On Consciousness with Giulio Tononi, Max Tegmark and David Chalmers
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- Опубліковано 29 жов 2017
- This session explores the nature of consciousness, including efforts to define and measure it. What systems have subjective experience? What do we mean when we refer to various types of consciousness? How simple, and how sophisticated, can consciousness in principle be? Can we define necessary conditions for a physical system to be conscious? Sufficient conditions?
- Наука та технологія
Tononi is always composed, clear and on point. I've never seen him dodge a question or going around the subjects which were raised. Also the girl, whose name i don't recall, gave very good explanations, regardless her fragmented speech.
Thank you for the talk.
Not that i'm not dumbfounded by Tononi's theory implications, but i don't see how myself or any other individual who comments on YT can have the immodesty to think he has a deeper grasp of the matter than someone who dedicates his life to that subject.. Well, perhaps i do see how: we're humans.
" I consider this argument and the one that Chalmers raised about simulation to be absolutely fatal to his approach, because they demonstrate that conscious experience and phi are very different things " -
i think you should go with your demonstration and publish it in a scientific journal. Plenty of people were damn sure that Galileo, Newton, Boltzmann or Einstein are imbeciles, in fact most people. Statistically we have a huge chance that no matter how much we read and think, we'll still die without fathoming the complexity of Nature. With all this being said you could still be right, but i'm sure Tononi's approach is conducted in the most thoroughly possible way, his approach being led by evidence and not uninformed conjectures or personal desires. If he says that there's evidence that grids are conscious he certainly says that pushed by considerable evidence and deep understanding, something we certainly don't have from the laboratory of our living rooms and shopping-malls. You may say: "Why then someone like Aaronson is so critical of him?". Well, people with different experiences should stay true to their personal pile of amassed evidence and theoretical knowledge - they certainly have the right to confront each other. Only subsequent scientific tests and new evidence will settle the matters, otherwise it's unscientific to stop someone from following evidence and mathematics. And then if you read Scott Aaronson's blog you find that his critique ultimately rests on calculating what could be conscious given IIT to be true, and then saying "Off course that's not conscious!" as if that should be evidence for disproval. All the scientific theories we have today are absolutely mad, they all point to some totally unintuitive (to human mind) aspect of Nature. We have a long history of Nature telling us that our human opinions worth nothing when it comes to how it works - our "bravery", given this historical context, is either indecent or delusional. Saying today "Off course that's not conscious!" is a very incautious affirmation.
From what i've heard ITT suffered many modifications, and it will very likely suffer more - i'm sure that Tononi's discourse will change accordingly if it needs to.
@rares mircea 's quote:
"If he says that there's evidence that grids are conscious he certainly says that pushed by considerable evidence and deep understanding"
Dogmatic much? You must have never heard of critical thinking, have you?
@@armchairrockstar186 he's probably vaccinated too
@FQXi You should probably include all the participants on the panel in the description of your videos. Larissa Albantakis and others that were left out of the title contributed as much as anyone to the discussion.
Chalmers and Tegmark seem to really enjoy wearing leather jackets
They are the wild boys of physics
Ah, indeed you are conscious -by seeing the meanings in leather jacket syntax.
If I remember correctly, Tegmark's wife/ex-wife bought Tegmark the leather jacket after seeing it first on Chalmers
@@Mrekanietrie You're correct, Tegmark tells this story on his book "Life 3.0"
Chalmers looks like something out of Thunderbirds
Video is so good that I even learn from reading the comments...
Came here again after reading ‘Sizing up Consciouness’ by Giulio Tononi. Could understand most of thing he’s saying now. IIT looks so promising in this field!
it's been largely disproven though: ua-cam.com/video/R2yRxZCPkws/v-deo.html&ab_channel=FQXi
It's just a formula that calculates what the formula says, but once we relate the formula to the real world it starts falling apart.
@@daarom3472 Just watched the video, I think Scott confused the two different terms - intelligence and consciousness. In every Tononi's presentation he admits that simple electric grid can have super high Pi. So Scott's argument is nothing new. So what happens to the simple grid? They are just dumb high Pi structures, nothing more or less, because they don't have intelligence. Intelligence is another crucial factor about 'human like consciousness'.
