The Meta-Problem of Consciousness | Professor David Chalmers | Talks at Google
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how physical systems give rise to subjective experience. The hard problem typically contrasts with the easy problems of explaining behavior. However, there is one behavior with an especially close tie to the hard problem: we make verbal reports such as "consciousness is puzzling" and "there is a hard problem of consciousness". The meta-problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining these reports. The meta-problem is strictly speaking an easy problem, and solving it is a tractable empirical project for cognitive scientists. At the same time, a solution will almost certainly have consequences for the hard problem of consciousness. In this talk I will lay out the meta-problem research program, I will examine potential solutions, and I will investigate the consequences for artificial intelligence and other issues.
Get his recent book here: goo.gl/aWD3E3
Moderated by Eric Mann-Hielscher.
Physicists are busy solving the normal science problems of the day. Philosophers are looking at where that paradigm work fits into the biggest picture possible. Love philosophers, they look at the grand scheme of things and put things into context.
Ah, if only this were true. Academic philosophers do not study the big picture. They study the little bit of philosophy that is respectable within the faculty.
@@peterjones6507 I agree, academia is such a cult.
Chalners is not the average philosopher
I don't think so. A scientist, say 2000 years ago, said something for example principles of archimedes and it was verified by observations, that statement of him, is a piece of knowledge even today. In contrast, a philosopher who presented his metaphysics just a century ago gets his ideas questioned, his premises trashed and his all metaphysical ideas for all practical purposes remain pieces of literature, or just examples of old ideas. What david chalmers is doing is plain old speculative trickery. He is just latching on to a gap in scientific knowledge and bringing in usual mysticism and mysteriousness. Similar bullshit which people have been doing since aristotle. If science cannot explain consciousness, then nothing can explain it. If it is not science nor a strict logical derivation then it is always someone's opinion. David chalmers is doing a disservice to science and humanity by giving his ignorant opinions. Best he can do is just present the problem as clearly as he can do. Adding non-scientific ideas to a clearly scientific problem is an old trickery in the playbook of cons.
But they never answer any questions.
David Chalmers is one of my favorite philosopher, league of his own, far ahead in field of consciousness.
bullshit. he doesn't even know what consciousness is, BY HIS OWN ADMISSION. yet you worship him. here is what I have unequivocally demonstrated (that means PROVED) by my 10 year research program- *Consciousness is not some great magical trick played on us by a cruel, secretive god, but a movie-like subjective process that arises naturally from the objective business of making behaviour. It's complementary state, sleep, is a specific mechanism that consolidates short-term memories into long-term ones, by the appropriate allocation [3] of our limited attentional resources.*
He's an interesting thinker, but in mysticism he would be a rank beginner.
@@peterjones6507 Yes begineer in mysticism because he is a scientist
@@hugo-garcia He's not a scientist. Indeed. my complaint is precisely that he doesn't take a scientific approach. The hands-on scientific study of consciousness is called mysticism. DC appears to know nothing about it, which is incredible for a philosopher of mind and an odd approach to scholarship. . .
He's made a career out of declaring he doesn't understand something that others do understand.
My argument against illusionism was always "an illusion cannot be experienced without the existence of consciousness to experience it." - I think this really trashes illusionism.
Recently I have thought maybe what we experience is an instant "state" of existence, so time and space and "other life forms" are all illusions because the current instant is "all there is" and we are experiencing the entire state because the state has an associated experience. Yet that still means consciousness isn't an illusion...
That's the usual line from Sheldrake, the existence of an illusion presupposes consciousness, so the argument is circular
I think illusionists would make more sense if they were Buddhists. If consciousness is an illusion, there must exist a state where the illusion can be overcome.
One of the best philosophers of today
It is funny how this question was put aside by science in the 20th century. I remember my biology classes in midlleschool, we were taught about how serotonin, adrenalin etc. affect how we feel. Those lessons always seemed unfinished to me, I always wanted to ask "and then what?". How and when does it affect my feelings? What are feelings? Back then I didn't know that scientists didn't know how consciousness arises, so I expected to hear the answer to that question and questions like how do these molecules affect how I feel. I never got the answer. The professor only said something like "here these molecules and transmitters start their journey, they go here and there, they do this and that, they have this and that effect and here is where they end their journey". At no point did they explain how that creates feelings. It turns out it is not the fault of my biology professor, the questions that I were asking back in middleschool have never been answered by science. To me, the hard problem of consciousness is a natural thing to ask, Idk whether I was alone in the classroom for wondering about what I later found out was called the hard problem of concioussness, or whether other students also thought what I was thinking. It is funny that I was excited about those biology classes because I expected to basically hear the solution to what today I know is called the hard problem of consciousness.
Seeing scientists ask the same questions that I had when I was in grade school make me feel like I wasn't crazy for thinking "and then what?" in my biology classes. If I am not a weirdo, that means human naturally ask this question.
No, you are not a weirdo. You are just thinking more clearly on the topic than most scientists. The 'hard' problem exists only in the natural sciences. You could read a thousand books on consciousness by people who actually study it and never hear the problem mentioned. It may be defined as the impossibility of explaining consciousness while ignoring what the mystics have to say about it. I suspect that one day the professors will wake up to this fact, but it may require that the current crowd first make way for some younger and less ideologically blinkered researchers. It makes me mad, as may be obvious.
