What is the key to consciousness? | Sam Coleman, Donald Hoffman, Hannah Critchlow
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- Sam Coleman, Donald Hoffman, Hannah Critchlow each give their views on the topic of consciousness.
Is materialism impeding our understanding of consciousness?
Watch the full debate at iai.tv/video/the-key-to-consc...
00:00 Intro
00:06: Question: Is it a mistake to think that the world and consciousness are fundamentally material?
00:20 Sam Coleman
3:20 Donald Hoffman
6:17 Hannah Critchlow
The relationship between the individual human subject and the world was once the central focus of Western philosophy. Modern neuroscience has instead tended to assume that the world is purely material and physical, and the problem of consciousness a question of how to generate thought from matter. Yet, we are no closer to solving the deep puzzle of consciousness and many argue that the American philosopher Thomas Nagel is right when he maintains that the question of consciousness 'cannot be detached from subject and object'.
#SamColeman #DonaldHoffman #HannahCritchlow
Is the notion that the world is purely material a fundamental mistake? Would we be more likely to unlock the mysteries of consciousness by once again adopting the framework of the subject and object? Or will slow, piecemeal advances in neuroscience and analytic philosophy eventually yield the answers that we have been searching for?
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Is materialism aiding or impeding our understanding of consciousness? Let us know below!
Watch the full debate here: iai.tv/video/the-key-to-consciousness?TH-cam&+comment&
I think materialism has gotten us very far (think Enlightenment, Industrial revolution), and there aren't many plausible alternatives. I may be proven wrong, though. Great video!
@@VictorsVisuals, don’t believe everything you THINK. 😝
I am a physicist and I will explain why our scientific knowledge refutes the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). My arguments prove the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit.
Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but I will discuss two arguments that prove that this hypothesis implies logical contradictions and is disproved by our scientific knowledge of the microscopic physical processes that take place in the brain. (With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams).
1) All the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or subjective/arbitrary classifications of underlying physical processes or properties, which are described DIRECTLY by the fundamental laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. What physically exists are the underlying physical processes and not the emergent properties (=subjective classifications or approximate descriptions). This means that emergent properties do not refer to reality itself but to an arbitrary abstract concept (the approximate conceptual model of reality). Since consciousness is the precondition for the existence of concepts, approximations and arbitrariness/subjectivity, consciousness is a precondition for the existence of emergent properties.
Therefore, consciousness cannot itself be an emergent property.
The logical fallacy of materialists is that they try to explain the existence of consciousness by comparing consciousness to a concept that, if consciousness existed, a conscious mind could use to describe approximately a set of physical elements. Obviously this is a circular reasoning, since the existence of consciousness is implicitly assumed in an attempt to explain its existence.
2) An emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess. The point is that the concept of set refers to something that has an intrinsically conceptual and subjective nature and implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements (where one person sees a set of elements, another person can only see elements that are not related to each other in their individuality). In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is just an abstract idea, and not a physical entity and so are all its properties. Since consciousness is a precondition for the existence of subjectivity/arbitrariness and abstractions, consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property, and cannot itself be an emergent property.
Both arguments 1 and 2 are sufficient to prove that every emergent property requires a consciousness from which to be conceived. Therefore, that conceiving consciousness cannot be the emergent property itself. Conclusion: consciousness cannot be an emergent property; this is true for any property attributed to the neuron, the brain and any other system that can be broken down into smaller elements.
On a fundamental material level, there is no brain, or heart, or any higher level groups or sets, but just fundamental particles interacting. Emergence itself is just a category imposed by a mind and used to establish arbitrary classifications, so the mind can't itself be explained as an emergent phenomenon.
Obviously we must distinguish the concept of "something" from the "something" to which the concept refers. For example, the concept of consciousness is not the actual consciousness; the actual consciousness exists independently of the concept of consciousness since the actual consciousness is the precondition for the existence of the concept of consciousness itself. However, not all concepts refer to an actual entity and the question is whether a concept refers to an actual entity that can exist independently of consciousness or not. If a concept refers to "something" whose existence presupposes the existence of arbitrariness/subjectivity or is a property of an abstract object, such "something" is by its very nature abstract and cannot exist independently of a conscious mind, but it can only exist as an idea in a conscious mind. For example, consider the property of "beauty": beauty has an intrinsically subjective and conceptual nature and implies arbitrariness; therefore, beauty cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.
