John Mazziotta - How Brain Scientists Think About Consciousness
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- čas přidán 22. 10. 2023
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Is consciousness a scientific problem to be solved? Or a philosophical problem that will remain a mystery? What do scientists who study the brain think? And why do they think the way they do? These leading brain scientists share their intimate ideas about how the brain generates consciousness.
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John Mazziotta, MD, PhD, is the Executive Vice Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine and Associate Vice Chancellor at UCLA. He is also Chair of the Department of Neurology, Director of the UCLA Brain Mapping Center, Associate Director of the Semel Institute, and Professor of Neurology, Radiological Sciences and Pharmacology.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
Mr Mazziotta is very very good at articulating his knowledge..Thank you, very informative
There's a good scientist operating within certain achievable boundaries, admitting what is not known and perhaps out of reach, concentrating on, as he put it, the practical and the clinical.
Consciousness is in the field of Soul which is beyond the reach of the Doctors of human-body mechanics/anatomy.
Do you have any tangible evidence?
@@jareknowak8712how can you have tangible evidence for something that is intangible?
This guy is almost there. I'm sure he's heard of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hammeroff. ORCH OR.
@@TheDaveSharman
No, you cant.
And that just means you cant know it, you can only believe in it.
@@joshuastokes3726
I read it in the Qur'an.
The updated and the final user manual.
Thank you.
Thanks!
Neuroscience can only take you so far. It can describe perception, wakefulness, or awareness, but can’t define who or what is experiencing it.
All scientists can do is study, understand, explain, test, modify, fix, improve and engineer actual phenomena in the world. But apart from that, what did they ever do for us?
lol. did you ever read anything abou this field? Neuroscience is not only about awareness or describing a perception... it is about the development of language, feelings, behaviour, different personality disorders, about learning, brain developement from embryo to adulthood to aging brains. Neuroscience is giving all kind of answers to the questions what we are, how we become what we are and how many we are^^. In the end our brain is a big simulation machine...taking data in.. gradually building a virtual model of the world around us and ourself and this representation allows the simulated "Me" to evaluate all kind of information (conscious and unconscious) to make decisions.
@@JTHBS *"gradually building a virtual model of the world around us and ourself and this representation allows the simulated "Me" to evaluate all kind of information (conscious and unconscious) to make decisions."*
... If the "me" you are referencing is just a simulation, then what is the real "me" that's being simulated?
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC the "real me" is a combination of different aspects which all feed into this simulated model of yourself which shape it, but also keep it consistent.
1. Your body perception in the moment 2. Your accumulated memory and the resulting inner picture of yourself 3. The feedback about yourself from outside 4. The condition of your brain and psyche (diseases, depression, personality disorders etc.)
Very interesting is the capability of the brain to simulate multiple conscious entities simultaneously. Children which go through very traumatic experiences can develop a multiple personality disorder as a protective mechanism where the brain is creating independent entities of a person, each with its own interests, memories and ideas...but all in the same body.
And especially on children you can perfectly see how it all builds up over time and which consequences different developments have for the person later in life.
As a baby the brain starts by learning to use the body, develops it's senses , learns to move its parts (body perception) , and builds a model of its environment. The brain then learns that it is separate from the environment and that it actively can influence things. It continues to interact with other people, learns different behavior patterns and gets positive or negative feedback to which it adapts. And slowly self consciousness is emerging. The most powerful component in this development is language.. And I think that's what makes us humans special. Without language, our thoughts would be based on raw feelings and images and a complex though processes would be impossible. Language allows us to reflect on ourselves.
@@JTHBS *"the "real me" is a combination of different aspects which all feed into this simulated model of yourself and change it."*
... Why can't the "real me" be actively changing the "real me" over time? What is the need for the surrogate "simulated model?" ... And what is generating the simulation of me? Is it the 'real me" generating the "simulated me," or something else?
Sounds like an unnecessary additional layer that's being added to the mix.
