1:07:10 for another example of “incongruence”, in the sense that if X and Y are incongruent, we know a priori that Y can’t emerge (or be “made up”) of X, however complex the arrangement of X may be… take Y to be any 3D structure, and take X to be everything that is possible to do in a given 2D plane, like lines, circles, triangles, spirals or whatever: no matter how complex your 2D structure may become, it will never rise to the third dimension just on the basis of its 2D complexity. I think the numbers-making-up-pine-cones example is fair as well: even if you don’t agree that numbers exist, it’s not like you would think that “IF numbers did exist, THEN I see how they could make up pine cones”. That’s a bit like the 2D-3D example at bottom, for platonic abstract numbers wouldn’t be spatial at all, that’s for sure, and thus unable to compose a tridimensional pine cone. 2D items lack one spatial dimension, abstract numbers lack all of them.
@@KBosch-xp2ut would it not be best to hear him speak without the validation of someone else? You can always see what people think of him afterwards and then adjust if you feel the need.
@@hudsontd7778in the nicest way possible, not everyone studies philosophy. I personally undertook a psychology degree and I now work in HR. I have no idea who this guy is (had to Google him) and yeah an intro would have been great. Not having a go at Alex though, love the guy.
If you have ever tried to meditate you will gain greater insight into your conscienceness because the locus of your attention is so difficult to control. Stopping sensory input and thoughts from emerging is a revealing exercise. We are hardwired to have thoughts and images emerge from the brain and it is relentless probably from darwinian survival.
@@jyjjy7 The same data is available to both, isn’t it? Plus, philosophers are trained specifically to ask questions and find coherent answers, while cognitive scientists might* not have to study logic as rigorously. So if the data is publicly available, and if philosophers are better trained for analyzing, then voices like Josh’s are extremely valuable in these types of conversations. * An example I can think of is from a conversation with Donald Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist, who proposes a view based on the idea that evolution has shaped our minds to see reality as something it truly is not, so that we’ve adapted an illusory view of reality, but Phillip Goff, a philosopher, points out that if this view were true, it would be self-defeating because if our minds are perceiving an illusory reality, and evolution is part of that illusion, then we can’t confidently say that is how reality truly is because our cognitive faculties wouldn’t reliable… know what I mean?
The books “Incomplete Nature,” “I am a Strange Loop,” and “Gödel, Escher, Bach” - the last two by Douglas Hoffstadter- attempt to describe consciousness by the attempts of the brain trying to be aware of itself…as something that attempts to be aware if itself… Basically exactly what Alex was saying at around the 15 minute block.
Yes - glorious: a more enlightened ‘ not knowing ‘ , more robust , informed , more nuanced. .., more satisfying wonder , yes ? . Yes . 90 minutes well spent .
@cosmicskeptic About Consciousness studying and understanding Consciousness. You can break down someone else's Consciousness into parts and study the pieces one at a time. That method has worked wonderfully for everything we currently understand, so far. Of course that requires the avoidance of any harm. That's why we use fMRI, tests, and statistics; and regretfully, when someone has suffered an accident or sickness we pay attention to the effects. I'm sure you know all that, just clarifying for other readers.
17:00 _"I would say that the problems with those first three um through reflection and Analysis lead to in our argument for number four which is that you have a power of awareness"_ I would agree but why stop there ? If you find the foundation of your epistemology, and then you discover something through the use of that epistemology, and that thing seem to perfectly explain the foundation of your epistemology, then why resist the obvious circularity ?
52:15 _" If the Mindless bits of reality are pulling the strings and all of your thoughts and feelings then how can an intention to raise your hand make a difference to the world if everything that happens is fundamentally explained in terms of the physics"_ If material is first, it doesn't mean that the mental isn't material right ? So _"mindless bits"_ become mental objects right ? So you _"intention to raise your hand"_ is simply the name you give to your first person experience of a bunch of material bits that are also mental... Your first person experience of a mental object (your _"intention to raise your hand")_ which is made of material bits.
Look, it's not complicated. Let there be two agents, agent one (A1) and agent two (A2). If A1 describes a chair, A1 will list properties of the chair : - It has four legs - It has a back - It has a seat - The chair hides the bottom half of the plant which is behind it. - The leg the closest to the plant is hidden behind the leg closest to me. A2 might agree with the first three properties listed, but not with the last two, because A2 has a different perspective on the chair. If A2 is able to envisage the perspective of A1, then A2 will understand why A1 gave such properties to the chair. The first three properties can be called "public" properties, precisely because they can be given by different agents no matter their perspective. I call them "2nd person properties". The last two properties can be called "private" properties, precisely because they can only be given from a given perspective, and therefore by a single agent (A1), or by another agent (A2) if he is able to envisage what the perspective of A1 is. I call them "1st person properties". It is EXACTLY the same for consciousness. If A1 wants to describe consciousness, he will list properties : - It disappears when I am asleep. - It disappears when I take anesthetics. - It disappears when I take a sufficiently strong blow to the head or when my carotid arteries are blocked. - It is poppulated with colors, shapes, contrasts, - It is populated with pain, pleasure, hunger, thurst The first three are public properties of consciousness. If a second person, A2, wanted to describe consciousness (that of A1), he will list the same properties. They are 2nd person properties of consciousness. The last two are private properties of consciousness _(qualia),_ A second person could only describe them if they were able to envisage the perspective of A1. When we describe the brain structures, the neurons, or the atoms, we are giving 2nd person properties of mental objects. When we describe the qualia, we are giving 1st person properties of mental objects. BUT THEY ARE THE SAME OBJECTS ! They simply are described along different perspectives. Russell spoke of _"neutral monism"._ One substance, with two types of properties (see _"property dualism")._ The first person properties, and the 2nd person properties. The only reason (it seems) that people don't understand this is _"naive realism"..._ Basically the rejection of perspectivism and a naive expectation or desire for objectivity.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me (from the definition of objective). P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia). C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent). From there two arguments can follow : P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism). C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent) Or : P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent) C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false) One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens. It seems that either realism about atoms is false (if physicalism is true), or physicalism is false (if realism about atoms is true). The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
Good conversation. I am a mathematician with an inclination to philosophy of maths, and when you guys started talking about infinities, it was not only mathematically nonsense (Alex looking at you), but philosophically very dubious to apply this to something like thought. We are finite beings and our thoughts are certainly finite, and it is very hard to imagine how using infinities has any justification or explanatory value here.
I know what these guys are discussing is deep/complicated/fun/etc., but sometimes I can't help but smile a little with they discuss (a) being aware that we're aware of being aware that we're aware, and (b) using plastic whimsy kid toys to thought-"build"/"combine" into a conscious being. I love CZcams.
1:16:56 _"There is this question about what unifies the different elements within consciousness"_ What unifies the different elements withing consciousness is the same thing that unifies any amount of distinct objects into one entity : a law of composition. Give me any number of distinct entities, e1, e2, e3,... and I can _"unify"_ them into a new entity : E = {e1,e2,e3,...}. Same thing for dividing. Give me any entity E, and I can postulate that this entity is made of two halves. I just need to conceive of something like E1+E2 = E (see Immanuel Kant, _"the critique of pure reason",_ logical functions, the _"transcendental categories of understanding",_ and the _"antinomies of pure reason")._ For which, by the way, we know of the neural correlate (see connectionism, see neural networks) This is what _"unifies the different elements within consciousness",_ Kant speaks about it in his section on the _"paralogism of pure reason",_ our minds, our cognition, form concepts based on percepts (regarding a posteriori concepts) and/or based on a priori categories. Our cognition forms the concept of the self, which _"unifies the different elements within consciousness"._
_"What unifies the difference elements withing consciousness is the same thing that unifies any amount of distinct objects into one entity"_ This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts. You seem to show know familiarity with the temporal distribution and micro-subject problem. I don't think you understand the mereological issues regarding the unity of consciousness.
@@Insane_ForJesus *-"This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts."* I'm not sure I understand this sentence. And it seems that we might agree actually... Yes I would agree that consciousness is a mereological composite. So its unity is the same as the unity of any mereological composite. Would you agree with that ?
@@Insane_ForJesus *-"I don't think you understand the mereological issues regarding the unity of consciousness."* The title of the time stamp of the excerpt I quoted in my OP is _"how does consciousness combine into one mind",_ Rasmussen talks about _"the combination problem"._ The following is an excerpt from Goff, Philip, William Seager, and Sean Allen-Hermanson, 2022 : _"In fact, if one reads on in the text one finds that [William] James’ argument is that there is no mental combination because there is no combination whatsoever (Shani 2010). James believes that in reality there are only particles arranged in various ways, which give rise to the idea of composite objects by the effects they have on our senses. The denial that there are any composite objects whatsoever is fairly radical. However, contemporary philosophers have been inspired by the above passage to think that there is something specifically troubling about the notion of mental combination, a concern that doesn’t obviously arise in the physical case. At least on the face of it we have no problem with the idea of bricks forming a house, or mechanical parts forming a car engine. But the idea of many minds forming some other mind is much harder to get your head around (so to speak)."_ It seems that my OP is right on the spot : the way _"consciousness combine into one mind"_ is a simple law of composition... The same law that is used for mereological considerations. *-"You seem to show know familiarity with the temporal distribution and micro-subject problem."* *"Micro-subject problem"* refers to the same _"combination problem"_ as far as I know, which is precisely what I addressed in my OP... *-"This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts."* I wish you would clarify this sentence. Do you demonstrate that *"consciousness has no separable parts"* or do you simply presuppose it ?
58:08 through a myological limbs, I believe that it would be hard to define the mind as a single thing. GCP gray did an excellent video on how different parts of our brain contain different personalities that work in concordance and opposition to each other
Hard agree, it's just simpler to think of it that way. In neuropsychology it's commonly even joked about that saying your separate hemispheres are separate brains would be more accurate, as they functionally are in a lesser sense, since they have contralateral control (left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and vice versa). Large parts of your individuality are contained within the prefrontal cortex, but for example the mediation of emotion has an interesting history with the amygdala, in that you can see quite strong gender based dimorphism (and yes I do mean gender based, trans women and men also interestingly develop this) where men have weaker contralateral connections to women but superior ipsilateral (back to front) connections. The part that's relevant here is that this leads to women using their amygdala less than men, which you would think would inhibit their emotional intelligence, but its quite the opposite, because they have a much more developed insular cortex. The interesting part about this being that even if there is a similarity of structure it does not imply a similarity of function absolutely speaking. Brains are similar enough structurally, but even in structure they can have quite extreme variances just based on neurochemical changes over time, leading to neuroanatomical change. Personalities not so much reside in the lobes as they do in the neurons and synapses being primed by the structure, chemistry, mood, and relative development, and plasticity.
Theres a main issue in this video, that has also appeared in your other videos on consciousness. That being the assumption that consciousness is an 'object' of sorts, something that is the kind of thing that can be 'found'. Why assume this? Aristotle did not, for example. Wittgenstein similarly did not-his attacks on the 'pneumatic' conception of mind in the blue book and the investigations show this assumption to be misguided. One bit in this podcast shows this assumption--you said that redness must be a feature of consciousness. Why? Consciousness is not red. Objects are red. This can be explained scientifically, but that does not entail it is explained away. (e.g., gaps between particles of solid objects does not entail those objects are no longer solid--rather, it explains what makes something solid. the order is the wrong way round). We are not mediated by a conscious window or a 'what-its-like'-ness (cf Nagel). We see the world and the objects as human animals. We see with our eyes. There is no 'sense data' located somewhere--thats a category error. I would recommend--if possible (he is getting on a bit)--bringing on the philosopher Peter Hacker. His view runs counter to the mainstream, yet dissects the mainstream view such that, after hearing it, you can't just accept these assumptions any more. Yet nobody has really attacked his Wittgensteinian, Aristotelian view. You have the platform to popularise his views and change the landscape of debate, and I hope you consider. (Others that may be good, from the same tradition: neuroscientist Maxwell Bennett, philosphers Hans Johann Glock and Joachim Schulte. Also John Dupre would be interesting, but tangential). Thanks!
I like the description that consciousness is an emergent property of our brains, and not a “thing”. Like wetness. A water molecule is not wet. Many water molecules together has the emergent property of wetness.
@@KBosch-xp2ut That still comes under what im arguing against. We can be conscious *of* things, but we can also not. We can be conscious insofar as we may be not 'unconscious' (i.e., we have full use of our corporeal and intellectual powers). The point my view is trying to get at is that there is no such 'thing' as consciousness, conceived as an object or a property/universal.
@@yyzzyysszznn That doesn’t make sense. We define consciousness as an awareness of ourselves and the world around us (or whatever…. doesn’t really matter), so clearly there is a “thing” called consciousness. We fit the definition. A rock does not. You’re also using “conscious” in a different way. You’re using it as an awareness of something. “Conscious of things or not”.
Saying that you are aware of being aware, is like saying that I’m thinking about thinking. It offers no value. It requires some further inquiry like ‘why’ you are thinking or ‘what’ you’re thinking. or ‘how’ you are thinking all of which provide some particular aspect and direction of inquiry.
yes. they did not understand that. There is just simply awareness. Not awareness of awareness and awareness hahahaha. Philosophers man, trying to do too much.
I would love to see a conversation between Alex and Rupert Spira. Somebody who has been studying this topic experimentally for many decades. He phrases it is religious language (not all the time) but he is not trying to point to something outside of, or separate from us. He is trying to delve deeply into the experience of being or being aware. That would be a lovely get together. I know the chance is low that Alex will see this, but I am just sending this out there into the void. If anyone is interested in exploring these matters more deeply, he is the person I would recommend! Have a good day guys :)
46:11 _"When I look at this object here I think one thing that seems clear to me is that a feel feeling of love is not the same thing as this particular circular shape and I and I I think I can tell you how I know this actually I know this by direct acquaintance with shape and direct acquaintance with the experience of love the qualitative aspect of feeling love I I've had that feeling and I've been able to use that power of introspection to be aware of that qualitative aspect I've been with my eyes acquainted with shape and if I'm directly acquainted this this is an awareness that's not based on inferences from other things I'm aware of this is that basic awareness if I'm aware in that basic way of two things I can directly compare them and see if they're the same thing."_ That's very interesting. The problem is that we have strong defeaters against this. We are all aware of examples in which we initially thought two things were different (by _"acquaintance"),_ only to later understand that these things were actually the same. One classic example is given by Frege, and reused by Quine in his famous article _"the two dogmas of empiricism",_ the realization that the _"morning star"_ and the _"evening star"_ are both the planet Venus. Another common example is the perception of water in different states. Ice, liquid water, and steam may seem quite different, but they are all composed of H2O molecules and represent different phases of the same substance. Another example is thinking that energy and mass are different things, when in fact they two manifestations of the same thing (E=mc²).
Alex, you should invite Bernardo Kastrup on your channel. So far I haven't found anyone who could talk me out of his views of how materialism and physicalism are simply inexact! I would love to see a discussion here. I really think that Kastrup, Faggin and other people's work is going to become of paramount importance in the next years with regards to consciousness.
