Raymond Kurzweil - Is Consciousness an Illusion?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ย. 2021
- Is consciousness something special in the universe, its own category, irreducible to physical laws, a carrier of meaning and purpose? Or is consciousness a mere artifact of the brain, a by-product of evolution, a superstition exaggerated by human misperception? If you think or hope consciousness is special, then you should surely be a skeptic.
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Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil is an American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google.
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Its great that he starts off with acknowledging consciousness hasn’t been really defined. However to start the conversation, by laying down an assumed definition. Most people don’t even do that.
Conscious a weariness is made up of many interactions that can’t be pinned down to any one single source of ignition. The quality of the conscious a weariness depends on how well we interact with the external environment.
@@meerkat192 Conscious a weariness indeed!
Consciousness is an information system
I define it, with absolute confidence. To me, it is clear and obvious. Consciousness: Minimally, the state of awareness of spacetime, demonstrated by stimulated arbitrary decision.
@@johnswoodgadgets9819 What about people who lost there ability to remember, they have effectively lost their awareness of time, are they not conscious? I really don’t know how you can say you are confident when the greatest minds are not.
I have one of his 88 note piano-weighted keyboards. It cost me a bloody fortune 20+ yrs back and I still have it today :)
Are they touch response keys like the red nord keyboards? 🎉🎉🎉 cheers!!!!
I feel more creative when I’m in a ‘zone’ when my imagination is detached, mildly bizarre, from ordinary consciousness.
Flow state ⚛️
It’s what a lot of musicians describe when they are asked about what their thinking during the process of amazing creativity performing live” I didn’t think anything it was just flowing through me from somewhere,I wasn’t in control “.
Detached from outcome. To reach flow state, you're consciousness is almost playing the role of spectator. So yeah, enter the flow state and perform outside of your ordinary judgement of self. Just do it! Tee it high and let'r fly. Too it low and let'r go. Grip it and rip it. And whatever you do, never skip leg day. Seek those striated glutes to enter into the flow zone. Thanks
Consciousness is flow of energy
Maybe it is not detached at all but switched. I submit that at such times it is in fact more attached to massive creative energy separate from your consciousness, but including your consciousness.
My over-simplistic notion of “consciousness” is that it entirely depends on sensorial mechanisms. We are mostly not conscious because we have no awareness of what goes on automatically in our bodies, and we are not even aware of our pre-thoughts or thought processes. There must be independent mechanisms that are “conscious” unto themselves, like the mechanisms that control acid or sugar levels in the blood, but the “conscious” part of ourselves can’t access those sensorial (chemical or electrical) signals. So what does that mean for consciousness if we inhabit a body (and brain) that has it’s own “mind”?
I believe we have multiple consciousnesses. And the various consciousnesses don’t always communicate with or are aware of each other. And I think what we generally refer to as “consciousness” in a colloquial or even philosophical sense is a kind of mirror that reflects back at itself so that it sees itself, and also sees itself seeing itself, etc. etc. - but only in a very limited way. And that is probably the illusory aspect. We are aware of some kind of self because of the feedback loop that reflects itself. If the output sensations from other parts of the system has a connection that terminates somewhere in this reflective system then we can become aware of the fact that we are aware of a sensation, like pain or color or taste). Otherwise, we are probably little more than very convoluted thermostat-like systems - not too far off from animals, some who may have a dim awareness of self but probably are only aware of feelings and their environment… but aren’t really aware that they are aware.
That’s not really consciousness in my book. In the same way as a thermostat is not conscious of the temperature. It “knows” what the temperature is and reacts (mechanistically) to it. But it isn’t aware that it is aware of the temperature.
So we do have a “meta” consciousness of sorts, but only fleetingly and only in very special circumstances. The rest of the time we are (merely?) reactive beings (even if we are reacting to a series of internal stimuli). We mostly react “reflexively” to our environment and internal selves.
So maybe we need to think of “consciousness” as a kind of recursive phenomenon (or phenomena), and define degrees of consciousness by perhaps the level of recursion.
What say you?
Well, I will say it dovetails with my description in principle. Considering that there is more than one of almost everything else in the universe, it is not an unreasonable stretch to consider multiple levels of consciousness. Perhaps we have a symbiotic relationship with consciousness as a separate entity, instead of my 'consumer' relationship.
Though I agree with most of your comment, especially the role that feedback loops likely play, I think it depends on how you define consciousness... it seems not everybody has the same understanding of the word.
Some people see it as meaning self-awareness but I think it's possible to be aware without being self-aware and I suspect many animals have this (low) level of consiousness.
I consider consciousness as being the same thing as awareness. That is, being able to experience something, anything, and to any degree and that only when the degree of awareness has passed a certain level does self-awareness become possible (eventually, inevitable). Here, I'm referring to self-awareness as an awarness of the self as an entity seperate from the environment.
Any animal that has emotions is aware (conscious). Not necessarily self-aware but aware - emotions are sensations, sensations are experiences and experiences require awareness. So, if you determine that any particular animal experiences emotions, then you must also accept that is is aware (conscious) at least at some level. In fact, I think we can also say that such animals must have some degree of free will - if emotions aren't there to guide free will, then what purpose could they possiby serve?
There are various tests for self-awareness, most of which involve using mirrors. While these tests aren't 100% and may fail to identify some animals that are self-aware, I think they do a good job of showing us which animals are. And there are many, including birds, such as members of the Crow family.
There is no evidence that the neural circuits that regulate our bodily functions have any level of awareness. This is the job of the cerebellum, a structure that contains about 77.5% of the neurons in the human brain. No evidence and no reason to believe that any awareness exists in that structure. Then, most of the rest of the human brain is involved in processing information that we have no awareness of too. This is mainly sensory information. Our conscious mind is simply fed the results/output from these regions, after the processing and filtering has been done.