*"Very interesting is the capability of the brain to simulate multiple consciousnes entities simultaneously."*
... Personality and a self-aware consciousness are not the same. A single consciousness can be suffering from a multiple personality disorder.
*NOTE:* I seldom accept propositions that forward "multiple agency" (i.e., Hard Determinism, Simulations, and Illusionary consciousness) because they include an *extra layer* that can never be demonstrated in real life, and which is not required to achieve the same results.
If "I" can easily change "me" over time, then there is no simulation of me involved, nor is a simulation of "me" even required.
Imagination - Process of Pure Creation
The process of creation starts with thought
- an idea, conception, visualization. Everything you see was once someone's idea. Nothing exists in your world that did not first exist as pure thought.
This is true of the universe as well.
Thought is the first level of creation.
Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are more dynamic (thus, some might say more creative) than thought, because words are a different level of vibration from thought. They disrupt (change, alter, affect) the universe with greater impact.
Words are the second level of creation.
Next comes action.
Actions are words moving. Words are thoughts expressed. Thoughts are ideas formed. Ideas are energies come together. Energies are forces released. Forces are elements existent. Elements are particles of God, portions of ALL, the stuff of everything.
The beginning is God. The end is action. Action is God creating - or God experienced.
Hang on. There's one thing more I have to tell you. You are always seeing what by your terms you would define as the "past," even when you are looking at what is right in front of you.
I am?
It is impossible to see The Present. The Present "happens," then turns into a burst of light, formed by energy dispersing, and that light reaches your receptors, your eyes, and it takes time for it to do that.
All the while the light is reaching you, life is going on, moving forward. The next event is happening while the light from the last event is reaching you.
The energy burst reaches your eyes, your receptors send that signal to your brain, which interprets the data and tells you what you are seeing. Yet that is not what is now in front of you at all. It is what you think you are seeing. That is, you are thinking about what you have seen, telling yourself what it is, and deciding what you are going to call it, while what is happening "now" is preceding your process, and awaiting it.
To put this simply, I am always one step ahead of you.
My God, this is unbelievable.
Now listen. The more distance you place between your Self and the physical location of any event, the further into the "past" that event recedes. Place yourself a few light-years back, and what you are looking at happened very, very long ago, indeed.
Yet it did not happen "long ago." It is merely physical distance which has created the illusion of "time," and allowed you to experience your Self as being both "here, now" all the while you are being "there, then"!
One day you will see that what you call time and space are the same thing.
Then you will see that everything is happening right here, right now.
This is....this is....wild. I mean, I don't know what to make of all this.
When you understand what I have told you, you will understand that nothing you see is real. You are seeing the image of what was once an event, yet even that image, that energy burst, is something you are interpreting. Your personal interpretation of that image is called your image-ination.
And you can use your imagination to create anything. Because - and here is the greatest secret of all - your image-ination works both ways.
Please?
You not only interpret energy, you create it. Imagination is a function of your mind, which is one-third of your three-part being. In your mind you image something, and it begins to take physical form. The longer you image it (and the more OF you who image it), the more physical that form becomes, until the increasing energy you have given it literally bursts into light, flashing an image of itself into what you call your reality.
You then "see" the image, and once again decide what it is. Thus, the cycle continues. This is what I have called The Process.
This is what YOU ARE. You ARE this Process.
This is what I have meant when I have said, you are both the Creator and the Created.
I have now brought it all together for you. We are concluding this dialogue, and I have explained to you the mechanics of the universe, the secret of all life.
Okay.
Now as energy coalesced, it becomes, as I said, very concentrated. But the further one moves from the point of this concentration, the more dissipated the energy becomes. The "air becomes thinner." The aura fades. The energy never completely disappears, because it cannot. It is the stuff of which everything is made. It's All There Is. Yet it can become very, very thin, very subtle - almost "not there."
Then, in another place (read that, another part of Itself) it can again coalesce, once more "clumping together" to form what you call matter, and what "looks like" a discreet unit. Now the two units appear separate from each other, and in truth there is no separation at all.
