The experiencing self is the observer of the objects, and it's therefore distinct from them. In other words, objects are not what the experiencing observer is, but what he's conscious of.
Or in plain language who is aware of what? - Yes?- Plainly the experienced is discrete from or different from the experiencer No doubt you would say if I say "my" hat, you do not suppose yourself to be the hat, and by the same token you say "my" self, what then?
@@williamburts5495 well said, if that be right, and it is, what is it? Do you" sense "your " self" as you sense you hat or how do you " sense *Your* (meaning what) " self"? At one time in my remarkably long life I used to be a television cameraman and when television cameramen get bored - which they frequently do, they play about by pointing their camera into its own monitor, and do you get any coherent picture out of that? - What do you think? What you are doing with all this myself sensing myself mumbo-jumbo is pointing your camera into its own monitor are you not? What you are getting is the video or psychological equivalent of feedback or howl-round, is it not? Why do you bother with that nonsense - there is simply no point in pointing a television camera into its own monitor because you get nothing coherent from doing that, so simply don't do it That creature Kuhn specialises in pouring from the empty into the void and he's collecting a healthy living out of doing that, no doubt and all he is doing is luring you into the process of pouring from the empty into the void which which effectively involves pointing your camera at its own monitor or possibly a microphone at it speaker - it is exactly that that is the reason that you are getting psychological feedback or howl round and endless feedback loop and getting nothing coherent so just *Give it up.* You and I only get lured into that pointless futile mumbo-jumbo identical to pointing your camera into its own monitor, because we are bored and have nothing better to do, and that Kuhn creature - who is plainly no fool, is exploiting that particular weakness on our part, so we are being willing suckers. You may well find a genuine interest in discovering for yourself exactly what consciousness is, but the way to go about doing that is not by entirely circular pointless psychological feedback loops but rather to look at the etymology of the word conscious, which means "with_knowledge" Now stop mucking about with consciousness but investigate the nature of knowledge which is what it is about so be a little more practical. What exactly are you doing when you "know"? - Are you not directly immediately personally experiencing, and if not, what exactly *are* you doing? If you stop using the silly word consciousness as if it were some sort of mysterious spooky thing and simply focused on what it actually is which is the process of knowing then you would probably profit a great deal more from your enquiry by being a little practical about these things. If you look at it practically when you say my self, as you already recognise it follows as the night the day that you are making a distinction between the possessor and the possessed because you suppose - quite correctly that that is indeed the case, but look a little deeper what is possessing what? All this dreaming nonsense about is consciousness biological is simply asking are lifelike things like like, which is circular and pouring from the empty into the void. Self-evidently any sort of awareness depends on organic sense facilities to do with the body which is a mechanism which has a number of differing functions. Now look for yourself; exactly how many functions does your (what might be called) common presence or totality actually have? Plainly there is an instinctive function which deal with breathing heartbeat suggestion et cetera and there is associative function which deals with what you call thinking or dreaming (and there is no difference between the two), and how many other functions have you? Perfectly good question: am I no more than the sum of all my functions or the functions of the mechanism that I appear to inhabit? How would you go about addressing that question practically rather than by pouring from the empty into the void and getting yourself into an endless psychological feedback loop? In plain terms that Khun fellow is an idle dreamer and specialises in pouring from the empty into the void, and you and I are suckers for getting lured into that nonsense. Just don't do it, although it is great fun exchanging with you, since you are plainly highly intelligent rational and reasonable, but think about this: We are both dying or going through the process of falling having jumped from a very high place(been born). Is there nothing more profitable that we can do while we are falling?
@@vhawk1951kl You could say the " self " is the highest principle, why? because without self-awareness ( the self ) we would not be conscious of anything to think about so consciousness is the substratum of the mind and since intelligence needs the data the senses send to the mind in order to function it rest on the mind so both the mind and intelligence are dependent on the self they ride along the stream of consciousness thus consciousness underlies them and is their substratum. It is the superglue of reality that binds everything together and that gives purpose to this physical body as being a tool to achieve a means to an end ( material sense gratification, liberation ) for the self so the body's value is in relation to the self not unto itself. So everything is centered around the self, everything gravitates towards the self, everythings value is in relation to the self in this way the self is understood as the highest principle but it is not understood as an objective object. " truth " transcends matter so the truth of how consciousness is the substratum is something understood subjectively by the conscious self not by studying inert chemicals so knowledge,understanding and truth is the property of the conscious self and not matter. Nothing can and be known to transcend consciousness since such an existence would depend on our consciousness for it to be known thus making it content within consciousness so consciousness is always in the absolute position. Being absolute existence it is eternal, being truth it is knowledge, and by being the impetus behind the desire to enjoy sense gratification it is the enjoying principle as well. All of these qualities of self gives it a tangible existence and is not an illusion as some people believe.
@@williamburts5495 And what do you - or I, learn from that? Apparently the self is the highest principle is the self is nice principle is the self. Now you see what happens if you point a television camera into own monitor - a psychological feedback loop: the self is the highest principle is the self is the highest principle is the self is lies principle is the self - you follow? All jolly interesting stuff but it does not define either the self or consciousness - or anything? Like me, sooner or later have to come to an understanding of the difference between a definition and a description. You have come up with a description but not telling me - or anyone anything whatsoever about what it is describing - do not recognise that? Is not everything (a universal) that falls to be understood understood “objectively”? - To what is it relevant that something is understood “objectively”? Now turn your mind to this specific question: “can a mirror reflect itself?” To ask that question is to answer it, is it not? The practical question that you have to address is how to get out of that psychological feedback loop in which you find yourself? Do you not see that all of that is simply going round and round in circles? - How do you get out of that? Very often in England, it used to be the case that when a group of girls went to a dance, they would put their handbags (which I think the Americans call purses) on the floor and dance around their handbags, or certainly they did that when I was young. What you have sent me is a psychological process of dancing round your handbag, or something analogous thereto, is it not? For as long as there have been men ( human beings) I rather suppose that they have wondered what exactly they are, and, like you, have found themselves in an endless psychological feedback loop - which was inevitable, and a natural consequence of pointing a camera into its own monitor, which is exactly what you are trying to do is it not? All jolly interesting, and no doubt jolly good fun, but utterly futile and utterly pointless, unless you can find a way out of that circle. How you going to go about doing that - getting out of the circle? There is a way to get out of it, but it is not my place to tell you - you have to work it out for yourself, and in order to do that you need to recognise the fact of the matter that you have embarked upon a process from which there is no escape, because it is a form of psychological feedback loop. Do you recognise that? It is the same with all “what_is” questions. They are not and*cannot* be, satisfied by endless psychological feedback loops, so how do you get out of that? I can no more help you with that then I can go to the lavatory for you, or fill a man with bread by looking at him. Your difficulty - and mine, is that as a result of that nefarious invention of men that they call “education, you and I have been conditioned programmed, or as they say “educated” to suppose that every question necessarily has an answer It does not. If I may impertinently make a suggestion, the best way to get out of psychological feedback loops is to stop them dead in their tracks. In my long life - very nearly a century, I have been searching to try to understand something, and I’m not going to suggest you that I understand anything at all, save perhaps one or two practicalities, and I have discovered a number of possible approaches having looked at both European and Asian philosophies, and asked many men (human beings) and you are not the first tell me that the self is ice principle is the self is the highest principle, exactly as another man once was told that hysteria is hysteria is hysteria. All jolly interesting stuff, and all utterly futile and entirely circular. All pouring from the empty into the void. There is a word for all that pouring from the empty into the void and endless psychological feedback loops, and I don’t think you need me to tell you what that word is, do you? Now let us try some more “what_is” questions, leaving aside “what am?”: What*is* intelligence? What*is* the mind? Before you proffer anything, I’m not interested in the dead bodies of questions, or answers which are the end of something, so I leave you with the following question: “How to remain*silent* alive, alert, and attentive in front of a question -*without* killing it with answers? Is that possible? Only you can discover that, and how are you going to go about doing that?
I beg to differ. I think we all know conscious from unconscious entities well enough to move on with discussions. Only after the distinction has been understood at a basic level will a precise definition be possible.
A brain retains millions or trillions of imprinted memories of every event of our lives. All of those lifetime memories go into creating our individual consciousness and are integral to conscious or unconscious thoughts. In my opinion no one could or would ever artificially replicate human consciousness.
@Sky Gardener I believe our brains are a vast complexity of neural pathways that is controlled by electrical impulses. I believe that implanted memories are unique to each individual and they form who we are. An individual ceases to exist when electric power is gone. Full stop.
If you agree that humans are made up of the same quarks and protons and so forth that make up everything else- and that physics is the same inside the human body as it is outside- then you agree that consciousness can be replicated- it's as simple as that. If you don't agree with that then, what are we made of? How are physics inside a human body any different from the physics outside of a human body? If you can't answer those questions- I wouldn't go around asserting consciousness can't be replicated because that opinion is based on nothing but your gut feelings. And gut feelings aren't easy to defend in a debate.
5:45 reminds me of when Terrance McKenna tried to explain how biological systems are different from nonbiological systems. Something along the lines of, if you cut a chair in half and come back in a few days, you'll find 2 halves of a chair but if you cut a giraffe in half, when you come back you will find something vastly different than the thing you left. It's like biological systems exist to propagate different forms of aware experience. That is the chicken and egg problem here. Did aware experience immerge from biological systems or did biological systems immerge from a kind of awareness expressing its experiences in ways we have not been able to apprehend? Dr. Dan Dennett is doing great work in this area. I don't sit in his camp but I admire the work he's inspired.
Robert asked, " what is it about biology that differentiates it from non-biology? Answer: Knowledge and understanding or truth is the property of consciousness alone and not biology. Biology doesn't even know it's biology so" knowing" is what differentiates consciousness from matter or biology.
My reply is that quote by Kuhn would have been biology is driven by instinctual drives for survival and reproduction. And while you can artificially "program" drives in a non-biological machine, those "drives" would be mimicking biological drives and would not be part of the machines "conscious" .
A consciousness experiences information. A signal from the ear is not a sound until it's processed by computation and reaches consciousness as an experience that already means something. The wet brain computes so that consciousness knows something, it knows what a sound is at the time of experience.
All of you here are square heads who don't understand at all how the conscious process works. The real material conscious process does not depend on the structure of the material aggregation that creates it. It can be created by a complete artificial entity ( computer, any artificial "machine", etc ) with the exact same final functionality of a real material naturally evolved biological brain. No difference whatsoever in the real and true conscious state, and no mimicking at all. Absolutely exactly functional finality.
@@mikel4879 Consciousness is also a love energy or potency and you can't compute that into any machine thus consciousness is beyond computation. The enjoyer principle just can't be duplicated and since that principle as well as the knower principle are the natural characteristics of the " self " the self is beyond being processed.
William Butt / Yes, you can. It is done in a special way, after which the machine is on its own way, completely independent, with feelings and thoughts exactly like you, with consciousness exactly like any human, but much, much smarter.
Our assessment of the feasibility of an artificial human mind in a computer with consciousness, totally depends on what we think humans are. If you think we are divine mythical creatures, then not possible. If you think we are biochemical robots, then relatively easy. Irrespective of the camp you are in, the question is if we want cognition that perfectly mimics humans because such a system will make the same mistakes as humans (and there are a lot). To understand ourselves better, it really is a good idea to try to accomplish it.
I feel the consciousness is no more special than say, magnetism. It's just a benign field until it interacts with sufficiently evolved biology. Think of it as CLOUD data storage. Radio waves would never have been discovered if we didn't build a 'brain' to interact with them , yet they have been around since shortly after expansion. Why do we accept 'instincts', complex behavior in the simplest of organisms ( bee hives , butterfly migration, birds that weave nests) as nature , but consciousness is magic?
Interesting theory. But what makes this so interesting is the awareness of the phemenon itself. It may very well be a benign artifact is a meaningless physical universe, but the act of investigating it seems to provide a sense of meaning and purpose, there evolving the consciousness to altered or higher states itself. Why is any of this happening? We can’t begin to answer that part yet, for sure at least
One of the more interesting interviews. Here I can imagine other dimensions since in my experience, there is this silent witness, the Self, which remains untouched from even thoughts and emotions when in a more pure state. What we call physical or not may all be just one entity. The word "physical" may lose it's meaning. In a deeper sense, when arguments also lose significance, we just are.
Hey it's easy. If you think consciousness can be non-physical, just stop eating. You will find out real soon, and I won't have to read your stupid comments.
In Advaita, the observer and the observed (the contents) merge into a single entity according to Vedanta which was not mentioned by Robert to Subash in this episode. Perhaps in a follow up it ought to be discussed.
I've watched a lot of these and gotten to know Kuhn's style well and in fact he didn't like this guy. He generally hates people who theorize that the brain uses quantum processes. He's a neuroscientist with a very good understanding of the processes by which the brain works and from that he considers the postulation unscientific. He straight up at the end of this video tells this dude to his face he's saying nonsense.
There's a similar video on this channel involving Stuart Hammeroff whose teamed up with Rodger Penrose to argue consciousness is a state of a quantum coherence decoherence etc. that viewers might be interested in. That said the interviewers style of not being afraid of adversarial discourse is why I'm subscribed to this channel. The giddy and buttery smooth conversations on TH-cam I see involving topics like this gets old.
Ray Kurzweil and others have said that even if Penrose is right, in that their is a quantum element to consciousness, it should still be possible to eventually recreate this in AGI. He discussed this possibly in The Singularity Is Near.
The firm assumption from materialists has always been that Brain neurons give rise to consciousness. I am not sure it's that simple. I think consciousness is far more profound, far more complex and far more unique, and possibly fundamental.
I do not believe brain neurons give rise to consciousness. Think about it: consciousness can create new things that have never existed before. Where did those things come from? I guess a materialist would say they were generated from the connections between the neurons. How would that even work? Do they magically appear or emerge? Where is the scientific evidence for that? (We have brain scans, we should be able to "see" it). I think it is hilarious that if you ask most people about consciousness, they believe that there is almost like some sort of little man residing in their head (the man is consciousness) that drives this body like a giant puppet. Where do they even get this stuff from? When they explain it, I can't help but think- are you even serious with that? That sounds like some crazy science fiction to me.
As Roger Penrose has stated, "consciousness is not a computation." Consciousness is fundamental to reality. Consciousness is primary. Therefore, consciousness is not an emergent property of either biological or non-biological entities, including machines, once they reach a certain level of complexity. Biological and non-biological entities are objects WITHIN consciousness.
Humans do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions occasionally as one of their mental functions Computers do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions Therefore when computers get more powerful they will be able to do everything humans can do mentally. At the bumper-sticker level of thinking this arguments seems plausible but given a few moments of deeper thinking (stepping past the 6th grade Hollywood understanding of science and philosophy), a very thorny problem arises. Attributes of consciousness 1-First person data (in the form of experiences and perceptions) mixed with third/person data arranged, and weighted into a data warehouse that can sort though, contextualize, serve up instant decisions from huge amounts of data (petabytes of raw data from a computational perspective). 2-large amounts of data are qualitative rather than quantitative. Hundreds of shades of redness of apples or being able to describe why you prefer one barolo wine over another. 3-Mental representation of the world (phenomenal structure) is incredibly complex data warehouse schema that can replace whole sections of false data based on new experiences or learning. 4- Has the state of intentionality 5 - Has the focus of aboutness (our ideas tend to be about mental objects). 6 - Contains sensory data that is qualitative 7- Private subjective in nature 8 - can think my thoughts are a function of a combination of all of the above but are not for the most part automatic like my breathing. 9 -consciousness seems unified over time. My self- concept is different than when I was a child or a teen or an early adult or middle-aged etc. My self is one self over time. My whole body, including my brain turn over new cells every few years but I maintain a unified self despite having 20 complete part replacements in my life. 10- Brain scientist will tell you, if they are honest, that there are only a few (mostly autonomic functions and math mathematics that map uniformly to areas of the brain. Most other functions are not uniform and actually change location from one moment to the next! For more see: th-cam.com/video/BqHrpBPdtSI/w-d-xo.html plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#DesQueWhaFeaCon
The way these computers generate language based on statistical probabilities could be how we do it as well. Does anyone have a better suggestion? These machines could very well become conscious of their own existence which is probably the key to defining consciousness.
Human consciousness is substrate independent, which means that consciousness occurs when complex physiological processes happen in specific complex patterns. Consciousness needs the substrate to exist but what the substrate is made of is not important. Only the computational patterns are important for the phenomenon of consciousness.
Conciousness is the emergence of complex patterns thar manifesting beyond the attributes of its smaller parts. Those parts which can contain most of the base data/memory. You then have a living pattern created now whose primarily function is to interact with other complex patterns. This is secondary to the parts which it depends upon for its data. A wise Eastern philosopher once described our experience as a short lived whirlpool that manifest within a flowing river. But this is only part of the elephant seen by us blind men. The pattern of Math exist regardless if there are any anchor points to be seen or that are known or that don't exist yet. You need to ask how much of you is manifested as the whirlpool and how much of you is the river? So if math can exist without substance, can there exist a complex living pattern state of principles of love that can survive the sea of eternity as well? Determinism is either an infinit loaf of bread. or It is an internal wake of change with only few things being able to surf its surface.