@@wonseoklee80 he amended his theory after he was challenged by Scott Aaronson.
If you as a scientist set out to explain a term that has been in use and discussed for millennia, but then go forth and make your own definition (tautologically), you're not really explaining anything. Consciousness has mostly been defined as "being there", "being like something" or placed in contexts such as self-consciousness. Does an electric grid have a sense of what it's like to be an electric grid? I highly doubt it!
My best understanding is that consciousness arose as a control mechanism over other parts of your mind, integrating models and directing attention. We still don't know how that happens though, but the danger in pretending you solved it might dangerously lead to people stopping the pursuit of truly understanding it :)
@@daarom3472 Yeah, consciousness is still a great mystery and I don't think IIT is a complete answer. But for me at least, IIT is an interesting theory and Scott's claim isn't that 'falsifying' IIT. Many AI researchers including Elon Musk say, just passing the 'Turning test' is good enough to say 'it is conscious'. But what IIT says is, 'No. In addition to the intelligence that passes the Turing test, we need more stuff: High Pi, and actual physical structure (not a simulation)'. This is pretty interesting to me.
Long story short: IIT is not perfect and maybe wrong. But pretty interesting theory, and worth taking it seriously.
@@wonseoklee80 wouldn't call Elon Musk an AI researcher, he's mostly just a very smart businessman and inspirational figure. The Turing test doesn't really guard against "pretending/faking". Look at GPT3. If given instructions it can write prose as if it was Goethe, and non-experts on Goethe would struggle to distinguish this from Goethe. It won't be that long before we can translate this to communication, an algorithm just writing down what a person would say if it was in such and such situations.
The point about IIT is that it doesn't really add to understanding consciousness. It's just a way to measure how integrated a system is, but linking that to consciousness is never propperly explained.
The most interesting thinker I found on the subject is Joscha Bach, you should binge him on youtube ^^
Federico Faggin (1st speaker) knows computer very well. Top!
David chalmers my favorite philosopher
Same :)
I think it's fair to say that your brain takes in external input and builds your internal view of that in large part from what it expects to encounter (due to learned experience) and also what it deems is important for survival, and throws away all the other unnecessary inputs (90% of them of whatever that may be). Long term memory would would in a similar way I think. I am always struck by the sensation when the brain sees something grande that it has never seen before...the sense of wonder you feel.
I had this very feeling during the total solar eclipse in 2017. It was very much a mouth open wide wonderment but also, 'brain does not compute' moment! Even though I had travelled to a specific location to get the best view and spent weeks reading about eclipses and looking at photos, when I actually saw it in the flesh I was absolutely marveled by how utterly bamboozled my brain was at the sight. It was like one half of my brain was asking the other, 'what did you think was going to happen?!' I've never had quite such an internal experience before or since but perhaps it hints at the possibility of distinct processes involved in internalizing/sorting vs actually interpreting.
Ю Юбююб
I'm not going to lie but seein those 3 names in the video title made me scream like a girl.
Made me "eeeeeep" like one
My heart skipped a beat and jaw dropped to the floor
You rock!
Max tegmark is brilliant
So according to Giulio Tononi, consciousness is actually equivalent to space?
15:00 "Seeing a rose" she is correct.
Watch Jeff Hawkins : the visual field is constructed by the brain.
It doesn't register the input from the eyes on a screen.
More information travels from the brain to the eyes, than vice-versa.
"Predictive Processing" - the simplest pretty-much-correct theory of sensory activity.
All this talk if consciousness, not a word about the subconscious. All that goes on in the brain, that we have limited access to, but that just as integral to us as the part we like to talk about. When are we going to unravel this?
You’re right by meaning I believe you’re referring to Qualia!! Machines have no Qualia!!
