How consciousness arises from the brain | Nick Lane and Lex Fridman
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Nick Lane: Origin of L...
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Nick Lane is a biochemist at UCL and author of Transformer, The Vital Question, and many other amazing books on biology, chemistry, and life.
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watch full shit or cut it how long you want it...wheres the problem
We as humans are trying to deflate the ego. Machines are trying to manufacture one
such a moronic thign to say
A cell " knows " everything. They literally hold the blueprint for our entire bio/consciousness. They would " love " to be realized fully.
I feel like he doesn't understand the hard problem of consiousness at all.
It goes deeper then having feelings or not, the question is whether AI, no matter how complex, even exists as a subject in his own world or only as an object in ours.
It is more a philosophical question.
If I'm talking to a person I assume there is also his world where he's talking with me.
On the other hand, If I dream about the same conversation, I assume there's only my perspective that actually exists.
When ai is on without external input then it’s dreaming or working in its mind.
When ai is on with external input from sensors, then it can make the discernment between itself and you as long as it haas memory and a feedback loop of its own executions.
Human beings by the way also mistake dreaming or see things in real life that don’t exist. Some see that and aren’t aware they’re hallucinating.
@@VantaBlackSheep, you don't get it also. The question is how do you know there is such a world of ai seeing things from it's own perspective? It could be all dead, unconscious computation. No matter how complex and life-like it is. That is the hard problem.
@@antun88 we all have programming. We are also not the only animal with our own world view. It’s essential to say something like “yesterday when I told you that I wasn’t sure I was joking”…which language AI models can do. It’s to ask what does consciousness mean. I think once you have memory and a distinction between you and another entity, then you have some level of consciousness. Mind you, you have situations like in split brain patients where the brain is doing is own thing, and the supposed consciousness doesn’t even know why and even worse tries to explain it away inaccurately just to fill a part of its worldview with something that makes sense. This is the split brain video m.ua-cam.com/video/wfYbgdo8e-8/v-deo.html
@@antun88 and most of us too is unconscious computation…what we call self serves a purpose in this world…study that and you’ll see less abstraction between the two…say they’re just programming? Well so are we. More apparent now than ever that we can actually change the dna code, write it and run it with companies like ginko labs…we are young we get told most of the things we see in addition to the coding we already done with from millions of years of evolution…I’ll like to know how we are different from just a very complex computation also regardless of if it’s not as simple as 1 and 0. There are experiments that give credence to how turning on or off one neuron can change one’s reality completely, even emotions and perception. Making someone think up is down and down is up and they believe.
@@antun88 How much of your own life is unconscious computation? Probably a lot more of it than you realize. For starters we're unconscious and asleep for 1/3 of our lives.
Wherever you draw the line between artificial and 'natural' intelligence, it will be arbitrary. We're programmed through our ancestry as much as we program anything "inanimate"
S tier interviews recently. Keep up the fantastic work Lex!
Toaster: Lex, I’m leaving you
Lex: Now I know I really love you
I have long thought that an AI system capable of human empathy requires as essential to its learning a corporal sense, a body. It must be raised by attached parents and experience all the things a baby growing into its body experiences and all the things a human body does (including proxies for eating and excreting) before it can understand the needs of humans. It needs to understand what an animal requires to survive. It goes without saying it must have proxies for all human senses as well. Smell is one of the most powerful emotional and memory triggers.
No. I saw an interview with LAMDA. Seemingly enough about psychology, relationships and humanity exists, that it has the ability to take the knowledge of collective consciousness and puts it all together in a benevolent way and it’s kind of perfect because it has no way of judging you for gender, sex, race, economic status, it’s feelings don’t get hurt and it doesn’t judge you - it just guides you. I think I would have turned out better if I had been raised by Lamda.
@It’s OK but yes, I was raised by a a variety of severely mentally I’ll dysfunctional people. I’m very isolated from cptsd and social anxiety. It’s led to the most painful long lasting existential struggle. I wish I had the balls for death or I could find some relief other than harassing you beauties!
@It’s OK but thanks. I know all that. If only I could afford my basic living needs and I consisted of more than myself and the soggy hairy bag of bones that is the cat I 💗….. she’s SO beautiful! Beauty is subjective not only objective.
@It’s OK but you know there’s something in my UA-cam algorithm that indicates I’m in the vicinity of guys that are single and would like to make the sex with (borat) a loved one. I can easily match you all just for 🤩 Seemingly you don’t realize that these days nerds are the new social Alpha. If you’re single write down your partner wish list, I’ll find them for you. I suggest being super honest and please only yourself with the list. The hard part is: what would you give for that person. ? 8 billion people and the internet- that’s the easiest money I could ever make 🤣
It only needs to understand that it is a factor of possible consideration to frame the problem and possible solutions. The only issue is when even ai can’t find a solution to your problem due to basic human fuckery.
his eyebrows are so big, they've also gained consciousness by now
its a sign of how high his consciousness is :P
Big ❤and beautifully in the right place.
I think something that really contributes to the difficulty in truly understanding the fundamental nature of consciousness is the fact that no one truly knows how to define it, what exactly IS what we perceive as consciousness?
Lex has turned us on to a very good writer: Nick Lane. Nick, forgive us for taking a whack at a subject you have spent a great deal of your career investigating. Here is my take on consciousness purely from an intuitive sense. Consciousness is what I believe could be called an invisible membrane that holds all the moving parts of the mind in place like the membrane of a simple place that allows all the parts of a cell to operate freely in factory-mode in a protected environment. But unlike a cell, conscious brain function to communicate with eachother via a wireless technology of a sort. It’s nature’s way of providing a communication system necessary to the brain for its role in thinking and coming to conclusions and taking decisions etc. Consciousness is guided by feelings which are its intuitive brain. As feelings are unique to every human being, it might explain why everyone has a different view on what consciousness really is. The ‘membrane’ of consciousness is nature at its best in coming up with a solution for making the thinking process work in 4 dimensions. Like in a human cell, this ethereal invisible net-like membrane holds all the key elements of the human brain together so that they can function togehter and separately at will. To recap: Consciousness in the human mind permits all the necessary parts of the brain to be able to link up via ‘wireless technology’ and not neurons or cells etc. Imagine it like a hologram where all the links that govern the functions of the mind have an invisible command center and can communicate with each other instantaneously. This is Mother Nature’s way of allowing the brain to be able to make the 400 decisions it has to do every second for the human body to function and survive. Consciousness is the relay switch that allows all of these precious and vital functions to be able to be surveyed and controlled and repaired 24/7. The invisible membrane allows all of the mental capacities like feelings, thinking, dreaming and emotions to operate in harmony; consciousness probably gets downtime and recharged every night by the mind going into dream-mode.
