If you've ever passed out, the experience of regaining consciousness is really interesting to reflect on in terms of trying to understand what consciousness is. In my case, regaining consciousness wasn't really like a light switch was turned on and then suddenly I was fully conscious. It was more like consciousness emerged over the course of about 15 seconds (or so it seemed), almost like the brain had to reboot and reload all the programs. When I opened my eyes I saw faces looking down at me but I didn't really understand the concept of what a face is - like my brain hadn't loaded that program yet. Hard to explain, but fascinating. It makes me think that there really isn't some line between consciousness and not.
Almost as if your brain had to remember what it was seeing before "you" could make sense of it. I passed out once too, hit my head and had a similar experience. Took me a while to recognize anything in my room or even how I got there. It was terrifying but surreal.
Thats your mental field expanding against the natural pressure of the astral dimension making space for the physical dimension... that expansion comes from the soul pressure, nothing to do with the brain, the brain is just in series in the connection if you want... well, thats the simplified version, but the point is that they just dont get it at all, they're not even looking at the right places... but you're right there's no "line", you were conscious minimally before you "regain" counsciousness, it was just too low for you to record it as memories are higher in the mental field/mind, again not in the brain... the "concept of faces" is there as well (higher), so knowing that it might make more sense to you.
Consciousness is awareness. By conceptualizing, defining, theorizing about it, etc., they miss it. To “solve” the “problem of consciousness,” in other words, one must stop thinking about it.
This implies machines (e.g. even an AI a million times more sophisticated than GPT-4, with self-reflection, memory, etc) could never be conscious or, if they can be, that it would be impossible for us to study them and gain any understanding of why they are conscious...
We borrow existence from consciousness. Consciousness was here before existence, it will continue long after our existence. It's been here all along. It's the one "thing" we possess that does not age, nor decays.
@@LukasOfTheLight Materialists confuse matter with Consciousness. Anything that can be perceived, observed, or experienced is not Consciousness. Consciousness is the Eternal Witness of objects (the brain), external & internal events (the mind), time, space, matter & energy. Consciousness is the observer of wakefulness, dreams, and the emptiness of deep sleep. Materialists will say deep sleep is the absence of Consciousness. Nondualists will say the contrary: deep sleep is the absence of experience or objects; there is only pure Consciousness in deep sleep.
Right!. Chalmers is one of the few philosophers who is right on target. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choit" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. You will experience Pure Consciousness "In-Itself"; i.e. The Tao, The One, the Substance of Spinoza, the Absolute Infinite of Cantor, etc. In short, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Truth-Consciousness-Bliss. That's IT, You.
Without the broad wandering nature of these complex and deeply piercing conversations, I would feel far more alone with my thoughts and interests. Thank you, Lex!
Consciousness is the least abstract thing I know. It is this. Right now. You can have concepts about it, sure, but why do that when you have direct experience/qualia of it?
Acting as an "armchair philosopher," I view our individual subjective consciousness as "borrowed consciousness" from a vast ocean of consciousness. Just as we borrow matter & energy from the foods we eat, we borrow the breath that fills our lungs, eventually we will all have to pay the piper and return what we have borrowed. Our individual subjective consciousness will return to the vast ocean of consciousness, like how a water droplet returns to the sea. Plants, rocks, nonliving objects are "potentials" for consciousness. Given enough time, even a rock will become conscious. It will borrow consciousness when the basic requirements are met.
This podcast was just awesome. I really like it. I have listen it two times. Informative video. I have listen many things about David Chalmers but first time I am hearing him. Thanks bro for this video.
0:25 "The kind of consciousness that I'm interested in is basically subjective experience. What it feels like from the inside to be a human being." -- YES, me too. It's inextricably connected with the body, with organic life. It is so much more than a cerebral processing of stimuli. All our most powerful drives and longings come from the lizard brain: actual sensations and desires and instincts.
Dear Mr Fridman and Mr Chalmers, This a lay person's interpretation of the phenomenon that has stumped the human race as far as records exist. I use the allegory of the cell to present my argument. Consciousness is what could be called a membrane that holds all the moving parts of the mind in place. It’s nature’s way of providing the support system necessary to the brain for its role in thinking and coming to conclusions and taking decisions. The ‘membrane’ of consciousness is nature's way in coming up with a solution for making the thinking process work in 4 dimensions.
Consciousness is life itself. Look at a a body that just died, and imagine that person when he was alive. We are alive and everything kinda makes sense to us is because we are based on consciousness. Is basically the universe run on consciousness. Close you eyes and imagine that your not thinking but your still being, that's consciousness. That's how I see it 😊
Maybe I take an overly simplistic approach to this but when I think of conciousness I think of the combination of the word conscious and the suffix -ness. Conscious is defined as aware of and responding to one's surroundings and the ness suffix denotes quality or state. So to me conciousness is simply the state or quality of being aware of and responding to one's surroundings. From that simple definition it is obvious to me that everything, from atoms to solar systems, is conscious on some spectrum.
9:30 to 11:20 he can only see living things on earth as being conscious, and not something like an atom. He assigns consciousness to a physical object that moves based on its own perception. If an atom finds itself in the circumstance of a certain event it reacts accordingly, like our own perceptions.
To me, consciousness is a mental process that repeats over and over again. It attempts to answer 2 questions 1) What is going on? 2) What should I do? I'm fairly sure consciousness exists in all living creatures.
The question of this video is not what consciousness does, but why mental processes exist at since thermodynamics should be enough to animate us as insensate zombies going through all of our exact same behaviors without the need for us to ever perceive at all (Google 'philosophical zombie").
@@dineshjinjala1159 Buddha's view is also similar. As in all creatures and even material things possess consciousness. Also, there's subtle consciousness that's responsible for co-dependent arising (kind of third cause) of everything. At least that's what I have read as per my best recollection.
No. All kinds of people have been spewing out random bullshit all the time, some of them are bound to appear more true than others. It wouldn’t validate Buddhists in any way.
@@michaelqiu9722 All radical ideas are isomorphous to random bullshits, then someone comes, creates arguments, mathematical formulae etc to support that random bullshit and rejoice in the "truth" they find.
You're asking the right questions. Please look into Bernardo Kastrup on consciousness and the "hard problem". Also, if you don't believe plants are conscious, try taking ayahuasca or peyote.
I wish you had asked about epiphenominalism, mental causation, and how or whether our conscious states can give rise to behavior, especially by virtue of its intentionality.
True but there are people with no memories who are still conscious. Their experience of life is obviously radically different than your’s or mine but they continue to exist in the moment
Swamp Thing very fascinating, no memories yet consciousness is still there , I’ll have to look more into that. To what degree of conscious are they? What can they do? Do they remember absolutely nothing?
Allen Bao it varies depending on what caused the memory damage. There are people with no long-term memories who live basically in a present of a few minutes to a few hours, there are plenty of people who have long-term memories but no short term memories especially in the aging population; and there are even people who after infection or brain injury have their memories complete wiped clean. An interesting thing about that is their brains will often create a backstory for them out of thin air. Ie a banker named from New Jersey might believe he is a brick layer named Todd from Nevada and be firm in that belief because his brain needs an identity to make sense of the world. I think answers with Joe did an episode on this and it was fascinating
I am. I don't need any data inputs from external environment to know that I exist. I exist in deep sleep even if I don't feel I exist. I don't die in deep sleep. I just exist. I am the universe and universe exists in me.
The notion of the process rather than form of a system is an interesting take on things. Fritjof Capra in his books like the Systems view of life emphasises this way of looking at things. So consciousness is just a similar process to life itself or even just nature itself. And the fundamental feature is the process and the relationships between parts of a system
A baby is concious at about 18 months. I put my 9 month old in front of the mirror all the time and she looks into it but she doesn't react when there is a sticker on her forehead.
@@craiuirinel4103 What the hell does the ability to recognize reflections have to do with consciousness? Many animals don't recognize their reflections, it doesn't mean that they're not conscious. Do you believe that the baby is an automaton without qualia until then?
Nice discussion. Love to hear that nothing is quite off the table yet. consciousness is naturally occurring... and a precondition for an organized universe . If you consider the way quantum theory requires an observer to facilitate wave collapse. That is... everything is potential until there is an observer.
Yes, absolutely. Whenever we look closer and closer at the smallest parts of our reality, the universe has no choice but to get smaller and smaller in an attempt to avoid the investigation. Same goes for the largest parts of our reality. Stars, galaxies, nebulas, etc. The further out we look, the further things get from us because during these investigations, the universe is looking at itself. The same can be said for the problem of the double slit experiment. How else would a particle be able to retroactively change its behavior based on whether or not there was a conscious observer recording the results? If it's aware of itself, then that means that it's us and we are it. With this understanding, it seems reasonable to come to the conclusion that we are the universe. Absolutely fascinating. Consciousness is fundamental and everything we do must be centered from that knowledge. Manifestation, and the law of attraction is another solidifying argument for this. How else is it explained?
Consciousness feels like a loopback of pattern matching between what the senses perceive and what the generative mind produces from our memory. There seems to be also like self-generated chronological "narrative" of the events we experience, that we can tell ourselves like if it was coming from someone else. We can tell stories to ourselves and then find out in the real world if the story is true. And dopamine. Lots and LOTS of dopamine (and withdrawal). ^_^
This is basically Marx's dialectical materialism (based on Hegel's dialectic) and I agree, it seems like the most accurate framework for the functionality between subjective and external "reality".
