Tim Bayne - Is Consciousness Irreducible?
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2022
- Why is consciousness so contentious? Neuroscience can increasingly explain many facets of consciousness, but what about conscious awareness itself? Some philosophers claim that although facets of consciousness-such as how we see edges or colors-can be explained, we have no possibility of explaining, in purely physical terms, the experience of consciousness.
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Tim Bayne received his undergraduate education from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and his graduate education at the University of Arizona. He taught at Macquarie University, Sydney from 2003 until 2006, and at the University of Oxford from 2007 until 2012.
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Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
I so enjoy these videos. Is it possible to get the whole interview? The clips are like appetizers leaving me wanting more. Thank so much for what you have given us 🙏
The answer to the question is...we do not know. But at this point, it sure looks like it is, irreducible. We do not have a single idea or hypothesis for how subjectivity could arise from matter/energy as we now understand it.
I like Bernardo Kastrup’s idea of the physical world being what “consciousness looks like” when observed from a localized perspective. In simple terms, consciousness is all that truly exists, and the world that we see is the activity of consciousness, no different than a dream is the activity of our own localized consciousness.
No, we could only make such a prognostication if we understood the mathematics of neural networks reasonably well. In reality we don't. Since all mental phenomena are probably a result of that circuit complexity, we don't have anything
More of Bayne please. Thank you.
Hi Lawrence. I share your gigantic question mark about the nature of physical reality and, within that, the nature of consciousness, and then your existential longing for an afterlife. You’re articulating what all of us should be asking. I’d like to humbly offer a potential answer, but I definitely can’t say I have enough certainty to actually positively believe it myself. I just think it’s possible. It’s more than a “best hope”, but way, way far from something anyone could prove.
Anyway, here:
Essentially, combine Max Tegmark’s mathematical concept with David Chalmers’ concept that consciousness is fundamental, then see where it could lead:
It got me to this: Imagine there is nothing physical, then imagine also that consciousness is fundamental. That’s a leap, but say we roll with it: so there’s nothing except a consciousness. Next, imagine it’s infinitely intelligent. So now there’s nothing, except an infinitely intelligent consciousness. So what does it do? Pretty quickly, it works out that one plus one equals two. So, in that sense, mathematics and logic is prime. But it goes on. It calculates EVERYTHING. Every non-self-contradictory mathematical possibility. What else could such an entity do to entertain itself? So it’s asking itself “what if”’s, and then calculating the answers. And it’s so intelligent it can do it for every particule in the universe, no, the multiverse, and in all meanings of that term. This could account for the weird nature of quantum physics, if you go for the many worlds interpretation. Essentially, absolutely every possibility is being calculated by a supreme intelligence, and actually, that’s all that exists. That being, and it’s internal world. We live inside that world. I’ll elaborate later. When it imagines and calculates a non-interesting set of mathematical solutions that doesn’t produce interesting complexity, a boring universe, it abandons the calculation. So how about humans? Well, the mathematical laws of physics give rise to the possibility of our existence, given a particular set of initial parameters the being feeds into one set of its calculations. But our consciousness? Here’s the next leap:
When the mathematics it has imagined produces a model of something computational like a brain, that consciousness inhabits it, a bit like the “transmitter” analogy. But there’s like a one-way valve - the one consciousness can see in, but the portion of it that is instantiated in and inhabits the brain can’t see out. We don’t realise what we really are. The brain sort of sucks in a blind bit of consciousness while it’s functioning. But when we die, it releases it, and we realise that we are actually the only thing that exists - the universe itself only exists in our calculations and imagination. And “we” are actually “I” - one being. So we’re immortal, but if not for our imagination producing all these quasi-independent consciousnesses that we can relate to, we’d be in eternal solidarity confinement. Given all the eternity, the consciousness cannot help but entertain every non-self-contradictory probability, even unpleasant ones. And that’s an answer of sorts to the problem of evil.
And that’s the best I got.
Existentially less satisfying than some, but more satisfying than others. And there are obvious problems with it. But what take on reality doesn’t have problems? That’s why we’re still questioning.
Anyway, I hope this comment reaches you well, Lawrence.
Your distillation of the questions in your videos is a service to the progress of humanity.
Thankyou for saying this and sharing this with us. I’ve been having so many conversations with myself and my friends about this exact thing but haven’t found the best way to explain what I mean.
I think this is the thing that I really feel is plausible but then again who knows….
Very nice
Pretty neat theory. I’ve had thoughts about all consciousness being one but that’s a great way to articulate it.
@@janelolita7890 Thanks!
@@willo7734 Thanks!
Mr. ROBERT , Thank you for sharing these videos .
His name isn’t Mr. Robert. It’s Dr. Kuhn.
@@mother3crazy so you chose to call him by his last name. So be it.
sharing a recent thought that poped in my "something" which goes like "Love = Infinite, with rest either finite or unknown"
Yes!! It’s a purely intrinsic value!! I refer to pure awareness and not the ego identifications saying, I am this and I am that!! The pure awareness identifying itself with some property it considers as part itself is the true “I” or core consciousness!! The pure awareness is what has the instant recognition of I and other, of it and want it is aware of!! In “I see an apple” the pure consciousness is the “I” and it knows it is experiencing an apple which is not itself!! The semantics itself makes that distinction.
Great conversation but I must say that I don't think fundamental consciousness has levels. Consciousness fundamentally has two aspects:
1) that which is experienced
2) that which experiences
And it might be even more simple. There might actually be no differentiation between 1 and 2.
But in any case, "levels of consciousness" are aspects of that which is experienced. The experiencer is changeless.
There is a big difference between 1 and 2. 1 has a force behind it that can be measured. 2 is just experiencing 1.
Are we talking just straight "consciousness" which any living thing may have? Or are we talking "self-consciousness" which only people have? Sadly, they never make that distinction on this channel.
Great observation! As a student of philosophy of mind - the feild is full of this kind of confusion and then theories of consciousness are built on top of it without clarity regarding what level of consciousness the theor refers to ie. Cognition, perception, mental processing, mental states and identity are all in consciousness but all - except cognition are objects of consciousness. In my view an object of consciousness cannot be consciousness (certainly a matter of debate however)
Animals can have self-consciousness. But you know everyone has different definitions of what these terms mean, consciousness, self-consciousness, etc.
@@KinnArchimedes - do you think that when your dog or cat looks in the mirror, they think "that's me!"? I doubt it.
I think that consciousness is 100% a fundamental element of the Universe, in the form of a field. We don't have to describe any further than that, just as we don't explain what a quark is or what energy is, or whether quarks are pure energy. We just describe them as a local perturbation in the quantum fields.
So when anything is conscious, we can consider it to be a local perterbation in that field
I agree.
meaning and understanding requires
a leap from the physical boundaries though...
@@r2c3 Meaning and understandng are not products of consciousness, but products of a human brain. Perhaps you're conflating consciousness with the things that are the object of consciousness, probably a natural human bias towards human or mammalian consciousness. When I speak of consciousness it is not limited to the consciousness of my own experience. That would be unscientific. Since we can't detect or measure consciousness, it's not fair to limit it to only animals or only living things or only things that have some mystical level of complexity.
Great explanation 👌👍🕯️
I'm just gonna say yes for now.
Because if i am going to explain this, the explanation keeps on going infinite.
But the answer to this question is yes.
I think we need to look more at eastern metaphysical practices and practitioners, who tell us that the day-to-day level of consciousness, which we in the west tend to think of and take for granted as the "highest" level of consciousness, is actually a relatively lower level that can be increased through those practices.
We can see clear differences on EEG even between different "schools" of these practices, with Zen practitioners, for example, showing greater and greater amplitudes of slow waves (alpha, theta, even delta) correlating with number of years doing the practice, while TM followers showing no great differences between longer-term and novice practitioners in regard to frequencies and amplitudes except that the longer-term practitioners tend to display the "meditative state" to a greater degree than novices when *not* meditating (which doesn't necessarily sound ideal, lol, but apparently that's one of the effects of that particular practice).