@@peterjones6507 many scientists recognise the hard problem of consciousness mystics are bsers for dupes
Same as you
I have studied Charmers papers. So, I am pretty familiar with his ideas. This video is very good additional info about the first person view problem.(illusion?) I am developing a Neural Network simulator and a version of this problem(I think), i.e. how the first person view is created from the fired neuron patterns, is the real issue me, now. I am encouraged by his proposal, because the direction of my thinking seems correct so far. thanks!
Three years later, how is this project going?
Around 1:11:00 he says "consciousness is the only thing that matters". I completely agree.
It's where philosophy meets ultimate pragmatism.
We can never KNOW if an entity (human, aniamal, machine) is conscious so, imho, we should give it the benefit of the doubt.
The series "Westworld" illustrates this moral dilemma.
Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*?
@@vhawk1951kl You're opening a can of worms.
@@ReasonableForseeability hardly, unless you suggest that these are matters beyond the wits of our less well endowed brethren with no Latin and fewer wits - or just Americans short
@@vhawk1951kl I don't really understand what you wrote. What I was talking about is aka the "Other Minds Problem". I searched in Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds
Wonderful talk presenting many different and contradictory perspectives. Now we just have to integrate them all into a more cohesive theory.
All we have to do is study what the people who study consciousness say about it. It doesn't occur to Chalmers to do this. He just studies the theories of people who theorise about it. Then he wonders why he can't understand it. Crazy.
Prof. David is Brilliant!
Thank you Dr. Chalmers
This is what ancient Indian rishis founded(much more he could ever imagine) way back thousands of year. Advait vedant(adi shankaracharya lineage)- atma/brahman/cosciousness, vishishtha vedant(ramanujacharyaji lineage):we are part of super consciousness,dvait-dvait(madhvacharyaji lineage) and other three darsana's. As expected no references frrom where this source came i.e interpretation by great acharyas in high state of meditations(dharnas). it's good atleast they are talking about it!!
Nice comment, but you're speaking to the deaf. Most people seem to think Chalmers is an expert, not having been taught about such things at school.
I clicked this because I've been having the whole 11:11 thing lately.... And the length of this video made my mind explode.
What's the 11:11 thing?
Bryan Grace it’s the phenomenon of seeing 11:11 everywhere you look.
Usually on your clock.
You’ll check your time and it’s 11:11 consistently over a long period of time.
In the CZcams menu, this video is listed as 1:11:11 long
@@toddd2137 holy fucking shit dude I read this at 8:42
@@toddd2137 so do I..wow . Its what made me click on this video.
Great speech!
one of the most listenable and readable philosophers of science and mind
Thanks Dr. Chalmers. Your ideas are inspiration for me.
I am very curious about one thing: the evolution of the mind. Geniuses. Once in a while humanity gives birth to an individual who is able to push the evolution of humanity as a whole, whether it's science or art. Most geniuses say the same thing, that the ideas "dropped" in their lap, popped in their head almost out of no-where. It wasn't just the conclusion they got after a long logical process, or a long chain of observations and associations.
In this case, the "God-like" flow of creativity, could that be attributed to a higher phi? Higher consciousness? Is that why it feels "separate" from us?
I was lucky to be born during the life of Michael Jackson, who is undoubtably a genius musical artist, among other things. And he repeatedly said "Songs come to me in my dreams. Or when I'm in a tree. Or taking a walk. And they come to me as a whole, the harmonies, the instruments, the words. All at once. The songs just drop in my lap, from above."
I can't explain creativity through biology. So I assume that is one of the reasons why even some great scientists are religious and they believe in a Greater, Invisible, Omniscient Force.
”Among other things” you got that right.
" There are no geniuses, there are only dreaming machines"
I'd love to see a conversation between David and Donald Hoffman someday
...why?
@@nickolasgaspar9660 because it would be awesome, that's why
@@lbarudi I understand, people love echo chambers that reproduce their beliefs (the case against reality).....
@@nickolasgaspar9660 I never said I necessarily believe in anything, I just think they have interesting ideas that would lead to an interesting conversation. I also happen to be interested in the work and ideas of people that espouse pretty much opposite views, like Max Tegmark or Daniel Dennett - but hey, good luck being low key obnoxious to total strangers on the internet 👍
@@lbarudi lol.....reason is an essential ingredient for the "health" function of our societies. When people "love" irrational ideas...that is alarming.
Swami Sarvapriyananda Vedanta NYC brought me here. He talks about Mr. Chalmers often. Anyone remotely interested in this topic might want to look into Vendanta, which addressed these topics 700-4,000 years ago.
Yes. It's not easy to say why Chalmers takes no notice of the people who actually study consciousness. I put is down to dogmatism and ideology.
@peterjones6507 I am a Vedantin and I think Chalmers is simply approaching this problem as a western philosopher. Vedanta accepts shabda pramana while westerners don't so it is difficult for the latter to authoritatively establish the existence of Cit. In light of this, the efforts of modern academics is certainly commendable.
There is (must be) a solution to "What is consciousness ?". Two epistemological 'puzzle pieces' are 1) thought is physically made of forces flowing through the brain's neural structures and sub-systems that include loops, comparitors, differencing and summing, and 2) existence is always and exactly now (the duration of every Now is exactly zero). This is why when being in states of flow, the sense of time disappears. Feeling conscious is 'simply' experiencing those changing, merging, and opposing forces in every moment.