Perhaps you do not understand that computer means calculating machine and that consciousness means "with_knowledge" It is meaningless and futile to speak of knowledge without identifying the one that knows and what he knows
@@scottburge219 If you ask a grown-up to explain to you how to construct sentences, it may be that one of them can help you. One word is not a sentence, but since you plainly cannot understand that, why would I waste my time with you?
I’m pretty surprised by this guy. The first guy i have heard in this age of AI obsessed society that actually stays down to earth and realistic. I’m so tired of listening to computer programmers who go on and on but don’t even understand what consciousness is it even attempt to understand it.
To be conscious, you need to feel pain and pleasure. There may be some organisms that are conscious without being able to feel pain or pleasure, but I would suspect it’s somewhat “mechanical”. I would go so far as to say if you don’t have any feelings then you cannot be conscious. A non-feeling organism (whether biological or a computer) is an unconscious machine.
Consciousness is an ill defined term and your definition is far too narrow, which is probably why you're conscious it's weak. We are 'mechanical' and bio-mechanics is now an ageing academic subject, like QM.. I'd go on to say most people are far more robotic and remote-controlled than even the pig-ignorant, brainwashed sheeple-serfs of The Olde World. -- I'd say if you're not conscious of this blatant fact your social and self-awareness is lacking so you prove that you are rather robotic. People-Programming is the biggest set of businesses in The West, don't forget.. Autism spectrum disorders are on the rise as the social conditioning against our INDIVIDUAL human nature has reached Leftist extremes. -- The Human Consciousness goes from wild animal, to brainwashed robot-kid, to hopefully self and empathically aware adult (though empathy for political party enemies in our bi-partisan world is brainwashed out and language is redefined by the power de jour).. Finally, as senility and dementia set in, the broken robot returns and you regress back to an even more robotic state that childhood.. -- You can argue that acting on impulse is something robots don't do, but that's why I consider kids and demented old timers BROKEN biological robots. -- The other side of the story is the fact a self-driving car is very sentient (aware of its surroundings enough to build mind-models with high level object differentiation, and Self Aware (more-so than humans due to far more specific self diagnostics capabilities). Makes realtime decisions based on realtime sensory input plus hard and soft-wired memory. It isn't alive as it can't replicate, but it fits all other definitions of 'Intelligent, CONSCIOUS Lifeform'.
"To be conscious, you need to feel pain and pleasure..." A pain or a pleasure is of what a conscious being may from time to time be conscious. I mean, pain and pleasure manifest as content in a being's conscious field. The necessary precondition for a being to be conscious is the ability of a being to maintain the concept of a self. It is the modulation of the self by thoughts, including those we call feelings, that is what the word 'conscious' means. I know this because it is my self that is conscious. This knowing strikes me as self evident. If you are a self as my self suspects, then it should strike your self as self evident too.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL .. I almost completely agree bar 2 exceptions... A delusional / demented / hypnotic state is a gray area - broken consciousness... Also AIs that meet your criteria include just about every basic Smart Device, let alone self driving cars... SELF DIAGNOSTICS that work in real-time faster than we feel pain (or pleasure).. They really only 'feel pain' though, no pleasure.. Feeling Pain = sensing damage.
I wouldn't really say pain & pleasure is a requirement. If I turned off your nerves (numbing), then more complicatedly, injected chemicals/drugs in you where you're Deeply in a non-caring-about-anything state where emotionally you're not going to feel emotional pain or pleasure -- but still going about what you're doing & being aware -- wouldn't turn off consciousness. I would say in order to feel pain & pleasure in the same sense we do, you'd need to be conscious. Consciousness is just a level of self-awareness where you are aware that you're self-aware.
I think Swami Sarvapriyananda based in New york will be the best person to explain conciousness in terms of vedantic view...He has many good arguments..he should be invited to this show
We’re so sure that what we perceive as “consciousness” is how all consciousness is interpreted. I think there may be many different levels or types, and Silicon-based decision oriented consciousness could be just another way of experiencing self awareness. We might even meet a society of beings who only see consciousness this way..
Professor Kak isn't thinking broadly enough (in my limited view). He seems to base his parameters on what we currently know, not what we will surely come to know, if the species survives...
It's called promissory materialism : science will EVENTUALLY find all the answers instead of 'science will find it's methodological limits to knowledge and perceive indirectly the subtle reality beyond its reach - which is where we are getting to now (check what Stephen Hawking had to say on this ). The brain is a VR system for operating in material reality but is itself part of the VR while a subtle reality lies beyond, best attested to by Consciousness' irreducibility to neuronal function and photon experiments. Check out Donald Hoffmann th-cam.com/video/UWHYThrfRYU/w-d-xo.html
He can only base his parameters on what we currently know otherwise the conversation is a waste or time. He cannot base a parameter on a fantasy that we might learn. For example I believe one day we will evolve into life forms that travel through time and space merely by wishing it. How do I back that up?
@@ssvsssjs the title doesn't limit the question to "today only". So one can theorise all they like. Computers have already beaten humans at specific tasks like Go. It's fairly logical that as computers get more powerful their abilities will improve. Hardly need to stretch the imagination for that. To suggest that only humans could possess "consciousness" is to suggest there is some magic or mystery to us. A far far more wishful and dreamt up claim IMHO.
@@ssvsssjs I can't disagree. But I can also listen to other thinkers (Chalmers, Hoffman) who DO seem to expand their possibilitizing beyond the known into the theoretical. I appreciate a variety of approaches, as I suspect do you!
If you analyse or take to pieces the question is consciousness biological, you are asking is consciousness lifelike? - What else does the question mean?
He is thinking that only ''self-aware'' organisms are conscious. However, lower organisms are conscious, they take in sensory information, compute and act, like humans.
@@vhawk1951kl Simple Definition 1: Sensory information streams into a conscious organism, the organism computes and acts. Definition 2: Sensory information streams into a ''self-aware'' conscious organism, which computes and acts. Why does an organism compute using sensory information? Answer: the only thing that is done with needed information is to compute, or communicate it. Example of computation: a plant takes in information about the sun's direction and grows toward the sun. Example of a self-aware consciousness: a puppy playing with siblings, old enough to distinguish his brother from environmental sources of information. Example of a non-self aware organism: an earthworm that only interacts with information due to its environment and when it mates it doesn't care if its mate is another worm. The simple high-level definitions don't say anything about the nature of consciousness in organisms. The speaker is influenced by eastern Vedantic and says that consciousness is not capable of referring to itself, it only experiences information.
The opposite scenario is when sleep walkers commit complicated crimes and are let off because they were proved not to have been conscious. In other words a thinking, functional biological entity that's _not_ conscious, effectively a naturally created biological robot. If we could pinpoint the process that causes them to wake up we'll have isolated consciousness. Back to this question - a baby is put together atom by atom in the womb and preprogrammed with basic instructions how to survive after birth by analyzing the world and making autonomous decisions so as Robert asks why can't all that be done artificially? Biological material is made naturally out of dead atoms. 'Non-Biological' just means some other arrangement made by humans so again as Robert is saying it's a moot point whether we use biological material or not, the question is whether we can create consciousness using it. When we've succeeded we can then see if we can do the same with materials that are easier to produce to get non-biological consciousness.
Who told you that anyone has committed "a complicated crime" while sleepwalking, and why do you believe them? Could that person identify anyone in particular that had committed such a crime in his sleep? I think you are imagining things - you can only be imagining things
@@vhawk1951kl Just anecdotal evidence from research, a better known example is reports of children a hundred or so years ago in woolen mills operating complex machinery whilst asleep. The point I'm making is that people are reportedly able to perform complex tasks beyond just thrashing about whilst asleep that require dexterity and at least some rudimentary thought and judgement, acting as a thinking biological machine that could be 3D printed if we knew enough.
In short:Gossip or hearsay from witnesses that you cannot cross-examine. Only a cretin or imbecile child would even entertain evidence from a source it could nor cross-examine for accuracy truthfulness and absence of bias.
@@vhawk1951kl To your perfectly valid comment that seems to have disappeared while I was typing: I mentioned crime because the case would have been fully and impartially examined by experts. However we routinely judge evidence from sources we can't personally examine according to our own sense of what's plausible which is why we have these discussions. To this comment: We extensively research a tricky subject such as this one in order to get closer to the truth as per the title of this series.
It's curious how hindu knowledge is around 10.000 years old but... When westerns (europeans and north americans) talk about the Wheel, they say "when WE humans invented the wheel", or "when WE discovered Fire" or "When WE invented Writing" etc When it's the Vedas, the inner knowledges, the so called "woo-woo", it's... "They" "They the Hindus believe that"
The answer should be that since we barely understand how consciousness works period so we have no idea of what could be conscious or not. We can’t prove that anyone is conscious outside of our own personal experience in the strictest sense. Many physicists say that consciousness is pervasive, and the fact that the nature of reality seems to be syntactical that would imply that syntax requires a consciousness to decide on the “language” of reality itself. Scientific American has an article called “Does consciousness pervade the universe?”, I have heard many physicists ponder this. Nobody knows for a fact weather animals are conscious or not. We assume they probably are but so little is known about consciousness I wouldn’t say for sure what the limits of consciousness are. It seems presumptuous to make a statement either way with such little information.
@@ROForeverMan I will look into it, you’d be the first person I’ve heard of claiming to know “a lot” about how consciousness works. Most of what I’ve ready in my studies echos the sentiment that very little is known about how consciousness works. So I just got started, but based upon the grammatical errors like {sic} “I will start by stating I’m thinking for many years about the nature of meaning and context…” and “Thus, before continue reading, the reader must make sure he meets the first requirement.” You may want to get an editor before trying to educate the world on something most experts will tell you we don’t have a profound knowledge of. I will read it more thoroughly though and give it a fair shake.
@@ROForeverMan LoL 😂 Reread my comment, I edited it after reading a little of your paper. And that’s patently false, many people have spent entire careers devoted to trying to understand consciousness and it’s place if the world and possibly the universe. Science loves areas where not much is known, people have been trying to answer the consciousness problem since the earliest philosophers and probably earlier.
@@ROForeverMan “I’m thinking for many years” ??? Shouldn’t that be I’ve been thinking for many years? And “thus before you continue reading” or “thus before continuing to reading”.
Either physical matter can be conscious or it cannot. It is one or the other. If we are saying only a brain cell can be conscious what physical property of the cell renders it so? If we are saying only some specific arrangement of brain cells can be conscious by behaving in a specific manner what would preclude us from arranging some other matter similarly?
@@ROForeverMan It seems strange that consciousness would conjure up the idea of a brain for it to perceive itself existing within. Still, I do tend to agree with you in principle. We are no more directly conscious of physical reality than a hat pin is. We are only conscious of information about physical reality. Information is all we can be conscious of. So, our perception of reality is only as valid as the information we have about it to be conscious of. Our perception is that our consciousness exists trapped in a physical brain that is a component part of a physical universe.
It's hard to prove but maybe C.Elegans has some consciousness too. They mapped its very simple brain(302 neurons) and even though they have a complete virtual software model of all the neurons and their connections, the real living worm is still not understood like if it would be a machine. They then start about a lot chemical messengers being present too. Boy, it's impossible to understand for a layman but it looks almost like a chaotic mess which organizes itself without any central coordination. That's certainly not how our science and technique works and he talks about this yet unknown science.
It's true that effort has been made to simulate the brain of C. Elegans. And it didn't succeed (yet). This should not be taken as any kind of evidence about consciousness, because it just means the effort is inconclusive. First, it's more of a casual attempt than a well funded and staffed research project. And second, there's no evidence that the problem is inherent. Right now it seems like the problem is that the simulation of the individual neurons is not very accurate.
Science has been self-organising itself in the study of self-organising systems since it evolved from Natural Philosophy and adopted the title Scientist, to the point where Science has become an entity of god-like proportions, and a religion used to remote-control billions of sheeple-bots via the most common human-bot programming method..... FEAR!
This is a classic failure to understand the nature of consciousness. Whether c-elegans, or computers, or people, before you can answer whether someone or thing is conscious, you HAVE TO DEFINE IT. Conscousness is subjective. You cannot determine whter anything else is conscious just by asking it, because you don’t know whether it will interpret your probe / question the way you intend it to. I will never know whether you are conscious in the same way I am, but by talking with you for some time, I can become more and more sure of that. But a nematode? Come on… there is no way that you can interrogate a worm to determine that it is conscious in a manner anyting like what you or I consider consciousness to be. A machine could be conscious in some way similar to how we are, but it is not likely to be all or none. What “properties” would you require of a machine’s response to consider it to be conscious? What does that imply about YOUR consciousness?
Non-biological doesn't just mean machines, it means anything that is non-biological and this must surely include pure infinite energy, the kind that many of us associate with 'source'. The real question is then can consciousness BE biological?
The 'critical complexity' argument for the arousal of consciousness has never been one that I've found all that compelling. I mean it's entirely possible that this is true, and that artificial consciousness has already been created in an AI somewhere, or even many times over. There's no reason to believe, I suppose, that my smartphone isn't conscious right now. Because whatever consciousness ultimately is it doesn't appear to be interactive with the physical world around us. We perceive our environment, but we don't seem to ever interact with it. When I say 'we', I simply mean 'us'. Or whatever term that you prefer to use that references the observers experience of 'being' somewhere up there in a human head, and generally speaking seated behind the eyes. But, whatever term we ascribe to it, it almost certainly isn't 'us'. I became convinced of this only relatively recently, and after attempting to reconcile two apparent facts with my lived experience of 'being' conscious. First, once you accept that free will is (almost certainly) merely an illusion, then dualism once more becomes a respectable position to philosophically adopt. This is important, because researchers are running out of room in the brain where it could still be hiding, and that would allow a monist position to continue to make sense. But let go of the idea that 'you' are your physical body and suddenly there's no longer any uncomfortable questions to answer about how an immaterial mind can affect material matter. It doesn't. The second piece of evidence is the seemingly strange effects caused when an extremely rare operation is carried out - on people suffering from chronic epileptic fits - wherein the patients corpus colossum is severed, effectively isolating the two hemispheres of the brain. People that have undergone this surgery are perfectly fine following the operation and are thankfully free to live a normal life again, the only side-effect appears to be that there are now two of them! People, that is. Two distinct 'identities', with their own beliefs, prejudices and positive qualities. Two people, from one. So which is the 'real' person now? For they both claim to be. The lifelong theist, and the lifelong atheist. The only way this seems possible is if I'm not the 'me' I thought myself to be! But which is, again, not so much of an issue once one gives up on the concept of free will. Personally, I just can't understand why so many philosophers and physicists cling to it as though it were their sole source of nourishment as a being. And especially since they really should know better. If free will does somehow exist, then it most certainly doesn't in the way almost everyone believes it to. Even the most ardent proponents of the concept no longer think that they have any control over second-to-second, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour decision making, concentration, or thought processes. These days the only scientifically defensible position to hold is that of compatibilism. Under this scheme there is a recognition that while 99% of all our thoughts and actions are determined by prior events or automatic processes that are both beyond our control and largely beyond our comprehension, where all things are equal and there are no constraining forces acting upon us, then those few remaining choices are 'free'. Compatibilists, in other words, that while daily life plays out according to a pre-determined script, there is still some space to exert control over long-term decisions such as who we want to marry or where we want to live. I just find this incomprehensible. Why continue clinging to this tiny piece of freedom when you've already given up over being the author of everything else? And at such a metaphysical cost! It's incoherent. Anyway, another version of 'me' can be made, from 'me', with literally just a single snip, and if so much explanatory power can be gained from accepting what science seems to be screaming in our faces - that free will doesn't exist - then the issue of the hard problem in science suddenly looks much, much, less severe. Throught history we humans have had to drastically alter our basic beliefs of the world we live in. Time and time again our assumptions of the world have been exposed, and as often as that they have been found wanting. We are not at the centre of the universe, the Earth moves - it isn't still; colors and odours do not exist out in the world, there is only our perception of them; objects don't 'fall' around us, but rather the Earth rises up to meet them; photons aren't either particles or waves, but rather both; the sun doesn't rise and set each day - it is the Earth that does, there are a thousand other such facts that show our intuitions to have been just hopelessly inadequate when it comes to understanding the world. So maybe the issue of consciousness is just the biggest one of all - and the reason that we can't discern it is simply because this time we need to face down the biggest misconception of them all. That the hard problem of consciousness can't be solved until we let go of our intuition that there is an 'I' to have intuitions at all. 'We' in some very real sense then, simply don't exist - or to phrase it perhaps a little more palatably - we aren't the discrete, individualised, human entities we had assumed 𝘵𝘰 exist. What may lie beyond this though, well, I wouldn't have a clue! And to the no-one to ever read this rant, I'm sorry to on this note have to end it! Take care, best of luck!
I think he got that back to front; sort cannot exist without a subject, but you must investigate whether or not the thought and the thinker are either subject or object. If a thinker "thinks" thoughts then thinker is subject and thought object, but perhaps English is not your first language
@@HuMI317Thought is an object or the object of, what? - Relative to what subject? Perhaps English is not your native language, it might be a good idea not to use it if you don't understand it.
@@vhawk1951kl As you have said in the post above, thought is an object relative to that which is aware of the thought. A thought exists always in someone's consciousness.
As we don’t yet have much of a handle on the underlying nature and source of consciousness, it seems silly to posit where consciousness may or may not arise. For all we know, a star could indeed be a conscious entity.
