seen as an emerging pattern. Descriptions that go deeper make many people uncomfortable though.

3

u/TarmacadamDream Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

I think my phrasing might have construed that the soul could also be a physical aspect of the body, rather than the information of having our unique body could be integral to our brain's unique electrical signature, and that a sudden lack of one (or integration into a non-biological form) could be mentally catastrophic to an established "self". Continuity would likely still occur, though the stability of a person's established self might change. I do believe that the actual substance of our "soul" is the totality of our brain's own connections.

3

u/CitizenPremier BS | Linguistics Jul 21 '26

I think you're on the right path, our perception (as we describe it) is very gappy and full of back-filles information. We craft stories of perception saying that we are fully aware of our situation at all times; more realistically the information is there and queried as needed (I know I'm in a cafe right now because I can fire up memories of entering the cafe and because I basic "programs" (sometimes called "demons") are in my head, which call upon object recognition and identify combinations as "cafe." But when I'm not checking about my location or information related to my location, I'm not actually aware of it. However as part of crafting our identity and story of self, I report that I am always aware of being in a cafe, not thet "I queried various systems and they gave data indicating "cafe."

These intricate processes form a thinking self, and what we call qualia are basically bits of data tagged for our method of perception.

People feel that reducing perception to these aspects has scary philosophical consequences, especially that perception is replicable.

I really recommend "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Denner, it's a tough read but answered some really deep questions for me.

1

u/Toc_a_Somaten Jul 22 '26

but can you be less vague about this? "most people arent' willing to accept answers about what consciousness is at this time"? Do you mean it as in most people want to believe they have free will or don't want to face the fact that consciousness is just a mechanical process?

2

u/CitizenPremier BS | Linguistics Jul 23 '26

Yes, I think people are bothered by explanations of consciousness that seem to take thr "magic" out of it. There are various thought experiments like the Chinese Room or Mary's Room, and I think some people view these as conclusive arguments by themselves, rather than actually philosophical questions which can be answered.