This is, in very, very simple and elementary terms, the explanation behind the whole physical universe.
Wow. But can it be true? How do I know I haven't just made this all up?
Your scientists are already discovering that the building blocks of all of life are the same.
They brought back rocks from the moon and found the same stuff they find in trees. They take apart a tree and find the same stuff they find in you.
I tell you this: We are all the same stuff. (I and the Father are One Energy)
We are the same energy, coalesced, compressed in different ways to create different forms and different matter.
Nothing "matters" in and of itself. That is, nothing can become matter all by itself. Jesus said, "Without the Father, I am nothing." The Father of all is pure thought. This is the energy of life. This is what you have chosen to call Absolute Love.
This is the God and the Goddess, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. It is the All-in-All, the Unmoved Mover, the Prime Source. It is that which you have sought to understand from the beginning of time. The Great Mystery, the Endless Enigma, the Eternal Truth.
There is only One of Us, and so, it is THAT WHICH YOU ARE.
I used to think brain produced consciousness UNTIL I had Out of Body Experiences, and now I realise I was completely wrong about that theory.
Keeping things exciting sounds good. Just to be growing the brains potential without some sense of enjoyment and excitement I'm not so sure about. Robert Kuhn does a really good job of asking questions.
great !!!
Brain scientists addressing the true nature of consciousness is like canvass manufacturers addressing the nature of oil paintings or book binders addressing the nature of modern literature. Just because you know how a phenomenon happens doesn't mean you understand why it happens or its purpose for happening.
Knowing how it happens isn't nothing. Neuroscience actually medically helps people with real neurological problems, including problems directly related to their conscious experiences. That's important work.
Dude chill down. Anybody can talk, think and opine about interesting things of their choice.
Let them talk, take in if you gleen something insightful, agree, disagree. Move on..
Obviously the why and purpose is survival. However, human consciousness may be on a short path to early species extinction. The signs are there.😢
Actually the interview was good but it had nothing to do with consciousness. Title misleading.
@@simonhibbs887 *"Neuroscience actually medically helps people with real neurological problems, including problems directly related to their conscious experiences. That's important work."*
... And that's just fine. However, the scope of neuroscience is limited when it comes to the understanding of consciousness. Knowing which areas of the brain process "fear" or "excitement" doesn't mean that you understand "why" fear and excitement produce the effects that they do.
*Example:* Knowing how the ear drum and cochlea react to sound waves and being able to correct hearing problems does not mean you are qualified to say what are good things to listen to as opposed to bad or what type of music people should listen to.
*"That's important work."*
... Never said it wasn't, only that it has "limitations."
Another excellent discussion on the topic- you guys are hitting it out of the park with this series on consciousness- imo. I've always wondered why my blood sugar being really low makes me angry and snappy- but it really, really does. And my oldest brother- if his sugar gets too high- will literally lose his mind and do insane, violent stuff. Granted, he's not exactly stable when his sugar is normal, but I still wonder what the connection is. You can see a clear shift in his personality- he goes from being an average prick to trying to kill you- kind of hard to miss. I shouldn't joke about it- I feel sorry for him, but he did try to kill me so.... LOL- Wasn't funny when it happened though- took a while- it's been a year. And guess how he commemorated the occasion- back for round 2. They locked him up this time though. So, I'm safe- for a few weeks- days maybe? Idk. Hopefully they will put a restraining order or something on him.
To me this is similar to explaining how a radio receiver functions and how it can be manipulated. Then extending that explanation to knowing the radio is where the signal originates.
There is stuff like what is going on inside of a person with brain scientists only being able to penetrate that on a superficial level. One can go to a mental health professional and have many conversations which brings one a bit closer to the person inside with that not being real science. It will always be hard for science to deal with the subjective individual.
Trying to explain consciousness is like trying to explain why gravity exists, it's just something that is the way it is. That's how I see it anyway.