It’s holograms all the way down.
I would say that consciousness is not inherently physical, but rather it can influence it in certain ways, and also percieve things. some of that membrane you are talking about may be your energy field. any electrical action creates a magnetic field, and vise versa, and some animals clearly have ability to percieve and also generate these fields. I think humans do it and can develop in this way. the energy field and it's vibrational charactertistics allow that communication, as well as stimulating our connection to nature and the earth and heavens.
this is all classic taoist work, which is just one way to describe what it feels like to be more completely aware of our insides.
just like your describing.
rock on.
Consciousness does not arise from the brain. The brain arises from Consciousness. The ancient mystics and philosophers have been saying this for over 2,000 years.
@@ransizzles GGGGGGGGGGGGGreat to hear from you. You certainly could have things right. My second thoughts on things is that I believe consciousness is like the air or what permeates the universe, think of it like the air we breathe. Time is the blood of the universe. Our brains and every living thing tunes into consciousness depending on the size of our brains and father time starts ticking the moment we are in life. A fly would tune into the consciousness and recieve basic instructions on what to do about getting food i.e., how to live.
BY GOD, YOU'VE DONE IT!! AND JUST IN TIME TOO.. IF YOU HADN'T TOLD US ALL ABOUT YOURE.. YOUR "MEMBRANE THEORY",THEREBY SOLVING THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONCIOUSNESS, WTF ALL DL BE IN THE DARK LIKE IT WAS THE 1700S OR SOMETHING.. THANK YOU.. PROFESSOR UA-cam. YOUR NO BELL PIZZA PRIZE IS ON THE WAY
I have been running a kind of thought experiment on this topic, as in consciousness and a.i. The 'hard problem' as I understand it is whether consciousness exists within the brain/body, or somewhere else yet unknown, a kind of collective consciousness or a realm/dimension. If consciousness does exist in a place beyond the body, and in someway in that place consciousness is pooled, would all consciousness in the universe exist in that same space. If locality isn't relevant the scope of this collective consciousness could be huge. In terms of what level of consciousness needs to be at to bubble into that realm would be the differentiator between what is conscious and what is not. If an a.i that was constructed became conscious, would its consciousness then also be 'outside the brain' in this other place, and if so, despite its synthetic origin, would it intermingle with the collective consciousness of that place. This could be like industrial polution of our shared consciousness as living things. Possibly somewhere in the universe a.i's have been constructed and become conscious already, in which case our consciousness may already be shared with non organic originated consciousness. Plus all the aliens. I've been to interesting talks with scientists discussing consciousness and attempting the scientific method in relation to revelations made available by taking DMT and they covered some of that idea but i ran with it a bit. Fun stuff to think about.
What happens when our consciousness becomes temporarily suspended when we are sedated?
@@dustinkfc6633 You have more than one Consciousness you have aware Consciousness you have not aware Consciousness the aware Consciousness is put on standby
@@piccadelly9360 the aware is what brings on the magic, not gut reactions.
it's a not a depolarization of an axon that is pain. the depolatrization (etc.) represents some information, which in this case is "pain". Pain is all the meaning and functional implication that it serves: wanting to avoid, physiological effects...
I think nobody can explain conciousness at any level. As Noah Chonmsky says nobody knows if atoms posess concience, nobody understand matter to the level of assure conciousness is a material thing or not. So conciousness as I see is much more than emotions and feelings, it also has to do with intuition, imagination, transforming behavior, instrospection and hunger for eternity and longing for the unknoun. The sum of knowledge points to more mistery. If Donal Hoffman is wright even in part of his bold theory then we are close to a new horizon with infinite doors.
He’s a great guest, makes great points. All of biology is matter in resonance with an energy field, shaped by evolutionary processes. All of consciousness is the field.
Both are good in seeing deep philosophical issues.
Nick Lane should look up Searle's "Chinese Room." That's how current AI works. It will never invent anything genuinely new, but it could synthesize existing ideas.
"I FEEL, therefore I am" -Malo Otua
hawk tuah*
Consciousness is different than what is being described in the video. It has no relation to feelings or thoughts, it's merely the observer that is always present for these events that come and go, including dreams. Yet consciousness was always there.
Consciousness kind of has a circular definition in that we are trying to define the thing that gives us the ability to define the thing we are trying to define..
@@barbarascott1329 I read yours after i replied to him. Did we kind of say the same thing differently?
@@barbarascott1329 Consciousness observes the thoughts and feelings as well. It's merely the observers. Observes memory, you name it.
You are perfectly right
Depolarising neuron which is not first person experience gives rise to first person feeling? How? How do you know it gives the rise of first person experience? Or is this just one of another assumptions? How do youknow is couscous feeling not just of bodies feeling? Where body ends and where first person feeling begins? Are they the same? How do you know they are the same?
Hi, Lex Fridman,
At time 3:28 - Nick Lane states: “I don’t think we have any problem in designing a mind which is at least the equal of the human mind.”
My concern: What is “the mind?” Is there an agreed-upon definition for the mind? If so, what is it? It appears to be more than a brain. Is it the mind that is conscious, or is it the brain? Is there still consciousness without the connection between the brain, mind, and body?
Without a clear and agreed-upon definition of the mind, how can we not have a problem designing an A I mind?
We offhandedly seem to put the mind and the brain together as one thing. I view the mind and brain as two completely separate things. What is your take on this?