After experiencing this conclusion, and with practice, one can step into this knowable state by simply choosing to BE. The causal continuum of forces (that is the entire universe) is just running; it cannot do otherwise. Enjoy the ride.
Brilliant!! David rocks😀👍 consciousness is key for technological, moral and mental progression
It does not seem to have done you much good since you use those asinine and infantile little yellow symbols. Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*?
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38:30 - to be fair problem report is a function of high intelligence. If you consider an average animal then they probably are not puzzled by them being conscious, because they don't even have the language to formulate the problem. So having phi without reports is nothing strange, if we assume that animals also have conscious.
Good point.
Awesome talk
To the best of my knowledge, the phrase "Anything you can do I can do meta-" was first used by Daniel Dennett in a conversation with Doug Hofstadter. See D. Dennett, "Intiution Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking".
Mind-boggling to say the least
Excellent... thanks
Questions were really really good
Here after swami Sarvapriyananda's lectures from Vedanta society new York.
Consciousness is the unlimited active relations of < I > in ( n ) directions.
Nice gibberish there.
@@Oners82 exactly.
This piece is a beacon of change. Reading a book with similar content was a defining moment in my life. "A Life Unplugged: Reclaiming Reality in a Digital Age" by Theodore Blaze
I believe that consciousness is an evolutionary formation. Certain signals (enemies, food, water, mates, etc.) are emphasized and self-referenced in the brain to give us a survival advantage. The so-called manifest and subconscious are not in conflict, they just have different needs to be referenced in the brain.
You understand that evolve means unroll?
Apparently not, you just swallow all that religious bunk about unrolling that gets forced down your throat while you were to young to be able to question anything for yourself. Scientism is a religion for sheep that follow the flock because they are too timid to think or question for themselves. Evolve, my arse!.
IMO part of figuring out what consciousness is may involve developing new hypotheses/theories about reality; going beyond space, time and even hyperspace. New ideas about the varied ways in which reality exists may emerge than then help us to understand consciousness within a new paradigm. After all, how would you explain a supernova before you even knew that the lights in the sky are stars?
As a student of Vedanta, the meta question seems to me to be, “what is aware of a meta question?” But this can still be reduced to “what is aware of redness?” And still further to, “what is aware of our subjective awareness itself, our sense that “I AM.”?” If I had to put money on it, I’d bet that consciousness is not created by the brain. This is because I know very credible, morally evolved people who claim with absolute certainty that they know it is not. If you ever meet one in person, you’ll know what I mean.
Bill - It would not be possible to study consciousness and not be a student of Vedanta. This is the 'hard' problem of consciousness, which arises where we don't study the people who do study it. Note that Chalmers does not study consciousness. He speculates about theories of consciousness. This would why he can entertain so many daft ideas.
@@peterjones6507 the neuroscientists have no clue about consciousness, where it comes from, how it works, or why we have it. They will even tell you as such. This is because they approach the problem in the wrong way.
@@Joeonline26 Yes. Neuroscientists do not study consciousness but brains. The clue is in the name. Likewise 'philosophers of mind'. Chalmers' 'problem of consciousness' does not arise for people who actually study it. It's odd that more people don't notice this and truly weird that Chalmers doesn''t.
@@peterjones6507 what about cognitive science, david chalmers is also a cognitive scientists
@@ugwuanyicollins6136 Chalmers is better than many, but the idea one can study consciousness while not studying mysticism is blatantly idiotic. It means scientific consciousness studies is a complete waste of time. Lots of words but it has yet even to catch up with William James' tentative musings.
The greatest difficulty for humans to understand, is *'Consciousness'* is *NOT fundamental,* but instead is made up of *two components.*
*1/.* An Analytical process, and *2/. AWARENESS.* which is *Non-Dimensional,* and *NOT* a human component, nor does it represent or even look like any species, including the human species...
Watched all of it, questions start before 48 minutes
I think people should start by defining conciousness more concrete. For me, in my understanding of what conciousness means, illusionism is simply impossible. The fact that the "lights are on" as Sam Harris puts it, or if you want that "something is happening" in the most broader way you want is undeniable. In fact is the most indeniable thing possible, its like saying that the ancient problem of "why is there something rather than nothing" is non-sense beause there is nothing and it was never "anything". Even if we live in some kind of a simulation, "the lights are still on", something is definetly happening so conciousness cannot be an illusion, is basically impossible to be an illusion.
Can someone bring a counter argument to this? I never found any so far.
I think the problem is in what is the meaning of real or illusion. In priniple, one can say that all of our existance is illusory, because it is not the real world we see, just our interpretation of it.
So I agree on the fact that something is happaning. I just think you cant really say that we experience anything apart from our own existance as true. So yeah, "I think, so I am", but I wont ever know for sure 'what' I am. Or if what I experience, even my own consiousness, is actually true. I dont know if my thoughts are mine, even the ones about my own existance. But I for sure I do exist. Might just be not the way I think. I might not be real in the sense that anything I think is really 'me'.
Yo can start with the etymology which gives you with_knowledge, but well done for not just bleating about whatever consciousness may be as if it were in a vacuum.