The body and brain generate awareness through every breath it pulls in and out while keeping an ongoing measurement of its viewpoint which I believe maybe something faster than the speed of light. If you could just take time out and scope out your viewpoint you'll come to notice your brain is always giving you an exact measurement of your viewpoint; my point is by your vision operating on light speed helps promote your awareness along with your breathing and your other senses.
To enjoy reality to the full you need to be plugged into the six seals.
Robert desperately retries resurrecting the reductio ad absurdum of blanket materialism but to no avail.
His interview of Hoffman was frantic!😂
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@@CloserToTruthTV. I'm waiting for the vid where Robert tries to explain what it was like seeing an angel😅
Awareness is known by awareness alone.
I feel John and Robert have a different definition of Consciousness.
I wonder if we're mixing terms here. An anaesthetised person is "unconscious", but if they're dreaming then they may have every experience which a philosopher of mind would call "consciousness".
I believe the spinal fluid is a field that helps compressed vibrating signals and the sodium and chloride acid inside the fluid works around the nerves like a shock wave when the body is over heated or tired; I also believe the spinal fluid around the bundles of nerves may have a lot to do with vibrating activities for different types of cells that deal specifically with the body building blocks for example I believe the liquid inside the spinal cord is pressurized because it is easy for the nervous system to respond to and send vibrating signals inside and outside the body as well as helping with memories and polarization activities on a microscopic level like for rebuilding and healing and for guiding cells to work on different parts of the body as well as keeping track on each working duplicating cell traveling to its destination on a vibrating tracking signal through a vibrating and fine-tune input output signals through a input output mechanism for guiding cells direct to healing cuts and growing things like hair bones teeth and nails and blood cells and cells for every organ in the entire body.
The nervous system is the brain internal input output generator.
Consciousness must exist in order for the brain to communicate, and in order for the brain to adapt its communications it also must initiate a change in consciousness. Consciousness might not be the first frontier but.. maybe it's the final frontier?
John’s laptop was probably cutting edge way back when this conversation took place. :-)
Show me your leadership capabilities. And consider learning in the YEAST.
If we returned to speaking & thinking more visually about epochs in the universe or taxonomy in biology and adjusted accordingly away from evolutionary mythology im confident we could generalize categories enough to agree upon order and levels of classifications of consciousness and how to talk about the past .
As long as we continue to try and impose the deep time unitarianism we will never agree on such things .
Tripartite nature of spirit of mind body & soul is well established and removes areas that he would probably not call practical despite the soul command centers abilty to intervene and dictate.
Many dont access this experience
I am curious whether AI will be able to help us find the answer to the question about consciousness.
no ...
the dimension and spectrum of consciousness is higher and bigger than human intellectual , that the reason you cant fill it in intellectual of physical reality , only from the point view of observer you can understand consciousness properly ,
Is what happens to one's own consciousness revealing of consciousness itself or just of biological vulnerabilities?
What about mass hysteria? Is that about consciousness or mass media?
What about science? Is that about consciousness or engineering?
What about sex? Consciousness or...culture?
Religion? Consciousness or forgiveness?
Is there anything that involves just consciousness, denuded of social influence? Dreams?
Brain scientist never have the last word about consciousness, because consciousness is not an action reaction principle, then u would be a robot with no self experience. No, you have to move to physics, as consciousness is at its foundation an integrated state. An integrated state of information to start with.
Isn’t physics an action reaction principle? 🤔
@@EverythingCameFromNothing No, your awareness makes you are your own witness, that comes from an integrated state, an integrated quality. Same for self relection. Information is integrated in? In a relation! A relation orders information to form a whole. So an integrated state is a complementing state to just action, reaction.
@@blijebij That sounds like total word salad 🤷♂️
@@EverythingCameFromNothing Start with the beginning, is consciousness an ordered state? does it exists of all random bits doing their own thing or does the firing pattern from example neurons fall within relation. Information is useless if it does not come together in a shared essense, relation! So if u look at our brain, all those neurons fire electrical signals, with a freq, with a pattern, synchronized. Thats why we can scan with these days the electrical field of someones brain and from those electrical fields extract the thoughts people have. Yes cause thats not so random those electrical fields. See information never stands on its own always has to fall within relation, an integrated essense. Without it u would lack self awareness, not being able to witness your self, not being able to make conclusions. So it might sound like word salad but once u dive deeper in it, its inevidable! Consciousness and awareness are highly ordered states of information. Integrated states.