My arguments prove that emergent properties, as well as complexity, are of the same nature as beauty; they refer to something that is intrinsically subjective, abstract and arbitrary, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness cannot be an emergent property because consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property.
The "brain" doesn't objectively and physically exist as a single entity and the entity “brain” is only a conceptual model. We create the concept of the brain by arbitrarily "separating" it from everything else and by arbitrarily considering a bunch of quantum particles altogether as a whole; this separation is not done on the basis of the laws of physics, but using addictional arbitrary criteria, independent of the laws of physics. The property of being a brain, just like for example the property of being beautiiful, is just something you arbitrarily add in your mind to a bunch of quantum particles. Any set of elements is an arbitrary abstraction therefore any property attributed to the brain is an abstract idea that refers to another arbitrary abstract idea (the concept of brain).
Furthermore, brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a conceptual model used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes; interpreting these sequences as a unitary process or connection is an arbitrary act and such connections exist only in our imagination and not in physical reality. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole is an arbitrary abstract idea , and not to an actual physical entity.
For consciousness to be physical, first of all the brain as a whole (and brain processes as a whole) would have to physically exist, which means the laws of physics themselves would have to imply that the brain exists as a unitary entity and brain processes occur as a unitary process. However, this is false because according to the laws of physics, the brain is not a unitary entity but only an arbitrarily (and approximately) defined set of quantum particles involved in billions of parallel sequences of elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. This is sufficient to prove that consciousness is not physical since it is not reducible to the laws of physics, whereas brain processes are. According to the laws of physics, brain processes do not even have the prerequisites to be a possible cause of consciousness.
As discussed above, an emergent property is a concept that refers to an arbitrary abstract idea (the set) and not to an actual entity; this rule out the possibility that the emergent property can exist independently of consciousness. Conversely, if a concept refers to “something” whose existence does not imply the existence of arbitrariness or abstract ideas, then such “something” might exist independently of consciousness. An example of such a concept is the concept of “indivisible entity”. Contrary to emergent properties, the concept of indivisible entity refers to something that might exist independently of the concept itself and independently of our consciousness.
My arguments prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property implies a logical fallacy and an hypothesis that contains a logical contradiction is certainly wrong.
Consciousness cannot be an emergent property whatsoever because any set of elements is a subjective abstraction; since only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, consciousness can exist only as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity corresponds to what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience. Marco Biagini
You basically said that "emergent property" does not exist as a fundamental thing, bit rather as a description of something that we fail to describe by the current fundamental models.
That's ok, but showing that we fail to describe does not show that there's something beyond. It could be just a matter of time and working harder, or even computacional power.
Furthermore, saying that the brain does not exist is ignoring the whole geometry and interactions of molecules. The types and ways the molecules interact in a space called brain is different from the way they interact in a space called table.
People use words to describe things, and the fact they are a model of realylity has nothing to do with consciousness not being part of the brain's physical activities.
On the contrary: simply take a compound of simple molecules that we call anestesia and the consciousness is gone.
@@andregomesdasilva You wrote: ”That's ok, but showing that we fail to describe does not show that there's something beyond. It could be just a matter of time and working harder, or even computacional power. “
You are wrong. My arguments prove that a necessary condition for the fundamental assumption of the physicalists that mental experience can be expressed in terms of brain processes to be plausible is that the brain processes are not sequences of elementary processes, but an indivisible unitary process; this condition implies that the description of the molecular processes given by the laws of quantum physics is totally wrong and it is necessary to find a new set of laws of physics that describe the molecular processes in a radically different way.
You wrote:”Furthermore, saying that the brain does not exist is ignoring the whole geometry and interactions of molecules. The types and ways the molecules interact in a space called brain is different from the way they interact in a space called table. “
You are wrong. In fact the laws of physics describe the interactions between molecules only as the sum of the interactions between their components (electrons, etc) and such interaction is always the same electromagnetic interaction. The laws of physics establish that the electromagnetic interaction can be both attractive and repulsive and its intensity can vary continuously from zero to infinity depending on the distance between particles, but there is no other differences.
You wrote:”On the contrary: simply take a compound of simple molecules that we call anestesia and the consciousness is gone. “
This argument has nothing to do with my arguments. In fact, your argument could be used to claim that brain processes are necessary for the exstence of consciousness, but not to prove that brain processes are a sufficient condition for the exstence of consciousness. Confusing a necessary condition with a sufficient condition is a logical fallacy. My arguments are not meant to prove that brain processes are not necessary for the existence of consciousness, but they prove that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness.