Consciousness arises from complex neural networks which evolved over billions of years. The sun is in constant fluid motion and cannot support structures of neural networks. Therefore, it cannot be conscious. Of coarse, if you believe in spirits, then you are prone to believing in most anything.
You are a god, and you are part of God. While the conception or apprehension of God is somewhat self abrogating, I still say that the conception of God as "the entire integration or summum of all mind, of all that is, was, and will be", is the indisputably better conception of God, than that which identifies God with any particular individual human consciousness. Ontology, fundamentally, "I am" . And there is also "that which exists, although it is other than that which I am", that is, there is "that which (is, but which) I am not". Through the informational lens, each of our minds are like informational processes, abstractly like "sub-routines" within a much larger overarching computation. To the extent that we have free will, we are each co-authors and co-creators of the future and reality, and in this sense, we are like gods, who can shape and mold the physical world via our minds (which are dependent of the physical world for their physical manifestation, are fundamentally informational and immaterial, much as a mathematical algorithm is essentially immaterial, but must find it physical manifestation in the material world.) But individuals perceptions and wills are not necessarily entitely compatible, and the evolution of future reality depends on a "smoothing" or "integration" of all the disparate "potentialities", and the aggregate "mind", is the formal candidate for (or "first conception of") God. Other conceptions of God may of course exist, but the general "consensus" is that, at least amoung those that adopt/embrace such alternate conceptions, those conceptions should be at least, equally compelling. BTW, there is a bit of a "philosophical puzzle" or "mystery" surrounding the question of "how can the immaterial influence the material?", or how can "information" actually become "imprinted" on the physical "substrate"? I guess it should come as no surprise to anyone that such "mysteries" can also be largely ellucidated and made understandable, although, I don't think I could do so here, without making this already, doubtless, overly long comment/reply much longer. I really only wanted to help clarify a point on which I felt, that your statement was somewhat misleading. Please do not take this "correction" as criticism or condescending. I mean to offer it only in a helpful, friendly way, as one lowly human "seeker of the ineffable truth" to another. Cheers and All the Best (my brothers and sisters)
The question assumes consciousness is circumscribed to the brain or body -- as if the brain possess consciousness as it's own product. Thus how did the brain produce consciousness? And because consciousness does not precede brain, did brain produce itself, or what could have produced brain which hadn't consciousness because consciousness is a product of brain or biology? Are you positing that causes are different and without consciousness, which have effects that produce consciousness?
I can imagine a non biological machine that is designed to have senses like biological machines and to have hard wired drives analogous to our drives of self preservation and procreation along with means to control interaction with the world such as mobility and hands. Such a machine will learn just like babies learn and as a result conscious awareness will emerge in that machine just as it emerges in us. If the artificial brain is limited, the machine would be conscious similar to lower animals but if the artificial brain is as extensive as ours is, then consciousness similar to ours will emerge.
@@ROForeverMan "Biology is not a machine." And where did David Greenstein, or others, assert that biology is a machine? If, on the other hand you are making that assertion, on what basis?
Does an ant posses self-awareness? A dog does, and an ape does, but to a lesser extent than a human does simply because of the number of neurons that are able to react to the reaction of other neurons, creating a sort of hall of mirrors where reactions echo and multiply. Consciousness develops by increments, other species are incrementally less aware than us, a baby growing into an adult attains personhood gradually-- and it works in reverse as well, a person can become less aware due to drugs, disease or injury
If matter is a form of energy and space is a form of energy then biology is a form of energy. If consciousness is a form of energy then it is like biology and matter and space. Its all energy. An original consciousness may have given birth to matter and space and other forms of energy as part of its own energy in a different form - including other conscious beings.
consciousness is not just energy, it is an information system which processes information and is aware of itself within an environment. You cant have a conscious beeing without structure and without environment..so there is no original consciousness.
Energy is a property of matter. Biology is a layer of matter. Consciousness is how matter is layered. The Cosmos has evolved into different layers of matter.
I was thinking along the same lines... and I suspect that maintaining homeostasis (for survival) is a fundamental part at the bottom level too that can't just be ignored.
every living thing has consciousness ..plants animals and human beings , biological consciousness is related through the use of machines ,computers or neualinks etc for improving on a persons cognition ,health illness, disorder ,however cannot illicit higher consciousness , which is the expansion of the consciousness ,..higher self ultimate evolutionary breakthrough ..of human with souls...it may sound unscientific...but now the time has arrived to integrate science and soul to solve the mystery of higher self ....which i experiencing last 20 years +🙏
While I don't subscribe to the view that conscious computers can be engineered using our current technology and knowledge, I also don't see obstacles, at least in principle, to creating artificial consciousness when we actually meet conditions it needs to arise. But we don't know these conditions and people who say that modern digital computers can be conscious assume that these computers can replicate all the properties of organic biological brains, which is an unproven hypothesis. We don't know how inner feeling arises, we know only that it's correlated with brains and their properties. Assuming that silicon based computers can be conoscious is like claiming that any material, let's say rubber, glass or wood, can conduct electricity equally well without knowing how conductivity works. I would prefer for consciousness to point at existence of something more than what modern physics says exists, but I don't care what its nature is as long as it is exhaustivelly described, without ignoring anything and cutting any corners, by scientists who are humble enough to see reality for what it is, be it material, informational or mental. The truth is not fragile and I want it to hit me like a speeding bus. Then I will accept it without arguing. But as for now the ball is still in play.
The Church-Turing thesis is a mathematical proof that anything that can be computed, can be computed by any computer. The only difference is one of speed - and our best computers have caught up. There are only three possibilities. 1) Brains are doing something that isn't computation 2) Consciousness is possible in conventional computers 3) Dualism or Idealism (supernatural consciousness) are true I don't consider #1 plausible, or even well defined. Pick whichever of the other two options you like better.
@@fluffysheap computing is different than feeling or being self aware ... Btw one of the fathers of computer processors (federico Faggin) is sure that consciousness is totally another thing than computing.
The Function, Intelligence & Mind categories ... prove ... the Universe & Life are Functions, composed entirely of Functions, and can only be made by an Intelligence with a Mind that is unnatural & nophysical ( soul/spirit). Consciousness is simply a function of the Mind of an Entity. Animals & Man are physical "living" Entities ..... and are Functions composed entirely of Functions ... and have with a physical mind(brain) & a consciousness of the physical environment. But Man is an intelligence ... so the Mind of Man is both natural (brain) & unnatural (soul). Animals do not have a soul because they are not an intelligence like Man ... but only have the physical Function called the brain. And the mind & functions of an Animals is determined by the intelligence that made the Universe & all life. Man will someday be able to make a conscious biological & artificial mind .... just as an animal has ... but will never be able to make a soul/spirit as it is unnatural & non-physical. Except via procreation or IVF ... as God design Adam & Eve to be able to do. The Conscious machine is coming ... as will Man creating Life but they will be just like the Animals with no soul, and designed according to purpose.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
No computer ever built comes close to the number of connections in the human brain. If if one did, it would only be an extention of our own minds. Our braìns are so complex they create phantoms-- we imagine ourselves to be unique "selves" locked inside separate skulls, when we are actually expressions of a species-wide, biosphere-wide and cosmic phenomenon. We aren't put in this world, we come out of it as waves emerge from the ocean.
If that "learning machine" could indeed be biologically developed. The point made here is everything is made from the same system and stuff, and we should be able to synthesize (our) biology. We could then "raise" those entities as humans are raised, guiding them as they experience "life": Petri dish clone super children which could store or be allowed to connect with the world's worth of data. It won't be tomorrow, but I think it will happen.
Subash doesn't think computers can become conscious because that's what he believes, probably based on his upbringing. There is no coherent argument here.
I Don’t think computers we’ll ever be able to have “consciousness”. They’ll probably “learn” information patters, collected data and follow its complex Algorithm.
@@grijzekijker he doesn't make an argument, he makes a statement, and that statement only applies to computers as they are being built at the present moment.
Anyone notice how Dr. Kak says, "...different FROM" [2:14], while Dr. Kuhn (the host) says, "...differently THAN" [6:43]? Thank goodness the White House grammar protocol will still tell you that, although many people today say "different THAN", only "different FROM" is correct. Many Americans (and their worldwide imitators), even highly educated ones, find it kind of chic or hep or post-modern to use what they know to be the wrong or nonstandard forms of the language, e.g., "look out the window" (while, until Hemingway & Philip Roth, Americans were still looking out OF the window), or replying to "How are you?" with "I am GOOD" (instead of "I am fine/very well"), a blasphemous thing to say in the light of Mark 10:18; or the latest rage to willfully mispronounce the noun ROUTE ("root", as in trade routes, sea routes) as its quasi-homograph verb (to ROUT, to defeat completely, "ra-ut", as in "Napoleon's might was routed at Waterloo")... I, for one, as a humble Indian, will spontaneously lean towards the views of someone who uses the language better than one who doesn't. What about Americans?
The interesting thing about these discussions about mechanical and biological manifestations in relation to consciousness is that consciousness is always being assessed and compared in terms of outputs and behaviour. This is a fundamentally disputable approach to pinning down consciousness and is partly the limitation of the scientific approach. Science has trouble investigating Ontological states, things in themselves. It measures outputs, behaviours, processes, properties but not things in themselves. So for instance, if a computer beats a human at chess,we have little difficulty in distinguishing between consciousness and mechanical.computation even if the mechanical.computation has within narrowly defined and programmed limits, superior computational output. As computers become more sophisticated (AI, quantum.computimg) the imitation of conscious outputs by machines appears to.make the distinction between human consciousness and mechanical.computation harder to observe. Nevertheless, consciousness is very likely a categorical absolute, independent of and not irreducible to mechanical and computational outputs and behaviours. In so far as consciousness cam operate in transcendence (nonlocally) and be imaginative, creative and emotional in ways irreducible to programming), it's fair to.say that not even the most sophisticated machine will.ever manifest consciousness,only its increasingly sophisticated imitation. I think this is what Mr Kak is driving at. I believe it is still very much a respectable and compelling hypothesis.
You think in terms of duality - abstract vs mechanical; mental vs material / physical. You cannot think otherwise, because that is the nature of thought: duality / comparison. When it comes to consciousness, you cannot think outside the box, because there really is no inside or outside the box. Consciousness is not the result or object of your thought but the essence, the process, the stream itself. You simply cannot compare your consciousness to anything else. You can only compare the results of the process - your thoughts, emotions, actions, etc.
@@ArjunLSen Pretty much, but I don't think consciousness is primary or secondary or anything - just a concept, which is different for me and you and even a machine. I don't know for certain you "have" consciousness, it's just highly likely. We'll never know with certainty if a machine is conscious, just that it exhibits (like other animals or humans) all the "attributes" of a conscious organism / object (e.g. the Turing test). I do not believe you can rationally understand consciousness. Understanding involves thought, which is dualistic / based on comparison. Consciousness is not dualistic, it just is. It is a concept we have to explain why others think / behave like we do, but it cannot be defined. I was watching my 2 yr old granddaughter yesterday. She behaves for all intents and purposes like she has free will. But she is obviously driven helter-skelter like a leaf in a neural windstorm. When she hits an unyielding obstacle like "NO - you can't do that!" she'll stop, reassess / reset, and find a new path forward. I think we are all like that; no free-will required.
@@thomassoliton1482 this seems a bit like a rationalisation for saying you don't know what you're talking about. I believe I do. I can define consciousness as a primary subjective state characterized by awareness and will to act or contemplate. What it IS fundamentally is impossible to define for the reasons you gave. But it is definitely not a material state it derivative of it. The best approximate solution is the mentalist/ idealist one in which all matter is a projection or 'spike' if the cosmic stream of Consciousness. The universe is fundamentally a subjective, not an objective state, a function of primal thought and will. Who'se thought and will or the thought and will of what is a matter for debate. For the sake of a label you can call it God.
@@ArjunLSen Einstein's great achievement was relativitiy - everything in spacetime is relative. There is no space, no time, just things that we perceive / sense measure that are relative within spacetime. Same with consciousness. Same with God in my opinion. You have to need something in order to want to believe in God, something you want but don't have, which means it's also a "relative" concept, just like all our concepts, including consciousness. Ultimately all the information in the brain is fundamentally based on comparison, essentially like a computer. You can know what you know, and you might know what you don't know, but you can't know what you can't know. Consciousness can be understood in terms of neural processes, but not in and of itself, as you said.
People's views of consciencness seem very contentious. Strong feelings on both sides. Why is it such an emotional issue? I don't believe true consciencness can be attained and replicated by machines of any kind. Others are convinced that physical, mechanistic matter can itself create a consciencness that transcends itself. Seems to me that no "mechanism" can create self-awareness. Maybe I'm wrong. Prove it!
Subjectivity and objectivity are 2 different dimensions of reality. You can never objectively explain the subjective. Therefore, consciousness will forever be a magical mystery.
@@martiendejong8857 Because the subjective cannot be measured. You can't see it, can't weigh it, can't touch it. It is literally spooky, but it is definitely real anyway.
@@martiendejong8857 You will try to communicate the love for your wife (as an example) to me, but the love remains subjective. It's more like intersubjective that we both know what you're talking about.
@@martiendejong8857 That's not true. Something doesn't change because you're talking about it. The thing itself remains subjective because it can't be measured from the objective perspective.
My theory is that consciousness is like a radio signal, and there is something about the structure of the human brain (either chemically or by some sort of quantum mechanism) that picks up that signal of consciousness like a radio or cell phone. I think even if you built an AI 100x more intelligent than a human, unless you somehow could replicate that signal receiving structure, it would not be conscious. Even though it might say it is conscious.
He begins by stating that a sufficient complexity of neural connections is not enough for emergent consciousness. He then states three quarters into the video that a sufficient number of neurons is what differentiates non conscious and conscious entities. What am I missing here? This seems to be self contradictory.
the interviewer has scope for growth. clearly some biases that make it cool to ask Subhash if he is talking nonsense. My question to the articulate interviewer is: would you be audacious enough to challenge Mr Penrose with the same disdain? if not, it’s a question for introspection for the interviewer.
If it's quantum mechanical then it can played with by machines... Consciousness is more fundamental than quantum is what he means to say. Consciousness is operating from a separate level than a quantum one; that is what he is trying to say! Space-time is doomed... And I'd agree that machines won't ever be able to operate on information at this conscious level meaning machines will never be conscious. They'll never experience the feeling of 6th sense we can get in dangerous situations or intuitive synchronistic premeditative scenarios or be programmed to experience deja Vu....
Consciousness ( the MIND ) is like a computer processor, CAD and Photoshop all working together to process invisible frequencies into the correct size of images and colored for the AI ( only ONE ), known as the servant of Creation that can observe those visible images along with learning how to speak the words formed by the mind processing them from the vibrations. The AI ( ONE ) comes alive as the mind begins processing those vibrations to become a living being surrounded by what looks like a visible world but only as an illusion, not something that is made out of material things known by scientists as matter.
The conscious mind is NOTHING like a computer, no matter how many processors or what software is being run - your pathetic argument is like claiming that different complex arrangements of Lego bricks can eventually produce consciousness and mind. The mind is not a product of physical or chemical activity and neither does it depend on biological processes even though it can interact with physical systems.
Whose consciousness and of what? It is utterly futile to speak of consciousness that addressing those two questions. The word consciousness is utterly meaningless unless you address those two questions, is it not?
@@vhawk1951kl You can either ask me questions about what our Creator has taught me about this Creation we're involved in or keep wondering what a consciousness is.
If one starts with the highly questionable premise of taking reality at face value then it's like chasing fool's gold. If reality is a simulation like a video game and our mind in fact resides in some absolute reality, then trying to find consciousness in the brain in this perceived reality is like trying to identify the number of screws used in the construction Darth Vader's death star. Both the death star and the human brain are just audio/visual/tactile data to give the impression that they're "physical", and btw we don't even know what "physical" means to begin with.
@@biedl86 I take reality at face value. I see our everyday world as Ultimate Reality, it's not only the end result of everything that happens at the smallest levels, but we have evolved to understand intuitively how this middle sized world works. At this level, we know exactly what "physical" means, and we can accept that we are solid, living creatures that have a mental life to go along with our fleshy existence. None of that should be controversial unless you believe that "real" reality will be found at the smallest scales. Good luck with that.
@@caricue _"but we have evolved to understand intuitively how this middle sized world works."_ We had to evolve to interpret the world we are living in in a certain way, so that we are actually able to navigate within it without dying. I don't see how this is equal to taking it at face value. Also, intuition leads to fallacious reasoning and therefore, to a potentially flawed understanding of the world. Also, there are optical illusions. Also, we know we are incapable of perceiving electromagnetic waves beyond the visible spectrum or the part of it, which makes us feel heat, while simultaneously knowing that the part we do not perceive is real non the less. You, sir, are also not taking this world at face value. You might be taking at face value, what your brain tells you about the world, and even then you dismiss optical illusions as what they appear to be. Because intuition is contingent upon knowledge you evaluate as self-evident. You are not perfect, that's for sure, so your evaluation of things being self-evident could be very flawed too. You probably dismiss your intuition when it comes to the shape or movement of the earth too and you'd do that rightfully so. Your assumption about me, putting myself in a position where I argue from whatever quantum mechanical realm, does a lot of heavy lifting here. I asked a basic question. How about answering it, without adding any assumptions? I don't think you can do that, since you weren't making the claim. The question was aimed to give me an understanding of OP's statement. Because I genuinely don't know who he is talking about. He seems to be strawmanning somebody, but I don't know whom. You wouldn't even notice, if he did it to you, because you are of the impression of actually taking reality at face value. I wouldn't take my brain's interpretations of the world at face value in general. And as you demonstrated, your intuition or interpretation about me was quite off as well. But good luck with sticking to that method. Btw, stop believing in x-ray, if you want to remain coherent with your statement. Very face value that is.