From one angle consciousness is ones(creatures) understanding of it's own existence and it's surrounding to some extent. There is also strong link to evolution, as consciousness is a condition to have an instinct to survive i.e. the fear of death, thus creates risk etc. something to consider, as we are creating more advanced AI. Also, it surely is based completely on laws of nature, as that(&space) is all there/here is.
When filming toward a window, a camera will always darken down other content in the frame. Solution here: lower the blinds or add some fill light on Lex. And now back to consciousness...
I don't believe it's like that. To me it seems to be an emergent phenomenon of complex structures. It totally makes sense for evolution to select for conscious beings, because they are able to organize and virtualize events on a timeline and connect them in a meaningful/abstract way, so we can plan, learn efficiently and so on... I mean if it's really some kind of fabric of the universe stuff, why can it not be measured but at the same time it has such profound physical implications like climate change... The ability to think abstractly, to put meta-levels on everything just has built in the ability to think about your own ability to think... We even have a predisposition of profound religious or spiritual experiences, that free us from the "wasteful" activity of thinking about these weird self-referential problems. In contrast to most science that takes the third-person-perspective, consciousness is fundamentally first-person, so it might just be impossible to generalize or we are in a way not powerful enough to lift it to a coherent meta-level. I'm not sure about that though.
Could be, yet it doesn't explain anything what exactly conciousness is. It could be an answer to the easy problems, but nowhere does it explain the hard problem.
@@sk8shred I feel like the hard problem is always just taken for granted, but nobody really does a good job explaining it, it's either "obvious" or people explain it with some example like color perception and that colors are not only different but, they have some distinct redness or greenness to it... I'm actually not really sure here what they mean. What is there to be expected? Where exactly is the surprise? Don't get me wrong there is probably a lot to discover if you take certain drugs for example. But consciousness has this axiomatic quality to it. It's completely transparent, it's the thing through which we perceive everything. I don't think it can be explained... It just sits in a category of it's own, there is no background from where it stands out. In a sense it's everything. The world is absurd enough as it is, I think intellectually there are more interesting things, consciousness is best just experienced.
Human consciousness is not a single phenomenon. It's more like a collection of emergent properties of a very complex system: our brain. To think of it as a kind of universal substance, and even entertain the idea that it could perhaps be a fundamental property of the universe, to try to measure it with integrated information theory, like one would measure energy or mass, this makes no sense to me. As an analogy, consider jealousy: it's complex, we've all felt it, we don't know exactly how it works in the brain, many other animals display similar types of behaviour, etc. In many ways, it's like consciousness. But nobody in their right mind would ever imagine jealous plants, let alone jealous rocks, or even pan-jealousism! I love metaphysic discussions with friends, and occasionally we go off on tangents like this, and it's fun, I get it. I read Giulio Tononi's book Phi and I enjoyed it, and his Integrated Information Theory might be very useful to detect when complex information processing is going on or not (whether it's jealousy or dreaming or anything else). A high level of integrated information processing is probably a prerequisite to consciousness, but certainly not the same thing. Panpsychism might even make good SciFi novels (I remember that Isaac Asimov's Foundations dwell into this territory). But conscious rocks? Seriously?
No one says that rocks or plants can be jealous.... The conscious states of other systems, different from human brain, are very different from conscious states that humans can have and vise versa. The IIT is perfectly reasonable theory. Consciousness cannot be explained as emergent property of a physical system, no matter how elaborate it is. It's funny how people can accept that charge or mass are fundamental properties but have difficulty doing it for consciousness.
but could you also imagine a concious being that has no biological form or body? Like an entity that just contains of organized energy. Maybe a different form of a Boltzmann brain; a seemingly random concentration of matter, that then formed some kind of conciousness through complex organization. I think that could be possible.
Interesting responses, thanks. As I said, I like IIT. It's mostly the use of the word "consciousness" that I disagree with: everyone has an intimate experience of what "consciousness" is, but this experience is extremely specific to humans: it involves senses, feelings, inner thoughts, and so on, none of which exist in rocks. Using the same word for rocks can only lead to confusion, as people will naturally tend to imagine rocks feeling or thinking. If we were to replace the word "consciousness" with a more neutral, less anthropomorphic term, then I would be fine with all of this. Let's say "integrated system" instead, since that's what we're really talking about. So, yes, it's possible to imagine some level of integrated information processing going on at the molecular level in a rock (although I would guess that if there's such a thing going on, it would be at the nano scale, so a rock would be best viewed as a huge collection of independent "integrated systems", not a unique system). I have no problem considering "information" as a fundamental property of nature, like mass and energy. So no problem with information processing, and, by extension, no problem with integrated information processing, although at a less fundamental level (since it is built on top of the previous concepts). But the word "consciousness" just carries way too much baggage.
Sometimes I am thinking about the analogy of a radio programme and a receiver; without a radio receiver, no one can experience the radio programme, yet it is still there. The human brain could also be kind of a receiver, and tune in to a fundamental thing called conciousness. Of course this is just speculation and I don´t really believe or know anything about conciousness. The only thing I know is true, is my own experience.
Science is the measurement of matter as experienced through consciousness, not of pure matter. All we can experience is consciousness of things, not things in of themselves. Something existing outside of consciousnesses is inconceivable, unimaginable, as all conception requires consciousness. In this sense consciousness is a fundamental, axiomatic dependency -- even more so than mass and force.
To me panpsychism is at least partially validated (although not definitively proven) by the double slit experiment, ie the observer effect. On the subjective side, an illustration of panpsychism I gravitate towards is that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, possibly related to string theory, meaning it is a form of energy with cohesive will that forms matter through vibrational aggregation. A way matter can be interpreted to be conscious is in varying degrees related to its experience of reality. A rock simply experiences its existence as such and the influence of whatever alters it, such as erosion and time, but without qualia, supposedly. So the complexity of processes varies the degree or interdimensional window of consciousness.
If you've ever heard a screaming baby just after they pulled the baby out of the womb you'd know that babies are born conscious. Also babies kick while they're in the womb and that verifies that babies are conscious even while they're still in the womb.
The way David Chalmers frames the problem sounds like an extreme position on the sorites paradox when you take into account the idea that consciousness may be subjective. We can process the idea of a heap so it surely exists at an abstract level. If a heap is reduced by a single grain at a time, at what exact point does it cease to be considered a heap? Maybe being a heap is intrinsic to anything and it is a primordial property of the Universe and we can call this view panheapism. Is any subgroup of the components of a heap also a heap? Maybe consciousness is just an abstraction, analogue to the heap. We have a part of our brain which tricks us in thinking that we have a physical bound, that we are limited to our bodies and our internal processes. But sometimes we can see that we are less than that. That we are in fact a limited number of our internal processes and we don't control the heart muscles with our consciousness. Sometimes we may feel that we extend beyond our physical bodies and we are connected to everything around us. Perception is abstract. But meta perception is a case of perception itself. So basing our views on the idea that perception is real is a matter of perception. From this it follows that a priori knowledge about anything is beyond our reach (for me, this implies that every system there exists is just an abstraction so this is a nonanswer for every question one could ask, so every modeling of the Universe we can come up with is not real, but it must be useful. So protoconsciousness has to prove itself as worthy of explaining more phenomena than just consciousness for it to be accepted as a valid idea). In set theory, this problem is solved by the ZFC axiom of regularity which implies that no set is an element of itself. But it seems that very many philosophical questions cannot be answered with this axiom extrapolated to the real world. Wonder what other people think about this view and where I am wrong.
Is matter conscious ? Does consciousness arise only after a certain complexity is achieved ? As you talk a lot about psychedelics, ayahuasca / DMT. We know the pineal gland according to eastern philosophy is considered the EYE CHAKRA, the 3rd eye, the unbiased awareness or I'm not sure what. But I feel that has something to do with arising of consciousness ?
I grew up in the 80’s to a great show called “transformers”! The show had something very interesting with it that I think is more profound then even the original idea of its creation was intended! For one, “the Prime” was physical device that holds the history of all those that came before, collecting the history and experience of each “spark” (soul) that came from each leader before it. The Original creation was from Primus (human?) and used the “all-Spark” to forge a new spark (soul) that was unique, which was in the form of a transformer. What’s interesting is that Optimus prime could represent some form of consciousness from his past experiences with other sparks occupied in the Prime. All the other transformers reacted to optimus’s orders as they themselves lacked form of free thinking without additional orders. Each autobot or decepticon was stuck in universal war that seems to be held in balance so long as Optimus Prime was reacting to new experiences that arose from Decepticons attempting his demise. So long as Optimus prime was able to react, everything was in balance as both primes creativity and the expertise of all autobots were employed to complete a task. Even the word “autobot” implies they do automatic functions, on top of their ability to “trans” form into an Automobile or their original form It’s curious to me if A.I. Uses something similar to the example of prime? Using past experiences and inferring a greater than 50% chance to completing a task that is new to the robot, but inferred information from past experience. Im not suggesting a simulator, as those cannot imply likely variations without first knowing the variations. I don’t believe randomness can also infer variations as the computer couldn’t possibly predict random variations in a realistic approach to a physical environment, such as our roads, without first knowing a vast amount of random variables to begin with (not to say this couldn’t be a method). What I’m saying is that the collective of all FSD chips with visual and analog data combined might be able to predict a possible outcome so long as it can predict the top 3 best possible outcomes and select the best one based on the variables in the top 3 picks. All this would have to be done in a split second, which I’m sure a computer could do. But it’s the speed at which it has to visually scrutinize it’s top 3 favourite picks, then “rock paper scissors” them together to “creatively” come up with its highest probability to get out of a situation unharmed. I’m very layman when it comes to Deep learning, so for all I know this is how it learns, but something tells me there is more nuance that can be improved upon that can employ all the data sets and weave together hybrid outcome that is new and unique to a situation, all so doing without actually creating the singularity. A sort of simulated prediction algorithm based on the top closest video/analog data it has been given.
