What is consciousness? Philosopher, Dan Dennett explains.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ค. 2024
- Cognitive scientist and philosopher, Professor Daniel Dennett, from Tufts University, takes us on a tour of the mind explaining why consciousness itself is a kind of illusion. For more on the brain, read our feature: bit.ly/2Isifvx
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The more I re-watch this, the more I realize how great it is. His analyses and explanation are excellent, holistic arguments that are logically tight and must be at least close to the true working of the brain producing consciousness.
Great content NS, this is the sort of thing I think we would all like to see from you, rather than the boiled down catchy headlines with a 30 second video that repeats its own title actual conversations like this are genuinely tantalising and satisfying.
More of this, please!
I'll enthusiastically second this.
Excellent description by a man who has spent his life working on understanding consciousness.
much respect i give to this man's ability to have learned and express what he has learned and go even beyond that
The world would be a lesser place without our beloved Daniel Dennett.
Thankyou for the time and it is appreciated. Thankyou.
What a gem. I remember reading CE and being excited by the content and the mind that created it. He does not disappoint here - he speaks slowly and methodically - which some might not enjoy, but he is trying to communicate immensely complex things in a way that is appreciable and intuitive. Well worth your time. Thanks for posting.
For those without a background in Philosophy, I'd like to point out that this is one theory of mind only. This is Dennett's variation of physicalism, the idea that consciousness can be reduced down to and explained by the brain. Now, while few philosophers, except dualists, doubt that the mind (consciousness) is generated by the brain, it seems puzzling to think that we'll discover anything about consciousness by studying the brain (which is what Dennett suggests when comparing learning about consciousness to learning about the stomach); because, there has never been a discovery in science which has shown any light on the experience of consciousness, so even if we discover every physical behavior of the brain, have we really learned anything new about how it generates consciousness? Too rephrase Nagel, if I learn everything about a bat's brain, do I know anything about what it's like to be a conscious bat?
I respect Dennett, but he's, understandably, presenting this as if it's a fact, where's it's really just physicalism and open to many critiques.
Calum Tatum agreed
"there has never been a discovery in science which has shown any light on the experience of consciousness" this is bullshit.
Dennett's theory of mind is backed up by experimental evidence in neuroscience. saying that consciousness emerges in the brain but studying the latter cannot shed light on the former, and not offering an alternative, is worthless philosophical woo.
@@calinguga Dennett's theory of mind is not backed up by experimental evidence in neuroscience. The "experimental evidence" in neuroscience points towards the mind surely being generated by the brain; the evidence however does not shine light on the experience of consciousness. I like Dennett's quote, "it's neurons on the outside, consciousness on the inside", and I think it's about as close as anyone has gotten to succinctly explaining the physcalist point of view. But, it's philosophically lazy to act like that simply explains away the mind. However; given that your counterargument starts with "this is bullshit", and your defense ends with "[disagreeing with you] is worthless philosophical woo," I doubt you're much worried about philosophical laziness.
Writing off an idea as philosophical woo, writes off what philosophy is about. There's already a discipline called neuroscience, it does a great job of explaining the structured of the brain and their corresponding impact on consciousness; however, that;s not what we are looking for. Just as I could know everything about the neural structure of a bat's brain, but still not know anything about the consciousness of a bat.
Dennett, and other dogmatic physcalist, want to simply pretend like anyone who disagrees with them believe in some odd dualism that discounts the material basis of the mind. But, that's a strawman.
I actually agree with Dennett, but I disagree with arrogant, blowhards running around shouting that other opinions are "bullshit and philosophical woo" and using that as an excuse to either not engage with, or misrepresent, the opposing ideas.
In my view, Nagel misses the point though as he conflates the question "what is it like?" with the question "how is it like?". In other words, if you know everything about a bat's brain, you know how the bats consciousness is produced by the brain, but this is not the same thing as knowing the contents of the bat's consciousness. The fact that I don't know the contents of a bat's consciousness doesn't mean that I can't understand how the bat's consciousness is produced. To use an analogy, we have a pretty good understanding by now of how a brain processes language. However, imagine that a subject's brain activity was monitored in real time by some means (e.g., MRI scanner or alternative method) and asked to read a sentence. Would monitoring the brain activity allow us to determine what sentence was being read? Not at this point in time and (possibly) never. But that doesn't mean that we can't explain the neurobiological processes that are involved in allowing the particular subject to read that particular sentence. Repeat this enough times and we can then generalise and conclude that "these regions of the brain are the regions responsible for the act of reading". We have thus explained the process of the mind wrt reading, without ever needing to understand the contents of the process. Similarly, if I want to understand digestion, I don't really care what particular food is being processed - I just want to know the processes involved. Nagel's view however is akin to claiming that we must know the contents in order to understand the process.
@Thymoteo Eevi "evidence? What evidence?" - It's a pretty bold claim you're making which needs substantial evidence to back it up. I would posit that the fundamental thesis of neuroscience is that the brain DOES produce mental activity, and that neuroscience is currently the most successful approach we have to understand mental activity. If we want to refute this premise, therefore, we must replace it with something with greater explanatory and predictive power, otherwise we are into the realms of mere nihilism.