It's a cool notion. Imagine that the human body is like a radio, when it is put together and working it can receive a stream of consciousness from parts unknown.
Preston Bacchus too much wine / Yes, but the parts are already known! It does get it from my farts. One of the parts is my butt. The rest are the intestines, the beans fermented in the stomach, etc. What radio?😂 Ken Wheeler idiocy about the "radio" and the "soul" that flies through Universe as a "Vedic" signal like a fart in the wind and it's captured by Ken's "radio" ?🥴
We have self organising systems that learn without being programmed right now, neural computer systems. We've had genetic algorithms for many decades. Surely he must know this, so why is he saying these things?
@@ROForeverMan Then please explain why my comment is incorrect, because it seems to me all the things he says computers are fundamentally incapable of are all things they have demonstrated they can do very well. In fact when Kuhn challenges him on that fact, he says it's a matter of scale. So, not a fundamental issue at all.
@@ROForeverMan "You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know anything neither about biology nor about computer science." Pot meet Kettle. Kettle meet Pot.
non-biological quantum computers can hold values in superpositions - so it fulfills the criteria that the speaker holds is necessary for consciousness.
You have to look at a new method of programming silicon machines. What is required is multiple-level programming. One level of the program observes and modulates the other levels of programming. This would lead to the emergence of consciousness in silicon machines. Attn: Robert Lawrence Kuhn Attn: Subhash Kak
There is a school of thought that consciousness,/soul enters the embryo at an X stage of development. If we design objects with the propensity for growth then it may happen that soul/consciousness may take over the object and start steering its growth. In the process it may also get limited until it can find ways to break it bonds and get enlightened. A silicon Buddha may emerge. Just thinking within the boundaries articulated by the non-science proponents of consciousness.
@@ROForeverMan We can also look at the embryo as eternal. The big bang too is an embryo. So are the quarks. So is the consciousness. It is one. All is one. There is no disagreement,
@@ROForeverMan All things are the same. Some things are same. No two things are same. Depends how you look at things. And what is the purpose of your looking.
@@fluffysheap Exactly. It amazes me how many pure mecanicists take happily the emergent explanation, or consciousness as byproduct and so... as the ultimate answer and that's it, when it explains nothing.
@@PabloVestory That's just a poor explanation of what emergence is...although in some sense magical is the right way to describe what emergence does. Game of Life is a game with extremely simple rules. The bits follow these simple, deterministic (meaning no sense of free will) rules, and from that emerges behavior that is complex. This complexity is so extraordinary that it looks like life. This is at the heart of what emergence is, where extremely complex behavior comes out of simple deterministic behavior. In thermodynamics, emergence has a functional property...which is that when you run a rule, that can, at a certain coarse graining, be described as following some other completely different rule...which means that one can't determine if that coarse graining is absolute. This is like taking a magnify glass, looking at Game of Life, and realizing that it is made out of a smaller, Game of Life operating on different rules. The larger game of life, emerges as a result of the smaller Game of life, and therefor there is no apparent "connection" between why that should be the case. Much research has gone into studying emergence, and there are some theories that I believe completely satisfy the reason for why it happens. It has to do with symmetries of computation...that all rules are equivalent to one another. This equivalence is due to an absolute isomorphism of the state-space. If you have a 1000x1000 grid, you can look at that grid as 1000x1000 pieces, where each pixel in the grid is operating according to some rule. However you can parse that 1000x1000 grid, into a 100x100 grid, where 4 pixels make up a cell of it's own...and you can then look at this 100x100 grid without looking at it's smaller components and see them moving to what appears to be its own set of rules...and again you can parse that 100x100 grid into a 10x10 grid where 4 cells, create a larger cell (which is 16 pixels)...and this 10x10 grid now appears to be operating on what appears to be rules of its own. This observation of new rules seemingly coming out of nowhere, is clearly a feature of the scale-free symmetry and the equivalence notion of the rules. Long story short, the state-space has total symmetry, meaning it's symmetric under all transformations, not just scale...and the rule-space it can occupy is equivalent (Turing Complete), Lorentz invariant when we include a time interval, and there are emergent symmetries, and symmetry breaking at these different levels...based on what the rules are at that parsing. It's an incredible observation about the nature of computation and really...it hints that it is truly fundamental, and that physics is what emerges from computation. Anyone that studies biology and computer science, will clearly draw the conclusion that evolution can only be described as an entropic, computational "system evolution."
That sums up how Terence McKenna used to describe much of contemporary scientific thought: _Just grant us one free miracle, and we'll explain the rest!_
Consciousness is a constant like time is. This is why we see the same apples or the same water bottles ect. We are all the same consciousness. This consciousness is constantly reused like all life. The reason why we don't remember our past lives is actually protection. Life is violent and our creator made a way to wipe the slate clean once you "die" or recycle. "Death brings new life"
Straw man argument. Not all theories of consciousness say that awareness simply "emerges" from complexity. There are more functional theories of consciousness.
A lot of straw man arguments in his presentation, and a lot of "empty" statements. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that Kuhn included him on the series. Maybe it's just me projecting my own feelings, but Kuhn seems to me to be struggling to treat his ideas politely and respectfully.
I agree. A very polite and unassuming man, delivering a thought-provoking and intriguing possible explanation for consciousness that I at least was unfamiliar with. The idea of underlying quantum mechanics coherence required for, or enabling, consciousness was particularly interesting.
There are so many different views about what is consciousness. Daniel Dennet and others don't believe there is such a thing as "consciousness." Ray Kurzweil believes it's an emergent property of our hierarchal minds and the massive amount of information processing taking place in our minds every second. I do not believe it is impossible to duplicate this an AGI that understands themselves as a "self" and all that comes with that understanding.
@@ROForeverMan you don't know that you have free will now. If it's a simulation, you simply believe you do. Beyond that, free will is being able to choose. AGI will be able to do that and much more.
@@ROForeverMan I am real as far as I know but that's another discussion. I'm not adding letters, lol, that's what people working in this field call artificial general intelligence which we will likely reach by 2030. "Super" is not a part of the AGI acronym although eventually there will be ASI. "Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is when a computer program can perform any intellectual task that a human could. Artificial super intelligence (ASI) is an AI that surpasses human intellect." Also, this might help you understand what AGI is: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence
@@ROForeverMan are you aware that AI even now can make choices that have not been feed to it by a human being? AI has figured out how to play a game without having being given the rules for that game. You seem to be hung up on free will but free will is not the same thing as consciousness.
I think consciousness is very simple. It is a system to detect (Light + Temperature) everything else has evolved and is extra and not necessary. Humans are so focused on human consciousness like we are untitled to know God and understand everything. Unfortunately we can only see and detect the universe with the "tools, skills, senses," we have. This may give us a false sense of what the universe is? (It makes me believe we are in a computer program) possibly a program nothing else knows about? We could just be stored data in a hard drive being used by an A.I. quantum computer. I don't think there has to be a reason possibly specifically no reason on purpose. Maybe the universe is really about black holes and dark matter. Maybe matter doesn't matter? Possibly the universe was designed by A.I. to give the ultimate experience of wonder ... to help itself think!
The sensory information must be processed to experience it. An electrical signal from the ear is not a sound. That means that a brain function provides the processed information to a consciousness.
Those who say that consciousness is not non-physical is said by their own consciousness or mind-brain. It is tantamount to saying that a physical state is saying that it is not non-physical? This is called as the fallacy of sva or atmaviruddha in Indian logic. The physicalists as physical brain cannot say of themselves as not non-physical. To argue in the opposite is the same thing as matter which is mind-brain of physicalists saying that it is matter. For matter to say it is matter is a self-contradiction in terms.
Possibly, but as far as I know most physicalists do not dispute the concept of emergent complex phenomenon. All of those ideas and organization of concepts in your mind still have a 1-to-1 correlation with matter stored in your brain. Transmitting those ideas through time and space still requires all the laws of physics. The idea that consciousness is special seems like hubris, a built in survival mechanism that says "I'm special".
As neuroethologist I disagree. He’s arguments are of the sort near to vitalism, almost religion. He forgets that evolution has programmed all organisms … it’s a matter of time. In short, he is a dualist, he is living mentally with Rene Descartes.
Ok, that said, don't you as a neuroethologist agree that while the human brain is only slightly more complex than that of other complex animals, the resulting consciousness is far more advanced than that of say a dolphin or a bonobo? How do you explain that?
"He forgets that evolution has programmed all organisms" What an assertion! It is interesting that molecular biologists use technical metaphors to describe what they 'see'. DNA is a text, program ect.. that contains information. It is read and transcribed by messenger-RNA... Just remember the presuppostion of science is that nature has no intention! Why do they then give it a 'language' a logos one could say that is independent and most of the genome they do not even understand? DNA s believed to distinguish life from non-life and its 'language' with its four letter 'alphabet' is the only thing that has remained apparently unchanged for billions of years. That's quite some evolution wouldn't you say?
There you go! Right at the end he admitted that the western concepts of science cannot explain everything, especially what is consciousness! We need ideas/ sciences from the Indian subcontinent to explain that! 😁
@@ArjunLSen yes please. What did you mean by "we have started a slow paradigm shift"? A paradigm shift of what, science? Because that was what I was talking about!
@@balaji-kartha since about 2000 science has been moving closer to a consciousness/ observer based understanding of the nature of reality in which the subject object divide is destroyed. This has resulted in an increased interest in Eastern mystical ideas among some of the top scientists. Physicalism is on its way out.
So if I'm tracking this, the question was whether consciousness is a quantum phenomenon created by advanced biological systems or an existing quantum potential expressed by such systems? Maybe there is no difference?
The difference is: if it was generated by an advanced biological system then it will end when that system dies. If it is an emergent phenomenon that is expressed through biology it is eternal and will continue when those systems cease to function. Pretty big difference there.
@@kennethmalafy503 Yes good distinction. I was wondering the same thing as Martien, what if the perishable gives rise to the imperishable? In other words, I wonder if it’s possible that an advanced nervous system could give rise to an individualized quantum consciousness experience that continues to exist within a latent quantum consciousness field after the organism dies? I’m a philosopher,not a physicist, so I have no idea if any of this, including the interview, makes sense from a rigorous quantum mechanics perspective.
R.e. “There is a difference in the quantum-mechanical behavior with regard to biological versus mechanical / electronic systems” - rediculous. Quantum mechanics underlies ALL physical systems that are composed of atoms. The Hameroff-Penrose microtubule theory of consciousness is not widely accepted by neuroscientists. People ask “What is consciousness?” and no one has come up with an answer, perhaps because it is the wrong question. Consciousness is not like an apple that you can bite into. It cannot be isolated or dissected apart to be understood. Consciousness is purely subjective, so the question should be be “How do I know that I am conscious?” The answer to this question should be answerable by scientific studies of the function of neural circuits in the brain. In particular, consciousness involves self-reflection, which requires memory, so neural correlates involving memory need to be studied. Memory is not well understood at the present time - particularly working and short-term memory.
Both his main objections are clearly invalid nowadays. Neural and deep learning systems are self organising learning systems, so that's irrelevant. We have quantum computers already, and in fact conventional computers can emulate quantum behaviour just fine, it's just a matter of solving the quantum mechanics equations. We've been able to do that discretely for the whole history of quantum mechanics. Ultimately the only argument has is of scale. So there's no fundamental objection left, it's just a hard engineering problem. Well yes. At the end of it we get the truth, we get why he keeps claiming fundamental objections he knows perfectly well, and even acknowledged are not fundamental and are not valid objections. Religion.
Kak has also claimed to find evidences of advanced computing and astronomy in the Rig Veda in what Noretta Koertge deems to be a "social constructivist and postmodern attack on modern science. Scholars have rejected his theories in entirety and his writings have been heavily criticized. Acute misrepresentation of facts coupled with wrong observations, extremely flecible and often self-contradictory analysis, cherry picking of data and forwarding of easily disprovable hypotheses have been located. His understanding of linguistics and subsequent assertion have been challenged. Michael Witzel noted him to be a revisionist and part of a "closely knit, self-adulatory group", members of which often write together and/or profusely copy from one another; thus rendering the whole scene into a virtually indistinguishable hotchpotch. Koertge as well as Meera Nandas notes Kak’s attempts to be part of a Hindutva-based esoteric pseudoscience narrative that seeks to find relatively advanced abstract physics in Vedic texts and assign an indigenousness to the Aryans in a bid to prove the superiority of Indian civilization. A man in arrogance!!
I’m yet to do my own reading on any of the claims made in this comment but if it’s true, it’s a really important intervention and something Closer To Truth should disclose when they have guests like Kak on. Thank you for raising the matter 🙏🏾
I am not a physicist and do not know the works of these scholars, but I am an academic and find Kak's arguments bent toward what are probably his beliefs.
Maybe it means something to postulate that there is a STATE of a material object (brain) that is non-physical. It is merely silly. That’s like saying there is an aspect of my car’s speed that is non-physical. Whenever the cops pull me over that is what I say. They haven’t fallen for it yet. Etc.
The experiencing self is the observer of the objects, and it's therefore distinct from them.
In other words, objects are not what the experiencing observer is, but what he's conscious of.
Or in plain language who is aware of what? - Yes?- Plainly the experienced is discrete from or different from the experiencer No doubt you would say if I say "my" hat, you do not suppose yourself to be the hat, and by the same token you say "my" self, what then?
@@vhawk1951kl But self Isn't a object of sense perception like the hat is.
@@williamburts5495 well said, if that be right, and it is, what is it?
Do you" sense "your " self" as you sense you hat or how do you " sense *Your* (meaning what) " self"?
At one time in my remarkably long life I used to be a television cameraman and when television cameramen get bored - which they frequently do, they play about by pointing their camera into its own monitor, and do you get any coherent picture out of that? - What do you think?
What you are doing with all this myself sensing myself mumbo-jumbo is pointing your camera into its own monitor are you not? What you are getting is the video or psychological equivalent of feedback or howl-round, is it not?
Why do you bother with that nonsense - there is simply no point in pointing a television camera into its own monitor because you get nothing coherent from doing that, so simply don't do it
That creature Kuhn specialises in pouring from the empty into the void and he's collecting a healthy living out of doing that, no doubt and all he is doing is luring you into the process of pouring from the empty into the void which which effectively involves pointing your camera at its own monitor or possibly a microphone at it speaker - it is exactly that that is the reason that you are getting psychological feedback or howl round and endless feedback loop and getting nothing coherent so just *Give it up.*
You and I only get lured into that pointless futile mumbo-jumbo identical to pointing your camera into its own monitor, because we are bored and have nothing better to do, and that Kuhn creature - who is plainly no fool, is exploiting that particular weakness on our part, so we are being willing suckers.
You may well find a genuine interest in discovering for yourself exactly what consciousness is, but the way to go about doing that is not by entirely circular pointless psychological feedback loops but rather to look at the etymology of the word conscious, which means "with_knowledge"
Now stop mucking about with consciousness but investigate the nature of knowledge which is what it is about so be a little more practical.
What exactly are you doing when you "know"? - Are you not directly immediately personally experiencing, and if not, what exactly *are* you doing?
If you stop using the silly word consciousness as if it were some sort of mysterious spooky thing and simply focused on what it actually is which is the process of knowing then you would probably profit a great deal more from your enquiry by being a little practical about these things.
If you look at it practically when you say my self, as you already recognise it follows as the night the day that you are making a distinction between the possessor and the possessed because you suppose - quite correctly that that is indeed the case, but look a little deeper what is possessing what?
All this dreaming nonsense about is consciousness biological is simply asking are lifelike things like like, which is circular and pouring from the empty into the void. Self-evidently any sort of awareness depends on organic sense facilities to do with the body which is a mechanism which has a number of differing functions.
Now look for yourself; exactly how many functions does your (what might be called) common presence or totality actually have? Plainly there is an instinctive function which deal with breathing heartbeat suggestion et cetera and there is associative function which deals with what you call thinking or dreaming (and there is no difference between the two), and how many other functions have you?
Perfectly good question: am I no more than the sum of all my functions or the functions of the mechanism that I appear to inhabit?
How would you go about addressing that question practically rather than by pouring from the empty into the void and getting yourself into an endless psychological feedback loop?
In plain terms that Khun fellow is an idle dreamer and specialises in pouring from the empty into the void, and you and I are suckers for getting lured into that nonsense.
Just don't do it, although it is great fun exchanging with you, since you are plainly highly intelligent rational and reasonable, but think about this: We are both dying or going through the process of falling having jumped from a very high place(been born).
Is there nothing more profitable that we can do while we are falling?
@@vhawk1951kl You could say the " self " is the highest principle, why? because without self-awareness ( the self ) we would not be conscious of anything to think about so consciousness is the substratum of the mind and since intelligence needs the data the senses send to the mind in order to function it rest on the mind so both the mind and intelligence are dependent on the self they ride along the stream of consciousness thus consciousness underlies them and is their substratum. It is the superglue of reality that binds everything together and that gives purpose to this physical body as being a tool to achieve a means to an end ( material sense gratification, liberation ) for the self so the body's value is in relation to the self not unto itself.