For instances I’m visualizing the Tesla FSD suite picking up 8 video sources and radar data. Now with that processing, I’m seeing it constantly loading 3 (arbitrary number here) overlays that “best” represent the current road condition based on past experiences that other drivers experienced. Similar to facial recognition, it would reference multiple points of reference and continually overlay the best possible reference sources for dealing with possible dangers at that time. In the case of a danger, where the computer/car is coming across a new road condition that poses a threat to the car and the occupants, it defaults to its 3 best overlay frames and melds them together to complete the task at its optimal safely. Once it completed the task safely it uploads that “danger” to the cloud and all other cars encountering that will be flagged ahead of time to deal with it appropriately.
Consciousness is a virtual thread that writes to memory. Thread which is hosted on threads that compete for memory. The subconscious is the activity of the brain not recorded in memory.
Is what we experience and how we process that, consciousness? Is it just the ability to say ‘I think therefore I am’ When building more and more complex computers, how will we know when one is conscious if we make it say the things conscious people say? If it makes unlogical preferential decisions? Do we even do that? I like the Star Wars way. Any machines complex enough to think about it’s own experience has personality and consciousness.
So what is consciousness? It's subjective experience. So what is it that has this subjective experience and where is it? It's the consciousness that experiences things subjectively and it's part of our brain. So consciousness is a matter of information processing in our brain? Hmm maybe not, because we can't seem to find it, neuroscience tried to find the "sense of self" within the human brain, nope, don't know where it is or what it is, really, kinda failed there. So they didn't find the bit of the brain that does the experiencing, so the information processing and experiencing are not the same thing? Well rocks might have experience but they can't process the information and tell us about it, so we can't really tell, so .... So it's information processing, but not really, because it's really subjective experience but we can't separate the subjective experience from the information processing, but we can't spot the "thing having the experience" within the information processing, so, it might be, kinda just fundamental? Yeah. So what is consciousness? Emergent, evolutionary, thingy, somewhere, I think therefore I am, that's the conscious bit there. So what is it? Fundamental, that'll do, fundamental is what it is. The answer is definitely getting clearer, so it is.
Do this: 1) 'Close' the eyes. 2) Stop breathing ... ( as long as you can) What makes 'you' to breathe again ?? (For having subjective experience, to think ( or neo-cortex brain processing is not required at all ) ... to think about oneself embed in an immediate experience is just an environmental linguistic recursion ...
@@firstnamesurname6550 to think about one's self embedded in an immediate experience is just an environmental linguistic recursion, ok so what part of "you" has this "immediate experience"? Are you saying that you are not conscious? Consciousness is not required, it's just an environmental linguistic recursion, so what part of you experiences this environmental linguistic recursion, and if it is possible to have any experience at all, does that not point to the very consciousness that this debate is about? The point is, explain what has this "experience". I am here, having this experience, so what exactly is that? What part of me is "experiencing" this conversation? Or is it just an "illusion" that consciousness seems to exist, which would suggest that I am not actually having any experience at all, it just "seems that way".
Another point, if it "seems like I'm having an experience" surely that points to something that is "having an experience" regardless of what is being experienced, the fact that something is being "experienced" points to a conscious "thing" experiencing things, so what is that thing having the experience that seems like the experience might be an illusionary experience, but it is still an experience that "something" seems to be in the midst of experiencing, so what is that? Linguistic recursion or not, "something" is definitely having some kind of "experience" so what is that? What is consciousness?
@@JamesCairney The Universe is a closed integrated system ... each layer of integration implies an existential domain ... The anthropomorphic 'subjective immediate experience' is integrated and dynamic environmental processing where the non-local, multi-temporal and closed system universal integration recures into a local, inertial, uni-temporal, fragmented sub-environment where the human body sets thresholds of semi-integration and apparent boundaries ( as the body as an 'inner environment converging into a fragmented microcosms' and the complement of the body as an 'outer environment converging into a unitary macrocosm but fragmented by the inherent local, inertial and uni-temporal condition of the body ) for 'rendering or crystalizing' an anthropic existential domain ... ... what humans tend to identify as 'their consciousness or 'my' consciousness' is a phenom from the anthropic existential domain where the non-local nature in the universe sequentially collapses with the local integration of their body and its immediate 'outer environment' ... ... but for the universe, there is not such a thing as inner stuff and/or outer stuff ... and that is the 'existential primitive/seed' that compresses its fragmented and semi-integrated 'elements' into 'oneness' ...
@@firstnamesurname6550 ok, basically what you said, to summarize in layman's terms, the universe could be looked at as a projection of the conscious mind, separating consciousness from the universe isn't really the proper question, but I would say, that still doesn't really explain "what it is" or how we identify it in "things". You could pose the same answer for any fundamental part of reality, inner and outer, not really relevant, the collapse of the wave function etc, yeah, ok, but we can still identify charge, spin, even the higgs boson, found it, we can explain it, point to it, build things that can detect it, so, why does every explanation of consciousness not manage to actually identify consciousness, in any reasonable way without reducing the whole universe down to something that "technically doesn't quite exist", despite the fact that everyone reading this comment knows for sure that they, themselves are indeed conscious. We seem to still be in a situation where, after all this, I can still ask, so what is consciousness? Because the question really hasn't been answered. Whoever called it 'the hard question' kinda under estimated it a fair bit, it's so hard, no one can formulate an answer that actually addresses the question properly, at all, in anyway that can be tested and used in anything more than a thought experiment, which is ironic seeing as it's the thing experiencing the thought that we are all trying to explain! Who'd have thought, 'so what is it?' would be so hard? Maybe sir Roger Penrose is right and it's in the microtubules, I don't know.
We can only go by the only available set of data we have, which is our 1st hand observations. At no point do these ever appear to be reducable to a prior sub set- consciousness so far appears to remain rigidly a priori, though the search to prove otherwise is mounting. That's possibly due to the exponential banality of most modern media forcing ever more of humanity to seek meaninful answers to the big questions. I'd personally define the spectrum of perceived meaning - from things of such minor consequence to us that we're barely even peripherally aware of them, to things of profound and immediate importance to us- as *the* fundamental axis of the physical world. However because consciousness is transphysical while at the same time fundamental to physicality, science is no better equipped to explain how, than it can discern which is the best ever piece of music. Maybe that is why art, literature, fun etc are as important to many of us as the physical dynamics of meathook reality.
Only if you believe consciousness as separate being - that would be ego to Eastern mystics - do we create consciousness. I believe that consciousness (or absolute reality) just exists and is all pervasive, and we are conscious beings having a human experience.
So, the hard problem of consciousness is 1. why does subjectivity exist at all and 2. Through what process does mental experience arise out of brain/nervous system functions. I've always found the answers of 1. An evolved Survival advantage for organisms to be able to perceive their environment, plan actions, & mentally represent itself in space + throughout time. And 2, Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that emerges as a result of biological energy expenditures +complex nervous system functions. So subjectivity is the result of brain networks containing millions of neurons all with thousands of synaptic connections & all firing 5-50 times per second. The emergence of consciousness is perfectly compatible with physics and is a widely agreed upon explanation for many novel properties of the universe. So the answer to the why part of hard problem of consciousness is evolved survival advantage and the answer to how is Emergence. Also, panpsychism is a really unrealistic idea; we still have evidence of the Neural Correlates of Consciousness so attributing a fundamental consciousness absent any evidence then creates a problem of explaining the real evidence. That's called the compounding problem asking why only living organisms with brains have the external indicators of consciousness and why NCCs exist at all
The simplest things can articulate the more complex truths that remain unseen. Like a stain,.....what is it indicative of? Like your work. Good think stuff for goth rockers.
Consciousness can just be a product of a brain as far as we know, and that mean that when you die its just over. It would be better to try to find out who made humans cause we are obviously very well programmed just like the universe as a whole, laws of physics are just forces that somebody had to think off in order for them to exist
Conciousness as we experience it is the partial summation of the great combining and dividing forces of all energy and existence in microcosm. Expressed up as reality/dimensions folds in upon itself as energy increases and becomes matter and vice versa creating abstraction and contrast. This creates a differentiation between matter and gives all energy specific form as it rises from zero point. Everything has conciousness to a degree.
All life behaves consciously. If you can tell it is alive, you do that by recognizing its consciousness. Even the tiny amoeba under the microscope shows obvious signs of consciousness - it reacts, it forages, or predates. The subjective consciousness you want to explain is just that which you see in any life; the more complexly subjective it is, the more of 'that' there is. The amoeba feels at least something, inwardly, from its interaction in its environment. What it feels is its subjective consciousness. Functioning as an amoeba must have success and failure. Success leads to more life, and failure leads to death. Therefore, in its subjective consciousness it feels stimulated to more success. We may experience that same feeling qualia as 'well being'. Who can define well being? Anyone can use a lot of words to describe it. But what is it, that is different than consciousness?
