Michael Graziano - What is Consciousness?
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2021
- Consciousness is what we can know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness has intrigued and baffled philosophers. To begin, we must define and describe consciousness. What to include in a complete definition and description of consciousness?
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Michael Steven Anthony Graziano is an American scientist and novelist who is currently a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University.
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To such question, Voltaire was honest enough to just reply: “I don’t know”. That’s still the only honest answer to this day.
That's the only thing science does, btw. That's why gravity is a "theory".
i'm skeptical about this: we can pretty well imagine a computational device (for example, some sort of real time analysis of web searches running at a federal agency :P ) that processes gathered information *and* selects subprocesses that are more important than others *and* monitors those processes. Probably such devices already exist, to some extent. But this imaginary data processors are far, far, far away from anything we would call "aware", or "conscious".
so, when they say "consciousness is simply very efficient data processing", for me, an unavoidable question is: wich sort of data processing architecture *could produce inner experiences* as part of the computation process?
This guy is example of educated beyond intelligence
The biological nervous system has the data processing architecture that could produce inner experiences as part of the computation process, in various degrees, from basic and crude to more complex and refined.
With further study and understanding of this data processing architecture, according to Dr. Graziano, we can generalize and then engineer consciousness based not just on biological 'hardware' but also computer chip based hardware, or some other future physical mechanism of information processing.
As far as computational device that already processes gathered information and selects subprocesses that are more important than others and monitors those processes, you are right that still is far away from anything we can call 'conscious'. For Graziano, it's not just gathering, selection and monitoring of information that is 'conscious', but having a internal model of that process. Model meaning a condensed 'schema' of the actual process i.e not just a tabulation or collection of all the information gathering, selection and monitoring, but reducing it to a model that then helps further guide the actions of the conscious being.
Graziano speaks here mostly stupidities. He doesn't know what he's talking about./
"Consciousness" is not a "simply efficient data processing".
It is a group of material functions of "storage, retrieve and replay".
The natural evolution has refined these group of functions in billions of years.
However, the same group of functions can be created in like, let's say, one hour on any usual and personal modern computer, if you know how to do it correctly.
@@Zayden. when you say that biological systems already carry out data processing that produce inner experiences, there’s the issue! we don’t know for a fact that experiences come from computation. That’s in fact very hard to imagine: you (and the scientist interviewed) are basically saying that there is an algorithm whose implementations experience experiences. Doesn’t that strike you as quite a jump in reasoning? As complex as any modeling and processing could go, I’m just asking where the “experiencing” part will come from. Of course it’s possible, but, if someone is saying that this already explains consciousness, I guess they should have at least an idea of *how* the jump from computation to experiencing could happen.
@@mnp3a this feels like just framing the question wrong. As “experiencing red” is an output of the visual system, experiencing experience is just the output of the brain’s attention process
When watching videos about explanations of consciousness it is interesting to observe that the comments section typically praise theories that describe consciousness as being unique, unattainable by anything else (like computers or animals) or mystical but deride theories that explain it mechanically, computationally or evolutionary.
Yes indeed friend.. Additionally they criticize these naturalistic ideas BUT can never support their own more dubious lines of reasoning..It seems to me that the most vigorous of these critics are generally intellectually LOCKED IN to a philosophical life choice (Conviction) like fundamentalism, supernaturalism, or mysticism..
@@Bill..N it's an emotional response in my opinion. People who hold these views, find the idea that they're "soul" can be explained away in purely physical means, as emotionally disturbing and would rather not engage with an opposing view seriously. Its why people continue to believe in unbelievable things. Religion, cults, conspiracy theories, NFTs, flat earth... etc.
Our mistake is not that we take our theories too seriously, but that we don't take them seriously enough- Steven Weinberg.
It's ok to get drunk now and then.
I love hearing a well artuculated, thoughtful opposition to what I believe. It helps test me. I would pay good money to see Michael and Bernardo Kastrup have a conversation. I really hope that happens one day 🙏
"it's the brain giving a self description" . Never thought of consciousness like that. Good stuff.
Let's consider the "hard problem of squirrel" seriously for a moment. What is the rational response to the claim that a person has a squirrel in their head? If the theory that the squirrel is real is correct, then this contravenes the laws of physics: it cannot be integrated into the network of beliefs that constitute our scientific understanding of the world. On the other hand, the theory that the person is deluded is perfectly consistent with our scientific understanding. Thus, we reason correctly that the squirrel is not real.
Now let's contrast this with the hard problem of consciousness. Let's consider the theory that consciousness is real: this does not contravene any laws of physics. Although it doesn't integrate neatly into our scientific understanding of the world (hence the "hard" problem) it does not contradict any of our beliefs. On the other hand, the theory that consciousness is not real, that the person claiming to be conscious is deluded, contravenes the most basic evidence of all: we all know we are conscious. Thus, we reason correctly that consciousness is real and not a delusion.
Graziano's "hard problem of squirrel" exposes nothing about how we think of consciousness, except that he is attempting - but failing - to explain out of existence the only thing we know is real.
Graziano's "hard problem of the squirrel" is also question begging. He sets out to prove something is deluded by offering a story where what he wants to prove is deluded begins deluded from the very start of the story. Anyone can offer a story where their theory wins by virtue of telling a story that makes the opposing position look utterly silly from the outset. This is why science still needs philosophy, because when scientists make philosophical arguments they wind up sounding like idiots.