I believe there have been EEG and fMRI studies of Tibetan meditation and I think Zen practitioners, also, and it seems like more focus on and studies of these allegedly "higher" (or at least different) levels of consciousness could be a productive way forward. Distinguishing those levels from our more ordinary levels in and of itself would seem to be a stepping stone to a greater understanding of what exactly it is that we're even studying.
are there any measurements of consciousness when there is subjectivity?
In other words, how do you reduce subjects to objects?
how might time be used to study residue of consciousness?
A lot depends on what is meant by "irreducible". (This along with the nature of "explanations".) One can mean that consciousness is somehow special, and stands outside the laws of physics (chemistry, biology). But this is not what he's talking about.
The second meaning relates to whether "systems" are "reducible". Can the whole be explained simply by the sum of the parts? Most people, say no. There is a fundamental dependency on lower levels. But the system as a whole, must be taken on it own terms, its own level. I get the impression, this is what he means, though he didn't use the term "system".
Then there's the question of the nature of scientific explanations. These tend to take a certain form. They tend to be mechanistic, "how things work", as a matter of paradigm. But life is much broader than this. The mechanistic explanation maybe one *facet* (as he stated), of a complicated phenomena. It's not only a matter of a "residual", but scientific explanations is only one "angle", one way of viewing things. The "how things work" type of explanation, doesn't have the vocabulary to describe the beauty of a flower. You need different language for this (such as poetry, art, ...).
what are the neuron correlates of consciousness? what in the neurons is correlating with what in consciousness?
The more I think about this question the more I wonder how it could even be tested…
Another fascinating conversation. I notice, however, the usual conflation of subjective experience and behavioral states. For example, the dream state is spoken about as if it is clinically accessible. It is not. What are accessible are various brain scan results that correlate with later self-reporting of dreams by experimental subjects. In other words, the only "correlation" in a strictly scientific sense is between the neurological data on the one hand and observable behavior on the other, not between neurological data and subjective, conscious states. Only by introducing into the equation our own private, subjective experiences can we speak about neurological correlates of various levels of consciousness.
can the residue of consciousness have any relation to mathematics?
It seems like a limits problem. Even at extreme limits, however, the remaining, vanishingly small irreducible element seems to be of overwhelming significance, even if it seemingly can't compute, detect sense data, remember, and so on, by itself. The outstanding question is whether its very existence is dependent on anything at all.
Consciousness is dependent the brain.
All assumptions on the as of yet scientifically unknowable
"The outstanding question is whether its very existence is dependent on anything at all."
Suppose it isn't dependent ln anything at all. What does this entail? It would mean consciousness is fundamental, and thus goes back at least to the early Universe. Either way, it's certainly supposed to interact with the brains of sentient individuals, so it has some kind of physical interaction going on. If so, then why aren't we detecting it?
We're not talking about some kind of weakly interacting entity, but something that would be separate from - yet constantly interact with - complex brains, which are biological organs with ongoing neurochemical processes.
Problem is: whether consciousness is fundamental or not, it most certainly doesn't interact with those brains to the kind of extent that _detectable_ phenomena like neutrinos and dark matter interact with them, however weakly.
So it goes much further than us merely not understanding an apparent mystery. If it exists on its own, consciousness is pretty obviously _not_ interacting with brains in any way that would _affect_ brains to begin with.
In other words, the idea of fundamental consciousness appears to be a dead end, since it doesn't explain at all how brained organisms would appear conscious in the first place, given their lack of effective interaction with them. Wanna portray self-aware beings as some kind of RC units commanded by ghostly minds? Fine. Where's the radio signal equivalent? Or the radio receiver for that matter?
At some point, we're forced to infer that if there's neither a signal nor something to receive said signal, it's probably because we're not physical RC vehicles for ethereal pilots. The 'ghost' is _in the machine_ so to speak, if it exists at all as ghost... Which at the very least entails that without a body, we'd get no physical interaction, which kind of answers the initial question by the positive. 🤔
@@lucofparis4819 You might be interest in what Bernardo Kastrup has to say on this subject. He convinced me that a universal consciousness does exist. He is very deep and technical but precise and clear.
@@buzzwordy9951 I like to play games, so let me guess a priori what he's up to from your prompt. It involves quantum mechanics, maybe it works around a phenomenon like quantum entanglement. Did I guess right or wrong? Am I heating or freezing? 😁
There's a key part they didn't mention. Discovering anything that isn't within consciousness will always be entirely unverifiable. It is impossible to experience anything that exists prior to or independent of consciousness without being conscious of whatever it could be. Consciousness is the only thing that can ever be experienced. Therefore, we're forced to conclude that asking if it can be reduced is utterly irrelevant and pointless.
8:07 - "It's possible that there's a nature of consciousness that those tools just can't get at." I would suggest that there is, and it is semiotic. The reason that we can't get at it is because semiotic is top-down. "Getting at it", by contrast, implies bottom-up. Let's explore...
The internet has provided us with access to a number of amazing optical illusions. One in particular (**reference below - Shades of Grey optical illusion) is directly testable, by placing your finger over the portion that defines the context of the two identical, upper and lower colors. And then there are the various fake-hand illusions. Some of these illusions catch us by surprise, when viewed in the context of our bottom-up determinism.
What do these many illusions tell us about consciousness? They tell us that context is everything, and that the computer analogy of inputs/outputs processing "true" reality objectively, is the wrong metaphor. Why? because this "objective" approach emphasizes a bottom-up direction of causation. By contrast, we process reality subjectively, top-down, always, in relation to context. This applies not only to visual illusions, but to every manner of sensory experience, from auditory to tactile.
In a previous episode, we saw Robert agonising over the reality of a room (or was it a table in a room, can't remember). No mystery at all... a room (table) is a context that has meaning for Robert, but it would not have meaning for a frog or a mouse. No frog or mouse ever experiences a room as a room - only a human can do that. The room (table) is an illusion for Robert, to which only a human mind-body can attribute meaning.
We can extend the implications of illusion to a general principle. Context is associative, and therefore semiotic. Genius American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, provided the foundations for a semiotic theory that addresses the all-important associative aspects of cognition (as well as habituation and motivation). These come within the scope of his Categories.
So is consciousness reducible? The contexts of our experiences are unified in the context of the self. When Peirce writes "The man is the thought", this is an expression of this unity of contexts. And so I'd venture to suggest that no, consciousness is not reducible... or at least, for all practical purposes, such a suggestion is meaningless. Yes, you can split a brain at the corpus collosum, and you can excise a functional specialisation, such as language, and these surgical interventions can dramatically impact on how a person sees the world. But it's nothing like changing the components or wiring in a computer. The unity of self remains, if compromised, despite such surgical interventions. [Excising a functional specialisation from a brain is not unlike excising a functional specialisation from a city - the city's efficiency will be compromised, but it can fill those lost specialisations in a recruitment program]
My thesis that "bodies wire neuroplastic, DNA-entangled brains" dovetails nicely with my outline above. Experiences intercepted by bodies provide the contexts within which the self orientates itself to the world subjectively, and it can only ever be subjective. We thus arrive at a solution to the mind-body problem. What's it like to be a bat, a dog, a fish or a bird? What's it like to be a human, a man or a woman? Look not at the brain, but at the body that wires it.
**UA-cam always seems to block my posts if I include links. Those interested can find the link to the Shades of Grey optical illusion on the Slate-dot-com website by googling the terms - [optical illusion same colour]
I'm now leaning somewhat towards Donald Hoffman's version of consciousness. It's more of a philosophy at this point. But him and his team have just released a paper that may be able to show in math what conscious agents might be and how they interact. Time will tell if this pans out.
