Michael Graziano - Why is Consciousness So Baffling?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 พ.ค. 2021
- How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery-what it 'feels like' inside-will likely remain. This is the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness. What could even count as a theory of consciousness, even in principle?
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Michael Steven Anthony Graziano is an American scientist and novelist who is currently a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University.
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I don't have a problem with his theory (other than there is absolutely nothing new in it). But he is clearly speaking to the easy problems of consciousness and denying that there is a hard problem. Not progress.
Exactly. Also since everything he can talk about is from experience, what does any statement about a world before experience mean really? What qualities of such a dead 3rd person world (with no persons yet) could be finally and definitively separated from our qualia? And yet we must accept his statements about that world as the source of qualia?
He doesn’t even understand the question
He actively dodges it by insisting on talking about 'awareness.'
Agree. I don't think it was a rhetorical question yet he answered as if it were. Somehow I don't think we're smart enough yet to answer his initial question so yea a good discussion but we're still baffled it seems.
You should read his book "Rethinking Consciousness" I'd be curious about your thoughts afterwards
He understood and addressed it in the first few minutes and then moved on to more interesting ideas. Basically he said some people are just mystical thinkers. No use saying anything more. It is be never a good use of time trying to convince people who believe in spirits.
@@appelsss Talking about the relationship between attention and awareness takes the question about consciousness out of the realm of mystery-mongering, supernaturalism, and vagueness. His account is neurobiological and explains "qualia" in terms of informational processing. The aspects of qualia that people find baffling and inarticulable make a whole lot of sense once you see awareness as a specific kind of information processing: it makes us obligately think that experience has various strange qualities; but that's only because we're beholden to the information that realizes awareness and can't think or experience it otherwise. It's analogous to trying to think one's way out of a visual illusion; it can't be done.
It doesnt sound like his theory comes close to capturing all the facets of conciousness
consciousness is more than brain.
It's not intended to. It's intended to provide points of investigation as to how consciousness evolved.
Modern scientific discoveries in Genetics (i.e. biology) have shown that functional / coded / digital Information (i.e. DNA code) is at the core of All Biological Systems. Without functional / coded / digital information, there is No biology. The only known source (i.e. cause) in the universe that has been Observed in nature, and experimentally confirmed, to be capable of producing functional / coded / digital information, such as that found even in the most primitive biological systems, is mind / consciousness / intelligence.
@@starfishsystems I think it was intended to explain why consciousness is (or is not) baffling. After this, there is no doubt that consciousness is baffling and we haven't the slightest idea how to understand what consciousness is.
As Carl Sagan once said were all made of star stuff, isn't it strange then that the universe, this star stuff of elementary particles and gasses can create us humans through which the universe can contemplate its own existence?
I like another quote...we aren't made of star stuff, star stuff is made of us...panpsychism/idealism is the only game in town...at least for now
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Max Plank (the Father of Quantum Physics) ...
It is curious how Max Plank's conclusions were so revolutionary in the field of science / physics (i.e. the immaterial (non-material) reality of nature and "the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind" as the ultimate force behind the fabric of reality). Yet, when microbiologists. biologists, geneticists, biochemists, other scientists, etc. come to the same conclusion (i.e. Intelligence/consciousness/mind is an integral and fundamental force behind the initial introduction and subsequent propagation of biological systems), they are rebuffed as being "unscientific".
Matter cannot exist without physical laws and constants first existing. Physical laws and constants cannot exist without mind / consciousness / intelligence first existing. Mind / consciousness / intelligence is Prime. Mind Exists Before Matter.
@@moses777exodus Very well put, my thoughts exactly!
@@moses777exodus On the other hand,
one can conceive the situation altogether differently
with an at least equivalent likelihood of reflecting actuality.
It's easy to imagine that some perfectly natural precursor actuality underwent some change which resulted in the manifestation of matter.
Thus the nature of matter is the direct consequence of the nature of the precursor raw material and the process that converted raw material into matter. It is the way it is because that's the way nature made it.
Physical laws and constants are simply descriptions of matter's behaviour
and do not exist in the universe except in our mathematical imagination.
Our ability to think has come about in sole consequence of matter's nature (concepts like 'stardust' and 'chemistry' and 'evolution' come to mind).
Thus the order is changed and Matter Exists Before Mind.
Folks need more appreciation for the genius
of those few ancestors who conceived the laws of nature
and described them in terms mathematical
so then everyone made more reliable predictions
which enabled vastly more of us to, not only survive, but enjoy life.
@@bradmodd7856 the content is also the container
This video puts my consiousness to sleep. Relaxing.
Wow, this is very interesting and I appreciate this new perspective! 🤔
I've never really looked at consciousness/self awareness from this angle.
A modeling ability initially meant to make sense of the world and other organisms, that then began to be applied to itself 🤔
It's plausible, isn't it? Yeah, I've tended to assume that "theory of mind" as applied to others would have arisen after some process of introspection had revealed the existence of our own mind. We'd then go off and see if was true of others as well. But there's no particular survival imperative in that sequence of events, other than simple curiosity.
On the other hand, social behavior has developed in many species without consciousness. Clearly they don't need consciousness in order to gain a benefit from social cueing. Now the stage is set for further cognitive development, not just being reactive to cues but forecasting likely behaviors. There's no sudden leap of ability needed here. It starts with simple associative pattern matching in present time. It just happens that this is predictive of behavior in the near future. So in a sense we already have the beginnings of a predictive model, even though the mechanism only needs the basics of stimulus and response to confer survival advantage.
Models are stateful, by definition. So there might seem to be a question of how we evolve statefulness from an essentially stateless stimulus and response. I think that's a very interesting question, but it turns out that some kinds of statefulness are already strongly expressed, even in simple invertebrates. We can see fight-flight-freeze behavior in spiders, for example. There's potentiation and relaxation to preserve state over time. Sure, it may be global state, not some component that can be moved around or plugged into behaviors in an obviously modular way, but as long as the principle is expressed in some neural effect somewhere, it has at least the potential to migrate to new areas under evolutionary pressure. That would be my guess.
There are obviously a lot more dots to connect in order to get from statefulness to models to theory of mind, and ultimately to a kind of inferential leap involving an awakening sense of self that can in turn be introspected. But it's plausible, and it can be investigated at each of the dots. That's so much more promising than treating consciousness as a fundamentally mysterious black box.
Some people seem to carry a strong conviction that consciousness must be mysterious in order to really be consciousness. I don't agree, but I see how an idea of consciousness that's based solely on introspection will not be able to bootstrap itself very far before having to give up. We need to come at this question from the outside in.
@@starfishsystems couldn't disagree more. Consciousness by its very nature starts inside the mind so how does looking from the outside in help us? If you look from the outside you are limited to the conditioned mind. All dualistic thinking is conditioned.
The fact that all these nobel prize laureates take the trouble to enlighten us with their knowledge in the youtube comment section is just freaking amazing. I feel so blessed.