It would be nice to define/describe Consciousness right away no? Being awake as opposed to unconscious because of a sedative is not what we are inquiring, right? The issue afaik here is about "self-awareness" and related states/faculties...? The idea of a Self and it's material basis, if any...
(Chomsky has some nice insights here...)
I've never heard theologians saying something fascinating.
Maybe consciousness doesn't come from the brain, maybe consciousness is fundamental
Some scientists asserts consciousness sprout from non-biological matter kind of panphycism.
John's interview was excellent and puts a clear emphasis on how much MORE the brain is capable of. Yes indeed. Very easy to agree with. There are certainly many philosophical considerations if one extrapolates the potentialities involved in such endeavors, but generally I think that MORE human capabilities is a GOOD thing..One opinion..
Neuroscience, evolution and psychology can explain how and why the brain is conscious, but we also need to explain why physics is fine-tuned for consciousness and why the conscious observer is required to state the laws of quantum mechanics.
What!!!
I knew a girl of my age or less who who knew a any language she came across in less than a week. The last time I knew she knew 9 languages.
There are so many examples like this which show the structure and function of brains are responsible for every aspect of consciousness. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think that consciousness is not an emergent feature of physical processes. Vitalism applied to consciousness is just as useless and empty as always.
But……..WHY?
Expecting "philosophers" tossing "philosophism" here in the comment section , the bias against Science.
no, Chinese and Japanese kids, or any kids learn to memorize things, at too early of their ages, became less creative and less successful in their life in stead. I found most so call good students from these countries became employed by the so called “ poor student, or bad student’ in their adult life
All these brain scientists regurgitate the same indoctrination -- i.e. "consciousness is an epiphenomenon; a byproduct of brain processes" -- and they say this with great confidence, even though non of them ever gets around to explaining how the brain - an object made of matter - can produce a subjective experience consisting of awareness and the capacity to experience information subjectively.
So that means it's magic? It's fairly obviously a hugely complex phenomena, and one in which we are innately biased to get wrong...because we're using our consciousness to make wild guesses. Why couldn't matter along with neural impulses and electrical connectivity give rise to perceived subjective awareness? What are your ideas...magic? fundamental consciousness?
@@brad1368 There is no magic. There's just what we know, what we dont know, what we know we dont know, and what we dont know we dont know.
@@brad1368 _"Why couldn't matter along with neural impulses and electrical connectivity give rise to perceived subjective awareness?"_
Because there's no explaination in any science text book about how to derive subjectivity or conscious awareness from any arrangement of objects or atoms and molecules - be it in biology, physics, math or any other scientific discipline. And that's a fact that you cant worm out of by some magical brain science nonsense.
@@brad1368 Show me the theory or empirical evidence that provides a scientific basis to the claim that subject can be derived from objects,... and do it without invoking magic.
Dear God And Goddess of this beautiful planet
Most of Your intellectual mathematics dont know the origin of numbers and most of the intellectuals of meta , pera, cognitive, Quantum and language specialist even don't know how mind understand any language, Hail To all lords🕉☯🙏
Jerry Seinfeld and Sam Harris had a son
We need a two hour Dr. Robert Sapolsky interview.
Enough of that out there. Watch them.
Windows XP screensaver
Buddha basically states that consciousness is a corporeal organism phenomena, although arises only with contigents, and fire is used to explicate: fire doesn't arise from the match or the rough surface alone, but when the match and rough surface coalesce there arises fire.
And, too... the Indian wisemen teach that Brahma is pure absolute consciousness - this is a predicate, I think? Or perhaps, a consciousness much more pure than the psycho physical experience which is limited to the sense perception organs & activites( eyes & sight, nose & smell, tongue & taste etc.)
