The NPC Enigma

For years the phenomenon of NPC people ( non-player character ) has stayed in my mind, others may refer them also as soulless people , and i am not the only one, as it`s been the topic in ATS several times. So who are they , or why it seems like they are different ? .

This is more like hypothetical proposition what i write next, i am not sure is it valid , true..

Some time ago i run to this article which says that attention and consciousness are linked ,one effecting another .


Against the view that consciousness and attention are fully dissociable

In this paper, I will try to show that the idea that there can be consciousness without some form of attention, and high-level top-down attention without consciousness, originates from a failure to notice the varieties of forms that top-down attention and consciousness can assume. I will present evidence that: there are various forms of attention and consciousness; not all forms of attention produce the same kind of consciousness; not all forms of consciousness are produced by the same kind of attention; there can be low-level attention (or preliminary attention), whether of an endogenous or exogenous kind, without consciousness; attention cannot be considered the same thing as consciousness.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have seen that the idea that there can be consciousness without some form of attention, and high-level top-down attention without consciousness, originates from a failure to notice the varieties of forms that top-down attention and consciousness can assume. Overlooking the fact that both attention and consciousness can assume a variety of forms may lead one to: mistake the effects of a form of attention for the effects of another form of attention; ignore that subjects can adopt different attentional strategies depending on the specific task they are required to perform; fail to notice that different attentional strategies may yield different types of awareness. Once the varieties of forms of attention and consciousness are taken into consideration, the necessity of attention for consciousness can hardly be denied. As we have seen, there can be low-level attention or preliminary attention without consciousness, but there cannot be high-level top-down attention without consciousness. High-level top-down attention always implies some form of consciousness. On the contrary, low-level or preliminary attention can either imply consciousness (such as when the cocktail party effect occurs) or absence of consciousness. Even if attention cannot be considered the same thing as consciousness, some form of attention is always necessary for consciousness.

For clarity ,the definitions :

consciousness

Attention


One source about states of consciousness:

States of Consciousness


And then something about human attention spans , clearly noticed fact that it`s been shortening :

Information overflow is shortening our attention spans, research shows


So, there are various forms of attention and consciousness . If it is a play where one effect another, a combination of X +Y = gives certain outcome ?


Is it possible, that human evolution simply could not all keep up with information overflow, and technical things in modernized World burdening our allocated attention size/capability ...and started to effect part of the population by changing the consciousness / attention ratio in such a dramatic way that some people simply dropped from being fully consciousness to some lower level , where the state of being conscious, awareness is simply downgraded to point where this " NPC " state is born ? Since i could not be comparing the present time and like 100 or 60 years ago it`s difficult to know what was like earlyer times. Could human brains/mind be actually much more vulnerable or limited that it`s been generally acknowledged?


Now like i mentioned, i dont know for sure does this make sense, i am playing with the idea, thinking aloud , and if it is crap..so be it

a reply to: Kenzo

If you or anyone has ever deeply meditation to where there is nothing but empty consciousness, then you have reached a place where this animal-given attention thing is not present. Attention destroys consciousness. To a fine degree, attention composes 99.9-per cent of our lives. That is exactly our problem, almost pure animalistic behavior. No wonder we understand nothing.

a reply to: Observer19

Hey that's nicely put this with words


Yeeh no wonder,


And i need to ask, is it more difficult to meditate now generally than like 50 years ago? Because the environment is saturated with all sort of things/ information flow that is disturbing going in to meditation state ?

originally posted by: Observer19
a reply to: Kenzo

If you or anyone has ever deeply meditation to where there is nothing but empty consciousness, then you have reached a place where this animal-given attention thing is not present. Attention destroys consciousness. To a fine degree, attention composes 99.9-per cent of our lives. That is exactly our problem, almost pure animalistic behavior. No wonder we understand nothing.

I would argue that the opposite of you opinion is true. It sounds like you are advocating obliviousness. Which would go a long way to describing our current problem of NPC's.

a reply to: Kenzo

To me it is, we have so much stuff going on 24/7 around us it saturates us to such a degree that finding that level of peace needed is becoming harder.

I have found for me music is playing a stronger role in quieting my mind and clearing most of the clutter.

Not sure how I feel about the NPC concept. One one hand I can see what people are referring too.

But wouldn't that mean the people who see others as NPC's consider themselves to be the main character?

Because honestly that's a somewhat egotistical mentality to have if I do say so myself.