If we want to take a sceptical approach, we have to say that the only three things we know for sure are 1) that there are such things as brains; 2) human beings have sensory and phenomenal experiences; 3) there are strong correlations between these phenomenal experiences and patterns of activity in the brain. Of course, correlation is not causation, but there is clearly a relationship of some kind between the two. We need to know more about this relationship and, in particular, whether it is causal.
If we want to take a scientific and sceptical approach (or if we want to apply Ockham's razor) we have to start with the minimum set of concepts, and only those which we have proven to be the case (i.e., sensory / phenomenal experiences do occur, brains). It is not at all clear from a scientific point of view that there is such a thing as a "mind" or "consciousness". I'd go further and say that these two concepts are very loosely defined so that they can't, as yet, even be treated as empirical questions. What do we actually mean by "mind" or "consciousness"? And if we don't know, how can we test anything about these?
By far the best Dan Denett interview. He actually understands Dan's philosophy.
my best philosopher for our centre
🙏🏾✌🏾
The discussions on consciousness here seem to highlight an odd confusion I have with the term "consciousness". At one point it is more or less described as generated by the brain and that it is identical to the contents of sense experience and mental activity (something I usually call the particular subjective experience). Later on, the idea of the "reflective loop" is posited, pointing out that it is consciousness if it is aware of itself as consciousness (something I usually associate with sapience, as a sophisticated high-level reflective mental activity).
However, I usually associate the term consciousness with the reality that a particular experience IS in fact being experienced. A single-cell organism, even if it is drastically limited in its sense and mental faculties and is certainly not self-aware, should still be conscious and experiencing its own existence, on some level.
I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I've would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few weeks in his memory, I made a playlist of his lectures and interviews for myself to work through, listening to Dr Dennett lectures would be my idea of Heaven 41:00
Nice to enjoy a talk video that does not include background music. There are so few on TH-cam.
Hnnn, most of the talks I see on YT don't have music.
EXCELLENT interview! One interview by Dan Dennett is worth three from just about anyone else involved in the serious study of human consciousness.
consciousness explained, and more facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
No, he is a charlatan
The hard problem is the measurement problem , we can describe the universe as a cold system, what we refuse to ask is who am “I” , who is asking the question? Who is making the measurement? Or what is a measurement? I’m not sure many people address this directly. What do I know 🤷♂️?
"Use your illusion" - awesome GnR albums
how often, during a very complex interview or lecture, does the main character never get lost in thought----this guy is so well rehearsed (i say that in a positive way) , that he does not phumph
"the way they are coordinate gives you high level cognition" (10:05---)-----circ 12:20 "and that is what will tell how the pieces work"---he is right on on that!
He speaks with simple words in an understandable way, while his book is incredible confusing.
There's moments of feeling confused, which is a necessary part of learning something, and at some point you shift from confusion to that feeling of understanding, and then you feel as if it's something you've always known. If you alway's understand something you're not learning new things.
@@rxyanryxan3585 The concepts in the book are simple and can be explained simply but for some reason he uses unnecessary complicated language.
@@jorostuff Right, Dennett may have been intending to promote this book to an academically oriented audience or maybe write in a way that takes work to understand. Could it not be useful to build your vocabulary up a bit? lol.
@@rxyanryxan3585 Sure, it's useful for me to build my vocabulary, but I bought this book to understand more about consciousness, not to improve my English linguistic skills.
He suffers from Scientism
Good interview. Always great to see Daniel Dennett in action.
Thanks for this!
One of the very important question that I would like to direct at Professor Dennett and others is this: Do we know with any degree of certainty how and under what circumstances one acquires ability to have a free will? We generally call it maturity. We know that such maturity is not present at birth and we have various theories claiming different causal factors that contribute to its acquisition. For the benefit of our survival, it is vitally important to understand the processes by which such `maturity' is acquired or develops and how science can help to ensure that increasing numbers of children acquire such an ability and remain steadfast in such wisdom. I think it is rather unfortunate that no discussion on consciousness encompasses how the capacity to become a moral agent develops, under what circumstances it it flourishes and wanes.
Free will? What is that?
For the sake of simplicity we may understand free will as the ability to purposefully reach a decision.
It sounds to me like Dennett equivocates free will with what we commonly call "self-control." Which is still Dennett just changing the definition. You never hear people arguing about whether "self-control" exists.
@@ralphmacchiato3761 The ability to formulate a question, such as, "what is that?"
"purple gown"!!!!!!!!!!!! just wonderful how so familiar he is with this stuff, that he can express analogies and metaphors as if he has been doing this a thousand yrs
I've been a big fan of this guy for years. I could listen to him all day long. He helps us to understand our greatest mystery... Who am I?
When I hear descriptions of the difference between subjectivity and free will it always sounds like there is a distinct difference between one or the other. Either you are reflecting back on your subjective states or you are not. But I think it has to be more of a spectrum. There are parts of my day where I am much more aware of my states than others...but even during those semi-aware states I'm still conscious. I represent it in my mind like a circular arrow with a starting point where you can say that one is conscious (I think all mammals would probably meet the requirements for this starting point) and the arrow represents a spectrum of states where a fuzzy self awareness morphs into deeply conscious states. The self would not always have to be the focus, but subjective states would. Then you get into how to define the self and that seems to be quite a fuzzy concept also.