All English words with 'sci in them, such as science conscious or conscience, have to do with knowledge, the sci coming from the Latin infinitive sciere to know and its first person singlar scio -I know
Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*? Without that the word is utterly meaningless,
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@42:40 I agree Illusionism is absurd, but I think Strawson over-stated the case. Looking back to antiquity there were people who thought consciousness was an illusion. Since we lost a lot of books, it is hard to pin down, but you can find it in Protagoras and Plato's accounts of Socrates' arguments with materialists.
Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*?
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Wow, immediately, as the talk begins the framing of the meta-problem as ‘a problem about the problem’ is helping me articulate something very knotted up. I think I would call it the meta-explanation of explanations. Explanations are so tacit and embedded in how we make sense of the world. Why are explanations justifiable as explanative? Any response to that question would be an explanation, and therefore subject to the same recursive issue. This seems pretty Russel-y, in that it really rustles my feathers, and has a big BR paradox element to it. The problem of the meta-explanation; I don’t know how to get around it...
I also like his use of ‘genealogy’, it’s how I use the word phenomenology. And he interrogates some of the assumptions about genealogy as a impactful/persuasive response.
One could argue that your podium does have first person subjectivity, as it "experiences" or responds to any knocks, etc upon it.
Whether consciousness is an illusion or not, there is a referent, a word that relates to something, if an illusion, then a real illusion.
One doesn't "see" consciousness at all, that's reducing it to its contents.
Being absurd isn't equivalent to being non-existant, there are many absurdities in Physics for example, that are accepted to exist.
If Illusionism were true, how would we know? The person who coined the phrase gained some satisfaction from doing so, perhaps even pride at coining a novel philosophical concept. In doing so they immediately transgressed the illusion. The problem for physicalists is the extent to which consciousness offers redundancy and reflexivity in excess of the means of survival. Adopting parsimony in a process defined by limitless proliferation is never going to yield anything useful.
How is that a problem for physicalists? Are you saying that the “redundancy and reflexivity in excess of the means of survival” are not realized in the physical brain? Even Chalmers would not support such a substance dualism as he would consider everything you just mentioned “easy problems.” As for the genealogical explanation for why we have these abilities, there are completely naturalist explanations. Dennett’s “From Bacteria to Bach and back” is an excellent work on exactly that topic.
7:40 Why experience? Of course such a question can be asked by a quite limited being... but the answer is simple.
The ultimate reason, why nothing is happening "in the dark" and has to be experienced by an experiencer is because the fundamental basis of reality is the subjective experience. Reality exists only to be perceived and experienced. To reverse the question I would ask "why we experience objective matter?"
Wonderful theme... "He who has the consciousness of reality has eternal life-that lamp which can never be extinguished." - Abdu’l-Baha, Baha'i Faith
“If a man's at odds to know his own mind it's because he hasn't got aught but his mind to know it with.”
― Cormac McCarthy, _Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West_
"Naught"?
@@LO-gg6pp "Hasn't got aught" = "has naught." (Just as "doesn't have anything" = "has nothing.")
Yes; this is essentially the same as the idea Chalmers quoted that "if the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't." His retort was pretty good, I thought: we *do* know a whole lot about the brain, after all. We understand it extremely well from a behavioral, functional perspective.
But I think there might still be something to this idea. Because really what this all comes back to, maybe, is the brain trying to simulate itself (or another brain). When we're trying to understand how consciousness arises out of a lump of gray matter, what we're really doing is running a super basic simulation. We're saying, "Okay, I'm imagining a bunch of densely connected things sending electrical signals to each other, and I'm not seeing how that leads to there being something it's like to be that thing."
But maybe that's the problem. Because obviously we can't really run that simulation accurately. I.e., we can't *hold in our mind* a full functional model of our mind; we can't fully imagine billions of neurons sending trillions of signals to each other. We simply don't have the hardware to do that. Our processing power is far too low. Perhaps one day we'll get a supercomputer that can simulate a brain exactly, but even then, it will still be something of a black box. It still won't allow us to *understand* the full extent of what all those connections as a whole really entail.
My theory is that consciousness is an emergent property of our crazily complex brains, and that our puzzlement about that has everything to do with the limited logical and imaginative capacity of those brains. Our brains are amazing, but not so amazing that we can hope to fully understand them by turn them on themselves.
The obvious problem with "Illusionism" is that, if there is an illusion, there must also be an observer to witness the illusion. Without an observer, there literally is no illusion. Therefore, if consciousness is an "illusion", who is the observer witnessing the "illusion"? The answer: Consciousness.
@45:55 you need to include in the Meta-Problem research program *all alternatives* if you are going to be truly neutral. That has to include the approach I would advocate, which is considering the possibility physical processes cannot generate qualia, since they are the wrong type of process (being objective, or whathaveyou), and so what gives rise to conscious qualae is something much more complicated and although interactive with our physical processes is something beyond them, something metaphysical. If you can ever augment physical laws with these extra interactions, then you ca redefine what you mean by "physics" and hence incorporate conscious minds into physics, but you have to be clear that would not be current physical laws of the *type* we understand.