So everything is centered around the self, everything gravitates towards the self, everythings value is in relation to the self in this way the self is understood as the highest principle but it is not understood as an objective object. " truth " transcends matter so the truth of how consciousness is the substratum is something understood subjectively by the conscious self not by studying inert chemicals so knowledge,understanding and truth is the property of the conscious self and not matter.
Nothing can and be known to transcend consciousness since such an existence would depend on our consciousness for it to be known thus making it content within consciousness so consciousness is always in the absolute position. Being absolute existence it is eternal, being truth it is knowledge, and by being the impetus behind the desire to enjoy sense gratification it is the enjoying principle as well. All of these qualities of self gives it a tangible existence and is not an illusion as some people believe.
@@williamburts5495 And what do you - or I, learn from that?
Apparently the self is the highest principle is the self is nice principle is the self.
Now you see what happens if you point a television camera into own monitor - a psychological feedback loop: the self is the highest principle is the self is the highest principle is the self is lies principle is the self - you follow?
All jolly interesting stuff but it does not define either the self or consciousness - or anything?
Like me, sooner or later have to come to an understanding of the difference between a definition and a description.
You have come up with a description but not telling me - or anyone anything whatsoever about what it is describing - do not recognise that?
Is not everything (a universal) that falls to be understood understood “objectively”? - To what is it relevant that something is understood “objectively”?
Now turn your mind to this specific question: “can a mirror reflect itself?”
To ask that question is to answer it, is it not?
The practical question that you have to address is how to get out of that psychological feedback loop in which you find yourself?
Do you not see that all of that is simply going round and round in circles? - How do you get out of that?
Very often in England, it used to be the case that when a group of girls went to a dance, they would put their handbags (which I think the Americans call purses) on the floor and dance around their handbags, or certainly they did that when I was young.
What you have sent me is a psychological process of dancing round your handbag, or something analogous thereto, is it not?
For as long as there have been men ( human beings) I rather suppose that they have wondered what exactly they are, and, like you, have found themselves in an endless psychological feedback loop - which was inevitable, and a natural consequence of pointing a camera into its own monitor, which is exactly what you are trying to do is it not?
All jolly interesting, and no doubt jolly good fun, but utterly futile and utterly pointless, unless you can find a way out of that circle.
How you going to go about doing that - getting out of the circle?
There is a way to get out of it, but it is not my place to tell you - you have to work it out for yourself, and in order to do that you need to recognise the fact of the matter that you have embarked upon a process from which there is no escape, because it is a form of psychological feedback loop.
Do you recognise that?
It is the same with all “what_is” questions.
They are not and*cannot* be, satisfied by endless psychological feedback loops, so how do you get out of that?
I can no more help you with that then I can go to the lavatory for you, or fill a man with bread by looking at him.
Your difficulty - and mine, is that as a result of that nefarious invention of men that they call “education, you and I have been conditioned programmed, or as they say “educated” to suppose that every question necessarily has an answer
It does not.
If I may impertinently make a suggestion, the best way to get out of psychological feedback loops is to stop them dead in their tracks.
In my long life - very nearly a century, I have been searching to try to understand something, and I’m not going to suggest you that I understand anything at all, save perhaps one or two practicalities, and I have discovered a number of possible approaches having looked at both European and Asian philosophies, and asked many men (human beings) and you are not the first tell me that the self is ice principle is the self is the highest principle, exactly as another man once was told that hysteria is hysteria is hysteria.
All jolly interesting stuff, and all utterly futile and entirely circular. All pouring from the empty into the void.
There is a word for all that pouring from the empty into the void and endless psychological feedback loops, and I don’t think you need me to tell you what that word is, do you?
Now let us try some more “what_is” questions, leaving aside “what am?”:
What*is* intelligence?
What*is* the mind?
Before you proffer anything, I’m not interested in the dead bodies of questions, or answers which are the end of something, so I leave you with the following question:
“How to remain*silent* alive, alert, and attentive in front of a question -*without* killing it with answers?
Is that possible?
Only you can discover that, and how are you going to go about doing that?
Each and every show along with your guest should be required to give a definition of what consciousness is.
Agree, and we'll see how they'll fail misserably to be specific so real answer is... nobody knows!
..other than God all will fail misserably!
problem is they don't know, nobody can agree
@@marioescalona1640 There is no reason to bring God into the conversation. “Other than God” is a meaningless phrase.
I beg to differ. I think we all know conscious from unconscious entities well enough to move on with discussions. Only after the distinction has been understood at a basic level will a precise definition be possible.
A brain retains millions or trillions of imprinted memories of every event of our lives. All of those lifetime memories go into creating our individual consciousness and are integral to conscious or unconscious thoughts. In my opinion no one could or would ever artificially replicate human consciousness.
Who told you that and why do you believe them?
@Sky Gardener I believe our brains are a vast complexity of neural pathways that is controlled by electrical impulses. I believe that implanted memories are unique to each individual and they form who we are. An individual ceases to exist when electric power is gone. Full stop.
If you agree that humans are made up of the same quarks and protons and so forth that make up everything else- and that physics is the same inside the human body as it is outside- then you agree that consciousness can be replicated- it's as simple as that. If you don't agree with that then, what are we made of? How are physics inside a human body any different from the physics outside of a human body? If you can't answer those questions- I wouldn't go around asserting consciousness can't be replicated because that opinion is based on nothing but your gut feelings. And gut feelings aren't easy to defend in a debate.
Who told you that and why do you believe them?
That's oversimplified and not true.
Consciousness is not just "a lot of memories".
In this case ChatGPT would be conscious.
Best channel on TH-cam
5:45 reminds me of when Terrance McKenna tried to explain how biological systems are different from nonbiological systems. Something along the lines of, if you cut a chair in half and come back in a few days, you'll find 2 halves of a chair but if you cut a giraffe in half, when you come back you will find something vastly different than the thing you left.
It's like biological systems exist to propagate different forms of aware experience. That is the chicken and egg problem here.
Did aware experience immerge from biological systems or did biological systems immerge from a kind of awareness expressing its experiences in ways we have not been able to apprehend?
Dr. Dan Dennett is doing great work in this area. I don't sit in his camp but I admire the work he's inspired.
Robert asked, " what is it about biology that differentiates it from non-biology? Answer: Knowledge and understanding or truth is the property of consciousness alone and not biology. Biology doesn't even know it's biology so" knowing" is what differentiates consciousness from matter or biology.
My reply is that quote by Kuhn would have been biology is driven by instinctual drives for survival and reproduction. And while you can artificially "program" drives in a non-biological machine, those "drives" would be mimicking biological drives and would not be part of the machines "conscious" .
A consciousness experiences information. A signal from the ear is not a sound until it's processed by computation and reaches consciousness as an experience that already means something. The wet brain computes so that consciousness knows something, it knows what a sound is at the time of experience.
All of you here are square heads who don't understand at all how the conscious process works.
The real material conscious process does not depend on the structure of the material aggregation that creates it.
It can be created by a complete artificial entity ( computer, any artificial "machine", etc ) with the exact same final functionality of a real material naturally evolved biological brain.
No difference whatsoever in the real and true conscious state, and no mimicking at all. Absolutely exactly functional finality.
@@mikel4879 Consciousness is also a love energy or potency and you can't compute that into any machine thus consciousness is beyond computation. The enjoyer principle just can't be duplicated and since that principle as well as the knower principle are the natural characteristics of the " self " the self is beyond being processed.
William Butt / Yes, you can.
It is done in a special way, after which the machine is on its own way, completely independent, with feelings and thoughts exactly like you, with consciousness exactly like any human, but much, much smarter.
Our assessment of the feasibility of an artificial human mind in a computer with consciousness, totally depends on what we think humans are. If you think we are divine mythical creatures, then not possible. If you think we are biochemical robots, then relatively easy.
Irrespective of the camp you are in, the question is if we want cognition that perfectly mimics humans because such a system will make the same mistakes as humans (and there are a lot). To understand ourselves better, it really is a good idea to try to accomplish it.
I feel the consciousness is no more special than say, magnetism. It's just a benign field until it interacts with sufficiently evolved biology. Think of it as CLOUD data storage. Radio waves would never have been discovered if we didn't build a 'brain' to interact with them , yet they have been around since shortly after expansion. Why do we accept 'instincts', complex behavior in the simplest of organisms ( bee hives , butterfly migration, birds that weave nests) as nature , but consciousness is magic?
Interesting theory. But what makes this so interesting is the awareness of the phemenon itself. It may very well be a benign artifact is a meaningless physical universe, but the act of investigating it seems to provide a sense of meaning and purpose, there evolving the consciousness to altered or higher states itself.
Why is any of this happening? We can’t begin to answer that part yet, for sure at least
One of the more interesting interviews. Here I can imagine other dimensions since in my experience, there is this silent witness, the Self, which remains untouched from even thoughts and emotions when in a more pure state. What we call physical or not may all be just one entity. The word "physical" may lose it's meaning. In a deeper sense, when arguments also lose significance, we just are.
Hey it's easy. If you think consciousness can be non-physical, just stop eating. You will find out real soon, and I won't have to read your stupid comments.
In Advaita, the observer and the observed (the contents) merge into a single entity according to Vedanta which was not mentioned by Robert to Subash in this episode. Perhaps in a follow up it ought to be discussed.
I've watched a lot of these and gotten to know Kuhn's style well and in fact he didn't like this guy. He generally hates people who theorize that the brain uses quantum processes. He's a neuroscientist with a very good understanding of the processes by which the brain works and from that he considers the postulation unscientific. He straight up at the end of this video tells this dude to his face he's saying nonsense.
1q
What you mean when you say "I can imagine other dimensions"?
Can you also imagine nine sided triangles and square circles?
There's a similar video on this channel involving Stuart Hammeroff whose teamed up with Rodger Penrose to argue consciousness is a state of a quantum coherence decoherence etc. that viewers might be interested in. That said the interviewers style of not being afraid of adversarial discourse is why I'm subscribed to this channel. The giddy and buttery smooth conversations on TH-cam I see involving topics like this gets old.
Ray Kurzweil and others have said that even if Penrose is right, in that their is a quantum element to consciousness, it should still be possible to eventually recreate this in AGI. He discussed this possibly in The Singularity Is Near.
@@carolynm8421 👍
Carlo Rovelli warns against confusing a process with an entity. We should not refer to consciousness in the third person.
we don't know for sure that it is a process
@@chrisgarret3285 it must be, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.
@@ROForeverMan talk of God will take us into bottomless speculation because of the lack of proof of his (her, it's?) existence, or non-existence.
@@PERF0RMANCEMUSIC don't see how our consciousness being a process or an entity has anything to do with us having a conversation.
The firm assumption from materialists has always been that Brain neurons give rise to consciousness.
I am not sure it's that simple. I think consciousness is far more profound, far more complex and far more unique, and possibly fundamental.
I do not believe brain neurons give rise to consciousness. Think about it: consciousness can create new things that have never existed before. Where did those things come from? I guess a materialist would say they were generated from the connections between the neurons. How would that even work? Do they magically appear or emerge? Where is the scientific evidence for that? (We have brain scans, we should be able to "see" it).
I think it is hilarious that if you ask most people about consciousness, they believe that there is almost like some sort of little man residing in their head (the man is consciousness) that drives this body like a giant puppet. Where do they even get this stuff from? When they explain it, I can't help but think- are you even serious with that? That sounds like some crazy science fiction to me.
@@kennethmalafy503 spot on.
Indeed. But Kak's ideas seem kind of fuzzy, in any scientific sense.
Pretty vague statement
Your level of education in NeuroBiology is what...?...
As Roger Penrose has stated, "consciousness is not a computation." Consciousness is fundamental to reality. Consciousness is primary. Therefore, consciousness is not an emergent property of either biological or non-biological entities, including machines, once they reach a certain level of complexity. Biological and non-biological entities are objects WITHIN consciousness.
Humans do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions occasionally as one of their mental functions
Computers do calculations and perform Boolean logical functions
Therefore when computers get more powerful they will be able to do everything humans can do mentally.
At the bumper-sticker level of thinking this arguments seems plausible but given a few moments of deeper thinking (stepping past the 6th grade Hollywood understanding of science and philosophy), a very thorny problem arises.
Attributes of consciousness
1-First person data (in the form of experiences and perceptions) mixed with third/person data arranged, and weighted into a data warehouse that can sort though, contextualize, serve up instant decisions from huge amounts of data (petabytes of raw data from a computational perspective).
2-large amounts of data are qualitative rather than quantitative. Hundreds of shades of redness of apples or being able to describe why you prefer one barolo wine over another.
3-Mental representation of the world (phenomenal structure) is incredibly complex data warehouse schema that can replace whole sections of false data based on new experiences or learning.
4- Has the state of intentionality
5 - Has the focus of aboutness (our ideas tend to be about mental objects).
6 - Contains sensory data that is qualitative
7- Private subjective in nature
8 - can think my thoughts are a function of a combination of all of the above but are not for the most part automatic like my breathing.
9 -consciousness seems unified over time. My self- concept is different than when I was a child or a teen or an early adult or middle-aged etc. My self is one self over time. My whole body, including my brain turn over new cells every few years but I maintain a unified self despite having 20 complete part replacements in my life.
10- Brain scientist will tell you, if they are honest, that there are only a few (mostly autonomic functions and math mathematics that map uniformly to areas of the brain. Most other functions are not uniform and actually change location from one moment to the next!
For more see:
th-cam.com/video/BqHrpBPdtSI/w-d-xo.html
plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#DesQueWhaFeaCon
8:41 Robert Kuhn sounding like he's in a large deserted building. SPOOKY! 😲
The way these computers generate language based on statistical probabilities could be how we do it as well. Does anyone have a better suggestion? These machines could very well become conscious of their own existence which is probably the key to defining consciousness.
I can sum up this video with this very famous quote: " A cat riding a bike is only as orange as a bright car on a gravel road".
Human consciousness is substrate independent, which means that consciousness occurs when complex physiological processes happen in specific complex patterns. Consciousness needs the substrate to exist but what the substrate is made of is not important. Only the computational patterns are important for the phenomenon of consciousness.
Conciousness is the emergence of complex patterns thar manifesting beyond the attributes of its smaller parts. Those parts which can contain most of the base data/memory.
You then have a living pattern created now whose primarily function is to interact with other complex patterns. This is secondary to the parts which it depends upon for its data.
A wise Eastern philosopher once described our experience as a short lived whirlpool that manifest within a flowing river.
But this is only part of the elephant seen by us blind men.
The pattern of Math exist regardless if there are any anchor points to be seen or that are known or that don't exist yet.
You need to ask how much of you is manifested as the whirlpool and how much of you is the river?
So if math can exist without substance, can there exist a complex living pattern state of principles of love that can survive the sea of eternity as well?
Determinism is either an infinit loaf of bread.
or
It is an internal wake of change with only few things being able to surf its surface.
Shunbash Kak gave me a new way to express a way we agree about computers and consciousness.
Perhaps you do not understand that computer means calculating machine and that consciousness means "with_knowledge"
It is meaningless and futile to speak of knowledge without identifying the one that knows and what he knows
@@vhawk1951kl what?
@@scottburge219 If you ask a grown-up to explain to you how to construct sentences, it may be that one of them can help you.
One word is not a sentence, but since you plainly cannot understand that, why would I waste my time with you?
I’m pretty surprised by this guy. The first guy i have heard in this age of AI obsessed society that actually stays down to earth and realistic. I’m so tired of listening to computer programmers who go on and on but don’t even understand what consciousness is it even attempt to understand it.
No more do you know what consciousness is or have any experience of what it is or might be, as you are about to demonstrate.
To be conscious, you need to feel pain and pleasure. There may be some organisms that are conscious without being able to feel pain or pleasure, but I would suspect it’s somewhat “mechanical”.
I would go so far as to say if you don’t have any feelings then you cannot be conscious. A non-feeling organism (whether biological or a computer) is an unconscious machine.
So, when the windmills turn, the omnipotent AI will feel the wind blowing?
Consciousness is an ill defined term and your definition is far too narrow, which is probably why you're conscious it's weak. We are 'mechanical' and bio-mechanics is now an ageing academic subject, like QM.. I'd go on to say most people are far more robotic and remote-controlled than even the pig-ignorant, brainwashed sheeple-serfs of The Olde World.
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I'd say if you're not conscious of this blatant fact your social and self-awareness is lacking so you prove that you are rather robotic. People-Programming is the biggest set of businesses in The West, don't forget.. Autism spectrum disorders are on the rise as the social conditioning against our INDIVIDUAL human nature has reached Leftist extremes.
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The Human Consciousness goes from wild animal, to brainwashed robot-kid, to hopefully self and empathically aware adult (though empathy for political party enemies in our bi-partisan world is brainwashed out and language is redefined by the power de jour).. Finally, as senility and dementia set in, the broken robot returns and you regress back to an even more robotic state that childhood..
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You can argue that acting on impulse is something robots don't do, but that's why I consider kids and demented old timers BROKEN biological robots.
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The other side of the story is the fact a self-driving car is very sentient (aware of its surroundings enough to build mind-models with high level object differentiation, and Self Aware (more-so than humans due to far more specific self diagnostics capabilities). Makes realtime decisions based on realtime sensory input plus hard and soft-wired memory. It isn't alive as it can't replicate, but it fits all other definitions of 'Intelligent, CONSCIOUS Lifeform'.