This guys squirrel analogy is begging the question. The story frames the thing he wants to argue is a delusion as a delusion from the outset. This is what happens when you're a neuroscience guy who couldn't be bothered reading a beginner level philosophy book
A brains entire existence is concealed in absolute darkness within the skull. Never once being exposed to direct light and yet, somehow it recreates a bright vivid experience for itself. Ironically, the greatest magic trick ever that remains unexplained is the brains illusion performed upon itself...
I've heard this conjecture many times, but it's not an illusion friend..Photons enter the optical lens of the eye and is projected via light SENSITIVE cells on the back of the eye..Here the OPTIC nerve carries a precise representation of the image on modulated electrical currents for the brains very accurate reconstruction of the ACTUAL image itself..Not an illusion..Peace.
@@Bill..N nope it's neural networks and their is absolutely nothing that resembles photons beyond the eye. In fact, their is no way to know if the red you see is the same red I see.
@@Whiskey_Tango_Foxtrot_ Nope..I think you could be a little confused friend..Neurons PROCESS the modulated currents, where ELSE do you think the actual information of the image ARRIVES to the neurons from friend..The images are not just an illusion IMAGINED by the brain, that should be obvious..
@@Whiskey_Tango_Foxtrot_ I NEVER said photons travel past the eye either, you should read more carefully..
@@Whiskey_Tango_Foxtrot_ Your phone camera, OR pictures from Mars works in a similar way MINUS the neurons as the processors..There's nothing mystical about it..
Great interview..Michael is insightful and his opinions have the RING of truth to them..Early awareness as a means to control attention.? Makes good sense. later an improved analysis of risk assessment and a heightened ability to "WEIGH" the relative values of different courses of action would be consequential as well..Thanks.
Logic presupposes existence. So existence can't be logiced out to death. Same goes for reason and rationality.
If you think, you exist. Period.
Nonsense on stilts
you might say you can have abstract objects, but no concrete object.
The brain is just internally visualising and creating perceptions for the brain to address and create an image mentally. This can be a thought or a feeling, brought from our bodily senses. If you've never seen blue it's impossible to comprehend or explain what blue is or what orange tastes like. As it's been said before, consciousness is the universe experiencing itself, we are all one.
🐟 02. A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF “LIFE”:
Everything, both perceptible and imperceptible - that is, any gross or subtle OBJECT within the material universe which can ever be perceived with the cognitive faculties, plus the SUBJECT (the observer of all phenomena) - is to what most persons generally refer when they use the term “God”, since they usually conceive of the Primeval Creator as being the Perfect Person, and “God” (capitalized) is a personal epithet of the Unconditioned Absolute. However, this anthropomorphized conception of The Absolute is a fictional character of divers mythologies.
According to most every enlightened sage in the history of this planet, the Ultimate Reality is, far more logically, Absolutely NOTHING, or conversely, Absolutely EVERYTHING - otherwise called “The Tao”, “The Great Spirit”, “Brahman”, “Pure Consciousness”, “Eternal Awareness”, “Independent Existence”, “The Ground of All Being”, “Uncaused Nature”, “The Undifferentiated Substratum of Reality”, “The Unified Field”, et cetera - yet, as alluded to above, inaccurately referred to as a personal deity by the masses (e.g. “God”, “Allah”, “Yahweh”, “Bhagavan”, etc.).
In other words, rather than the Supreme Truth being a separate, Blissful, Supra-Conscious Being (The Godhead Himself or The Goddess), Ultimate Reality is Eternal-Existence Limitless-Awareness Unconditional-Peace ITSELF. That which can be perceived, can not be perceiving!
Because the Unmanifested Absolute is infinite creative potentiality, “it” actualizes as EVERYTHING, in the form of ephemeral, cyclical universes. In the case of our particular universe, we reside in a cosmos consisting of space-time, matter and energy, without, of course, neglecting the most fundamental dimension of existence (i.e. conscious awareness - although, “it” is, being the subject, by literal definition, non-existent).
Just as a knife cannot cut itself, nor the mind comprehend itself, nor the eyes see themselves, The Absolute cannot know Itself (or at least objectively EXPERIENCE Itself), and so, has manifested this phenomenal universe within Itself for the purpose of experiencing Itself, particularly through the lives of self-aware beings, such as we sophisticated humans. Therefore, this world of duality is really just a play of consciousness within Consciousness, in the same way that a dream is a person's sleeping narrative set within the life-story of an “awakened” individual.
APPARENTLY, this universe, composed of “mind and matter”, was created with the primal act (the so-called “Big Bang”), which started, supposedly, as a minute, slightly uneven ball of light, which in turn, was instigated, ultimately, by Extra-Temporal Supra-Consciousness. From that first deed, every motion or action that has ever occurred has been a direct (though, almost exclusively, an indirect) result of it.
Just as all the extant energy in the universe was once contained within the inchoate singularity, Infinite Consciousness was NECESSARILY present at the beginning of the universe, and is in no way an epiphenomenon of a neural network. Discrete consciousness, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on the neurological faculty of individual animals (the more highly-evolved the species, the greater its cognitive abilities).
“Sarvam khalvidam brahma” (a Sanskrit maxim from the “Chandogya Upanishad”, meaning “all this is indeed Brahman” or “everything is the Universal Self alone”). There is NAUGHT but Eternal Being, Conscious Awareness, Causeless Peace - and you are, quintessentially, that!