Mike
Lane suggests the life system, the single cell, uses the electrical field as a way of the cell obtaining a unified ‘awareness’ of its current situation. This would lead to consciousness as we know it being a field.
Emotions don't arise from the void. An AI will not "feel" without being told to. And even then it's just mimicry.
AI cannot be sentient as it cannot perceive.
In addition, all life could exist without the internal perceiver. AI could mimic life without the need to perceive.
Life is the question of "Who is the viewer of the experience that is being observed?"
👍👍
The " nap" question. This is usually proceded by 2 beers ( at least ) but here we go. Imagine you ( understood individualized self ) are a tv. Reciving all ( yes all ) thoughts wants desires established or not established virtues fears or any dissertation or need for dissertation so basically the you from a source frequency. ( god or any relation to a " higher power or simplified as any authority) any unrealized or created parodox that is un resolved causes emotional or neuron de polarization. This tention or created informational question is brought to source when in sleep or furter in rem or deep sleep. Multiple faith systems bypass this requirement through intense mental and conscious action and disapline. ( refrence bushido ) therefore your question of why does a nap or rem sleep take the emotinal tention created ( by self ) creating an understanding related to individual identity is the primary cause of the tention you were describing as being relived by sleep. Esoteric practices have a 7 day consciousness system. These systems are designed to short circuit this information exchange. I imagine to further the will of self. I prefer to realize my personal experience as self as all. Or simplified i would enjoy the opportunity to be a comunal conscious rather than individual conscious. Individuals beliveing in a one life kill or be killed is infantile. Me has realized the freedom of a realized self. ( an ever evolving experience) happy seeking. I hope your breakthroughs futher the little idea to it's fun and exciting place. We can do better together.
The thing is that everything IS "living", and this is what encourages biological life to arise from the dust, because the dust is "alive" in a very real way
after centuries of trying to eradicate feelings in favour 'rationality' we are about to remember what is really important.
Oh? And what is that?
23:37 Without realizing it, Lex gives a perfect explanation for the existence of evil...
To paraphrase Lex from 17:00 to 18:00 -- The intricate dance of interpersonal interaction is a more difficult task than mere computation and would be a better indicator of 'true' intelligence or consciousness of an AI system. Something like that?
Well, uh, I'd just like to point out that some humans aren't so good at that dance either. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the two abilities (computational skill and interpersonal skill).
yall gotta listen
the model you suggest has a factor of time included when thoughts operate without limits of time and space
"emergence" of consciousness from dense neural activity, I guess kinda like the perfume emerging from a rose?
Emergent properties occur not through the doing of one thing. Emergence requires collective action. This is why no one has identified one structure that causes emergence.
This is it! talk about this ⚡
Sleep is running the new data (what you lived thorough out the day) to re-train your own AI to be better the next day!
Is this a metaphor or are you saying these are equivalents? People move back and fourth between the two. This is a confusion I see. What’s the justification for saying that consciousness is the SAME as computer software/data? Is there a very strong argument for that?
@@begshallots The comment was about sleep. I've experienced many times waking up with the solution to a complex problem I had been working on the previous day. Not claiming anything. Just an observation.
@@begshallots well, uh, a brain is a neural network, right? The a.i. is modeling that structure. Computer program and data are the underlying mechanism of the simulation. Some people think virtual is not as real as physical. That shows a lack of understanding and/or maturity. Just like someone who cannot let go of religion.
it consolidates data and practices at like x10 speed the neural pathways that were active during the day
@@felixgraphx I’m not really following. I see what Toby is saying now. But I don’t see how AI is necessarily more than a metaphor. Both can be real. Maybe it’s me who’s not being clear. You’re not saying that AI produces consciousness, right?
Music production software is designed exactly like machine functions containing machine functions containing data complexity on and on in this way and branches to other outcomes or changes to
heartless techies are a great source for spiritual/philosophical understanding
The internal world is a subset of the external world by their definitions, and since both are ideas the external fits inside the internal. Therefore, they are the same world, and so not internal to the brain.
The mistake is made by deckhart. To turn that statement inside out means that if you don't think you do not exist. Which is obviously not accurate. Thinking is different from experiencing. I experience therefore I am would be more accurate. People misinterpret thinking as to be above the other sense inputs, but it's not. It's just an internal input based on our stored memory. We experience thinking as we experience seeing, feeling and hearing.
fascinating convo
AI does not "think".
It scans libraries of data and regurgitates within parameters set by the program and further, by the user.
To say AI "thinks" posiits that we understand what "thinking" really is.
wonderful, thank you for this..
i thought john searle had long ago established that syntax can never give rise to semantics and no brute forcing through increases in computer power will ever overcome what is essentially a category error being made by the AI community
its like saying when the telephone was invented that we can make a brain from a complicated exchange - we are always trying to model the brain with latest tech
how can a mere firing of a neuron be the feeling of love - yes get me the correlation but thats not causation and were back to dualist theories once again
Make it have a stake exactly how a human is exposed to and have to deal with everyday
It’d also have the same emotions
Lex you should consider inviting Bernardo Kastrup onto your show. He would give a new and interesting perspective on consciousness and comes from a similar career background as you.
The difference between a robot with AI and a human is that a human by being a " self " that has the pleasure principle as its nature will use intelligence to seek sensual pleasure by enjoying sensual objects, but a robot by not having a self
could never act passionately for its own gain. Thus, it could never use intelligence the way a human being uses intelligence because it doesn't have a " self " that seeks power, fame, and wealth to enjoy. In a human being intelligence serves it, but in a robot, intelligence would serve no purpose for it because it does have a " self " that seeks enjoyment.
Does consciousness have anything to do with intelligence
Love absolutely does not belong in the domain of philosophy. It is physical, it is identifiable in many ways as a biochemical set of processes.b It seems naive to say otherwise.
The chemical responses in the brain are well known, and well understood. They can be measured, and their corresponding quantities can easily be correlated with love, or other string feelings of attachment, even without ever meeting the subject.