The very nature of quantum fields shows that reality is not 'stable' and the material macrocosm we see is merely a composite of things. So consciousness is greater than just what we see.
In your own words, define “REALITY”. ☝️🤔☝️
@@TheVeganVicar One sort of definition of "reality" is that it is what is physically perceivable...That which is physically knowable or measurable. Is that also your understanding,?
I'm with Donald. Everything in perception, including time and space are interpretations. There's no particular way in which something exists outside of some perspective.
yes but the hardcore physicalist called an illusionist eg. keith frankish will merely say that perspective is a physical object and what emerges from it
@@5piles But what would it even mean for perception to be a physical object outside of the interpretation of space and time?
@@Ndo01 He might mean outside the English language's limited ability to articulate and write meanings of space and time.
@@goldwhitedragon I am not even talking about it on a semantic level. I am asking from a phenomenological level how that could even be conceptualized.
@@Ndo01 if it could be, you couldn't say or write it. Grounding problem.
Excellent.... Distinguished Dr Donald Hoffman' approach is definitely right towards consciousness... thanks 🙏.
Sings: “It ain’t necessarily so...” 🎤
The Monistic Idealism championed by Hoffman is an INCOMPLETE metaphysics. 🤓
@@TheVeganVicar Can you elaborate?
@@paragt3682
Idealism:
Metaphysical Idealism is the view that the objective, phenomenal world is the product of an IDEATION of the mind, whether that be the individual, discrete mind of a personal subject, or otherwise that of a Universal Conscious Mind (often case, a Supreme Deity), or perhaps more plausibly, in the latter form of Idealism, Impersonal Universal Consciousness Itself (“Nirguna Brahman”, in Sanskrit).
The former variety of Idealism (that the external world is merely the product of an individual mind) seems to be a form of solipsism.
The latter kind of Idealism is far more plausible, yet it reduces the objective world to nothing but a figment in the “Mind of God”.
Thus, BOTH these forms of Idealism can be used to justify all kinds of immoral behaviour, on the premise that life is just a sort of dream in the mind of an individual human, or else in the consciousness of the Universal Mind, and therefore, any action that is deemed by society to be immoral takes place purely in the imagination (and of course, those who favour this philosophy rarely speak of how non-human animals fit into this metaphysical world-view, at least under the former kind of Idealism, subjective Idealism).
Idealism (especially Monistic Idealism), is invariably the metaphysical position proffered by neo-advaita teachers outside of India (Bhārata), almost definitely due to the promulgation of the teachings in the West of Indian (so-called) “gurus” such as Mister Venkataraman Iyer (normally referred to by his assumed name, Ramana Maharshi). See the Glossary entry “neo-advaita”.
This may explain why such (bogus) teachers use the terms “Consciousness” and/or “Awareness”, instead of the Vedantic Sanskrit word “Brahman”, since with “Brahman” there is ultimately no distinction between matter and spirit (i.e. the object-subject duality).
At the risk of sounding facetious, anyone can dress themselves in a white robe and go before a camera or a live audience and repeat the words “Consciousness” and “Awareness” ad-infinitum and it would seem INDISTINGUISHABLE from the so called “satsangs” (a Sanskrit term that refers to a guru preaching to a gathering of spiritual seekers) of those fools who belong to the cult of neo-advaita.
Although it may seem that in a couple of places in this treatise, that a form of Monistic Idealism is presented to the reader, the metaphysical view postulated here is, in fact, a form of neutral monism known as “decompositional dual-aspect monism” (“advaita”, in Sanskrit), and is a far more complete perspective than the immaterialism proposed by Idealism, and is the one realized and taught by the most enlightened sages throughout history, especially in the most “SPIRITUAL” piece of land on earth, Bhārata. Cf. “monism”.
N.B. The Idealism referred to in the above definition (and in the body of this book) is metaphysical Idealism, not the ethical or political idealism often mentioned in public discourse (e.g. “I believe everyone in society ought to be given a basic income”).
Therefore, to distinguish between sociological idealism and philosophical Idealism, the initial letter of the latter term is CAPITALIZED.