Mind--Body Interaction is not difficult to grok btw. There are simple analogies if you are prepared to use some imagination, for instance: imagine the QCD (strong force) sector has no interaction with leptons. Yet quarks and electrons do interact. Thus suppose our "laws of physics" were _only_ the laws of QCD, and they were the *_only_* laws discoverable by objective science. Then we'd be frickin' baffled when the "subjective" (let's say) weak or gravity or EM interactions started moving quarks around. This analogy tells you that panpsychism is not a necessary hypothesis for someone who dislikes dualism but takes qualae seriously. You can easily imagine physical processes and fundamental particles in a spacetime also have additional "Platonistic" attributes that allow interaction with completely different categories that we refer to as "consciousness". This raises the fascinating topic of mental causal efficacy, which is another essay.... no space here for that, but for my money that story has to involve closed timelike curves on the Planck scale, to get microcausal backwards causality (because I do not believe in any literal version of my above analogy). Feel free to run with that crazy idea! I'm not copyrighting it.
How could one explain a “conviction” that we are conscious without consciousness? Convictions are mental states which is contingent upon minds existing in the first place?
..it be because you are aware of it and you are aware of it because it be...you be it and it be you...I am that I am...
Sensations are rather deterministic. Whereas our experience of free will is much more complex.
The problem with consciousness is that there is no way to describe it using terms that don't mean exactly the same thing as consciousness. Thus to say it 'feels like' something to be conscious is really just saying it feels like something to feel like something. Same with 'awareness'...which is essentially the same thing as consciousness. It is this inability to describe consciousness in terms that don't just mean the exact same thing that is the heart of the hard problem.
consciousness explained, and more facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
I think what Chalmers is saying is not new. It is the central problem in Kant’s philosophy of phenomena and noumenon distinction.
would virtual particles be able to carry conscious information such as color, taste, feel and other? if virtual particles are quantum probability, what role can probability play in consciousness? is there a way to see if there is any connection between probability and development of consciousness?
does talking about hard problem of consciousness have different characteristics than other cognition and perception in brain? do the neural correlates of speaking about consciousness / hard problem do something different than neural correlates of easy problems in brain processes?
Perhaps the evolutionary purpose of consciousness is to mediate the rationally contemplated initiation effectuation and examination of volitional intent. In the absence of free will god and an afterlife it seems (to me at least) the only thing of any value is the integrity of one’s intentions (mutuality, objectivity). Though we can only ever know some relative fraction of it at any given time…truth is absolute, so whether objective reality is theoretical I think doesn’t matter so much as the potential it contains
I watch. I read. I am not convinced of simulation hypothesis yet, but I am convinced that my perception of reality has been limited and therefore incorrect. But what happens now? Does this free me in some way? Are we different kinds of conscious species from elsewhere occupying human life forms? Are all humans subjective creatures? Some seem unwilling but I may be misinterpreting this and it is really inability because they are not really the same as me. Like a different kind of symbiotic creature than I am but living in a similar host. If evolution is survival then I am trying to grasp the benefits and advantages of some being the first to realize that reality is different than we have perceived.
Great talk!! Chalmers is awesome.
You'd think he'd have SOME measure of embarrassment for giving the same gawd damn speech for the last 30 years.
Every comic needs new material. This idiot hasn't had a new thought in at least 20 years.
@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt Chalmers has worked on issues in philosophy of mind, perception, epistemology, philosophy of language, all in addition to his work on consciousness. This is just one branch of his work, and it is what he typically gets invited to talk about. You can see the variety of papers he has published on his website, consc.net/all-papers/
@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt yet he is a highly esteemed philosopher and you have profile name like "taste my stunkhole"? 😁
@@LO-gg6pp
Ironically your idiotic moniker is no better.
The difference is, mine was specifically chosen in order to act as a logic test so that illogictards would inadvertantly reveal themselves by equating irrelevant information like my name or pic with my intellect.
Now on to the good part... Upanishad philosophy has already addressed 99% of the questions you could possibly ask about consciousness and has done so with logical soundness. No faith or belief required. The fact that the materialism worshipper Chalmers hasn't even mentioned the incredible work that already exists on that, and the fact he's too stupid to recognize that matter doesn't exist, he's been chasing his tail and spreading stupidity for decades.
You'll never, as in ever, answer the question of consciousness with materialism. Start with Donald Hoffman's consicous agents videos to dip a toe in the water of truth, and when you're ready for a mental ass whooping, find a master of Upanishad philosophy to show you why everything you believe is complete horse shyyt.
@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt I've just listened go D Hoffman. Thanks... maybe that's why Chalmers is so well regarded by dogmatic mainstream science - bc he just posits the questions and dances around the consciousness issue😊. ... can't find any accessible upanishads explanations on YT so if you have any good sources will be much appreciated.
Has anyone else noticed that his speech is exactly 1:11:11 hours long?
I did. I see it everywhere. I see it as 1:11:10 though
First thing that caught me eye
Yeah, 4271 seconds doesnt look so pretty!
Did you notice it, or were you looking for it?
@@chiraggupta7580 saw it straightaway
what might be relationship between mathematics and consciousness? could consciousness happen between probability (quantum) and physical (classical)? quantum probability (maybe virtual particles?) brings about consciousness in classical physical particles?
do general thought processes extended in space (external to physical brain) indicate a natural / objective basis for mind? thought parts of consciousness have a physical connection?
Imagine that one day we find a reductionist explanation to the hard problem of consciousness, i.e. our sensations (pain, colours, ...). Wouldn't it also be the proof of strong emergence? A non physical quality emerging from physical ones that we can only observe from various experiments and the corresponding predictive scientific models.