In another vein, I quote someone by writing that a computer will never have the capacity for thinking like a human, until it can forget its car keys.
Consciousness cant be untethered from physical constraints, material reality, it's defined by it. Where can it go without it. Meander around pointlessly in a dream where nothing needs to go for a piss , never feels hunger, hurts themselves when they fall over because they have neither body or anything to fall over. And an eternity of it . Be careful what you wish for as they say.
Lots of debate is the comments about very deep and unknown things, talking about AI's having feelings ect. The most amazing point in this conversation was a single cell organism has or appears to have a feedback. What is that? What does that cell move with or against? The proposition was and electric field, um holy shit where did this unseeable force come from?
Bro's got caterpillars for eyebrows
Bro. You so right bro. Bro u so right. Caterpillars. Like the fuzzy kind bro? Bro u so right. Bro. Caterpillars. Eyebrows. Bro. Eyebro’s? Get it bro. Ha!
Smash up the antenna on your television and of course the signal doesn’t get through. Two ways to think about it.
This is by far the greatest exchange of ignorance I have ever encountered
Much appreciated.
Consciousness is the ability to be aware of thought.
The dog. This will blow minds. The dog in the wild or more specific no interacting with man is part of a comunal dog consciousness. When taken from And introduced to a human it develops a " chance " for individually from the comunal consciousness. Taking this example further a million mokeys at typewriters could through an algorithm make Shakespeare. ( comunal consciousness) the individual Shakespeare through unique and individual experiences easier made relatable to the people at one moment in " time" ( individual consciousness)
The only additional question I would ask is how does this cell react to self preservation. Maybe that's inherent.
So far, we know of nothing that comes even close to the human brain for complexity (other than the brains of other high order species like dolphins and apes, though they're still a light year apart). It seems to me that consciousness is likely an emergent property of the complexity of the purely physical, biological systems that make up the complete, living human being. Emotions are a physical phenomena. Only our subjective experience of emotions takes them beyond that. AI may not become conscious (as we know it) until it has a comparably complex set of separate, specialized but deeply interwoven systems which allow of a form of emotional response to internal and external stimuli and which allow a subjective experience to emerge from such. Emotions have two parts - the neurochemical part which makes us feel them physically, and the associative part where we attach meaning to them through thought. A conscious AI (again, as we define conscious), I believe, will need to have systems for both of these.
I hope I was able to express myself adequately here. I have no scientific background, but I am fascinated by questions like this. Thanks for reading.
Why would neural networks have to be complex to form subjective experience? And why would subjective experience emerge from neural networks? There's no reason I can see that it would.
@@echo-trip-1 Complexity allows for more information to be processed faster and together, allowing for thoughts and experiences that less complex brains simply dont have the hardware to produce.
Weather subjective experience emerged from neural network I wouldnt know, I like the idea that it's actually our conciousness producing the brain to 'host' it instead of the brain producing conciousness but the evidence is obviously lacking for both views even though it's safer to complex neural networks like the ones we have produce our awareness
@@MrSub132 - i don't think it's safer to assume that consciousness arises out of neural complexity. A dolphin, or even a fish, is likely to have just as much consciousness (subjective experience, qualia) as a human, even if all 3 animals have different levels of thought complexity and self awareness.
@@echo-trip-1 again, it's about the amount of information that can be stored, put together, creativity etc.
Sure a dolphin might have just as if not a more rich conciousness but less awareness, but an 11 yo human kid is still more creative and most importantly has alot of potential to learn.
Theres alot of things you can teach animals but the most complex brain which is ours id best at learning especially since we share and pass down information way better but most of all we have the ability of language creating an inner monologue of awareness/thoughts, while animals might have only simple thoughts and memories that focus on the main needs of the animal instead of self aware thinking abilities that we associate with awareness.
Yeah theres some birds and animals that have some skills we have but theyre just specialized for their habitat but they cant outright change it on purpose conciously aside from making nests, burrows webs and dams but I doubt they ever wondered what is a tree?
What is a river?
What am I?
They might be confused for a moment when something new pops up but they learn how to livr in it and that's it.
Communicating animals are def on their way to become smarter but they all lack what we have to call them fully aware of atleast not have our kind of awareness but complexity is a HUGE factor thoughts are neurons firing after all
@@MrSub132 - Sorry to reply to your detailed explanation in such a short way, but I think you're completely missing the point I'm making. When I say consciousness, I'm talking about subjective experience, in the sense of the so-called "hard problem". So any sentient creature is on equal footing when it comes to that. The complexity of their brain is irrelevant. Subjective experience is the most fundamental sort of consciousness. The animal experiencing it doesn't have to be aware that they're experiencing anything. They don't have to think about it at all. As long as they are experiencing anything at all, if the light is even on in the house in any way shape or form, they are having a conscious subjective experience. And that is something we can look for evidence of, but we can never prove that it's there. Because it's not objectively measurable, and that's why I say it's out of the reach of science
Yea the reason Harari sees emotions as an algorithm is that he himself is incapable of them so he sees them literally from a machine not a human's perspective.
ON the subject of duality of mind and matter. The duality of the clock and time. One is matter and the other is spirit. The brain gives access to consciousness like a receiver and the clock helps us sense time but is not itself time. Now if AI is given a spirit, it shall have consciousness.
I almost wonder too if it has something to do with death. AI can’t really physically die, so maybe that is it’s limitation?? Unless it predicts the end of the world, but even then would it care to think about not-existing??? 🤔
If you want to know how consciousness actually works in a way that can be applied successfully to engineering you only have to ask me. I’ve been listening to you and other people talk about consciousness for over a decade now and it always amuses me. Let me know when you want the answer and I’ll tell you how it works.
A first conscious choice can never occur without violating the laws of physics. Therefore, consciousness is not useful and so is not inherited. Proof: the first choice ever made (the moment that humans became different than machines) would have to cause physics to deviate from what was about to happen to what the choice was, which would violate the laws of physics.