Whatever creates our consciousness probably occupies a very small part of our brain, probably less than 12%. It seems to eminate (at least mainly) from the parietal cortex, the occipital cortex and part of the temporal cortex. Just how it emerges is still a mystery. While I also suspect feedback loops are an essential part, there appears to be a lot more to it than that. When the brain produces consciousness, it is operating in a state of controlled chaos - there is a lot of randomness about it. When that randomness is lost, our consciousness disappears along with it. Just as it does if the waves of activity become too slow, as they do during deep sleep (when we're not dreaming).
As big and complex as our brains our, most of the processing that takes place is done subconsciously. The subconscious regions of our brain are incapable of learning by reason as they are incapable of understanding anything - they learn through repetition and in a few, limited cases, through guidance from our consciousness (some degree of repetition is still usually required). They are highly parallel and complete each processing task very quickly - mostly too fast to perceive. Our conscious mind is just the opposite - it is serial and takes many times longer to complete most processing tasks. We can take minutes, hours, days, weeks, months to make a decision or reach a conclusion. However, our conscious mind is capable of learning far more quickly, in most cases, not requiring any repetition.
Until we understand how the conscious experience emerges, it will be impossible to devise an objective way of proving its existence. I'm a little more optimistic than Ray on this one though. I think we will get there, eventually. I wouldn't like to predict when though... could be years or decades but I do think its doable.
@@antonystringfellow5152 Very interesting read! I think all of you have good thoughts on this. My personal theory is that, as our consciousness is able to interact outside of our body, maybe it isn't a part of our body after all? What if the different parts with so many neurons in our body (heart, brain, stomach), are just there to transmit information, and our brain is an antenna that emits that information to a spirit outside of our body and that is what controls us?
It seems very far-fetched, I know, but I believe that a soul is the union of a body and a spirit, and our body contains the brain, stomach, heart, all the sensory organs and all the means to process the information in all of those sensory organs, and then it transmits all of that information out of our body.
Why is it that humans inherently believe in a higher power and a life after death? Because there is! We have a spiritual need that must be fulfilled, or our body will start to feel unwell, I know this because it has happened to me. From my direct experience, lack of spiritual connection led to feeling very miserable, empty, and lost.
Then I started doing a ton of research on self improvement - None of it helped! I tried and tried and tried, but none of it seemed to work. Then I talked to a friend of mine who was going on and on about "esoteric knowledge", and the bible and the book of enoch. So I looked into it, and then suddenly it all clicked for me:
I will explain here, and I will list the things I know. You can tell me your own opinion and expand upon it if you will.
1. The consciousness is a separate entity from our body.
2. This separate entity needs a spiritual connection with what it believes to be its purpose, and it will serve this purpose indefinitely. What do I mean by this? Of course, atheists would disagree with this. What I mean is, atheism, is simply believing that there isn't a God out there! It doesnt mean you don't have a religion. A religion is simply your purpose in life. It could be an ideology, it could be a person. It could be a concept, it could be an image, a video, a series of images and videos. It could be anything that makes you feel like your life has a purpose.
3. There is a connection between all things in the universe, living and non-living. You could call it a divine connection if you want, you could call it anything, but THERE IS a connection.
4. The internet has speeded up the process of us connecting, and made us even more connected than ever before.
5. This is my personal belief as I am a christian: That connection between every living thing, the connection that we have to all of the universe, is the spirit of God.
Sure I like it
Edit: my consciousness likes it
That was the smartest thing I've heard about consciousness. The gap between observation and experience is impossibly far.
I think there is no gap, also, but for a different reason.
How do we know about anything? Through our experience. To gain any knowledge of anything requires experience.
The world of knowledge, that is, the objective, is supported by, subsumed by, the subjective.
Therefore, our knowledge of the objective is, while an excellent deduction, still reliant on the subjective, or the intersubjective, that is, what can be validated experientially between multiple subjects.
Yet, the subjective at once also relies on concepts for its own mediation. Knowledge of the subjective is only possible due to concepts. So the world of concepts, is like the bridging layer between the subjective, and the objective.
One cannot experience smell by observing molecules in the air or brain activity... you can only infer or guess what that experience would be like from your own.
@@Armando7654 that’s exactly what the case is, the reality we see is our own mind. Concepts bootstrap the senses into a knowing sensing world, consciousness.
Through consciousness, the world is known, and theories about what causes changes in consciousness are built back into that bootstrapping conceptual layer.
Thus we get the objective world, seemingly separate from consciousness, yet reliant upon it, and consciousness being reliant upon the conceptual world. The conceptual world is knowledge handed down from other individuals, which allows differentiation of the senses into “things”
In other words utterly reject the millions of hours that meditators who've looked within and found something completely different have done? If you want to learn about consciousness start with what is nearest to you. Yourself!
I respect those who explore this directly through meditation far more that I do those who assert unthought through clichés which conveniently suit their pockets!
It is well known that Kurweil is basically the founder of a religion in which the "afterlife" is about uploading oneself onto a computer where one can explore one's bottomless desires forever. Imagine that endless line of sex partners!
How about him being humble enough to take a good look around him and look at the vast display of stars above? Anyone who has taken the effort to do that will have long since given up the idea of such infantile notions of living uploaded to a dead computer.
Wake up!
This was a much better discussion than the misleading title suggested. I agree with a lot of what Kurzweil says. Our own consciousness is beyond doubt but we can only infer consciousness in others. In fact, I’d argue that some of the things he refers to, the possibility of equating animals and machines to humans, or otherwise, is only a matter of how we perceive complex behaviour. Even what we call living or non-living is simply an arbitrary distinction based on how complex something appears to us. We sometimes even distinguish among humans as more or less conscious based on the cues and feedbacks they give us and I have no doubt that we will be able to produce machines that can simulate all of these in time.