@@TheVeganVicar Interesting. Will look more into advaita
Consciousness is an emergent (strong) phenomenon that emerges when the material brain has a particular type of structure and is operating. If the chemical energy flowing across the brain is likened to wind, the brain structure is likened to a hollow reed of the right proportions, then thought and consciousness are the musical (resonant) notes triggered by the wind passing across the open mouth of the reed. A very rough analogy but it serves.
That's not an emergent property, since we understand how the sound is produced. We don't understand how consciousness is produced, by contrast.
@@samcoleman930 The resonance created by the interaction of the energy of the wind and physical characteristics of the hollow reed is indeed an example of weak emergence
What we need are some testable predictions to substantiate the belief or hypothesis that consciousness can be created by physical or mathematical or other process. We need a way to show how to derive subjects from objects such as atoms and molecules, chemicals and other physical mechanisms.
@@Corteum Might be possible but consciousness appears to be an entirely internal state; a state of states. Is it even possible to separate the states from outside?
This claim can be refuted thus: in deep dreamless sleep, or under general anaesthesia the neural activity is active, but we don't experience any of it. If our existence was that neural activity, as long as it is active, we should be experiencing it. But under general anaesthesia, we are "shut out" from it. This is proof our existence cannot be neural activity.
To clarify, the proof our existence does not become absent in deep dreamless sleep, is that, we want to hit snooze on our alarm and fall back into it. If deep dreamless sleep sleep was the absence of our existence, this would not make sense. We want to enter that state of being "shut-out" from neural activity because it is peaceful.
ORCH OR provides the best explanation for this. Our existence goes deeper than mere neural activity, and there is allot of experimental evidence for that. Along with our own experience when it comes to deep dreamless sleep or general anaesthesia.
Consciousness is fundamental. All is mind.
therefore matter can not create consciousness
The collection of all of us is SO important and I'm glad she mentioned it. We do have limitations on our senses and it's our ability to communicate these different perspectives that allows us to get a better view of reality.
The question though is 'how' limited our senses are. If we are infinitely limited like in Hoffman's view, all the different perspectives simply contribute to a shared illusion that has nothing to do with getting a better view of reality.
@@Ndo01 well then his view is just contradictory. How did he figure out our senses were completely unreliable? What did he use?
His senses. He used his senses to prove senses were completely unreliable. Thats ridiculous
@@partydean17 Sure if you consider reasoning from data a 'sense'. Using reason to doubt the senses is one of the oldest ideas in philosophical history. It's even generally accepted in neuroscience now that our senses aren't reliable so he wouldn't be saying anything new, he simply has a new argument for it. Even if it were a contradiction, it would reinforce the idea that the senses are indeed unreliable.
@@partydean17, in your own words, define “REALITY”. ☝️🤔☝️
@*The World Teacher - Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda* that which is.
Quantum vacuum is made of nonmaterial quantum fields. Fields of the standard model are effective. Nonmaterial quantum fields are more fundamental and live in a different spacetime.
"What we perceive as time and space is the interpretation our thought puts on the creative activity of God. In other words, time and space are the possibilities of God"
-M Iqbal (RRTII)
This is literally a virtual reality consisting of 3D rendered objects, that don't even remain as 3D rendered objects when they aren't being perceived anymore.
Nobody would claim the player is his VR character, or that he is created by his VR headset. Yet so many humans claim their Existence is their perceptible body, and that they are created by their internal apparatus (neural activity, microtubules, tubilins, sub-atomic activity, etc).
I think this is mainly due to older generations who grew up before Virtual Reality was a thing, and therefore fail to see the parallels.
Critchlow just repeated everything she learned in university LOL
😂
😂
Pretty much...lol You could tell she was just regurgitating information. No actual insight or understanding anywhere.
I like the way some describe consciousness by saying first that there is really something that it feel like to be something then go on to say well that is consciousness. Complete circular and one of the principle problems with old school philosophy. Why not at least attempt to break it down into things we know objectively . Like the difference between a sentient agent and a self aware agent. There are many beings that are sentient but are not self aware. Nor is there any discussion of why a network is sufficient to represent these phenomena and that it is not part of the substrate.
Ignorance of life and consciousness often drive us to a material or extra material sphere, making the topic more vague. In effect life and consciousness, soul, faith etc are all the product of a quantum computing function, although we don't know the algorithm of the function.
"At every moment, where language can’t go, that’s your mind." - Chinese saying.