" ...you can notice that you notice." This is called consciousness. Dennett is not denying that consciousness exists. He pretends he does but he does not.
Dennett does not say he is denying consciousness exists. His critics accuse him of that. He says he is explaining consciousness.
color coding the world---so simple, but brilliant in its application to this discussion
at 8:45 the interviewer brings up my point and D answers it in a way that makes my point---the brain communicates with itself---why that should be so mysterious, is beyond me---D uses the word "understanding"---well do we not understand each other, and i say our own self, via language---sure, there are facial expressions and grunts, but LAGUAGE is key---and memory of what was 'languaged'!!!
He talks so high level of phylosophy, not easy to get it! I think its because the mind is most complicated thing as we know
A small nitpick: Dennett says at 29:01"that's *free fall* [his emphasis]" but free fall means there is no air resistance, or that air resistance can be neglected. This is clearly not the case with leaves "being pushed about the wind" as Dennett said (or words to that effect). Free fall, in science, is for example an object moving freely in a vacuum, whether falling straight down, or orbiting the earth, or even being in the process of escaping the earth's gravity due to having more than the escape speed. An object in free fall moves freely under the influence of gravity. It may be moving upwards or in any other direction, but it's acceleration is entirely due to the gravitational field. I hope Dennett knew this and was joking with the New Scientist interviewer, and us.
He's not explaining consciousness, he is eliminating it softly. That's what he did his whole career, he tried to shift towards an understanding of consciousness as an illusory concept, reminiscent of Descartes view. He thought "philosophical zombies" is an incoherent concept for example. Most of the work in the last century on the mind was about trying to concilliate an understanding of the mind in purely physical terms and it all came down to complexity in this orientation (whatever that means), but in the last 20 years or so, people started to shift away from this, mainly thanks to Chalmers argument regarding the hard problem, which puts consciousness again in a very problematic status, especially regarding scientific research on it. But personally i think shifting away from purely physicalist understanding of the mind is progress.
If consciousness is not elemental or subject to motion then it is fundamental. Mind can be considered as elemental emerging with quantum events and is therefore subject to motion. There is a difference between consciousness and mind in this regard. Animals have instinct only, humans have instinct and reason. Free will, choice, comes from the ability to choose between options other than being instinctively bound as animals are. Nature, thankfully, is determined allowing a stage that has stability, the sun rises and sets, as a background for the human drama to play out. Trying to materialize consciousness requires mental contortions and is not necessary. It being fundamental is not a threat to the human ego or to human flourishing.
Only 16k view! Outrageous
Great answers.....but even greater questions by the interviewer!
Yes the interviewer was excellent
Super excellent discussion. Thanks!
Excellent analysis on an impossible subject
I would describe this conversation as dancing around a fire and refusing to believe it is the source of the heat and light that is observed.
That is exactly what he is doing.
what is doing the observing?
@@halcyon2864 where you have moving charges you have a dynamic magnetic field.
What exactly do you mean? Dancing around what and refusing to believe it is the source of what? I thought it was great and a lucid exposition of consciousness at the highest level, given that there are a multitude of details to be filled in.
I don't if you listened to the end because your description makes no sense
fascinating
"reflective loop" also brilliant--"our language is as different as it is from bird songs---of course---birds don't write their songs in books or into different bird species as we do in translating our thoughts from one language into another (we will all be brown in the future, and speak one common language)
Nice title
20:34; illusion of consciousness.
... not just notice things, but notice that you are noticing ...
Brilliant knowledge and thinking about consciousness and metaphor of smart phone... Less curious about free will and odd to think that dolphins and primates not worthy of consideration... Free will stuff too polemic for me and really not interesting as the first bit... Not heard or read of him but what does he think about trauma and attachment?
He passed away 4 days ago, 19th April 2024.
First good video on this channel!
Sounds absurd to me that "free will" is something some people obtain and some somehow don't. There is no point where peoole suddenly become able to take responsibility to their actions. They just learn to think that way but they are still able to make the same childish mistakes with no control over it. Mistakes made without thinking too much and maybe on some primitive or emotional basis. They just take the responsibility of their actions afterwards.
He didn't answer the question of "if consciousness is an illusion, then who is being fooled". He just said "oh it's a beneficial illusion, not a bad one". That doesn't answer the criticism.
wow!---20:40---other species 'track' but we really 'track'---not just notice things, but NOTICE that you notice them---there!!!, is the story of our wonderful human consciousness---the zen like notice that we notice that we notice
so, did i not fore shadow that "free will" will come into play?
When asked, "who is it that is being deceived by the illusion," he dodges the question saying, "No, you're the beneficiary of the illusion. It's a helpful illusion." Ok great. WHO IS THE "YOU" BEING BENEFITED?!
It's hard to accept simplicity.