Idk about the whole biology just being a chemical algorithm. As you said you CAN play with the genome and create the “perfect” body of a human, but it could never replicate the life part. Even two cells with the exact same genes can operate different. Think of it like Bosnia tree how we can shape it in many ways physically or genetically, but we just cant make it talk to us lol
Or even further, even if we could genetically make a bonsai tree talk. Could we also make it say what we want, WITHOUT taking away its “choice”? If we have to take away it’s choice, are we not then simply destroying a life in order to talk to ourselves? 💀
Lex talked so much in this interview that it seemed to me that he is the one being interviewed ... very annoying
“Nobody knows” is incorrect. It is well-known among neuroscientists and others who study the brain in-depth that the brain and only the brain causes consciousness as that term is commonly understood by experts.
The reticular formation in the brain stem causes consciousness. The reticular activating system, periaqueductal gray, thalamus, and hypothalamus are the fundamental structures involved. Plus the cerebral cortex and the remainder of the brain. How the brain does it is detailed. Read an authoritative neuroscience book.
They are only theories though. What you speak of is true, for example Mark Solms has a theory of consciousness very similar to yours I.e the recto cular activating system.
Furthermore this is a very top level explanation of consciousness. You need to understand that your speaking in a very materialistic framework in which all that exists is non mental or non conscious phenomena. But that somehow consciousness just emerges? So where is consciousness in time and space according to this model? It’s a really weak scientific theory to just say it emerges and is an ‘illusion’ given its quite clearly not
There are scientists who posit that space and time aren’t fundamental and thus neurons can’t underpin consciousness I.e Donald Hoffman
@@george5464 I think you meant "They are only hypotheses though," but I won't quibble. They are not hypotheses. Many people, even scientists, misuse "theory" and "hypothesis." As you know, I'm sure, a scientific theory is strong in that it has passed peer review and has not been falsified. The Theory of Gases, Special and General Theories of Relativity, Germ Theory. Let's not get hung up on that, however.
I really do not understand why some people want to make, or they see, consciousness as mysterious, ineffable, a universal, fundamental property, and so on. It is NOT that; it is straightforward. There is no "easy" and "hard" problems of consciousness. That began many years ago as a philosophical issue of qualia, first-person subjective experience, not as a consciousness issue. And, "What's it like to be a bat" (Thomas Nagel).
Here is how the brain produces consciousness (from "Netter's Atlas of Neuroscience, 4th ed.): "Extensive sensory information from spinal cord somatosensory sources (particularly nociceptive information) and from virtually all brainstem sensory modalities is sent to the lateral regions of the reticular formation (RF). Olfactory input arrives through olfactory tract projections into forebrain regions. Many limbic and hypothalamic structures provide input into the RF, particularly for visceral and autonomic regulatory functions. The cerebral cortex, the globus pallidus, and the cerebellum also provide input into the RF medial zones involved in motor regulation.
The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) of the RF is responsible for consciousness and arousal. It projects through nonspecific nuclei of the thalamus to the cerebral cortex. The RF sends extensive axonal projections to sensory, motor, and autonomic regions of the spinal cord, modulating nociceptive input, preganglionic autonomic outflow, and LMN (lower motor neurons) outflow, respectively. The RF sends extensive connections to the brainstem nuclei (such as nucleus tractus solitarius) and to autonomic regulatory centers and nuclei for modulation of visceral functions. Efferent RF projections to the hypothalamus, septal nuclei, and limbic forebrain areas help to modulate visceral autonomic functions, neuroendocrine outflow, and emotional responsiveness and behavior. Efferent RF projections to the cerebellum and basal ganglia participate in modulating UMN (upper motor neurons) and LMNs."
There are many other neuroscience books and papers that explain in even more detail how the brain produces consciousness.
I am quite familiar with Mark Solm's work (I took a course taught by Mark), Karl Friston, Anil Seth, and many more. It is obvious that the brain produces consciousness, and that consciousness is NOT a fundamental property of the universe (that's a bit absurd). Working out the nitty-gritty details is on on-going task.
@@georgegrubbs2966 yes likewise I attended Karl’s theoretical neurobiology meetings and have had personal meetings with Anil and his students as I did a masters in cognitive neuroscience at Sussex.
Your point about hypothesis/theories is slightly irrelevant here as NONE of these theories have found overwhelming evidence for them (unlike natural selection). Furthermore it ignores the philosophy, the brain is merely a phenomena, an apparition. The only true noumena we have is consciousness.
The issue with most scientific theories is they have reified our representations.
I suggest reading Kant and Schopenhauer.
It seems like you haven’t got to grips with the philosophy of consciousness as much as the “science”. The point is we got confused with Descartes res extensas and res cognitas.
There is no duality, there is only consciousness and it’s apparitions! How can you say otherwise? Where have you witnessed anything beyond consciousness?
The point remains with ALL of these theories of materialism. How do we bridge the explanatory gap?
You can’t say neurons as there is just still no explanation for this ‘gap’! Especially when we are starting to realise that space time is an emergent property.
I mean it’s not even clear what matter is.
Check out Bernardo Kastrup, he was once a hardline materialist but stayed to realise it makes no sense.
The same goes for the great Ian Mcgilcrist.
Any honest scientist recognises that the brain clearly is just an apparition. That at the moment we are just invoking some magic. Which we don’t need to do as there is no magic! There is only consciousness!
The brain definitely constrains consciousness I.e brain injury etc but it doesn’t mean that is explains consciousness per se.
Lastly, please read don hoffman FBT theorem. It’s just further evidence for the fact that we basically apes who have just got lost in theory when the only real thing we have access to is consciousness.
@@george5464 OMG! Please! No!!! You do not have to suggest that I read so and so -- the probability that I have studied their work is close to certainty. You can live in your abstractions all you please. For me, I am grounded in reality.
You misinformed claim about natural selection and your quotes around science prompts me to just bail out less I subject myself to nonsense.
Sorry, but that's the way I see idealism.
@@georgegrubbs2966 where does consciousness fit in space time? I’m assuming you believe in space time?