Sings: “It ain’t necessarily so...” 🎤
🙏 阿 弥陀佛 😇
Mind creates and uses language... but isnt necesasrily limited by language.
🗝️
ofc no, we should discuss more deep questions, physics of perception, experiences, sensations, invisible phenomenon as Nikola Tesla stated
Is lightning material? Is plasma material? It's matter of some sort?
Depends how you define "matter" i suppose. What's your thoughts on it?
Material in a metaphoric sense?
form can not create not but form:
CONSCIOUSNESS DEFINED:
The English word “consciousness” means “the state of being aware”, or “that which knows”, or even more literally, “characterized by knowing”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). To put it succinctly, the phenomenon of consciousness refers to the SUBJECTIVE component of any subject-object relationship. Moreover, there is a hierarchy of localized knowing within the cognitive faculty of vertebrates (that is, a hierarchy of subject-object relationships), as well as a Universal Awareness (more appositely called “Brahman” or “sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit, or “Tao”, in Chinese), as explicated in the following paragraphs.
Consciousness is essentially impersonal, yet it can be expressed via a personal agent, such as many species of animals, including we humans.
Higher species of animal life have sufficient cognitive ability to KNOW themselves and their environment, at least to a measurable degree. Just where consciousness objectively begins in the animal kingdom is a matter of contention but, judging purely by ethological means, it probably starts with vertebrates (at least the higher-order birds, reptiles and fishes). Those metazoans that are evolutionarily-lower than vertebrates do not possess much, if any, semblance of intellect, necessary for true knowledge, but operate purely by reflexive instincts, notwithstanding certain notable exceptions to this rule, such as octopuses. For instance, an insect or a jellyfish does not consciously decide to seek food but does so according to its base instincts, directed by its idiosyncratic genetic code. Even when an insect (such as a cockroach) flees from danger, it is not experiencing the anxious emotions that a human or other mammal would experience. See Chapter 11 regarding the concept of will.
SENTIENCE EVOLVES INTO TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS:
Undoubtedly, the lower species of animals alluded to above, embody, if not true consciousness, varying degrees of SENTIENCE, depending on how many senses it possesses and how complex is its nervous system. Very few would consider a blind worm to be more sentient than a frog!
Plants are also sentient but use lower-level mechanisms for their perceptions. To give just a couple of examples, both land-based and water-born plants respond to sunlight (as witnessed by the opening of flowers upon the rising of the sun), and some carnivorous plants can detect arthropods crawling on their leaves. Therefore, when carnists claim that “plants have feelings too!”, they may be justified according to some sense of the term, so the most logical reason for being vegan is not because plants are completely insentient, but simply due to the fact that humans are an herbivorous species. Furthermore, fruit trees indirectly benefit from the consumption of its fruit, since their seeds are spread.
Recently, consciousness has become a significant topic of interdisciplinary research in cognitive science, involving fields such as philosophy of mind, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroscience. Many such researchers have seen evidence that the brain is merely a conduit or a TRANSDUCER of consciousness, explaining why the more intelligent the animal, the more it can understand its own existence (or at least be aware of more of its environment - just see how amazingly-complex dolphin and whale behaviour can be, compared with other aquatic species), and the reason why it is asserted that a truly enlightened human must possess a far higher level of intelligence than the average person (See Chapter 17 re: the distinction between enlightenment and mere awakening). The processor of a supercomputer must necessarily be far larger in size, more complex, and more powerful than the processing unit in a pocket calculator, obviously. Therefore, it seems logical to extrapolate that the scale of discrete (localized) consciousness is chiefly dependent on the brain capacity of a specific animal.
So, then, in response to the assertion made in the previous paragraph, one could complain: “That's not fair - why can only a genius be enlightened?” (as defined in Chapter 17). The answer is: first of all, as stated above, every species of animal has its own level of intelligence, on a wide-ranging scale. Therefore, a pig or a dog could (if possible) ask: “That is unfair - why can only a human being be enlightened?”
Secondly, it is INDEED a fact that life is unfair, because there is no “tit for tat” law of action and reaction, even if many supposedly-great religious preceptors have stated so. They said so because they were preaching to wicked miscreants who refused to quit their evil ways, and needed to be chastized in a forceful manner. It is not possible to speak sweet and gentle words to a rabid dog to prevent it from biting you.