Hey here's a real question for u or anyone what does the mind or brain got to do with conscious experiences of perception and how do you demonstrate what being conscious is and what being conscious is not when studying comparative Neurophysiological conditions
I mean, why can't we view our brains as a more complex version of a computer? In this view, consciousness is literally just a series of confirmations within the brain. Consciousness itself is just our brain firing off a complex mostly-continuous pattern. I'm guessing, when that pattern is fired off within some specific sections of the brain, it's "louder" while some less significant sequences are "quieter". What you "hear" is just the mass of loud and quiet signals all mashed together. That's consciousness. So, our eyes look at something and our visual cortex starts firing off with our memory and many other systems. All that collective "noise" is consciousness. In this view, a computer running its operating system is creating consciousness. Consciousness is essentially an energetic highly complex pattern. Any energetic highly complex pattern is then consciousness. And what does that consciousness "feel"? Whatever data it's being fed combined with the complexity of its "core" pattern (brain). Of course, a child feels pain. They have nerves after all. Of course, an animal or a worm feel some level of pain. They have nerves as well. Are those nerves sophisticated enough to send pain signals? Would the complexity of the pattern matter so much to the subjective feeling of pain? If you think of the brain and biological systems as machines and computers, just more advanced, then it all makes a lot of sense. It just seems like we're trying to resolve some sort of mysticism and that's what's stopping us from fully understanding.
Either we don't and it's much like prior to birth- no memories or recollection, just non-existence. Or we do as we transcend another plane of reality, just not in a tangible or material way.
@@chrisdrugs249 it's such a hard thing to comprehend Non existence. I understand there was nothing before being born but after you have experienced life and then it's just gone. You wouldn't know you were gone so you wouldn't even know you lived at all.
@@scottbutcher9093 Indeed it is difficult to comprehend and honestly, I don't think there is any way to explain or rationalize it. Seems strange to imagine what it's like not to be there, or to have any awareness. Biologically, when we die, not only do our bodies die but so do the cells that make up our bodies. But what does that mean about consciousness, if we presume our cells are, to some extent, conscious entities. I think to put it simply, you just have to think about life before you were born but how can we? We have no memories of birth or as a fetus, yet we were still "conscious beings". I've heard some, who have had near death experiences or were technically "dead" but then came back, say different things. Some say it's like falling asleep without dreaming. Some say they go into a dream like/astral projection state where they are seemingly on the verge of "crossing over". Scientists and atheists theorize that such hallucinations are the result of chemical reactions in our brain, but some of these accounts come from people who were literally dead, for some period of time, but then came back. So for anyone to say they have the definitive answer is misleading. I think everyone will have their own unique experience. Maybe there is nothing at all or maybe something awaits beyond this life. I will say, from my own experience, I think it's safe to assume that when we die, we die. Our bodies break down/ decompose but as far as our consciousness/life energy.. Whatever happens to that is the greatest mystery. I'm okay with not knowing because it reinforces to me the idea that nothing is guaranteed and so it's important to live your life to the fullest and not take anything for granted.
lex it is proven the robin uses quantum mechanics to navigate the globe. human consciousness cannot be explained by classical physics but quantum mechanics opens the door to a deeper understanding of what consciousness is and quantum processes must be involved to produce soul or mind.
Panpsychism is wrong (in my opinion), I love Spinoza though more than anyone but that is the wrong conclusion. There might be potential for consciousness in all matter, but not necessarily be the case is the proper way I interpret his mind/matter attribute dichotomy. Although I admit I would have to read him again to be sure, but this is my take anyway. As red and being square are two attributes of matter (as Aristotle would say); but not all squares are red (and not all circles blue). I'm not sure what Spinoza says about whether there is direct mutual supervenience of the attributes or not
The consciousness in an evolving cygote is a very gradual process and goes basically through the entire human evolution during it's gestation process. Everything has a form of consciousness. Trees have consciousness. Dogs and humans have the same consciousness. Whales have a higher consciousness than all land mammals. It's a sliding scale. I believe that the AGIs will surpass all Earthian beings eventually in consciousness.
They are always conscious, its just not manifesting as clearly through the form. As the form develops, consciousness and mind start to manifest more. This doesn't mean the brain is causing the consciousness though.
The hard problem is.. hard. On one hand I totally believe that all processes of consciousness and logic can emerge physically(e.g. philosophical zombies) but on the other I feel like I have a point of view. Why me and not a rock or a cup? Physics cannot explain that.
Subjective experience is overrated as a problem requiring explanation. The discussion seems to assume an externally undisturbed brain for the purposes of discussion. But it is easy to see, when a person goes under the influence of anesthetic (alteration of brain chemistry) their subjective experience disappears. This happens to a varying degree when a person gets drunk or gets high on a drug. If one could do such an experiment, it will show that when a brain is in some shape or form purturbed, the person's realtime, reported subjective experience will be affected. The point? Subjective experience IS the brain structure and/or state. And when we report the subjective experience we use the same brain mechanisms to report it as such.
Circumcised men experience sex totally differently from uncircumcised men. One is colorblind. It's like watching a black and white television versus a color television. Black and white TV is good if you have never seen color TV, but the experience is very different.
So mind and consciousness are related, somehow. I wonder about the following kinds of statements being true (or not): mind ==> consciousness consciousness ==> mind or mind if and only if consciousness. I'm not sure what the standard views are on this. Chalmers, negates the 1st if-arrow, if a zombie is a person with a mind but no consciousness (possibly, I'm not a Chalmers expert). The fact that he CAN negate the 1st if-arrow means (to him) physicalism fails in some sense. Now what worries me with respect to "panpsychism" is that Chalmers seems to be negating the 2nd if-arrow (unless he thinks a sugar-molecule has a mind). I tend to the bi-conditional view of consciousness and mind (with the larger the consciousness, the larger the mind).
I'm coming round to the idea that the notion of facts circumfrancing all existence is an increasingly dated one, and that that consciousness is indicative that science has an eternal upper limit for descerning existence, beyond which a 'pre' or 'post' mathematical models such as art or psychedilc language can approach describing existence effectively. Not that I believe science should ever stop trying to investigate consciousness regardless, as of course I could be wrong.
I have thought a lot about it, the thing is we generate this consciousness what we call illusion in a physical universe. We are not special we cannot generate something like this illusion if it is not fundamental part of the universe. So in that sense, its not special to us, but fundamental to the universe. Evoluation does not know from trial and error how to tap into this secret functionality of our universe, it can only happen if it is fundamental, IMO everything is consiousness and my assumptions it has something to do with electrons. I am not talking about consiousness like descision making or our vision with our eyes i am talking about the generation of this illusion.
Those "memories" are "pre-linguistic" sensations ... difficult to recall that by trying to describe that with words ... Once upon a time, there was a land of giants where we were an infinitesimal universe inside a female giant ...
And I will probably tell you what (qualia) is - feelings. This is the energy of the stars - and living from there. And consciousness is a projection of genetic memory onto a module that receives external signals. In general, this is all briefly. Small is big, big is small. Mass is energy, energy is mass. -;))
'What is to be a Bat?' (... Boring ...) 'What is to be a Hydrogen's Nuclei? well, you should begin by trying to discern what is to exist for more than 2.1×10^29 years ... once you discern that, then, you should forget at all what is to discern something that exists...
this all seems quite matter of fact to me. i just don't understand how some materialists don't think it's even a problem, nevermind existing outside the physical world. i suspect it has to do with how some people's brains work ie too much left brain thinking.
If a person of 'materialist' persuasion believes there are such 'things' as patterns and processes, to your way of thinking, do these beliefs mean that the person is not really a materialist?
If you've ever passed out, the experience of regaining consciousness is really interesting to reflect on in terms of trying to understand what consciousness is. In my case, regaining consciousness wasn't really like a light switch was turned on and then suddenly I was fully conscious. It was more like consciousness emerged over the course of about 15 seconds (or so it seemed), almost like the brain had to reboot and reload all the programs. When I opened my eyes I saw faces looking down at me but I didn't really understand the concept of what a face is - like my brain hadn't loaded that program yet. Hard to explain, but fascinating. It makes me think that there really isn't some line between consciousness and not.
Almost as if your brain had to remember what it was seeing before "you" could make sense of it. I passed out once too, hit my head and had a similar experience. Took me a while to recognize anything in my room or even how I got there. It was terrifying but surreal.
Been under general anesthesia a few times and awareness came back in stages. Like rebooting a computer and it takes a while.
Slightly similar waking up from sleep, but much quicker rebooting
Nice, let's knock people out, then as they wake, yell at them "Yeah! right there, that's conciousness Bro", I think you re very practical
Thats your mental field expanding against the natural pressure of the astral dimension making space for the physical dimension... that expansion comes from the soul pressure, nothing to do with the brain, the brain is just in series in the connection if you want... well, thats the simplified version, but the point is that they just dont get it at all, they're not even looking at the right places... but you're right there's no "line", you were conscious minimally before you "regain" counsciousness, it was just too low for you to record it as memories are higher in the mental field/mind, again not in the brain... the "concept of faces" is there as well (higher), so knowing that it might make more sense to you.
One of the very few truly sane and highly aware people in this apparent world.
apparently
Consciousness is awareness. By conceptualizing, defining, theorizing about it, etc., they miss it.
To “solve” the “problem of consciousness,” in other words, one must stop thinking about it.
This implies machines (e.g. even an AI a million times more sophisticated than GPT-4, with self-reflection, memory, etc) could never be conscious or, if they can be, that it would be impossible for us to study them and gain any understanding of why they are conscious...
We borrow existence from consciousness. Consciousness was here before existence, it will continue long after our existence. It's been here all along. It's the one "thing" we possess that does not age, nor decays.