This “Theory of Everything” can be more succinctly expressed by the mathematical equation: E=A͚ (Everything is Infinite Awareness).
HUMANS are essentially this Eternally-Aware-Peace, acting through an extraordinarily-complex biological organism, comprised of the eight rudimentary elements - pseudo-ego (the assumed sense of self), intellect, mind, solids, liquids, gases, heat (fire), and ether (three-dimensional space). When one peers into a mirror, one doesn't normally mistake the reflected image to be one's real self, yet that is how we humans conventionally view our ever-mutating form. We are, rather, in a fundamental sense, that which witnesses all transitory appearances.
Everything which can be presently perceived, both tangible and immaterial, including we human beings, is a culmination of that primary manifestation. That is the most accurate and rational explanation for “karma” - everything was preordained from the initial spark, and every action since has unfolded as it was predestined in ETERNITY, via an ever-forward-moving trajectory. The notion of retributive (“tit-for-tat”) karma is just that - an unverified notion. Likewise, the idea of a distinct, reincarnating “soul” or “spirit” is largely a fallacious belief.
Whatever state in which we currently find ourselves, is the result of two factors - our genetic make-up at conception and our present-life conditioning (which may include mutating genetic code). Every choice ever made by every human and non-human animal was determined by those two factors ALONE. Therefore, free-will is purely illusory, despite what most believe. Chapter 11 insightfully demonstrates this truism.
As a consequence of residing within this dualistic universe, we experience a lifelong series of fluctuating, transient pleasures and pains, which can take the form of physical, emotional, and/or financial pleasure or pain. Surprisingly to most, suffering and pain are NOT synonymous.
Suffering is due to a false sense of personal agency - the belief that one is a separate, independent author of one’s thoughts, emotions, and deeds, and that, likewise, other persons are autonomous agents, with complete volition to act, think, and feel as they wish. Another way of stating the same concept is as follows: suffering is due to the intellect being unwilling to accept life as it manifests moment by moment.
There are five SYMPTOMS of suffering, all of which are psychological in nature:
1. Guilt
2. Blame
3. Pride
4. Anxiety
5. Regrets about the past and expectations for the future
These types of suffering are the result of not properly understanding what was explained above - that life is a series of happenings and NOT caused by the individual living beings. No living creature, including Homo sapiens, has personal free-will. There is only the Universal, Divine Will at play, acting through every body, to which William Shakespeare famously alluded when he scribed “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
The human organism is essentially a biopsychological machine, comprised of the five gross material elements (which can be perceived with the five senses) and the three subtle material elements (the three levels of cognition, which consist of abstract thought objects), listed above.
Cont...
The ANTIDOTE to all mental anguish is to firstly discern pain from suffering, then to achieve complete relief from that miserable state of existence, by abandoning the erroneous belief in personal authorship, and abiding in the primordial sense of being (the unqualified “I am”, which is one's core identity). This is the very same peace which is experienced each night during the dreamless phase of the sleep cycle. This "resting imperturbably as Flawless Awareness" can be practiced on a regular basis, until it is fully assimilated and integrated into one's life.
Every person, from time immemorial, has been either intentionally or unwittingly seeking such causeless peace, most commonly by practicing one of the four systems of YOGA (religion) delineated in the sixteenth chapter of this work, or else in creating wealth and the acquisition of material possessions, or in psycho-physical pleasures. That peace of mind is often referred to as “happiness”, “joy”, or “love”, and often presumed to be a temporal state, since many assume, incorrectly, that continuous peace is unavailable in this life.
Fortunately, that is not the case - it is eminently possible to live one's life acquainted with unbroken peace of mind, if destined.
Following DHARMA (frameworks of authentic religion and societal duties) is not guaranteed to achieve that desired tranquillity of mind, but even so, it is beneficial for individuals, since it establishes a structure which enables one to more easily elevate oneself beyond the mundane, animalistic platform (i.e. the base pursuits of eating, sleeping and mating). Intrinsic to dharma is the division of the adult male population into the four classes of society and the inherent role of girls and women in society, as fully elucidated in latter chapters of this Holy Scripture.
So, now that you understand life, and the reason why we are suffering here in this (ostensively) material universe, you are now able to be liberated from all mental suffering, RIGHT?
WRONG! It is imperative to approach an authentic spiritual master to assist you to come to the above realization, by slowly undoing your past conditioning. Just as you have been conditioned over an entire lifetime to think one way, you need to be re-conditioned to think another way (in alignment with your essential identity as The Divine). For one who has himself for a teacher, that man has a veritable fool as his teacher.
Even if you adhere closely to the precepts of a competent teacher, you may still not come to a full understanding of life, but if you are sincere, humble and dedicated, you will definitely find more peace in your daily life - all of which was DESTINED to occur, of course.
Furthermore, if you are suitably-qualified and it was ordained, you may be fortunate enough to receive discipline from one of the EXTREMELY rare fully-enlightened masters residing on earth at any given time (perchance even the current World Teacher himself), and subsequently realize the aforementioned fundamental concepts, by diligently studying authoritative doctrines (especially the most accurate and complete of all extant Scriptures, this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”), serving your guru with great reverence and devotion, and by deliberately avoiding undue harm to oneself, to other individuals, to society as a whole, and to the natural environment, including other life forms.