I don't see soulless NPC's I see the most misinformed, disinformed, manipulated, propagandized humans on the planet who are trying to cope and come to terms in their own way with living on this clown world.

Currently there are 3 kinds of people.
Those who see.
Those who don't see.
Those who see what they are told to see.

Humanity is operating on 50,000 year old hardware trying to integrate with 21st century technology. Which is being used to promote us to imprison ourselves and judge our peers rather than free and unite us.

Rather than seeing people as NPC's we should see them as spirituality and emotional oppressed humans and try to help where we can.

Because at the end of the day every one of us is broken in some way.

a reply to: Irishhaf


It's gpod to have something that helps escape from this all, for me it's being in nature, walking on forest etc.

Last few years been crazy time with all information overflow....plandemic, Trump , Biden, Hunters laptop, WEF Klaus etc etc....now Uraine war, economic issues, climate change, natural gas, electricity prices......

a reply to: JAY1980


I tend to agree what you writed . I am more in the opinion that everyone has soul , more than that some would not have. The NPC is or can be that way insulting or egotistical mentality like you said.

I like how you put it .

I guess TPTB is more aware about this all than most of us, using all kind of tools to further get people blinded .

a reply to: Kenzo

I chase the aurora now, since a 4 yr old prevents any level of peace at home.

Standing surrounded by miles of wilderness, 130 miles from the artic circle no lights other than what you brought and whats in the sky you can feel the silence and solitude, you just cant forget to pay attention to your sixth sense when it rings the alarm bell cause lot of stuff out here wants a meal.

a reply to: Irishhaf


I agree I like watching night sky in darkness....sky with stars and all is something.
Dont let them get you as dinner .

Think of all the humans that prefer the easiest path, the one with the least resistance, conform, keep your head down, blend in, nobody will ask anything of you.

a reply to: Lysergic

Part of the reason I want to raise my son in Alaska, you have to learn to get along with your neighbors but still be able to stand on your own two feet when its time for the family to get work done.

a reply to: Kenzo

This was a big discussion at my table yesterday.


To what extent does the existence or lack of an inner monologue apply, if at all?


A certain manner of cognitive decline is happening, observably. In a time when information is so readily available.

Now that we observe it, we need to measure it but not by the same metrics we've used. No answers here, only more questions.

originally posted by: Lysergic
Think of all the humans that prefer the easiest path, the one with the least resistance, conform, keep your head down, blend in, nobody will ask anything of you.

Bold statement.

You assuming humanity and all.

a reply to: Kenzo

I have also been thinking about this over the years, i have come to this conclusion, a body can be born and be alive and die, but the mind does not follow these rules, it has to be nurtured and refined, if one fails to do so, or has been neglected and went trough trauma, the mind can not fully develop, or even start the process, these people are what we call an NPC.

Wonderful topic for a thread!

I reviewed the papers you cited (and those they cited) and came up with some ideas that I could use help with.

First off, as for the main study which asserts in theory, that attention and consciousness are two separate things, not dependent on one another as a measure of itself. Attention without consciousness, consciousness without attention... these two elemental characterizations of the human mind - one without the other - each represent a functional potential that is measurable on its own.

But it seems a poor substitute for the 'dream state' 'transcendental' or the 'unburdened mind.' All of these notions not only affirms the different modalities of thought, but have been explored by the erudite and thoughtful for many centuries. The bodies of work on the topic seem to make this recent effort to quantize the subject a bit, superfluous.

It is nevertheless, very interesting to see how the clever application of technology and scientific observation can exist harmoniously with the notion of a mindset that is disassociated with 'stream of consciousness' still being essentially awake and demonstrably functional.

But whether the NPC we are discussing are doing this consciously or unconsciously is critical. If they are in fact missing one of the two studied aspects of mental functioning, is it purposeful (as in blissful activity devoid of judgement) or simply lacking a second element of awareness (to their own detriment, some might say.)

I think we are referring mostly in the criticism to the latter.

Yes, I too am guilty of having presumed of someone I was observing a state of mindless diminishment... liken it to thinking someone a 'lost idiot sheep." But that is in fact presumptuous and judgmental... meaning, how would I actually know without engaging? And I didn't at the time... so I feel some shame for that.

Since then, I have realized that there is no crime in being able to embrace the bliss of disassociation (although it shouldn't be continuous and to the exclusion of all else.) Nor is it a crime to be averse to the circumstance, especially if we have passion which can take the place of such bliss.

There are some who seem to abuse the ability to choose ignorance. They are the ones who suffer most when reality asserts itself, in particular if that reality could have been avoided (think of "The Ant and The Grasshopper" story.)