@@LukasOfTheLight Materialists confuse matter with Consciousness. Anything that can be perceived, observed, or experienced is not Consciousness. Consciousness is the Eternal Witness of objects (the brain), external & internal events (the mind), time, space, matter & energy. Consciousness is the observer of wakefulness, dreams, and the emptiness of deep sleep. Materialists will say deep sleep is the absence of Consciousness. Nondualists will say the contrary: deep sleep is the absence of experience or objects; there is only pure Consciousness in deep sleep.
Excellent conversation, it's hard to find this kind of stimulation.
Have you tried a fleshlight?
Ti's indeed
Right!. Chalmers is one of the few philosophers who is right on target. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choit" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. You will experience Pure Consciousness "In-Itself"; i.e. The Tao, The One, the Substance of Spinoza, the Absolute Infinite of Cantor, etc. In short, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Truth-Consciousness-Bliss. That's IT, You.
This was really enjoyable.
Without the broad wandering nature of these complex and deeply piercing conversations, I would feel far more alone with my thoughts and interests. Thank you, Lex!
Conciousness is the most complex abstract concept i know.
Same, and I think about it every day. It absolutely fascinates me. What is your view on conciousness?
consciousness explained facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
Consciousness is the least abstract thing I know. It is this. Right now. You can have concepts about it, sure, but why do that when you have direct experience/qualia of it?
Acting as an "armchair philosopher," I view our individual subjective consciousness as "borrowed consciousness" from a vast ocean of consciousness. Just as we borrow matter & energy from the foods we eat, we borrow the breath that fills our lungs, eventually we will all have to pay the piper and return what we have borrowed. Our individual subjective consciousness will return to the vast ocean of consciousness, like how a water droplet returns to the sea. Plants, rocks, nonliving objects are "potentials" for consciousness. Given enough time, even a rock will become conscious. It will borrow consciousness when the basic requirements are met.
This podcast was just awesome. I really like it. I have listen it two times. Informative video. I have listen many things about David Chalmers but first time I am hearing him. Thanks bro for this video.
Saw a tiny snip of Lex on Joe Rogan and he nailed it. Best episode... well - the one with Bob Lazaar was pretty crazy too.
Great stuff Lex! Thanks for your hard work! One day I'd love to hear a conversation between you and Federico Faggin
0:25 "The kind of consciousness that I'm interested in is basically subjective experience. What it feels like from the inside to be a human being." -- YES, me too. It's inextricably connected with the body, with organic life. It is so much more than a cerebral processing of stimuli. All our most powerful drives and longings come from the lizard brain: actual sensations and desires and instincts.
Dear Mr Fridman and Mr Chalmers, This a lay person's interpretation of the phenomenon that has stumped the human race as far as records exist. I use the allegory of the cell to present my argument. Consciousness is what could be called a membrane that holds all the moving parts of the mind in place. It’s nature’s way of providing the support system necessary to the brain for its role in thinking and coming to conclusions and taking decisions. The ‘membrane’ of consciousness is nature's way in coming up with a solution for making the thinking process work in 4 dimensions.
damn son
Consciousness is not a membrane.It's a transcendent experience.
Consciousness IS experience.
Very interesting subjects discussed here. Thanks Lex for sharing
Consciousness is life itself. Look at a a body that just died, and imagine that person when he was alive. We are alive and everything kinda makes sense to us is because we are based on consciousness. Is basically the universe run on consciousness. Close you eyes and imagine that your not thinking but your still being, that's consciousness. That's how I see it 😊
Too short! Thanks for the video... (OK I found the long version heheh)
Maybe I take an overly simplistic approach to this but when I think of conciousness I think of the combination of the word conscious and the suffix -ness. Conscious is defined as aware of and responding to one's surroundings and the ness suffix denotes quality or state. So to me conciousness is simply the state or quality of being aware of and responding to one's surroundings. From that simple definition it is obvious to me that everything, from atoms to solar systems, is conscious on some spectrum.
Would that mean that the solar system can be (temporarily) unconscious on some spectrum?
9:30 to 11:20 he can only see living things on earth as being conscious, and not something like an atom. He assigns consciousness to a physical object that moves based on its own perception. If an atom finds itself in the circumstance of a certain event it reacts accordingly, like our own perceptions.
You should read “The Glass Flower”by George RR Martin it’s a short story about consciousness, robots, and A.I. That takes place in the future.
"Alan Watts = The ortodox view"
...I like this guy
To me, consciousness is a mental process that repeats over and over again. It attempts to answer 2 questions 1) What is going on? 2) What should I do? I'm fairly sure consciousness exists in all living creatures.
The question of this video is not what consciousness does, but why mental processes exist at since thermodynamics should be enough to animate us as insensate zombies going through all of our exact same behaviors without the need for us to ever perceive at all (Google 'philosophical zombie").
What other living creature apart from humans would ask those two questions?
If panpsychism is true then Buddha or whoever wrote Buddhist epistemology was great beyond imagination..
Buddha's view is different than panpsychism. Yes that is true that Buddha was great and beyond imagination.
@@dineshjinjala1159 Buddha's view is also similar. As in all creatures and even material things possess consciousness. Also, there's subtle consciousness that's responsible for co-dependent arising (kind of third cause) of everything.
At least that's what I have read as per my best recollection.
No. All kinds of people have been spewing out random bullshit all the time, some of them are bound to appear more true than others. It wouldn’t validate Buddhists in any way.
@@michaelqiu9722 All radical ideas are isomorphous to random bullshits, then someone comes, creates arguments, mathematical formulae etc to support that random bullshit and rejoice in the "truth" they find.
You're asking the right questions. Please look into Bernardo Kastrup on consciousness and the "hard problem". Also, if you don't believe plants are conscious, try taking ayahuasca or peyote.
I wish you had asked about epiphenominalism, mental causation, and how or whether our conscious states can give rise to behavior, especially by virtue of its intentionality.
Really interesting, great question, I think it takes the development of recalling and memory to become fully conscious.
True but there are people with no memories who are still conscious. Their experience of life is obviously radically different than your’s or mine but they continue to exist in the moment
Swamp Thing very fascinating, no memories yet consciousness is still there , I’ll have to look more into that. To what degree of conscious are they? What can they do? Do they remember absolutely nothing?
Allen Bao it varies depending on what caused the memory damage. There are people with no long-term memories who live basically in a present of a few minutes to a few hours, there are plenty of people who have long-term memories but no short term memories especially in the aging population; and there are even people who after infection or brain injury have their memories complete wiped clean. An interesting thing about that is their brains will often create a backstory for them out of thin air. Ie a banker named from New Jersey might believe he is a brick layer named Todd from Nevada and be firm in that belief because his brain needs an identity to make sense of the world. I think answers with Joe did an episode on this and it was fascinating
I am. I don't need any data inputs from external environment to know that I exist. I exist in deep sleep even if I don't feel I exist. I don't die in deep sleep. I just exist. I am the universe and universe exists in me.
Coolest interview ever!!👍
Checkout podcast
The notion of the process rather than form of a system is an interesting take on things. Fritjof Capra in his books like the Systems view of life emphasises this way of looking at things. So consciousness is just a similar process to life itself or even just nature itself. And the fundamental feature is the process and the relationships between parts of a system
The baby point is interesting.
A baby is concious at about 18 months. I put my 9 month old in front of the mirror all the time and she looks into it but she doesn't react when there is a sticker on her forehead.
@@craiuirinel4103 What the hell does the ability to recognize reflections have to do with consciousness? Many animals don't recognize their reflections, it doesn't mean that they're not conscious. Do you believe that the baby is an automaton without qualia until then?
How so?
Nice discussion. Love to hear that nothing is quite off the table yet. consciousness is naturally occurring... and a precondition for an organized universe . If you consider the way quantum theory requires an observer to facilitate wave collapse. That is... everything is potential until there is an observer.
Yes, absolutely. Whenever we look closer and closer at the smallest parts of our reality, the universe has no choice but to get smaller and smaller in an attempt to avoid the investigation. Same goes for the largest parts of our reality. Stars, galaxies, nebulas, etc. The further out we look, the further things get from us because during these investigations, the universe is looking at itself. The same can be said for the problem of the double slit experiment. How else would a particle be able to retroactively change its behavior based on whether or not there was a conscious observer recording the results? If it's aware of itself, then that means that it's us and we are it. With this understanding, it seems reasonable to come to the conclusion that we are the universe. Absolutely fascinating. Consciousness is fundamental and everything we do must be centered from that knowledge. Manifestation, and the law of attraction is another solidifying argument for this. How else is it explained?
You can set the exposure and focus manually on your cameras.
please PLEASE get Giulio Tononi on the podcast
Consciousness feels like a loopback of pattern matching between what the senses perceive and what the generative mind produces from our memory. There seems to be also like self-generated chronological "narrative" of the events we experience, that we can tell ourselves like if it was coming from someone else. We can tell stories to ourselves and then find out in the real world if the story is true. And dopamine. Lots and LOTS of dopamine (and withdrawal). ^_^
This is basically Marx's dialectical materialism (based on Hegel's dialectic) and I agree, it seems like the most accurate framework for the functionality between subjective and external "reality".
Reminds me of Thomas Metzinger's 'self dellusion'
From one angle consciousness is ones(creatures) understanding of it's own existence and it's surrounding to some extent. There is also strong link to evolution, as consciousness is a condition to have an instinct to survive i.e. the fear of death, thus creates risk etc. something to consider, as we are creating more advanced AI. Also, it surely is based completely on laws of nature, as that(&space) is all there/here is.
Andrew Yang has tapped into the Collective Consciousness
I love Andrew Yang.