Most beneficially, you are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology which supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is, apart from illegitimate (non-monarchical) governance and feminism, arguably the foremost existential crisis.
Best wishes for your unique, personal journey towards unalloyed peace and HAPPINESS! “The cure for all ignorance is unerring knowledge”.
“You are this universe and you are creating it at every moment, because, you see, it starts now.
It didn't begin in the past - there IS no past.”
*************
“Find out who you REALLY are so that when death comes…there is no-one to kill, for while you are identified with your role, with your name, with your ego, there is someone to kill. But when you are identified with the whole universe, death finds you already annihilated and there’s no-one to kill”.
*************
“A wise Rabbi once said 'If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you'.
In other words, we are not separate.”
*************
“Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.”
*************
“The meaning of life is life itself.”
Professor Dr. Alan Wilson Watts,
British-American Philosopher.
(06/01/1915 - 16/11/1973).
“What you seek is seeking you.”
*************
“Don't you know yet?
It is your light that lights the worlds.”
*************
“Stop acting so small.
You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
*************
“We are one. Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
*************
“The lamps are different, but the light is the same.”
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī,
Persian Sunni Muslim poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic.
(30/09/1207 - 17/12/1273).
Spiritual P S / You just wrote two useless texts full of big BS.
@@mikel4879 kindly repeat that in ENGLISH, Miss.☝️
Spiritual P S / What? You don't understand what BS means? Your long texts from above are pure BS ( bulls**t ).
What surprise me the most is that he really believes that he's explained consciousness.
He clearly stated what he was talking about - Awareness. He also said that conscioussness means very different things, the thing you mean for example, which he said he didn't (and couldn't) explain. What he is explaining is the structure of your consciousness, not consciousness itself. Awareness is a structure of consciousness, thats the best way I can put it.
Very interesting, thanks. I would love to hear Graziano's thoughts on the effects of marketing and advertising on (or in) the mind machinery.
Consciousness is the sense of all the senses.
😮
I like that...
I like that too. The sense of senses!
Wow! Now that is a simple analytical answer!
I always thought of consciousness as digital
It is like software including OS and our memory
If the brain works like a computer then the physical aspect of the brain will be hardware and consciousness will be data in form of OS and our memories
By OS I mean the necessary function of brain to run our body and our intelligence
I can understand how modeling attention accounts for the aspect of conscious awareness, but not the phenomenological aspect of consciousness - for example, the sense of red.
I think your pointing to "experiencing." My thoughts are that most aspects of consciousness are explainable as functions of and dependent upon the physical brain.
What seems to be unexplainable is the phenomenon of "experiencing " I don't believe any machine or computer no matter its complexity will ever have the ability to "experience" anything.
In my humble opinion, "experiencing" is the sacred or divine element and only living "beings" can experience.
As humans we are schizophrenics. Sometimes we believe brain derives consciousness, then we must distance ourselves from any true understanding of the material brains are made of or we believe consciousness derives brains, in which case one neuroscientist can confidently claim that he knows what brains are/how they are composed etc.
Good question.
Attention can be something just like gravitation in neuron.
Consciousness definition discussion!!!
Even got that wrong as well. He described awareness which is even in science recognised different from consciousness
Why does the brain care whether it's possessed of some ethereal quality that transcends the mundane, mechanical universe? Why does the brain almost universally need to believe that it's not the originator of consciousness, but imbued by it, or by some essence like a soul or animating spirit? I guess I'm kinda reformulating the hard problem of consciousness, but what functional purpose is served by the brain deluding itself in this way?
What is awareness, and does it have a sense of logic beyond the constructs?
Awareness is you, the constructs are yours (belief). Logic reason ect serve one who takes an identity or seeming position in time and space. They don't serve you. You are ever yourself, even in the absence of body and mind, time and space.
At first I thought this guy was a lunatic. Then by the end of the vid, I was able to view what he's saying with my Mcgilchrist lens. The 'self' is the emissary of the right hemisphere, which is more associated with the Self. The illusory 'self' thinks itself the master, when it is only a servant of what Kastrup might call 'mind at large'.
Awareness is the mind. The ego believes its the giver of life this is true, such is the narcissism in society.
Makes sense to me 🤔
By far, this is the best and most understandable model of consciousness from all the interviews on this topic. It doesn't necessarily address anything related to "why", but it frames consciousness is a model that somewhat demystifies it.
You don't solve the problem of consciousness by denying its existence. His approach rests on the assumption that the only things in the vicinity of consciousness which need to be explained are our dispositions to talk about consciousness. Which is false, as there actually is an inner experience.
So a model that fit his starting point... HE didnt had another choice... So is all very silly
Yes, it seems plausible enough to me.
Brain squirl was too technical for me, was lost in all those precision measurements and data analyses, haha...
If humans become aware of their nationality, and take to safe guarding that kind of awareness just as safe guarding their identity, “I think therefore I am” kind; isn’t there a clear proof that all awareness is learnt? If humans continue to reinforce their accumulated “gray squirrels” how would those squirrels ever get out and insanity averted?
..is always bigger than everything you can demonstrate on to it! 😎
By 8:10, Graziano has described a key executive control system that, like other perceptual systems upon which it builds, in some sense 'models'. But this recursive modelling by the modelling system, via signal salience etc. only goes so far as to describe the perfectly mechanizable, non-conscious systems that are surely necessary for the (as yet unaccountable) occurrence of phenomenal consciousness itself.