Denying the reality of consciousness is impossible, since it involves denying the meaning and reality of your own question.
Reality is consciousness
Well said!! According to contemporary idealists we cannot even empirically observe “matter” outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived.
Furthermore, according to the expert linguist and brilliant cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky…
“There are only two ways of looking at eliminative materialism (the idea that all things reduce to solid substance). One is that it is total gibberish until someone tells us what matter is. Until someone tells us what eliminative materialism is there can’t be such a thing as eliminative materialism and no one can tell us what matter is”. (Noam Chomsky).
Equally, I’m not making any appeals to authority, but on the cognitive level Albert Einstein utilised a more nuanced approach and demonstrated that “matter” is nothing more substantive than the curvature of space and time which is why he completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness. That is Einstein completely rejected atheism for the nuanced God of Spinoza/deism/panentheism. Similarly, Einstein’s closest friend Michelle Besso, who Einstein stated “was the greatest sounding board in Europe”, completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness/theism.
reality is mostly empty space , but we don't experience it with our consciousness, and consciousness is not reliable it can be easily altered by medicine ,disease and other conditions. consciousness is what your brain made up
100%
We live in a simulation. That means that our consciousness is being transmitted from another reality
Materialism is an obsolete worldview
Sir Roger Penrose:
"We need new physics to understand consciousness, something outside the physics that we know. But it's not simply invented for the purpose to explain consciousness, it is something which can explain for many other reasons."
Sir Roger Penrose determined that wave function collapse was a prime candidate for a non-computable process.
consciousness is baffling... multiple windows to reality at various places at once., etc.
but the question is... why are some people able to skip time forever and some aren't? why this selection of people?
although not born that's still alot of new windows evading time forever. we weren't allowed to do that.
suppose earth and humans went on forever.... then surely your consciousness would have to be reincarnated at some point? many many different windows can you have before things start having to repeat. is there a variation limit or what?
we're lucky but, however, when you are dead extreme complexity (randomness) is easy to repeat. it isn't like it's a long wait or anything like that.
u may need the narnia wardrobe for an experiment
"Consciousness" is any information structure that has a model of the world that includes itself. The ensuing debate, should be about "levels of consciousness" (or "how good is that model"), and better approached by the question "what is intelligence"?
@@Armando7654 Is that Rupert Spira by an chance?!
Excellent discussion and differentiation of the main parts. Excellent basic definitions. Simply put, we will never be able to know if any other beings besides ourselves is truly conscious.
And the fun part is, it doesn't matter! I suspect though that one day we will know. I do not think everyone will be happy with that knowledge. If it is as I suspect, it is rather ego-deflating and terrifyingly empowering.
How do you know yourself is even conscious? Lol
"What is consciousness?" and "What is conscious?" are 2 vastly different questions.
One question
Dusty / It is quite simple. You can't have full consciusness without being conscious.
There is that. Hehe!
He says that we cannot understand the experiences of others, while explaining his thoughts to someone.
One very smart man here. A wonderful kind of insightful overview of the futility of even defining 'consciousness' in any meaningful way. It's really a cruel trick of a word that seems to mean so much and yet is just a shadowy, insubstantial belief. Kurzweil gets right to the business of it without shying away or any apologies. The best answer I've heard for something that has no answer at all.
I suppose it's a good thing that I'm left with more questions than answers after watching episodes of "Closer To Truth". :)
Conscious a weariness is made up of many interactions that can’t be pinned down to any single source of ignition. The quality of the conscious a weariness depends on how well we interact with the external environment.
There is only one question. It's "Who am I?" (Or perhaps "What is time?". But I think the first is the cental one)
@@meerkat192 Hi Stephen. Do you consider your body to be part of the "external environment?" You can obviously feel or touch your own body and have a sense of it's position and so forth. So would you include this a part of the external environment?
What about thought and feelings? They come and go and you can be aware (a weary!) of them. Are these part of the internal environment?
Just wondering how you categorize things.
If you're thinking "What is consciousness?". Then you are conscious.
If a silicone brain think its conscious, will it be conscious.
Yes but this statement doesn't answer the question; What is conscious?
@@anthonycraig274 This is the so-called 'meta-problem' of consciousness. How do we explain that humans think they are conscious? What would it take to create an artificial entity which believes that it is conscious? I think if a silicone brain believes it is conscious, then it is. But I think it might be very hard to create something even functionally equivalent to the brain (because it has functions at many levels - brain cell, ......., entire functioning brain).
@@TheDeepening718
Question: what is conscience?
Answer: exactly!
Cogito, ergo sum
how can Consciousness be an Illusion if your Conscious of it ?
If the subjective experience can never be measured by a physical apparatus, then how is it able to cause Raymond to give a report of it in the form of sound waves?
Thank you, Informative.
When Kurzweil mentions the gulf b/t objective science and subjective consciousness, is he employing the fallacy of ambiguity (i.e. conflating the ontological and epistemic subjective-objective distinctions) that Searle talks about in the video "Two Versions of the Subjective Objective Distinction & Consciousness John Searle"?
When did this discussion take place?
Can information be broken down into energy in the brain for experience? Does information have to be composed of energy, focus on and direct energy for consciousness?
I think I connect more coherently with Ray’s approach to this question than with any of the other guests who’ve come on and discussed it.
Dualustic nonsense. ONLY consciousness exists. Existence is a conscious process. See Fritof Capra, Rupert Sheldrake, et al.
@@robertbrown309 I would say extremely dangerous nonsense.
Why assume that consciousness is it's own and only ontological category as opposed to alternatives like dualism or the physical being primary from which consciousness arises?
Very thoughtful and rational guest.