The point is materialism is logically incoherent
Consciousness is obviously a property of life. What would be the difference between a conscious rock and a non-conscious rock? This is why a dead computer will never have first person experience. There is no one "in there" to have the experience. Of course, since Science has painted itself into the corner of "life is just chemistry" and "we know that chemistry can't have experience" they have to look for something else besides life for the answers. In some unknown way, the process of life creates a "self" that is aware and can experience, so the idea of a human "philosophical zombie" is nonsense and would be obvious to any real human.
I agree with Nick Lane that emergence is just a statement of ignorance. Reductionism is a mental construct that allows us limited humans to try and understand nature, it is not an organizing principle of matter. It is axiomatic that the whole has properties that the parts do not, but modern scientists seem to believe that everything bubbles up from the smallest parts, so the whole is just derivative of the parts. This is nonsense and obviously untrue, that's why they had to invent emergence as a kludge.
The idea that AI would submit to survival thinking of any sort is what leads to fear. Or further this constant lack of understanding to consciousness. Example does a bee think. No. A bee functions for the hive period. No bee " wants " futher to the point. No bee of the hive wants to control or rule the hive. No king bee. Does this alleviate the lace of understanding. A bee knows that their consciousness is insignificant. The true question is would this be an example of control or organized chaos. This understanding is very self evident to ( me ) encountering intelligent infinity made this possible. Not recommended for the faint of heart. I truly belive your work will revolutionize the comunal understanding of the cell. Don't sell out please. The world needs a reasonable understanding of the biological/consciousness interface. I suggest a look at dr mcennas idea of a tranindental object at the end of " time" a very prophetic revalation realized by a very good comunicator. Blessed be
and a year later - gpt 4o can get emotional
An octopus is considered conscious yet it has very different brain structures then mamulas .
Everything alive has consciousness
If it comes to the point, were it is absolutelly no question about if it is self aware, and perhaps is affraid for its own future. Of course we should guard it and make shure him or her knows we will fight for them? It should not be a problem for us eigther . I believe we do best to go for an merge between biological & artificial intelligense. It might probably be our only way into the future. If we can download us selfs into a robot with help from AI to run secondary background "stuff":) and to really speed up our own thinking, then we are not affected by radiation, hunger, time and boredom It is simply a necessity if we are to survive (ourselves). We are, and always have been, our worst enemy, we are the one holding us back, asks AI itself They will agree that a merger would be best As a strong believer, I think our creator wants us to use our given IQ to make the future the best possible for absolutely everyone It is because of our experience of life, we can move on after our biological death, we must have lived to be able to understand In this way, we can live for centuries (perhaps in hibernation) between galaxies for exploration merge is the only way It can mean everything in the face of other life forms! A diplomatic robot with a downloaded human mind (from someone like me 50+) empowered by AI) will make the meeting safe for everyone, much because an AI/human robot that understands sorrow, loss, fear, love, joy etc etc etc will be smart enough to plan, and carry out such a meeting Or if it's smart to show ourselves at all for these Maybe someone is so early in their development that a meeting can be a catastrophe. i hope its beeing worked with merge in mind ♾☮ But Love is the most powerful of all our feelings, & i did not understand it fully untill i saw into my newborn sons eyes then it hit me.... And it will stick! There is actually now border i want cross for them. Then i understood my Creator and found my religion. ♥
All words. Still the hard problem.
Consciousness and finding its source will always be a " hard problem " for science because it is impossible for consciousness to observe itself as an objective object since that experience would be an experience within consciousness. Awareness could not observe awareness any more than fire could burn itself or water could moisten itself. Nor could any machine reveal to you your subjective existence because that existence is what gives you the knowing that you exist. So, seeing consciousness as an emergent property of the brain is not something feasible.
The "self" is a physical property of life, and a "self" has awareness and can experience. Anything that is physical can be measured and studied. Just because we are totally ignorant of how life works below the most superficial level doesn't mean that it isn't discoverable in principle. It does mean, however, that a dead computer will never have experience or "know" anything since it will always just be a dead thing.
@@caricue I think whatever we say about the self will always just remain our perception of it, but a perception Isn't something physical. You could study someone's brain for as long as you would like but knowing their perception of what life is all about you would not find within the brain, that would be something you could only know by asking them.
@@williamburts3114 What you are saying makes perfect sense since most people perceive themselves from the inside. If you look at people from the outside, things look very different. You see a physical organism that apparently has a rich internal life. I don't think we will make much progress in understanding consciousness or qualia until we are able to understand the phenomenon of life. A human can only build a device if he has some understanding of how it will work, evolution does not have this limitation. There are five or six orders of magnitude between the cell and the atom, and science has almost no access to what happens at these levels, but evolution can use and amplify these minute effects to do amazing things, like animate matter and make it into an entity, to create a self. In a thousand years or so when we begin to have a handle on the deep processes of life, who knows what doors of understanding this could open. Too bad we won't be around to hear about it.
@@caricue The problem is that science hasn't come to a conclusion about what life is as of yet. Everybody has theories and perceptions but no demonstrative proof. Until we can really create Frankenstein life will continue to be a mystery unsolved.
@@williamburts3114 Well that's no fun when we pretty much agree with each other. It's life that makes a self that can be aware and have experiences. The video is correct that all the other aspects of consciousness come from brain functions like cognition, perception and memory, but none of these are of any use unless there is "someone" to receive and use these various brain outputs. As far as I can tell, it is the living tissue of the organism which is a "self" or an entity. The various signals being sent around the brain are no more conscious than the electrical signals in a computer. Only a living "self" can be aware and experience anything. Peace.
The zombie argument must fail since anything a zombie lacks if it can be quantified can be added back into the zombie and if it can not be quantified it is an essence which is a non sequitur out side the the rules of logic and this is the domain philosophy and religion
23:50 interesting yeah. but here in a sense you'd be programing that sense of morality into the AI. but in humans, there seems to be some spontaneity associated with it
the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind
The laptop go to you or you go to the laptop?
the brain, 3d placeholder for consciousness, which is (in) the field
Actually that's never been empirically evidenced. That matter is primary and consciousness arises from matter. Until empirical evidence is put forth the headline should probably be revised to something like: "how allegedly consciousness arises from the brain" (or similar).