You can ignore those comments. No one is forcing you to read them.
The fact that some people make nobel prize to be some form of God given right to express their opinions but others cannot share their opinions.. and consider Nobel Prize to be a form of religious decree and reeks of scientific extremist fundamentalism is so freaking amazing!
@@meowmeow83
No you are missing the point completely.
The problem is not that they present their opinions. The problem is that they present them as absolute fact, as opposed to the experts who are very careful in formulating their thoughts about this subject matter..
@@infividsgaming You too completely missed the point. See my other response.
I think he nailed it. He simplified Consciousness to Attention and the Attention Schema theory elegantly explained it…we have a story teller program running in our brains and the qualia is just another personal story we tell ourselves and others.
Consciousness is the base of all reality , there is no fisical state that can't be simulated by conscioness ( virtual simulation) every physical sense can be simulated.
Any proof of "form" and "material" is known through consciousness. The primacy of the physical world is not given. You have to prove that matter and form exist without using consciousness.
@@HoneybunMegapack if there was any proof or explanation of consciousness, it wouldnt be what it is. infact, it couldnt 'be' at all.. to be defined is to be determined, which would be dead.
@@HoneybunMegapack "still havent explained" there is no explanation like i said, this can only be found first hand. (probably to filter out all the toxic trolls/spam?)
@@HoneybunMegapack just realised your names an anagram of spam filter haha
basically consciousness is fundamental. consciousness does not emerge from matter, it's the other way round.
I think that there is a hidden level of “awareness” that actually determines many of the choices that we make in life. We are PavlovIan creatures who have been programmed from the moment of conception and onwards throughout our lives. Our choices are predetermined by our prior input, especially regarding relationships. There is no truly free choice until you cut the puppet strings from the past. I had no idea how deeply the coding runs until I was forced to take a look at it and deal with it. That action transformed my life. And that was almost 50 years ago. The best snips that I have ever made. To be more “fully aware” you must deprogram yourself first.
So what were the strings? Can you elaborate a little bit more?
My take: the first part of the journey to Truth is to eliminate the bullshit. Only then can you start filling in the gaps.
@@seanmeantime my understanding is that the puppet strings are all of your conditioned thinking. Everything that you understand about the world is a conditioned and instinctive response. So you need to cut those conditioned responses. And you cut them by becoming fully concious.
It’s like when you feel hot, your body is involuntarily AWARE of the increasing temperature but your ATTENTION is not focused on the rising temperature until you reach a threshold at which point you become CONSCIOUS of being overheated and QUALIA emerges, which defines for you what it’s like to feel hot. This CONSCIOUSNESS which arose from your ATTENTION and your AWARENESS is the end result of all your senses, the cells, bacteria, viruses, parasites and other components that make up your body or “SELF” providing constant information of the status of each component and your environment to the brain allowing the brain and body to be AWARE (voluntary or involuntary) and then ATTENTIVE and thereby allow for CONSCIOUSNESS and subsequently QUALIA and a overall SENSE OF SELF.
See the world as it is, not as how it should be. -Leonardo DaVinci
Excellent Q&As, especially the follow on how awareness of attention captures the qualia of consciousness.
hmm, very nicely explained. thanks for the video.
Who are you thanking?
Good episode I was waiting for it after the one you posted with the Aussie the other day, when he mentioned the conscious problem, I had to think, is he serious, because sometime I get glimpses that it’s difficult too
I am more baffled about consciousness after this interview .
It's a feedback loop in our theory of mind.
The problem is that we can imagine two kinds of attention: one with conscious experience, like the kind we have, and one without conscious experience, like an AI program that does facial recognition and is 'attentive' to faces. As with other materialist/illusionist theories, AST seems to sweep the hard problem under the rug
But Graziano specifically pointed out that not all human attention is conscious.
He also actually argued near the beginning of the clip that there is a hard problem of consciousness.
the difference between those two is an "easy" problem. not a "hard" problem.
The "hard problem", "what is feels like", will probably be outside the scope of science. It's explanations tend to be mechanistic. It presents the mechanistic surface of the phenomena. What would a sufficient explanation even look like, coming from this field?
In nature animals are aware of all sorts of things, awareness of danger being most recognisable one, and have been for millions of years (actually up to 2500 million years). In creatures that are fit awareness will evolve to something more complex.
I wonder if Graziano has considered that the introduction of the hand mirror may have had a larger effect on the perception of self than any other evolutionary change in the past?
In my opinion, the good consciousness is also depending on 3 different states as the be aware a new thing (detected new things by all applicable human senses at that time); consciousness analysis (from brain) can decode those signals from the 1st state (this state may work together with the 3rd state of consciousness); the 3rd state of consciousness is ability stored the information and recall (when you recognizing a good thing from someone's experiment and you can develop that even becomes better). In the 1st state, the consciousness is limited by interrupted signals from human sense that are cause by circumstances and conditions. The 2nd and 3rd state are more efficiency when the brain is healthy, has a good structure and energy level from the human body is in a good state.
Although he speaks of awareness in the physical sense of space and time but I think it can be equated to intentionality or the about was. Language itself had the dimension of sound but I am also subconsciously aware or understand the meaning of words.
consciousness scrutinizing consciousness can't be anything but baffling
The interviewer seemed more qualified than they scientist in this case.
Interesting conversation, yet Graziano didn't answer Robert's repeating questions about Qualia - the subjective experience of consciousness (known of course as "the hard question"), so consciousness still remains unshaken enigma.
His theory doesn't even address the hard problem of subjective, first-person experience, yet he claims that nearly pretty much solves it.
Honestly wonder if some people don't have any experiences. 🤔
I deeply appreciate how Graziano's mind works; he is clearly a master of "experimenting" on abstract concepts. However, I agree with both of you that he only succeeds in begging the question (at least in this particular interview).
Let us assume everything he says is correct: there would still be the issue of how I can be aware of attributing awareness to myself, which would give me a sort of "super-awareness", as I would necessarily have to observe this self-attributed awareness with an awareness that was not self-attributed.
Would either/both of you agree with this assessment, or am I missing something?
In meditation,i had my eyes shut,no sound ,no taste or any other stimuli through the six sense,yet,there still is this awareness which cannot be switch off.it puzzles me.once ,i coudnt even feel my body but the awareness still persist.it leads lead me think that this awareness is fundamental even after death.
@@BugRib
Totally agree. And about Robert's opening question: "Why is it that all my philosophers friends think consciousness is mysterious and baffling but my neuroscientists friends think it's not?"
I think that in this case, the philosophers' point of view is more clear sighted, down to earth and matter-of-fact than the scientists'.
I think the scientists' point of view has a huge blind spot (not adressing qualia), missing the very essence of consciousness, which in turn leads to partial explanations that ignore - in a very nonchalant way, I must say - the most important aspect of the matter they are researching.