THE THREE STATES OF AWARENESS:
Three STATES of awareness are experienced by humans, and possibly all other species of mammals, as well as many kinds of reptiles and birds:
the waking state (“jāgrata”, in Sanskrit), dreaming (“svapna”, in Sanskrit), and deep-sleep or dreamless-sleep (“suṣupti”, in Sanskrit).
Human dreaming occurs mostly, but not exclusively, in the state known as “REM” (rapid eye movement) sleep. During this phase, the electrical activity in the brain is more like waking than sleeping. That is why this state is often called “paradoxical sleep.” Scientists have discovered that most non-human animals - mammals, birds, reptiles, and most recently, fish - experience REM sleep, too. The electrical activity found in the brains of these creatures during rapid eye movement sleep is similar to that of humans while they dream, suggesting that animals may dream.
Some cognitive psychologists may claim that there are TRANSITIONAL states between waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, but these states are just that - transitory states between the three main states, in the same way that sunrise, daytime, and sunset have transitional states.
Furthermore, there exists the well-known phenomenon of lucid dreaming, where the subject is aware of the fact that a dream is taking place.
Beyond these three temporal states of waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, is the fourth “state” (“turīya” or “caturīya”, in Sanskrit). That is the unconditioned, timeless “state”, which underlies the other three, and is therefore completely transcendental to any temporal state whatever.
The waking state is the LEAST real (that is to say the least permanent, or to put it another way, the farthest from the Necessary Foundation of Existence, as explained towards the end of this chapter). The dream state is closer to our eternal nature, whilst dreamless deep-sleep is much more analogous to The Universal Self (“Brahman”), as it is imbued with peace. Rather than being an absence of awareness, deep-sleep is an awareness of absence (that is, the absence of phenomenal, sensual experiences). So, in actual fact, the fourth state is not a state, but the Unconditioned Ground of Being, or to put it simply, YOU, the real self/Self, or Existence-Awareness-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit).
Perhaps the main purpose of dreams is so that we can understand that the waking-state is practically indistinguishable to the dream-state, and thereby come to see the ILLUSORY nature of this ephemeral world. Both our waking-state experiences and our dream-state experiences occur solely within the mental faculties (refer to Chapter 04 for an elucidation of this phenomenon). If somebody in one of your dreams was to ask your dream-state character if the dream was real, you (playing the part of that character) would most likely say, “yes, of course it is real!” Likewise, if someone was to ask your waking-state character if this world was real, you would almost undoubtedly respond in a similar fashion.
THE THREE COMPONENTS OF EXPERIENCE:
There are three COMPONENTS of experience (or perception) - the experiencer/perceiver (or the seer, known as “dṛk” or “draṣṭā”, in Sanskrit), the experience/perception (or the process of seeing, known as “dṛṣṭi”, in Sanskrit), and the experienced/percept (or the seen, known as “dṛṣyam”, in Sanskrit). This “Seer-Seeing-Seen” triad is a more complete extension of the subject-object dichotomy. One who is self-realized (“brahma-jñāna”, in Sanskrit) has come to understand that this triad is, in fact, singular, since all three components are located solely within one’s own consciousness. That is to say, the aforementioned tripartite process can never be fundamentally separated, and understanding this fact is the basis for genuine knowledge of reality. Please refer also to Chapter 04 of this “F.I.S.H” in regard to the ideation of phenomena.
In recent years, the term “CONSCIOUSNESS” has been used in esoteric spiritual circles (usually capitalized) to refer to a far more Homogeneous Consciousness (“puruṣa”, in Sanskrit), due to the fact that the English language doesn’t include a single word denoting the Universal Ground of Being (for instance “Brahman”, “Tao”, in other tongues). The word “Awareness” (capitalized) is arguably a more apposite term for this concept.
THE NETWORKS OF THE HUMAN BRAIN:
Although the machinations of the human brain (or for that matter, the brain of any other animal) is not a topic that is vital for a comprehensive understanding of either consciousness, or for the understanding of life/existence (which is the focus of this book), this subsection was a LATE insertion, for the purpose of appealing to those rare individuals who have an interested in a more profound appreciation of the human psyche.
Cont...
"The VR headset generates the player."
I love it when experts say "Conchiness". I think it is the irony that someone can be an expert on something they can't even pronounce.
If you follow The Human Brain Project and e brains you will have the answer.