Consciousness is just conformational change. If i hit a rock with a hammer, the rock is conscious of the event as much as it is changed by it. I am only conscious of this video as much as the patterns in light and sound have changed my network of conformational changes that rationalizes current change with past change (eye proteins, neural stimulations). When these people speak of "consciousness" they mean ego, which always opposes consciousness as it opposes change within itself. The universe is made of consciousness (changes by interactions), but is indifferent to human ego beyond the impact it makes on the world and the world's impact upon it. Namaste.
i'm sorry, but thats bunk. i dont want to be offensive. have a nice day
basically yes what they say is about self-consciousness. they only objection i have is the way you translate it. the rock is not conscious of the event because it is consciousness it self. "rock" is a pattern which human thought identifies as it is.without thought no rock. The universe is not made of consciousness but it is consciousness itself.
does mathematics going to physical measurement from quantum probability (or vice versa) have anything to say about consciousness? is physical measurement from quantum probability the same as classic particle from virtual particles?
You think!! Therefor YOU are Confused!!!!
You said that those theories (integrated information, global workspace etc.) cant explain why there are (problem) reports about consciousness, right? Well those theories are about pure consciousness I think. Thus they´re not about computation and as you argued at the beginning, to give such problem reports about consciousness is in principle an “easy problem”, a computation and thus not explainable, not to be explained by a theory about consciousness. (it’s a computation in terms of wondering and there is probably nothing special about wondering about consciousness in contrast to wondering about anything else)
might conscious perceptions and thought happen from virtual particles? and possible that virtual particles are quantum probabilities that are the square of wave function? in which case the wave function could have subjectivity?
conscious perception from physical brain processing of external signals? particles in brain, energy in neurons, virtual particles in consciousness? could virtual particles have information that generates conscious perceptions and thought?
quantum wave function as subjective experience / awareness from which probablistic virtual particles develop consciousness?
This understanding of consciousness will only be possible when another dimension is included, that dimension of near-death experiences, the NDEs.
Not only are there no so-called " near death experiences" there could not possibly be any such thing as a near death experience any more than there could be such a thing as a near standing on your own shoulders experience.
Consciousness which translate as with_knowledge is like knowledge itself - utterly meaningless unless you specify *whose* knowledge and knowledge*Of_What* with ou sprcifying that you would be better of replacing consciousness with stuff, which is equally vague and meaningless. Ooo spooky... stuff; what fools you creatures make of yourselves by speaking of consciousness (of which you are totally incapable)without having any clear idea of to what you are referring , having absolutely no experience of it.
Why not just say stuff, you would convey as much? You heard the word with which you are familiar by its consonance but have not the faintest idea what you mean by it. To help you it is derived from two Latin words: Con-which means with and sciere-which means to know, thus giving with knowledge which is meaningless without specifying *whose* knowledge of what; surely even a complete halfwit can grasp that, but you would get just as far as if for consciousness you substituted stuff or bla. Go about it methodically systematically and ask yourselves:" Exactly what do I mean or what do I seek to convey by the word knowledge; what would be a clear example of knowledge, and remember that your definition must be good for al instances of whatever you mean by knowledge?
Know ledge is direct immediate personal experience, as direct immediate and personal as pain, is it not?If not, come up with something better than that. It is foolish to witter and bleat about consciousness if you have not the faintest idea what you mean by knowledge
@@vhawk1951kl In my understanding, yes there are NDEs. And ultimately, there is only one real consciousness, called many names, namely God.
@@AllanHawke Your understanding is clearly very limited because you simply cannot grasp why what you call near death experiences are exactly as impossible as standing on your own shoulders is impossible, but there are few depths to which men(human beings) will not sink in order to deceive themselves; they don't just lie to others they lie to themselves as you illustrate most vividly
@@vhawk1951kl Hundreds of reports using lie detectors about NDEs have convinced me, I respect your opinion, but my understanding remains the same
@@vhawk1951kl Since your intelligence is so superior, don't waste your time here, isn't that contradictory?
What does Chalmers mean in terms of the easy answers? How do they compare to those outside a "science only" view? That is does a multi-disciplinary approach have a better answer than materialist science?
I'm guessing it does. I'm guessing it provides a fuller and more robust and more contextual (rather than reductionistic perspective).
Further, are there answers beyond AI, neuroscience, and psychology to these questions? How does that inform our perspective, approach, and understanding moving forward?
If philosophy is the branch of wisdom, it has to move beyond simple materialist reductivism. It's primarily relying one side of the brain, rather than both. Not to mention, the survival skills it provides.
Human decision-making, as even the behavioral psychologists admit is both emotional and rational. The very crude story we are told about the Enlightenment is just that a crude story. For instance, Adam Smith's second book on ethics speaks of sympathy, which seems to explain the ways in which ethics is both emotional and rational.
Iain McGilchrist has written extensively on this question. Specifically, the Master and His Emissary in 2009 and The Matter of Things more recently in 2021. In my opinion McGilchrist re-frames these understandings. He provides a more coherent and less fragmented view.
Why is McGilchrist's view necessary. Understanding human experience from the historical and literary, and artistic perspectives is important if we are to integrate our science and/or materialist understandings into something larger.
I appreciate that Chalmers is perhaps more open to these discussions perhaps than others, being perhaps more honest about the problems posed for a materialist view of reality.
maybe subjective experience is a separate phenomenon that happens in conjunction with conscious perception, cognition and other easy problems of consciousness?