[Of course neuroscience has led to tremendous progress in understanding the brain and consciousness, and yet there lies a huge misunderstanding too imo]
In conclusion, so far consciousness-wise philosophers : neuroscientists 1:0 😎
@@thereverendfury
I got lost earlier. Though I understood the importance of paying attention to others, I didn't understand how one develops the attention and awareness, to others or to himself.
many times when I am driving， my mind would wander somewhere else， although my driving reflexes are still intact，even while driving in a super heavy traffic , stepping on the breaks every few seconds but My mind is not aware that IM driving 😹 Although my Brain tends to forget my destination, my body is driving based on instinct only.
yes thats why is dumb to connect always consciousness to senses. The best deep baths with have with our consciousness is when our senses are not working (in the bed before sleeping for example) .
Hmm, i've noticed the same thing when playing driving games. What's funny is that when this happens to me, I get better scores, which is weird, because how can I get better scores, when I'm less focused? It feels like someone else is driving in those moments.
Are you sure your mind is not aware? Or are you just not creating memories of the experience? How would you know? :)
I think your example is the diffrence between subconcious awareness and self conscious awareness. Sometimes paying too much attention (or using too much self conscious awareness) can really mess you up! For example I notice that when Im typing Ill start making errors if I try to think about what my fingers are doing. But if I just let my hands do their thing I type much better.
@@chewyjello1 i think experience need less attention so consciousness can be employed more to other areas of interest :)
The answer is memory is taking care of driving skill. A learner can never drive subconsciously because he does not have sufficient memory of rout and road traffic sequence and skill. And also for this reason a learner gets over stressed during driving because he does not have enough memory to support autopilot.
There are two types of Conscious. The Consciousness of the Flesh Body and the consciousness of the Spiritual Body, the physic, the Rational Mind, Wisdom.
What a load. What you doing on this channel?
This is the type of BS that Graziano wanted to eliminate by talking about "awareness" instead of "consciousness."
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Max Plank (the Father of Quantum Physics) ...
It is curious how Max Plank's conclusions were so revolutionary in the field of science / physics (i.e. the immaterial (non-material) reality of nature and "the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind" as the ultimate force behind the fabric of reality). Yet, when microbiologists. biologists, geneticists, biochemists, other scientists, etc. come to the same conclusion (i.e. Intelligence/consciousness/mind is an integral and fundamental force behind the initial introduction and subsequent propagation of biological systems), they are rebuffed as being "unscientific".
Matter cannot exist without physical laws and constants first existing. Physical laws and constants cannot exist without mind / consciousness / intelligence first existing. Mind / consciousness / intelligence is Prime. Mind Exists Before Matter.
@@moses777exodus Regarding Plank, even the greats can be wrong. For example, Newton was an alchemist.
Regarding physical laws, they are simply a description of the way we think the universe works. They did not exist "first" or Platonically.
Information doesn't create the cosmos. Information waves are the fabric of the cosmos. And, as demonstrated with the famous double slit experiment, a conscious observer converts those information waves of potentiality / probability into "particle", "matter", or "cosmos". The Prime Observer creates the Cosmos.
He still could not explain qualia and how we feel awareness of others and self. This is the fundamental problem. The sensation of feeling red color or tasty food is more than awareness
He seems to be flushing out a model for the development of metacognition or something like that, while completely sidestepping the essence of the hard problem- which is why is it like anything to experience anything.
*fleshing out
True. If we can figure out what a single feeling (maybe red) is, I would call it a win for humanity.
I remain unconvinced that “qualia” describes anything significant
@@KestyJoe ,
If not qualia then something else should tell us what is conscious feeling that makes you aware of others and yourself ;
Here is an example:
if roses 🌹 are red and no one else there to feel then we are like a 6months old infant who looks at it and red colored is registered by Brian but infant is not conscious aware and doesn’t feel it !!!! If you don’t feel the emotions then you will have flat affect and split personality! If one is completely not aware and doesn’t feel emotions then he may be taking risks and not survive.
Conscious feel of everything is geared to survive. That is why we take care babies infants who don’t have yet ! The gap between consciousness feeling of saltiness and not feeling is conditioned: who is the feeler in you?
What gives the feeling of tasting lemon?
How is self awareness of feeling sweet come into?
Does insects 🐜 worms 🐛 have feelings
What is it like not feeling pain or pleasure
Do we have image TV 📺 screen in our mucousy wet brain 🧠
Do we have Bose audio system in our brain!! Where?
How does Amygdala and hippocampus store images? Like a computer then where is the feeler!? Is it due to phosphorus of ATP that provides images like in TV 📺 (electrons shoots on phosphorus screen and emits light)
Are images stored in hippocampus amygdaloid in mitochondrial chain?
Best definition of conciousness: Not This
This channel will be a big part of my life. ❤
To me .. the gentleman being interviewed skirts the whole issue of understanding the mystery .. profundity and complexity of consxiousness by focusing and dweling on what appears to me as just one aspect. ..the awareness factor ... of a multifaceted topic that by necessity cannot preclude the metaphysical roots of all existence
he is closed minded
I love how Robert subtly, or not so subtly, rips his interviewees to shreds
It was frustrating to see that guy constantly pretending to not understand what Robert was asking as if he thinks consciousness does not exist or is some kind of illusion. When he started saying that there was no mystery behind it, I knew immediately that he was in some sort of denial of that phenomenon.
The fact that "red" is a lightwave, and we understand it from a mechanistic perspective, does not explain why we experience "red" as we do, while there are people like this gentleman who simply just ignore the fact that this experience exists.
I agree we have awareness but it's very fleeting and superficial. Most of the time our thoughts are either in the past or future and we are totally unaware of being aware in the moment. Only when you can observe yourself actually being unaware do you start to become conscious.
The set of question is if the consciousness can be saved and transferable to a medium! If so how it can be done!
The first set of question is as follows being aware of your "self", questioning your "self" is quite complicated! How self becomes self! What makes me uniquely my "self"!
You are the continuity of your experience over time.
I don't think it is that hard. You have the ability to control yourself with your own thoughts. You can use your own thoughts to answer your own question's. Stuff like that creates a felling of self.
I think “self” is a function of our highly developed brain! It creates that image of self!
Kuhn asks Graziano why the "hard problem" of consciousness is so baffling. Graziano replies that it isn't and then elucidates his own theory about attention. But Graziano's attention theory only addresses the "easy problems" of consicousness, how the focusing of many subsystems in the brain onto a single object explains a person's behavior. This doesn't even begin to explain the subjective mystery of consciousness: how is it that a bunch of neurons in the brain give rise to a subjective experience? Can an objective theory explain, even in principle, the existence of subjectivity? Graziano doesn't even seem to appreciate that this is in fact a mystery. He seems to think that if he can explain the behavior of intelligent animals, then there is nothing remaining to explain. I frequently encounter this perspective in scientifically-oriented people. It's often very frustrating to get them to even acknowledge that the "hard problem" exists. I have to wonder if people like Graziano are very aware of their own inner lives. Or, even weirder, is it possible that some people just don't have inner lives, that they aren't actually conscious? Is it possible that some among us are philosophical zombies or very clever robots?