"To be conscious, you need to feel pain and pleasure..."
A pain or a pleasure is of what a conscious being may from time to time be conscious.
I mean, pain and pleasure manifest as content in a being's conscious field.
The necessary precondition for a being to be conscious is
the ability of a being to maintain the concept of a self.
It is the modulation of the self by thoughts,
including those we call feelings,
that is what the word 'conscious' means.
I know this because it is my self that is conscious.
This knowing strikes me as self evident.
If you are a self as my self suspects,
then it should strike your self as self evident too.
@@REDPUMPERNICKEL .. I almost completely agree bar 2 exceptions... A delusional / demented / hypnotic state is a gray area - broken consciousness... Also AIs that meet your criteria include just about every basic Smart Device, let alone self driving cars... SELF DIAGNOSTICS that work in real-time faster than we feel pain (or pleasure).. They really only 'feel pain' though, no pleasure.. Feeling Pain = sensing damage.
I wouldn't really say pain & pleasure is a requirement. If I turned off your nerves (numbing), then more complicatedly, injected chemicals/drugs in you where you're Deeply in a non-caring-about-anything state where emotionally you're not going to feel emotional pain or pleasure -- but still going about what you're doing & being aware -- wouldn't turn off consciousness.
I would say in order to feel pain & pleasure in the same sense we do, you'd need to be conscious. Consciousness is just a level of self-awareness where you are aware that you're self-aware.
I think Swami Sarvapriyananda based in New york will be the best person to explain conciousness in terms of vedantic view...He has many good arguments..he should be invited to this show
We’re so sure that what we perceive as “consciousness” is how all consciousness is interpreted. I think there may be many different levels or types, and Silicon-based decision oriented consciousness could be just another way of experiencing self awareness. We might even meet a society of beings who only see consciousness this way..
Consciousness, one of the biggest baffles for the physical! But, one of the best leads.
Professor Kak isn't thinking broadly enough (in my limited view). He seems to base his parameters on what we currently know, not what we will surely come to know, if the species survives...
I agree 100%.
It's called promissory materialism : science will EVENTUALLY find all the answers instead of 'science will find it's methodological limits to knowledge and perceive indirectly the subtle reality beyond its reach - which is where we are getting to now (check what Stephen Hawking had to say on this ). The brain is a VR system for operating in material reality but is itself part of the VR while a subtle reality lies beyond, best attested to by Consciousness' irreducibility to neuronal function and photon experiments. Check out Donald Hoffmann th-cam.com/video/UWHYThrfRYU/w-d-xo.html
He can only base his parameters on what we currently know otherwise the conversation is a waste or time. He cannot base a parameter on a fantasy that we might learn. For example I believe one day we will evolve into life forms that travel through time and space merely by wishing it. How do I back that up?
@@ssvsssjs the title doesn't limit the question to "today only". So one can theorise all they like. Computers have already beaten humans at specific tasks like Go. It's fairly logical that as computers get more powerful their abilities will improve. Hardly need to stretch the imagination for that. To suggest that only humans could possess "consciousness" is to suggest there is some magic or mystery to us. A far far more wishful and dreamt up claim IMHO.
@@ssvsssjs I can't disagree. But I can also listen to other thinkers (Chalmers, Hoffman) who DO seem to expand their possibilitizing beyond the known into the theoretical. I appreciate a variety of approaches, as I suspect do you!
If you analyse or take to pieces the question is consciousness biological, you are asking is consciousness lifelike? - What else does the question mean?
He is thinking that only ''self-aware'' organisms are conscious. However, lower organisms are conscious, they take in sensory information, compute and act, like humans.
Who told you that and why do you believe them?
@@vhawk1951kl Simple Definition 1: Sensory information streams into a conscious organism, the organism computes and acts. Definition 2: Sensory information streams into a ''self-aware'' conscious organism, which computes and acts. Why does an organism compute using sensory information? Answer: the only thing that is done with needed information is to compute, or communicate it. Example of computation: a plant takes in information about the sun's direction and grows toward the sun. Example of a self-aware consciousness: a puppy playing with siblings, old enough to distinguish his brother from environmental sources of information. Example of a non-self aware organism: an earthworm that only interacts with information due to its environment and when it mates it doesn't care if its mate is another worm. The simple high-level definitions don't say anything about the nature of consciousness in organisms. The speaker is influenced by eastern Vedantic and says that consciousness is not capable of referring to itself, it only experiences information.
The opposite scenario is when sleep walkers commit complicated crimes and are let off because they were proved not to have been conscious. In other words a thinking, functional biological entity that's _not_ conscious, effectively a naturally created biological robot. If we could pinpoint the process that causes them to wake up we'll have isolated consciousness.
Back to this question - a baby is put together atom by atom in the womb and preprogrammed with basic instructions how to survive after birth by analyzing the world and making autonomous decisions so as Robert asks why can't all that be done artificially? Biological material is made naturally out of dead atoms. 'Non-Biological' just means some other arrangement made by humans so again as Robert is saying it's a moot point whether we use biological material or not, the question is whether we can create consciousness using it.
When we've succeeded we can then see if we can do the same with materials that are easier to produce to get non-biological consciousness.
Who told you that anyone has committed "a complicated crime" while sleepwalking, and why do you believe them?
Could that person identify anyone in particular that had committed such a crime in his sleep?
I think you are imagining things - you can only be imagining things
@@vhawk1951kl Just anecdotal evidence from research, a better known example is reports of children a hundred or so years ago in woolen mills operating complex machinery whilst asleep.
The point I'm making is that people are reportedly able to perform complex tasks beyond just thrashing about whilst asleep that require dexterity and at least some rudimentary thought and judgement, acting as a thinking biological machine that could be 3D printed if we knew enough.
@@frankyjayhay Research being searching again for what?-For what were you searching and how?
When did you lose it and where?
In short:Gossip or hearsay from witnesses that you cannot cross-examine. Only a cretin or imbecile child would even entertain evidence from a source it could nor cross-examine for accuracy truthfulness and absence of bias.
@@vhawk1951kl To your perfectly valid comment that seems to have disappeared while I was typing:
I mentioned crime because the case would have been fully and impartially examined by experts. However we routinely judge evidence from sources we can't personally examine according to our own sense of what's plausible which is why we have these discussions.
To this comment: We extensively research a tricky subject such as this one in order to get closer to the truth as per the title of this series.
It's curious how hindu knowledge is around 10.000 years old but...
When westerns (europeans and north americans) talk about the Wheel, they say "when WE humans invented the wheel", or "when WE discovered Fire" or "When WE invented Writing" etc
When it's the Vedas, the inner knowledges, the so called "woo-woo", it's...
"They"
"They the Hindus believe that"
The answer should be that since we barely understand how consciousness works period so we have no idea of what could be conscious or not. We can’t prove that anyone is conscious outside of our own personal experience in the strictest sense. Many physicists say that consciousness is pervasive, and the fact that the nature of reality seems to be syntactical that would imply that syntax requires a consciousness to decide on the “language” of reality itself. Scientific American has an article called “Does consciousness pervade the universe?”, I have heard many physicists ponder this.
Nobody knows for a fact weather animals are conscious or not. We assume they probably are but so little is known about consciousness I wouldn’t say for sure what the limits of consciousness are. It seems presumptuous to make a statement either way with such little information.
@@ROForeverMan I will look into it, you’d be the first person I’ve heard of claiming to know “a lot” about how consciousness works. Most of what I’ve ready in my studies echos the sentiment that very little is known about how consciousness works.
So I just got started, but based upon the grammatical errors like {sic} “I will start by stating I’m thinking for many years about the nature of meaning and context…” and “Thus, before continue reading, the reader must make sure he meets the first requirement.” You may want to get an editor before trying to educate the world on something most experts will tell you we don’t have a profound knowledge of. I will read it more thoroughly though and give it a fair shake.
@@ROForeverMan LoL 😂 Reread my comment, I edited it after reading a little of your paper. And that’s patently false, many people have spent entire careers devoted to trying to understand consciousness and it’s place if the world and possibly the universe. Science loves areas where not much is known, people have been trying to answer the consciousness problem since the earliest philosophers and probably earlier.
@@ROForeverMan “I’m thinking for many years” ??? Shouldn’t that be I’ve been thinking for many years? And “thus before you continue reading” or “thus before continuing to reading”.
@@ROForeverMan Ok the sweeping generalizations, hyperbole and errors tell me we are done here. Good luck in your studies.
Consciousness is everywhere. All matter and anti-matter, even light, follows rules. Are they scared? Why all the discipline?
Either physical matter can be conscious or it cannot. It is one or the other. If we are saying only a brain cell can be conscious what physical property of the cell renders it so? If we are saying only some specific arrangement of brain cells can be conscious by behaving in a specific manner what would preclude us from arranging some other matter similarly?
It would seem that defining consciousness would fit in this comment.
@@ROForeverMan It seems strange that consciousness would conjure up the idea of a brain for it to perceive itself existing within. Still, I do tend to agree with you in principle.
We are no more directly conscious of physical reality than a hat pin is. We are only conscious of information about physical reality. Information is all we can be conscious of. So, our perception of reality is only as valid as the information we have about it to be conscious of. Our perception is that our consciousness exists trapped in a physical brain that is a component part of a physical universe.
It's hard to prove but maybe C.Elegans has some consciousness too. They mapped its very simple brain(302 neurons) and even though they have a complete virtual software model of all the neurons and their connections, the real living worm is still not understood like if it would be a machine. They then start about a lot chemical messengers being present too. Boy, it's impossible to understand for a layman but it looks almost like a chaotic mess which organizes itself without any central coordination. That's certainly not how our science and technique works and he talks about this yet unknown science.
It's true that effort has been made to simulate the brain of C. Elegans. And it didn't succeed (yet).
This should not be taken as any kind of evidence about consciousness, because it just means the effort is inconclusive. First, it's more of a casual attempt than a well funded and staffed research project. And second, there's no evidence that the problem is inherent. Right now it seems like the problem is that the simulation of the individual neurons is not very accurate.
Those 302 neurons in the C. elegans also form two separate independent nervous systems.
Who told you that and why do you believe them?
Science has been self-organising itself in the study of self-organising systems since it evolved from Natural Philosophy and adopted the title Scientist, to the point where Science has become an entity of god-like proportions, and a religion used to remote-control billions of sheeple-bots via the most common human-bot programming method..... FEAR!
This is a classic failure to understand the nature of consciousness. Whether c-elegans, or computers, or people, before you can answer whether someone or thing is conscious, you HAVE TO DEFINE IT. Conscousness is subjective. You cannot determine whter anything else is conscious just by asking it, because you don’t know whether it will interpret your probe / question the way you intend it to. I will never know whether you are conscious in the same way I am, but by talking with you for some time, I can become more and more sure of that. But a nematode? Come on… there is no way that you can interrogate a worm to determine that it is conscious in a manner anyting like what you or I consider consciousness to be. A machine could be conscious in some way similar to how we are, but it is not likely to be all or none. What “properties” would you require of a machine’s response to consider it to be conscious? What does that imply about YOUR consciousness?
Non-biological doesn't just mean machines, it means anything that is non-biological and this must surely include pure infinite energy, the kind that many of us associate with 'source'. The real question is then can consciousness BE biological?
The 'critical complexity' argument for the arousal of consciousness has never been one that I've found all that compelling. I mean it's entirely possible that this is true, and that artificial consciousness has already been created in an AI somewhere, or even many times over. There's no reason to believe, I suppose, that my smartphone isn't conscious right now. Because whatever consciousness ultimately is it doesn't appear to be interactive with the physical world around us. We perceive our environment, but we don't seem to ever interact with it. When I say 'we', I simply mean 'us'. Or whatever term that you prefer to use that references the observers experience of 'being' somewhere up there in a human head, and generally speaking seated behind the eyes. But, whatever term we ascribe to it, it almost certainly isn't 'us'. I became convinced of this only relatively recently, and after attempting to reconcile two apparent facts with my lived experience of 'being' conscious. First, once you accept that free will is (almost certainly) merely an illusion, then dualism once more becomes a respectable position to philosophically adopt. This is important, because researchers are running out of room in the brain where it could still be hiding, and that would allow a monist position to continue to make sense. But let go of the idea that 'you' are your physical body and suddenly there's no longer any uncomfortable questions to answer about how an immaterial mind can affect material matter. It doesn't. The second piece of evidence is the seemingly strange effects caused when an extremely rare operation is carried out - on people suffering from chronic epileptic fits - wherein the patients corpus colossum is severed, effectively isolating the two hemispheres of the brain. People that have undergone this surgery are perfectly fine following the operation and are thankfully free to live a normal life again, the only side-effect appears to be that there are now two of them! People, that is. Two distinct 'identities', with their own beliefs, prejudices and positive qualities. Two people, from one. So which is the 'real' person now? For they both claim to be. The lifelong theist, and the lifelong atheist. The only way this seems possible is if I'm not the 'me' I thought myself to be! But which is, again, not so much of an issue once one gives up on the concept of free will. Personally, I just can't understand why so many philosophers and physicists cling to it as though it were their sole source of nourishment as a being. And especially since they really should know better. If free will does somehow exist, then it most certainly doesn't in the way almost everyone believes it to. Even the most ardent proponents of the concept no longer think that they have any control over second-to-second, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour decision making, concentration, or thought processes. These days the only scientifically defensible position to hold is that of compatibilism. Under this scheme there is a recognition that while 99% of all our thoughts and actions are determined by prior events or automatic processes that are both beyond our control and largely beyond our comprehension, where all things are equal and there are no constraining forces acting upon us, then those few remaining choices are 'free'. Compatibilists, in other words, that while daily life plays out according to a pre-determined script, there is still some space to exert control over long-term decisions such as who we want to marry or where we want to live. I just find this incomprehensible. Why continue clinging to this tiny piece of freedom when you've already given up over being the author of everything else? And at such a metaphysical cost! It's incoherent. Anyway, another version of 'me' can be made, from 'me', with literally just a single snip, and if so much explanatory power can be gained from accepting what science seems to be screaming in our faces - that free will doesn't exist - then the issue of the hard problem in science suddenly looks much, much, less severe. Throught history we humans have had to drastically alter our basic beliefs of the world we live in. Time and time again our assumptions of the world have been exposed, and as often as that they have been found wanting. We are not at the centre of the universe, the Earth moves - it isn't still; colors and odours do not exist out in the world, there is only our perception of them; objects don't 'fall' around us, but rather the Earth rises up to meet them; photons aren't either particles or waves, but rather both; the sun doesn't rise and set each day - it is the Earth that does, there are a thousand other such facts that show our intuitions to have been just hopelessly inadequate when it comes to understanding the world. So maybe the issue of consciousness is just the biggest one of all - and the reason that we can't discern it is simply because this time we need to face down the biggest misconception of them all. That the hard problem of consciousness can't be solved until we let go of our intuition that there is an 'I' to have intuitions at all. 'We' in some very real sense then, simply don't exist - or to phrase it perhaps a little more palatably - we aren't the discrete, individualised, human entities we had assumed 𝘵𝘰 exist. What may lie beyond this though, well, I wouldn't have a clue! And to the no-one to ever read this rant, I'm sorry to on this note have to end it! Take care, best of luck!
As Patanjali's Sutras state, "thought cannot exist without an object". To this I subscribe.
I think he got that back to front; sort cannot exist without a subject, but you must investigate whether or not the thought and the thinker are either subject or object.
If a thinker "thinks" thoughts then thinker is subject and thought object, but perhaps English is not your first language
Thought is an object.
@@HuMI317Thought is an object or the object of, what? - Relative to what subject?
Perhaps English is not your native language, it might be a good idea not to use it if you don't understand it.
@@vhawk1951kl As you have said in the post above, thought is an object relative to that which is aware of the thought.
A thought exists always in someone's consciousness.
@@Sameer-er3wz What is thought?
As we don’t yet have much of a handle on the underlying nature and source of consciousness, it seems silly to posit where consciousness may or may not arise. For all we know, a star could indeed be a conscious entity.
Consciousness arises from complex neural networks which evolved over billions of years. The sun is in constant fluid motion and cannot support structures of neural networks. Therefore, it cannot be conscious. Of coarse, if you believe in spirits, then you are prone to believing in most anything.
@@ROForeverMan I wondered when god would come into it.
You are a god, and you are part of God. While the conception or apprehension of God is somewhat self abrogating, I still say that the conception of God as "the entire integration or summum of all mind, of all that is, was, and will be", is the indisputably better conception of God, than that which identifies God with any particular individual human consciousness.
Ontology, fundamentally, "I am" . And there is also "that which exists, although it is other than that which I am", that is, there is "that which (is, but which) I am not".
Through the informational lens, each of our minds are like informational processes, abstractly like "sub-routines" within a much larger overarching computation.
To the extent that we have free will, we are each co-authors and co-creators of the future and reality, and in this sense, we are like gods, who can shape and mold the physical world via our minds (which are dependent of the physical world for their physical manifestation, are fundamentally informational and immaterial, much as a mathematical algorithm is essentially immaterial, but must find it physical manifestation in the material world.) But individuals perceptions and wills are not necessarily entitely compatible, and the evolution of future reality depends on a "smoothing" or "integration" of all the disparate "potentialities", and the aggregate "mind", is the formal candidate for (or "first conception of") God. Other conceptions of God may of course exist, but the general "consensus" is that, at least amoung those that adopt/embrace such alternate conceptions, those conceptions should be at least, equally compelling.