I come to understand that light is conscious, or the Atman, Soul, and that any being, i.e, embodied being that functions in this realm, has consciousness.
Psycho physical consciousness state arises from and is circumscribed to the body, brain, senses.
Yet, consciousness is a good predicate for the ONE; light is an essence of God, and light seems alive, intelligent, knowing..
Regardless, Atman is what's truely important I learn, and only come to via negativa which persons of today are afraid of.
Or perhaps you have no idea what you are talking about because your mind is faulty.
The neuro scienctist only looks at the mind brain like an auto mechanic looks at an engine
So the best way to fix your car when it doesn't start is chant or pray? That may make you feel better but I'll call the mechanic if I want to get my car running.
There's your problem..Consciousness doesn't relate to practical😎
Dear Robert. As most of human beings do, you probably would like to have the certainty that consciousness and soul are the same thing and that, when we all die our consciousness will remain existing in the same way it did when it was part of an alive being, but think for a while about Alzheimer patients. As disease progresses they lose memories and all kind of brain capacities. When the disease is very much advanced and they die, their consciousness is so deteriorated that in the case souls exist theirs would be too poor for eternity to be. That means that consciousness is something physical linked to the brain. When the brain gets ill, consciousness degenerates and when brain dies, consciousness turns off. We cannot explain so far how consciousness is experimented in the way it is, where it is located, how it appears or how it works but its a physical process linked to the brain material.
Windows XP - best OS.
First and foremost, what brain scientists (or anyone else, for that matter) should think about consciousness, is that without the existence of consciousness, along with the energy of life from which consciousness emerges, then there would be absolutely no reason or purpose for anything whatsoever to exist. In other words, reality would be utterly meaningless without the existence of consciousness.
An object exists unobserved by a conscious being. It is observed for a while. The observer leaves and it is no no longer observed. What during that time has changed about the object?
@@simonhibbs887 According to certain interpretations of quantum theory, without the presence of an observer to explicate an object from the fields of quantum information that underpin and describe its three-dimensional features, then the object will not appear -- as a 3-D phenomenon -- in the context of what physicists' call *"local"* reality and will simply continue to exist as a nebulous field of information.
@@TheUltimateSeeds That's the measurement problem. That is one interpretation, but there is no theoretical basis or test that shows consciousness plays any role in it. IMHO the most likely explanation is that decoherence through interaction with the thermal environment reduces quantum phenomena down to uncertainty blow the Planck scale, which is indistinguishable from discrete states, but demonstrating that experimentally is tricky.
@@simonhibbs887 According to Wiki -- *"...Decoherence was first introduced in 1970 by the German physicist H Dieter Zeh and has been a subject of active research since the 1980s. Decoherence has been developed into a complete framework, but it does not solve the measurement problem, as the founders of decoherence theory admit in their seminal papers....Decoherence does not generate actual wave-function collapse..."* The point is that if there is nothing implicit in the wave-function that seems capable of collapsing itself into a positionally-fixed phenomenon, then we need to at least be open to the possibility that in the final analysis, consciousness may indeed be what explicates phenomenal reality into existence from the noumenal-like fields of quantum information.
_______
Click bait 10 minute blah blah?
Trust me you guys will never be able to figure it out because consciousness is a gift from God.
That's what you guys have said about practically everything at some point that now has a scientific explanation. Gods of the gaps are boring.
No matter the advances of our species, people like you derive some sort of inexplicable comfort from maintaining a knuckle-dragger intellect.
Why would someone want to exist in a dungeon of stupor is frightening. 😮
Trust me you guys will never be able to figure it out because thunder and lighting is a gift from a Thor.
Guys show his generate consciousness. He is liar absolutetly. Neurosience doesnt know How figure out and definies consciousness though neurosience proceendings so far. Guys shows his consciousness lack neurosience proceendings and his examples not shows existence consciousness.
when the plumbing pressure is released, patients become conscious again... it's about phich, as always 😅