It is misleading and confuses the whole field of Philosophy of Mind (and neurophysics of consciousness) to refer to these wholly non-conscious and objectively, mechanizable systems as 'consciousness'. Dennett and Frankish do the same.
I think Ryle is to blame?
I'd love to listen to a discussion between this man, Kristoff Koch and Giulio Tononi.
How does thus explain qualia? the perception of "blue?"
I wish that Professor Graziano would use Stephen Wolfram's Physics Engine to look at grounding his theories in a testable framework.
Consciousness is a subject that understand what we are thinking.
Loved the way you put it
Actually consciousness is beyond subject and object according to very experienced meditatiors.
@@AG-yx4ip The observers consciousness is the only subject (in the hole universe) that can read his own thinking, this thinking he call the object (all what he observe, is what he call objects).
Graziano is a breath of fresh air in a topic riddled with pseudo science and ridiculous thinking
I am aware that I am aware of my very existance therefore, I must be surviving in this thing we know as reality which is just an illusion afforded by my user interface all under the all observing consciousness.
He dismisses the hard problem claiming that it is an ill-posed question. Neuroscientists always come up with excuses to squirm out of confronting the hard problem, because they have no clue where to start. It is a well posed question. It is just hard, as the name suggests.
I fail to understand why is there so mystery about consciousness....if I m aware of something the credit goes to.the five senses...what the hell is consciousness then? .can anyone enlighten me..I.m baffled.
the mistery is basically how dafuq can inert matter became self aware. also you can supress all senses and you're still concious, like in a sensory depravation tank. its not that simple.
@@adriancioroianu1704
Not if you begin without your senses from the birth, won't be much consciousness there to speak of. Conscientiousness takes years to develop, you aren't just born fully conscious.
@@ezbody we know that, because its obviously strongly correlated to the patterns pf the brain, and the brain takes time to mature.
Hi Mike, Where's Kevin ?
I love this description of consciousness, its refreshing to hear an explanation that makes good logical sense and doesn't presuppose consciousness as a magical thing, or something external. Also nice to hear one that doesn't invoke "spooky" or "quantum" nonsense as an explanation. Similar to Dennett but I find this somehow easier to follow and understand than him.
Consciousness on consciousness
Let me take the example of God.
God has all the power, all the goodness, all the knowledge 'by default'. He hasn't worked hard for it. It's like a 'free fund'.
Similarly, we have consciousness/free will as a 'free fund'. Thoughts come and go in our mind on their own. I myself don't know what thought will come into my mind, say after 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc. It's a 'free fund'.
When thoughts come to our minds 'on their own', it 'seems' to us that we have thought them 'consciously'...
The most clear-headed discussion I’ve heard on this topic
When unconscious inhibits the conscious what is left unhibited is the attention and the focus.
It is myself.
So what this guy sais, in a succinct summary, is this : the brain creates awareness by being mainly preoccupied to be aware.
Phew...!
Perhaps consciousness and awareness first starts With the knowledge that it’s different than what’s outside of it. When things are the same as the body or the senses they disappear. Maybe this is why everything that is conscious has a physical protective layer over it to separate it from the “outside “ . Also the subjective feeling of consciousness at its core is the feeling of going against the grain of what it’s presented with. And if Consciousness were purely physical, I don’t see why the brain would be given any higher order of value . In other words consciousness should be in our feet are lungs or kidneys everywhere that’s based on physical properties; Causing our heart to beat should be a conscious effort. In a purely material non-spiritual realm, there should be no graduations of conscious value within the body from the brain to the toes
The guy with the squirrel should be given equal time to respond to the neuroscientist…….maybe we could learn something…….
Mmm. 👍
To be honest I would like it if the camera was STILL in this video
Suffering born of desire.
Lex fridman, come see
Another soviet yuppie who got rich in communism and like to listen to other people.
Still doesn't explain how the brain generates consciousness.
Interesting that no matter how he describes it, there exists in his description one additional receiver of the processes which he neglects to address. He compartmentalizes the brain to perform various functions and then uses the blanketing term "brain" as the receiver/actor of those completed functions. So in his view, part of the brain does this thing over here, and another part does this thing over there and then "the brain" analyzes those things, has the experience and draws the conclusions. Still sounds external to me.
Consciousness is like a flowing river of time that comes to us when we are born of this world. At that time so long ago now that I have forgotten the tale of my birth. That I can not speak of what I saw, felt, heard, or smelt. I do not know if I was scared or anything like that. But, as I grew older I became "Self Aware" it had to have happened when I was somewhat older. But even then I still wasn't sure. I put it on the back burner for later consumption. Enter my formative teenage years, that's when the party started for me. With the first few hits of Acid mixed with some pot smoking and plenty of drinking to open the "proverbial door" to this one specific question being asked through this video dialog. I still have only that which I have been taught all these years later.