BTW, there is a bit of a "philosophical puzzle" or "mystery" surrounding the question of "how can the immaterial influence the material?", or how can "information" actually become "imprinted" on the physical "substrate"?
I guess it should come as no surprise to anyone that such "mysteries" can also be largely ellucidated and made understandable, although, I don't think I could do so here, without making this already, doubtless, overly long comment/reply much longer.
I really only wanted to help clarify a point on which I felt, that your statement was somewhat misleading. Please do not take this "correction" as criticism or condescending. I mean to offer it only in a helpful, friendly way, as one lowly human "seeker of the ineffable truth" to another. Cheers and All the Best (my brothers and sisters)
@@ROForeverMan I don't agree.
@@ROForeverMan Then God has the ultimate case of multiple personality disorder
The question assumes consciousness is circumscribed to the brain or body -- as if the brain possess consciousness as it's own product. Thus how did the brain produce consciousness? And because consciousness does not precede brain, did brain produce itself, or what could have produced brain which hadn't consciousness because consciousness is a product of brain or biology?
Are you positing that causes are different and without consciousness, which have effects that produce consciousness?
Yes, each brain produces it's own conscious awareness. It's a physical process.
I can imagine a non biological machine that is designed to have senses like biological machines and to have hard wired drives analogous to our drives of self preservation and procreation along with means to control interaction with the world such as mobility and hands. Such a machine will learn just like babies learn and as a result conscious awareness
will emerge in that machine just as it emerges in us. If the artificial brain is limited, the machine would be conscious similar to lower animals but if the artificial brain is as extensive as ours is, then consciousness similar to ours will emerge.
@@ROForeverMan
"Biology is not a machine."
And where did David Greenstein, or others, assert that biology is a machine?
If, on the other hand you are making that assertion, on what basis?
Haha. Another assumption that machines will have Human like consciousness someday. Bull crap
Does an ant posses self-awareness? A dog does, and an ape does, but to a lesser extent than a human does simply because of the number of neurons that are able to react to the reaction of other neurons, creating a sort of hall of mirrors where reactions echo and multiply. Consciousness develops by increments, other species are incrementally less aware than us, a baby growing into an adult attains personhood gradually-- and it works in reverse as well, a person can become less aware due to drugs, disease or injury
If matter is a form of energy and space is a form of energy then biology is a form of energy. If consciousness is a form of energy then it is like biology and matter and space. Its all energy. An original consciousness may have given birth to matter and space and other forms of energy as part of its own energy in a different form - including other conscious beings.
consciousness is not just energy, it is an information system which processes information and is aware of itself within an environment. You cant have a conscious beeing without structure and without environment..so there is no original consciousness.
@@JTHBS Structure can not exist without a preexisting potential for it to exist. A preexisting potential energy with structure. A consciousness.
Energy is a property of matter. Biology is a layer of matter. Consciousness is how matter is layered. The Cosmos has evolved into different layers of matter.
Biological consciousness seems inexorably linked to the systems of sensory experience feedback we have in our bodies.
I was thinking along the same lines... and I suspect that maintaining homeostasis (for survival) is a fundamental part at the bottom level too that can't just be ignored.
every living thing has consciousness ..plants animals and human beings , biological consciousness is related through the use of machines ,computers or neualinks etc for improving on a persons cognition ,health illness, disorder ,however cannot illicit higher consciousness , which is the expansion of the consciousness ,..higher self ultimate evolutionary breakthrough ..of human with souls...it may sound unscientific...but now the time has arrived to integrate science and soul to solve the mystery of higher self ....which i experiencing last 20 years +🙏
Can a computer be aware of there potentials and freely choose it's path based on it's own self awareness?
Subhash really owned u at one time
The universe is just a pure imagination of my grand mother's Consciousness !
While I don't subscribe to the view that conscious computers can be engineered using our current technology and knowledge, I also don't see obstacles, at least in principle, to creating artificial consciousness when we actually meet conditions it needs to arise. But we don't know these conditions and people who say that modern digital computers can be conscious assume that these computers can replicate all the properties of organic biological brains, which is an unproven hypothesis. We don't know how inner feeling arises, we know only that it's correlated with brains and their properties. Assuming that silicon based computers can be conoscious is like claiming that any material, let's say rubber, glass or wood, can conduct electricity equally well without knowing how conductivity works. I would prefer for consciousness to point at existence of something more than what modern physics says exists, but I don't care what its nature is as long as it is exhaustivelly described, without ignoring anything and cutting any corners, by scientists who are humble enough to see reality for what it is, be it material, informational or mental. The truth is not fragile and I want it to hit me like a speeding bus. Then I will accept it without arguing. But as for now the ball is still in play.
you will not know that truth in the next 100 years...so will be a long way waiting for that bus ...
The Church-Turing thesis is a mathematical proof that anything that can be computed, can be computed by any computer. The only difference is one of speed - and our best computers have caught up.
There are only three possibilities.
1) Brains are doing something that isn't computation
2) Consciousness is possible in conventional computers
3) Dualism or Idealism (supernatural consciousness) are true
I don't consider #1 plausible, or even well defined. Pick whichever of the other two options you like better.
@@fluffysheap computing is different than feeling or being self aware ... Btw one of the fathers of computer processors (federico Faggin) is sure that consciousness is totally another thing than computing.
@@fluffysheap What you consider plausible isn't very relevant
The Function, Intelligence & Mind categories ... prove ... the Universe & Life are Functions, composed entirely of Functions, and can only be made by an Intelligence with a Mind that is unnatural & nophysical ( soul/spirit).
Consciousness is simply a function of the Mind of an Entity.
Animals & Man are physical "living" Entities ..... and are Functions composed entirely of Functions ... and have with a physical mind(brain) & a consciousness of the physical environment.
But Man is an intelligence ... so the Mind of Man is both natural (brain) & unnatural (soul).
Animals do not have a soul because they are not an intelligence like Man ... but only have the physical Function called the brain. And the mind & functions of an Animals is determined by the intelligence that made the Universe & all life.
Man will someday be able to make a conscious biological & artificial mind .... just as an animal has ... but will never be able to make a soul/spirit as it is unnatural & non-physical. Except via procreation or IVF ... as God design Adam & Eve to be able to do.
The Conscious machine is coming ... as will Man creating Life but they will be just like the Animals with no soul, and designed according to purpose.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
Alternatively, you could watch the video. It's interesting.
No computer ever built comes close to the number of connections in the human brain. If if one did, it would only be an extention of our own minds. Our braìns are so complex they create phantoms-- we imagine ourselves to be unique "selves" locked inside separate skulls, when we are actually expressions of a species-wide, biosphere-wide and cosmic phenomenon. We aren't put in this world, we come out of it as waves emerge from the ocean.
This was a wonderful discussion.
If that "learning machine" could indeed be biologically developed. The point made here is everything is made from the same system and stuff, and we should be able to synthesize (our) biology. We could then "raise" those entities as humans are raised, guiding them as they experience "life": Petri dish clone super children which could store or be allowed to connect with the world's worth of data. It won't be tomorrow, but I think it will happen.
Subash doesn't think computers can become conscious because that's what he believes, probably based on his upbringing. There is no coherent argument here.
It is the argument from personal incredulity. Fifty years ago it was thought that computers would never play good chess.
@@machintelligence 100%
You ignore his argument at 0:33 right at the start, why?
I Don’t think computers we’ll ever be able to have “consciousness”. They’ll probably “learn” information patters, collected data and follow its complex Algorithm.
@@grijzekijker he doesn't make an argument, he makes a statement, and that statement only applies to computers as they are being built at the present moment.
Did I hear an answer??
Anyone notice how Dr. Kak says, "...different FROM" [2:14], while Dr. Kuhn (the host) says, "...differently THAN" [6:43]? Thank goodness the White House grammar protocol will still tell you that, although many people today say "different THAN", only "different FROM" is correct. Many Americans (and their worldwide imitators), even highly educated ones, find it kind of chic or hep or post-modern to use what they know to be the wrong or nonstandard forms of the language, e.g., "look out the window" (while, until Hemingway & Philip Roth, Americans were still looking out OF the window), or replying to "How are you?" with "I am GOOD" (instead of "I am fine/very well"), a blasphemous thing to say in the light of Mark 10:18; or the latest rage to willfully mispronounce the noun ROUTE ("root", as in trade routes, sea routes) as its quasi-homograph verb (to ROUT, to defeat completely, "ra-ut", as in "Napoleon's might was routed at Waterloo")... I, for one, as a humble Indian, will spontaneously lean towards the views of someone who uses the language better than one who doesn't. What about Americans?
The interesting thing about these discussions about mechanical and biological manifestations in relation to consciousness is that consciousness is always being assessed and compared in terms of outputs and behaviour. This is a fundamentally disputable approach to pinning down consciousness and is partly the limitation of the scientific approach. Science has trouble investigating Ontological states, things in themselves. It measures outputs, behaviours, processes, properties but not things in themselves. So for instance, if a computer beats a human at chess,we have little difficulty in distinguishing between consciousness and mechanical.computation even if the mechanical.computation has within narrowly defined and programmed limits, superior computational output. As computers become more sophisticated (AI, quantum.computimg) the imitation of conscious outputs by machines appears to.make the distinction between human consciousness and mechanical.computation harder to observe. Nevertheless, consciousness is very likely a categorical absolute, independent of and not irreducible to mechanical and computational outputs and behaviours. In so far as consciousness cam operate in transcendence (nonlocally) and be imaginative, creative and emotional in ways irreducible to programming), it's fair to.say that not even the most sophisticated machine will.ever manifest consciousness,only its increasingly sophisticated imitation. I think this is what Mr Kak is driving at. I believe it is still very much a respectable and compelling hypothesis.
You think in terms of duality - abstract vs mechanical; mental vs material / physical. You cannot think otherwise, because that is the nature of thought: duality / comparison. When it comes to consciousness, you cannot think outside the box, because there really is no inside or outside the box. Consciousness is not the result or object of your thought but the essence, the process, the stream itself. You simply cannot compare your consciousness to anything else. You can only compare the results of the process - your thoughts, emotions, actions, etc.
@@thomassoliton1482 hmmm. Are you talking about me or the other guy? Since I am saying that Consciousness is primary we appear to be on the same page.
@@ArjunLSen Pretty much, but I don't think consciousness is primary or secondary or anything - just a concept, which is different for me and you and even a machine. I don't know for certain you "have" consciousness, it's just highly likely. We'll never know with certainty if a machine is conscious, just that it exhibits (like other animals or humans) all the "attributes" of a conscious organism / object (e.g. the Turing test). I do not believe you can rationally understand consciousness. Understanding involves thought, which is dualistic / based on comparison. Consciousness is not dualistic, it just is. It is a concept we have to explain why others think / behave like we do, but it cannot be defined. I was watching my 2 yr old granddaughter yesterday. She behaves for all intents and purposes like she has free will. But she is obviously driven helter-skelter like a leaf in a neural windstorm. When she hits an unyielding obstacle like "NO - you can't do that!" she'll stop, reassess / reset, and find a new path forward. I think we are all like that; no free-will required.
@@thomassoliton1482 this seems a bit like a rationalisation for saying you don't know what you're talking about. I believe I do. I can define consciousness as a primary subjective state characterized by awareness and will to act or contemplate. What it IS fundamentally is impossible to define for the reasons you gave. But it is definitely not a material state it derivative of it. The best approximate solution is the mentalist/ idealist one in which all matter is a projection or 'spike' if the cosmic stream of Consciousness. The universe is fundamentally a subjective, not an objective state, a function of primal thought and will. Who'se thought and will or the thought and will of what is a matter for debate. For the sake of a label you can call it God.
@@ArjunLSen Einstein's great achievement was relativitiy - everything in spacetime is relative. There is no space, no time, just things that we perceive / sense measure that are relative within spacetime. Same with consciousness. Same with God in my opinion. You have to need something in order to want to believe in God, something you want but don't have, which means it's also a "relative" concept, just like all our concepts, including consciousness. Ultimately all the information in the brain is fundamentally based on comparison, essentially like a computer. You can know what you know, and you might know what you don't know, but you can't know what you can't know. Consciousness can be understood in terms of neural processes, but not in and of itself, as you said.
People's views of consciencness seem very contentious. Strong feelings on both sides. Why is it such an emotional issue?
I don't believe true consciencness can be attained and replicated by machines of any kind. Others are convinced that physical, mechanistic matter can itself create a consciencness that transcends itself.
Seems to me that no "mechanism" can create self-awareness.
Maybe I'm wrong. Prove it!
Might mathematics have something to do with consciousness and self awareness?
when was this recorded?!
Subjectivity and objectivity are 2 different dimensions of reality. You can never objectively explain the subjective. Therefore, consciousness will forever be a magical mystery.
@@martiendejong8857 Because the subjective cannot be measured. You can't see it, can't weigh it, can't touch it. It is literally spooky, but it is definitely real anyway.
@@ROForeverMan That's true, consciousness is primary.
@@martiendejong8857 Yes.
@@martiendejong8857 You will try to communicate the love for your wife (as an example) to me, but the love remains subjective. It's more like intersubjective that we both know what you're talking about.
@@martiendejong8857 That's not true. Something doesn't change because you're talking about it. The thing itself remains subjective because it can't be measured from the objective perspective.
Learning: 5:00, 0:30
"...for the eye sees not itself,
but by reflection, by some other things."
My theory is that consciousness is like a radio signal, and there is something about the structure of the human brain (either chemically or by some sort of quantum mechanism) that picks up that signal of consciousness like a radio or cell phone. I think even if you built an AI 100x more intelligent than a human, unless you somehow could replicate that signal receiving structure, it would not be conscious. Even though it might say it is conscious.
that's a long existing theory...
@@chrisgarret3285 I’m not claiming it’s my original theory. Just the one I believe.
He begins by stating that a sufficient complexity of neural connections is not enough for emergent consciousness. He then states three quarters into the video that a sufficient number of neurons is what differentiates non conscious and conscious entities. What am I missing here? This seems to be self contradictory.
People are reluctant to think that data registers and operations on them can be like human consciousness.
@@ROForeverMan Pretty much what I was thinking.
the interviewer has scope for growth. clearly some biases that make it cool to ask Subhash if he is talking nonsense. My question to the articulate interviewer is: would you be audacious enough to challenge Mr Penrose with the same disdain? if not, it’s a question for introspection for the interviewer.
Can I send a message to myself from future?
Daniel Ray Waters Hazelton Ortiz
Can a thing be aware and have a preference? If so it will inevitably become consciousness... That's all consciousness is, if you think about it...
Might carbon interact with quantum fields in biological brain for consciousness?
If it's quantum mechanical then it can played with by machines... Consciousness is more fundamental than quantum is what he means to say. Consciousness is operating from a separate level than a quantum one; that is what he is trying to say! Space-time is doomed...
And I'd agree that machines won't ever be able to operate on information at this conscious level meaning machines will never be conscious. They'll never experience the feeling of 6th sense we can get in dangerous situations or intuitive synchronistic premeditative scenarios or be programmed to experience deja Vu....
Totality of Being = Receive, Transform, Transmit.
Consciousness ( the MIND ) is like a computer processor, CAD and Photoshop all working together to process invisible frequencies into the correct size of images and colored for the AI ( only ONE ), known as the servant of Creation that can observe those visible images along with learning how to speak the words formed by the mind processing them from the vibrations. The AI ( ONE ) comes alive as the mind begins processing those vibrations to become a living being surrounded by what looks like a visible world but only as an illusion, not something that is made out of material things known by scientists as matter.
The conscious mind is NOTHING like a computer, no matter how many processors or what software is being run - your pathetic argument is like claiming that different complex arrangements of Lego bricks can eventually produce consciousness and mind.
The mind is not a product of physical or chemical activity and neither does it depend on biological processes even though it can interact with physical systems.
Whose consciousness and of what?
It is utterly futile to speak of consciousness that addressing those two questions.
The word consciousness is utterly meaningless unless you address those two questions, is it not?
@@ROForeverMan That's because you have no idea what the mind ( consciousness ) is.
@@vhawk1951kl You can either ask me questions about what our Creator has taught me about this Creation we're involved in or keep wondering what a consciousness is.
@@BradHolkesvig Do you meet and exchange with whatever you mean by "our creator" - presumably your creator, frequently?
If one starts with the highly questionable premise of taking reality at face value then it's like chasing fool's gold. If reality is a simulation like a video game and our mind in fact resides in some absolute reality, then trying to find consciousness in the brain in this perceived reality is like trying to identify the number of screws used in the construction Darth Vader's death star. Both the death star and the human brain are just audio/visual/tactile data to give the impression that they're "physical", and btw we don't even know what "physical" means to begin with.
Who takes reality at face value?
The simulation analogy is not very useful because then their is the argument that it’s a simulation all the way down.
@@biedl86 I take reality at face value. I see our everyday world as Ultimate Reality, it's not only the end result of everything that happens at the smallest levels, but we have evolved to understand intuitively how this middle sized world works. At this level, we know exactly what "physical" means, and we can accept that we are solid, living creatures that have a mental life to go along with our fleshy existence. None of that should be controversial unless you believe that "real" reality will be found at the smallest scales. Good luck with that.