What if we find a theory that has the strengths of both integrated information theory and functionalism
I think that conscious observer is present in any scenario. If measurement makes a device, rather than human, then the observer is a human, who checks what the device has recorded. Also, I've got a wild idea about the collapsing the macro universe billions of years ago: what if collapse had really happened billions of years ago before the observer came into existence, but AFTER the observer came into existence (event of the future influences the past, like in Delayed Choice experiment)
Tononi speaks like epic Jeremy Irons
Kudos for the conference to have one woman on the panel but my question is why is there only one woman on the pal?
Tononi wanted to say something at 30:08 , I wonder what could be it
Harjot Singh it's at 33.08, was the testability of IIT
Question from Federico Faggin (no one seemed to answer it), "If you postulate the existence of consciousness as an axiom then how can you claim consciousness emerges out of a physical system" . My answer is because there is difference between a axiom of a theory and fundamental aspect of nature.
You can make that claim about any axiom. You’re taking it as fundamental. That’s why it’s axiomatic. So you’re asserting it doesn’t make it so.
@@deanodebo and beyond this... even of you are correct in asserting the axiom as true, this doesn't mean it is fundamental in nature. If a theory only describes part of nature (like this one) then its axioms need not be fundamental in nature. However if a theory describes the whole of nature you expect its axioms to be fundamental if it is true.
@@unclebirdman
Better to not speak of truth altogether. By definition the axiom is a presupposition. I’d say just leave it at that.
Science does not make truth claims, nor does it prove anything to be true.
To pretend as such is to practice the faith of scientism
@@deanodebo you are implying they are practising sciencism.
@@unclebirdman
Well it’s quite typical. Isn’t it?
People that axiomatically accept the truth of a scientific theory and draw conclusions about reality, and hold those conclusions as true - I’d say that’s scientism.
Let’s say for instance Big Bang. Ok there’s a theory. But to take that theory and actually believe and profess that there was a singularity is borderline insane. A singularity is undefined. And it’s a point in this case. Let’s remember a point has no magnitude. It occupies no space. It’s simply an artifact of a mathematical model where the graph has boundary issues. That doesn’t make it a real thing that existed factually, does it?
And keep in mind, relativity may well become a superseded theory eventually. Then what?
If anyone actually educated in physics reads this, plz comment on my weak pseudo-scientific hypothesis and let me know if this could even be possible plz. Here it is lol... We know time isnt linear so if we discover consciousness is fundamental for the universe to exist, then mabey life/consciousness evolves so much that it discovers it created itself.i know this is a uneducated pseudoscientific idea, but could this be possible? 1st the singularity, then specific laws of physics, elements, the planet(s), simple life,complex life, and as if rn conscious life that continues to become more conscious is creating A.I. which in theory could just be the next level of consciousness.Mabey that's why we have such curiosity to know how the universe work's and instincts to survive. Idk, lol but it's fun to consider.
IIT is not only alchemy but clearly vitalism de novo ! I'm really puzzled why this is receiving so much attention.
Interestingly,
while watching Game of Thrones on my big TV screen,
I find myself inventing physics
to rationalize the magic aspects.
And sometimes I fantasize a priest's 500 year old frozen body
being discovered and re-animated and sitting here beside me.
Oh, the discussions we might have
before his head explodes.
Tononi looks like a priest
Lol, Chalmers is such an analytic philosopher.
They never did identify a specific observation that would falsify iit.
Why on earth would grids have anything to do with consciousness ?
Consciousness isn't really described by axioms. It's more like life. It's more like something that consumes and adds to itself, grows, maintains orderliness in its system. It can be made of ghostly wave functions.
I thought the idea was to work from consciousness and deconstruct the properties that give rise to it (perhaps only in humans, but should be recognized in other species). What I hear is a philosophy of mathematical systems and efforts to literally disprove consciousness.
IIT is utter nonsense. Keep listening to Federico Faggin.
Are you deaf or what ? That's the start of the theory, deconstructing different properties of consciousness's experiences to understand it better, then developing a methodology - mathematical systems - for further studies.
‘Artificial intelligence...workers’ 😅
Sounds like how IQ and the big five were developed - by starting with reality and trying to describe it with sufficient clarity.