Imagine just for a moment that you are sitting by this river, with all the grass and trees, with all the little fish's doing their own thing, along with turtle or two just basking in the sunshine, the birds singing and playing in the air. The blue skies above with their soft white billowy clouds floating by. Then you hear it thd gentle ripples from the stream from which you have noticed something rather odd and quiet possibly peculiar. That everytime something has happened to you, "Good, Bad, or Indifferent" that there has been a pebble added to it or taken away. And after awhile of seeing this "Inexplicably Invisible Action" you ask yourself "WHY" At that moment that's when you discover you're own Consciousness. But its not something you can touch, feel, in the physical way, altough some would disagree with you and me on that, you can't hear Consciousness either for that matter. Only self awareness of what you have been taught your whole life. So to me and this squirrel running around in my head Consciousness is like that thread that has worked itself out of the canvas of life and if you pull on it the great tapestry that is you will unravel and maybe the great mysteries of life will be revealed to you. Like the shattering of the mirror as the once invisible schizophrenic spider shows you her work and reveals the inner truth of self....
All hail delusion 😀😀😀😜
Brain squirrel in my head has to many morals, it's annoying to have all those useless feelings each time i try to focus on something.
I learned about the hard problem of brain squirrel from a guy i was listening to on the internet.
Great idea. We split the too big to comprehend consciousness into reasonable parts like squirrel. Squirrel picks the nuts out of the brain.
@@brandursimonsen4427
Or, more likely, stores them there. ;)
One also deals with psychology: lives, personalities and individuals not just with brain and it chemicals. To say that all you need to do is look in the brain simply does not cut it. It is not like when people have psychological issues looking at the brain is all you need to do..in fact often that is not the case. Folks maybe get some medicine to relax and have some good conversations with health professionals. which is what i am talking about..it is not just what is going on in the brain...the world and its people are very real..
But the medicine and talk therapy people undergo to help them with their mental health has real material impacts on the brain. We don't know exactly what we're changing, but we do see changes in brain chemistry and structure that corresponds with an individual's better mood or ability to stave off doing risky behaviors.
@@ryuzakikun96 What i am saying is that looking at the brain is one thing the other thing is stuff like therapy (which likely has a impact on the brain). Aside from that all that has limitations because lots of people can not be helped they just have to live with their problems. This we also will see in the future..nothing is going to change that...we are dealing with a imperfect world.
It is a collective knowledge, a collective disposition, an eternal guiding light that is woven in the universe. Consciousness framework is so complex that we can not fully grasp it, as we are designed with limited senses. But depending on our mental capacity and many other factors, we can become aware of it if we pay attention. the knowledge about consciousness is available in 2 order. Ancient knowledge which is passed to us from ancient civilisations and the modern knowledge which is collection of discoveries by contemporary scientists and researchers.
I enjoy Your Art.
God Loves You and so do I.
Peace!
\o/
It's an emergent property of intelligence.
i lean to this aswell. too bad we can never falsify it. this presupposes future AI will have conciousness but we will never know basically. but it doesn't matter just like free will.
Consciousness is awareness of your thoughts, feeling, Human perception ETC.
Wow… completely unimpressed with this so called explanation of consciousness.
Me too. As far as I can make out, Graziano is just putting forward a sophisticated version of behaviourism. We're not interested in what kind of information processing would result in the *behaviour* of self-reporting consciousness. That would help a computer scientist write a programme to pass the Turing test, but would tell us nothing about consciousness. We're interested in how physical processes which we can describe from the third person perspective i.e. brain activity, can generate first person subjective experience. The only evidence that this first person experience exists is that we all have it - we know what it is like to see the colour red and to smell garlic. This inaccessibility of the evidence of consciousness in anything but our selves does indeed make it hard to investigate scientifically; but ignoring it and answering a different question is not progress.
Graziano's response about the "hard problem of squirrel" is not at all illuminating. Describing our conviction in the reality of qualia as a "delusion" is precisely the same as describing consciousness as an "illusion" - and this argument does not work. As John Searle says, "if it *seems* to me that I am conscious, then I am conscious!". Descartes was not wrong about that.
@@jonstewart464 Precisely. It definitely seems like a lot of hand-waving and promissory notes added onto some kind of behaviourism.
Start small. What is worm consciousness?
That's us too.
Uh, no. What's worm attention? "Consciousness" is too loaded.
@@stephenmuth7081 Exactly. Exactly why you should start with the little flicker of awareness in a worm or a cricket before considering human consciousness. And to do it from the outside, instead of starting by examining your own internal experience. It helps that they don't have faces.
Whatever worms and crickets have, that's what we have, plus emergent stuff like language, memory etc. It's meat not magic. Fanciest meat in the known universe.
Does soup experience its own taste?
@@macaronivirus5913
Can taste taste it's own taste?
@@ezbody I guess not. There has to be someone else to taste it. Wait a minute I got your point here.
What Graziano is missing is that there actually is a subjective inner experience. It's not just that we say there is one. There actually is one. His entire approach to consciousness is looking at it from the wrong angle.
But he started removing that hypothesis, he say that at the beginning. So he had to find a justification for the only path he left for himself.
i think his idea goes something like this: the guy of the squirrell doesnt have an squirrel on (in?) his head, but still experiences one. Same way, consciousness would be one more thing the brain makes up that we identify as an experience: we should ask how consciousness comes to be in the same neurological way that we would try to answer how that guy is really feeling a nonexisting squirrel. For me, this seems to be a mistake, though.
@@mnp3a There's something contradictory at the heart of the squirrel analogy. The illusion argument could work fine for the squirrel, because what's at stake isn't the existence of experiences themselves. When it comes to the existence of consciousness, the existence of an experience is the reality in question. It doesn't make sense to say "it seems we're conscious, but we really aren't". "Seeming" presupposes consciousness such that there is no distinction between something which seems to be conscious and something which is conscious.