When he said Consciousness is prior to thought, I resonated. Adi Da Samraj, as a Realizer (not just a talker), would say there is nothing but Consciousness and Consciousness realized, is only Bliss. Ego or self-contraction or self-definition prevents the bliss of consciousness. Consciousness stands prior to thought and attention.
I feel like there's always the implicit assumption that consciousness is something separate in the first place and people don't stop to think whether that's actually true.
Trouble is, if there is no consciousness separate from matter, then you imply that you are nothing more than the physical matter which you are, which implies no freewill as you are just the sum of your products. If you are willing to accept that you truly have no freewill and are strictly a product of causality, then there is no error in what you propose, however accepting that idea brings up some serious problems with morality, justice, and agency.
@@Ho11ow661 That consciousness appears to us to always/only be coincident with matter doesn't entail nor imply that you yourself are nothing other than matter. Check out Don Hoffman.
Hi Alex, love your content. Would love for you to talk with Bernardo Kastrup (philosopher of consciousness, analytic idealism) one day, he is brilliant and I think it would be a gift for us to hear some dialogue between you two.
An excellent coversation between two highly articulate individuals who have given a huge amount of very open minded thought on the nature of consciousness. I found it geat fun to listen to. Sometimes I almost laughed out loud at how well expressed certain insights were put. It certainly gave me certain ways of thinking about the subject that were new to me. However any real advance in understanding of the nature of consciousness would seem to be inevitably limited to their "objective" approach despite the subtlety and neuance of that objectivity. Because consciousness itself or the fact or beiing conscious (beyond anything that appears within conciouness) has to be purely subjective.
@@unduloid There is an attempt to explain something but although the process of making the attempt can be interesting, the attempt seems to always fail, and so we are left with what turns out to be some kind of word salad that gets us nowhere. The point that I was attempting to make was that this is inevitable in view of the fact that the pure subjectivity of the nature of consciousness can't be understood if we consider it as something that it is not, namely as something that is objective. For this reason chasing after it as an objective thing will always get us nowhere even though the attempt may be interesting. I don't know if this would be acceptable to you for the dressing that you requested.
Consciousness is everything. At its core, it is just awareness. Awareness is the foundation of all illusions/realities. You are pure consciousness, a soul, that agreed to temporarily be a human. You did this to understand the relationship between consciousness and energy-true metaphysics. When you truly understand what consciousness is, it will shake you to your core. You will have fulfilled your reason for being a human. Become an adept teacher of consciousness. If you so choose, this could be your service to humanity and All That Is. You are made for this Alex. Take it from me, there is no study more fascinating than the study of consciousness. You will love every bit of it, and you'll be prepared for what's coming.
A mind first ontology is a category error and requires engaging in existential fallacious reasoning. We know there is a substance that is fundamental but calling the substance, a mind is no different from a physicalist calling it matter, except that we know substance must be spatial to ground change. 1. Conscious beings exist Being is existence but consciousness is becoming grounded in that being. There are no true concrete distinctions in reality, everything is connected. Matter is necessarily spatial.
When I was thinking about the fundamental aspects of reality there was one core question which came to my mind and that was : "What is?" It seems so strange that things actually "are".
@@drewpy14 I will try my best to get you in this state of mind. We have the concept of reductionism to find out what things are actually made of. The problem with that is we know more about the things we are observing but don't really know what they actually are. They just exist and behave the way they behave. When we ask what things are made of we come to fundamental particles, quantum fields etc. The problem with that is that we still are not satisfied even when we have a theory to "explain" every phenomenon. We can just describe how reality is, how things behave in relation to each other and not what they are. Measuring an electron is not really observing the electron itself but rather how this particle interacts in our reality in relation to other particles. This realization led me to think about. Yeah but What "is" actually? I don't know. Our reality just "is" how it is and the things we are experiencing just "are" how they "are". It seems there is a limit where we have to change our concepts of science to make progress. Just my thoughts. Correct me if I'm getting something wrong from scientific perspective. Hope this will help you. :)
At 48:00 - on the experiential gap and the hard problem: Panpsychism is what happens when you mistake the hard problem of conscious for an impossible problem. Let’s say we nail down the neuronal firing pattern that a test subject associates with love. When we see these neurons firing in this pattern, the subject, without fail, reports feeling love. The hard problem, as I understand it, would be explaining why that particular firing pattern ignites that particular experience. I would suspect the answer to be complicated. Something like - well it has to do with pattern recognition and the particular experiences that this brain underwent while developing. It has to do with the structure of the brain and which neurons within which structural hierarchy fired and in which order. The pattern, the connections, the areas of those connections and their frequency, also the memories associated and physiological changes that occur (increased HR, sweating, etc). All of it plays in. Yes it’s complicated. But to throw up your hands, declare the problem unanswerable, and embrace panpsychism is either a failure of nerve or a failure to recognize how much we do understand about conscious experience and the brain.
I don’t think that’s what the hard problem states. It’s not why that particular firing pattern ignited that particular experience, it’s why a particular firing pattern ignites any experience at all
And that Still doesn't solve the problem about who or what is experiencing the effects of the neural firing pattern. Is there another part of the brain that analyses these neural firing patterns and then reports this is love? And wouldn't that recognition then not just be another neural firing pattern that would also have to be experienced by yet another neural firing pattern? I think the assumption that consciousness arises from matter, at the moment relies on the assumption that "we don't yet know but we will find out once we understand the brain better". How long will we keep that view until we would concede that it is not to be found? That we really cannot find the experiencer of red anywhere in the brain? Isn't it at the moment a similar position as "I don't know the answer so god did it/ the brain does it?"
@@jeremyluce4354you’re so right. I conflated his “gap problem” with the hard problem. That said, I think an answer similar to the one I outlined will be a crucial piece of the overall hard-problem mystery. For example, you can stack similar neural patterns and associate them together. Different patterns for different sets of experiences. Certain patterns associate with the mid-brain to correlate with emotions and at different strengths. The hippocampus serves as a hard drive, remembering the patterns and which mid-brain structures were involved. The only missing piece is something like a perpetual attention loop (almost certainly originating in the cortex, probably the most recently evolved frontal cortex) that is the “self” that is observing (“experiencing”) all of the patterns, circuits, and associations. There are probably a number of these perpetual attention loops, or at least the potential for many iterations. Hence why we can notice differences in the way we notice things over time, and so on. A big pile of ever-layering circuitry and complexity hell-bent on accurately rendering (predicting) the environment by gathering sense data and comparing that to old sense data and related memories. It’s a marvel.
@@gdgkuf2315 okay so first - pretty much yes to the first two questions. There is likely a circuit or set of circuits that functions as a spotlight - what we recognize as the self. The number of these spotlight circuits is probably 0 in insects and amphibians, 1 or 2 in birds/mammals (thus they can recognize their various neural patterns, but not to the depth or degree that humans can), and in humans the attention circuits are probably much more complex and numerous. You can mark changes in how you notice things over time, but are you noticing how you notice the differences in noticing noticing over time? Probably not. So there are probably 3-5 of these advanced self-circuits/attention-circuits in humans. Note that memory and its capacity is intimately involved, and the cortex’s control on the amygdala is intimately involved. The fact that a dog’s heart rate jumps from 60 to 120 when it sees a treat is due to the fact that a dog’s amygdala:cortex ratio is much higher than is yours. Thus their raw emotion:impulse control ratio is higher. We view this as primitive, less sophisticated behavior because it’s ruled by primitive, less sophisticated neural processes. The inverse of this example is also very likely to be true. As for your point on how long until we realize… We didn’t discover that the brain is the part that thinks until like 200 years ago. Your great great grandpa probably thought that courage originates somewhere in the abdomen. On a historical timescale, neurology is in its infancy. We are not even close to even considering packing up shop and declaring God must’ve done it. Cmon now
@@Williamwilliam1531 yes and we now think consciousness comes from the brain- as you said yourself your explanation is, in your view, "likely". That doesn't follow that it's correct or we know. We once thought it's likely the earth is flat. I'm not saying what you say couldn't be the case but at the moment saying consciousness arises from the brain is pretty much the materialistic god of the gaps- we don't understand it so the brain did it. We simply do not know. I'm not saying god did it either. I for example find non dual thought very intriguing, as it seems very logical to me on an experiental level. I'm just saying there's all kinds of intriguing possibilities and just saying the brain does it, and we're just waiting to find proof because we want to believe it seems to close us off to other views. And I think a dog still possesses consciousness even if we view their behaviour as primitive. The notion that complexity of behaviour indicates more or less consciousness would indicate you can measure levels of consciousness. But how can awareness be anything but awareness? Whether it's aware of a dogs thought or that of a human?
Perhaps a useful metaphor for the idea that you can be aware and use awareness without recognizing ( or being aware of it) would be grammar and syntax. We are using both grammar and syntax for years before we learn that either is a thing. In fact it is through the teacher's grammar & syntax and our intuative use of both that we learn the vocabulary words, concepts and "rules" of grammar and syntax.
Why do you do this to me...About to go to sleep, I see your comment, and of course I have to search for Joscha Bach now and hear him out I'll be tired tomorrow for work It's your fault
I don't understand why the metaphor of consciousness as a "computer" simulation, where information is the ontological basis for the simulated conscious experience, while having computers as a demonstration that this simulation is connected to material reality ( in our care our brains hard wetware), is not used more frequently. Seen in this light, consciousness does not seem so mysterious.
Yes, this is the simplest way I've found. Matter can't ever be conscious, only simulations can be. The physical brain is not conscious--it simulates a world and a character in it. Τhe character identifies with the ape on which it is simulated. Qualia are mental, a kind of thought, and we have no direct access to base reality, i.e. the "real" physical world. Anyone interested in this view should look up Joscha Bach.
@@creditmetory thanks for the info, I'll have to check him out. The computer software as a metaphor for the mind is probably as old as computers? The tricky bit is to make that metaphor more concrete, (the so called easy problem) does he do that? What the metaphor does do is make the hard problem seem less unfathomable
@@tophersonX Whether his descriptions will satisfy the mystery you see, I don't know--but I bet he will contribute something to your view. I don't think he views "mind as software" as much of an analogy, it's more just a description of what's going on. To him, the brain is obviously computational and there's nothing fundamentally mysterious about a computer simulating a world + an experiencing agent in it.
To me it would seem that trying to understand consciousness would be more like trying to see “back inside” through the window from which you see the world “outside”. It seems like we are able to take a step back and see ourselves looking through the window, but never actually look “back inside”
It makes more sense that everything is in the mind, so that there is no such thing as “reality” but only perceived concepts. Just as the number four is a concept, the perception of a ball is a concept. There is only a need for a connection between the mind world and the material world if the material world exists.
@@donaldanderson6578 i'm so sorry you're born without brains. Good for you to make that work, not many people are able to move when their dead from the neck up but you manage to do so in your own way.
The people who say that science cannot understand consciousness would have said that science cannot understand time 100 years ago. In fact, in a sense those people where right: science did not answer those questions about time. What it did is provide a *new* view of time, and that new view revealed those old questions about time to be naive and in a sense bad questions. Subsequently, we simply stopped caring about those old questions, similar to how science made us stop caring about how many angels fit on the head of a needle. Science will never answer the current questions about consciousness. What it might well do is reframe the whole debate. Philosophy, on the other hand, does not have any hope of answering the questions without input from science. Furthermore, empirically, it doesn't tend to reframe the debate in a meaningful way either. Philosophers run in circles until science reframes the debate, and then they go and run in circles in that new location that science made them go to.
Philosophers can help define the questions better and clarify the explanations once the data is in hand. I agree 100% that only science can resolve outstanding questions.
@@chemquests I agree, philosophy does have the potential to do that. Unfortunately, in practice, it does not seem to be very successful at it. I think this is primarily explained by philosophers overvaluing word-based reasoning, and undervaluing empirical facts. For instance, the discussion about plastic bands and love seems to me fairly meaningless. It seems to me that it would be more valuable to spend time taking scientific facts on board, such as whether or not the feeling of intending to move your hand only arises after the hand has already been set in motion. A discussion of the evolution of species seems to me also highly relevant, and much more likely to lead to clarification than plastic bands and love. Alex's example of the blue LED is pertinent here. The technique of word-based reasoning never gets you a blue LED. In fact, that method of reasoning is more likely to lead a pre-technological philosopher to conclude that such a thing is impossible. The technique of intuition + word-based reasoning is extremely unreliable. It should be treated with the utmost suspicion, but it is the central method of philosophy. This is in stark contrast to the scientific method and mathematical reasoning, which in the long term are both reliable and scale to solve complicated problems, such as turning black slurry pumped out of the ground into bright coloured stretchy bands.
Science understands consciousness fairly well, the understanding improves every year with rtms and fmri. Anyone who says that it doesn't isn't a curious person and clearly doesn't do any meaningful research. But that makes sense right? Most people who denigrate science only read from one book. Where as you may need to read 10 or so to understand this topic well. When you think you have all the answers it's likely you have none.
I think there's basically two main approaches to consciousness where one corresponds well with what you say and the other not. The first one is where subjective consciousness is viewed as trivial as it's merely what facilitates our discussion in the first place. From this point of view science has every chance of exhausting what there is to know about consciousness, as one takes on the third person stance to begin with. The other perspective is the one which is essentially founded in the impossibility of ascertaining other subjective consciousnesses outside subjective consciousness itself. Here of course scientists will often lose their patience as it's not really an empirically tenable consideration. I think, however, that it's important not to forget this perspective so as to give context into our investigations, and separate what "is" from what is knowable.
@@timtopsnav well articulated. That “other perspective” does test my patience because even if it’s valid it’s a dead end. We could end up in a philosophical cult-de-sac discussing qualia ad infinitum making no progress. The scientific approach has served us well and seems the only viable route, even if we can’t capture subjectivity in a completely satisfactory way. I suspect whatever residue of subjectivity remains won’t be of practical use, but will continue to inspire great literature (which is valuable non the less).
I am under the opinion that consciousness is just our subjectively percieved phenomenon we experience when our cognitive functions are doing just that: functioning.
I find it interesting to look at the graduation in order to help describe it. We have three examples that are compelling to me. 1) growth of one human, from cells to adult, at one point we are not conscious, and it builds gradually not like a switch 2) evolutionarily, obviously we cannot study our ancestry in great depth but we can find examples of animals of varied intelligence and varied inner life 3) anaesthesia (and other neuro stuff like deep brain stimulation), the science of switching off consciousness, again it's gradual and decidedly not like a switch. Studying these can help better describe what it is. Even before we look at the experiments directly modelling and chipping away and building our knowledge of what it isn't
8:42, I suffer from Depersonalization & Derealization. And it's like your window got way thicker and dirty, so now you notice that window all the time and it's disturbing. Especially if you have 24/7 over decades. You can't really concentrate on stuff behind the window because the window itself is so distracting now. Plus everything you see through the window looks strange and unfamiliar. All I hope is that one day I get a new window, so I can enjoy the things behind the window again, instead of being so dissociated from everything, with the window I have since now 2009. PS: Sorry for spelling errors. English ist not my first language. Greetings Steve
Hi Alex, I think having Bernardo Kastrup on, he's a very persuasive idealist philosopher in my opinion and could provide many elegant answers to the questions you raise here, would make for a very interesting and fruitful discussion.