What happens in physical brain when language is used to describe inner subjective awareness and feeling; compared to when language is used to describe external behavior, function, cognition and objective observation?
Well this is the content I need at 2am!
hmm... its 10am
Our take: Reality is beyond our grasp.🙌
And yet we access it, to a pragmatic degree minimally, and long for an ideal of enlightenment.
As someone who talks about futuristic stuff, i didnt expect him to take consciousness seriously. I am pleased.
Why do you say that? If anything, I'd expect someone with vision toward the future to be especially concerned about the nature/implications of consciousness and artificial intelligence.
@@JayAyyWhy1231 its just an observation. people who typically say the stuff that ray says, usually believe that there is no such thing as consciousness, similar to dennett
Could experience of energy in brain explain not only apparent consciousness, also inner subjective experience? Maybe the movie being watched internally is about the experience of energy?
Is this actually recorded in 2021 , or is it an older interview?
The whole question becomes elementary when we let go of the materialist biological paradigm and simply assume individual human consciousness is primary. The interesting thing is how much debate and discussion stems from an unwillingness to make that leap.
An illusion is something that effects the mind, being aware that the mind has become compromised makes consciousness more subtle than even the mind. Taking this into consideration an illusion is just something that flows along the stream of consciousness therefore consciousness is necessary for any illusion to be known.
The idea that consciousness is an illusion is completely ridicolous
@@purpose6113 What is aware of an illusion? To be aware of an illusion makes the illusion something objective in relation to the self. So yes, the idea that consciousness is an illusion is ridiculous
That was very well said I m amazed if the concrete way to explain you gave. This reminds me of the idea of krishnah being the size of a thumb if I'm not mistaken
Prejudice and conceptual misinterpretation will mislead a Genius also. This video is a classical example. He is speaking from a standpoint that consciousness is that creates or helps in subjective awareness. This idea excludes the existence of consciousness in anything other than higher life forms. It appears directly related to Neurobiological development. This is certainly a narrow outlook of Consciousness. Everything in this universe is connected and in balance through Consciousness that facilitates the laws of Physics that act uniformly and invariably . The interaction and subtle dance of the Subatomic particles goes on in according to the conscious awareness of the principles of objective Physical existence and the same is seen as subjective expression in the domain of Neuro chemistry. The Objective and Subjective realities are not isolated or demarcated by the existence of consciousness . They are interchangeably one with mind as a tool that experiences and expresses the Subjective realities of the Objective Truths.
Everybody asks the question ''what is consciousness''(?). But no one seems to be interested in proposing the question ''what are the contents of human consciousness''(?). And that would be a very important question since those contents are basically the structure of our conditioning, both historical, as a species, and individual as people.
Interesting debate indeed. First of all, making a distinction between a non-biological and biological entity as a consciousness receptacle brings up this argument though: In both systems, you end up with mesurable electrical currents, chemical exchanges with specific connections pathways and memory storage. Both systems use exactly the same fundamental means of information exchange process...Electric
currents and wired pathways. So we can hardly make an argument that an artificial entity could not be conscious.
Secondly, our only way for humans to
assess someone else's consciousness is thru language. Any form of language that can be interpreted as a form of communication and voluntary expression of the mind. Language means long term memory retention and learning skills. Many animals have these capabilities so I would assume they are somewhat conscious. I assume that the level of consciousness could be associated with our ability to associate every state of mind with abstract language. We all talk to ourselves when we think. We also need lots of memory
capabilities to build a strong long lasting consciousness. Many of our bodily common functions are programmed in the human genome
but our personal experiences make us distinct one from the others. All memory
bound. So far , despite all the multitude theories about consciousness that are presented out there, not a single scientist nor philosopher can explain what might be a source of the consciousness without physical memory and language, which is also a well know brain function...
@@robertl.6919 I certainly agree with all of the above.
On a different note (concerning my own comment); by ''the contents of consciousness,'' I referred also to our cognitive conditioning (either cultural and individual).
That includes also what evolutionary biologist R.dawkins named ''memes''', plus of course other human cognitive constructs such as beliefs, epistemic acceptances, common senses, ontological and axiological psycho-social structures and all the rest of that.
@@diegokricekfontanive Behavioral or acquired ? Seems we are all both.
Humans are mostly identical and have been for thousands of years. The modern social rules are mainly extensions of the family nucleus environment and driven by the " survival instinct ". The morality and ability to integrate the good and bad concept in
social responsibility comes with slow
but profound changes within generations. Slavery was morally acceptable in the USA. Peasants being devoured live by lions publicly was morally acceptable in ancient Rome.
But this social morality would vanish in a second if we were to start again with
another civilization. So some parts of
our morality is probably genetic and
has to do with basic survival.
Humans are creative and very intelligent
beings. Our language is very sophisticated and allows us to extrapolate and render completely abstract concepts totally factual if we wish. Religions, faith and spirituality are
the product of our capabilities. The are all imaginary. But as we " practice" Religion, physically gather in Churches, make efforts to comply with the dogmas, and teaching them to kids as we teach maths or science, we are making those inventions of ours very real. From there the brain is free to
explore its own deep functions and new
synaptic connections are made.
The brain creates its own inner world.
@@robertl.6919 It's a complex topic.
Probably incompatible with a random conversation on social media.
I would say there are certain components of what we call morality that are based on symbiotic ergo genetic roots, while other components are rather constructed by thought and its variations through time, ergo induced culturally and via constructs like beliefs, units of culture, ideologies, and so on.
The gap between morality and moralism provides enough evidence of it, for instance.
What's moral to a certain tribe, is eventually amoral to another, for example.
I think it's relevant to implement an educational model pivoted in the critical comprehension of this conditioning (both the biological and the psycho-cultural-sociological/memetic).