@43:30 that's kinda' funny. Chalmers doesn't choose to defend his Zombie Argument. But the whole point of TZA is that it is _supposed_ to be absurd, but just still conceivable. Consciousness involves _something_ non-physical precisely because Chalmers Zombies are metaphysically conceivable, the fact epiphenomenalism seems entirely absurd is then reason to believe both zombies are absurd and epiphenomenalism is false, contingently. It's not establishing an empirical truth, it's establishing intuitions that you do not get if you only think in materialistic terms. One way to put it is that dualism or metaphysical pluralism is at least possible. To avoid epiphenomenalism one can assert physics is not causally closed, which is almost trivially true. Physics can be nomically closed, but if spacetime has boundaries (even if at spacelike or timelike infinity) then physical reality can never be thought of as closed to external influence (at the boundaries). Boundary/IV conditions always matter, ad for spacetime as a whole that's where to find non-physical causality.
There is no 'hard' consciousness problem beyond the fashionable need to create one. Once the fashion has passed, people will ask how and why the fashion arose in the first place. Maybe take a look at self-conciousness instead.
virtual particles predicting particles in brain for cognitive behavior could explain conscious causation of mind?
could conscious perception happen by particles in brain breaking up or dissolving into virtual particles? and are virtual particles the probabilities that are part of recohered quantum wave function?
AI will only be conscious if it is integrated within base reality. That may be possible using quantum machine learning as qualia may be the wave of past possibilities determining the outcome. You cannot, however, assess the qualitative experience because you would have to collapse the wavefunction to observe the state. This is a paradox that has been around in the east for centuries however the west needed to exhort the scientific method to come to the Taoist revelations. In a world where future observation affects the past physical state, anything is possible, you just have to put your mind to it.
The reason why we cannot explain consciousness is because it's virtually impossible to ask the box to think outside of the box to explain the box.
a religious way of believing you have talked your way out of the hard problem
I think Richard rorty would agree
can neural correlates of consciousness be energy spikes in neurons from virtual particles of quantum probability?
Linguistic content is the problem of consciousness . Sound + symbol + syntax = consciousness
are the neural correlates of consciousness from energy spikes of neurons? if so, can all the factors going into energy spikes of neurons be found? could virtual particles be part of energy spikes in neurons? what is the full description of energy / electrical spikes in neurons? why doesn't neuronal energy explain consciousness, only correlate?
If consciousness is an illusion then it should be an illusion of an illusion and this should be an illusion of an illusion of an illusion and this leads to an illusion of an illusion of an illusion of an... First of all, consciousness is not a belief and hence we could put aside the illusory believes in the explanation of consciousness. Then, an illusion is a mental state that forces our cognitive faculties to mistake a known object with another known, or two unknown entities with each other replaced with two known (and wrong) versions of these entities. in other words illusions always happen in the known world, or between our projections of the unknown to the known, or, put it the other way, the exchange between two opposites: shortness and tallness, darkness and brightness, stillness and movement; in other words, if we are not conscious about something we can not have an illusion of it. It seems that this refutes the illusory explanation of the consciousness
virtual particles as consciousness underlying physical reality? perhaps as quantum probability?
I think the problem boils down to this: events in the brain/body underlying "seeing red", for example, are at one level of reality only. But those events also constitute another level of reality: the seeing of red at the level of the organism. Just as a car could be explained in terms of car parts but also "adds up" to a vehicle on another level of reality. The question why the perception of red is "like" anything is misguided because perception is all about what a certain portion of reality is like. The answer i guess is: it's like something because reality itself is like something. It's not "about" what the universe is like, like a sentence in English is about something. It is more like a kind of biologically tuned reflection of an actual aspect of reality, to the best the organism can determine.
The entanglement of two quantum states is simply the mixing of their individual qualias into a wave of both possibilities. Upon observation, the states are differentiated into their individualities. But the two colours of reality are merged into possibilities of imagination before 'measurement' (defined into abstraction). This may be closely related to quantum Darwinism as the best-fitted qualia are selected to exist in the subjective reality of the whole consciousness that makes the categorisation into its own personal abstracted reality. This may not solve the hard problem but certainly gives an explanation for its existence.
Do you enjoy talking complete nonsense?
@@Oners82 Yes. It brings me much-needed solstice.
How about an interesting transcendental argument:
thinking about the meta problem of consciousness is possible
Consciousness is a necessary condition for the possibility of thinking about the meta problem of consciousness
However, god is possible, but god is not a necessary condition for the possibility of thinking about god
if consciousness more fundamental and real than physical or matter, how would consciousness interact with physical?
Oppenheimer didn't seem to have any regrets. I'm sure this will work out fine, too. /s
Are you comparing studying the causes of consciousness with studying nuclear bombs? LOL
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💯
can also try to look into consciousness without materialism?
Wait a minute. The only thing we can experience is consciousness. “The brain” is in our consciousness. Thus it’s conscious. Why is this so hard?