Jesus Chalmbers keeps saying WORDS every few WORDS in a really loud and annoying WAY that's literally the same TONE every time and it's REALLY unusual and triggering :P
vain
Max is on the money. We don't think our muscular, nervous, circulatory, digestive systems need anything special to work. Neither should we think the brain, mind and consciousness are somehow specially connected with nature. It is an extension of the material world and a product of evolution.
Material world, by definition, is everything that have some substantial existence. This being said, consciousness, at this point of our understanding, cannot be placed in the so called material world because of it's undeniable presence but mysterious nature/substance.
people will come up with all kinds of voodoo to make themselves special or immortal. they cant deal with then reality that when their brain ceases to function they are gone forever.
@@ytgadfly - Well, this is a metaphysical claim, If you cannot prove it scientifically
child when u see a physical system u see/access all its functions and parts simultaneously. when u see neural correlates or any brain or any of its parts you see/accees no awareness or illusion of awareness.
We can't be too sure though, that there is an evolutionary preference for Consciousness. That's certainly not the case in theories which consider Consciousness as an epiphenomenon. The same could be said of the creative use of language, as discussed by Noam Chomsky, which appears to have appeared very recently and very suddenly in the course of human evolution, as opposed to processes where natural selection occurs, processes that are self-corrective over large periods of time.
Now, it could very well be that consciousness requires no other substance, no changes be made to the standard model of particle physics. However, this, I don't think, on its own ensures the reduction of Consciousness to physical phenomena no different than digestion or circulation. Hence the label - Emergent Property.
"Will a Theory of Consciousness help us with fundamental Physics"?
Chalmers: Potentially.".
Faggin: Definitely.
Albantakis: Yes.
Tononi: Yes.
Oizumi: Yes.
Tegmark: Yes.
Me: No!
(or at least, extremely unlikely).
(In the theory I adhere to,
the being conscious process runs very high
on the pyramid of material existents
(the pyramid base consisting of the unknown, the noumena,
above which dwell the denizens of the sub-atomic zoo
above which is the level of the atoms
and then molecules
and so on)).
(The 'noumena' being always behind the drilling face
in the mine of knowledge physicists are striving to enlarge).
Thus there are simply too many levels between
where the being conscious process runs and the noumenal
in which physicists seem to hope to find the answer.
(Physicists will never find it because
"Consciousness" is not a 'something',
rather,
being conscious is a process and processes are immaterial existents).
Faggin: "A computer simply transforms symbols into other symbols".
Me: That is NOT all a computer does...
I have sensors attached to a computer.
These sensors convert impinging environmental energies
into symbols sent to the computer.
The computer then manipulates those symbols
in conjunction with symbols drawn from memory
thereby synthesizing new ones.
The computer then sends these synthesized symbols
to symbol-to-power conversion devices
to control the speeds of various motors.
Hence the "MEANING" of the synthesized symbol
IS the speed of motor movement.
Any change in the synthesized symbol, for any reason,
changes its "meaning" i.e. motor speed.
The symbol's pattern both symbolizes motor speed AND controls it.
This is perfectly analogous to the thought that raises my arm.
(Letters, words, sentences, languages, are 'meta-symbols' that pre-existing
evolved neural-discharge-timing-pattern-world-representing symbol systems
are able to accommodate
with some learning effort).
Any thoughts arise in relation to all that?
One day consciousness will reveal itself to academia. Einstein, Planck, Tesla all have all seen that there is small window to leads to the infinite universes of consciousness. In the meantime welcome to speculation by learned academics..
infinite universes of consciousness? or one infinite consciousness containing universes? Not to go non-dual on ya don't know...just speculating as well
Check out Bernardo Kastrup
Chalmers is the best expert on the brain
1:40 chalmers: (thinks to self: "let's see if my post got any likes...")
Here Im a God: David here is the theory of consciousness and how you are experience it. . David: But this is the easy problem. The hard problem is Meta consciousness experiences!
“If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself”…maybe they are looking for consciousness in the wrong place. For the same idea that we are born out of the world, not into it.