As it's also relevant to take into account (I would add)we keep carrying around the same brain we carried when we were living in the caves.
ok so imagine we closed the gap, we could observe all the inputs for all our senses, would that mean we understand conciousness?
"I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers."
What in the brain or blood might experience energy for consciousness?
if everyone asks themselves "am i aware" (or "am i conscious") , what will the answer be ? Could it be that "consciousness" is so simple, so immediate that we (seem to) overlook it? Could it be that it is merely our being, the real "I / self " behind all the conditioning? The most simple, primary and immediate experience we have, simply being aware.. not aware "of" something, just awareness itself... Could it be that we literally are consciousness itself..? Intellectual conclusions are of no use.. The only way to answer this ladies and gentleman is to go by experience 🤠
thank you
If someone says consciousness is an illusion, ask them who or what is experiencing the illusion.
It makes no sense to suggest that consciousness could be an illusion, because an illusion itself requires consciousness. The argument is circular and question-begging.
In an illusion you're seeing something, but it's not what you think it is because your brain tricks you into seeing more than is really there. The illusion of consciousness is not that you're mistaken about having a conscious experience, you are. But it could just be that your brain, in trying to make sense of the electrical impulses and chemical secretions going in inside of it, creates a rich but illusory tapestry of experience. So consciousness is real, but so is the hot air rising off the sand for the weary desert traveler. The hot air is just hot air though, it's not an oasis. Your brain manufactures the oasis. And maybe your brain manufacturers consciousness. If consciousness is real, why are oases not real?
@@dpg227 Perhaps, but people who ponder the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness are concerned with the question of how a collection of matter, even as complex as the tangle of neurons and synapses and electrochemically propagated action potentials that constitute the brain, could, in principle, lead to a phenomenon that appears to be qualitatively different from anything else in the matter-based universe. Saying that, with precisely the right combination of fundamental particles, matter gives rise to something that we call consciousness is merely to reassert the original inference that we are trying to explain.
@@blindlemon9 We don't know that human consciousness is unique in the universe. It could be that any creature with a brain of a certain sophistication and a plethora of nerve receptors experiences it.
Good coverage of the slipperiness of consciousness. Biological phenomena are analog and unique. An orchestral performance is analog and unique. Even though a recording of the performance may be analog, the felt nuances of it cannot be captured. The best that can be done is digital sampling according to a superimposed coding scheme. That can be arbitrarily close, but cannot be identical with the unique original. But, for practical purposes a recording reproduces the original “good enough.” So it is with consciousness.
Consciousness cannot be illusion. For any illusion, we need a observer. That observer is our consciousness. That is self contradictory
I think referring to it as an illusion is a way of reflecting on the sense in which we construct it into a something - into a coherent, objective totality we can refer to. When we do that, we’re attempting to integrate an objective construct (consciousness, considered objectively) into our subjective experience of consciousness. In that sense it’s a byproduct of reflection; it’s a way of considering the sense in which consciousness can encounter itself as consciousness - as a total identity. It’s the fact we can’t discover it from the outside that makes the notion of it as an illusion make sense. “We can’t encounter it as an objective phenomenon, therefore it doesn’t exist.”
@@Yzjoshuwave You said, " we can't encounter it as an objective phenomena, therefore it doesn't exist " I would say we can't experience it as an object that has physical attributes that can be detected by the senses but since it is by our consciousness that we are aware of the function of each sense it exist as that which gives us understanding.
You know (?),
Subjectively I once had an objective thought but I dropped it and it rolled down the hill and I lost it.
So now I am just left with my subjective self knowing that because I think, something exists. Try as I may nothing escapes me.
In the question of "Is Consciousness an Illusion?", it doesn't make sense to use the word "Illusion" in that question.
The definition of an illusion is something which doesn't appear to be what it is. When you use the word "Illusion", you're defining something in relation to that thing which is considered to be real.
For example, on a hot summer's day, the road at a distance looks like there's water on it since it appears wet. Getting closer to the road, you then realize that the wetness you saw before was a mirage or an illusion. Since you're calling the wetness you saw before an illusion, then it's an illusion of what? Well, it's an illusion of water where water is considered to be a real thing and what you saw before was not real, thus an illusion.
To call consciousness an illusion, then what in relation to consciousness is it an illusion of?
The difference between the subjective and objective
We have a blind spot in our eye which the eye fills in - that's subjective
In nature color doesn't exist - our eyes give it color - so again it is subjective
And when things are subjective, it becomes an "illusion" - but I agree we need a better word for it
Very strong argument! To be complete you have to attach your assumption, belief or hypothesis regarding what the real thing is. In the example of the mirage, the real thing is hot air which gives the illusion of water.
So, one possible variant of the question: "Is consciousness an illusion caused/created by computing?" (computing as in Turing machines; information processing)
First: How to explain qualia in terms of computing?
Then: Many entities are considered "real", but don't exist in nature - they only exist in the human mind - like e.g. the mathematical point (length = 0). Such entities can be called platonic or divine. So...
Can the entity 'point' be found in a (dead) human brain? No. It only exists as a thought, gift or intuition. Coming from a different "sphere" that is AFAWK inaccessible to physics. Can the entity 'point' be found in a collection of bits representing an AI? No.
Can an AI develop a deeper 'intuition' of the mathematical entity 'point' than humans? Would the AI be able to convince us, if it reached this deeper intuition indeed? Is proof of such intuitions always impossible? How would the AI describe the "degree of realness" the mathematical entity 'point' has?
Could subjective experience of reality be built from existence as basis of reality? Reality can be experienced subjectively because reality is based on existence?
If if thoughts can be somewhat measured, then maybe it's possible that one day they'll be fully recoverable down to cellular levels. And maybe then we can understand the Trees. The Rocks. The Universe...