Andrew Yang is literally the way forward
When filming toward a window, a camera will always darken down other content in the frame. Solution here: lower the blinds or add some fill light on Lex. And now back to consciousness...
I don't believe it's like that. To me it seems to be an emergent phenomenon of complex structures. It totally makes sense for evolution to select for conscious beings, because they are able to organize and virtualize events on a timeline and connect them in a meaningful/abstract way, so we can plan, learn efficiently and so on... I mean if it's really some kind of fabric of the universe stuff, why can it not be measured but at the same time it has such profound physical implications like climate change...
The ability to think abstractly, to put meta-levels on everything just has built in the ability to think about your own ability to think... We even have a predisposition of profound religious or spiritual experiences, that free us from the "wasteful" activity of thinking about these weird self-referential problems. In contrast to most science that takes the third-person-perspective, consciousness is fundamentally first-person, so it might just be impossible to generalize or we are in a way not powerful enough to lift it to a coherent meta-level. I'm not sure about that though.
Could be, yet it doesn't explain anything what exactly conciousness is. It could be an answer to the easy problems, but nowhere does it explain the hard problem.
@@sk8shred I feel like the hard problem is always just taken for granted, but nobody really does a good job explaining it, it's either "obvious" or people explain it with some example like color perception and that colors are not only different but, they have some distinct redness or greenness to it... I'm actually not really sure here what they mean. What is there to be expected? Where exactly is the surprise? Don't get me wrong there is probably a lot to discover if you take certain drugs for example. But consciousness has this axiomatic quality to it. It's completely transparent, it's the thing through which we perceive everything. I don't think it can be explained... It just sits in a category of it's own, there is no background from where it stands out. In a sense it's everything. The world is absurd enough as it is, I think intellectually there are more interesting things, consciousness is best just experienced.
"Sat-Chit-Anand" (truth-consciousness-bliss): Classical Indian metaphysics
Human consciousness is not a single phenomenon. It's more like a collection of emergent properties of a very complex system: our brain. To think of it as a kind of universal substance, and even entertain the idea that it could perhaps be a fundamental property of the universe, to try to measure it with integrated information theory, like one would measure energy or mass, this makes no sense to me. As an analogy, consider jealousy: it's complex, we've all felt it, we don't know exactly how it works in the brain, many other animals display similar types of behaviour, etc. In many ways, it's like consciousness. But nobody in their right mind would ever imagine jealous plants, let alone jealous rocks, or even pan-jealousism!
I love metaphysic discussions with friends, and occasionally we go off on tangents like this, and it's fun, I get it. I read Giulio Tononi's book Phi and I enjoyed it, and his Integrated Information Theory might be very useful to detect when complex information processing is going on or not (whether it's jealousy or dreaming or anything else). A high level of integrated information processing is probably a prerequisite to consciousness, but certainly not the same thing. Panpsychism might even make good SciFi novels (I remember that Isaac Asimov's Foundations dwell into this territory). But conscious rocks? Seriously?
No one says that rocks or plants can be jealous.... The conscious states of other systems, different from human brain, are very different from conscious states that humans can have and vise versa. The IIT is perfectly reasonable theory. Consciousness cannot be explained as emergent property of a physical system, no matter how elaborate it is. It's funny how people can accept that charge or mass are fundamental properties but have difficulty doing it for consciousness.
but could you also imagine a concious being that has no biological form or body? Like an entity that just contains of organized energy. Maybe a different form of a Boltzmann brain; a seemingly random concentration of matter, that then formed some kind of conciousness through complex organization. I think that could be possible.
Interesting responses, thanks. As I said, I like IIT. It's mostly the use of the word "consciousness" that I disagree with: everyone has an intimate experience of what "consciousness" is, but this experience is extremely specific to humans: it involves senses, feelings, inner thoughts, and so on, none of which exist in rocks. Using the same word for rocks can only lead to confusion, as people will naturally tend to imagine rocks feeling or thinking. If we were to replace the word "consciousness" with a more neutral, less anthropomorphic term, then I would be fine with all of this. Let's say "integrated system" instead, since that's what we're really talking about. So, yes, it's possible to imagine some level of integrated information processing going on at the molecular level in a rock (although I would guess that if there's such a thing going on, it would be at the nano scale, so a rock would be best viewed as a huge collection of independent "integrated systems", not a unique system).
I have no problem considering "information" as a fundamental property of nature, like mass and energy. So no problem with information processing, and, by extension, no problem with integrated information processing, although at a less fundamental level (since it is built on top of the previous concepts). But the word "consciousness" just carries way too much baggage.
consciousness explained facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
Sometimes I am thinking about the analogy of a radio programme and a receiver; without a radio receiver, no one can experience the radio programme, yet it is still there. The human brain could also be kind of a receiver, and tune in to a fundamental thing called conciousness. Of course this is just speculation and I don´t really believe or know anything about conciousness. The only thing I know is true, is my own experience.
Science is the measurement of matter as experienced through consciousness, not of pure matter. All we can experience is consciousness of things, not things in of themselves. Something existing outside of consciousnesses is inconceivable, unimaginable, as all conception requires consciousness. In this sense consciousness is a fundamental, axiomatic dependency -- even more so than mass and force.
To me panpsychism is at least partially validated (although not definitively proven) by the double slit experiment, ie the observer effect. On the subjective side, an illustration of panpsychism I gravitate towards is that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, possibly related to string theory, meaning it is a form of energy with cohesive will that forms matter through vibrational aggregation. A way matter can be interpreted to be conscious is in varying degrees related to its experience of reality. A rock simply experiences its existence as such and the influence of whatever alters it, such as erosion and time, but without qualia, supposedly. So the complexity of processes varies the degree or interdimensional window of consciousness.
Consciousness is a death process of brain cells ; it's the opposite pole of life. The two go together ; life & death are intimately intertwined.
Consciousness is a mystery. It is a part of our existence. The question is between whether only pain and feelings are the cause of consciousness.
If you've ever heard a screaming baby just after they pulled the baby out of the womb you'd know that babies are born conscious. Also babies kick while they're in the womb and that verifies that babies are conscious even while they're still in the womb.
Consciousness comes from the atman. The atman is eternal. Atman illuminates and animates mind and body (atman = self/soul)
The way David Chalmers frames the problem sounds like an extreme position on the sorites paradox when you take into account the idea that consciousness may be subjective.
We can process the idea of a heap so it surely exists at an abstract level. If a heap is reduced by a single grain at a time, at what exact point does it cease to be considered a heap? Maybe being a heap is intrinsic to anything and it is a primordial property of the Universe and we can call this view panheapism.
Is any subgroup of the components of a heap also a heap?
Maybe consciousness is just an abstraction, analogue to the heap. We have a part of our brain which tricks us in thinking that we have a physical bound, that we are limited to our bodies and our internal processes. But sometimes we can see that we are less than that. That we are in fact a limited number of our internal processes and we don't control the heart muscles with our consciousness. Sometimes we may feel that we extend beyond our physical bodies and we are connected to everything around us. Perception is abstract. But meta perception is a case of perception itself. So basing our views on the idea that perception is real is a matter of perception. From this it follows that a priori knowledge about anything is beyond our reach (for me, this implies that every system there exists is just an abstraction so this is a nonanswer for every question one could ask, so every modeling of the Universe we can come up with is not real, but it must be useful. So protoconsciousness has to prove itself as worthy of explaining more phenomena than just consciousness for it to be accepted as a valid idea).
In set theory, this problem is solved by the ZFC axiom of regularity which implies that no set is an element of itself. But it seems that very many philosophical questions cannot be answered with this axiom extrapolated to the real world.
Wonder what other people think about this view and where I am wrong.
@18:07 Thomas Nagel should write a new essay entitled "What is it like to be batshit crazy?"
Is matter conscious ? Does consciousness arise only after a certain complexity is achieved ? As you talk a lot about psychedelics, ayahuasca / DMT. We know the pineal gland according to eastern philosophy is considered the EYE CHAKRA, the 3rd eye, the unbiased awareness or I'm not sure what. But I feel that has something to do with arising of consciousness ?
The 7 chakras are merely nervous junctions. How these junctions play a role, I don't know but I wish to know from a neural network point of view.
I grew up in the 80’s to a great show called “transformers”! The show had something very interesting with it that I think is more profound then even the original idea of its creation was intended!
For one, “the Prime” was physical device that holds the history of all those that came before, collecting the history and experience of each “spark” (soul) that came from each leader before it.
The Original creation was from Primus (human?) and used the “all-Spark” to forge a new spark (soul) that was unique, which was in the form of a transformer.
What’s interesting is that Optimus prime could represent some form of consciousness from his past experiences with other sparks occupied in the Prime. All the other transformers reacted to optimus’s orders as they themselves lacked form of free thinking without additional orders. Each autobot or decepticon was stuck in universal war that seems to be held in balance so long as Optimus Prime was reacting to new experiences that arose from Decepticons attempting his demise.
So long as Optimus prime was able to react, everything was in balance as both primes creativity and the expertise of all autobots were employed to complete a task.
Even the word “autobot” implies they do automatic functions, on top of their ability to “trans” form into an Automobile or their original form
It’s curious to me if A.I. Uses something similar to the example of prime? Using past experiences and inferring a greater than 50% chance to completing a task that is new to the robot, but inferred information from past experience.
Im not suggesting a simulator, as those cannot imply likely variations without first knowing the variations. I don’t believe randomness can also infer variations as the computer couldn’t possibly predict random variations in a realistic approach to a physical environment, such as our roads, without first knowing a vast amount of random variables to begin with (not to say this couldn’t be a method).