Awareness is innately self-aware because it is awareness. Awareness doesn't need to look back at itself to be aware of itself, any more than a star needs to shine back on itself to light itself up. The awareness of awareness, or being aware of being aware, is the only knowledge that doesn't take place in subject/object relationship - it is direct knowledge, knowing by being.
He is the philosophical equivalent of chewing packing peanuts, substanceless, flavourless somehow also stale he fails to comprehend that any theoretical universe that's empty of consious beings also has noone pondering how unlikely it is, That's even before we understand that just like there is no rhythm in a single thump, you can't get probability with a single example. as deeply unsatifying as cgi porridge
As a Physics student, i have a bit of insight to how science is being done and what we consider to be the "material world" and for a whole bunch of stuff it already gets really weird, especially when you go into quantum mechanics. this is certainly a very serious and pretty well understood field of science, at least among those who have really studied it, but this field of science is barely "material" because, at least in the parts we really understand, materialistic properties are not part of the fundamental informations we have about particles. They are both wave and particle, they have properties of both and yet they are singular objects. mathematically speaking they would best be described by a field of probabilities that expands in space in all directions simultaniously and that in not really the thing you`d expect from a particle when you try to think about it intuitively. Nevertheless this is what we observe. Science to me is the most serious attempt of understanding nature as it is, however we may find it to be.
Light sensing is really helpful for survival. Creatures that can sense changes in light, especially sudden ones, can exploit this and get away from predators etc. It is a very simple "model" of the reality they find themselves with. Their sense is not reality, it is a useful simplification. The potentially humbling fact here might just be that while our minds have modeled everything in exquisite detail, and has even modeled itself, it sees this highly advanced reality modeling as complete enough to then conclude that there is a mystery. We tie ourselves in knots while we forget that all our brain is really any use for is modeling our world. And our models are so self-serving (because they started with self-preservation), that we are now stuggling to imagine what this "thing" called consciousness could possibly be. It isn't a thing. It is a process. You can't find torque in an engine, you put that label on what it produces. The brain models itself, just like it models everything else. "Consciousness" is the label we put on that process. Labels are handy mini-models that may or may not refer to something real or imagined. We label things long before we understand them. And we often make category mistakes and think our labels are reality. And we forget that we cannot ever access reality directly. We cannot know anything. So if we start assuming that our own self-modeling is the only thing that we can verify and claim is really real (Decartes error), we have fooled ourselves into thinking we are trying to understand a mysterious thing, rather simply recognizing that we are the subject of our own process of attempting to model things in the world so we might exploit them to our survival advantage. The irony seems, that we might not quite be smart enough to let go of our own egotistical view in enough time to stop our collective demise. Or to put it another way: the jury is still out on whether self-aware intelligence is the evolutionary advantage that we all love to take it for granted.
Loved the talk. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on Jiddu Krishnamurti and some of his philosophies. He has some very interesting things to say on the topic of consciousness. As well, he also lived a unique life that I think’s worth looking at, in general.
The thing is it's hard to understand what Jiddu talked about without actually doing the practices and seeing it first hand. I highly recommend such practices
@@bike4aday I agree, but many people are good at talking about it in a way that even people who haven’t necessarily “practiced” might Intuit the truth behind it if they’re so inclined. Of course a lot of people will say it’s all utter nonsense because they can’t get “beyond “ they’re own minds so there’s that 🤷🏻♀️
I want Alex to do a podcast with Swami Sarvapriyananda, he's an advaita vedantic monk! He already did podcasts with many philosophers and scientists including Sam Harris!
Marc Solms a South African neuropsychologist consciousness researcher using research on self-organizing systems by mathematician Karl Fristin, proposes that in the pursuit of minimizing chaos (reducing incidents that move us away from homeostasis) like hunger, cold, danger etc. consciousness arose to fine tune our responses to our unpredictable environment. I could imagine that consciousness might emerge on a gradient commensurate with the complexity of the system.
The last point seems question begging ; if the mind is material then it's not possible to have more thoughts than material units. I also think it's pretty apparent from introspection you can't multiply thoughts as claimed, try to think about 20 set at the same time and report how it's going, I can barely get to three.
@@jameswatson5807 Awareness is when you're able to have the abstract knowledge of your world around you while consciousness is the sentient mind itself. For example, a person dreaming may not be aware of his world around him until it wakes up, but he's still conscious because he can get the feelings in the dream like colors, sounds, taste and touch.
@@jameswatson5807 just do this enquiry, there is someone inside you that is continuously observing, whatever you do but awareness change according to how much we are aware of experience that is happening. For ex, when we feel drowsy or sleepy, we experience that by consciousness but our awareness decreases as we cannot extract information from that experience. Consciousness remains same because there is no moment our experience stop but the degree of experience may change according to awareness.
@@jameswatson5807 in my understanding consciousness is the ontic primitive and awareness is cognitive activity..not sure I am right about what is his understanding about awareness
23:40 _"if redness itself existed in the brain I'd be able to cut open your brain and find redness but it's not there"_ I will never understand that... What do you mean _"it's not there"_ ? Of course it's there... What are you looking for exactly ?
There is nothing red within the brain. This means that regardless of what the brain processes that lead to redness are, the brain processes are not redness.
@@Nitroade24 *-"There is nothing red within the brain. This means that regardless of what the brain processes that lead to redness are, the brain processes are not redness."* First, that's a non sequitur. The conclusion that *"the brain processes are not redness"* doesn't follow from the fact that *"nothing is red within the brain".* Second, redness isn't red right ? Why would you expect that redness be red ? Third, what makes you think that *"there is nothing red within the brain"* ?
There's so much I would love to talk to Alex about regarding these topics and the similar ones he discussed with Philip Goff. I've got some theoretical (and philosophical) solutions to so many of the questions he seems to be hung up or at least some directions of thought to head towards. I'm actually surprised he gets hung up in certain places when the path out of those predicaments seem somewhat obvious to me. Alex has an extraordinary mind, massively more capable, studied, and eloquent than my own which is why I'm amazed he is approaching these questions from the limited angles that he does. I'd love for him to tell me which of my thoughts make sense and which are logically fallible hypotheses.
The problem with the current scientific model is the assumption that matter gives rise to consciousness. In non duality you get the experiential understanding (not really understanding because it cannot be known through the mind, but words are inherently dualistic) that Consciousness gives rise to matter. The mind can never know Consciousness because it is finite while Consciousness is infinite.
@@FlamingoCupcake28 If consciousness and the material are of the same nature, does the apparently material have consciousness? You have a point of view and a current state. Are that point of view and that state illusory? Is your understanding of reality, as an undifferentiated unit, also an illusion or are there realities within the illusion?
So long as consciousness remains ‘the hard problem’ this discussion will continue. Philosophy is stumped by consciousness so it is good to tease these questions out. It is very helpful and is counter to the biological reductiveness of the Darwinian and sociobiological perspectives which have consciousness and mind being created by and evolving from elements by randomness to no known or extistent prototype. It apparently took billions of years to get it right but still it is a stretch of the imagination. Like a Rolls-Royce coming together randomly.
Just to clarify, the last point is suggesting a "first mind" by positing that there are more possible conceivable thoughts than possible arrangements of matter to produce the amount of possible thoughts?
Fundamentally, all entities exist in a state of physical resonance with other entities in their surrounding environment. In other words, reverberations of nearby entities naturally occur within the physical structure of every entity. The reverberations occurring within an "actively engaged entity" (i.e. an entity whose innate survival preference necessitates an active engagement with its environment) naturally "inform" this entity of its surroundings, whereas the reverberations occurring within all other classes of entity are not informative to those entities. Therefore, this "informative resonance" IS the entity's consciousness, which is utilised by the entity similarly to the way one utilises a map. In this way, the situation of consciousness can be conceptually described as being "ontologically inextricable" from active engagement. Non-conceptually, the situation of consciousness is functionally indistinguishable from active engagement.
I think you know very little of neuroscience or quantum physics. I think you are finding this very profound and meaningful and I encourage you to carry on pondering and seeking. Please don't settle harder than is justified with the evidence you have! You would look plausible if you are the cutting edge but very silly if it relies on easily verifiable false ideas about the world
@@FartPanther I appreciate the feedback. You are correct about how little I know of those fields. Would you care to elaborate on the easily verifiable false ideas I'm relying on?
I'm fairly sure you've actually just re-labelled mundane things with obscure languange. Without a back and forth I can't really tell if you're mistaken or a mystic. Using your own words this is what I think you said: Consciousness is functionally indistinguishable from ... innate survival preferences plus active engagement the environment. All things interacts with their environments, only conscious things are "informed" by their environments. Did you mean anything else? If there is, can you think of a way you'd design a test to be able to tell between if reality was how you describe or how I put it?
@@FartPanther No, you pretty much nailed it. I guess the language I've used may be a little convoluted, but I was trying to paint a very vivid picture of the way I view it.
Sorry for my negativity, dealing with a lot at the moment. You sound very honest and it's a real skill to get that convoluted and remain accurate. For me I would like to see you use your obvious intellect to make convoluted things simple rather than the other way around. I think this would be more meaningful to me but I can't speak for you obviously! You do you and never lose that fascination with these complex and mysterious lives we have! I think the only meaning there is is what we find, so we should appreciate and cultivate it everywhere.
This was absolutely fascinating. I was riveted by every word and appreciate the in-depth discussion and exploration of the topic. "Mind first" makes most sense to me, but that's as far as I can go at this point.
Look, it's not complicated. Let there be two agents, agent one (A1) and agent two (A2). If A1 describes a chair, A1 will list properties of the chair : - It has four legs - It has a back - It has a seat - The chair hides the bottom half of the plant which is behind it. - The leg the closest to the plant is hidden behind the leg closest to me. A2 might agree with the first three properties listed, but not with the last two, because A2 has a different perspective on the chair. If A2 is able to envisage the perspective of A1, then A2 will understand why A1 gave such properties to the chair. The first three properties can be called "public" properties, precisely because they can be given by different agents no matter their perspective. I call them "2nd person properties". The last two properties can be called "private" properties, precisely because they can only be given from a given perspective, and therefore by a single agent (A1), or by another agent (A2) if he is able to envisage what the perspective of A1 is. I call them "1st person properties". It is EXACTLY the same for consciousness. If A1 wants to describe consciousness, he will list properties : - It disappears when I am asleep. - It disappears when I take anesthetics. - It disappears when I take a sufficiently strong blow to the head or when my carotid arteries are blocked. - It is poppulated with colors, shapes, contrasts, - It is populated with pain, pleasure, hunger, thurst The first three are public properties of consciousness. If a second person, A2, wanted to describe consciousness (that of A1), he will list the same properties. They are 2nd person properties of consciousness. The last two are private properties of consciousness _(qualia),_ A second person could only describe them if they were able to envisage the perspective of A1. When we describe the brain structures, the neurons, or the atoms, we are giving 2nd person properties of mental objects. When we describe the qualia, we are giving 1st person properties of mental objects. BUT THEY ARE THE SAME OBJECTS ! They simply are described along different perspectives. Russell spoke of _"neutral monism"._ One substance, with two types of properties (see _"property dualism")._ The first person properties, and the 2nd person properties. The only reason (it seems) that people don't understand this is _"naive realism"..._ Basically the rejection of perspectivism and a naive expectation or desire for objectivity.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me (from the definition of objective). P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia). C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent). From there two arguments can follow : P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism). C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent) Or : P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent) C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false) One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens. It seems that either realism about atoms is false (if physicalism is true), or physicalism is false (if realism about atoms is true). The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
@@Lerian_V Well, that is the case for distant celestial objects for example. If they are extremely far, then we basically only have one perspective on the object (and probably will only ever have one), so we can only list its properties according to what we see about them from our perspective. Some additional properties can be attributed to the object by induction, which means by placing it in the same category as other objects on which we have different perspectives.
@@Lerian_V *-"In other words, truth is relative to the perceiving mind, right?"* That's kind of a separate topic, since I was talking about the philosophy of mind, or about the ontology of mental objects and of consciousness. But yes, in perspectivism as an epistemological position, truth is indeed a matter of perspective. By the way this is usually aligned with common positions in analytic philosophy. In analytic philosophy, truth is often considered a property of propositions. And truth is often described as a value (see _"truth value"_ in logic for example). And as any and all values, they need to be "evaluated". Therefore truth is the result of the "evaluation" of the "truth value" of a proposition. And what kind of things "evaluate" or make "evaluations" ? ... Minds ! Minds are the type of things that "evaluate". So truth is relative to the "evaluation" of a mind, which is a "perspective" on a given proposition.
Assertion 1: Thing A cannot be conscious of thing B unless directly or indirectly thing B causes *some* informative change to be wrought in thing A. Agreed?
We were made by God in His image. This assertion is not subjected to peer review because God has no peers who can review what He does or has done. The fact that God created us in His image explains a lot about our conciousness. God is self-conscious and so are we. Once we accept this axiomatic truth, the profound mystery of conciousness makes perfect sense.
Absurd. Being made in the image of God means nothing. What part of the image of God does God and humans share and what parts of the image of God only belongs to God? And how do you know that?
@@jonatasmachado7217 Okay, you can say it makes sense to begin with an axiomatic statement like this, but that doesn't make it true. We still should try to understand consciousness.
@@jonatasmachado7217 The “old school” argument is that god is really smart and we can never comprehend his existence nor his wisdom. That makes a god obsolete and basically useless.
Consciousness is the particle and wave duality experiment. The cones and rods of the eye preserve the particle and wave duality so your vision don't look like a flat screen television. It's supposed to be a violation of physics but that is the exception.
A: Materialism is right! B: But the latest scientific findings seem to go against it. A: Let's change the definition of materialism then! Please invite Bernardo Kastrup, I want to see you attack his ideas.
Exactly. The new materialists claiming that qualitative peoperties are contained within the physical reality is just hillarious. Just an incoherent account for a (materialist) paradigm that has no legs to stand on.
The dialogue Alex mentions by Lewis Carroll at about 17:45 is called "What the Tortoise said to Achilles." Classic paper about the nature of logical entailment.
The thing about being aware of awareness, is that awareness then becomes the subject. And so if you become aware of the awareness of your awareness of a thing,then that aggregate becomes the subject. And we can apply this to as many "aware of awareness"es as you'd like. It's always just one subject. So there's nothing really impressive going on with the brain in this scenario. It's really not different than imagining a picture of video feedback, or an infinite amount of reflections in two mirrors.
not really, have you actually tried to become aware of awareness? if you try you will reach a state of pure awareness, this is basically the goal of meditation and has been taught since 7th century BC *or rather not try at all
Being aware of awareness is a bi-product of intellegience. Very few species are actually aware of their own existence (first stage awareness/consciousness), and we know that because of the mirror test. Therefore we can conclude that being aware of awareness is not a mystical immaterial thing, but can be explained by science.