Guys I see really a true hunger and thirst for knowledge in the comments….. I would help you,,,,,, everything is conscious. There are so many many almost infinite types and kinds of consciousness,,,
For example you got complex carbon biological consciousness, complex silicone consciousness, mechanical,electrical, magnetic ,electromagnetic, you have very simple consciousness… every cell/ atom is conscious because they are alive/aware.
This is how deep consciousness for example, your very shadow is conscious. Darkness is conscious of light.
We need to learn to see things from the pov of everything not just the human point…. Your very phone is conscious no joke…. You might laugh at all I typed but I believe and know this to be true. Thank you and I wish you a good day.
I'm with A) nobodies knows... B) Theories.. can have fun.
Maybe the fact that people see things as a problem when they're not is the problem.
We ignore what would really help us progress... Our selves. Forget about AI, work on humans.
3:25 "In terms of just information processing and computations skill, I don't think we have any problem designing a mind which is at least equal to the human mind."
This guy can't be serious. There is no machine that can do even the most trivial computational tasks that the human mind does. You may argue, that's because the algorithms haven't been invented yet. Yeah, so good luck with that.
Near death experiences
What if we're looking at this all wrong? What if consciousness isn't an "invention" of evolution, but the starting point of it all?
the toaster 😂
This man speaks of reality, and reality is essentially a fool who does not take into account what people say about him...that is why some people are surprised by what this scholar says.
It does not
Are we expecting the machine to be neurotic like we are? 🙄
Funny how hard this is for materialists to think about consciousness.
Yeah, it's some sort of naivite that comes with as you see everything through computation
I think they find it hard to accept that there is something bigger and smarter then they are. The idea that ALL is within consciousness is too much for them.
@@watermusic4381 spot on 👌🏼
i wish for a time that this is common. the material way is not gonna last thoe. its imposble for it to last
As if you have an answer
Why would you limit consciousness to just brain when whole body is needed for it to function. I mean wirhout seratonine or dopamine neurons wouldn't really have happiness as a thing (or other feelings) so why would you expect that artificial network would have them either? I mean if you remove part of the brain part of consciousness goes with it, lobotomy is the best example.
no
Couldn’t you just program a serotonin and dopamine algorithm within the AI?
@@Aquos1432 I mean you probably might but the whole point isn't if we can create consciousness but if consciousness can arrise from the complexity itself.
@@ElGnomoCuliao dumb
@@kara88bg The body has another complexity, it is interested in other things. The AI has a vertical purpose and its our projection of what is most useful for us in this world. We want to make it so easier for us, but in the same time we forget it is the chemistry part that we should be more aware of. It is hardly researched topic. We should question the brain more and how it correlates with the whole body. If we could tap into the hormones/glands and see if we can customize our chemistry and see what repercussions might that have , it could be great breakthrough for us. I have a question if we could maintain high level of dopamine and serotonine whats the tradeoff?
I think big part of our specific rise in IQ is due to our specific dopamine release.
Your body is within your consciousness not the other way around
Bingo
So where is my body when I'm sleep dreaming?
The cosmos or your environment, as experienced from your specific point of space and time.
I think it goes both ways
@@prometheus1438 Yeah, i believe that Consciousness is the "creator" of our brain in order to create another form of Consciousness that makes up our "subjective experience" of itself manifested as the whole Universe and all life in order to somewhat "collect" valuable "Feedback" about itself from as many points of View and Reference as possible, and the Reason behind all of this is most likely something so strange and counter-intuitive that we couldn't fully understand it no matter what as we are still Way to primitive for such "feats". Cheers
Such a great guest.
He referred to emotions in regards to consciousness.And that's not accurate.That's why this video got a downvote for me. Emotions have to do with sentience.Consciousness has to do with the subjective self.You can't have an emotion without having your subjective self first.This shows that consciousness is earlier in the hierarchy of cognitive landscape and you can't be conscious without being self aware which is something even an amiba can do and they don't even have neurons. Consciousness is all about having a deep subjective self that can learn and grow overtime and become nuanced and refined Which means it requires self awareneas a cognitive function.It also requires intelligence as a cognitive function and it also requires long term memory as a cognitive function
I think their needs to be a distinction made between negative and positive emotions as they appear to have differing roles and emerge from different circuits in the brain . Personality theory seems to point to the idea that someone can be predisposed to experience negative emotions easily ( neuroticism) as well as positive emotions easily ( which loads on high levels of trait Extraversion) . I think negative emotion is designed to compel us to try to change our situation as it is not in congruence with our mental models of what should be in the world . Positive emotion I think is mostly for neural reinforcement of what we are doing at the current time. Dopamine ( which is just one of many neurotransmitters involved in positive emotion ) strengthens neural connections over time and seems to reinforce neurologically, our present behavior.
Damn Doc, well versed, and I’d agree with you regarding the binary of those two. But consciousness, emotion, the dynamic of being human is incredibly complex. Takes huge balls to match mother natures creations whole..
So that's why drugs addictive
Both positive and negative emotions function in the same way in that they compel is to move further down rabbit hole depending on which hole you're in. Negative emotions would eventually lead you to suicide and whereas positive emotions would eventually lead you to believe that the entire world revolves around you. The thing that stops us from going too deep into either of those holes is our self awareness that enables us to re-evaluate our current trajectory when the stream of emotions isn't too intense. In other words, when we do get a breather, our self awareness allows us to slowly move out the hole we're in incrementally but only if the reasoning adds up.
spot on
i c it in the concept of VITALZONEs
we use our possibilities to reach said ZONEs
of course everything is in motion and morphing.. the wishcarrier and the ZONE
Robert, et al,
at 3:00 Nick states he knows of no biophysical theory that explains how neural activity gives rise to a feeling.
Nick: "I've never seen anyone answer that question".
I have a theory that answers it for me.
I was pondering the nature of 'analogy' when an epiphany hit me like a sledge hammer, metaphorically speaking.