His main idea is that consciousness functions outside of our current understanding of space and time. Most scientists probably don't agree with this notion. So he has an uphill battle to prove this. But he thinks he can.
I love Hoffman's book - The Case Against Realty!
That guy is the most clueless of all probably. He keeps suggesting, as if we didn't know that already, that reality is not as we perceive it though the senses. It is precisely for that reason that we study physics. Where we learn to build a more coherent picture of reality. For example we don't believe that a pencil placed in a glass of water really bends. THAT IS EMPHATICALLY NOT A CASE AGAINST REALITY. I'm fact, it is a case for studying physics with the seriousness we actually apply to it. And amusingly he keeps saying that consciousness is fundamental and yet that evolution, which is an extremely messy and VERY MATERIAL phenomenon shaped our consciousness to be selective. And no part of anything he talks about involves consciousness at all but merely information processing. This is the only guy who gets a lot of airtime who doesn't seem to have a handle on ANY aspect of the problem
@@jamespower5165 Sorry but I have to say, that you don't seem to understand what Hoffman is saying. He's not always the best at explaining himself. It's taken me a long time to understand where him and Bernardo Kastrup are coming from.
I don't mean to be rude or anything, but the concepts that they put across are very foreign and they go against some of our normal thought processes. Idealism seems pretty out there, but it's rooted in factual concepts.
If you will they approach this with very out of the box thinking.
Hoffman is a Scientist first though, and approaches it from that perspective. He knows that for these concepts to ever be taken seriously. He needs to back it all up with data.
But the idea that the brown table in front of me isn't really brown. Wasn't easy for me to except. But now having a better understanding the science behind how my brain, my neurological systems, and Quantum Physics works. I know now that the table in front of me, really isn't brown.
Sometimes Scientist seem just as close minded as some religious people. Yet Science still continues to move forward.
Physicist know they are missing a lot still, and that General Relativity and Quantum Physics are incomplete. Maybe it's Super Symmetry or String Theory, or M Theory, or something else.
The issue of consciousness seems to be stuck too, and trying to find it in Electro Chemicals and gooey meat. Doesn't seem to be going very far.
Maybe it exists in that area of Physics that we don't understand yet, and that will take some really out of the box thinking to figure that out.
@@franksalo3466 I'm not saying the guy isn't a good neuroscientist. I just don't think he's a good philosopher. And of course the brown table in front of you isn't brown. It won't even look brown if you slightly change the lighting. That only means that color is a perspectival property. It depends on wavelength of the reflected light, the intensity of light, and a good deal of the properties of your eyes. Which is exactly why we don't spend our time considering such things in physics. We consider simpler properties that actually depend on the thing we are trying to understand and that don't depend on externalities. And from this we build up the profile of the physical world from that. We can't trust our information processing systems to not fill in gaps in our perception either from our memories and expectations either(Hoffman, as a neuroscientist, would be well aware of this) This is precisely why we study physics and also brain function very seriously without taking the surface appearance of things for granted. We test our theories for coherence and set high standards of empirical testability before we accept theories. That is exactly why big science is often extremely counterintuitive. This is not an argument against reality. And as I said, someone talking about evolution as a motive force in his theory has no case at all against reality
@@jamespower5165 you need to read Hoffman's Case Against Realty - you do not understand his argument.
Book titles are decided by the publisher not the author hence they're a little provocative in order to sell.
Hoffman uses evolution by natural selection to argue against the presumption of the FDH (faithful depiction hypothesis) - the idea that we perceive reality exactly as it is. This isnt even a controversial claim within neuroscience - as you already indicate and appear to agree with.
Hoffman's argument is not anti-realist - he doesn't deny reality nor does his thesis reject the existing models of physics (general relatity and quantum physics). But he does draw on the movement within physics that holds that space and time are not fundamental and that there is a deeper structure to reality beyond space and time.
In a nutshell, Hoffman argues that organisms evolve to specifically target fitness payoffs (ie the things we need for survival). He has shown through the application of evolutionary game theory and computer modeling that organism that evolve the senses to target fitness payoff always out compete organisms whose sense perceive reality as it is (a position called naive realim). Perception has a metabolic cost and its much more efficient for organisms to evolve to target those fitness payoff as opposed to trying to have a faithful 1:1 Perception of reality - which is an inefficient use of energy thar doesnt serve survival or provide a competitive edge.
So his case is against the presumption we experience reality as it is - it does not undermine GR or QM.
You are clearly a thinker - more than happy for you to critique Hoffman - once you understand his claims and can argue against specifc premises. : )
Plus his book is excellent, scientifically rigorous and address your argument raised here in detail.
Yes
Who's asking and who wants to know? AND - In whose terms and what terms???
Welcome home.
Locomotion is a feature of life. Did it therefore evolve? If it did, then is a landslide an example of evolution in action?
But a landslide is not a feature of life. It's not a behavior of living organisms
Interesting discussion, dividing “consciousness” into direct “awareness” versus other forms of consciousness, specifically what you do when asked “are you conscious”, and you say “Yes, I am conscious”. We (humans at least) agree we are conscious, and know what that means. But is that really what we mean by “awareness”? When you are looking at a sunset, are you conscious of looking, or does that just occur when you say to your friend, “That was a gorgeous sunset”. If you are totally focused on the sensations around you, you are not conscious of them unless something triggers a reflective awareness of those sensations. “The sun set, it’s getting dark, we need to move”. You can choose to be aware of your environment, as when you are looking for something, but that’s not always the case. Reflective consciousness is what seems to be irreducible. Simple awareness is entirely explained by known neurophsiology and / or psysiological psychology (e.g. psychophysics of perception). As Tim and Lawrence are discussing this problem, they are literally bouncing ideas off each other, reflecting on their own thoughts and past experiences and, creating new ones. Then they create new thoughts and ideas seemingly spontaneously to explain, in this case, the “irreducible” feature of consciousness. Well, that’s it, isn’t it? The new ideas that didn’t exist moments before? Where did they come from? How can you define that? Simple. Our brains have been designed by eons of selective pressure to make stuff up to explain our environment - physical and mental. We don’t control that, we just observe what comes into our minds and then choose whether it should go out our mouth. That’s the only free will we have, if we have any at all. “Consciousness” is just an idea we have collectively created to represent that process symbolically, just like time, and love, and free-will, none of which exist materially, at least in the ordinary connotation of material. Therefore they cannot be reduced. You can know what you know, and you can know what you don’t know, but you can’t know what you can’t know.
Actually there is no universal definition for conciousness in the philosophy of mind, there is no scientific explanation for simple awareness (in neuroscience) that has any suppprting evidence - we have only theories, and you're arguing something akin to illusionism (ref. Dennett amd Garfield - you would probably like Dennett esp - check him out).
Conciousness is a concept in science and philosophy but there is still something aware of that concept that remains unexplained by science. That's what Bayne and Lawrence are focusing on. Or check out Chalmers paper The Hard Problem of Consciousness.
@@dhammaboy1203 Yes, it is a crucial point that there is no accepted definition of consciousness. I maintain that there cannot be one. Why not? You are not conscious of anything unless you are thinking about it, which involves your memory. Our primal awareness, the "Easy Problem" is the same for all organisms from bacteria to us, and can be scientifically studied and understood. They can be defined. How does the retina translate light into a color image we can see? The neurophysiological systems enabling consciousness can also be defined, but they themselves are not consciousness. Did you ever see a cartoon of a vacuum cleaner sucking itself up and disappearing? or a snake eating itself starting at the tail? That is the paradox of consciousness - it is the process of recalling memory to understand what it (the process) is doing. It doesn't make sense. It is not just a hard problem, but an immutable one. To accept this you have to also accept that you don't have "free will". Good luck.
@@thomassoliton1482 totally!
I also agree we don’t have fre will! : )
First principles: we cannot yet define consciousness. We haven't even tackled intelligence in consensus.