@@austinjaeger25 agree completely. He mistakes the evolutionary role of awareness with the nature of its existence
Awareness--Kant, Consciousness--Hegel......yes, consciousness is much broader than awareness just as Hegelian phenomenology is much broader than the Kantian critique of pure reason......Attention here is an interesting point which could channel the western to the eastern....
[Hence the important thing for the student of science is to make himself undergo the strenuous toil of conceptual reflection, of thinking in the form of the notion. This demands concentrated attention on the notion as such, on simple and ultimate determinations like being-in-itself, being-for-itself, self-identity, and so on; for these are elemental, pure, self-determined functions of a kind we might call souls, were it not that their conceptual nature denotes something higher than that term contains. ]----Phenomenology, Hegel
If self as subject and self as object are codependent, neither can be the originary cause of other: a lacuna without which consciousness is impossible but with which it is incomplete. Thinking is always thinking on the limit. This limit is the edge of chaos where order simultaneously dissolves and emerges.
No, you can't do the real thinking if you don't have proper education and quality knowledge.
The absurdity to which materialists will resort. Ignore natures ONLY given & confuse the map for the territory. 🤣
I don’t know, but to begin with everyone that has studied this field is wrong, kind of bold statement.
This is probably the most convincing explanation, precisely because it doesn't satisfy out mystical intuitions.
It's also absolutely preposterous.
@@handzar6402 How so? If you can't give a real critique that stands up on its own, then maybe he's right.
Consciousness = a self aware, intelligent, nonlocal, fundamental, Informationssystem.
Reality is a function of consciousness (ergo a virtual reality) reality is not a function of our brain. Our brain isnt even rendered, when its information isn’t gathered. ( surgery, mri) Our fundamental „player“ ( piece of consciousness, formerly metaphor: „son of god“) does have the immersion being this virtual body „avatar“ in this virtual cosmos.
And yes virtualization does have an evolutionary purpose. For simply believing information you don’t need a virtual cosmos in the first way.
As evolution is an individual learning process, not collective conditioning we have to find out ourself. Our believes dont survive a learning lesson we call life.
If you experienced your real self, you know there in no hard problem of consciousness any longer. The way to stop gathering information is meditation. This is the exit of this simulation, you already can intuitively while sleeping. But being fully aware needs to control the intellect first, not to process reality ( = gather information).
Consciousness means realization of time through ty by time in time.
What?
@@xspotbox4400
Do you know who are you??
99.9999% people in earth don't know about who they are.
Yes.
Consciousness means independence awareness of people.
According to time, by time, in time, for time, ..... everything to time and situation or time.😊
What kind of logic is that?
Look, I know you are a time freak, but time has nothing to do with Consciousness. Consciousness is a individual awareness, thought, feeling, senses and environment.
@@yami4910
Time has everything to do with.
Time makes us to do.
Awareness of time means consciousness.
Logic has nothing to do with time.
Time has everything to do with logic too.
Self awareness need according to time.
Everything is time.
Albert Einstein is looking good for his age.
Consciousness is the sense of awareness. It emerges from life within the cells of the heart and mind as it stimulates biochemical electrical impulses from the heart to the mind. So we experience consciousness in the brain as an aspect of the mind.
Um...nope.
In the begging universe and the begging of life in human process, the first thing science see is energy, consciousness produce the brain, consciousness is everything, is that energy information everywhere in the universe, is that energy in side everything alive. In this life and the next one stay in the light.
It was a silly analogy to equate a patient that was deluded into being certain they had a squirrel in their head to us being certain we have consciousness. Others can objectively tell that you don't have a squirrel in your head, but they can never be sure if you have or do not have consciousness. Plus the mere fact that you are having a subjective experience obviously means that you are having a subjective experience. Regardless of the reason you have consciousness it can never be an "illusion" if you are actually experiencing it. Implying consciousness is a similar delusion to the squirrel delusion is nonsense and does little to explain anything.
well, but it may be necessary to support his viewpoint.
It's not like the "squirrel in the hand" is a single, unique delusion, there are all kinds of delusions out there, some of them are just more common, and some are even widespread and fully accepted as non-delusions.
The fact is that you have to work hard, training your brain to differentiate the real from the imaginary, it doesn't like to do it by default.
It's not an illusion. It is a model, an immaterial 'reflection' of material world, and dependent on material world's nervous system 'hardware'.
there are many things that cannot be define and describe:
1） consciousness 2) Tao 3) goodness 4) beauty, 5) bitterness, etc etc
Words are just words very very poor description of the real thing REALITY
Damn materialists, ruining all the random fun of consciousness >:(
Fascinating.
Yeah.... my subjective experience does not exist, it is just a delusion, it is only a "self-representation." Ahahaha... :)) How deep has the philosophy of mind fallen... and it even prides itself for this nonsense. I would no longer be surprised if they will next tell us that that storks deliver babies!! ;)
No they are already telling you that you dont exist... For them you are just a bunch of matter that thinks to think ....
Yes ! And the real true is that this assumption that objects exist out of subjective experience just can’t be proven. We never go outside our awareness - it’s impossible by definition. If there is anything we can know is real is consciousness. That’s why science has no clue about it.