This guy is so damn clever. He’s, indeed, one of the pioneers of modern days. Just read his "Singularity Is Here."
He is that clever he refuses to engage Dr Bernardo Kastrup in a polemic on this topic. Kastrup champions Idealism and I have been an Idealist all my life.
Kurzweil should be given a large dose of DMT or thrown out of a plane or teach himself to lucid dream then come back and tell us Consciousness does not exist.
It not only exists but it is primary. The Materialist reductionist has everything back to front matter comes from Consciousness.
Read the books of Thomas Campbell and Anthony Peake they will challenge your confirmation bias.
@@samrowbotham8914
Look; once a philosopher said, "if you argue with a fool, then…there’s no one, but two fools."
If Kurzweil is declining to verse with Mr Kastrup…I’m more than sure, he’s got a perfect reason for it.
I hope you understood my point.
@@arkdark5554 except that Kastrup is no fool. He points out the big flaws of the materialist worldview.
@@arkdark5554 when kurzweil declined to verse with kastrup? Is it true he did? Source? : /
@@Theo-jt9jg
Fuck Kastrup.
I’ve never liked the man.
And if…mark my words…if Kurzweil declined it, I’m more than sure, he had a very good reason for it.
Conciousness is actually easy to know what it is ,but the answer is difficult to to swallow.
I've made this comment on this channel before and I'll make it again; how could consciousness be an illusion when consciousness itself is the mechanism through which we perceive illusion? Illusion presupposes consciousness
Who says you perceive or experience anything at all? 🙂 Those are just words, thoughts, or actions, and happenings. A robot for example, can keep repeating that it is conscious, that it is experiencing, or aware, and so on.. whenever asked, or not. But is it really though?
@@golubvolodemerovich7512 you're referencing the "problem of other minds." I can't prove to you that I am conscious just as you can't prove to me that you are conscious. "Who says you perceive anything at all?" I say so. Just because I can't prove to you that I am conscious does not mean that I can't know that I am conscious. On the contrary, my consciousness is the only thing I am certain exists. Everything beyond that is speculation
@@l.ronhubbard5445 ...not of other minds, but of mind itself. 🙂
A problem, if you want to call it so, that can only be answered with circular reasoning. But has no solution, none whatsoever. If "you're" honest you'll admit, that it's just a stubborn assumption, and nothing more.
@@golubvolodemerovich7512 both of you are lazy children. Think harder. Maybe you can trigger some inner mind meme that wakes both of you up to 1000x mind like mine. To me this video is cave man talk.
@@mavrosyvannah cool story bro
Maybe information emerge from existence; reversed in brain / mind goes from information to consciousness? From the brain to mind the emergence of information from existence somehow returns to consciousness, a kind of breaking down of information back to existence?
Is not mercy and Grace the same as empathy? Finding favor in someone is not empathy? Asking someone why they're countenance has fallen is not empathy?
Thanks for Inspiring Digital content 🙏 ☯️
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Utilize use the Comment section for notes, plus possibly Inspire others, plus remind & affirm/enable ourself with what is Important to us (we get to decide that too) ☯️✨🙏❤
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Consciousness is Awareness? Same thing? ☯️
My personal opinion about consciousness is that it has to have capacity for memory. The ability to store and retrieve information that's not only exclusive to biological life with a brain.
Yes ! Conscious a weariness is made up of many interactions that can’t be pinned down to any single source of ignition, the quality of the conscious a weariness depends on how well we interact with the external environment.
By that question, conscious reading of this answer is evident.
1:18 - Is he implying that you could make some philosophical assumptions and construct a machine that says that something is conscious is not conscious?? I think we still have a lot more to learn about consciousness from a more detailed neuroscientistic understanding of the human brain than exists today. I think a thorough and deep understanding of how one's own brain interacts with and/or correlates to one's own consciousness (or if it's possible that no correlation can be detected, which seems impossible to me) would probably make it easier to decide what assumptions would need to be made, and maybe how to make them.
At the end of every experience, there is knowing, that is, knowing of the experience. What we are experiencing might be an illusion, or a simulation. Everything we perceives including thoughts, feeling, and body might be an illusion. But the knowing can be an illusion too? If so, what sees or experiences the illusion?
The answer cannot be spoken!
How could consciousness possibly be an illusion? The idea is like the reverse of Descartes’ "je pense, donc je suis".
Subjective experience is needed for organism survival and it has a direct evolutionary advantage: if a life threatening fact is happening to an orgasim that experiences it more vividly, that makes it more likely that the organism is more energized to work towards a solution to solve that particular predicament.
Emotions also cannot develop without subjective experience.If I don't feel the lion is rushing to eat me, I cannot be afraid.
If consciousness an illusion as created by the millions of interacting neurons, so it's the concepts of pressure and density, as they are created by molecule interactions.
A means of interpreting input from senses and making decisions for expanding the species. Are humans beyond instinctual programing? How is a machine going to act missing billions of years of life experience? Good stuff, guys. Even if you get it all wrong, you are making me think in a reverse engineering kind of way.
Is consciousness already referred to in science as 'The observer'. In this model 'The observer' has an effect on outcome.
Understanding why this is maybe key as at this time 'The observer' is the most poignant description science has?
Universe is alive consciousness otherwise it becomes dead and unresponsive, but it is so sensible it has all functional components and responses to everything.
Miss ole Ray K!
If consciousness is the live experiencer of matter, how is it possible to find its origin in dead matter?
So, synchronized coordinated extraction measuring is investing which is the highest intelligence we have ever had in human history. This is how to sustain the male and female.
This discussion is based on the premise that human consciousness is the whole, the all
Life needed consciousness and self awareness , in proto-form, to develop from the first self-replicating nucleus of proto-cellular structures.
That being so then every cell that has existed within every life form that has inhabited planet earth, has that propensity.