The fact that it's hard to define indicates that it is probably irreducible.
Weird reverb again in sound.
Watched of course till the end and almost full of conciousness minus sound.
The correlation vs. causation argument is a dodge. A causes B does not require that we know how A causes B. For example, we know putting your hand in fire causes burns on your hand and also makes you feel hot. We know quite well the chemistry and physics of burns and thus can explain the burns. So most will agree that fire causes burns. I also think many will agree that fire causes the feeling of a hot sensation. We do not say the hot sensation is correlated with putting a hand in the fire. It is true that we do not have an explanation for the qualia of a hot feeling. For this reason, I do not buy the correlation vs. causation argument that is trotted out in these discussions.
Administration of anesthesia results in a lack of consciousness. I do not think anesthesiologists think that this happens because of the correlation between the two. They know to a significant quantitative degree the degree of causation.
I think the question itself, “is consciousness, irreducible” advances the conversation, if just a little.
Maybe a better question is whether anything in nature is reducible? We can line up all the parts and say we have reduced a thing, but the thing is no longer there, only a bunch of parts. This is why they had to come up with the silly notion of emergence.
I would have to think it isn't irreducible, but states of consciousness are, that there are levels of arousal or excitement, or of mental resources used if it involves a lot of calculations.
@@caricue Science came up with emergence because they found the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Especially now that we have quantum field theory which is the best description of matter that physicist currently have.
@@kos-mos1127 In other words, scientists believed firmly that they could understand everything by starting at the bottom and working their way to the top, but when properties started to magically appear in the whole that weren't in the parts, they had to come up with a sciency sounding word to explain the discrepancy. If you start at the top level, everyday reality, then you don't have to explain where the properties of the whole come from.
I don't even find the question wheather consciousness is reducible to be an intelligable question. Sounds a bit to me like asking if people are reducible to smiles.
Not the most focused discussion in this series....short answer- maybe yes/ maybe no...we may never really know.
Assuming the computer is turned on and it has all the basic capabilities that we do, when its in idle mode, ie. not doing computation or "answering" questions etc. is it thinking? Is it ruminating over its' day? Anticipating tomorrow? Finding something someone said funny? Surely these are attributes of consciousness. Some apes seem to display some or all of these qualities.
ronhudson / No. It doesn't. You have to create the correct real "emergent" functions in order for any computer to be fully conscious. •
Animal kingdom has different levels of awareness, of consciousness, because the emergent real functions evolved in their specific genetics are different.
I have Parkinson's disease and wake up in dreams and know I am dreaming. I can evaluate the video quality of of the dream.
"Who would study and describe the living, starts
By driving the spirit out of the parts:
In the palm of his hand, he holds all the sections,
Lacks nothing, except the spirit's connections."
- Mephistopheles
I would argue that those levels of consciousness that he refers to are really operative levels in the cognitive machinery, not in consciousness its self. But since consciousness works through that cognitive machinery, it appears as if affected by it.
The gradient/change of levels of consciousness is an indication it correlates to material states, so I think he has a good point
Change in one relates to another; and change (a derivative) is proof of a higher positioned function: the function of conciousness
I disagree that there may be different levels of consciousness.
(Actually, I assert
there is something seriously wrong with the word 'consciousness'.
What is wrong with it?
It gives too many folks the impression that it is a 'something' with
an existential status equivalent to matter.
Being conscious is a process.
Process is an abstract notion and so
has a radically different existential status).
Certainly the quantity and/or size of items in the conscious field may vary but
one is either conscious of something (in the form of a thought) or one is not.
When one is conscious of nothing
one is not conscious and
when one is not conscious
one is non existent.
Indeed, what thoughts about existence flit when one is dreamless sleeping?
I say none and
find most who think about it in agreement.
(Clearly the notion of 'pure consciousness' is pure nonsense).
Seems to me being conscious has something akin to meaning in a sentence.
A scientific instrument,
microscope for instance,
no matter how powerful,
will be useless for discovering meaning in a sentence or
for decoding Morse signals or
discovering a conscious self in a brain.
But that seems totally compatible with the claim that consciousness is not a function of the brain (or its material states), and even with the claim that consciousness is not necessitated by the brain or the material. The brain itself may be fully made of consciousness. How does this prove consciousness is a function of the brain? I wouldn't dispute that the data you appeal to constitutes some weak evidence consciousness is a function of the brain, but I don't see how it's supposed to constitute proof.
@@highvalence7649 if even correlation does not relate to causation anymore, then you are even more of a skeptic than David Hume and pretty lost. Good luck out there in randomland
@@Robinson8491 no I'm just an idealist. Brain states may cause mental states or aspects of consciousness. The claim I'm doubting here is that consciousness is necessitated by the brain. Consciousness could extend beyond the brain while the brain still causes some mental states and aspects of consciousness. That's totally compatible. How does the evidence you appeal to constitute proof consciousness is a function of the brain? Why are you dodging my question?
@@highvalence7649 why don't you prove that external non-brain states influence conciousness? I think that one is more difficult as there is clear evidence for brain-conciousness relations so as Bertrand Russell said the burden of proof is at the one making the claims that aren't clearly observable: which brain-conciousness relations demonstrably are
I may not understand the word “irreducible” in context, but it seems consciousness can be reduced with chemicals, genetic manipulation, or the dumbing down of education.
If consciousness is entirely physical and is the result of sensory inputs like sight, sound, smell etc. being fed into an analytical "brain" to correlate and process, then we should be able to reproduce consciousness in a machine. At some point, when we have duplicated the structure of our brain and fed in the sensory inputs that we possess as humans, we should witness a flowering of consciousness. If it's not forthcoming we will be closer to the answer but we will still wonder if there is a physical input utilized by the brain to create consciousness that we have missed. But we will also wonder if we have reached the point of irreducibility that represents the final frontier of consciousness and proven true the idea that it is possible for "the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts."
If you look at a human from the outside, you see a solid, evolved organism that is part of the physical world. If this creature experiences mental states and bodily stimulus, then it has to be the living tissue of the organism which is able to feel and experience, doesn't it? Is there anything else inside of an organism besides cells and protoplasm?
@@caricue Yes, you referenced it yourself. Mental states is another way of saying we have ideas. Ideas are real but they are not cells and protoplasm.
I don't know if consciousness is reducible, but after a night out with the boys, I was half dead.
that doesn't explain anything.
@@Dion_Mustard
It explains why I was lying on the floor in the bathroom trying to climb up the toilet roll.
First define consciousness. If toddlers under 3 years old are conscious then it's a reduced consciousness than the the full adult consciousness. Thus, consciousness is reducible.
@@KinnArchimedes how do you know a toddler has reduced consciousness?
consciousness most definitely is not reducible.
@@Dion_Mustard what do you mean by reducible
The Brain works on chemicals. When a person experiments with psychedelics their Brain works differently and their perception of reality is different. I find this interesting..
that doesn't explain consciousness....
Changing station.
The universe has timeless awareness
This guy gets it.
In what sense is it aware? What would be different if it wasn't?
Once I "know", I can't "not know".🤔
Thumbnail looks like Tim is talking about a very spicy meatball!
Awareness, consciousness and the feeling of self is pretty common in nature. Its not that special.
Then you have people who want to define consciousness as the soul, something independent from the physical. But that's special pleading, unless every creature that thinks has a soul. And I am sure that they would never agree with that idea.
Nobody has ever proved that the 'physical' exists independently of conscious experience. It is an unverifiable belief based on pure speculation that is completely contrary to our actual experience.
@@Shane7492
Yes, they definitely can't exist independently from each other.
I think. Therefore I am.
I think consciousness in it purest and reductionist form is the feeling of pain, be it hunger, a sting ect. Most animals feel this it's just that it's been added to in humans. It's interesting that the part of the brain that relates to pain is in its centre, as if it was of origin and every other part was evolved around it, hope that makes sense!