I'm very aware of my inner life (for example, i have a very visual imagination), and when I was young I intuitively believed stuff similar to the philosophical zombie argument....but I don't think I totally get it any more. That is, it's hard to pin down or articulate what the "hard problem" is even supposed to be.
"how is it that a bunch of neurons in the brain give rise to a subjective experience?"
but "how" means "how does that work", which sounds a lot like just another unsolved "easy" problem. Similarly if it was rephrased as "why". "Why" is about cause and effect, and surely "easy" problems are all about cause and effect. So why do people think there's a "hard" problem here? [see my speculated answer below]
"Can an objective theory explain, even in principle, the existence of subjectivity?"
Well if they can't, even in principle, then maybe it doesn't make sense to call it a "problem". That would just be how it must inevitably be. And the inevitable can't be a mystery.
I wonder if the seeming-mystery might come from the subjective experience of "objective theories". There is no step in a theory of touch that will feel the same as touch.
But oh well. We accept that different senses can experience the same thing differently. Just like we can feel a coin with our hands, or look at it with out eyes, or drop it and hear it, and none of these experiences are the same as each other, yet we somehow realize they are coming from the same object, and we're ok with that.
We might even feel one coin in our hands, see another on the table, and hear yet another dropped in the next room, and still know these different experiences are "about the same type of thing". I think, similarly, as the easy problems are solved, we will more and more realize that they are "about the same type of thing" as our other experiences, just experienced with a different sense.
P-xombie
I met a girl who's
entire personality
fit in a haiku.
☝️exactly. : )
By replacing "consciousness" with "awareness" he side steps the problem of consciousness, instead of solving it. A computer with transducers that allows it to detect things is "aware" of the things those transducers detect, and combined with AI it can learn and predict. But computers are not conscious (although it seems Graziano here probably thinks computers do in fact model what he calls consciousness). There's another reason Graziano doesn't like the word "consciousness". It's because consciousness is defined traditionally as being more than mere awareness (Kuhn refers to this when he says there's "daylight" between awareness and what others consider consciousness is), and if that conventional definition is true then that destroys his theory. But of course he wrote a book 11:30, it really bothers me that that's his response when Kuhn says his theory seems to fall short. Really bothers me.
I also think his "attention", as a concept, doesn't help his argument ... It's not a missing component that allows awareness to stand in for consciousness. A transducer that isn't programmed right can be at attention (it can see things) but not be aware (register a change in status). I don't see what that has to do with this discussion.
It's not a side step in an avoidance sense, it's a deconstruction to a more central, simpler version that's easier to discuss. It's a tentative forward step. It's progress.
Could you please interview Sadhguru and get his views on Awareness and Consciousness. There are several ancient books on the science of consciousness that he might be able to shed light on.
Awareness!!!!! Yes. I wrote a 20 page paper in college redefining terms based on consciousness from different disciplines and awareness was the basis. It goes hand in hand with instinct. Basic but only a defining of terms and semantics. There are bigger ideas and terms yet not known or defined yet.
As the meaning of the word conscious is to be explained with language
perhaps we should look to language as the place to find it?
@ 2:22 and shortly following, Graziano mentions the word and concept of 'intention', of picking up a sandwich, then appears to switch to the word 'attention', throughout the rest of the conversation. To me, these two words are subtle, but significantly different. First, is the intention to pick up the sandwich, then, what follows, is to put attention, to picking up the sandwich. In my mind, there is significant difference between the order of mental events that occur, first intention, then attention. They are not the same meaning or occuance in time.
Consciousness is so baffling because we all have these different interpretations of what conciouasnes is. The types and discerment of Conciousness has not been,developed so far, and adequately defined, so there will be confusion until we do have a model, to relate back and forth to each other with..
The definition and the understanding will/must occur coincidentally.
His theory is merely an observation of what conscience does, not what it is.
Does awareness come from information in brain? How might information in brain lead to awareness?
consciousness encompasses "everything"
I think in words? Doesn't everyone? Could awareness have become consciousness with the development of spoken language?
No. Dogs don't think in words. They do, of course, carry associations of various kinds, and they can do some kinds of sequential planning, but it's not in any sense PROPOSITIONAL, and consequently there is no grammar to it.
Much of what goes on in our unconscious minds is of the same order of complexity. There's no real call for grammar here, so even though we may have the ability to push grammar into our unconscious thinking, we rarely have occasion to try. There is also a kind of "aperture problem" which restricts how ideas can be chunked down by the unconscious mind.
Conversely, we rely heavily on language during conscious problem solving. It's indispensable. Any time we walk ourselves through the steps of analysis or assembly, we have to identify each step as distinct from the others, with preconditions and postconditions and verifications to each step as well. Language is the glue that holds this conceptual material in some kind of order for us. It's storytelling that has become specialized to this particular purpose.
Seems like Michael is talking about the attention or awareness of the result of projections. But, he isn't talking about attention or awareness of the sources of those projections. He seems to only be looking at one side of what makes up consciousness and excludes the unconscious, writing it off as mystical.
Hmmm even more baffling, I have a somewhat irksome recollection of a a kind of proto conscious state of being before I was even me - I wonder what that's all about lol?
HE IS HERE
Cool
They spoke for almost fifteen minutes of two different things. One was concerned with awareness and the other with consciousness
@@knowsomething9384 Saying that consciousness is just awareness and nothing more begs the question posed by Robert. Consciousness at the very least is not just the feeling of being aware, but the feeling of existing. You are aware of your being aware. Trying to reduce the mystery of consciousness to the simple fact of being aware is simplistic. Maybe even a robot will be able someday of being aware, without being conscious and without being amazed of existing instead of not existing.
@@knowsomething9384 How could you be aware if you hadn’t consciousness in the first place? Consciousness comes first, awareness is a consequence.
@@Garghamellal there is nothing mystical about consciousness
@@thermobaric3884 Certainly, if you don't find mystical the fact that out of brute and inert matter arises thought i am with you.
@@knowsomething9384 it seems you are admitting you are not just a camera which is recording its surroundings given that you talk of feelings. Yes, qualia is the hard problem.
Awareness is the product of consciousness. One must have consciousness to be aware.
What baffling is that what makes up consciousness and how consciousness is coming about?
Do the matter particles are conscious when they interact with each other for example mass object only with mass object in the process of exchanging graviton? Similar question may be posted to the other 3 kind universal interactions - strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions.
A mass object must be aware of the present the other to initiate interaction.... now by necessity they conscious by their own way ... but does a mass object has on subjective consciousness?
Awareness is more easily attributes to lower minds than consciousness in most formulations. Therein lies the problems. If words don't mean something specific enough, we can't talk about them effectively.