Since we can’t understand birdsong or communicate in any meaningful way with whales, etc, how can we say that animals aren’t writing poems, lying, or generating meaning? Imagine for a second that birds have complex folklore, oral tradition, literature, etc. Since the songs, flight patterns and wing twitches are deeply foreign to us, isn’t it possible that we’re missing the whole point? Seems like a deep dissection of a species’ songs and behavior would be needed to say this confidently. Chickadees, as I understand it, have at least 10 broad categories of calls; but the specifics of how they’re used are unclear, let alone the variation between individuals, regions, etc. I’m fond of DD, but he sometimes stakes things out absolutely that are a bit too early to know. Being uncertain is ok.
the very fact a CRT works is an illusion due to the eye not being fast enough to catch up with the signals
Why would the brain need a user interface?
Exactly. Why do we need to have subjective experience at all?
I'll save everyone 41 minutes.
Dan's answer to "what is consciousness?": A mistaken belief in something that doesn't really exist that represents biological stimuli in a particular way for adaptive utility.
16:50---he simply interjects VISION to express this C issue in a partial way
26:40------he has the brains and the guts to tell it like it is---these other species can NOT do what we do---we have this language and libraries to hold our books so we can rocketry into the solar system and beyond
Had we been born with paws or hooves, would we not be as limited in all ways, as are all other animals? It’s as likely that my personal consciousness will survive the death of the material body that I inhabit, as the personal consciousness of an alligator will survive the death of the material body that he or she inhabits.
Would seem there is some confusion with the wording here.. Believe what Daniel is speaking on is the mind, and not consciousness.
ahhh, but the mind is the partner of consciousness. THe brain talks with its mind thus revealing a conscious thought. He does not go into that, but dies reveal the group setting that allows for that. this is so complex. Sorry, as i am not at my best right now. Just specifically all he states is good enough to deal with
If you believe that there is such an abstraction thing called matter and there is a a material world, then you naturally conclude by this bias that consciousness is an invisible thing generated by the brain. But the question is how imaterial is generated by material?
How a picture is meaningful when it is constructed by millions of pixel?
Agitation of millions of cells is called hunger. Is it a belief/conviction or subjective experience
When we have pre-eminent cognitive scientists and philosophers who describe the human brain as a kind of computer we have some serious problems in our knowledge.
The human brain is THE ultimate computer and computers are LIKE the brain; not the other way around.
Technological advancements in computer science are meant to
1: reach the level that the human brain operates at
and
2:Attempt to go beyond what the human brain can do.
Wether you like it or not, the brain is a natural computation system and we are an emergent property of a process of computation that we do not understand yet.
By rejecting free will you first need to conceptualise it. And by conceptualising it, the best example of free will I could come up with was a computer-like system with the capacity to reflect on its processes. Which is what we have... So.
Even if technically there's a causal relationship linking back to every thought we've ever had, we're still are the most free-willed beings. And in the context of honest vs dishonest, nice vs unkind, in conjunction with the fact that reflection can bring to mind more than 2 ideas worth pursuing at anyone time, the capacity to do something kind or unkind is well within our control.
Dennett doesn't seem to understand that consciousness cannot be measured. You won't find consciousness in the brain. You can't come up with an equation that explains subjective experience. Dennett cannot explain how subjective experience emerges from simple matter that has no subjective experience.
Can someone define what "subjective experince" is?
@@rjgarnett Pain is a subjective experience for example. It cannot be measured, it can only be experienced.
@@DeterministicOne
I don't think I said that pain is a subjective experience that can be measured. I am quite in agreement with you.
As an example of assuming things from measurement. Dogs produce more of the "Love" hormone oxytocin than cats do per umol per ml of blood. The wizz kids then decide that dogs must therefore be more affectionate than cats. However they fail to explain if there is a difference in sensitivity to oxytocin of the cat brain versus the dog brain.
It may be that the feline brain if far more sensitive to oxytocin than dog brains which could make the cat more affectionate than dogs. Who knows and aren't there better questions to be asking? I prefer cats to dogs, they aren't as high maintenance, they don't bark and they sleep 14 hours a day. Much like myself.
However pain can be expressed over a fuzzy range which can help to ascertain how bad the person is subjectively "feeling" the pain. We can tell a person that no pain is zero and the worst pain they have ever experienced is ten. Probably toothache. So the scale of pain expressed whilst still having no standard metric and thus no objective measure can still be expressed.
Another interesting example is that true psychopaths (>30 on the Hare scale) do not experience fear in anything like the magnitude that the ordinary non-psychopath does. The limbic and associated systems of the psychopath appears to be wired differently than the non-psychopaths. Thus the experience of the psychopath to a given fear invoking stimulus is quite different from the rest of us; another example that confounds those seeking to measure consciousness and the emotions that go with it.
@@rjgarnett I don't think I said you said anything. You asked for a definition of subjective experience and I gave one.
"what unwitting dishonesty has come upon us, that today, if we wish to be in the vogue, we must deny the existence of consciousness in order to save a mechanistic philosophy that could not possibly explain it." - William Durant
"beneficiary of an illusion"---not a victim---(sorry to intro this, but free will is an illusion, but we benefit by it---another time another subject---but related-----DD really knows this subject matter, yet he says he wants to catch up with the technical lab work being done!---a true scientist's way of thinking!)