The empirical research into consciousness is being done in the field of "cognitive science." This field of study is a precursor to "artificial intelligence" and "neurology" (see, Mark Solms, the "Hidden Spring"). And in the military, this question falls under the "OODA loop" (observe, orient, decide, act) was developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. In mathematics it's called a "feedback loop" from "continuous dynamical systems theory." The idea of a defined entity with individual agency comes from the principles of the "Markov barrier."
In eyes, a world of light unfolds, Photons dancing, stories told. Colors vibrant, shapes defined, A symphony of sight, refined. In ears, a tapestry of sound, Vibrations whispered, all around. From birdsong sweet to thunder's boom, A symphony of hearing, in bloom. On skin, a touch, a gentle breeze, Warmth and coolness, nature's ease. Pain and pleasure, textures fine, A symphony of feeling, ever thine. In noses, scents that fill the air, Memories awaken, sweet and rare. From floral fragrance to baking's call, A symphony of smell, enchanting all. On tongues, a dance of flavors bright, Sweet and sour, day and night. Savory delights, a taste divine, A symphony of taste, eternally thine. Inner ears, a balance kept, Guiding steps, where we have slept. Tilting, turning, never still, A symphony of balance, fulfilling. Muscles and joints, a tale they tell, Of movement free, where we excel. Stretching, flexing, reaching high, A symphony of movement, reaching the sky. Nociceptors cry, when danger's near, Warning of pain, be cautious, clear. A prickly sting, a throbbing ache, A symphony of pain, for safety's sake. Thermoreceptors, guardians wise, Sense the heat, the cold they rise. Shivering chills, a sun-kissed glow, A symphony of temperature, ebb and flow. Chemoreceptors, breathing's guide, Inhale the life, where oxygen hides. Exhale the waste, a rhythm keeps, A symphony of breathing, slumber deep. Stretch receptors, whispers low, Organs full, or time to go. Hunger pangs or bladder's need, A symphony of signals, nature's deed. Plants stand tall, to sunlight drawn, Leaves unfurl, a new day's dawn. Roots descend, in darkness deep, A symphony of growth, secrets to keep. These senses sing, a chorus grand, Connecting us to this vast land. A symphony of nature's art, Forever etched, within our heart.
Senses come before "awareness" and consciousness. Cases where sleepwalkers perform complex tasks show that consciousness and awareness are separate things. Sensory input and processing can occur without consciousness. Consciousness is like windows 3.1 booting on top of DOS.
I would argue that we are not experiencing "reality" through our senses but rather only the information that was useful for our ancestors to reproduce. If we take vision as an example, our eyes simply transmit a subset of data that is around us (visible light) to our brain which then constructs what it believes to be useful for us to focus on. The book The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman explains this way better than I ever could.
Do you all remember those 3D Magic Eye pictures where you stare at them long enough and the abstract colorful image transforms into 3D picture of some object? If we evolved to see the truth of the world around us, which image is true, the one with the 3D image or the one without? You are also not seeing the dots the printer placed on the page to create the overall image, nor can you see the bacteria covering the page, and you don't see atoms that make up the page or subatomic particles that make up the atoms. We evolved to see the useful bits of information and construct medium sized objects in our mind, there really isn't another explanation.
Alex - you have one of my favorite minds and are one of my favorite voices to listen to. But you have *got* to drop this question about redness. I take it take your reasoning is something like - redness is a quality of consciousness, and if conciseness is a function of the brain, then why can’t you cut open a brain and find redness? Then you add that neural processes encapsulate the experience of redness but not the redness itself. The most straightforward answer is that “redness”, as an attribute, is approximated and extracted by your brain from your experiences. Just like tastiness and loneliness and love. These types of things are just common denominators of similar experiences. But your question, from a materialist perspective, makes you sound as if you misunderstand the materialist argument and severely misunderstand neurology and the brain. I’ll make a symmetrical argument to show you. I can say that rhythm is an attribute or quality of dance, and I know that dancing is a thing people do. But if I were to cut open a dancer, I would fail to find any rhythm. So I can conclude that the existence of rhythm within the phenomenon known as dancing poses problems for materialism. The above example strikes me as equally as nonsensical as the redness argument. Again, this comes from a place of love. I have tremendous respect for you and I find you to be one of the sharpest and most philosophically fortified voices on the planet. Certainly on CZcams. If I were to dye and face God in court, I’d have trouble choosing between you and Sam Harris as my defense. (You’re stronger philosophically, imo, but Sam has that otherworldly, monk-like clarity. You’re both excellent logicians.)
The issue here is that rhythm appears to be an emergent phenomenon that arises out of specific movements in time with music, while redness appears to be a simple idea composed merely of one thing: the experience of redness.
@@Nitroade24 I would strongly challenge the notion that redness is simpler, in any way, than rhythm. They are both properties of pattern recognition, but rhythm is (basically, probably) based on dividing time in ways that are repeatable, predictable, and appealing. It’s almost certainly more of a social phenomenon than is redness. But the experience of ‘redness’ is unbelievably complicated. Idk how much of this background you know, but perception of the color red is based on particular wavelengths of light being reflected from objects we recognize as red. The idea of ‘redness’ comes from the culmination of experiencing ‘red’ things. Those things reflected slightly different wavelengths, but all fell within the boundary we’ve set for red, and after a while we can abstract the quality they all had in common: their redness. One huge piece of evidence for this is that color perception, like rhythm, is influenced by sociology. Due to their environment, some African societies recognize 5-6 different hues that Americans would recognize flatly as all just green. So 5 Americans can visualize ‘greenness’ and to an African, their ‘greenness’ might be 5 different colors with 5 different names, connotations, relevant experiences, etc.
@@Williamwilliam1531you don't seem to understand the problem with "redness" and qualia in general. You talk about all the work we do when experiencing "red" things, but the issue is precisely what "red" is and why we get that qualitative experience after interacting with these objects. You mention the wavelength, but that in itself is part of the problem - "inverted wavelength" is a well-known issue and thought experiment, for example. The qualitative colors in the wavelength could in principle be different; the mystery is precisely why and how on earth we get the qualitative colors (and other qualitative sense experiences) from these third-person descriptions that absolutely do not conceptually necessitate the colors or senses in question. A brilliant neuroscientist and physicist who was blind from birth could understand everything about the brain and the physics of light; they could know all the physical facts you mentioned and still they wouldn't have the faintest idea of what qualitative redness actually is.
I think the problem of understanding consciousness is semantics. There are things that we perceive that are not necessarily in our immediate ‘consciousness’. The word itself is confounding. Multiple elements are necessary to understand the thing we finally call consciousness. First is perception. This gives us the raw evidentiary data (not unique to us). Next is the fundamental mental activity of naming or classification of all this sensory input (not unique but rare). We do this ‘subconsciously’ and while dreaming. Next introduce the concept of imaginative memory, the process of integration by way of creative narrative development (the difference maker). We have the ability to remember sensory input and then creatively manipulate it into the narratives we perceive as real time awareness
The start of the conversation reminded me of a trigram Penrose created with the associations between the physical, the mental, and the mathematical.We need the mathematical to understand the physical, but we need the physical to have the mental, but we need the mental to understand the mathematical.
2 options. 1. "annatta" : the buddhist 5 aggregates show there is no self/consciousness only sense stimulus and the brain's reaction to them. (try to be aware of more than 1 sense at the same time) or 2. "idealism" the world is an illusion. which leads to solipsism, and "advaita vendanta"" ( I am god) this entire conversation and the so called "hard problem" is based on the fallacy of assuming (begging the question) of cartesian dualism. (the mind/body distinction). once you accept it's all or none. there is no more "hard problem". it's either idealism/advaita vendanta or materialism/annatta.
Nature gives us hint of its working mechanism. Everything is a by product of larger objects and they both are dependent on each other. For example there are no rocks without lava, there is no tree without a seed and then a fallen seed gives rise to a tree. Space planets universe work in same way. Our universe maybe a byproduct or coming together of higher states of existence like a older universe or combinations of few universes. Matter is the byproduct of it and humans and brain is just byproduct of matter specifically combined on our planet. The evolutionary advantage we had was standing up on our legs which helped us maneuver our bodies which helped us build tools. It freed up lots of time to think whereas rest of animal kingdom still remain in hunting and wandering phase. We are not special we just got lucky in our evolutionary phase. Mind is just composition of all these things. One cannot exist without the other.
The moment a particle is a wave; it has to be a conscious wave! Gravity is the conscious attraction among waves to create the illusion of particles, and our experience-able Universe. Max Planck states: "Consciousness is fundamental and matter is derived from Consciousness". Life is the Infinite Consciousness, experiencing the Infinite Possibilities, Infinitely. We are "It", experiencing our infinite possibilities in our finite moment. Our job is to make it interesting!
The "great problem" of consciousness is that people with no background in neuroscience pose endless questions about it rooted in archaic philosophy, or worse, theology. It causes a great deal of unnecessary confusion. Francis Crick didn't think it posed a real problem and it doesn't.
@@scottythetrex5197 Neuroscience doesn't provide any answer to the hard problem of consciousness. It gives us a wider frame of reference and considerations, but neuroscience does not deal with issues such as hard problem. Neuroscientists know about brain reactions correlating to mental states (the easy problem), not consciousness itself.
@@JHeb_it does seem like if you put enough of the easy problem solutions together, there doesn't seem to be much left for the hard problem to worry about.
@@uninspired3583 so far the solutions to the easy problem do not answer at all to the hard problem of consciousness. Our understanding of the human brain is extremely limited. Which is why neuroscience doesn't attempt yet to approach the hard problem.
When holding a mote of dust on the tip of a hair it seems incongruent that this mote could ever affect our perception of colour, of heat, of space; and yet enough motes can make a star. It is the emerging interaction of matter rather than an emerging property.
It may help him reduce confusion if he recognizes that these infinite regresses of thought/awareness/perception/consciousness/etc do not all happen at once, it's a series of perceptions (which he acknowledged at the beginning but seemed to have forgotten later)
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1:07:10 for another example of “incongruence”, in the sense that if X and Y are incongruent, we know a priori that Y can’t emerge (or be “made up”) of X, however complex the arrangement of X may be… take Y to be any 3D structure, and take X to be everything that is possible to do in a given 2D plane, like lines, circles, triangles, spirals or whatever: no matter how complex your 2D structure may become, it will never rise to the third dimension just on the basis of its 2D complexity.
I think the numbers-making-up-pine-cones example is fair as well: even if you don’t agree that numbers exist, it’s not like you would think that “IF numbers did exist, THEN I see how they could make up pine cones”. That’s a bit like the 2D-3D example at bottom, for platonic abstract numbers wouldn’t be spatial at all, that’s for sure, and thus unable to compose a tridimensional pine cone. 2D items lack one spatial dimension, abstract numbers lack all of them.
Straight in. No highlight, teaser, intro or run through what’s covered. Love it.
I would’ve liked an introduction. Why do I care what this guy says? Who is he?
@@KBosch-xp2ut would it not be best to hear him speak without the validation of someone else? You can always see what people think of him afterwards and then adjust if you feel the need.
Have you been sleeping under rock? People interested in philosophy should know who Joshua Rasmussen is?
@@KBosch-xp2utIf you have that absymal attention span I fear you can fuck right off to Tiktok.
@@hudsontd7778in the nicest way possible, not everyone studies philosophy. I personally undertook a psychology degree and I now work in HR. I have no idea who this guy is (had to Google him) and yeah an intro would have been great. Not having a go at Alex though, love the guy.
If you have ever tried to meditate you will gain greater insight into your conscienceness because the locus of your attention is so difficult to control. Stopping sensory input and thoughts from emerging is a revealing exercise. We are hardwired to have thoughts and images emerge from the brain and it is relentless probably from darwinian survival.
This is an awesome conversation!! Can we please have a sequel to go over the remaining problems?? 🤩
Agreed!
It's so dumb.
@@enekaitzteixeira7010 What is?
@@theautodidacticlayman Trying to learn about consciousness from a philosopher instead of a cognitive scientist would be my guess
@@jyjjy7 The same data is available to both, isn’t it? Plus, philosophers are trained specifically to ask questions and find coherent answers, while cognitive scientists might* not have to study logic as rigorously. So if the data is publicly available, and if philosophers are better trained for analyzing, then voices like Josh’s are extremely valuable in these types of conversations.
* An example I can think of is from a conversation with Donald Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist, who proposes a view based on the idea that evolution has shaped our minds to see reality as something it truly is not, so that we’ve adapted an illusory view of reality, but Phillip Goff, a philosopher, points out that if this view were true, it would be self-defeating because if our minds are perceiving an illusory reality, and evolution is part of that illusion, then we can’t confidently say that is how reality truly is because our cognitive faculties wouldn’t reliable… know what I mean?
The books “Incomplete Nature,” “I am a Strange Loop,” and “Gödel, Escher, Bach” - the last two by Douglas Hoffstadter- attempt to describe consciousness by the attempts of the brain trying to be aware of itself…as something that attempts to be aware if itself…
Basically exactly what Alex was saying at around the 15 minute block.
And the animals debating logical deductions (Alex around 18min) is one of the dialogues in GEB.
Doesn't answer why every perception has a certain signature, i.e. color, sensation.
The mind generates the brain, not vice versa.
@@LukasOfTheLightYou don’t know that. You have a bias that prefers idealism.
@@LukasOfTheLight Yep. Last week I poofed up a unicorn. Tomorrow I'm gonna do some Blue Pixies.
As a psychologist, this conversation made me think a lot about Dissociative Identity Disorder. Awesome conversation ❤
Look up Bernardo Kastrup. His philosophy is largely based on DID.
@@fahad56297 oh, I'll surely do that. Thanks a lot 😊
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
I Corinthians 10:12 (KJV)
@@joannware6228 sure 😅
Bruh, why KJV? That version of English is a different language. If you want to avoid translation errors just quote the greek.
You should get David Bentley Hart on the podcast to talk about consciousness
Holy god yes
Yes! And Bernardo Kastrup
@@arono9304 Kastrup would be awesome too
Bernardo Kastrup is the one we need.
absolutely, he is best on this subject imo
Another 90 minutes of we have no idea.
And I love every bit of it
@@rafaelt8589real
Yes - glorious: a more enlightened ‘ not knowing ‘ , more robust , informed , more nuanced. .., more satisfying wonder , yes ? . Yes . 90 minutes well spent .
If you got the answer you would likely be just as disappointed
@cosmicskeptic About Consciousness studying and understanding Consciousness. You can break down someone else's Consciousness into parts and study the pieces one at a time. That method has worked wonderfully for everything we currently understand, so far. Of course that requires the avoidance of any harm. That's why we use fMRI, tests, and statistics; and regretfully, when someone has suffered an accident or sickness we pay attention to the effects.
I'm sure you know all that, just clarifying for other readers.
Deep brain stimulation is fascinating.
Josh Rasmussen is always amazing
lol, he looks like the squirrel from over the hedge
I honestly can’t tell if he’s brilliant or some hack, I never understand any of these podcasts
@@Jaryism He is a hack.