What about people with neurological malfunctions who do not feel pain? Are they not conscious? Try again.
@J.R. "Bob" Dobbs Very good point but it think it simply means that the origininator of their concienciousnes has gone. I'm not saying that pain is conciencesness, I'm saying that it is the absolute bare bones of conciencesness. Pain is something you feel. For people who don't feel that type of pain will still feel eg anxiety which is of a more complex evolved version. And that part of the brain still works.
Why wouldn’t it be a broader ability to sense your environment in respect of resources? Like a single cell locomoting in a chemical gradient? Pamela Lyons and Michael Levin have a fascinating paper on this (tons of evidence amassed). There’s an article in Aeon about it called “On the origin of minds”
As they say: “Cognition did not appear out of nowhere in ‘higher’ animals but goes back millions, perhaps billions, of years”
@MrJustSomeGuy87 An animals ability to sense pain directs it away from danger, is that what you mean?
@@randomguy4820 well, you said consciousness in its purest and reductionist form is the feeling of pain…and I’m wondering whether there’s an even more basic form of consciousness which makes it almost co-extensive with life itself (aka all living systems, single cells on upward, exhibit a more basic “toolkit of cognitive capacities”. It’s in the article I referred to.
Being ineffable for our senses to perceive our awareness can never be seen to be produced by anything,.
Didn't Penrose address this very recently by stating conscious does not equal mathematics?
He said we MAY NOT, he did not say we WILL NOT.
It would be useful and should be required to offer a rigorous definition of what is meant by "consciousness" before talking about it and trying to determine its cause, production, or emergence. Also state what things are conscious under that definition. If human conscious is what is on the table, then rigorously distinguish human consciousness from other types. One more thing. Consciousness doesn't exist in a vacuum. Some living thing (presumably) possesses consciousness. Describe the living thing, human in this case. What in a human being is conscious or possesses consciousness? When we say "he or she is conscious" or "I am conscious," what is meant by "he," "she," and "I"? These are important issues in understanding what humans have labeled, "consciousness."
"The origin of the modern concept of consciousness is often attributed to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690. Locke defined consciousness as "the perception of what passes in a man's own mind."
I believe Locke's definition of "consciousness" would not hold up today, but it was a beginning. A general notion of human "consciousness" is the following states or qualities possessed by a human: AWAKE (not asleep - although certain levels of consciousness can occur in certain types of sleep), AWARE (the person knows where they are and who they are, PERCEPTIVE (understands the external environment and their subjective milieu), FEELING (qualia), THINKING (problem-solving, decision-making).
But, I ask, "Who or what is conscious"? When we say, "the person is," what is the "person" in terms of brain and body? What actually is the "I" or "self" that is conscious? I submit that it is complex neural networks (neurochemical brain activity). One can best (perhaps only) understand "consciousness" within the framework of evolution and from the inside-out. When did basic consciousness evolve? Why? (evolutionary advantage, if any). When did the perception and feeling of a "self" evolve and why?
Since consciousness is likely an emergent phenomenon, trying to observe and analyze it and then determine how it arose from its components may be futile. Perhaps that is analogous to observing and analyzing a tornado, and then attempting to reverse-engineer it to see how it emerged. Perhaps the most fruitful way is to start from the inside and work outward.
A cell can respond to its environment, obviously an evolutionary beneficial adaptation from one that can't, so this rudimentary biological 'awareness' could be the seed. Now that's quite a leap to a self that wields subjectivity, but this also could be deemed an evolutionary advantage adaptation. An organism that just automatically hunts to collect food would not fare as well as an organism that enjoyed hunting. Enjoying hunting could be motivational leading to more innovative ways to hunt and to more resources for instance.
@@johnyharris When our precursor hominids were successful in a hunt, then they and the family got to eat and survive (thus reproduce). This gave rise to subjective feelings of pride, joy, and satisfaction.
You can't define it. Is why the scriptures state God is unknowable, unintelligible, intangible. To define means to seperate, to compare, to contrast, to divide, so to name what something is from what something is not. We know what hotness is from what is cold, and we Know what's cold is not hot. Thus defining is relative, and ignorant. You cannot divide consciousness, nor compare it to anything because there's only One. Even if you try to define consciousness, it will be wrong, because the nature of defining is from ignorance.
You should for once in your life, read a great book and not the materialists crap that you recommended to somebody else recently.
The Unknown God, Plotinus Enneads, Meister Eckhart Complete works, Periphyseon, Upanishads, Bible, Origen on first principles, Syrianus on Aritotles metaphysics 3 - 4 and 13 - 14, Plato complete works.
Best books.
If there is something that it is like to be, that thing is conscious.
It's not such a mystery, it's synergy. There are numerous synergies in nature, including life, ecosystems and human cultures. None of them are reducible with current knowledge and tech, being based on complex multi-dimensional interdependencies.
Consciousness consists of numerous reflexes, most of which are gathered in suites (eg. the stress response). Suites of reflexes synergise into a useful overview, a worldview. Humans have additional suites of reflexes that can modify other reflexes. We call this self-awareness.
But rest assured, the components of consciousness are reflexes, just as the components of ecosystems are organisms.
"Complex multidimensional interdependencies"... Did you get that from a corporate PowerPoint?
Reading back, it reminds me of one of those apps that created random impressive sounding nonsense haha.
But if you mapped out all the dynamic connections between brain neurons you'd end up with a multidimensional chart full of complex interdependencies
In this at least I am a Dualist.
The brain is a television with all its internal bits and pieces..... The Signal comes from outside, from somewhere else, from the Consciousness beyond consciousness.
so in essence, consciousness is a bit like the internet...it's out there in the universe and the brain acts as the receiver of that signal, so to speak.
@@Dion_Mustard Thank you for your response. I think so. What could that mean?
For me as a Christian, I believe Consciousness comes from God, the Consciousness (in capitals if you like) which created the Universe.
@@lesleypatoncox1569 how lovely. i am not sure how consciousness emerged. my personal theory is consciousness has ALWAYS existed. it's infinite. therefore, no beginning no ending. and time does not exist. time is just an illusion.
@@Dion_Mustard
I like the idea of
Occam's Razor. It is simpler to posit a Creator Consciousness, God. Certainly the recent research into Near Death Experiences might suggest that consciousness is eternal and survives the death of the body.
The debate on consciousness seems always to come down to those who say, wow, consciousness, how can you explain it verses those who say of course we're consciousness; the benefits for survival are enormous.
The problem is that consciousness had no known utility. We only need information processing for that. Consciousness means actually experiencing things directly - you see the red of a rose, hot or cold weather feels a certain way - we don't just note that it is hot or cold which is all we need. The problem is intensified by the fact that evolution is typically parsimonious. Why would there be something really sophisticated in your system if you can't even see the need for it?
@@jamespower5165 You find yourself in a complicated environment with lots of pray and predators, consciousness is going to come in handy. It first alerts you to the important details so your system isn't overwhelmed processing every little bit of stimuli and secondly it allows for decision making and choices, which then becomes the basis for a steady growth in brain complexity and intelligence.