Probability is exactly zero said the scientist
It’s bizarre to me that Hoffman appeals to evolution - as if it’s prior to matter and consciousness. Very odd and seems contradictory
Evolution is a process. It denotes the differential survival of replicating entities, it doesn’t require or entail materialism. It’s a category mistake to put evolution on the same footing as consciousness or physicalism, hence, it doesn’t precede consciousness, at least not in Hoffman’s model.
@@aidanhall6679
What’s the evidence that evolution is a good theory?
Or does he simply assume it?
@@deanodebo I think his point is that evolution by favoring fitness drives truth to extinction. The whole point of nature and evolution according to him, is to hide the truth. And so, it's helping you to survive.
@@Simon-xi8tb
That’s a claim. It’s not true, but it’s a claim. I just don’t see the relevance
@@deanodebo It's true according to his model. But he himself admits that his model could be wrong. When he talks about evolution he sometimes forgets to explain that he is thinking about evolution in much broader sense, not just the Darwinian evolution, but the whole universe with the big bang. He doesn't believe space-time is fundamental, so the mind exists somewhere "outside" space-time. And the mind created the big bang and evolution here on Earth in such a way, that each conscious agent doesn't get access to the truth, because if it did the game would be somewhat broken.
At least this is how I interpret him.
It's always surprising to me to hear the so often repeated idea that "consciousness cannot be just electrical impulses".
That idea, or those equivalent, strikes me as partially ignorant, and partially misguided.
First and foremost, neuroscience does not throw the concept of 'consciousness' out the window (just look some textbooks on cognitive neuroscience, for instance, Gazzaniga's book), and it is never explained as mere electrical signals. Neurons have to be connected with the right group of neurons to respond to specific stimuli or to evoke a motor response; if some group of neurons that has some specific cognitive function gets destroyed, the function is lost (but could be learned again thanks to the plasticity of the neural connections).
Second, not because something does not seem intuitive, it means "it cannot be that way". Most of the discoveries in the physical sciences show us how counterintuitive is reality beyond appearences. Why could not be that the same happens in the case of consciousness? While neuroscientist strive for progress in the understanding of mental functions, showing some degrees of progressive success, the philosophers just say "no, that cannot be", closing the best paths we have for scientific investigation.
Philosophers talking about the world without getting informed about the best knowledge we have about the world is what have led to the discredit of philosophy in academia and elsewhere. (Just in case, I'm a philosopher as well).
"Neurons have to be connected with the right group of neurons to respond to specific stimuli or to evoke a motor response; if some group of neurons that has some specific cognitive function gets destroyed, the function is lost (but could be learned again thanks to the plasticity of the neural connections)" And still that does not deviate in any substantial way from "consciousness being just electrical impulses"; yeah, the circuitry is complex - but still it is all that is within the materialistic outlook.
"While neuroscientist strive for progress in the understanding of mental functions, showing some degrees of progressive success, the philosophers just say "no, that cannot be", closing the best paths we have for scientific investigation" And yet the same criticism applies to materialists: why can't it just be that there's an aspect of reality which is nonphysical, and it's that aspect that explains consciousness? If that's the case, then physicalism itself amounts to nothing but cognitive dissonance - but at any rate, there's yet again here a striking example of that secular failure in distinguishing between metaphysics and epistemology.
"Just in case, I'm a philosopher as well" I'm not, but since we should be sooooo confident that neuroscience has got us covered here, consider this _Gedankenexperiment_ : in a monochromatic (B&W) world, one subject looks at a W object and perceives W', and looks at a B object and perceives B' - same for another subject, W->W'', B->B''. Describe to me a scientific experiment that can possibly falsify the hypothesis: W'=W'', B'=B''. You have access to an arbitrarily large amount of resources. If there's a 'science' here, let it be empirically manifest.
I Invite you to read Tye, Michael (1995). Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind. MIT Press. In the first few chapters he gives a very good cursory explanation of why physical reductionism has problems. I think you are too quickly dismissing philosophers as uneducated about the science.
@@thstroyur There are some philosophical theories and hypothesis that try to tackle most of the objections you presented.
In particular, I think Mario Bunge's 'The Mind-Body Problem' , and 'Epistemology & Methodology I: Exploring the World' propose some views on how to understand what could it mean for a percept to be "the same" for one individual in different times, and for two different individual. His theory of mind is grounded on a ontological theory called 'systemic materialism' or 'emergentism'. For him, mental processes are not just "electrical activity", and there is a huge difference between that idea, and the idea that there are new emergent properties not present in the components of a system, that only emerge when certain kind of components are binded and interacting in specific ways with each other.