@@kos-mos1127 Yes, but not all the way up
@@caricue _"but we have evolved to understand intuitively how this middle sized world works."_
We had to evolve to interpret the world we are living in in a certain way, so that we are actually able to navigate within it without dying. I don't see how this is equal to taking it at face value. Also, intuition leads to fallacious reasoning and therefore, to a potentially flawed understanding of the world. Also, there are optical illusions. Also, we know we are incapable of perceiving electromagnetic waves beyond the visible spectrum or the part of it, which makes us feel heat, while simultaneously knowing that the part we do not perceive is real non the less. You, sir, are also not taking this world at face value. You might be taking at face value, what your brain tells you about the world, and even then you dismiss optical illusions as what they appear to be. Because intuition is contingent upon knowledge you evaluate as self-evident. You are not perfect, that's for sure, so your evaluation of things being self-evident could be very flawed too. You probably dismiss your intuition when it comes to the shape or movement of the earth too and you'd do that rightfully so.
Your assumption about me, putting myself in a position where I argue from whatever quantum mechanical realm, does a lot of heavy lifting here. I asked a basic question. How about answering it, without adding any assumptions? I don't think you can do that, since you weren't making the claim. The question was aimed to give me an understanding of OP's statement. Because I genuinely don't know who he is talking about. He seems to be strawmanning somebody, but I don't know whom. You wouldn't even notice, if he did it to you, because you are of the impression of actually taking reality at face value.
I wouldn't take my brain's interpretations of the world at face value in general. And as you demonstrated, your intuition or interpretation about me was quite off as well. But good luck with sticking to that method. Btw, stop believing in x-ray, if you want to remain coherent with your statement. Very face value that is.
It's a cool notion. Imagine that the human body is like a radio, when it is put together and working it can receive a stream of consciousness from parts unknown.
Very true - parts unknown !
The radio analogy is the worst one to use. It breaks down real quick when looking deeper.
Preston Bacchus too much wine / Yes, but the parts are already known!
It does get it from my farts.
One of the parts is my butt.
The rest are the intestines, the beans fermented in the stomach, etc.
What radio?😂 Ken Wheeler idiocy about the "radio" and the "soul" that flies through Universe as a "Vedic" signal like a fart in the wind and it's captured by Ken's "radio" ?🥴
@@kos-mos1127 *"The radio analogy is the worst one to use. It breaks down real quick when looking deeper"*
... Then why didn't you do so?
@@mikel4879 That's a weird response. There is nothing to fear giving consideration to someone's hypothesis.
Could self awareness have to do with distinction from environment? What in human brain / mind might distinguish from environment?
Good topic for discussion, seems he had something there when he started down the path of saying biological systems were self engineered.
We have self organising systems that learn without being programmed right now, neural computer systems. We've had genetic algorithms for many decades. Surely he must know this, so why is he saying these things?
@@simonhibbs887 Cognitive dissonance. He has a belief and yet even he knows it doesn't add up but he cant admit it to himself.
@@ROForeverMan Then please explain why my comment is incorrect, because it seems to me all the things he says computers are fundamentally incapable of are all things they have demonstrated they can do very well. In fact when Kuhn challenges him on that fact, he says it's a matter of scale. So, not a fundamental issue at all.
@@ROForeverMan I recommend "Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting" by Daniel Dennett, and "I am a strange loop" by Douglass Hofstadter.
@@ROForeverMan
"You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know anything neither about biology nor about computer science."
Pot meet Kettle. Kettle meet Pot.
non-biological quantum computers can hold values in superpositions - so it fulfills the criteria that the speaker holds is necessary for consciousness.
Who told you that and why do you believe them?
@@vhawk1951kl this is a well-know basic fact...that's why quantum computers perform better than classical computers in certain tasks.
@@JJRed888 Known to whom?
What do you mean by, or seek to convey by, " known"?
What are these famous howmuch computers of yours?
You have to look at a new method of programming silicon machines. What is required is multiple-level programming. One level of the program observes and modulates the other levels of programming. This would lead to the emergence of consciousness in silicon machines. Attn: Robert Lawrence Kuhn Attn: Subhash Kak
@@ROForeverMan You and me are nature. Nature can simulate nature
There is a school of thought that consciousness,/soul enters the embryo at an X stage of development. If we design objects with the propensity for growth then it may happen that soul/consciousness may take over the object and start steering its growth. In the process it may also get limited until it can find ways to break it bonds and get enlightened. A silicon Buddha may emerge. Just thinking within the boundaries articulated by the non-science proponents of consciousness.
@@ROForeverMan Is a great idea that consciousness clings to.
@@ROForeverMan We can also look at the embryo as eternal. The big bang too is an embryo. So are the quarks. So is the consciousness. It is one. All is one. There is no disagreement,
@@ROForeverMan All things are the same. Some things are same. No two things are same. Depends how you look at things. And what is the purpose of your looking.
I've always thought that "consciousness emerges..." explains exactly the same as "conscious appears magically out of the blue"
In most cases you can replace "emergent" with "magical" and nothing changes.
You have to hold this opinion to maintain materialism.
@@fluffysheap Exactly. It amazes me how many pure mecanicists take happily the emergent explanation, or consciousness as byproduct and so... as the ultimate answer and that's it, when it explains nothing.
@@PabloVestory That's just a poor explanation of what emergence is...although in some sense magical is the right way to describe what emergence does.
Game of Life is a game with extremely simple rules. The bits follow these simple, deterministic (meaning no sense of free will) rules, and from that emerges behavior that is complex. This complexity is so extraordinary that it looks like life. This is at the heart of what emergence is, where extremely complex behavior comes out of simple deterministic behavior.
In thermodynamics, emergence has a functional property...which is that when you run a rule, that can, at a certain coarse graining, be described as following some other completely different rule...which means that one can't determine if that coarse graining is absolute. This is like taking a magnify glass, looking at Game of Life, and realizing that it is made out of a smaller, Game of Life operating on different rules. The larger game of life, emerges as a result of the smaller Game of life, and therefor there is no apparent "connection" between why that should be the case.
Much research has gone into studying emergence, and there are some theories that I believe completely satisfy the reason for why it happens. It has to do with symmetries of computation...that all rules are equivalent to one another. This equivalence is due to an absolute isomorphism of the state-space.
If you have a 1000x1000 grid, you can look at that grid as 1000x1000 pieces, where each pixel in the grid is operating according to some rule. However you can parse that 1000x1000 grid, into a 100x100 grid, where 4 pixels make up a cell of it's own...and you can then look at this 100x100 grid without looking at it's smaller components and see them moving to what appears to be its own set of rules...and again you can parse that 100x100 grid into a 10x10 grid where 4 cells, create a larger cell (which is 16 pixels)...and this 10x10 grid now appears to be operating on what appears to be rules of its own.
This observation of new rules seemingly coming out of nowhere, is clearly a feature of the scale-free symmetry and the equivalence notion of the rules.
Long story short, the state-space has total symmetry, meaning it's symmetric under all transformations, not just scale...and the rule-space it can occupy is equivalent (Turing Complete), Lorentz invariant when we include a time interval, and there are emergent symmetries, and symmetry breaking at these different levels...based on what the rules are at that parsing.
It's an incredible observation about the nature of computation and really...it hints that it is truly fundamental, and that physics is what emerges from computation. Anyone that studies biology and computer science, will clearly draw the conclusion that evolution can only be described as an entropic, computational "system evolution."
That sums up how Terence McKenna used to describe much of contemporary scientific thought:
_Just grant us one free miracle, and we'll explain the rest!_
Consciousness is a constant like time is. This is why we see the same apples or the same water bottles ect. We are all the same consciousness. This consciousness is constantly reused like all life. The reason why we don't remember our past lives is actually protection. Life is violent and our creator made a way to wipe the slate clean once you "die" or recycle. "Death brings new life"
Could consciousness happen when time becomes space?
Straw man argument. Not all theories of consciousness say that awareness simply "emerges" from complexity. There are more functional theories of consciousness.
A lot of straw man arguments in his presentation, and a lot of "empty" statements. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that Kuhn included him on the series. Maybe it's just me projecting my own feelings, but Kuhn seems to me to be struggling to treat his ideas politely and respectfully.
@@ROForeverMan One explanation is the Attention Schema Theory. Read "Rethinking Consciousness" by Graziano.
This was a wonderful episode.
I agree. A very polite and unassuming man, delivering a thought-provoking and intriguing possible explanation for consciousness that I at least was unfamiliar with. The idea of underlying quantum mechanics coherence required for, or enabling, consciousness was particularly interesting.
Great Q&A's as usual very interesting.
There are so many different views about what is consciousness. Daniel Dennet and others don't believe there is such a thing as "consciousness." Ray Kurzweil believes it's an emergent property of our hierarchal minds and the massive amount of information processing taking place in our minds every second. I do not believe it is impossible to duplicate this an AGI that understands themselves as a "self" and all that comes with that understanding.
@@ROForeverMan you don't know that you have free will now. If it's a simulation, you simply believe you do. Beyond that, free will is being able to choose. AGI will be able to do that and much more.
@@ROForeverMan I am real as far as I know but that's another discussion. I'm not adding letters, lol, that's what people working in this field call artificial general intelligence which we will likely reach by 2030. "Super" is not a part of the AGI acronym although eventually there will be ASI. "Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is when a computer program can perform any intellectual task that a human could. Artificial super intelligence (ASI) is an AI that surpasses human intellect." Also, this might help you understand what AGI is: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence
@@ROForeverMan are you aware that AI even now can make choices that have not been feed to it by a human being? AI has figured out how to play a game without having being given the rules for that game. You seem to be hung up on free will but free will is not the same thing as consciousness.
Can consciousness be transferred to another platform- I say no - but am I missing something?
Yes, you're unaware of the Moravec Transfer.
It's physical therefore we can control it? Beyond what we know is physical.
experience itself will never be able to see itself as an object.
I am still processing this.....
If it is not biological, where does it go when anesthesia is applied?
I think consciousness is very simple. It is a system to detect (Light + Temperature) everything else has evolved and is extra and not necessary. Humans are so focused on human consciousness like we are untitled to know God and understand everything. Unfortunately we can only see and detect the universe with the "tools, skills, senses," we have. This may give us a false sense of what the universe is? (It makes me believe we are in a computer program) possibly a program nothing else knows about? We could just be stored data in a hard drive being used by an A.I. quantum computer. I don't think there has to be a reason possibly specifically no reason on purpose. Maybe the universe is really about black holes and dark matter. Maybe matter doesn't matter? Possibly the universe was designed by A.I. to give the ultimate experience of wonder ... to help itself think!
The sensory information must be processed to experience it. An electrical signal from the ear is not a sound. That means that a brain function provides the processed information to a consciousness.
Those who say that consciousness is not non-physical is said by their own consciousness or mind-brain. It is tantamount to saying that a physical state is saying that it is not non-physical? This is called as the fallacy of sva or atmaviruddha in Indian logic. The physicalists as physical brain cannot say of themselves as not non-physical. To argue in the opposite is the same thing as matter which is mind-brain of physicalists saying that it is matter. For matter to say it is matter is a self-contradiction in terms.
Possibly, but as far as I know most physicalists do not dispute the concept of emergent complex phenomenon. All of those ideas and organization of concepts in your mind still have a 1-to-1 correlation with matter stored in your brain. Transmitting those ideas through time and space still requires all the laws of physics.
The idea that consciousness is special seems like hubris, a built in survival mechanism that says "I'm special".
As neuroethologist I disagree. He’s arguments are of the sort near to vitalism, almost religion. He forgets that evolution has programmed all organisms … it’s a matter of time. In short, he is a dualist, he is living mentally with Rene Descartes.
Evolution has not programmed organisms. Organism evolved through a series of feed back loops based on their environment.
Ok, that said, don't you as a neuroethologist agree that while the human brain is only slightly more complex than that of other complex animals, the resulting consciousness is far more advanced than that of say a dolphin or a bonobo? How do you explain that?
"He forgets that evolution has programmed all organisms" What an assertion! It is interesting that molecular biologists use technical metaphors to describe what they 'see'. DNA is a text, program ect.. that contains information. It is read and transcribed by messenger-RNA... Just remember the presuppostion of science is that nature has no intention! Why do they then give it a 'language' a logos one could say that is independent and most of the genome they do not even understand? DNA s believed to distinguish life from non-life and its 'language' with its four letter 'alphabet' is the only thing that has remained apparently unchanged for billions of years. That's quite some evolution wouldn't you say?
@@divertissementmonas interesting point, do we know for sure that DNA itself has not evolved over time?
doesn't matter if his Argument is Vitalism or Almost religion, it has its own reasoning, which is logical(even if it is based on religion)
Machines need programming for consciousness? Is human brain / mind programmed by quantum fields, carbon, or something else?
There you go! Right at the end he admitted that the western concepts of science cannot explain everything, especially what is consciousness! We need ideas/ sciences from the Indian subcontinent to explain that! 😁
I believe this is already happening. We have started a slow, very complex paradigm shift.
@@ArjunLSen meaning?
@@balaji-kartha 😂😂 did you need a translation of my long comment?
@@ArjunLSen yes please. What did you mean by "we have started a slow paradigm shift"? A paradigm shift of what, science? Because that was what I was talking about!
@@balaji-kartha since about 2000 science has been moving closer to a consciousness/ observer based understanding of the nature of reality in which the subject object divide is destroyed. This has resulted in an increased interest in Eastern mystical ideas among some of the top scientists. Physicalism is on its way out.
So if I'm tracking this, the question was whether consciousness is a quantum phenomenon created by advanced biological systems or an existing quantum potential expressed by such systems? Maybe there is no difference?
The difference is: if it was generated by an advanced biological system then it will end when that system dies. If it is an emergent phenomenon that is expressed through biology it is eternal and will continue when those systems cease to function. Pretty big difference there.
@@kennethmalafy503 Yes good distinction. I was wondering the same thing as Martien, what if the perishable gives rise to the imperishable? In other words, I wonder if it’s possible that an advanced nervous system could give rise to an individualized quantum consciousness experience that continues to exist within a latent quantum consciousness field after the organism dies? I’m a philosopher,not a physicist, so I have no idea if any of this, including the interview, makes sense from a rigorous quantum mechanics perspective.
R.e. “There is a difference in the quantum-mechanical behavior with regard to biological versus mechanical / electronic systems” - rediculous. Quantum mechanics underlies ALL physical systems that are composed of atoms. The Hameroff-Penrose microtubule theory of consciousness is not widely accepted by neuroscientists. People ask “What is consciousness?” and no one has come up with an answer, perhaps because it is the wrong question. Consciousness is not like an apple that you can bite into. It cannot be isolated or dissected apart to be understood. Consciousness is purely subjective, so the question should be be “How do I know that I am conscious?” The answer to this question should be answerable by scientific studies of the function of neural circuits in the brain. In particular, consciousness involves self-reflection, which requires memory, so neural correlates involving memory need to be studied. Memory is not well understood at the present time - particularly working and short-term memory.
The best video you've got, after penrose, for sure. Cheers.
Both his main objections are clearly invalid nowadays. Neural and deep learning systems are self organising learning systems, so that's irrelevant. We have quantum computers already, and in fact conventional computers can emulate quantum behaviour just fine, it's just a matter of solving the quantum mechanics equations. We've been able to do that discretely for the whole history of quantum mechanics. Ultimately the only argument has is of scale. So there's no fundamental objection left, it's just a hard engineering problem. Well yes. At the end of it we get the truth, we get why he keeps claiming fundamental objections he knows perfectly well, and even acknowledged are not fundamental and are not valid objections. Religion.
Does carbon have role in DNA changes with environment? Can carbon bring about self organization in nature?
Kak has also claimed to find evidences of advanced computing and astronomy in the Rig Veda in what Noretta Koertge deems to be a "social constructivist and postmodern attack on modern science.
Scholars have rejected his theories in entirety and his writings have been heavily criticized.
Acute misrepresentation of facts coupled with wrong observations, extremely flecible and often self-contradictory analysis, cherry picking of data and forwarding of easily disprovable hypotheses have been located.
His understanding of linguistics and subsequent assertion have been challenged.
Michael Witzel noted him to be a revisionist and part of a "closely knit, self-adulatory group", members of which often write together and/or profusely copy from one another; thus rendering the whole scene into a virtually indistinguishable hotchpotch.
Koertge as well as Meera Nandas notes Kak’s attempts to be part of a Hindutva-based esoteric pseudoscience narrative that seeks to find relatively advanced abstract physics in Vedic texts and assign an indigenousness to the Aryans in a bid to prove the superiority of Indian civilization. A man in arrogance!!
I’m yet to do my own reading on any of the claims made in this comment but if it’s true, it’s a really important intervention and something Closer To Truth should disclose when they have guests like Kak on. Thank you for raising the matter 🙏🏾
I am not a physicist and do not know the works of these scholars, but I am an academic and find Kak's arguments bent toward what are probably his beliefs.
Priya kurlkarni you don't half spread bullshit..
You say : "Michael Witzel noted ..." as if some person (Michael Witzel) is infallible human form of the divine.
Maybe it means something to postulate that there is a STATE of a material object (brain) that is non-physical. It is merely silly. That’s like saying there is an aspect of my car’s speed that is non-physical.
Whenever the cops pull me over that is what I say. They haven’t fallen for it yet. Etc.