Wow! what an interview 👍, such good information about the brain and mind, thanks a lot for the upload, if such scientific knowledge penetrates the education system around the world, we can get rid of religion, superstition and mythology in one generation
@@halcyon2864 you need to read his book or the consciousness book by Stanislas Dahaene to completely understand what he is saying, and it's not a sarcastic comment
@@halcyon2864 I use to be a fan of Advaita philosophy until I came across books from philosophers like Thomas metzinger and Dennet, I guess we need to move on from ancient philosophy to more empirical explanation of consciousness, regarding the hard problem of consciousness proposed by Chalmers I agree with Dennet that we need to worry about the hard questions like "then what happens" with regard to consciousness
@@nagabhushanjoshi254 um eliminative materialism makes sense to you?...wow ...
Does anyone think we could or have created consciousness in a computer?
I would say yes. I think one of the main benefits of understanding the consciousness is in artificial intelligence.
@@ProfessorToddChandlerFloridaCo
I agree, artificial consciousness can be created in principle but
I beg humanity to not even try.
Why?
Because we can't help approaching such things via a sequence of approximations.
Put your self in the place of the first approximations and then
try to imagine a madness of such intensity that
one cannot even begin to comprehend the massive horror of it.
James hawke wants to call me a liar---i have a good idea what consciousness is---it is simply the discussion we have all the time with our own self---a bio feedback based on a discussion between Brain and flesh and blood MIND---we do it better than anything else we know---why?--because we have sophisticated language---we talk with others---we write to others and read what others think. We remember from moment to moment and even yrs later how that discussion went---"should i or shouldn';t i do that?--i did or did not and the result is recorded and remembered. And then re-discussed if need be---would you ever say, "i just blew my nose"? Usually you do that with intent and with evolved method of doing it better---sports, arts, learning medicine---usually a huge component of brain discusion---WELL, that is what consciousnes is---it is not the cardinal bird pecking at itself on your sideview mirror because it is not self aware
"nobody in computer science knows where in the metal box a particular thing is happening..." Uhhh... Yeah they do. They know exactly where particular things are happening. Quite the opposite with neuroscience and consciousness.
This was the most fallacious I've seen any materialist in one video, I have an easier time believing Daniel is Santa Claus than any statement he made about consciousness, free will, or morality.
@@walvarad777 Some scientists think everyone has a mind like theirs and that it’s an aberration if they don’t. Some of us are more free. And goal orientation depends on what the human believes life is.
I think his use of computers as an analogy is useful, but he comes at it from the wrong angle. If you were a martian who knew nothing about humans computers with cpu's with billions of gates and you came across a complex multitasking networked system how would you work out how it did what it did. If in fact you knew what it was doing. The gates are smaller than a small virus, they are switching at GHz frequencies and the data is being moved around at incredible rates. You need an electron microscope to see the structure of the CPU and the interconnections within it. That's the problem with figuring out how the brain does what it does. The parts are small, inaccessible and each gate knows nothing about the entire program. A human trained in computers who knows machine code and can write in it knows how a computer does what it does, but you couldn't work it out without that knowledge and by doing a lot of research by simply looking at the cpu package, or even by measuring the activity on its pins. Get the data sheet and you are good, but they don't have a data sheet for the brain.
As far as it goes, 99% of people have absolutely no idea of how a CPU works so apart from us computer guys and gals he is spot on.
Robert G / You're so uselessly arrogant, square head!
You don't need to know at all how the real material brain works in order to create the full real artificial consciousness.
With your humongous arrogance which proves your humongous ignorance you will not be capable to create ever in your pitiful life the full artificial consciuosness.
@@rjgarnett The point is, the workings of a user interface and software can be traced back to the transistors, the electronics and the physics that governs them in a clearly defined, step-by-step way. No miraculous leaps are needed to do that. But these physicalist clowns have literally no way - not even in principle - of tracing that which is seeing these letters right now (what we call Consciousness/Awareness) to electrochemical signals in brain cells. All they do is a miraculous leap that they cover up with fancy sounding terms and theories.
17:40
the purpose of physics is to encourage conscious life..... from there, conscious life shapes the physics
Very teleological way of writing
Hello Dan ~ I’m the Brisbane/Australian lady who many years ago sent you a little tape recording commenting on “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, and then you graciously phoned me about it when you were here in Adelaide/South Australia.
‘Thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’ are all information-related phenomena. Recognising this rather obvious fact, some little time ago I figured out that the principle reason we haven’t understood and explained any of these information-related phenomena is largely due to the fact that our present understanding of ‘information’s’ ontological identity is manifestly incorrect.
I’m not going to tell you what ‘information’ is in this TH-cam comment (otherwise then I’d have to kill you, as they say) but not only is it not ‘digits’ - no matter how many of them one has at one’s disposal, nor how cleverly arranged they are, no matter how well they can be utilised as a means with which to count, calculate and compute, nor how large, powerful, fast, numerous and interconnected are the machines and devices operating on them - but no difficulty whatsoever attends the exercise of demonstrating - of measuring, of establishing - ‘information’s’ correct ontological identity. Just ask me !
Moreover, once ‘information’s’ correct ontological identity is recognised to be be what it is, no further difficulty attends the exercise of subsequently determining the ontological identities of all of the directly information-related phenomena such as ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’ (to far less then exhaust the list, which lexicon also includes ‘understanding’, ‘knowledge’, ‘knowing’ and learning - reading, writing, symbol-making etc etc.
