Steven Pinker - 'From Neurons to Consciousness'
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- Steven Pinker, Professor in Harvard’s Department of Psychology and Visiting Professor at New College of the Humanities delivers his annual NCH lecture series. - www.nchlondon.a...
Professor Steven Pinker is a Visiting Professor at NCH, where he has developed and teaches part of the Cosmology, Evolution & Neurobiology course, which is studied by all undergraduates at the College.
Founded in 2011, New College of the Humanities (NCH) has earned a reputation as a world-class academic institution that is leading the way in UK higher education. Teaching at NCH is delivered through one-to-one tutorials, small group seminars and interactive lectures of between 10 and 60 students, meaning that all voices are heard and all questions debated.
NCH’s world-class professoriate includes luminaries such as Simon Blackburn, Sir Partha Dasgupta, Richard Dawkins, Daniel C Dennett, AC Grayling, Bettany Hughes, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Pinker, Sir Christopher Ricks, and Adrian Zuckerman, all of whom teach and contribute to the creation and development of the curriculum at the College.
If you want to find out more about New College of the Humanities, where you can learn from Professors including Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, visit our site here - www.nchlondon.ac.uk/
Shame the audio is so so hizzy. Great talk still
Not sure what hizzy means, but I agree, lol
This guy is one of the smartest people on earth
Thinking of matter as fundamental is why we have ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.
35:30
Threshold 0 Neuron goes Brrrrrrp meme
Self-evidently, we are nothing more than highly coordinated, goal-seeking organisms.
From the inside, the physical processing that is naturally and autonomically occurring at the centre of our physiology is objectively inaccessible, even while being subjectively present.
From the outside, this very same processing is objectively accessible, even while being subjectively absent.
In contrast with all other physical processes that we observe, our own central processing seems to be ontologically unique.
Because of this, when we conceptually abstract and label it for purposes of discussion, we unwittingly reify it into seeming as though it is, in fact, a non-physical effect (commonly known as "consciousness", "awareness", "cognition", "sentience", "mind", etc) of a physical cause at our centre.
This gives us the false impression that there is a real ontological difference (and therefore, a vast explanatory gap) between our subjectivity and our objectivity.
The impossibility of filling this non-existent gap with an explanation has come to be known as the "hard problem of consciousness".
Practically speaking, all that's REALLY there is a highly coordinated, goal-seeking organism, along with its own central processing, and all that it entails.
Other than this central processing, there is no reason why it feels like anything to BE these organisms that we are.
Being intermittently occurring natural entities, there is no reason why such organisms emerge in the universe.
This realisation is the dissolution of the "hard problem".
The more we learn about life and consciousness it seems that there cannot be another intelligent life in the universe unless it is like us although they may have become like us by another route.
We have a sample size of one - us. That means we don’t know how similar or different from us other conscious entities in the universe may be. We can hypothesize that certain basic functions for sensing the world must exist for conscious creatures to survive.
_Many blessings._
😀
11:01 670,000,000 mph is the speed of light -- is the speed of electricity the same?
Yes ,error ,in speed mentioned.
Holy high pass filter!
Great talk nevertheless!
I can understand why a particular neuron might fire when I (that is my body) looks at, for example, a cat. But I don't see any explanation for why a particular neuron firing could cause me (that is my conciousness) to perceive a cat.
I think that it is very likely that the neutron causes me (my conciousness) to see a cat, but it appears that we don't have the slightest idea why.
Your neurons are the basis of consciousness. One neuron firing affects and sets off other neurons. The aggregate affects of all these neurons is what you perceive as a cat.
I am rereading How the Mind Works, I wish to understand AI in a deeper level
The problem is not recognizing consciousness as fundamental and that mind emerges with quantum events. Basing the existence of consciousness, intelligence, and mind on an aggregate of physical elements is deeply flawed, and wrong.
We are still in a material age and unfortunately that is all that is perceived. Consciousness, mind, and elements are distinct and separate although aggregate in functioning, due to consciousness and mind It is surprising that anyone who is intelligent can believe that matter is fundamental to consciousness and mind. Like believing a lamp is the cause of the light it emits.
Its not like we only see edges - its more like we need extra bandwidth to identify edges accurately, its a form of compression.
Nothing said about dreams.
The qualia I am interested in is: what is it like to be a connectionism-trashing linguist using Google Translate?
What undergrad was doing the sound on this gig? Fail!