The coordination seen in,say, slime moulds surely indicates a development of Consciousness and self-awareness albeit with no connection with human understanding.
If every cell in a human body is invested with infinitesimal consciousness the total could attain a direct force.
Consciousness is the awareness of your soul that's confined to this atomic realm, some sadly consumed too and only realised when released.
'Every soul shall taste death, and they shall be brought back to us' 29:57
i have a dog and everytime i put a fence up to stop the dog, it either jumps over the fence, goes around the fence or stays behind the fence. It never goes thru the fence. At least without leaving a trail of evidence that it went thru the fence. What I mean is, that the empty roll of toilet paper that leaves a trail out the door, down the hall to the couch that the dog is not allowed to sit on, always leads to a dog on the couch.
Its the development of the brain recognising itself.. but we're all different by the way we experience life by seeing hearing and feeling. Consciousness is all these things and so much more all depending on what you chose. Mind over matter..
Our minds create conciseness, gradually unveiling all the answers that make our existence more meaningful
I define consciousness (and my definition is as good as anyone's), is an awareness of spacetime demonstrated by stimulated arbitrary decision. There are biological processes that are not arbitrary. Heartbeat, respiration etc. But the early bird gets the worm, and the second mouse gets the cheese. The bird was capable of arbitrarily sleeping in and the mouse could have arbitrarily avoided procrastination. Bird and mouse, and of course humans of are conscious entities. The key is arbitrary action, based on awareness. The only differences between conscious entities are in degree. Consciousness can be observed but not quantified beyond observation. I therefore suspect consciousness is a property accessed by but separate from the conscious entity. They will never find it looking inside the conscious entity because it is not there. It is elsewhere, and is merely accessed by what we perceive as a conscious entity. The degree to which a conscious entity can access the universe is the degree of consciousness of the entity. The universe is therefore where consciousness actually resides. There is only one consciousness, and we as conscious entities are merely gathered around feeding on it. We are not the producer of consciousness. We are the consumer. Apple trees do not grow in our stomachs, no matter how many apples we find there.
PS If we are to ever design a conscious machine (to date an oxymoron), it must be able to have a preference between red and blue, without an informational path to supporting data whatsoever. It will have to be capable of arbitrary decisions and preferences. Ask any entity: Which is better bananas or apples? If it answers one or the other, it still may or not be a machine. But if it supports the answer with data, it is either a machine or it is imitating a machine. If you cut it off from the data and it abandons any preference, it is a machine. We all imitate machines from time to time because machines are better at some things than we are.
My personal view is that either consciousness is fundamental to existence, or it is something that naturally occurs as a result of any special arrangement of entities, such as our brain and body. By naturally, I mean that it can be replicated and created in a non-biological entity. However, in that case also, the non-biological entity might simply serve as a vehicle to experience consciousness, which is fundamental to the universe and existence itself.
Quantum mechanics tells me there never will be a complete arrangement. Materialism works but it's not the underlying reality at all frames of reference.
Consciousness is an illusion being experienced by whom or what?
The thumbnail misses the point. The guest suggests that it's impossible to experience another persons consciousness. In effect, he's saying that there is no effective Turing test that can identify genuine consciousness.
I lean toward simulation theory, for if we made a game that the characters had great AI with all the abilities we do to investigate the world they live in. No mater how hard they investigate they would never quantify their consciousness as it would be written in the field of code that they could never access.
Indeed, we live in a simulation
Hinting at scary possibilities..... Ray I hope things don't go sci-fi on us.....
I'm not so sure about consciousness being subjective and science objective. On the face of it, it seems to be obviously so. However Quantum Mechanical systems are in some sense not objectively defined. Objective events only come about due to observation. Prior to that there is merely a set of probabilities. Curiously, a set of probable consciousness states for an individual seems almost contradictory. The self seems quite singular. Therefore it almost seems like an objective conscious self is needed for the objective realization of things from the less definite realm of the wavefunction, is a "peculiar" necessity...
breath of fresh air
Yes, interesting. Let's talk about it.
.“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”
Instead of trying to find the biochemical basis of consciousness how about something easier? Biochemical basis of language? Why do the Chinese use Chinese instead of Sumerian?
Its funny that we seem to think that humans are the panicle of being, includes consciousness. Yet for every sense and ability there is an animal that beats us except for I am assuming culture.
we are the best at "meta-consciounsness" (i.e. being aware of our conscious states) therefore sky is the limit in abstractions so we derive all sorts of fairytales like uploading minds and stuff without even understanding consciousness in the first place.
Consciousness is reality in universe. Even each electron of an atom has consciousness as it dances in a particular manner. It is basically energy which cannot be destroyed.
Careful! The reasonable notion of universal consciousness will get you pounced on! Believe me, I know!
The question is apart from our consciousness do we exist??
I think therefore I am
When a person experiences or an animal experiences something, what is that, Raymond?
Robert said, " it would be nice if consciousness were real " well, if you weren't conscious how would you be able to have a perception of " real " or " unreal " ?
Is there any real difference between 'not real' and 'not understood'? From the quantum mechanics perspective 'not real' is more or less an impossibility.
@@johnswoodgadgets9819To me, something not understood would still be real since it's existence would not depend on us understanding it.
@@williamburts5495 All I want to understand is the truth of my connection to it. And to understand how and why I desire understanding at all. I cannot get that strictly from the scientific method, nor by denying the science in that method. I see the lines drawn by the scientific method. I use those lines, but not to exclusion. I acknowledge their significance. I accept the order and accuracy they represent. But I will not color inside them.