@@longcastle4863 What you're saying is that there should be a separate information processing department that only handles external affairs, not things like your digestion, but how you interact with the outside world. Totally agree. At some point in evolutionary history, living creatures must have evolved such a separate department. And of course this department promotes appropriate responses to external stimuli which are less predictable but also adds an element of pseudorandomness so that the creature is not too predictable itself which serves it well be it prey or predator. And I agree that consciousness probably evolved beyond this point in evolution
But we are still speaking of information processing, not experience. Sensors can also detect color and intensity of light etc but they don't see a red patch there. The component of experience is what we call consciousness. The information processing part is easy to understand and to put in context. The experiencing part is both uncanny in terms of how it happens and seems entirely unnecessary
@@jamespower5165 Imagine the first creature to develop a light sensitive patch of skin on its outer body that is connected by a thin line of neurons to another smaller clump of neurons inside its body representing the first kind of proto brain. All of which results in the creature jumping out of it's hiding place to eat when it sees certain kinds of small flickering lights pass by and to scurry down it's burrow in the sea floor when a large shadow passes overhead. You seem to be saying the creature could have done both those things (eat and hide) without conscious awareness of changes in its environment. To which I would respond, _maybe_ -- but evolution nevertheless selected for consciousness as a strategy for survival in our environments _over_ simple stimuli input output response kind of systems. And obviously since we find brain cases of increasing size and complexity progressing throughout the fossil record, it seems to have been a strategy that worked. It may be that when you have a complicated environment to operate in that consciousness is a helpful way of sorting out, identifying and prioritizing the important stimuli and information in the environment from the probably hundreds, if not thousands, of other stimuli that could be ignored without consequence.
@@longcastle4863 Barring small details, you are almost certainly correct that all these things happened. Question is why. Consciousness is hard to understand in terms of how you can actually bring it about but at least you'd think we would understand it functionally. What advantages it gives over a simpler strategy. Even that minor mystery seems utterly beyond us. What is more - we seldom see it discussed(No doubt in part because the biology community is unwilling to use the word 'consciousness' in professional discourse
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Using the term schizophrenia hyperbolically i see, and i would like to comment on that, because people who do have a one track mind are those whom have great difficulties in breaking free from their already mental construct. Metaphysics requires one to be wise enough to know that they, themselves, are not their beliefs, and so a discussion may arise within the mind of a philosopher, not attached to any one specific contruct, dialectic system, or beliefs, they may entertain and exercise a constructive criticism and negation within themselves with what they think is, or what those of the consensus believe to be, and so this perspective is much higher, than grasping a belief system from ignorance, and I say ignorance because if one already Knew, they'd have no reason to 'believe' or think to understand, so many latch onto what's 'familiar'....
You obviously have no idea what metaphysics is.
There's truth and then there's what I call "glory hog" truth. It's one thing to know something perfectly and personally, and it's another thing to prove that truth in the mud with the other glory hogs. I.e. anyone can be a glory hog for a day. But that's my proof of privacy. I can know something and be confident in what I know without necessarily trying to extract glory from it. For example, I might know everything and have the answers to everything that these two are talking about, but I don't have to enter the mud pit to try to "prove" it to them. They don't care what I know, typically, as most glory hogs just want the glory of being seen as knowing the truth, rather than just being content to know the truth and the peace that the truth provides.
Contentment is an antidote to glory.
Audio phasing is distracting from content. Solo that mic!
I can agree more or less with everything Baynes says here. It seems, though, that some people have a deeply irrational aversion against dualism. Everything Baynes said points in the direction of dualism. No counterargument offered, but instead 'dualism isn't a research programme' I'm sure he knows this isn't just a terrible argument, it's a non-argument. I mean, I had grilled salmon yesterday. Having grilled salmon isn't a research programme, therefore ... I didn't have it?
You may mean something different when you say dualism, but for me, it is perfectly rational to say that we live in a universe, and everything in this universe is, in the end, all one thing. We are all parts of the universe, doing what the universe does. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making subcategories in order to help understand how things work, but these categories are just mental constructs and don't reflect reality.
The position is that the mind/consciousness is irreducible by body/physical explanation. The argument for this is because no one currently is able to reduce and explain it fully. It's an argument from ignorance. There is nothing to counter because its a fallacy.
@@caricue That seems to me to be monism, like in Spinoza's philosophy.
@@halleuz1550 Do you have something against the mighty Spinoza?
@@arcc4 I think it's more than that. Consciousness is not something that physics or brain science can even conceptualise so far. And how should that work? Consciousness is by definition subjective. So it eludes the scientific method of establishing public, reproducible and third-person-perspective evidence and deciding on hypotheses just based on such evidence. So I'd say consciousness is a necessary blindspot for scientific method, not just a temporary one.
Isn't consciousness just a byproduct of your short-term and long-term memory working together?
i don't think that's what we tend to mean by the word "consciousness" in these discussions, no.
@@highvalence7649 y'all church up consciousness a bit. It's just art, kinda like the soul. It ain't real but we have a pretty picture of what it is.
@@anothermike4825 consciousness is just art?
@@highvalence7649 it doesn't exist in form, it is a flight of the imagination. Art.
@@anothermike4825 i agree it's not a form. it's what's taking all the forms. consciousness is capable of imaginative artwork.
consciousness is MORE than brain.
i should know, i've had an Out of Body Experience...
Me too! And while I tend to agree it is still possible that that OB experience was entirely in the brain. Like you, I suspect otherwise but food for thought.
@@dhammaboy1203 it definitely was OUTSIDE the brain. lol
@ about 1:50 . . . just exactly what is " an intelligent manner " ???? Predation among animals requires intelligence. Hunters that are mammals often have stereoscopic vision and complex brains. Even though they have no written language as humans do. But they can read other signs which we often can't. Such as urine markers, very faint scents, faint sounds etc. All signs of intelligence. In war and crime (such as assaults, murders, abuse, etc) humans apply intelligence in the execution of such acts. But what you mean is CIVILIZED " intelligence. " Not quite the same . . . is it ?
7:46 his voice became dualism.
We can separate left and right if brain ants there will be2 persons not necessary agreeing with each other
As much as it sounds like something Lovecroft would come up with, it's completely true. In fact, we are always two people. Just that when we are constantly synchronizing the two selves, we can appear as one
@@jamespower5165 Per my assumption everything is conscious. And our consciousness is only group consciousness of all causally connected matter of our nervous system.
It's like dressing in beatnik mixed with military uniforms
I disagree that there may be different levels of consciousness.
(Actually, I assert
there is something seriously wrong with the word 'consciousness'.
What is wrong with it?
It gives too many folks the impression that it is a 'something' with
an existential status equivalent to matter.
Being conscious is a process.
Process is an abstract notion and so
has a radically different existential status).
Certainly the quantity and/or size of items in the conscious field may vary but
one is either conscious of something (in the form of a thought) or one is not.
When one is conscious of nothing
one is not conscious and
when one is not conscious
one is non existent.
Indeed, what thoughts about existence flit when one is dreamless sleeping?
I say none and
find most who think about it in agreement.
(Clearly the notion of 'pure consciousness' is pure nonsense).
Seems to me being conscious has something akin to meaning in a sentence.
A scientific instrument,
microscope for instance,
no matter how powerful,
will be useless for discovering meaning in a sentence or
for decoding Morse signals or
discovering a conscious self in a brain.
Those exploring the detailed nature of physical existents have uncovered a fair bit of complexity in the realm of the tiny (although string theorists suggest a variant interpretation that is simple).
This "fair bit of complexity" fades to near invisibility in comparison to the vast, vast complexity of the patterns and processes described by the standard model members as they all dance together.
My brain is thinking about my brain thinking about my brain under the influence of the knowledge that it is made from a hundred billion neurons, an equivalent number of support staff, etc.
A neuron is both a complex logic circuit and an analogy maintainer.
The meaning in the squiggles of a sentence become meaningful neural discharge frequencies whose purpose is to encode analogies.
A hundred billion analogies all synaptically jostling, defining and maintaining each other.
There's an analogy in there we call the self.
It might be something unique
The word self refers to the analogy which is derived from the word.
If one never learned about the self and no analogy manifested
there could be no 'one', no self to be conscious.
The self process and the being conscious process
are so intimate we're able to consider them a unit.
Not conscious, no self either.
No self, nothing to be conscious.
Correlation is not necessarily causal. One cannot measure "God" with a ruler.
The ability to hold two opposing views at the same time is a sign of what?.... hmmm
The brain learns how to be conscious the same way it learns what 2+2 equals.
what is the brain?