This piece is exceptional. I encountered a book with kindred content that was life-defining for me. "A Life Unplugged: Reclaiming Reality in a Digital Age" by Theodore Blaze
@54:43 The way you can tie Penrose's use of Gödel incompleteness to the idea human consciousness, whatever else it is, has to be non-computational, is with mathematical platonism (which Penrose often admits he accepts, but then contradicts himself by claiming he is a materialist!) If you do not contradict yourself like Penrose does, then you are open to the idea that human minds access the platonic realm, in fact why not say qualae are just more platonic ideals of a different _type,_ they are a class of non-mathematical Ideals? Mind (whatever it is, I do not know!) accesses platonic ideals, and hence can just "see" the truth of certain theorems that no formal system can prove, not even a hypothetical system running our biology. Hofstadter cannot get beyond this because he denies mathematical platonism,and hence surely denies general platonism.
Is Dave Chalmers somehow related to Sasi Tharoor, who is a Member of Parliament in India (and who was Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations)? They look a lot alike!
might subjective experience be more fundamental than consciousness? perhaps subconscious or unconscious?
@36:01 I think it is important to recognise that many people do not do much introspection/are not aware of the hard problem until they study the field. The philosophical discussion is thus not self-evident in our daily life and is actually quite abstract. So if people unprompted do not issue the philosophical problem reports does that mean they are not conscious, if we claim the same for AI?
A bit more direct- the awareness of the hard problem may have come about by accident a few years ago and evolved from there, and if it was not for that no one would ever issue the problem reports.
I think the question "how do I know the red I see is the red you see?" is an example of the hard problem that a lot teenagers will eventually come across. They may not explore it, but I think maybe more people than you think are familiar with the hard problem, even if they don't know it by its moniker.
@@ForOrAgainstUs The point I was making is that using " problem reports" as a measure of consciousness in AI would be invalid if we sometimes miss it in natural intelligence.
Qualia, the theory of mind and many philosophical issues are worked into early childhood education in the forms of stories, fairytales and religious education. If we do not afford AI the same education then don't get the same behaviour we should not be surprised.
It may seem I am contradicting myself here, but I mean the first group may not have had the education, or may not quite have grasped the implications of their education.
I don't think qualia are an illusion, but I suspect the belief that they're fundamental rather than emergent is an illusion.
I think it would be useful if "like to be" gets defined, this is used often in philosophy but I have never heard an explanation. It seems it is considered intuitive. I can ask is number 5678 like number 5679. I can ask is an apple like a pear. But what is it "like to be"? Is it an experience? It seems circular - What is it like to be(experience) to experience self-awareness?
-edit: If we cannot define "like to be" clearly how can we use it to ask clear questions?
Chalmers thinks consciousness is irreducible and that our concepts of consciousness are primitive. So of course he is not going to define it because he thinks there is not a definition. The phrase What is it like is usually used merely with heuristical purpose, and I actually think it works: still, you should distinguish the problem of finding a good heuristic to the problem of a definition, from the fact that what is it like is not a good heurisitic it does not follow that a definition can be non question beggingly asked.
@@pontifrancesco439
Viewing the problem as irreducible and pursuing the solution as such would be functionally equivalent to Viewing the problem as reducible but using a heuristical approach to get a useful and practical answer quicker than a full understanding of the mechanisms. The difference would be a reductionist would know the answer is an interim answer, where as a non reductionist would claim to have solved the hard problem.
@@truthseeker2275 I am sorry but i dont understand what you are saying
@@pontifrancesco439 In short, Chalmers may get the same useful result as a heuristic reductionist, but neither would be as accurate as a proper reductionist theory.
Is there something that feels like getting your toe hit by hammer? Y/n
I don’t see why it is a circular question.
human brain / mind is conscious of mathematics, and mathematics describes physical nature? how might mathematics bridge or connect physical to consciousness?
who made mathematics? humans
how? through thought process
is the description of something "real"? no its just a concept
what is fundamental to survival then? perception - reaction
what is the link between perception and thought? perception is always now, thought are memories of the past.
whats the link between thought and reaction? thought is a complicated form of reaction. now if it based on logical concepts or not its a matter of intelligence
whats the difference between intelligence and thought process? intelligence is based on perception and can be expressed through thought. that's why intelligence can operate in the field of the thought while thought as a reaction can not operate in the field of intelligence.
is thought process a physical reaction? yes
is thought process fundamental to self consciousness? yes otherwise you couldn't recognize that you are alive
is self consciousness fundamental to consciousness of the universe? no universe can exists without humans like a stage without an actor
are the actors and stage one? yes otherwise what's the point of the play
is the essence of the universe physical or spiritual? none both are philosophical concepts coming out of thought process.
sorry i wrote that for myself as i was inquiring so posted it for a reflection.
Why does arrangement of molecules in specific way create living cells? I think that's the same reason that arrangement of these complex physical structures in brain gives rise to conscious experience. I think, It's property of matter, how it behaves when it's arranged in different ways. But what are the laws that decide what different arrangement of matter produce? We need a unified theory of matter which tells us how arrangement of matter in different ways leads to automatic processes/cells/ complex life/ Consciousness.
It's amazing that Chalmers keeps referring to the Mary's room argument for the existence of subjective experience, when it's been demonstrated to be very misleading. It's as though he's stuck and can't make any progress after all these years.
maybe subjective experience and conscious perception more real than sensation and cognitive behavior?
Answer: Physical processes DO NOT give rise to conscious experience. That's a false assumption based upon the paradigm known as materialism. Materialism is an immature view of reality. There is no matter as such; everything that we think of as matter are actually objects within consciousness. The brain DOES NOT give rise to consciousness; consciousness gives rise to the brain. Max Planck: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness."
its like the soul of the 21st century