@@johnswoodgadgets9819 The way I see it, everything is connected in reality because there can't be something outside of reality but I believe that it is consciousness that is the glue that keeps everything grounded in consciousness. All of our perceptions and conceptions flow through consciousness so consciousness is most pivotal for there to be understanding of how things are related in reality and for us to understand that the material nature must evolve and revolve around consciousness for it to understand how it is most pivotal when it comes to understanding truth. Take away consciousness and what would you know or understand!
Take 2 : there are two types of Consciousness where humans are concerned. There's silent consciousness. And, there's talking about it. Talking about it serves only one purpose... the same as, looking in the mirror and making faces at oneself. It goes nowhere. Yet consciousness can fly if you let it fly silently.
That is accurate, but no fun at all!
@@johnswoodgadgets9819 oh .. sorry about that... so what is it exactly i said, that broke your toy ?
@@Claude1Rochon Nothing broken. Just wondering what kind of person thinks making faces in the mirror goes nowhere. Silent flight? What good is that to anyone else? Especially when our most likely purpose for existence at all is to play peek-e-boo with god. You really can't play peek-a-boo alone and in silence.
Consciousness not only violated by physical death or damage, also violated by spiritual harm and injury, such as political government?
You cannot catch "me", because "I" am always bigger, so some think "I" am an illusion..😉
Not so clever as you think. 😉
@@golubvolodemerovich7512 "I" am unassailable! That's the difficulty with self recognition, that it is exactly about the invisible!
This was a long reply just to say there is an explanatory gap
When Kurzweil says that some people believe that only "biology" can be conscious, what he means is that you have to be alive in order to experience anything. That seems pretty obvious. What good would consciousness be to a dead thing?
Yes, but is there really anything that is actually dead?
@@mmccrownus2406 Life does seem to be mostly a human concept. It's just as easy to say that some parts of the universe just sit there and other parts move around and do stuff. Maybe the defining characteristic of life is being able to experience, but this is not a scientific view.
A bodyless soul can be conscious without it being physically alive.
they mean biology as in living carbon-based neuronal brains, in contrast to silicon-based computer chip brains. some people believe computers ain't ever gonna be conscious, others think they might be, even if they aren't organic beings
@@CPLains I don't think that is what Kurzweil was saying. He used to say that very clearly, but biology means life, and he knew exactly what he was saying. Dead things like computer chips will never experience anything.
i think if it can flinch it's conscious when you go to swat a fly and it hunches down ready to take flight
how is that life form not aware of course it is
The idea that consciousness is individual and possessing of the character of the body mind organism is not real.
"It's as though the witness were not different from the [body mind] but were the [body mind] itself." -Advaita Bodha Deepika (on the nature of illusion).
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There is no unbridgeable chasm between people’s experiences. A gap, for sure, but this very conversation demonstrates the crossing itself.
Conversation let’s us extend the computational results of our internal modeling to someone outside, but you never get the opportunity to step into another person’s shoes and experience reality from their subjective position. Empathy let’s us render an analogous sense of what someone’s going through as we interpret the signs they present - we share feelings, but never “bridge the gap” to an immediate sense of the other’s “I” from inside of them.
@@Yzjoshuwave Notice how your answer assumes that 1. thinking is computational modeling and 2. another person has a mind to access. There is simply no justification for 1 over other views of thinking. (I prefer the view of mind as fundamentally narrative in nature.) And if you keep denying access to others, on what basis can you say there is something there that we cannot access? It's obvious: you encounter others all the time who have minds, offer their minds to you, and understand you when you offer your thoughts to them. Is this total, complete access? No, but it is real, active, and obvious. Or else why would you try to convince me of what you believe?
@@timadamson3378 Mind being “fundamentally narrative in nature” doesn’t contradict the notion of it as computational modeling: the point is that there’s an underpinning mechanics of brain activity through which a narrative is generated - and you never get to bridge the gap to experience the narrative of another person from within their actual identity. You can model what their experience is like and “share” feelings, which coordinate the flow of experience between identities, but the model is not the same thing as having a first person experience of the world from their actual identity. We have no reason to think we can “Be John Malkovich” here.
@@Yzjoshuwave You are playing the all or nothing game here. Since we cannot be the other, we cannot know the other. But as I said, while there is always some distance or gap, that is not an unbridgeable chasm. We can understand one another in many ways, often intimately, without “being” the other. And if mind is narrative in nature, what is the point of characterizing brain as computational? Most modeling is, of course, analog, not digital. The sculptor does not calculate before modeling. Get rid of the computational layer. It is extraneous.
@@timadamson3378 I’m not sure what this condescending attitude is about, but computational modeling is more foundational than narrative, which is an emergent function of embedded computation. “Computational modeling” of experience corresponds to the networks of physical relations that compose our basic organism. They form into brain states that correspond to higher programs of thought, such as narrative. It’s the underlying structural composition of organismic architecture and the dynamical systems of its basic functionality. We don’t have access to all the deep layers of internal mechanics that exist within the “other”. It doesn’t mean you can’t develop a deep sense of what life is like for them. You definitely do have an experience like that - of opening up into the sense of what the reality of another person is like - but it’s bounded: there are aspects of what their real experience is that are deeply unique to their actual life and exist beyond a veil of identity.
Reality is both subjective and objective. It is the subjective that is the most real to a conscious being though.
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Humans don’t become conscious until almost 2 years old. And then even then it takes almost 2 more years for consciousness to fully develop... for the most part... does this not show that consciousness is fundamentally just processing ability? And that the shear number of synapses, i.e. processing power, is what produces consciousness? Animals that are “semiconscious”, dolphins etc., are at the borderline of this synaptic count requirement. Processing power and pain produce consciousness
Consciosness is therefore I am.
Ray Kurzweil is brilliant. However, I strongly disagree with him on two items. 1) We can understand the essence of consciousness. 2) We can prove whether or not a machine is conscious.
Consciousness is a fundamental truth.