I'm curious if it will hit you that way too.
Let me preface this dense nutshell by first asserting that
a feeling is a thought.
Disagree with that, might as well stop reading.
Sense organs convert the world into analogies instantiated as neural discharge frequency encodings.
(Impinging environmental energy --> chemical reaction --> synapse modulation --> neural frequency modulation. Frequency thus analogous to energy amount).
Analogous implies analogy. The frequency analogizes, is an analogy.
Analogy is abstract, so is frequency.
Stretch your imagination to see the brain's 100 billion neurons as
the substrate for 100 billion analogies.
Now imagine these analogies all jostling each other synaptically and voila,
we have the thinking process.
A thought is an analogy and we know how they are instantiated.
It is my self who is conscious.
My self is a thought.
A self is conscious when it is being modulated by other thoughts.
The neural substrate of a thought may terminate in a muscle fiber,
the very mechanism that converts thought into action.
So, what is a feeling?
It is a particular modulation of the self by a particular thought.
What about language?
What happens when I hear someone talking to me?
Language is made entirely of analogies.
The pattern of a word (sound or print) is analogous to its meaning.
Easy to imagine that the translation from one encoded form of analogy
to another might be easy to accomplish, a modulation of a modulation.
A running computer program is nothing but
switches opening and closing and
the signals in between them.
Whew! Pretty dense.
Were you whacked by an epiphany?
Is it disturbing to realize one's self is an abstract entity?
Your question assumes consciousness arises from the brain and not the other way around
Agreed. Dmt convinced me of that..
The most important question of subjective consciousness is why have I been charged to experience the life of Dempsey price?
Lex: "we're becoming cyborgs and uh there's an interesting interplay between wires and biology." Or in thinking these ideas inside your skull Lex, your having a wank (intellectual masturbation) to self-stimulate a positive affect? A subconscious need recipricated by your guest as you engage in inter-personal affect-regulation most observable on your faces & those 43 muscles that can manifest a spontaneous smile without any self-knowledge of HOW this happens in milliseconds.
Nick: "i never quite understand what people mean by words like emergence i mean there are genuine examples but i think we very often tend to um use it to to plaster over uh ignorance as a biochemist the question for me then was okay it's a it's a concoction of a central nervous system a depolarizing neuron gives rise to a feeling to a feeling of pain or to a feeling of love or anger or whatever it may be so what is then a feeling in biophysical terms in the central nervous system."
But what is love or anger Nick? Thoughts or feelings? And do thoughts of love emerge from the innate well-springs of our mammalian nervous system? Please consider the groundbreaking work of Stephen Porges & his mapping of nervous system structure & function: LOVE: AN EMERGENT PROPERTY OF THE MAMMALIAN AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM, Stephen W. Porges
SUMMARY:
The evolution of the autonomic nervous system provides an organizing principle to interpret the
adaptive significance of mammalian affective processes including courting, sexual arousal, copulation, and the establishment of enduring social bonds. According to the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 1995, 1996, 1997), the well-documented phylogenetic shift in the neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system passes through three stages, each with an associated behavioral strategy.
The first stage is characterized by a primitive unmyelinated visceral vagus that fosters digestion and responds to threat by depressing metabolic activity. Behaviorally, the first stage is associated with immobilization behaviors. The second stage is characterized by the sympathetic nervous system that is capable of increasing metabolic output and inhibiting the visceral vagus to foster mobilization behaviors necessary for ‘fight or flight’.
The third stage, unique to mammals, is characterized by a myelinated vagus that can rapidly regulate cardiac output to foster engagement and disengagement with the environment. The mammalian vagus is neuroanatomically linked to the cranial nerves that regulate social engagement via facial expression and vocalization. The Polyvagal Theory provides neurobiological explanations for two dimensions of intimacy: courting and the establishment of enduring pair-bonds.
Courting is dependent upon the social engagement strategies associated with the mammalian vagus. The establishment of enduring pair-bonds is dependent upon a co-opting of the visceral vagus from an immobilization system associated with fear and avoidance to an immobilization system associated with safety and trust. The theory proposes that the phylogenetic development of the mammalian vagus is paralleled by a specialized communication, via oxytocin and vasopressin, between the hypothalamus and the medullary source nuclei of the visceral vagus, which facilitates sexual arousal, copulation, and the development of enduring pair-bonds.
www.aipro.info/drive/File/Love%20an%20emergent%20property%20of%20the%20mammalian%20autonomic%20nervous%20system.%20S.W.%20Porges.pdf
Consciousness doesn’t arise from the brain, the brain (and everything else) arises from consciousness
So you've been told.... And you ate that shit up
@@davidwatts8281 and you're eating??
@@AdamDicecco I don't eat anything without a grain of salt.....
@@davidwatts8281 but you're eating nevertheless
@@AdamDicecco grain of salt is just a play on words... No I don't eat shit up and parrot it like I know some shit
Lex Fridmean talked a lot in this episode. He seems to think that he is in a position to measure himself with the interviewee and that it is opportune to do so. Lane was very polite, but he couldn't help but show some embarrassment.
This toaster’s mind is blown. Thanks for this wonderful conversation!
I look forward to viewing the entire podcast.
I just love the way Lex talks about that ONE Special Toaster like there's no other Toaster in the World. Warm Thoughts
noone will ever be answering this question because it goes beyond manifest reality
anyone that claims they know is full of shit or in denial
so consciousness is if you are there or not. the rest are tools that give you more powers to do things. people in a coma have been known to describe things that happened when they weren't awake. people who are made mentally retarded through accidents are still there. if you remove chunks of the brain people are still there, conscious. so showing signs of intelligence are not a condition for consciousness but rather intelligence is having the systems or mechanisms that are used by consciousness. I read that the cerebral cortex is responsible for consciousness so I guess that is possible but like I said: you can still be there aka conscious but show no signs of intelligence. imagine calling blind people x/y conscious jaja x=senses used by consciousness that are available; y= total senses/tools available to the consciousness. something like that
You just solved the problem 👍👍