It kind of takes a non-delusional brain to realize what was being said, so I would worry a little, if I were you. ;)
On a serious note, all of us have experienced some form of delusions in our lives, it isn't anything surprising. It's just some people have some kind of mental issue where they accept literally everything going on in their brain as 100% real and unquestionably true, and absolutely refuse to admit anything to the contrary.
@@ezbody It is delusional to think that consciousness is a delusion.
What do you tell the people add NDE, that they are delusional?
NDEs have been explained many times over, there is nothing supernatural in there. Even the name tells you that it's near death, not death.
Words. Lots of words. Neuroscience modalities and models describing consciousness is akin to an ant describing string theory and superdetermimism because it only sees other ants. Chief Joseph had a good grasp of consciousness when he said “ it does not take many words to speak threw truth.”
Stop moving the camera back and forth like windshield wipers
The brain is the hard ware and consciousness is the software consciousness/ the mind is very powerful for all is mind consciousness created the brain, the brain is like a receiver awareness is the use of consciousness like reasoning is the use of consciousness thinking is the use of consciousness
You don't have this straight. Yes there maybe a few people who would believe a puppet is conscious but a puppet would never pass a general consensus of average people.
At 2:55 we can not determine absolutely that anyone is conscious. As you have discussed in other shows we cannot prove that we are not a simulation. I can suspect that I am not but do not see how I could prove that in absolute terms. Like you I can only strongly feel conscious.
Our construct that we have of self is not always accurate. Mistakes and errors happen which can create delusional thinking.
I do not think downloading our minds will be easy. First of all, computers operate very differently than biology. Secondly, we would have to be able to completely determine the current state maybe at the level of individual molecules while the person is still alive.
If it did happen you would be an exact copy of yourself but would diverge more and more every day after that and given enough time and different experiences would ultimately become distinctly different.
When you dead, your dead!
is like "I start from the assumption that Columbus didn't use ships ... So now ive to find where he bought that airplane ticket !!"
Finally, someone speaking rationally about consciousness rather than "the universe is non-local quantum consciousness experiencing itself into pure being" BS.
Michael Graziano is one BS plus you.
How is that BS manh ,may be that is correct?You are talking about donald Hoffman ri8?
This was so bland , timid and clueless description. This guy just described awareness which is different from consciousness.
Yep, he's really on point. I highly recommend reading his two books on consciousness. It is refreshing, he's rigorous, wholly committed to natural-evolutionary explanation of consciousness. It is deeply satisfying, and spiritually uplifting. Though, it will bother those that dogmatically cling to the idea of an immaterial soul independent of material body and brain that lives on after the body dies.
@@Zayden. brain doesn't live after one dies and no one claims that there is an afterlife.Honestly we don't even need consciousness to evolve but it's still there.I agree to Roger Penrose s take on it.
This becomes almost seemingly obvious when you do DMT.
I've done DMT and it in no way made in obvious that consciousness is the brain's schematized model of its own attentional state.
He's not addressing the hard problem of consciousness and the existence of subjective phenomena.
He thinks he is. He thinks that dismissing those things as “magic” constitutes addressing them. He doesn’t realize that even the squirrel delusion he talks about is just another manifestation of the hard problem. Yes, the patient was suffering from a delusion, but it was a _real_ delusion. It was a _real_ inner experience, albeit not one shared with anyone else. Sigh. The problem these days is science is so vast and needs so much focus that practicing scientists have little or no time, and even less motivation, for the philosophical training needed to augment their science. As a result, most of them have neither the conceptual scaffolding that is needed to handle these questions, nor the training to construct it for themselves.
Awareness is nested in consciousness not another word for consciousness.
The brain is mainly an antenna receiving from the "field" :)
First he dismisses the "magical inner experience" as being like the delusion of having a squirrel in your head. Then at the end he concedes that he "wouldn't want to deny the poetic properties of consciousness," because something can take on additional properties beyond its initial, evolved function. So shifty.
This was actually worse than Depak Chopra! I mean the brain could have built that model and control without the individual having to be aware.
I agree. This IS as bad as Chopra, maybe even worse. And yes, to repeatedly analogize problem-solving by brain, to consciousness. Disappointed.
What is consciousness? Knowing you don't have a clue about how to explain it.
LOL! "The hard problem of *squirrel*!"
Only Conscious Agent can recognize and realizing information. Consciousness is a property which enable a Conscious Agent to recognize information.
This Conscious Agent exists at every level and state of existence; seen or unseen, wavy or particulate state.
At a certain level consciousness attribute enable a Conscious Agent of any existence to recognize information in the interactive forces mediator between two particles or waves or the building blocks that existence. Consciousness in electrical charges Conscious Agents that leads to attraction or repelling between 2 charged matters.
In double slit experiment, consciousness of the Conscious Agent of the experimental subject which able to recognize information from the Observer that leads to realization to change of the state of existence of an experimental subject.
At the most fundamental level Conscious Agent is created and embedded in every level and state of existence as mean of communication - informational exchange - between The Creator and His creations except at human being level where human languages becoming the dominant order.
Jesus said my sheep will know my voice, and he said I stand at the door and knock. You just got to open the door to him.
My impression is this guy is closer to the truth re consciousness than any of the mind philosophers out there.
Except Dennett. Same page as this guy
Wasted 8.33 minutes 😞
Yep, plus like 10 years of school, wasted.
consciousness is conscious state