Simply stating an apparent inherent quality of a subject of observation does not in any way ‘explain’ said subject.
“Consciousness has utility”. Yes, so what?
To explain the complexity of an automobile by stating that it gets you from point A to point B, is ill conceived, and in no way describes the workings of the internal combustion engine.
Yes. I was disappointed in his explanations. Be didn’t really explain anything about the origin, in our brains, of consciousness. Robert was obviously trying to help him along.
One is a metaphorical problem, the other is a scientific one.
Very simple. Nothing complicated at all: We are living in a Sims. We are Sims characters with free will that actually belong to the individuated units of consciousness that have logged on into this VR to play as us !!
Awareness means you have perception, but there is also being in the bubble with no perception and or diminished perceptions. The 5 senses of perception but the re is also your brain affect by external magnetic fields and electromagnetic waves passing through your nuerall net,
The thing to remember us that those operate from thru your animal mind, sub conscious automated mind.
Conscioussnesses is awareness with assessment and conclusion.
Hope to see a discussion RLK with Sadguru
The method CTT uses of regularly choosing titles which is the opposite of the video is hardly closer to truth. If you are going to interview a guest who says "conciouness isn't that baffling" than title the video "Why conciouness is not baffling" instead of the opposite.
Consciousness is dimensional. Take someone with a learning disability for example, they're not synchronized with most people around them, when you unlock the disability, they regain access to parts of the brain that were limited or disconnected. Their mind layer finally starts working for the first time, the added bandwidth allows the other layers in the body to fully synchronize to create a deeper conscious experience. The world around them changes completely, even the people they knew before the disability/limitation are now much, much deeper when they communicate.
You're aware of me because I'm aware of you. But that fails to answer the big question. How is an individual aware of anything? How do I know that I exist? Is my world view real, or just a simulation? What is reality?
No insult intended, but this discussion answers absolutely nothing.
You should give his book a read "rethinking consciousness". It provides an answer to your first question.
All how questions are mechanistic, for science.
Reality is consensus experience.
The way people talk about consciousness like it’s only for humans! Every living thing probably has a certain amount of consciousness and all animals and insects and fish do too.
I wish Graziano would acknowledge that this first-person feeling of what happens (or qualia) is not captured by the construct of awareness.
i think those are what we are aware "of"
Will they ever interview Tom Cambell?
All things are a pattern with a purpose and the resolution of the purpose determines the resolution of the pattern. All "what is the nature of" questions are semantic. Consciousness cannot, or at least has not been defined with societ sufficient specificity. If we start with our momentary experience, we can find neutral correlates of it and that will be a start.
Because Neuroscience is a materialist theory? Which is strange since it is affectively claiming the answear ? There is no answear on our level of consciousness - I am afraid?? :((
It s just an intrinsec quality of energy-matter
Robert: "I don't think you're capturing everything about consciousness in your description of awareness."
Michael: "Actually, I think my theory does so quite nicely."
Robert: "No it doesn't."
Michael: "Yes it does."
Robert: "Does not."
Michael: "Does too."
Ditto, he ducked the essence of consciousness. For instance the experience of consciousness, of feelings and of qualia. Consciousness is not thought, a thought is a projection of a memory of an experience, into the present, or a different or abstract setting. But the original consciousness is basically an experience that is not a snapshot
dodges the question completely. tired of people who dont understand the hard problem talking about the hard problem
Maybe you should invite him to your lecture series so you could fill him in. :D
Nobody understands the hard problem because there's no coherent version of it, by which i mean the variables are defined sufficiently to test.
The "physical world/universe" exists, in large part, due to duality and the interaction and balance of these opposing forces. Light v Dark; North v South, Positive v Negative; Right v Wrong, Yin v Yang, Good v Evil, Up v Down, True v False, Male v Female, Hot v Cold, Wave v Particle, etc. is observed to be interwoven within the fabric of the "physical world/universe". This scientifically confirmed property of the physical world/universe does not preclude the existence of a Prime Observer/Cause.
With all do respect we still don't have a clue of what consciousness is .we are both physical and metaphysical beings.
MG refused to attend Robert's question. Some scientists are very closed-minded about the hard problem, yet they lack conclusive and convincing models themselves. Awareness and attention are further down the track from a basic sense of being. And, as Robert suggested, the line between reflexes and attention/action is unclear.
"models" are just the "easy" problem though. They are not required to solve the "hard" problem.
I don't know one way or another, bpansky. Maybe models aren't needed, as you say, that consciousness is fundamental. Or models might be needed.
Maybe the "easy" problem just needs extending? For all we know, basic consciousness or proto-consciousness may start with life itself.
Maybe the metabolism is the seat of being, it's primitive impulses refined by the nervous system into sophisticated information? Or maybe not. We don't know.
Maybe the reason why researchers have not cracked the riddle of consciousness is the exclusive focus on brain function? The search for consciousness is never widened because a neuroscience focus will attract vastly more grant money than blue skies research into the possibility that other body systems are deeply involved in generating a sense of being.
Sorry about the long post. It's a pet topic :)
Each time he said "I", he touched his chest subconsciously. His body language expressed everything of his internal process.
The I and the Not-I
It seems that he's only giving attention to one side of the issue with the Ego.
There are very strong overlaps with Theory of mind: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
I’d say he’s missing the question almost entirely
What does that have to do with my coffee being cold right now.
Yep.
I guess it's a nerdy thing that all of them believe that there's a scientific explanation for everything, and all they need is time and grants...
In my opinion, consciousness itself is a process entirely in the brain. Information about its essence and consciousness is encoded in DNA and passed down from generation to generation. At the same time, it is subject to continuous improvement and adaptation along with the experience acquired. However, self-awareness as well as awareness of other people and their interactions with each other are in my opinion influences based on the laws of physics. Perhaps even quantum mechanics.
study out of body states and the near death experience and you quickly learn consciousness is MORE than brain. read Consciousness Beyond Life by Dr Pim Van Lommel. His focus is on Quantum Mechanics and consciousness. it's fascinating. your argument which is essentially the materialist argument is flawed on so many levels.
@@Dion_Mustard I am familiar with this topic. However, in my opinion, the operation of the brain is not only biology but also physics, including quantum mechanics. I think that the processes taking place during clinical death are influenced by the subconscious which triggers the emotional sensations experienced by the person in clinical death. At the time of clinical death we are dealing with subconscious "mind" but in my opinion it is also a temporary state that can last from a few minutes to several hours after physical death.
In simple words: The body dies faster than the time it takes to disconnect from "energy". It seems to me to be a kind of emergency system that maintains the possibility of bringing the body back to life even after the physical death of the body.
@@justinebjork617 good argument but again, you obviously haven't done much studying on OBEs, Remote viewing, and NDES , with thousands of examples of people having out of body states and witnessing things in other rooms, other parts of the world even. read robert monroe journeys out of the body.
you very much believe consciousness is "inward"..I very much believe consciousness is "outward" and my the evidence is strong.