The ease of determining the ontological identities of all of these directly information-related phenomena is due to the fact that ‘information’ turns out to be eminently measurable phenomenon such that where- and whenever any of it exists - including any of it being shunted around inside any properly thinking machine like the one we have inside of our own selves - no difficulty attends any such task. Being able to distinguish any information being shunted around inside of ourselves (or any other properly thinking machine, entity or device) from the brute machinery doing the shunting (processing) and recording it etc is crucial to being able to first figure out where consciousness occurs and then what it is about the particular thing that resides at this particular location that enables us to be conscious........
And as if to add a further embarrassment of riches to the veritable cornucopia pouring into our coffers which knowing info’s correct identity affords, no sooner are the identities of all of these directly information-related phenomena elucidated, than so too does that of everything else here inside our own home universe become equally illuminated - time, space, matter, energy - becoming, being, ceasing to be, life and death, evolution, morality, right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and evil, reproduction, sex and gender, to, once again, far less than exhaust the list......
‘Thinking’ turns out to be ‘using information to guide and direct action/behaviour’.
‘Digits’ are excellent things with which to count, calculate and compute, but they are not things with which any real thinking can be accomplished. They cannot guide behaviour. Thinking is an entirely different phenomenon from counting !
Our now many and various digit-using machines and devices turn out to be nothing more than ABACUSES !!!!!! Greatly elaborated, massively miniaturised, hugely accelerated, user-friendly, electronically-automated abacuses. Plain and simple and as such entirely incapable of any real thought. They do not use real information within their operations ...... only a very large number of fingers and toes ........Er, digits.
I’m pleased that I viewed this video as even though you do not know information’s correct identity, patently you have worked out some of the key ‘easy’ aspects of the problem of consciousness and so will quite readily understand a swift Necker-cube switch or two over to info’s correct existential status, when I divulge same to you .......if I do .....
I posted my thoughts here above but saw this comment and wanted to share with you personally.... so here it is again.
Why does the word CONsciousness have the word con in it.. So If our minds are our enemies then could consciousness be the archontic TOOL of this reality? Consciousness generates this experience. Maybe we need to ditch consciousness, maybe that's the biggest con of all.
Consciousness is a condition of this construct. Awareness transcends this **construct**. if you want to "raise consciousness" then you simply become AWARE. The Silent Observer, The Empty Wholeness, the only way I can explain it is to BE AWARE, which transcends this reality aka con -struct (this structure or reality is a con)
As long as we are conscious of this world, and agree that it is real, we are stuck here. To get out we have to become aware of the game, we have to transcend the CON~ of knowing (scious etymology: to know).
The subconscious is where all our programming/beliefs are stored, the subconscious is in control. I guess that can be like the overlords who run this false system, They are in control unless we get out of consciousness and become aware.
Once you transcend consciousness there are no more definitions, judgments, no more stories, beliefs, no more stories generated. That is probably pretty scary to most people, it leads down that road to NO SELF. There is just AWARENESS.
Consciousness is not truth.. because it limits.
There is something without Limit, that becomes hidden when we become conscious.
When Babies are born they operate by awareness, observing with out language, with out definition, without judgment and slowly they become conscious of words and symbols they are trained into thinking by defining all things.
Everything he talks about is happening in consciousness. He seems a bit enamored with naive realism. Everything we call real is composed of what we cannot call real.
Welcum to the edgy wanna be analytical world.
@Thymoteo Eevi That's just your assumption, based on what personally convinces you, against a backdrop of axioms that you by definition cannot ultimately justify. Only when you truly understand nothing have you understood it all.
@@Jin_world_changer Oh what the heck, I'll give you an actual reply. Ready or not... First, you might not want to read this if you're psychologically unstable. Though if you aren't quite highly conscious it'll be safe since it will mean nothing to you.
If there's resonance? Feel free to ignore the rest, because it can actually destabilize the sense of self.
The question of "how" only arises after the fact. The absolute realization can be verified only by the absolute, and (just reporting here...) it is revealed when no understanding is left. Doesn't really make sense, I know, but it's just a report. What is revealed is that (as it fucking turns out) it's entirely within the infinite capacity of everything to appear as anything at all, including (this is mind blowing), as a whole universe complete with a history... (here's the particularly mind blowing part) without that history having to have actually taken place.
And "how" is on the same level as "why" in this case. There is no justification for it. Apparently everything (or the universe, if you prefer) just doesn't need a why or a how or a purpose. Certainly no meaning, and that's something actually verifiable.
Certainly don't believe me, though! God no... Find out for yourself -- only way you can find out, I'm afraid. You have to go inward though, with profound steadiness and diligence.
This has no explanatory power but it's also among the realization: this... this right here. You know what it is? It's actually nothing. Literally. The age old question of "why is there something rather than nothing" is actually a malformed question! Lol! I'll tell you what though if someone would've told me 10 years ago that meditation and the like was more likely to reveal absolute truth than materialistic science? I would've (naively) laughed.
Cheat code / hint: no belief is true. The only belief you can assume on this journey (if you choose to take it, which I don't recommend) is "I AM." Nothing more; nothing less.