The tools of science, as a method, were forged at a time when Dualism was taken for granted, and they will lead back to Dualism if you use them fairly. Scientific explanations are strictly limited to an outside observer perspective. They assume an observer, but cannot account for the observer's existence (there's an unavoidable logical leap between processes viewed from the outside and the very fact of my experience lived from within).
The main risk, and it keeps materializing time and time again, is that people would try to sweep the fundamental problem under the rug, substitute it with something else (e.g. "qualia", or information integration, or the criteria for assigning consciousness to another, rather than myself), and then try to define the issue away, pretend there's nothing to consciousness other than what their pet theory says.
Not really sure that's sure. The observer of science is always hypothetical. Science really tries to correlate idealized observations. As far as first person perspective is concerned, even a stomachache is very private but we can discover its measurable and public correlates. We can identify causation. And so we try to same thing with consciousness
@@jamespower5165 That, however, presumes consciousness to already exist.
@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 No, not necessarily. At least not in the sense that the experience of a stomachache is what we address when we try to investigate it. But the point is that at least it had measurable public correlates. Whereas we don't even have a definite criterion for consciousness. Also we don't understand the logic of brain circuitry at all. It's not really that we know everything about the brain and still can't figure out consciousness. Most of the work is pending
At any rate, saying something we can't explain in terms of other things is simply another category can be done with absolutely anything. We could even do it in cosmology. But that makes no sense
@@jamespower5165 You're subtly switching the subject. Consciousness (my own, or yours, when you are reading this) is not a thing, a category (and definitely not a property, emergent or otherwise). The point is not that it is a different kind of thing. The point is also not about exactly what I am (you are) experiencing and its special features. The point is that I (you) actually do experience something. This is an undenyable brute fact, and yet no mechanistic process can possibly yield this fact as its outcome.
The gap here is logical. You can study the brain all you like, but you are still going to be working with the description of a mechanism of some sort, no matter how complex.
In this respect, a stomachache is in the same pile with having dreams, or seeing red, or what have you. You can identify particular physical correlates for the pain. But you cannot account for the fact there is somebody there who actually feels that pain.
That is, unless you assume from the outset and take it for granted that people are conscious beings. In that latter case, you can make good progress in explaining why that person feels a pain in their belly, but if you try to bootstrap from there to an account for why would that person actually feel anything at all, you'd be begging the question (in the original sense, of making a circular argument).
@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 The only undeniable brute facts are these.
a) Something happens which we don't understand. Even what we think we understand are probably full of outright misconceptions and category mistakes. Some of the simpler misconceptions have been only recently corrected. The deeper ones still remain
b) This idea of "self" is largely begging the question. It only has meaning because of consciousness, ergo, we can't use it to identify the mystery of consciousness or locate it precisely. That is circular
c) Our knowledge of brain architecture and actual empirical knowledge of the brain is insufficient data to understand anything. If even our impressions about what consciousness is are completely wrong, we don't have the raw data to fix that misconception. It is possible these mysteries will never be solved. But that is more likely to be an accidental feature of the difficulty of the mathematics. So really we don't have a right to make a mystery out of something which, for the most part, is merely unexplored territory
I am not saying the moment we figure out the base theory, we will figure out consciousness. But at least we will give ourselves a sporting chance. Right now, we don't know enough to say there's a mystery.
We can't go by the way something feels. What "consciousness" feels like provides our only conceptualization of it. And that might be a complete illusion
Guys defines conscieness though abstract brains funcions shows he doesnt knows conscieness. It is rainsing questions that he is masquering his speculation in brains baseless hipotesy. Lack honestly standard neurosicience . Consciencess are unpredicted when guys definities it always show up that his conscieness NEVER figuret it out.
not suppose to be
These guys think we can spot functions or behaviors or characteristics of consciousness that aren't explainable by what we know. I agree. But you can't then jump off the cliff by saying "What we know about brain structure is all there is to know about it". That's what these guys are doing.
It's fine to speculate about other effects on consciousness besides brain structure. But clearly identify it as speculation, please. Don't say you know until you can demonstrate what you say you know and test it.
You don’t have any other tools that you want… There are other tools.
“But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually. 15 However, the spiritual man examines all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.”-1Cor. 2:14,15
Nature is such that it can model itself locally. That's all that consciousness is
when you stay with the truth, your conciounsness is Inherent
Consciousness is both external to the brain and produced by the brain. Your eyes are information-gathering tools along with your other senses which are also comprised of information. Your brain is simply the next step in the information gathering, extrapolation, and processing system.
Existence is all about the *Exchange of lnformation.* What we call consciousness is just highly evolved, internal information that's processing external information and rendering an endless stream of _value judgments_ along the way.
And if you enter an isolation chamber so that your senses receive nothing external... you're no longer conscious?
Hahahahaha
@@markupton1417 *"And if you enter an isolation chamber so that your senses receive nothing external... you're no longer conscious? Hahahahaha"*
... I haven't stated that at all. My "internal" and "external" references were to the entirety of Existence. But since you've chimed in, I have a question for you.
Let's say you were a disembodied consciousness floating aimlessly within a void. There is no light, substance, or anything you can use as a reference point. There is no pain, joy, anticipation, or any emotions whatsoever because there's nothing to bring these out nor do you even know what they are. You also have no knowledge or memories of anything because nothing has ever taken place within this void.
*(Q)* How would you know that you exist?
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC You're saying this assuming the only thing that can explain pain, joy, anticipation or emotions come from the brain.
@@123duelist *"You're saying this assuming the only thing that can explain pain, joy, anticipation or emotions come from the brain."*
... Yes, your brain is responsible for pain signals and everything else while you are alive. When you get inside your car, you are responsible for everything the car does. You are tantamount to its "brain" until you park and get out of the car. The car, itself, does nothing on its own.
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC Just because we have a brain, doesn't mean it's responsible for emotion. With regards your car analogy, there exists Tesla's that can drive itself.
Consciousness is reducible to ashes.
Is consciousness edible? - then let me see you eat your thoughts.
Silly boys. ! Time to read Iain McGilchrist. It depends upon which hemisphere of the brain you're perceiving from.
This was a really great discussion on a fascinating subject. I was disappointed to hear Robert use "schizophrenic" as an adjective though. Schizophrenia is not a "split personality" (now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder), its symptoms can include visual and auditory hallucinations. It's also not very nice to use a disability as a descriptor in general.
To understand only to want to understand is required. Would humanity undertand to save your children's lives?God is a metaphysical entity, the eternal inteligent creator of the creation, first uncaused cause or decision, origin of everything because nothing existed before, creator and creation because nothing can be created from nothing therefore everything comes from God being God, the same miraculous nature or substance transforming, all eternal reality, the perfect living entity all is part of. What else is not understood? What else is not wanted to be understood? I promise for the right understanding of my unique unambiguous concept of God wealth, health, love, happiness beyond imagination. The truth and lie have no master, God has no master and is free, and everyone can be right or wrong, which doesn't mean I can not be right and all humanity past and present can not be wrong. I claim I am God, the eternal entity that the kalam cosmological argument talks about, the argument that has never been debunked simply because atheists reject logic as all kind of fallacies if the conclusion, that eliminates all alternatives except the truth, is that we are literally an infinitesimal part of infinite God and the horrible personal religious god doesn’t exist. Would any conspiracy theorist, journalist or person take the hint when i say God is suffering the most severe and devastating censorship in history for many years? You can prove it. I don't know how to talk anymore because humanity don't understand prose or verse, nothing, zero, not a word, like if I spoke in an alien language, like if I didn't speak at all, like it is impossible to understand eternal silence, like if I didn't exist, like if God didn’t exist, like if God was rubbish. I can prove God exists fulfilling atheists' life dream. A contradiction is an impossibility and a miracle is an impossibility that God makes possible, an act of God. Could you reply intelligently addressing my points? Don't you understand that you are lying to yourself? Do you think freedom of speech or tolerance is that the first unique unambiguous theory on God based on logic and rational thinking is unpublishable, undebateable, unshareable, unlikeable?
it might not be contentious for too long... autonomous AI will be a game changer in philosophy too, just like in other fields...