@@Jaryism I don't know too much about him, but there are people whose judgement I trust that think he's brilliant.
@@Jaryism definitely brilliant. At least there is wide agreement on this. His books are pretty awesome.
Good stuff Alex and I must say, this is one of the best podcasts to Watch in terms of quality of the video, nice 4k24p brilliant to watch!
17:00 _"I would say that the problems with those first three um through reflection and Analysis lead to in our argument for number four which is that you have a power of awareness"_
I would agree but why stop there ? If you find the foundation of your epistemology, and then you discover something through the use of that epistemology, and that thing seem to perfectly explain the foundation of your epistemology, then why resist the obvious circularity ?
52:15 _" If the Mindless bits of reality are pulling the strings and all of your thoughts and feelings then how can an intention to raise your hand make a difference to the world if everything that happens is fundamentally explained in terms of the physics"_
If material is first, it doesn't mean that the mental isn't material right ? So _"mindless bits"_ become mental objects right ? So you _"intention to raise your hand"_ is simply the name you give to your first person experience of a bunch of material bits that are also mental... Your first person experience of a mental object (your _"intention to raise your hand")_ which is made of material bits.
Look, it's not complicated.
Let there be two agents, agent one (A1) and agent two (A2).
If A1 describes a chair, A1 will list properties of the chair :
- It has four legs
- It has a back
- It has a seat
- The chair hides the bottom half of the plant which is behind it.
- The leg the closest to the plant is hidden behind the leg closest to me.
A2 might agree with the first three properties listed, but not with the last two, because A2 has a different perspective on the chair. If A2 is able to envisage the perspective of A1, then A2 will understand why A1 gave such properties to the chair.
The first three properties can be called "public" properties, precisely because they can be given by different agents no matter their perspective. I call them "2nd person properties".
The last two properties can be called "private" properties, precisely because they can only be given from a given perspective, and therefore by a single agent (A1), or by another agent (A2) if he is able to envisage what the perspective of A1 is. I call them "1st person properties".
It is EXACTLY the same for consciousness. If A1 wants to describe consciousness, he will list properties :
- It disappears when I am asleep.
- It disappears when I take anesthetics.
- It disappears when I take a sufficiently strong blow to the head or when my carotid arteries are blocked.
- It is poppulated with colors, shapes, contrasts,
- It is populated with pain, pleasure, hunger, thurst
The first three are public properties of consciousness. If a second person, A2, wanted to describe consciousness (that of A1), he will list the same properties. They are 2nd person properties of consciousness.
The last two are private properties of consciousness _(qualia),_ A second person could only describe them if they were able to envisage the perspective of A1.
When we describe the brain structures, the neurons, or the atoms, we are giving 2nd person properties of mental objects. When we describe the qualia, we are giving 1st person properties of mental objects. BUT THEY ARE THE SAME OBJECTS ! They simply are described along different perspectives.
Russell spoke of _"neutral monism"._ One substance, with two types of properties (see _"property dualism")._ The first person properties, and the 2nd person properties.
The only reason (it seems) that people don't understand this is _"naive realism"..._ Basically the rejection of perspectivism and a naive expectation or desire for objectivity.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me (from the definition of objective).
P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia).
C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent).
From there two arguments can follow :
P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism).
C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent)
Or :
P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent)
C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false)
One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens.
It seems that either realism about atoms is false (if physicalism is true), or physicalism is false (if realism about atoms is true).
The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
Good conversation. I am a mathematician with an inclination to philosophy of maths, and when you guys started talking about infinities, it was not only mathematically nonsense (Alex looking at you), but philosophically very dubious to apply this to something like thought. We are finite beings and our thoughts are certainly finite, and it is very hard to imagine how using infinities has any justification or explanatory value here.
Aren't numbers just thoughts themselves? Or are they platonic instead?
Check out Donald Hoffman
I know what these guys are discussing is deep/complicated/fun/etc., but sometimes I can't help but smile a little with they discuss (a) being aware that we're aware of being aware that we're aware, and (b) using plastic whimsy kid toys to thought-"build"/"combine" into a conscious being. I love CZcams.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
I Corinthians 10:12 (KJV)
The theme of this video alows us to understand this, and to also talk about its negative consequences. Amazing
1:16:56 _"There is this question about what unifies the different elements within consciousness"_
What unifies the different elements withing consciousness is the same thing that unifies any amount of distinct objects into one entity : a law of composition. Give me any number of distinct entities, e1, e2, e3,... and I can _"unify"_ them into a new entity : E = {e1,e2,e3,...}.
Same thing for dividing. Give me any entity E, and I can postulate that this entity is made of two halves. I just need to conceive of something like E1+E2 = E (see Immanuel Kant, _"the critique of pure reason",_ logical functions, the _"transcendental categories of understanding",_ and the _"antinomies of pure reason")._
For which, by the way, we know of the neural correlate (see connectionism, see neural networks)
This is what _"unifies the different elements within consciousness",_ Kant speaks about it in his section on the _"paralogism of pure reason",_ our minds, our cognition, form concepts based on percepts (regarding a posteriori concepts) and/or based on a priori categories. Our cognition forms the concept of the self, which _"unifies the different elements within consciousness"._
_"What unifies the difference elements withing consciousness is the same thing that unifies any amount of distinct objects into one entity"_
This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts. You seem to show know familiarity with the temporal distribution and micro-subject problem. I don't think you understand the mereological issues regarding the unity of consciousness.
@@Insane_ForJesus *-"This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts."*
I'm not sure I understand this sentence.
And it seems that we might agree actually... Yes I would agree that consciousness is a mereological composite. So its unity is the same as the unity of any mereological composite. Would you agree with that ?
@@MrGustavier No he is disagreeing with you.
@@gsp3428 Too bad he didn't answer...
Do you understand what he was talking about ?
@@Insane_ForJesus *-"I don't think you understand the mereological issues regarding the unity of consciousness."*
The title of the time stamp of the excerpt I quoted in my OP is _"how does consciousness combine into one mind",_ Rasmussen talks about _"the combination problem"._
The following is an excerpt from Goff, Philip, William Seager, and Sean Allen-Hermanson, 2022 :
_"In fact, if one reads on in the text one finds that [William] James’ argument is that there is no mental combination because there is no combination whatsoever (Shani 2010). James believes that in reality there are only particles arranged in various ways, which give rise to the idea of composite objects by the effects they have on our senses. The denial that there are any composite objects whatsoever is fairly radical. However, contemporary philosophers have been inspired by the above passage to think that there is something specifically troubling about the notion of mental combination, a concern that doesn’t obviously arise in the physical case. At least on the face of it we have no problem with the idea of bricks forming a house, or mechanical parts forming a car engine. But the idea of many minds forming some other mind is much harder to get your head around (so to speak)."_
It seems that my OP is right on the spot : the way _"consciousness combine into one mind"_ is a simple law of composition... The same law that is used for mereological considerations.
*-"You seem to show know familiarity with the temporal distribution and micro-subject problem."*
*"Micro-subject problem"* refers to the same _"combination problem"_ as far as I know, which is precisely what I addressed in my OP...
*-"This is a false equivalence since consciousness, which has no separable parts, is distributed holistically across separable parts unlike non-qualitative objects which consist of only separable parts."*
I wish you would clarify this sentence. Do you demonstrate that *"consciousness has no separable parts"* or do you simply presuppose it ?
58:08 through a myological limbs, I believe that it would be hard to define the mind as a single thing. GCP gray did an excellent video on how different parts of our brain contain different personalities that work in concordance and opposition to each other
Ian Mcghilcrest's work on the asymmetry of the brain.
Hard agree, it's just simpler to think of it that way. In neuropsychology it's commonly even joked about that saying your separate hemispheres are separate brains would be more accurate, as they functionally are in a lesser sense, since they have contralateral control (left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and vice versa). Large parts of your individuality are contained within the prefrontal cortex, but for example the mediation of emotion has an interesting history with the amygdala, in that you can see quite strong gender based dimorphism (and yes I do mean gender based, trans women and men also interestingly develop this) where men have weaker contralateral connections to women but superior ipsilateral (back to front) connections. The part that's relevant here is that this leads to women using their amygdala less than men, which you would think would inhibit their emotional intelligence, but its quite the opposite, because they have a much more developed insular cortex. The interesting part about this being that even if there is a similarity of structure it does not imply a similarity of function absolutely speaking. Brains are similar enough structurally, but even in structure they can have quite extreme variances just based on neurochemical changes over time, leading to neuroanatomical change.
Personalities not so much reside in the lobes as they do in the neurons and synapses being primed by the structure, chemistry, mood, and relative development, and plasticity.
Theres a main issue in this video, that has also appeared in your other videos on consciousness. That being the assumption that consciousness is an 'object' of sorts, something that is the kind of thing that can be 'found'. Why assume this?
Aristotle did not, for example. Wittgenstein similarly did not-his attacks on the 'pneumatic' conception of mind in the blue book and the investigations show this assumption to be misguided.
One bit in this podcast shows this assumption--you said that redness must be a feature of consciousness. Why? Consciousness is not red. Objects are red. This can be explained scientifically, but that does not entail it is explained away. (e.g., gaps between particles of solid objects does not entail those objects are no longer solid--rather, it explains what makes something solid. the order is the wrong way round).
We are not mediated by a conscious window or a 'what-its-like'-ness (cf Nagel). We see the world and the objects as human animals. We see with our eyes. There is no 'sense data' located somewhere--thats a category error.
I would recommend--if possible (he is getting on a bit)--bringing on the philosopher Peter Hacker. His view runs counter to the mainstream, yet dissects the mainstream view such that, after hearing it, you can't just accept these assumptions any more. Yet nobody has really attacked his Wittgensteinian, Aristotelian view. You have the platform to popularise his views and change the landscape of debate, and I hope you consider.
(Others that may be good, from the same tradition: neuroscientist Maxwell Bennett, philosphers Hans Johann Glock and Joachim Schulte. Also John Dupre would be interesting, but tangential). Thanks!
This is the view I've been exploring... one material you would recommend to look at? Just look up peter hacker?
I like the description that consciousness is an emergent property of our brains, and not a “thing”. Like wetness. A water molecule is not wet. Many water molecules together has the emergent property of wetness.
@@KBosch-xp2ut That still comes under what im arguing against. We can be conscious *of* things, but we can also not. We can be conscious insofar as we may be not 'unconscious' (i.e., we have full use of our corporeal and intellectual powers).
The point my view is trying to get at is that there is no such 'thing' as consciousness, conceived as an object or a property/universal.
@@yyzzyysszznn
That doesn’t make sense. We define consciousness as an awareness of ourselves and the world around us (or whatever…. doesn’t really matter), so clearly there is a “thing” called consciousness. We fit the definition. A rock does not.
You’re also using “conscious” in a different way. You’re using it as an awareness of something. “Conscious of things or not”.
@@yyzzyysszznnso then would you accept that consciousness is some sort of concept that exists so then that can entail a “thing” that exists?
Mind is fundamental, sounds to me like the relationship between radio waves and a radio. Radio waves pre exist the devices that captures them.
Saying that you are aware of being aware, is like saying that I’m thinking about thinking. It offers no value. It requires some further inquiry like ‘why’ you are thinking or ‘what’ you’re thinking. or ‘how’ you are thinking all of which provide some particular aspect and direction of inquiry.
yes. they did not understand that. There is just simply awareness. Not awareness of awareness and awareness hahahaha. Philosophers man, trying to do too much.
There is no Josh Rasmussen video without him picking up some random object and ask whether it is conscious!
I would love to see a conversation between Alex and Rupert Spira. Somebody who has been studying this topic experimentally for many decades. He phrases it is religious language (not all the time) but he is not trying to point to something outside of, or separate from us.
He is trying to delve deeply into the experience of being or being aware.
That would be a lovely get together.
I know the chance is low that Alex will see this, but I am just sending this out there into the void.
If anyone is interested in exploring these matters more deeply, he is the person I would recommend!
Have a good day guys :)
Really good conversation. Josh Rasmussen certainly seems to know his stuff.
he seems to....
I see what you did there 😂
@@HarryNicNicholas lol, nice one.
46:11 _"When I look at this object here I think one thing that seems clear to me is that a feel feeling of love is not the same thing as this particular circular shape and I and I I think I can tell you how I know this actually I know this by direct acquaintance with shape and direct acquaintance with the experience of love the qualitative aspect of feeling love I I've had that feeling and I've been able to use that power of introspection to be aware of that qualitative aspect I've been with my eyes acquainted with shape and if I'm directly acquainted this this is an awareness that's not based on inferences from other things I'm aware of this is that basic awareness if I'm aware in that basic way of two things I can directly compare them and see if they're the same thing."_
That's very interesting.
The problem is that we have strong defeaters against this. We are all aware of examples in which we initially thought two things were different (by _"acquaintance"),_ only to later understand that these things were actually the same.
One classic example is given by Frege, and reused by Quine in his famous article _"the two dogmas of empiricism",_ the realization that the _"morning star"_ and the _"evening star"_ are both the planet Venus.
Another common example is the perception of water in different states. Ice, liquid water, and steam may seem quite different, but they are all composed of H2O molecules and represent different phases of the same substance.
Another example is thinking that energy and mass are different things, when in fact they two manifestations of the same thing (E=mc²).
Alex, you should invite Bernardo Kastrup on your channel. So far I haven't found anyone who could talk me out of his views of how materialism and physicalism are simply inexact! I would love to see a discussion here. I really think that Kastrup, Faggin and other people's work is going to become of paramount importance in the next years with regards to consciousness.
A lot of BK is BS, IMHO…
@@christopherhamilton3621 Interesting, why do you think so?
When he said Consciousness is prior to thought, I resonated. Adi Da Samraj, as a Realizer (not just a talker), would say there is nothing but Consciousness and Consciousness realized, is only Bliss. Ego or self-contraction or self-definition prevents the bliss of consciousness. Consciousness stands prior to thought and attention.
Ultimately, even the apparent self-contraction is nothing other than the bliss of consciousness.
Josh Rasmussen **knows** how to do philosophy!
Thank you for being here, both of you. Was a great watch.
I feel like there's always the implicit assumption that consciousness is something separate in the first place and people don't stop to think whether that's actually true.
nah they talk about that in this video. they talk about the pros and cons of solving the integration problem by reducing conciousness to material
Dualism is dumb... Unless you propose God. That's the only context that Josh cares to consider seriously.
"Separate" from what?
Trouble is, if there is no consciousness separate from matter, then you imply that you are nothing more than the physical matter which you are, which implies no freewill as you are just the sum of your products. If you are willing to accept that you truly have no freewill and are strictly a product of causality, then there is no error in what you propose, however accepting that idea brings up some serious problems with morality, justice, and agency.
@@Ho11ow661 That consciousness appears to us to always/only be coincident with matter doesn't entail nor imply that you yourself are nothing other than matter.
Check out Don Hoffman.
Hi Alex, love your content. Would love for you to talk with Bernardo Kastrup (philosopher of consciousness, analytic idealism) one day, he is brilliant and I think it would be a gift for us to hear some dialogue between you two.