@@Dion_Mustard I understand your approach and belief in the existence of the soul and life after the death and I respect it. I also respect the work of people who devoted themselves to understanding this phenomenon. And I would be delighted if it were true. But still I am an open person and I do not limit myself to one or few sources of information on a given topic. This topic is also familiar to me from my surroundings, because my mother experienced clinical death. From many sources of information, I try to get a clear picture to be able to thoroughly understand this phenomenon. This state is quite similar to hallucinations, to the suspended state between consciousness and subconscious. You can list the cases of people who described pretty accurate the so-called leaving the body state. I agree that there is such a possibility, but it can also be an emergency state. It is not a state of complete awareness. As I mentioned before, according to me, there are both biological and physical processes happening in the brain. But the existence of an afterlife still does not convince me. In my opinion this is a phenomenal that occurs shortly after the "death of the body" but not permanent. But I can be wrong, and we all can be wrong. It's important to keep the mind open. It could be much more simpler or much more complicated that we think now.
They beg the question through this entire interview. Well, then, of course consciousness isn't baffling :)
His schema model presupposes intentionality in order to this supposedly generate it.
No matter how you try, you can't downplay the existence and capability of the human brain.
Scientific materialism.
Consciousness is fundamental.
Awareness with choice.
Without limitations, nothing can be measured. Nothing gained.
A statistical impossibility is defined as “a probability that is so low as to not be worthy of mentioning. Sometimes it is quoted as 1/10^50 although the cutoff is inherently arbitrary. Although not truly impossible the probability is low enough so as to not bear mention in a Rational, Reasonable argument." (*The probability of finding one particular atom out of all of the atoms in the universe has been estimated to be 1/10^80.) The probability of a functional 150 amino acid protein chain forming by chance is 1/10^164. It has been calculated that the probability of DNA forming by chance is 1/10^119,000. The probability of random chance protein-protein linkages in a cell is 1/10^79,000,000,000. Based on just these three cellular components, it would be far more Rational and Reasonable to conclude that the cell was not formed by undirected random natural processes. Note: Abiogenesis Hypothesis posits that undirected random natural processes, i.e. random chance formation, of molecules led to living organisms. Natural selection has no effect on individual atoms and molecules on the micro scale in a prebiotic environment. (*For reference, peptides/proteins can vary in size from 3 amino acid chains to 34,000 amino acid chains. Some scientists consider 300-400 amino acid protein chains to be the average size. There are 42,000,000 protein molecules in just one (1) simple cell, each protein requiring precise assembly. There are approx. 30,000,000,000,000 cells in the human body.)
A "Miracle" is considered to be an event with a probability of occurrence of 1/10^6. Abiogenesis, RNA World Hypothesis, and Multiverse all far, far, far exceed any "Miracle". Yet, these extremely irrational and unreasonable hypotheses are what many of the world’s top scientists ‘must’ believe in because of a prior commitment to a purely arbitrary, subjective, materialistic ideology.
Every idea, number, concept, thought, theory, mathematical equation, abstraction, qualia, etc. existing within and expressed by anyone is "Immaterial" or "Non-material". The very idea or concept of "Materialism" is an immaterial entity and by it's own definition does not exist. Modern science seems to be stuck in archaic subjective ideologies that have inadequately attempted to define the "nature of reality" or the "reality of nature" for millenia. A Paradigm Shift in ‘Science’ is needed for humanity to advance. A major part of this Science Paradigm Shift would be the formal acknowledgment by the scientific community of the existence of "Immaterial" or "Non-material" entities as verified and confirmed by discoveries in Quantum Physics.
Isn't a "Miracle" understood to be a violation of the laws of physics?
If language is ultimately responsible for our being conscious,
is language sufficiently immaterial to satisfy your understanding?
Why is Consciousness So Baffling? has an easy to understand answer that many simply will not accept! That being - We simply can't break it down and describe it. Fundamental consciousness can't even quantify or define (describe) itself! So have can we? would be the derived question from this :-) So we are all fundamental consciousness once we let go of attachments, belief/disbelief and 'habits', clear our own emotional issues (then we can accept the answer).
To evaluate and describe something fully we need to experience 'everything' look at it from the outside (we are all part of 'it') so to do this we would have to also die and then get outside of consciousness itself to investigate it from the outside also :-) yes! Silly is it not? let go of dogma.
The explanation will be a simple personal or group view! until something 'truer' comes along :-) this is 'truer' than any explanation any human or group of humans could experience (come up with).
Consciousness is not simple awareness, there are aspects within consciousness that interacts with every facet (cellular even) which is evolved consciousness that keeps us in our body and 'alive'
Why do I wake up as me but not you or any other physical object?
People who don't understand why this question is actually a profoundly inexplicable mystery probably just don't "see" the Hard Problem.
I didn't notice it until my early thirties. Before that, I was a staunch physicalist and used to ridicule people online who'd say stuff like "how do I know that my red is the same as your red?"
I used to think that was such a stupid argument against physicalism, now I think it decisively disproves it.
Um, for exactly the same reason that you don't have spontaneous psychotic breaks in the middle of your waking day. Our brains don't have a means of resetting to their state at birth, much less instantly sythesizing a coherent alternate personality out of nothing. Even if such a reset were neurologically possible, it would take a lifetime of experience to build that alternate personality.
the fact that you wake up as a particular body disproves all explanations except one: that literally is what you are. you are that physical system, and no others.
@@bpansky
Well, at least it's the most plausible explanation that fits the evidence.
We COULD be brains in vats, but that presumes someone behind the scenes, doing all the work of maintaining sufficient logical and evidential continuity to maintain the illusion. As Dennett points out, that's a lot of work, and we still haven't got to positing some kind of motivation for it all.
You are the continuity of your embodied experience.
What he has described as attention/awareness (whether deliberate or retained), is no different than what us with ADHD navigate with. I dare say anyone whose brain prefers to run in fight-or-flight mode may be able to claim the same (how he was able to group animals in being capable of also having this awareness to some degree). Perception to surroundings, sounds and emotions are picked up on in a different way and the same as his description of what he means by it.
If this was indeed the same as what having consciousness is as he has asserted, evidence would be that ADHD would then be able to be read on a brain scan, which it cannot be done accurately (or without debate) to date.
However those that practice meditation, have been shown to have increased grey matter and changes to their brain including the regions that support heightened awareness signals as described. Meditation’s purpose is to bring you to a state of your consciousness, which may be why awareness is accurately questioned here for being one in the same and also attributed.
Awareness is different than being “conscious”, which is the ability to also witness the said awareness while also being keen to what’s around you (it’s 2 fold - a duality). Consciousness is akin to sitting in a spectators seat, but with a much bigger view of the whole game (even to behind the scenes). This information just then becomes inherently known, whether the not you had ever put a thought to it prior (you just know in your “gut feeling”). Think like Janet from the show, The Good Place.