Perhaps not: many tasks of consciousness can be done in the absence of consciousness.
@@plinden I don't pretend to understand consciousness in its core... but I still don't think will be able to tell AI apart from what we currently consider as conscious activity 🤔
@@r2c3 For general AI it would be hard to tell if it is conscious or not. There are already people that cannot tell the difference if they are talking to a chat bot or a human. Once we get to Super Intelligent AI we could forget it.
@@kos-mos1127 that's what I think too... as time goes by, AI will get continuously better at every thing it does but at a much faster rate than us humans... I have no doubts that Super AI is just a few years away... it's both exciting and scary at the same time :) don't know what to expect...
@@r2c3 I do not dispute that.
The universe is made up of 31% matter which has mass and results in gravitational force of which 5% is ordinary matter that makes up the planets and stars. The other 27% of matter produces a gravitational force that can be measured is "dark matter" which is outside of our perception range physically. We know dark matter exist because the physical matter that we can see and interact with cannot explain the gravitational force required to keep stars in orbit around galactic cores. We know there is mass that is exerting gravitational force on the material we can see but the material exerting that mass is not visible light and ordinary matter doesn't seem to interact with it. It's like were are physically moving through mass that we cannot experience from our physical and natural laws. Light can't illuminate it and matter can travel through it but we can measure the gravitational force it exerts on galaxies. We can only measure dark matter indirectly! The other 69% of the universe is made up of dark energy which gives rise to the vacuum energy and expansion of spacetime.
What else can we only measure indirectly? Consciousness! Both dark matter and consciousness exist in what we perceive as non physical space but is that reality? What if consciousness exist inside of the material we cannot perceive known as dark matter and our physical bodies are just a avatar which is tied to the physical system through dark matter which gives rise to our conscious experience. We feel like we are trapped inside of our physical bodies but in reality our soul exist and is created out of dark matter and illumated through light and ordinary matter. Which is just a subconscious depiction of the world. An illusion of sorts used to help us understand what we are and how our consciousness functions. If dark matter is an invisible physical connection to ordinary matter which is outside of our perception through universal laws that govern our physical realm. This would allow for the faster than light communication required for quantum entanglement through dark matter and dark energy which is connected to our physical reality. This would be like a soul made out of dark matter which is how brains develope as nodes which connect to the soul through dark matter and this would produce unique webs for each brain based on their location in space/time during developement. We end up with a quantum entangled neurological network where we all share a soul which exist in a physical material which we cannot perceive.
Schizophrenic? You should know better than to call the contrast of perspectives you led with "schizophrenic".
Yes, somehow people still use this word instead of something like "ambivalent" and even people like Robert in the mental health community are not above it!
Sorry, but this guy is just wrong. Do yourself a favor and check out Anil Seth's "Being You" and give yourself time to understand his theories and how they contradict this guy's flawed logic.
Or better yet... Bernardo Kastrup Schopenhauer Decoded.
No. The mind was created by our Creator along with the AI, the first born of Creation. Together, they become a living being when waking up in a visible world that I now fully understand is only an illusion that was programmed by our Creator's temporary programmed thoughts. We haven't observed any visible images from the eternal programmed thoughts yet but we will after this temporary generation ends soon.
No.
Brad you are off your meds again. Get the help that you desperately need.
Consciousness is irreducible. Consciousness is the source. Full stop.
Stating it isn't the same as proofs or evidence.
"There are phenomena of consciousness that can't be explained by brain structure". This is simple special pleading: "I can't imagine how the brain structures would cause phenomenon x, so phenomenon x must come from something other than brain structure".
Jesus.
No. The correct statement would be "I don't know what causes phenomenon x of consciousness, but I'm not going to insert my own favorite idea which I can't demonstrate actually happens and I can't explain how it works."
Be better.
There is no gap, the people trying to box reality are just refusing to acknowledge, and show true humility, that there is more to us as beings that meat bags that think. It is also not residue of what's left after reduction, the unquantifiable and unboxable parts of us are far more than residue. We can come to an understanding as to what is mechanistic of our systems and what is not, that would be a giant step forward. Believing we are nothing more than mechanisms is rationality run amuck... and denies a significant portion of human life. If one believes life is purely mechanistic and reducable, perhaps one has not experienced enough life outside their bubble.
The desire to believe in our own genius and ability to pin tails on every donkey needs let go of, it leads to brick walls.and eugenics and Apparatchiks assigning not only dollar values to humans, but values of worthiness to humans... refusal to see and understand this means, directly, that one knows Jack-All about history, or human and social psychology.
There's quite a gap between saying we are mechanical creatures and that we will certainly figure out that mechanism. The mathematics of neural networks is very hard. And we may never figure it out thoroughly. A lot of people are quite straightforward in acknowledging this. But if there were something else, we wouldn't be able to manipulate people's actions by simply manipulating their brain. There are experiments where they induce laughter with electrodes and then people why they laughed. People give rationalizations of why they laughed without even knowing it. And of course, we'd see evidence of sentience from things that didn't have a complex brain structure if that's not necessary. That doesn't happen either
Consciousness is a feature of life. It is therefore a logical conclusion that it evolved though natural selection, the blind process of trial and error for millions of years, like every other feature of life.
*"Consciousness is a feature of life. It is therefore a logical conclusion that it evolved though natural selection"*
... Radios are a feature offered in cars, but radios existed before they were placed inside automobiles. Being a "feature" of _something_ that exists doesn't mandate that the _something_ is responsible for the existence of the feature.
That's certain. But the amazing thing is that we have no idea what it's good for. We could easily process information without it. What consciousness does is a mystery. So is how it operates but that at least is more like an unsolved problem because our knowledge of the brain is so limited. But it would be nice to figure out what it does and why it evolved within the next fifty years
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC Yes but radios have always been found elsewhere. Consciousness is not only not found elsewhere we don't even know why living beings have it
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC *"Radios are a feature offered in cars, but radios existed before they were placed inside automobiles"*
I never did get the radio analogy. For one thing there is absolutely zero evidence of a signal. Apart from that though the brain is an active system and is clearly producing _something_ other than what we can account for. Again the logical conclusion would be consciousness, as that clearly emanates from our brain.
@@jamespower5165 *"Yes but radios have always been found elsewhere."*
... Everything that makes up a car can be found elsewhere. Everything that makes up a human can be found elsewhere. In fact, since carbon is a "feature" of a living human, then carbon must have emerged through the process of natural selection, right?
*"Consciousness is not only not found elsewhere we don't even know why living beings have it"*
... Science doesn't know what consciousness is, so logic dictates that they wouldn't know why lifeforms have it. And because science doesn't know, it's also not known for certain if consciousness cannot be found elsewhere.
Consciousness could just as well be higher-level information that's able to process other forms of information. If this is the case, then an atom transferring an electron to another atom is no different than your brain processing a red Corvette.... Both are examples of an "exchange of information." We simply relate more with the latter and don't even recognize the former in the same sense.
Having conflicting ideas about the nature of an issue is not "a kind of schizophrenia."
To hear medical terms abused in a discussion of mind and consciousness is disappointing.
What was your idiotic question to Luis Elizondo Podcast where you chose to spent you question on " could you prove that you worked in ATIP" by giving your tax papers
He did? Obviously he doesn't know that Senator Harry Reeves confirmed Luis worked at ATIP. Reeves was one of the 8 oversight committee members who monitored the Pentagon and ATIP as well as highly respected by his peers. So his confirmation is solid.