What I’m saying is that the collective of all FSD chips with visual and analog data combined might be able to predict a possible outcome so long as it can predict the top 3 best possible outcomes and select the best one based on the variables in the top 3 picks.
All this would have to be done in a split second, which I’m sure a computer could do. But it’s the speed at which it has to visually scrutinize it’s top 3 favourite picks, then “rock paper scissors” them together to “creatively” come up with its highest probability to get out of a situation unharmed.
I’m very layman when it comes to Deep learning, so for all I know this is how it learns, but something tells me there is more nuance that can be improved upon that can employ all the data sets and weave together hybrid outcome that is new and unique to a situation, all so doing without actually creating the singularity. A sort of simulated prediction algorithm based on the top closest video/analog data it has been given.
For instances I’m visualizing the Tesla FSD suite picking up 8 video sources and radar data. Now with that processing, I’m seeing it constantly loading 3 (arbitrary number here) overlays that “best” represent the current road condition based on past experiences that other drivers experienced. Similar to facial recognition, it would reference multiple points of reference and continually overlay the best possible reference sources for dealing with possible dangers at that time.
In the case of a danger, where the computer/car is coming across a new road condition that poses a threat to the car and the occupants, it defaults to its 3 best overlay frames and melds them together to complete the task at its optimal safely. Once it completed the task safely it uploads that “danger” to the cloud and all other cars encountering that will be flagged ahead of time to deal with it appropriately.
We are all connected, everything that has a life
David Chalmers is a badass
Consciousness is a virtual thread that writes to memory. Thread which is hosted on threads that compete for memory. The subconscious is the activity of the brain not recorded in memory.
Is what we experience and how we process that, consciousness?
Is it just the ability to say ‘I think therefore I am’
When building more and more complex computers, how will we know when one is conscious if we make it say the things conscious people say? If it makes unlogical preferential decisions? Do we even do that?
I like the Star Wars way. Any machines complex enough to think about it’s own experience has personality and consciousness.
It's part of the vibration in creating life.
Great subject, More I hope
So what is consciousness? It's subjective experience. So what is it that has this subjective experience and where is it? It's the consciousness that experiences things subjectively and it's part of our brain. So consciousness is a matter of information processing in our brain? Hmm maybe not, because we can't seem to find it, neuroscience tried to find the "sense of self" within the human brain, nope, don't know where it is or what it is, really, kinda failed there.
So they didn't find the bit of the brain that does the experiencing, so the information processing and experiencing are not the same thing?
Well rocks might have experience but they can't process the information and tell us about it, so we can't really tell, so ....
So it's information processing, but not really, because it's really subjective experience but we can't separate the subjective experience from the information processing, but we can't spot the "thing having the experience" within the information processing, so, it might be, kinda just fundamental?
Yeah.
So what is consciousness?
Emergent, evolutionary, thingy, somewhere, I think therefore I am, that's the conscious bit there.
So what is it?
Fundamental, that'll do, fundamental is what it is.
The answer is definitely getting clearer, so it is.
Do this:
1) 'Close' the eyes.
2) Stop breathing ... ( as long as you can)
What makes 'you' to breathe again ??
(For having subjective experience, to think ( or neo-cortex brain processing is not required at all ) ... to think about oneself embed in an immediate experience is just an environmental linguistic recursion ...
@@firstnamesurname6550 to think about one's self embedded in an immediate experience is just an environmental linguistic recursion, ok so what part of "you" has this "immediate experience"?
Are you saying that you are not conscious? Consciousness is not required, it's just an environmental linguistic recursion, so what part of you experiences this environmental linguistic recursion, and if it is possible to have any experience at all, does that not point to the very consciousness that this debate is about?
The point is, explain what has this "experience". I am here, having this experience, so what exactly is that? What part of me is "experiencing" this conversation?
Or is it just an "illusion" that consciousness seems to exist, which would suggest that I am not actually having any experience at all, it just "seems that way".
Another point, if it "seems like I'm having an experience" surely that points to something that is "having an experience" regardless of what is being experienced, the fact that something is being "experienced" points to a conscious "thing" experiencing things, so what is that thing having the experience that seems like the experience might be an illusionary experience, but it is still an experience that "something" seems to be in the midst of experiencing, so what is that?
Linguistic recursion or not, "something" is definitely having some kind of "experience" so what is that?
What is consciousness?
@@JamesCairney The Universe is a closed integrated system ... each layer of integration implies an existential domain ...
The anthropomorphic 'subjective immediate experience' is integrated and dynamic environmental processing where the non-local, multi-temporal and closed system universal integration recures into a local, inertial, uni-temporal, fragmented sub-environment where the human body sets thresholds of semi-integration and apparent boundaries ( as the body as an 'inner environment converging into a fragmented microcosms' and the complement of the body as an 'outer environment converging into a unitary macrocosm but fragmented by the inherent local, inertial and uni-temporal condition of the body ) for 'rendering or crystalizing' an anthropic existential domain ...
... what humans tend to identify as 'their consciousness or 'my' consciousness' is a phenom from the anthropic existential domain where the non-local nature in the universe sequentially collapses with the local integration of their body and its immediate 'outer environment' ...
... but for the universe, there is not such a thing as inner stuff and/or outer stuff ... and that is the 'existential primitive/seed' that compresses its fragmented and semi-integrated 'elements' into 'oneness' ...
@@firstnamesurname6550 ok, basically what you said, to summarize in layman's terms, the universe could be looked at as a projection of the conscious mind, separating consciousness from the universe isn't really the proper question, but I would say, that still doesn't really explain "what it is" or how we identify it in "things".
You could pose the same answer for any fundamental part of reality, inner and outer, not really relevant, the collapse of the wave function etc, yeah, ok, but we can still identify charge, spin, even the higgs boson, found it, we can explain it, point to it, build things that can detect it, so, why does every explanation of consciousness not manage to actually identify consciousness, in any reasonable way without reducing the whole universe down to something that "technically doesn't quite exist", despite the fact that everyone reading this comment knows for sure that they, themselves are indeed conscious.
We seem to still be in a situation where, after all this, I can still ask, so what is consciousness? Because the question really hasn't been answered.
Whoever called it 'the hard question' kinda under estimated it a fair bit, it's so hard, no one can formulate an answer that actually addresses the question properly, at all, in anyway that can be tested and used in anything more than a thought experiment, which is ironic seeing as it's the thing experiencing the thought that we are all trying to explain!
Who'd have thought, 'so what is it?' would be so hard?
Maybe sir Roger Penrose is right and it's in the microtubules, I don't know.
20,000 views is criminally low for the quality of this conversation
Elon said "How do you prove that?" rhetorically... referring to "consciousness is a fundamental property..."
We can only go by the only available set of data we have, which is our 1st hand observations. At no point do these ever appear to be reducable to a prior sub set- consciousness so far appears to remain rigidly a priori, though the search to prove otherwise is mounting. That's possibly due to the exponential banality of most modern media forcing ever more of humanity to seek meaninful answers to the big questions. I'd personally define the spectrum of perceived meaning - from things of such minor consequence to us that we're barely even peripherally aware of them, to things of profound and immediate importance to us- as *the* fundamental axis of the physical world. However because consciousness is transphysical while at the same time fundamental to physicality, science is no better equipped to explain how, than it can discern which is the best ever piece of music. Maybe that is why art, literature, fun etc are as important to many of us as the physical dynamics of meathook reality.
The vibration that holds mind and flesh. In a quantum in tangled
According to Giulio Tononi’s IIT theory, a simulated brain cannot be conscious. The elements of the neural net must have causal power.
What is a "simulated" brain?
Only if you believe consciousness as separate being - that would be ego to Eastern mystics - do we create consciousness. I believe that consciousness (or absolute reality) just exists and is all pervasive, and we are conscious beings having a human experience.
Consciousness is nothing until it's observed. Then it's everything.
So, the hard problem of consciousness is 1. why does subjectivity exist at all and 2. Through what process does mental experience arise out of brain/nervous system functions.
I've always found the answers of 1. An evolved Survival advantage for organisms to be able to perceive their environment, plan actions, & mentally represent itself in space + throughout time.
And 2, Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that emerges as a result of biological energy expenditures +complex nervous system functions. So subjectivity is the result of brain networks containing millions of neurons all with thousands of synaptic connections & all firing 5-50 times per second. The emergence of consciousness is perfectly compatible with physics and is a widely agreed upon explanation for many novel properties of the universe.
So the answer to the why part of hard problem of consciousness is evolved survival advantage and the answer to how is Emergence.
Also, panpsychism is a really unrealistic idea; we still have evidence of the Neural Correlates of Consciousness so attributing a fundamental consciousness absent any evidence then creates a problem of explaining the real evidence. That's called the compounding problem asking why only living organisms with brains have the external indicators of consciousness and why NCCs exist at all
Couldn't watch the original but this "clip" but this was faster paced
The simplest things can articulate the more complex truths that remain unseen. Like a stain,.....what is it indicative of? Like your work. Good think stuff for goth rockers.
Consciousness can just be a product of a brain as far as we know, and that mean that when you die its just over. It would be better to try to find out who made humans cause we are obviously very well programmed just like the universe as a whole, laws of physics are just forces that somebody had to think off in order for them to exist
Conciousness as we experience it is the partial summation of the great combining and dividing forces of all energy and existence in microcosm. Expressed up as reality/dimensions folds in upon itself as energy increases and becomes matter and vice versa creating abstraction and contrast. This creates a differentiation between matter and gives all energy specific form as it rises from zero point. Everything has conciousness to a degree.