Meditation is attention control practice.
5:40, I think I understand, but then how is it explained that babies, some as young as one month, are consciously aware with so little time to acquire even a minimum of societal understanding? Being a father of six, three of each, I've seen them at all stages and can attest that they were basically aware and curious about Everything from the first couple sleepy weeks on.
Maybe they're picking up clues from within the womb during gestation, sounds, vibrations, but it seems like they would have to have something to start with, some basis to build their individuality. That precludes our consciousness being a man made process.
Bearded Roofer, this guy seems to be sticking with awareness since that is something that he can measure in the brain. He seemed to avoid talking about consciousness directly. He also wants to be able to show an evolutionary advantage to increased awareness that can be subject to selective pressure. The title of the video was a little misleading.
@Dave The Brahman
Graziano was saying that society shapes a persons individuality from birth. I believe a person is an individual first before birth, then learns societal "rules". I may have used the wrong word, "precludes". I meant something different than the way it came out.
I think Consciousness is developed, it is not inherent. Think of children for instance, even though they are entirely egocentric, they are taught to be sympathetic. Similarly, we are taught to be self aware and understanding our role in this world proves to be the process in which our mind (conciousness) develops.
This sounds more like self awareness than consciousness to me. I would argue that a child has consciousness from birth.
Perhaps consciousness is spirit
That we can turn consciousness off with a chemical, or a rock, suggests otherwise.
And after all that talk... you still need a grain of magic to have consciousness. On the other hand, this is all known integrated information theory, that unfortunately fails to explain conscousness.
Consciousness is not a computation. Attention is.
"These very mystical kinds of intuitions we have about awareness... that it has a subjective quality to it." Yes, how mystical to realize that consciousness is subjective. This is what happens when you get lost in the maze of your own thoughts.
☀️❤️💪
Consider that if we completely understood consciousness, we could build something that is conscious. Would anything that this guy said assist in that enterprise. No, methinks.
"completely understanding" it requires solving the "easy" problems of consciousness. Which will take more time and work to figure out. So your challenge is not a test that is capable of disproving an answer to the "hard" problem.
@@bpansky We have no answer to the hard problem, so we have no idea what would disprove it.
Is it too far to imagine that consciousness, which I believe is simply nature's way of connecting all the processes the brain needs to stay in touch and be aware of all the reactions that happen between its various parts via the neurons, was simply an accident of nature? That it probably wasn't intended to become what it has become? What nature did, again in my mind, was to have an invisible membrane that held all the parts of the brain together much like a cell has a membrane to hold all its components together. This then led to awareness, to humans being different from animals, to being aware of the past, present and future and that in turn led to the creation of emotions. If we discount the God hypothesis, what may have happened is that because the brain reached a level of complexity and as a by-product of the connection between all the parts of the brain, consciousness evolved to sort of have a master at the controls, but as an addition, consciousness produced awareness, which produced emtions, thinking in abstract forms, and thereby making human beings the number one species of the planet. It's my theory.
an accident of nature? impossible!
As usual, anyone claiming to understand subjective awareness just speaks in circles around it. This didn't answer anything.
I think that awareness is not consciousness. A component yes, but not the whole enchilada.
My philodendron is aware of and responds to the sun.
But it doesn't worry about its children or fall in love with the glockscinea sitting beside it.
It's not that complicated. Animals and humans are mindful of our surroundings and aware of self, time, and place just the same. All animated beings MUST, in order to survive and proliferate, be suited with a degree of awareness that distinguishes friends from foes, i.e. Humans are vastly more aware of reality because of the number of neurons in our brains. Brain size, and nothing else, is what determents consciousness. An electronic brain, possessing a sufficient number of circuits, will also become conscious and self-aware.
A piece from a new book titled: Saved by the Light of the Buddha Within...
Myoho-Renge-Kyo represents the identity of what some scientists are now referring to as the unified field of consciousnesses. In other words, it’s the essence of all existence and non-existence - the ultimate creative force behind planets, stars, nebulae, people, animals, trees, fish, birds, and all phenomena, manifest or latent. All matter and intelligence are simply waves or ripples manifesting to and from this core source. Consciousness (enlightenment) is itself the actual creator of everything that exists now, ever existed in the past, or will exist in the future - right down to the minutest particles of dust - each being an individual ripple or wave. The big difference between chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and most other conventional prayers is that instead of depending on a ‘middleman’ to connect us to our state of inner enlightenment, we’re able to do it ourselves. That’s because chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo allows us to tap directly into our enlightened state by way of this self-produced sound vibration. ‘Who or What Is God?’ If we compare the concept of God being a separate entity that is forever watching down on us, to the teachings of Nichiren, it makes more sense to me that the true omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of what most people perceive to be God, is the fantastic state of enlightenment that exists within each of us. Some say that God is an entity that’s beyond physical matter - I think that the vast amount of information continuously being conveyed via electromagnetic waves in today’s world gives us proof of how an invisible state of God could indeed exist. For example, it’s now widely known that specific data relayed by way of electromagnetic waves has the potential to help bring about extraordinary and powerful effects - including an instant global awareness of something or a mass emotional reaction. It’s also common knowledge that these invisible waves can easily be used to detonate a bomb or to enable NASA to control the movements of a robot as far away as the Moon or Mars - none of which is possible without a receiver to decode the information that’s being transmitted. Without the receiver, the data would remain impotent. In a very similar way, we need to have our own ‘receiver’ switched on so that we can activate a clear and precise understanding of our own life, all other life and what everything else in existence is. Chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo each day helps us to achieve this because it allows us to reach the core of our enlightenment and keep it switched on. That’s because Myoho-Renge-Kyo represents the identity of what scientists now refer to as the unified field of consciousnesses. To break it down - Myoho represents the Law of manifestation and latency (Nature) and consists of two alternating states. For example, the state of Myo is where everything in life that’s not obvious to us exists - including our stored memories when we’re not thinking about them - our hidden potential and inner emotions whenever they’re dormant - our desires, our fears, our wisdom, happiness, karma - and more importantly, our enlightenment. The other state, ho, is where everything in Life exists whenever it becomes evident to us, such as when a thought pops up from within our memory - whenever we experience or express our emotions - or whenever a good or bad cause manifests as an effect from our karma. When anything becomes apparent, it merely means that it’s come out of the state of Myo (dormancy/latency) and into a state of ho (manifestation). It’s the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, being awake or asleep, or knowing and not knowing. The second law - Renge - Ren meaning cause and ge meaning effect, governs and controls the functions of Myoho - these two laws of Myoho and Renge, not only function together simultaneously but also underlie all spiritual and physical existence. The final and third part of the tri-combination - Kyo, is the Law which allows Myoho to integrate with Renge - or vice versa. It’s the great, invisible thread of energy that fuses and connects all Life and matter - as well as the past, present and