Larissa denies knowledge. “Consciousness is the one thing we know”
That worldview fascinates me
Tipical scienceman do big wurd jibber jabber egghed stile make besmirch littel peeple
Thomas Metzinger should be invited.
isnt this conciousness thematic not a dead end ?... it takes conciousness to know what conciousness is , how can we ever find that out fully ? lol
thats like asking how does a 400lb guy stop stuffing his fat face
You can have a functional understanding of it, it's not a 'full' understanding of it but it's already a good enough argument to consider it an explanation. We also don't know fully what the sun is, we don't know what each elementary particle is doing at every moment, it would be impossible. But we can approximate, and thus explain very well, its functioning by describing it via macro states that encompass the totality of its particles. Why couldn't something similar be done for consciousness?
"It’s easy to assume that these contents of consciousness are somehow chosen, caused or controlled by our personal awareness - after all, thoughts don’t exist until until we think them. But in a new research paper in Frontiers of Psychology, we argue that this is a mistake."
neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-consciousness-8009/
Theodore A Hoppe your article has overlooked an important point of backward causality that is observed in consciousness studies. Libet himself in his brainwave experiments suggested retrocausality as a possible interpretation of his findings. Look it up. Also, some neuroscientists are being very naive with the idea of consciousness being "generated" by an undiscovered mechanism in a corner of the brain. Luckily, there is a faction of neuroscientists who are less naive and more honest, and they accept the deep philosophical problems with attributing consciousness to (undiscovered) objective processes in the brain. And if you think that philosophy has no place in science, then you are forgetting that many of the assumptions of science are heavily metaphysical. Look it up yourself. Personally I find consciousness to be a very fascinating and promising field of study.
Most neuroscientists do not believe that consciousness is, as you say, "being "generated" by an undiscovered mechanism in a corner of the brain." Some think it is an emergent property of the brain, meaning that several brain parts working together might contribute to one's ability to have a conscious experience.
Most recently, scientists have identified a neural network that includes part of the brain stem- the rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum-, and two areas of the cortex. One sits in the left, ventral, anterior insula (AI), the other in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). Both regions have been implicated previously in arousal and awareness.
But this does not change the fact that consciousness is only five percent of our neural activity. Therefore, as the previous study suggests, the "contents of consciousness are a subset of the experiences, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that are generated by non-conscious processes within our brains."
I am curious to hear what your beliefs about consciousness are.
It is important to distinguish between the contents of consciousness and pure consciousness, the act of being aware, which people often seem to get confused. Consciousness may only be five percent of our neural activity, but it is 100% of our subjective experience. I don't think this is an attempt to mislead or present a strawman argument, unless I am reading your comment wrong.
I've been disappointed by a lot of the videos on here where supposedly smart people like Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett sidestep the problem of pure consciousness and spend the entire lecture talking about the contents of consciousness.
The research plainly does distinguish between the two. It says, "Most experts think that consciousness can be divided into two parts: the experience of consciousness (or personal awareness), and the contents of consciousness, which include things such as thoughts, beliefs, sensations, perceptions, intentions, memories and emotions."
Beyond this what point are you making about what you have labeled "pure consciousness," or what the article refers to as "the experience of consciousness?"
The experience of consciousness. What I mean is that these people are confronting that issue head on, whereas a lot of philosophers or researchers sidestep the hard problem by only talking about the contents of consciousness. E.g. Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker have devoted entire talks to describing how easily we are subjected to deception and illusion, perhaps so they don't have to confront the hard problem, but "Illusion is still real" as authentic consciousness researchers say, and we're back to the hard problem again.
Faggin: "Consciousness is conversion of symbols to meaning". This is just a complete lack of understanding what information is. Information has nothing to do with symbols.
Tononi's IIT is a silly modern version of alchemy : If we use his magic recipe for combining dynamic interactions we will miraculously find the gold of consciousness on the bottom of the pan. Not clear if he is unaware that this approach does not even try to address WHAT consciousness is.
Albantakis: What she says is much better but again does not say anything about what consciousness is.
Oizuki: OK, the system has to monitor itself but how is that different from a computer assisted driving system which computes the right intervention based on measuring the state of the car. It's not just that that is a primitive operation. It's that the concept of self and self attributes are not present.