All life behaves consciously. If you can tell it is alive, you do that by recognizing its consciousness. Even the tiny amoeba under the microscope shows obvious signs of consciousness - it reacts, it forages, or predates. The subjective consciousness you want to explain is just that which you see in any life; the more complexly subjective it is, the more of 'that' there is. The amoeba feels at least something, inwardly, from its interaction in its environment. What it feels is its subjective consciousness. Functioning as an amoeba must have success and failure. Success leads to more life, and failure leads to death. Therefore, in its subjective consciousness it feels stimulated to more success. We may experience that same feeling qualia as 'well being'. Who can define well being? Anyone can use a lot of words to describe it. But what is it, that is different than consciousness?
Hey here's a real question for u or anyone what does the mind or brain got to do with conscious experiences of perception and how do you demonstrate what being conscious is and what being conscious is not when studying comparative Neurophysiological conditions
should have gave him an option to answer "I don't know".. its ok lol. Would love to see what Dr. Amit Gonswami answer would be
I mean, why can't we view our brains as a more complex version of a computer? In this view, consciousness is literally just a series of confirmations within the brain. Consciousness itself is just our brain firing off a complex mostly-continuous pattern. I'm guessing, when that pattern is fired off within some specific sections of the brain, it's "louder" while some less significant sequences are "quieter".
What you "hear" is just the mass of loud and quiet signals all mashed together. That's consciousness. So, our eyes look at something and our visual cortex starts firing off with our memory and many other systems. All that collective "noise" is consciousness.
In this view, a computer running its operating system is creating consciousness. Consciousness is essentially an energetic highly complex pattern. Any energetic highly complex pattern is then consciousness. And what does that consciousness "feel"? Whatever data it's being fed combined with the complexity of its "core" pattern (brain).
Of course, a child feels pain. They have nerves after all. Of course, an animal or a worm feel some level of pain. They have nerves as well. Are those nerves sophisticated enough to send pain signals? Would the complexity of the pattern matter so much to the subjective feeling of pain?
If you think of the brain and biological systems as machines and computers, just more advanced, then it all makes a lot of sense. It just seems like we're trying to resolve some sort of mysticism and that's what's stopping us from fully understanding.
If when we die our consciousness is no more, how would we ever know we existed?
Either we don't and it's much like prior to birth- no memories or recollection, just non-existence. Or we do as we transcend another plane of reality, just not in a tangible or material way.
@@chrisdrugs249 it's such a hard thing to comprehend Non existence. I understand there was nothing before being born but after you have experienced life and then it's just gone. You wouldn't know you were gone so you wouldn't even know you lived at all.
@@scottbutcher9093 Indeed it is difficult to comprehend and honestly, I don't think there is any way to explain or rationalize it. Seems strange to imagine what it's like not to be there, or to have any awareness. Biologically, when we die, not only do our bodies die but so do the cells that make up our bodies. But what does that mean about consciousness, if we presume our cells are, to some extent, conscious entities. I think to put it simply, you just have to think about life before you were born but how can we? We have no memories of birth or as a fetus, yet we were still "conscious beings". I've heard some, who have had near death experiences or were technically "dead" but then came back, say different things. Some say it's like falling asleep without dreaming. Some say they go into a dream like/astral projection state where they are seemingly on the verge of "crossing over". Scientists and atheists theorize that such hallucinations are the result of chemical reactions in our brain, but some of these accounts come from people who were literally dead, for some period of time, but then came back. So for anyone to say they have the definitive answer is misleading. I think everyone will have their own unique experience. Maybe there is nothing at all or maybe something awaits beyond this life. I will say, from my own experience, I think it's safe to assume that when we die, we die. Our bodies break down/ decompose but as far as our consciousness/life energy.. Whatever happens to that is the greatest mystery. I'm okay with not knowing because it reinforces to me the idea that nothing is guaranteed and so it's important to live your life to the fullest and not take anything for granted.
10:34.....
lex it is proven the robin uses quantum mechanics to navigate the globe. human consciousness cannot be explained by classical physics but quantum mechanics opens the door to a deeper understanding of what consciousness is and quantum processes must be involved to produce soul or mind.
I think, therefore I upvote
Panpsychism is wrong (in my opinion), I love Spinoza though more than anyone but that is the wrong conclusion. There might be potential for consciousness in all matter, but not necessarily be the case is the proper way I interpret his mind/matter attribute dichotomy. Although I admit I would have to read him again to be sure, but this is my take anyway. As red and being square are two attributes of matter (as Aristotle would say); but not all squares are red (and not all circles blue). I'm not sure what Spinoza says about whether there is direct mutual supervenience of the attributes or not
Suddenly, the moment one becomes aware of just how unaware they truly are but, shamefully slips back into zombie mode.
The consciousness in an evolving cygote is a very gradual process and goes basically through the entire human evolution during it's gestation process. Everything has a form of consciousness. Trees have consciousness. Dogs and humans have the same consciousness. Whales have a higher consciousness than all land mammals. It's a sliding scale. I believe that the AGIs will surpass all Earthian beings eventually in consciousness.
Maybe it isn’t like anything to be anything until self reflection ‘human’ kicks in
Amazing. Thinking about when baby's become conscious
They are always conscious, its just not manifesting as clearly through the form. As the form develops, consciousness and mind start to manifest more. This doesn't mean the brain is causing the consciousness though.
@@mad-bhaktimlabhateparam2592 great insight!
The hard problem is.. hard. On one hand I totally believe that all processes of consciousness and logic can emerge physically(e.g. philosophical zombies) but on the other I feel like I have a point of view. Why me and not a rock or a cup? Physics cannot explain that.
Subjective experience is overrated as a problem requiring explanation. The discussion seems to assume an externally undisturbed brain for the purposes of discussion. But it is easy to see, when a person goes under the influence of anesthetic (alteration of brain chemistry) their subjective experience disappears. This happens to a varying degree when a person gets drunk or gets high on a drug. If one could do such an experiment, it will show that when a brain is in some shape or form purturbed, the person's realtime, reported subjective experience will be affected. The point? Subjective experience IS the brain structure and/or state. And when we report the subjective experience we use the same brain mechanisms to report it as such.
Circumcised men experience sex totally differently from uncircumcised men. One is colorblind. It's like watching a black and white television versus a color television. Black and white TV is good if you have never seen color TV, but the experience is very different.
Eh, my boy became a clipper! Let's milk that TH-cam Algorithm :D :D :D
Лекс, не налегай на триптамины! Оно помогает, но не бесплатно :)
where is the energy to think? How much? Energy transforms on death.
..I would think that consciousness is self awareness...
So mind and consciousness are related, somehow. I wonder about the following kinds of statements being true (or not):
mind ==> consciousness
consciousness ==> mind
or mind if and only if consciousness.
I'm not sure what the standard views are on this. Chalmers, negates the 1st if-arrow, if a zombie is a person with a mind but no consciousness (possibly, I'm not a Chalmers expert). The fact that he CAN negate the 1st if-arrow means (to him) physicalism fails in some sense. Now what worries me with respect to "panpsychism" is that Chalmers seems to be negating the 2nd if-arrow (unless he thinks a sugar-molecule has a mind). I tend to the bi-conditional view of consciousness and mind (with the larger the consciousness, the larger the mind).
Humans: create a word that they can’t even explain ourselves.....alien beings: congrats, you solved it
I'm coming round to the idea that the notion of facts circumfrancing all existence is an increasingly dated one, and that that consciousness is indicative that science has an eternal upper limit for descerning existence, beyond which a 'pre' or 'post' mathematical models such as art or psychedilc language can approach describing existence effectively. Not that I believe science should ever stop trying to investigate consciousness regardless, as of course I could be wrong.
I have thought a lot about it, the thing is we generate this consciousness what we call illusion in a physical universe. We are not special we cannot generate something like this illusion if it is not fundamental part of the universe. So in that sense, its not special to us, but fundamental to the universe. Evoluation does not know from trial and error how to tap into this secret functionality of our universe, it can only happen if it is fundamental, IMO everything is consiousness and my assumptions it has something to do with electrons. I am not talking about consiousness like descision making or our vision with our eyes i am talking about the generation of this illusion.
Can you guys remember your earliest memory as a baby? 😣
Those "memories" are "pre-linguistic" sensations ... difficult to recall that by trying to describe that with words ...
Once upon a time, there was a land of giants where we were an infinitesimal universe inside a female giant ...
I think, therefore I am.
I am, therefore I think.
It's a Mobius thing. 😁
And I will probably tell you what (qualia) is - feelings. This is the energy of the stars - and living from there.
And consciousness is a projection of genetic memory onto a module that receives external signals. In general, this is all briefly.
Small is big, big is small. Mass is energy, energy is mass. -;))
sorry for the poor translation of the text
What if it's just a massive stellar cloud that's passing through. Some pick up the signal more than others. Salute
'What is to be a Bat?'
(... Boring ...)
'What is to be a Hydrogen's Nuclei?
well, you should begin by trying to discern what is to exist for more than 2.1×10^29 years ... once you discern that, then, you should forget at all what is to discern something that exists...
this all seems quite matter of fact to me. i just don't understand how some materialists don't think it's even a problem, nevermind existing outside the physical world. i suspect it has to do with how some people's brains work ie too much left brain thinking.
If a person of 'materialist' persuasion
believes there are such 'things' as patterns and processes,
to your way of thinking,
do these beliefs mean that
the person is not really a materialist?