future. It’s also sometimes termed the Universal Law of Communication - perhaps it could even be compared with the string theory that many scientists now suspect exists. Just as the cells in our body, our thoughts, feelings and everything else is continually fluctuating within us - all that exists in the world around us and beyond is also in a constant state of flux - constantly controlled by these three fundamental laws. In fact, more things are going back and forth between the two states of Myo and ho in a single moment than it would ever be possible to calculate or describe. And it doesn’t matter how big or small, famous or trivial anything or anyone may appear to be, everything that’s ever existed in the past, exists now or will exist in the future, exists only because of the workings of the Laws ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ - the basis of the four fundamental forces, and if they didn’t function, neither we nor anything else could go on existing. That’s because all forms of existence, including the seasons, day, night, birth, death and so on, are moving forward in an ongoing flow of continuation - rhythmically reverting back and forth between the two fundamental states of Myo and ho in absolute accordance with Renge - and by way of Kyo. Even stars are dying and being reborn under the workings of what the combination ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ represents. Nam, or Namu - which mean the same thing, are vibrational passwords or keys that allow us to reach deep into our life and fuse with or become one with ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’. On a more personal level, nothing ever happens by chance or coincidence, it’s the causes that we’ve made in our past, or are presently making, that determine how these laws function uniquely in each of our lives - as well as the environment from moment to moment. By facing east, in harmony with the direction that the Earth is spinning, and chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo for a minimum of, let’s say, ten minutes daily to start with, any of us can experience actual proof of its positive effects in our lives - even if it only makes us feel good on the inside, there will be a definite positive effect. That’s because we’re able to pierce through the thickest layers of our karma and activate our inherent Buddha Nature (our enlightened state). By so doing, we’re then able to bring forth the wisdom and good fortune that we need to challenge, overcome and change our adverse circumstances - turn them into positive ones - or manifest and gain even greater fulfilment in our daily lives from our accumulated good karma. This also allows us to bring forth the wisdom that can free us from the ignorance and stupidity that’s preventing us from accepting and being proud of the person that we indeed are - regardless of our race, colour, gender or sexuality. We’re also able to see and understand our circumstances and the environment far more clearly, as well as attract and connect with any needed external beneficial forces and situations. As I’ve already mentioned, everything is subject to the law of Cause and Effect - the ‘actual-proof-strength’ resulting from chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo always depends on our determination, sincerity and dedication. For example, the levels of difference could be compared to making a sound on a piano, creating a melody, producing a great song, and so on. Something else that’s very important to always respect and acknowledge is that the Law (or if you prefer God) is in everyone and everything. NB: There are frightening and disturbing sounds, and there are tranquil and relaxing sounds. It’s the emotional result of any noise or sound that can trigger off a mood or even instantly change one. When chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo each day, we are producing a sound vibration that’s the password to our true inner-self - this soon becomes apparent when you start reassessing your views on various things - such as your fears and desires etc. The best way to get the desired result when chanting is not to view things conventionally - rather than reaching out to an external source, we need to reach into our own lives and bring our needs and desires to fruition from within - including the good fortune and strength to achieve any help that we may need. Chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo also reaches out externally and draws us towards, or draws towards us, what we need to make us happy from our environment. For example, it helps us to be in the right place at the right time - to make better choices and decisions and so forth. We need to think of it as a seed within us that we’re watering and bringing sunshine to for it to grow, blossom and bring forth fruit or flowers. It’s also important to understand that everything we need in life, including the answer to every question and the potential to achieve every dream, already exists within us. To understand the meaning of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo even more, I sincerely recommend that you read Tina Turner's new book: Happiness Becomes You.th-cam.com/video/NR5DdqjMxgA/w-d-xo.html Let go, and let God - Olivia Newton-John Nam Myoho Renge Kyo Let go, and let God - Olivia Newton-John Nam Myoho Renge Kyo www.youtube.com
You're talking about conditional awareness. The awareness which your mind has been conditioned to understand. Consciousness is beyond awareness. When you are fully concious your are able to mentally stand back and observe your conditioned awareness. Your are just the observer of all those conditioned responses.
What ?
Consciousness or awareness is presupposed in all knowing it is apriori, we cannot speak outside of that fact. There will be no satisfying explanation by making consciousness epiphenomenal. Consciousness can never be known as a content otherwise one will end in infinite regress by positing a prior knower.
What would a satisfying explanation look like to you?
@@MrMcwesbrook Initially I would look at it within a Kantian framework ultimately, I think the only final explanation is that everything is Consciousness and its manifestation energy. This discussion has gone on for a long time even within the scientific world starting with Max Plank, James Jeans etc. I think the epistemological issues of how we know and what is knowledge has to be ultimately looked at.
But doesn't the belief in purely materialistic Darwinian Evolution lead one to believe, albeit falsely, that there is no Free Will? And if there is no Free Will, then there is no Right and Wrong and no Moral Law, which is completely contrary to everything that is practiced and observed in humanity and the cosmos regarding cause and effect.
Awareness is fundamental. Matter doesn't produce awareness, awareness is always there. Awareness just interact with matter to manifest itself into different forms in our 3 dimensional universe.
that is just an opinion
@@jamesi2018 like the one of the professor above ...
@@francesco5581 thats good but no one understands awareness, i thought this video was going to be interesting but its frekin boring, we are just rocks that are self aware, thats pretty strange
so you are saying awerness has the same qualia as the circle - is not the pixels, or rocks or sticks which made it up, the circle is there without the matter, matter just gets configured in that pattern.
@@jamesi2018 i totally agree with you, i thought you were referring to the one of the poster.
Because life is multidimensional, language is linear
It's baffling because we humans will never understand everything. That's not so baffling is it?
(Note: Please disregard the all caps. They were included in a previous YT post for emphasis. Thank you.)
DNA code is like computer language. And, as with every known language in existence, confirmed through scientific experiment and observation, is the product of only one thing ... mind/ consciouness /intelligence. "The discovery of the structure of DNA transformed biology profoundly, catalysing the sequencing of the human genome and engendering a new view of biology as an INFORMATION SCIENCE. Two features of DNA structure account for much of its remarkable impact on science: its DIGITAL nature and its complementarity, whereby one strand of the helix binds perfectly with its partner. DNA has two types of DIGITAL INFORMATION - the genes that ENCODE proteins, which are the MOLECULAR MACHINES of life, and the GENE REGULATORY NETWORKS that specify the behaviour of the genes." (Source: Nature Journal, Nature com)
But what is the relevance of your comment to the topic of bafflement re the conscious?
You are an electrical entity trapped in bubble, on two pegs, on top of a molten rock, cork screwing thru space at unimaginable speed.
To be alive at this time is intellectually intense, there so much more to our existence, the future is actually, limitless.
We just have we keep our evolution and understanding, alive.
We need a new world in our solar system, a place to create all the things for billions and trillions of human minds.
This place is the becomes our garden.