I think we've ventured well into the realm of gibberish with this one. About the only comments that were comprehensible to me at all were the ones made by Tegmark.
It's simply unfamiliar language in science. Science has never attempted to tackle pure consciousness itself until very recently, so it's still struggling to find the right way to communicate these ideas.
I'm interested in Buddhism and its detailed descriptions of subjective experience, but it took me years to understand the lingo. It appears convoluted and nonsensical at first, because it is alien to our Western scientific worldview. (Not better, just very different.) So it kind of conditioned me to the convoluted language these guys are using.
"I dont understand" does not equal that the subject, or the language of its experts, are gibberish
Jeff Seid You are the one insulting others here, so maybe you're projecting? Tegmark is actually a platonist (see his concept of level 4 multiverse), which is kind of at odds with "hardcore materialism". It appears you didn't listen to the discussion at all otherwise you couldn't have written that he would deny his own consciousness (he said the exact opposite, if you bothered to listen).
Man, really? Maybe you should do a little more research on the topic
Geees..if these are th knowers,... forsaken humanity..
Luckily, we, each one of us, individually, make up our minds and Walk by common sense.. cause some how there s an amazing intelligence that pulls humans to blindly look for joy.. love..beauty.. perfection.. luckily, its innate..if it were for these bubbles of doubt about existence. How.. would we ever find th way, a meaning? Love gives meaning to this .. living
And everybody is just conveniently ignoring that sperm attack on the wall.
None of them has any idea of what consciousness is.
just say we dont know how it works we just have a bunch of idieas and achieving knowledge about it doesnt get us anything exept maybe we can build a bomb out of it...smh can some one pls tell me what people want to achieve by knowing what conciousness is ? even tho I cant consider my self as some one sitting there and having this great ideas i still think conciousness is what it is and its a surival mechanism for living things... you need it , all your sense organs are linked to it... all your sense organs are there for survival... case closed for me
Yeah, that's why my friend you're not a scientist ;)
@@Hgulix62 It always surprises me when people are not curious.
Science Meets Comedy Conference
That would be the youtube comments where we find people like you
The theory is gibberish. How can you accept consciousness as a an axiom when there is clearly no objective way of measuring it?
No objective way of measuring it? That seems like a claim too far, we can TO SOME DEGREE objectively measure consciousness. We can see the neuronal distinction between an individual who is unconscious vs conscious for example, we can observe the functionality of someones brain as they eat say a chocolate and the feedback and awareness of said person eating that, vs say eating a Chili pepper and that being compared to everyone else doing the same, and a control group eating something different. At the end of the day, like a lot of the time development takes time and diligence, you can't expect things to come down like revelation.
Tononi has written many papers and an entire book on objectively measuring consciousness. The entire field of anesthesiology exists to study measures of consciousness.
A man who is studying consciousness try to developed some methodology to understand and study consciousness and some random internet guy say it's bullshit bcs "hey my experience are subjective so it's impossible to measure it objectively?"
This realm of philosophy is really a great place for charlatans to hide out, the real work is being done by neurologists, psychologists, linguists, biologists and physicists and the philosophers can only build from that data. They aren't going to get their hands dirty at the coalface.
Scientists & mathematicians do the hard work of trying to formalize a very vague nebulous subject and make falsifiable testable predictions from it, and not just endlessly speculate the way religion, religionists, politics, politicians, theists, theism, philosophy, philosophers do.
And yet the scientists and mathematicians have made no progress towards understanding consciousness.
Bunch of guys chasing their own tails and not knowing it.
ong valcot Likely you are the only one that knew it.
So many words, so little sense.
But Max Tedmark mathematics is an experience in consciousness, you have to be conscious to experience mathematics, mathematics is experienced in the mind.
I don't know.. some how science seems to forget that, usefulness is necessary .....just too many theories that don't serve our well-being.. can't they b a little more practical?
We have serious ecological economical survival problems.. World wide
This is a small subset of science. A ton of science is very practical. Also, these discussions inform the fabric of our humanity. A huge part of making life meaningful is having a solid philosophy of life to live by. We need to question these things and have something to fall back on when things don’t work out in other ways.