One of his main reasons to not accept immaterial objects and processes is that nothing in our scientific worldview suggest that there's something being material object (by the way, 'material' is not equivalent to 'physical'; the 'physical stuff' is just one level of reality for Bunge). And, also, there have been huge advances in the understanding of mental processes by adhering to a materialistic outlook.
Kind regards.
@@anattasunnata3498 "There are some philosophical theories and hypothesis that try to tackle most of the objections you presented" Does that surprise me in any way, shape or form? As it turns out, Cicero cracked the code on that one centuries ago: _Nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum._ I noticed, too, that you didn't seem particularly keen in trying to answer the challenge yourself - because you're more comfortable appealing to another's authority. This false sense of security that the experts give us is a prime reason for the rise of anti-intellectualism we've been witnessing in the modern age.
"For him, mental processes are not just "electrical activity", and there is a huge difference between that idea, and the idea that there are new emergent properties not present in the components of a system, that only emerge when certain kind of components are binded and interacting in specific ways with each other." Be as it may, it is still physical, because it's grounded on physical stuff. A phonon is an emergent phenomenon of a crystal lattice; it may not exist by itself 'in the wild', but it's still contingent on its physical reality, and still an expression thereof. Emergentism is not so much about opposing what one may call _substance_ reductionism, but rather _property_ reductionism; if you want to play with words here, by making consciousness an 'emergent, but nonphysical entity', you're just doing epiphenomenalism in disguise - or even worse, panpsychism.
"And, also, there have been huge advances in the understanding of mental processes by adhering to a materialistic outlook." Nope; there's been advances in _neurophysiology_ - big difference, there.
Kind regards.
I'd be very interested to hear your explanation of how consciousness can just be electronic impulses. I find that premise intrinsically jejune, binary and trite. Perhaps you can explain how something as developed and sophisticated as human, subjective experience, interaction with the environment/other beings, creativity, culture and our comprehension of ourselves and externality, can be reduced to electronic pulses? Essentially you're throwing the baby out with the bath water!
The way Hoffman simply says that 'specetime is doomed! Everybody agrees with this nowadays' is pure intelectual dishonesty!
many of the top tier theoretical physicists say this is this case, and the proof is in the pudding. they have discerned objects beyond spacetime that UTTERLY help calculation and observation of spacetime objects, which otherwise be extremely difficult to do.
Agreed. He exaggerates often. Which is really poor given the existing difficulty of the subject matter he dwells in.
@queerdo The theory is "doomed" is what he said. Total exaggeration. Shame he has fanboys too. That doesn't help.
@queerdo Now you're talking out your hat. You're as bad as Hoffman. All we ask for is the opinion without the hyperbole. Clearly you can't tell the difference.
You are definitely from a 19th century.
The sun's gravitational field rotates with the sun's own rotation, and at the same time the sun's gravity attracts the earth. Obviously, the earth is accelerated towards its tangential direction by the gravitational field of the sun. Just like the rotating electromagnetic field of a motor turns the rotor of the motor. Such a simple and obvious physical phenomenon has been absurdly explained as the curvature of space-time.
Today's physics believes: "The speed of an accelerated object will tend to infinity with the increase of time." This is also a physical ignorance! In fact, all objects with mass have a natural and simple property - inertia. The characteristic of inertia is that when an object is accelerated, it will be resisted by the object's inertial force, so that the speed cannot increase infinitely. It is not difficult to calculate that when the earth is accelerated by the gravitational field of the sun's rotation (the acceleration force is equal the gravitational force of the sun on the earth), the maximum speed to which the earth can be accelerated is exactly the required revolution speed of the earth around the sun.
Consciousness is a gradient. No life doesnt have it. Non zero and onwards.
matter is within consciousness and the lady got it all mixed up and is tweaking on hopium
Are you ABSOLUTELY certain of that?
@@TheVeganVicar absolutely. you can empirically test it if you are aware of your instant presence and its contents/objects.
@@ondrejstefik159, don’t believe everything you PERCEIVE. 😝
@@TheVeganVicari can say same to you.
@@chetanpatil1654, Good Girl! 👌
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