Dear Alex O'Connor, awesome video, as always
Why always the same example of 4, what about 3, or 5
Great stuff. How about Bernardo kastrup next?
An excellent coversation between two highly articulate individuals who have given a huge amount of very open minded thought on the nature of consciousness. I found it geat fun to listen to. Sometimes I almost laughed out loud at how well expressed certain insights were put. It certainly gave me certain ways of thinking about the subject that were new to me. However any real advance in understanding of the nature of consciousness would seem to be inevitably limited to their "objective" approach despite the subtlety and neuance of that objectivity. Because consciousness itself or the fact or beiing conscious (beyond anything that appears within conciouness) has to be purely subjective.
So if we should one day be able to build computers with consciousness, only the computers themselves would be able to tell whether they are conscious?
I'd like to have some dressing with that word salad.
@@unduloid There is an attempt to explain something but although the process of making the attempt can be interesting, the attempt seems to always fail, and so we are left with what turns out to be some kind of word salad that gets us nowhere. The point that I was attempting to make was that this is inevitable in view of the fact that the pure subjectivity of the nature of consciousness can't be understood if we consider it as something that it is not, namely as something that is objective. For this reason chasing after it as an objective thing will always get us nowhere even though the attempt may be interesting. I don't know if this would be acceptable to you for the dressing that you requested.
The Fry and Laurie sketch advert was a welcome mind relaxant during this discussion.
Consciousness is everything. At its core, it is just awareness. Awareness is the foundation of all illusions/realities. You are pure consciousness, a soul, that agreed to temporarily be a human. You did this to understand the relationship between consciousness and energy-true metaphysics. When you truly understand what consciousness is, it will shake you to your core. You will have fulfilled your reason for being a human. Become an adept teacher of consciousness. If you so choose, this could be your service to humanity and All That Is. You are made for this Alex. Take it from me, there is no study more fascinating than the study of consciousness. You will love every bit of it, and you'll be prepared for what's coming.
A mind first ontology is a category error and requires engaging in existential fallacious reasoning.
We know there is a substance that is fundamental but calling the substance, a mind is no different from a physicalist calling it matter, except that we know substance must be spatial to ground change.
1. Conscious beings exist
Being is existence but consciousness is becoming grounded in that being. There are no true concrete distinctions in reality, everything is connected.
Matter is necessarily spatial.
When I was thinking about the fundamental aspects of reality there was one core question which came to my mind and that was : "What is?"
It seems so strange that things actually "are".
what do you mean by “are”?
@@drewpy14 I will try my best to get you in this state of mind.
We have the concept of reductionism to find out what things are actually made of. The problem with that is we know more about the things we are observing but don't really know what they actually are. They just exist and behave the way they behave. When we ask what things are made of we come to fundamental particles, quantum fields etc. The problem with that is that we still are not satisfied even when we have a theory to "explain" every phenomenon. We can just describe how reality is, how things behave in relation to each other and not what they are. Measuring an electron is not really observing the electron itself but rather how this particle interacts in our reality in relation to other particles. This realization led me to think about. Yeah but What "is" actually? I don't know. Our reality just "is" how it is and the things we are experiencing just "are" how they "are". It seems there is a limit where we have to change our concepts of science to make progress.
Just my thoughts. Correct me if I'm getting something wrong from scientific perspective.
Hope this will help you. :)
"I Am", God said to Moses. What is, God is, from all eternity.
Time goes fast when your having fun, thanks for the discussion guys
At 48:00 - on the experiential gap and the hard problem:
Panpsychism is what happens when you mistake the hard problem of conscious for an impossible problem.
Let’s say we nail down the neuronal firing pattern that a test subject associates with love. When we see these neurons firing in this pattern, the subject, without fail, reports feeling love. The hard problem, as I understand it, would be explaining why that particular firing pattern ignites that particular experience. I would suspect the answer to be complicated. Something like - well it has to do with pattern recognition and the particular experiences that this brain underwent while developing. It has to do with the structure of the brain and which neurons within which structural hierarchy fired and in which order. The pattern, the connections, the areas of those connections and their frequency, also the memories associated and physiological changes that occur (increased HR, sweating, etc). All of it plays in. Yes it’s complicated. But to throw up your hands, declare the problem unanswerable, and embrace panpsychism is either a failure of nerve or a failure to recognize how much we do understand about conscious experience and the brain.
I don’t think that’s what the hard problem states. It’s not why that particular firing pattern ignited that particular experience, it’s why a particular firing pattern ignites any experience at all
And that Still doesn't solve the problem about who or what is experiencing the effects of the neural firing pattern. Is there another part of the brain that analyses these neural firing patterns and then reports this is love? And wouldn't that recognition then not just be another neural firing pattern that would also have to be experienced by yet another neural firing pattern? I think the assumption that consciousness arises from matter, at the moment relies on the assumption that "we don't yet know but we will find out once we understand the brain better". How long will we keep that view until we would concede that it is not to be found? That we really cannot find the experiencer of red anywhere in the brain? Isn't it at the moment a similar position as "I don't know the answer so god did it/ the brain does it?"
@@jeremyluce4354you’re so right. I conflated his “gap problem” with the hard problem. That said, I think an answer similar to the one I outlined will be a crucial piece of the overall hard-problem mystery.
For example, you can stack similar neural patterns and associate them together. Different patterns for different sets of experiences. Certain patterns associate with the mid-brain to correlate with emotions and at different strengths. The hippocampus serves as a hard drive, remembering the patterns and which mid-brain structures were involved. The only missing piece is something like a perpetual attention loop (almost certainly originating in the cortex, probably the most recently evolved frontal cortex) that is the “self” that is observing (“experiencing”) all of the patterns, circuits, and associations. There are probably a number of these perpetual attention loops, or at least the potential for many iterations. Hence why we can notice differences in the way we notice things over time, and so on. A big pile of ever-layering circuitry and complexity hell-bent on accurately rendering (predicting) the environment by gathering sense data and comparing that to old sense data and related memories. It’s a marvel.
@@gdgkuf2315 okay so first - pretty much yes to the first two questions. There is likely a circuit or set of circuits that functions as a spotlight - what we recognize as the self. The number of these spotlight circuits is probably 0 in insects and amphibians, 1 or 2 in birds/mammals (thus they can recognize their various neural patterns, but not to the depth or degree that humans can), and in humans the attention circuits are probably much more complex and numerous. You can mark changes in how you notice things over time, but are you noticing how you notice the differences in noticing noticing over time? Probably not. So there are probably 3-5 of these advanced self-circuits/attention-circuits in humans. Note that memory and its capacity is intimately involved, and the cortex’s control on the amygdala is intimately involved. The fact that a dog’s heart rate jumps from 60 to 120 when it sees a treat is due to the fact that a dog’s amygdala:cortex ratio is much higher than is yours. Thus their raw emotion:impulse control ratio is higher. We view this as primitive, less sophisticated behavior because it’s ruled by primitive, less sophisticated neural processes. The inverse of this example is also very likely to be true.
As for your point on how long until we realize…
We didn’t discover that the brain is the part that thinks until like 200 years ago. Your great great grandpa probably thought that courage originates somewhere in the abdomen. On a historical timescale, neurology is in its infancy. We are not even close to even considering packing up shop and declaring God must’ve done it. Cmon now
@@Williamwilliam1531 yes and we now think consciousness comes from the brain- as you said yourself your explanation is, in your view, "likely". That doesn't follow that it's correct or we know. We once thought it's likely the earth is flat. I'm not saying what you say couldn't be the case but at the moment saying consciousness arises from the brain is pretty much the materialistic god of the gaps- we don't understand it so the brain did it. We simply do not know.
I'm not saying god did it either. I for example find non dual thought very intriguing, as it seems very logical to me on an experiental level. I'm just saying there's all kinds of intriguing possibilities and just saying the brain does it, and we're just waiting to find proof because we want to believe it seems to close us off to other views.
And I think a dog still possesses consciousness even if we view their behaviour as primitive. The notion that complexity of behaviour indicates more or less consciousness would indicate you can measure levels of consciousness. But how can awareness be anything but awareness? Whether it's aware of a dogs thought or that of a human?
Perhaps a useful metaphor for the idea that you can be aware and use awareness without recognizing ( or being aware of it) would be grammar and syntax. We are using both grammar and syntax for years before we learn that either is a thing. In fact it is through the teacher's grammar & syntax and our intuative use of both that we learn the vocabulary words, concepts and "rules" of grammar and syntax.
Alex, please invite Joscha Bach on your podcast. He has an extremely interesting - in my view groundbreaking - view of consciousness.
Why do you do this to me...About to go to sleep, I see your comment, and of course I have to search for Joscha Bach now and hear him out
I'll be tired tomorrow for work
It's your fault
I don't understand why the metaphor of consciousness as a "computer" simulation, where information is the ontological basis for the simulated conscious experience, while having computers as a demonstration that this simulation is connected to material reality ( in our care our brains hard wetware), is not used more frequently. Seen in this light, consciousness does not seem so mysterious.
I guess this is because people don't understand computers.
Yes, this is the simplest way I've found. Matter can't ever be conscious, only simulations can be. The physical brain is not conscious--it simulates a world and a character in it. Τhe character identifies with the ape on which it is simulated. Qualia are mental, a kind of thought, and we have no direct access to base reality, i.e. the "real" physical world. Anyone interested in this view should look up Joscha Bach.
i was gonna say, that what tophersonX said sounds a lot like Joscha Bach. Good job of summing up Joscha's findings here@@creditmetory
@@creditmetory thanks for the info, I'll have to check him out. The computer software as a metaphor for the mind is probably as old as computers? The tricky bit is to make that metaphor more concrete, (the so called easy problem) does he do that? What the metaphor does do is make the hard problem seem less unfathomable
@@tophersonX Whether his descriptions will satisfy the mystery you see, I don't know--but I bet he will contribute something to your view. I don't think he views "mind as software" as much of an analogy, it's more just a description of what's going on. To him, the brain is obviously computational and there's nothing fundamentally mysterious about a computer simulating a world + an experiencing agent in it.
To me it would seem that trying to understand consciousness would be more like trying to see “back inside” through the window from which you see the world “outside”.
It seems like we are able to take a step back and see ourselves looking through the window, but never actually look “back inside”
You should invite Bernardo Kastrup on the show Alex! Kastrup is a provocative thinker and I’d watch in a heartbeat.
awareness is consciousness, awareness of awareness is mind, awareness of mind is intelligence
Why consciousness. Why mind Why intelligence. Why do we want to know WHY. Why must be insanity. Maybe?
Nice conversation. Josh Rasmussen and Bernardo Kastrup should team up!
It makes more sense that everything is in the mind, so that there is no such thing as “reality” but only perceived concepts. Just as the number four is a concept, the perception of a ball is a concept. There is only a need for a connection between the mind world and the material world if the material world exists.
consciousness is when the squishy grey thing does the thinky thing.
Prove it.
@@donaldanderson6578 i'm so sorry you're born without brains. Good for you to make that work, not many people are able to move when their dead from the neck up but you manage to do so in your own way.
Reductive, intellectually dishonest.
I really feel you're not accounting for the bodily bod
Nope. The squishy grey is produced by consciousness.
The people who say that science cannot understand consciousness would have said that science cannot understand time 100 years ago. In fact, in a sense those people where right: science did not answer those questions about time. What it did is provide a *new* view of time, and that new view revealed those old questions about time to be naive and in a sense bad questions. Subsequently, we simply stopped caring about those old questions, similar to how science made us stop caring about how many angels fit on the head of a needle. Science will never answer the current questions about consciousness. What it might well do is reframe the whole debate. Philosophy, on the other hand, does not have any hope of answering the questions without input from science. Furthermore, empirically, it doesn't tend to reframe the debate in a meaningful way either. Philosophers run in circles until science reframes the debate, and then they go and run in circles in that new location that science made them go to.
Philosophers can help define the questions better and clarify the explanations once the data is in hand. I agree 100% that only science can resolve outstanding questions.
@@chemquests I agree, philosophy does have the potential to do that. Unfortunately, in practice, it does not seem to be very successful at it. I think this is primarily explained by philosophers overvaluing word-based reasoning, and undervaluing empirical facts. For instance, the discussion about plastic bands and love seems to me fairly meaningless. It seems to me that it would be more valuable to spend time taking scientific facts on board, such as whether or not the feeling of intending to move your hand only arises after the hand has already been set in motion. A discussion of the evolution of species seems to me also highly relevant, and much more likely to lead to clarification than plastic bands and love. Alex's example of the blue LED is pertinent here. The technique of word-based reasoning never gets you a blue LED. In fact, that method of reasoning is more likely to lead a pre-technological philosopher to conclude that such a thing is impossible. The technique of intuition + word-based reasoning is extremely unreliable. It should be treated with the utmost suspicion, but it is the central method of philosophy. This is in stark contrast to the scientific method and mathematical reasoning, which in the long term are both reliable and scale to solve complicated problems, such as turning black slurry pumped out of the ground into bright coloured stretchy bands.
Science understands consciousness fairly well, the understanding improves every year with rtms and fmri. Anyone who says that it doesn't isn't a curious person and clearly doesn't do any meaningful research. But that makes sense right? Most people who denigrate science only read from one book. Where as you may need to read 10 or so to understand this topic well. When you think you have all the answers it's likely you have none.
I think there's basically two main approaches to consciousness where one corresponds well with what you say and the other not. The first one is where subjective consciousness is viewed as trivial as it's merely what facilitates our discussion in the first place. From this point of view science has every chance of exhausting what there is to know about consciousness, as one takes on the third person stance to begin with. The other perspective is the one which is essentially founded in the impossibility of ascertaining other subjective consciousnesses outside subjective consciousness itself. Here of course scientists will often lose their patience as it's not really an empirically tenable consideration. I think, however, that it's important not to forget this perspective so as to give context into our investigations, and separate what "is" from what is knowable.
@@timtopsnav well articulated. That “other perspective” does test my patience because even if it’s valid it’s a dead end. We could end up in a philosophical cult-de-sac discussing qualia ad infinitum making no progress. The scientific approach has served us well and seems the only viable route, even if we can’t capture subjectivity in a completely satisfactory way. I suspect whatever residue of subjectivity remains won’t be of practical use, but will continue to inspire great literature (which is valuable non the less).
I am under the opinion that consciousness is just our subjectively percieved phenomenon we experience when our cognitive functions are doing just that: functioning.
I find it interesting to look at the graduation in order to help describe it.
We have three examples that are compelling to me.
1) growth of one human, from cells to adult, at one point we are not conscious, and it builds gradually not like a switch
2) evolutionarily, obviously we cannot study our ancestry in great depth but we can find examples of animals of varied intelligence and varied inner life
3) anaesthesia (and other neuro stuff like deep brain stimulation), the science of switching off consciousness, again it's gradual and decidedly not like a switch.
Studying these can help better describe what it is. Even before we look at the experiments directly modelling and chipping away and building our knowledge of what it isn't
8:42,
I suffer from Depersonalization & Derealization.
And it's like your window got way thicker and dirty, so now you notice that window all the time and it's disturbing.