Feeling chatty so I'll say one more thing, whether or not it's warranted, though it is as true as words get: there is no death. Death of the body is assumed to be actual death only because that's when there is the assumed end of a "subconscious" (so to speak) belief in separation -- i.e. "I am here and there's something else over there" -- literally a total illusion. When separation falls away no one is even left that knows what it's like because there actually never was separation from everything... There was always just everything. Every single thing that apparently happens is inseparable from the full unstoppable infinite force of the entire universe. Whether it's typing, saying I love you, designing air conditioning systems, or Ted Bundy killing people.
What actually changes with this realization? Nothing and everything, but succinctly: what used to be seen as actions done by a "you" (i.e. speaking) are seen just like anything else (i.e. wind blowing through the trees). But it's essentially on the other side of death so there will likely be a tremendous fear of death if this resonates.
Have fun!
@RAYfighter Yeah there's no knowing. Just boundlessness.
I meant et.
The Brain is way more complex than any computer and they are not comparable.
Given the limited knowledge we have of the brain your statement is quite brave. It may turn out that the brain is less complex than a computer, but has some features that make it small for its capacity and very energy efficient. Remember we know how computers work, because we designed and but them and have the datasheets on the chips. The brain was a black box, it's now becoming semi-transparent.
Yeah that Brian guy sure is a difficult guy to figure out..
Describe the color blue to a blind person , this quality of experience cannot be explained in any other manner than 3rd person. It doesn’t explain the first person perception of being, this is a contradiction in the materialist reductionism world view( which is a 3rd person description)
He still didn’t answer the question of who or what is using the user illusion. On my phone or laptop ‘I’ am the thing making use of the user illusion. With the wet wear of the brain what is making use of the user illusion.
It's the interface the physical brain uses to represent it's workings to itself (sometimes) and to other people (mostly).
I'd disagree on the free will part. I think the concept of free will is just a play of words and should be eliminated. It's also a very relative and subjective concept.
He said that exactly. That it was a question of how you define free will
@@RickyPayaso Yeah, nevermind my question :P
You're beginning to see the light
Birds do lie. Dan Dennett is wrong about that.
but who's having the illusion?
The brain's user interface for itself??? Are we dealing with amateurs here? Are we living in Idiocracy? What makes the brain self-aware David? Circular reasoning is not philosophy.
I love how he uses physical concepts (connected to physics), even as simple as free fall, in the completely wrong sense.
Personal Conclusions from various sources "We Are All One Consciousness" for the following reasons:
1. In this world everything must have a cause, so that something exists because of something else, as well as ourselves.
2. It will be very saturating / boring if we have only one physical form in this world.
3. It will be very saturating / boring if all human beings have the exact same physical form / behavior.
4. Try to imagine emptying all the physical things around us only the remnants of humanity, then eliminating all human beings leaving only their memories, then removing all their memories leaving only their consciousness, then connecting that consciousness, feel who we are ??.
5. Body, mind, feelings, emotions and everything in this world is always changing, so what never changes ??, that is our true self, which is true consciousness. If everything changes2 / moves who observes, there must be something fixed to be able to observe.
6. All human beings communicate with each other is the beginning of the beginning / the future of human beings unite, only electronic devices today can unite all human beings, one day the device is implanted in the human mind and eventually man will open all access to his mind.
7. Our body is a group / accumulation of memory accumulated brought from the beginning of the birth of the first human in the world through continuous DNA binding.
8. Twins are born at the same time, what if all human beings are born at the same time ??. What happens if the birth of all human beings is not influenced by the dimensions of space and time ??
9. The twins are identical to A and B, if the whole memory of A is copied to B, what is the difference ??
10. The law of attraction (law of attraction) that our minds will attract whatever we think, because we are all like one part of the body.
11. Like some of the video recordings of ourselves there is a video as a vocalist, a video as a violinist, as a pianist, as a drummer, etc. The video2 is made into one in one video then it will produce a more interesting orchestra, something new and more productive. our world.
12. Man's greatest enemy is himself, at this time man is fighting against himself. By believing that we are all one, then the ego will fade because there is no difference between us.
13. That is why the teachings of religion command us to be grateful and beneficial to many,
If you are hurting others you are actually hurting yourself, just as if you are doing good to others you are actually doing good to yourself.
14. Could it be that we are all dreaming and our dreams meet each other at the same frequency in parallel. Have you ever, when sleeping dreamed of moving roles as someone else, it is because we are all one.
15. We are not immortal as human beings so that we have time for us to scroll through all of life.
16. "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience" ~ Stephen Covey, Have you ever felt that our age is too short, could our consciousness be immortal ?.
17. We are one, only the role is different, the memory block between life is what makes people feel different / separate. Just by brainwashing / erasing his memory then someone will be a different person but his consciousness actually remains the same.
18. The lucky thing for us is ... awareness is always towards / seeking / having intentions / desires towards good / positive / happiness despite experiencing various mistakes.
19. When we die the body and memory are destroyed, how can we remember ever being dead.
20. Why do we have to die? ", When we are told to die, later this eternal question will be asked again and we will always be there." The world is a sustainable life "~ Bruce Lipton
21. In the beginning we were one, but split through a big explosion or bigbang to become different and separate as it is now, but we are provided with a sense of love for us to be able to be reunited later.
