Pioneer Quick Guide 103 (final) - Inter-system Travel
Channel: dtcwee
Date: 2017-01-08

What are we? A space-suited human pilot in the popular sense? If so, then how can our minds and bodies stand the maddening boredom? If we have been altered somewhat, then how? What subset of humanity would accept such a life?
Or perhaps we are not human. Part of a fully automated ship, but somehow separated from the lower-level functions, like heartbeat? Our name and face on the commander page a triviality.
Rather than asking what our consciousness is - and discussing Hippocrates, Descartes, and Kant - perhaps it would be better to ask what function it performs. Princeton Neuroscientist Michael Graziano ...

http://www.alternet.org/books/what-consciousness-neuroscientist-may-have-answer-big-question
https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-Graziano/dp/0199928649/?tag=alternorg08-20

... writes that consciousness results from our attention choosing to deeply process some information at the expense of others. Which missions we should choose or what cargo we should carry. This higher decision making would be useful particularly where there is scant to no data. We can't tell when we take a job whether a client is going to pay, or what prices will be like on the other side of a hyperspace jump. Yet we must make a choice anyway.

Regardless of origin, we are now part of the ship.