I suspect most NPC's are so by choice. And they might not always be NPCs... they just are at the moment you observe them. But that's just me (I believe that 'waves' and 'particles' are a matter of conceptualization... not reality.)

All things exist, nothing doesn't.

what an extremely convoluted and extended way to say "i lack empathy" like damn


here it is, guys, an immutable fact; just because someone adopts a position or politics that you feel are "low information" or "ignorant" or "sheeple" in the old language, does not mean that they are somehow lesser or soulless beings. Their lives are every bit as realised as yours and they experience joy & loss, ups & downs just as you do.

Our modern world atomises and tribalises us based on our tastes and opinions to keep us isolated and amplify this feeling and this is playing into the exact same trap as many posters in this thread are criticising. But no, we're not ready for that conversation so just post another boring principal skinner media meme like a person with a fully realised soul would ;p

a reply to: Kenzo

The fact that people have become almost like NPC's for a person is a worrying one BUT of course computer characters are made to try to emulate people so too much exposure to computer characters and not enough socialisation with real people can cause this kind of societal disassociation.

In much of the world the problem is even more acute with some men and woman actually preferring artificial people to the real thing, this is undoubtedly due to fear of real people and the fact that it is easier for them to feel comfortable playing a role with non player characters for company, in some cases leech like computer programmers have even capitalized upon this by creating artificial girl friend simulations and of course there are also boyfriend simulations.

As for attention span well that is also part of how our modern society which is actually anti human in so very many ways treats, conditions and forces us to live up to it's need's instead of it living up to our need's.

Adverts on Television even have become shorter to try to capture the ever shorter attention span of a population with societal attention disorder, short attention spans and a need for quick gratification.

Everything is about quick gratification, no morality and a lack of conscience.

Kid's are often not so bad but for adults we have often grown into this societal attention deficiency disorder.

In part we can blame bad governance but in a greater part it has been about the explosion in mass media, advertising and everyone trying to program the human psyche to turn us all into rabid consumers in a throw away society and look were that has gotten us.

Even computers, a computer at least had kid's learn to type, to use it for various other uses but these days everything is being pushed down the one box for all game console route with the likes of Microsoft and Sony competing for top spot in what is THEIR plan for the future of mass media, societal control and social mental and psychological programming.

I remember as a child we used to play war all the time, we never hurt anyone and never used our pen knifes to stab one another just to carve wood, mark our names on a few tree's etc.

Now kid's are exposed to a lack of discipline in school and at home (Spare the child not the Rod is a very apt saying here as they have spared the Rod at the expense of the child these day's), computer and console games are jam packed with ever more realistic violence and psychologically dehumanise the minds' of children and of course just as we in my generation all wanted to be the MORAL role models of our hero's, to be superman defeating but actually never harming the villain, the hulk, the bionic man etc the kids in these generations are now instead wanting to HARM the villain but even worse there role models, virtual characters with no morality are actually there ROLE MODELS, failing this they try to emulate gang culture often from other nations that are violent and bloodthirsty.

Without societal role models, with a lack of integrity in public censorship (there is a place for censorship when it is actually TOO protect the children) and runaway capitalism that does not care what it burns down so long as it makes a fast profit.

Well look at were that has gotten us, more insidiously look at the poor calibre of our modern politicians that are not fit to sit in the seats of far better and more morally centred men and woman that used to sit in those seats just two or three generations ago.

Our world is on a downward spiral because of runaway capitalism, lack of morality and woke agenda's.

Shortened attention and cognitive detachment from a society that is as shallow and false is only to be expected.

And very few feel comfortable in this new society shaped and being shaped to eventually control us as if we were those proverbial NPC's.

Empathy is the key word here, you can not teach it but you can certainly cause people to lose it by dehumanising them and our society today dehumanises all to much.

Woke'ism is a dehumanising agenda, Right wing economic capitalism is dehumanising, Anti Christian and anti religious sentiment by people that want the idea of the soul to be squashed is utterly evil, utterly anti empathic and utterly in favour of turning you into a NPC as far as they are concerned since for they whom adopt these vile principles there is no soul and nothing matters but there own agenda, there own short term gratification and there own self.

Empathy is about seeing yourself in others, about expanding your definition of self far beyond the self.

Those whom want to destroy our morality do so in order to do immoral things to our society in the future, indeed they already are.

a reply to: Kenzo

An NPC might say that. It just depends on how they are programmed.