Especially if you have 24/7 over decades.
You can't really concentrate on stuff behind the window because the window itself is so distracting now. Plus everything you see through the window looks strange and unfamiliar.
All I hope is that one day I get a new window, so I can enjoy the things behind the window again, instead of being so dissociated from everything, with the window I have since now 2009.
PS: Sorry for spelling errors. English ist not my first language. Greetings Steve
Hi Alex, I think having Bernardo Kastrup on, he's a very persuasive idealist philosopher in my opinion and could provide many elegant answers to the questions you raise here, would make for a very interesting and fruitful discussion.
Thank God someone said it
Seriously. There's no true conversation to be had about consciousness without serious consideration of idealism.
at the end of the day it's woo.
@@LukasOfTheLight i suppose someone has to waste their doing this stuff.
@@HarryNicNicholas Belief in physical existence is woo. Idealism is parsimonious, more scientific, more rational, and correct.
Awareness is innately self-aware because it is awareness. Awareness doesn't need to look back at itself to be aware of itself, any more than a star needs to shine back on itself to light itself up. The awareness of awareness, or being aware of being aware, is the only knowledge that doesn't take place in subject/object relationship - it is direct knowledge, knowing by being.
so since rasmussen was last trounced about this he's come up with even vaguer stuff. i wonder how long this silliness can carry on for.
He is the philosophical equivalent of chewing packing peanuts, substanceless, flavourless somehow also stale he fails to comprehend that any theoretical universe that's empty of consious beings also has noone pondering how unlikely it is, That's even before we understand that just like there is no rhythm in a single thump, you can't get probability with a single example.
as deeply unsatifying as cgi porridge
@@FartPantherYou go write scholarly renowned books on theory of knowledge, truth, and consciousness then, bud.
Who “trounced” Dr. Rasmussen?
@@TheOtherCaleb I dont know, Rasmussen doesnt even debate. He is absolute genius.
As a Physics student, i have a bit of insight to how science is being done and what we consider to be the "material world" and for a whole bunch of stuff it already gets really weird, especially when you go into quantum mechanics.
this is certainly a very serious and pretty well understood field of science, at least among those who have really studied it, but this field of science is barely "material" because, at least in the parts we really understand, materialistic properties are not part of the fundamental informations we have about particles.
They are both wave and particle, they have properties of both and yet they are singular objects.
mathematically speaking they would best be described by a field of probabilities that expands in space in all directions simultaniously and that in not really the thing you`d expect from a particle when you try to think about it intuitively.
Nevertheless this is what we observe.
Science to me is the most serious attempt of understanding nature as it is, however we may find it to be.
Would highly recommend checking out Bernardo Kastrup - he presents a pretty solid case for analytic idealism
Light sensing is really helpful for survival. Creatures that can sense changes in light, especially sudden ones, can exploit this and get away from predators etc. It is a very simple "model" of the reality they find themselves with. Their sense is not reality, it is a useful simplification. The potentially humbling fact here might just be that while our minds have modeled everything in exquisite detail, and has even modeled itself, it sees this highly advanced reality modeling as complete enough to then conclude that there is a mystery. We tie ourselves in knots while we forget that all our brain is really any use for is modeling our world. And our models are so self-serving (because they started with self-preservation), that we are now stuggling to imagine what this "thing" called consciousness could possibly be. It isn't a thing. It is a process. You can't find torque in an engine, you put that label on what it produces. The brain models itself, just like it models everything else. "Consciousness" is the label we put on that process. Labels are handy mini-models that may or may not refer to something real or imagined. We label things long before we understand them. And we often make category mistakes and think our labels are reality. And we forget that we cannot ever access reality directly. We cannot know anything. So if we start assuming that our own self-modeling is the only thing that we can verify and claim is really real (Decartes error), we have fooled ourselves into thinking we are trying to understand a mysterious thing, rather simply recognizing that we are the subject of our own process of attempting to model things in the world so we might exploit them to our survival advantage. The irony seems, that we might not quite be smart enough to let go of our own egotistical view in enough time to stop our collective demise. Or to put it another way: the jury is still out on whether self-aware intelligence is the evolutionary advantage that we all love to take it for granted.
Loved the talk. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on Jiddu Krishnamurti and some of his philosophies. He has some very interesting things to say on the topic of consciousness. As well, he also lived a unique life that I think’s worth looking at, in general.
If you think J. Krishnamurti is interesting, you gotta check out U.G. Krishnamurti. A complete mind fuk. Very powerful. Harsh, unfiltered non-duality.
Yes! And maybe non duality or neo advaita
The thing is it's hard to understand what Jiddu talked about without actually doing the practices and seeing it first hand. I highly recommend such practices
@@bike4aday I agree, but many people are good at talking about it in a way that even people who haven’t necessarily “practiced” might Intuit the truth behind it if they’re so inclined. Of course a lot of people will say it’s all utter nonsense because they can’t get “beyond “ they’re own minds so there’s that 🤷🏻♀️
I want Alex to do a podcast with Swami Sarvapriyananda, he's an advaita vedantic monk! He already did podcasts with many philosophers and scientists including Sam Harris!
Marc Solms a South African neuropsychologist consciousness researcher using research on self-organizing systems by mathematician Karl Fristin, proposes that in the pursuit of minimizing chaos (reducing incidents that move us away from homeostasis) like hunger, cold, danger etc. consciousness arose to fine tune our responses to our unpredictable environment. I could imagine that consciousness might emerge on a gradient commensurate with the complexity of the system.
You need to have Bernardo Kastrup on :)
Great job with this convo
His view is so weird to me
@@JohnSmith-bq6nf whose view, and what about it is it weird, for example?
@@PhysicsWithoutMagic kastrup
@@JohnSmith-bq6nf what is something weird about his views?
The last point seems question begging ; if the mind is material then it's not possible to have more thoughts than material units. I also think it's pretty apparent from introspection you can't multiply thoughts as claimed, try to think about 20 set at the same time and report how it's going, I can barely get to three.
It's sad to know that getting answers about these sort of questions is almost impossible 😢
Consciousness is background of everything. It is pure subject. You cannot reduce it. And consciousness and awareness are different.
Was reading through the comments...saw this comment.. without much surprise AN INDIAN...
how are they different.
@@jameswatson5807 Awareness is when you're able to have the abstract knowledge of your world around you while consciousness is the sentient mind itself. For example, a person dreaming may not be aware of his world around him until it wakes up, but he's still conscious because he can get the feelings in the dream like colors, sounds, taste and touch.
@@jameswatson5807 just do this enquiry, there is someone inside you that is continuously observing, whatever you do but awareness change according to how much we are aware of experience that is happening. For ex, when we feel drowsy or sleepy, we experience that by consciousness but our awareness decreases as we cannot extract information from that experience. Consciousness remains same because there is no moment our experience stop but the degree of experience may change according to awareness.
@@jameswatson5807 in my understanding consciousness is the ontic primitive and awareness is cognitive activity..not sure I am right about what is his understanding about awareness
23:40 _"if redness itself existed in the brain I'd be able to cut open your brain and find redness but it's not there"_
I will never understand that... What do you mean _"it's not there"_ ? Of course it's there... What are you looking for exactly ?
There is nothing red within the brain. This means that regardless of what the brain processes that lead to redness are, the brain processes are not redness.
@@Nitroade24 *-"There is nothing red within the brain. This means that regardless of what the brain processes that lead to redness are, the brain processes are not redness."*
First, that's a non sequitur.
The conclusion that *"the brain processes are not redness"* doesn't follow from the fact that *"nothing is red within the brain".*
Second, redness isn't red right ? Why would you expect that redness be red ?
Third, what makes you think that *"there is nothing red within the brain"* ?
There's so much I would love to talk to Alex about regarding these topics and the similar ones he discussed with Philip Goff. I've got some theoretical (and philosophical) solutions to so many of the questions he seems to be hung up or at least some directions of thought to head towards. I'm actually surprised he gets hung up in certain places when the path out of those predicaments seem somewhat obvious to me. Alex has an extraordinary mind, massively more capable, studied, and eloquent than my own which is why I'm amazed he is approaching these questions from the limited angles that he does. I'd love for him to tell me which of my thoughts make sense and which are logically fallible hypotheses.
The problem with the current scientific model is the assumption that matter gives rise to consciousness. In non duality you get the experiential understanding (not really understanding because it cannot be known through the mind, but words are inherently dualistic) that Consciousness gives rise to matter. The mind can never know Consciousness because it is finite while Consciousness is infinite.
How is that not just an arbitrary postulate?
If consciousness gives rise to matter, is the nature of matter of the same type as that of consciousness? Is it a different type?
@@stefanheinzmann7319 because it’s proven through experience.
@@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd it’s all one. The sense of difference is illusion
@@FlamingoCupcake28 If consciousness and the material are of the same nature, does the apparently material have consciousness? You have a point of view and a current state. Are that point of view and that state illusory? Is your understanding of reality, as an undifferentiated unit, also an illusion or are there realities within the illusion?
So long as consciousness remains ‘the hard problem’ this discussion will continue. Philosophy is stumped by consciousness so it is good to tease these questions out.
It is very helpful and is counter to the biological reductiveness of the Darwinian and sociobiological perspectives which have consciousness and mind being created by and evolving from elements by randomness to no known or extistent prototype.
It apparently took billions of years to get it right but still it is a stretch of the imagination. Like a Rolls-Royce coming together randomly.
Great conversation ❤ blew my mind thinking about these crazy things
Just to clarify, the last point is suggesting a "first mind" by positing that there are more possible conceivable thoughts than possible arrangements of matter to produce the amount of possible thoughts?
Get Bernardo Kastrup on!
Fundamentally, all entities exist in a state of physical resonance with other entities in their surrounding environment. In other words, reverberations of nearby entities naturally occur within the physical structure of every entity.
The reverberations occurring within an "actively engaged entity" (i.e. an entity whose innate survival preference necessitates an active engagement with its environment) naturally "inform" this entity of its surroundings, whereas the reverberations occurring within all other classes of entity are not informative to those entities.
Therefore, this "informative resonance" IS the entity's consciousness, which is utilised by the entity similarly to the way one utilises a map.
In this way, the situation of consciousness can be conceptually described as being "ontologically inextricable" from active engagement.
Non-conceptually, the situation of consciousness is functionally indistinguishable from active engagement.
I think you know very little of neuroscience or quantum physics.
I think you are finding this very profound and meaningful and I encourage you to carry on pondering and seeking.
Please don't settle harder than is justified with the evidence you have!
You would look plausible if you are the cutting edge but very silly if it relies on easily verifiable false ideas about the world
@@FartPanther I appreciate the feedback. You are correct about how little I know of those fields. Would you care to elaborate on the easily verifiable false ideas I'm relying on?
I'm fairly sure you've actually just re-labelled mundane things with obscure languange. Without a back and forth I can't really tell if you're mistaken or a mystic.
Using your own words this is what I think you said:
Consciousness is functionally indistinguishable from ... innate survival preferences plus active engagement the environment. All things interacts with their environments, only conscious things are "informed" by their environments.
Did you mean anything else? If there is, can you think of a way you'd design a test to be able to tell between if reality was how you describe or how I put it?
@@FartPanther No, you pretty much nailed it. I guess the language I've used may be a little convoluted, but I was trying to paint a very vivid picture of the way I view it.
Sorry for my negativity, dealing with a lot at the moment. You sound very honest and it's a real skill to get that convoluted and remain accurate.
For me I would like to see you use your obvious intellect to make convoluted things simple rather than the other way around. I think this would be more meaningful to me but I can't speak for you obviously!
You do you and never lose that fascination with these complex and mysterious lives we have! I think the only meaning there is is what we find, so we should appreciate and cultivate it everywhere.
Some people are now saying that it was a lie that Alex recorded a 3 hour conversation with Bernardo Kastrup.
This was absolutely fascinating. I was riveted by every word and appreciate the in-depth discussion and exploration of the topic. "Mind first" makes most sense to me, but that's as far as I can go at this point.
Look, it's not complicated.
Let there be two agents, agent one (A1) and agent two (A2).
If A1 describes a chair, A1 will list properties of the chair :
- It has four legs
- It has a back
- It has a seat
- The chair hides the bottom half of the plant which is behind it.
- The leg the closest to the plant is hidden behind the leg closest to me.
A2 might agree with the first three properties listed, but not with the last two, because A2 has a different perspective on the chair. If A2 is able to envisage the perspective of A1, then A2 will understand why A1 gave such properties to the chair.
The first three properties can be called "public" properties, precisely because they can be given by different agents no matter their perspective. I call them "2nd person properties".
The last two properties can be called "private" properties, precisely because they can only be given from a given perspective, and therefore by a single agent (A1), or by another agent (A2) if he is able to envisage what the perspective of A1 is. I call them "1st person properties".
It is EXACTLY the same for consciousness. If A1 wants to describe consciousness, he will list properties :
- It disappears when I am asleep.
- It disappears when I take anesthetics.
- It disappears when I take a sufficiently strong blow to the head or when my carotid arteries are blocked.
- It is poppulated with colors, shapes, contrasts,
- It is populated with pain, pleasure, hunger, thurst
The first three are public properties of consciousness. If a second person, A2, wanted to describe consciousness (that of A1), he will list the same properties. They are 2nd person properties of consciousness.
The last two are private properties of consciousness _(qualia),_ A second person could only describe them if they were able to envisage the perspective of A1.
When we describe the brain structures, the neurons, or the atoms, we are giving 2nd person properties of mental objects. When we describe the qualia, we are giving 1st person properties of mental objects. BUT THEY ARE THE SAME OBJECTS ! They simply are described along different perspectives.
Russell spoke of _"neutral monism"._ One substance, with two types of properties (see _"property dualism")._ The first person properties, and the 2nd person properties.
The only reason (it seems) that people don't understand this is _"naive realism"..._ Basically the rejection of perspectivism and a naive expectation or desire for objectivity.
P1 - If what I am is real (objective, stance independent), then what I am according to you is the same thing as what I am according to me (from the definition of objective).
P2 - There is a difference between what I am according to you, and what I am according to me (qualia).
C1 - Therefore, I am not real (objective, stance independent).
From there two arguments can follow :
P3 - I am reducible to atoms (physicalism).
C2 - Therefore atoms are not real (objective, stance independent)
Or :
P3' - Atoms are real (objective, stance independent)
C2' - Therefore I am not reducible to atoms (physicalism is false)
One philosopher's modus ponens is another's modus tollens.
It seems that either realism about atoms is false (if physicalism is true), or physicalism is false (if realism about atoms is true).
The other possibility is that the self doesn't exist I guess...
@MrGustavier What if agent A sees only 3 legs?
@@Lerian_V Well, that is the case for distant celestial objects for example. If they are extremely far, then we basically only have one perspective on the object (and probably will only ever have one), so we can only list its properties according to what we see about them from our perspective.
Some additional properties can be attributed to the object by induction, which means by placing it in the same category as other objects on which we have different perspectives.
@@MrGustavier In other words, truth is relative to the perceiving mind, right?
@@Lerian_V *-"In other words, truth is relative to the perceiving mind, right?"*
That's kind of a separate topic, since I was talking about the philosophy of mind, or about the ontology of mental objects and of consciousness.
But yes, in perspectivism as an epistemological position, truth is indeed a matter of perspective.
By the way this is usually aligned with common positions in analytic philosophy. In analytic philosophy, truth is often considered a property of propositions. And truth is often described as a value (see _"truth value"_ in logic for example). And as any and all values, they need to be "evaluated". Therefore truth is the result of the "evaluation" of the "truth value" of a proposition.
And what kind of things "evaluate" or make "evaluations" ? ... Minds !
Minds are the type of things that "evaluate". So truth is relative to the "evaluation" of a mind, which is a "perspective" on a given proposition.
Assertion 1:
Thing A cannot be conscious of thing B unless
directly or indirectly thing B causes *some* informative change
to be wrought in thing A.
Agreed?
We were made by God in His image. This assertion is not subjected to peer review because God has no peers who can review what He does or has done. The fact that God created us in His image explains a lot about our conciousness. God is self-conscious and so are we. Once we accept this axiomatic truth, the profound mystery of conciousness makes perfect sense.
It doesn't. You're just covering our lack of understanding with faith.
That's an old school argument...
Absurd. Being made in the image of God means nothing. What part of the image of God does God and humans share and what parts of the image of God only belongs to God? And how do you know that?
@@jonatasmachado7217
Okay, you can say it makes sense to begin with an axiomatic statement like this, but that doesn't make it true. We still should try to understand consciousness.
@@jonatasmachado7217
The “old school” argument is that god is really smart and we can never comprehend his existence nor his wisdom.
That makes a god obsolete and basically useless.
Consciousness is the particle and wave duality experiment. The cones and rods of the eye preserve the particle and wave duality so your vision don't look like a flat screen television. It's supposed to be a violation of physics but that is the exception.
A: Materialism is right!
B: But the latest scientific findings seem to go against it.
A: Let's change the definition of materialism then!
Please invite Bernardo Kastrup, I want to see you attack his ideas.
Exactly. The new materialists claiming that qualitative peoperties are contained within the physical reality is just hillarious. Just an incoherent account for a (materialist) paradigm that has no legs to stand on.
Wish to see kastrup encountered by more academic philosophers...
What are these findings that go against it?
The dialogue Alex mentions by Lewis Carroll at about 17:45 is called "What the Tortoise said to Achilles." Classic paper about the nature of logical entailment.
The thing about being aware of awareness, is that awareness then becomes the subject. And so if you become aware of the awareness of your awareness of a thing,then that aggregate becomes the subject. And we can apply this to as many "aware of awareness"es as you'd like. It's always just one subject. So there's nothing really impressive going on with the brain in this scenario. It's really not different than imagining a picture of video feedback, or an infinite amount of reflections in two mirrors.
not really, have you actually tried to become aware of awareness? if you try you will reach a state of pure awareness, this is basically the goal of meditation and has been taught since 7th century BC
*or rather not try at all
@@humanoid8344We're always in a state of pure awareness when we're aware. You're either aware or you're not.
You know , I thought that as I was listening but wasn’t able to put it into words. Great job.
Being aware of awareness is a bi-product of intellegience. Very few species are actually aware of their own existence (first stage awareness/consciousness), and we know that because of the mirror test. Therefore we can conclude that being aware of awareness is not a mystical immaterial thing, but can be explained by science.
Numbers are our representation for certain types of properties/traits of reality/things/etc
I’d love to see a video updating us on your on your philosophy surrounding veganism. No judgement at all, it’s just an interesting subject imo.
I feel he’s overdone this topic, whether interesting or not
good veggies only get sweeter the longer you cook them, @@chemquests Only meat gets dry 😘
@@FartPanther nice. Just a sear for me please (including grilled veggies w/ the burnt tips)
The empirical research into consciousness is being done in the field of "cognitive science." This field of study is a precursor to "artificial intelligence" and "neurology" (see, Mark Solms, the "Hidden Spring"). And in the military, this question falls under the "OODA loop" (observe, orient, decide, act) was developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. In mathematics it's called a "feedback loop" from "continuous dynamical systems theory." The idea of a defined entity with individual agency comes from the principles of the "Markov barrier."
In eyes, a world of light unfolds,
Photons dancing, stories told.
Colors vibrant, shapes defined,
A symphony of sight, refined.
In ears, a tapestry of sound,
Vibrations whispered, all around.
From birdsong sweet to thunder's boom,
A symphony of hearing, in bloom.
On skin, a touch, a gentle breeze,
Warmth and coolness, nature's ease.
Pain and pleasure, textures fine,
A symphony of feeling, ever thine.
In noses, scents that fill the air,
Memories awaken, sweet and rare.
From floral fragrance to baking's call,
A symphony of smell, enchanting all.
On tongues, a dance of flavors bright,
Sweet and sour, day and night.
Savory delights, a taste divine,
A symphony of taste, eternally thine.
Inner ears, a balance kept,
Guiding steps, where we have slept.
Tilting, turning, never still,
A symphony of balance, fulfilling.
Muscles and joints, a tale they tell,
Of movement free, where we excel.
Stretching, flexing, reaching high,
A symphony of movement, reaching the sky.
Nociceptors cry, when danger's near,
Warning of pain, be cautious, clear.
A prickly sting, a throbbing ache,
A symphony of pain, for safety's sake.
Thermoreceptors, guardians wise,
Sense the heat, the cold they rise.
Shivering chills, a sun-kissed glow,
A symphony of temperature, ebb and flow.
Chemoreceptors, breathing's guide,
Inhale the life, where oxygen hides.
Exhale the waste, a rhythm keeps,
A symphony of breathing, slumber deep.
Stretch receptors, whispers low,
Organs full, or time to go.
Hunger pangs or bladder's need,
A symphony of signals, nature's deed.
Plants stand tall, to sunlight drawn,
Leaves unfurl, a new day's dawn.
Roots descend, in darkness deep,
A symphony of growth, secrets to keep.
These senses sing, a chorus grand,
Connecting us to this vast land.
A symphony of nature's art,
Forever etched, within our heart.
Sounds like GPT
@@venturer9400 (whispering) (With the help of ChatGPT.....yes.)
GPT gettin better i see
Senses come before "awareness" and consciousness.
Cases where sleepwalkers perform complex tasks show that consciousness and awareness are separate things. Sensory input and processing can occur without consciousness.
Consciousness is like windows 3.1 booting on top of DOS.
I would argue that we are not experiencing "reality" through our senses but rather only the information that was useful for our ancestors to reproduce. If we take vision as an example, our eyes simply transmit a subset of data that is around us (visible light) to our brain which then constructs what it believes to be useful for us to focus on. The book The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman explains this way better than I ever could.
100%. Idealism ftw.
This is self-defeating
How so?@@a.t.stowell1709
@@a.t.stowell1709 No elaboration?
Do you all remember those 3D Magic Eye pictures where you stare at them long enough and the abstract colorful image transforms into 3D picture of some object? If we evolved to see the truth of the world around us, which image is true, the one with the 3D image or the one without? You are also not seeing the dots the printer placed on the page to create the overall image, nor can you see the bacteria covering the page, and you don't see atoms that make up the page or subatomic particles that make up the atoms. We evolved to see the useful bits of information and construct medium sized objects in our mind, there really isn't another explanation.
Alex - you have one of my favorite minds and are one of my favorite voices to listen to. But you have *got* to drop this question about redness. I take it take your reasoning is something like - redness is a quality of consciousness, and if conciseness is a function of the brain, then why can’t you cut open a brain and find redness? Then you add that neural processes encapsulate the experience of redness but not the redness itself.
The most straightforward answer is that “redness”, as an attribute, is approximated and extracted by your brain from your experiences. Just like tastiness and loneliness and love. These types of things are just common denominators of similar experiences.
But your question, from a materialist perspective, makes you sound as if you misunderstand the materialist argument and severely misunderstand neurology and the brain. I’ll make a symmetrical argument to show you.
I can say that rhythm is an attribute or quality of dance, and I know that dancing is a thing people do. But if I were to cut open a dancer, I would fail to find any rhythm. So I can conclude that the existence of rhythm within the phenomenon known as dancing poses problems for materialism.
The above example strikes me as equally as nonsensical as the redness argument.
Again, this comes from a place of love. I have tremendous respect for you and I find you to be one of the sharpest and most philosophically fortified voices on the planet. Certainly on CZcams. If I were to dye and face God in court, I’d have trouble choosing between you and Sam Harris as my defense. (You’re stronger philosophically, imo, but Sam has that otherworldly, monk-like clarity. You’re both excellent logicians.)
Maybe Alex should answer the question what a hologram is, and how it relates to matter, specifically the matter on which it is stored.
The issue here is that rhythm appears to be an emergent phenomenon that arises out of specific movements in time with music, while redness appears to be a simple idea composed merely of one thing: the experience of redness.
@@stefanheinzmann7319oh, yeah. Great comparison
@@Nitroade24 I would strongly challenge the notion that redness is simpler, in any way, than rhythm. They are both properties of pattern recognition, but rhythm is (basically, probably) based on dividing time in ways that are repeatable, predictable, and appealing. It’s almost certainly more of a social phenomenon than is redness.
But the experience of ‘redness’ is unbelievably complicated. Idk how much of this background you know, but perception of the color red is based on particular wavelengths of light being reflected from objects we recognize as red. The idea of ‘redness’ comes from the culmination of experiencing ‘red’ things. Those things reflected slightly different wavelengths, but all fell within the boundary we’ve set for red, and after a while we can abstract the quality they all had in common: their redness.
One huge piece of evidence for this is that color perception, like rhythm, is influenced by sociology. Due to their environment, some African societies recognize 5-6 different hues that Americans would recognize flatly as all just green. So 5 Americans can visualize ‘greenness’ and to an African, their ‘greenness’ might be 5 different colors with 5 different names, connotations, relevant experiences, etc.
@@Williamwilliam1531you don't seem to understand the problem with "redness" and qualia in general. You talk about all the work we do when experiencing "red" things, but the issue is precisely what "red" is and why we get that qualitative experience after interacting with these objects. You mention the wavelength, but that in itself is part of the problem - "inverted wavelength" is a well-known issue and thought experiment, for example. The qualitative colors in the wavelength could in principle be different; the mystery is precisely why and how on earth we get the qualitative colors (and other qualitative sense experiences) from these third-person descriptions that absolutely do not conceptually necessitate the colors or senses in question.
A brilliant neuroscientist and physicist who was blind from birth could understand everything about the brain and the physics of light; they could know all the physical facts you mentioned and still they wouldn't have the faintest idea of what qualitative redness actually is.
I think the problem of understanding consciousness is semantics. There are things that we perceive that are not necessarily in our immediate ‘consciousness’. The word itself is confounding. Multiple elements are necessary to understand the thing we finally call consciousness. First is perception. This gives us the raw evidentiary data (not unique to us). Next is the fundamental mental activity of naming or classification of all this sensory input (not unique but rare). We do this ‘subconsciously’ and while dreaming. Next introduce the concept of imaginative memory, the process of integration by way of creative narrative development (the difference maker). We have the ability to remember sensory input and then creatively manipulate it into the narratives we perceive as real time awareness
I wish you could talk with Roger Penrose on this issue. He has an interesting view on consciousness.
Completely agree.
Roger Penrose is a fascinating guy.
The start of the conversation reminded me of a trigram Penrose created with the associations between the physical, the mental, and the mathematical.We need the mathematical to understand the physical, but we need the physical to have the mental, but we need the mental to understand the mathematical.
@@davegold There is only the mental.
@@LukasOfTheLight why do you think so?
@@JHeb_ It's simply the most logically coherent, scientifically viable, and ontologically parsimonious explananation of nature.
2 options. 1. "annatta" : the buddhist 5 aggregates show there is no self/consciousness only sense stimulus and the brain's reaction to them. (try to be aware of more than 1 sense at the same time)
or 2. "idealism" the world is an illusion. which leads to solipsism, and "advaita vendanta""
( I am god)
this entire conversation and the so called "hard problem" is based on the fallacy of assuming (begging the question) of cartesian dualism. (the mind/body distinction). once you accept it's all or none. there is no more "hard problem". it's either idealism/advaita vendanta or materialism/annatta.
I’m going to smoke a fat joint and watch this. Thanks.
Dido….😊
Nature gives us hint of its working mechanism. Everything is a by product of larger objects and they both are dependent on each other. For example there are no rocks without lava, there is no tree without a seed and then a fallen seed gives rise to a tree. Space planets universe work in same way. Our universe maybe a byproduct or coming together of higher states of existence like a older universe or combinations of few universes. Matter is the byproduct of it and humans and brain is just byproduct of matter specifically combined on our planet. The evolutionary advantage we had was standing up on our legs which helped us maneuver our bodies which helped us build tools. It freed up lots of time to think whereas rest of animal kingdom still remain in hunting and wandering phase. We are not special we just got lucky in our evolutionary phase. Mind is just composition of all these things. One cannot exist without the other.
LETS GO! Love Josh
The moment a particle is a wave; it has to be a conscious wave!
Gravity is the conscious attraction among waves to create the illusion of particles,
and our experience-able Universe.
Max Planck states: "Consciousness is fundamental and matter is derived from Consciousness".
Life is the Infinite Consciousness, experiencing the Infinite Possibilities, Infinitely.
We are "It", experiencing our infinite possibilities in our finite moment.
Our job is to make it interesting!
The "great problem" of consciousness is that people with no background in neuroscience pose endless questions about it rooted in archaic philosophy, or worse, theology. It causes a great deal of unnecessary confusion.
Francis Crick didn't think it posed a real problem and it doesn't.
How so? What insights from neuroscience helped you?
@@cromi4194 150 years of clinical data. LIU.
@@scottythetrex5197
Neuroscience doesn't provide any answer to the hard problem of consciousness. It gives us a wider frame of reference and considerations, but neuroscience does not deal with issues such as hard problem.
Neuroscientists know about brain reactions correlating to mental states (the easy problem), not consciousness itself.
@@JHeb_it does seem like if you put enough of the easy problem solutions together, there doesn't seem to be much left for the hard problem to worry about.
@@uninspired3583 so far the solutions to the easy problem do not answer at all to the hard problem of consciousness. Our understanding of the human brain is extremely limited. Which is why neuroscience doesn't attempt yet to approach the hard problem.
When holding a mote of dust on the tip of a hair it seems incongruent that this mote could ever affect our perception of colour, of heat, of space; and yet enough motes can make a star. It is the emerging interaction of matter rather than an emerging property.
Everything is IN Consciousness and it is fundamental.
Non duality. Guess you watch “your higher self” as well?
@@princelamar1735, Well your guess is wrong.
@@achyuthcn2555 Fair.
Correct.
It may help him reduce confusion if he recognizes that these infinite regresses of thought/awareness/perception/consciousness/etc do not all happen at once, it's a series of perceptions (which he acknowledged at the beginning but seemed to have forgotten later)