22. There is only us and the mirror of ourselves in this world, yet there is another world out there.
23. We will always smile happily seeing each other as ourselves "How beautiful I am" seeing a different self.
24. If all consciousness is told now that they are all one if the experience gained is enough, the consciousness designed from the beginning is so different that there is so much intrigue, consciousness is created differently so that when it comes together it has an incredible consciousness experience.
25. We are indeed alone in this universe, but there are still many other universes with their own laws of nature.
26. Have you ever felt to come to a place that has never been visited but feel familiar with that place, as if we have lived in that place sometime.
27. The world is like a script of a story that is being written by the author, sometimes changed at the beginning, sometimes changed in the middle, sometimes changed at the end it all depends on us as writers, and every story has wisdom that can be taken as a lesson.
28. Hair grows on its own, heart beats on its own, blood flows on its own, ideas emerge on its own, etc., are we involved ??.
29. Imagine today there was an event that caused only you to live in this world, then who are all the people yesterday ??.
30. "If Quantum Mechanism cannot surprise you, then you do not yet understand Quantum Physics. Everything we have considered real all this time, turns out to be unreal." ~ Niels Bohr.
31. In the scale of quantum physics we are all connected to each other, even in double gap experiments proving that particles change when observed or in other words awareness is able to change reality, this has been repeatedly proven by Nobel laureate in Physics.
32. Everything we experience by our senses will eventually only be an electrical impulse in the brain, is it all real ??. We are beings who realize that we are conscious.
33. We are closer than the veins of his neck.
He breathes some of His spirit on you.
Knowing oneself means knowing one's God.
Indeed, we will return to HIM. You are far I am far, you are near I am near.
I am everywhere.
Before the existence of this world there was no material other than Him.
The True Spirit is only One, the Creator.
I agree with your prejudice.
34. Whether the Creator is only tasked with creating, is it possible that the creator does not want to try the results of his creation through another perspective.
35. There is no reincarnation, it is possible that our consciousness is synchronizing, our consciousness is divided by the speed of light so that consciousness can move and divide quickly through energy, and that is why we need sleep, that is why we often do not realize something, that is why the size of the earth is reached by the speed of light so that consciousness is divided quickly and evenly, we are like some chess pawns played by a player, that is why if we move at the speed of light, then we can penetrate the dimensions of space and time, when we die we wake up and regain consciousness as long as there are human beings living in this world.
36. Have we ever had a problem and suddenly someone came to provide a solution to the problem we are experiencing, as if someone was sent by the universe to help us in solving the problem, which is actually our own awareness that sends that person to us.
37. A thousand years ago did human beings see, hear and be trapped in their hearts about current technological advances ??. If we all tend to sin (damage) then it will be the world of hell, if we all tend to do good then it will be the world of heaven.
38. Knowledge learns objects, God who created our consciousness, does not allow God to be objects of knowledge.
39. It is not possible for human creation which is only in the form of words / symbols to represent true truth.uyty
40. Is there a meaning of being without consciousness ?? then we are adventurers of this existence.
Sy
41. The life of the world is just a game and a joke, the one who wins the game of the world is the one who finds his true self.
42. When the existence of the world ends we will know everything.
43. My consciousness undergoes a very extraordinary life experience, feeling life experience with different forms and different places even though in fact my consciousness is always the same, wow .. I was surprised !! how wide I am.
44. Consciousness in fact does not know the concept of time, consciousness can experience / undergo into another physical form because the dimension of time can be penetrated by consciousness, as when we imagine we can act as anyone without time bound, because in this universe time can in fact materialize free, time can move straight, curved, rotate, etc. Our time travel is when our consciousness moves to a new physical experience.
45. We are an awareness, a concept that is able to answer various things.
46. Remember when you were going to leave, you were worried about losing me ??, calm down .. I was everywhere and we would always be able to meet again, believe me.
47. Without searching what is the difference between us in this world and us in a dream while sleeping just passing by without meaning
48. In conclusion, whatever role we play, it is all our own design, so just enjoy.
49. God created us to be Happy, so do not disappoint God.
50. Understand it and be Shining
source:
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dennet, while believing that consciousness arises from matter (brain/neurons) ends up believing what i (a christian) believe, that is, mind/soul (something you can't probe empirically and no one have seeing) exists.
Where else would it arise from?
@@MikkoVille soul, spirit, extra dimensions. nobody has ever seeing consciousness emerging from the brain like steam coming from a heated water.
@@cmiguel268, so where do these "souls", "spirits" or "extra dimensions" (which nobody has ever seen) arise from?
And what do they consist of if not matter/energy?
Why is it more conceivable that consciousness (as somehow distinct from other mental processes) arises from "soul", which no-one has seen or measured, rather than arising from the most complex system in the known Universe (the brain) which we can manipulate and demonstrate measurable and subjective effects on the consciousness?
@@MikkoVille there is no experiment in any lab in the world that has produce consciousness, love, anger, hate out of chemical processes. you cant smell anger from a petri dish. it is like saying that music instruments give rise to music. which it is incorrect, the music has already been written and it is played by a human, the instrument (in this case the brain) makes the music to have measurable properties but in no way it is the source of the music. you distort the instrument ( the brain) you distort the music, but the music (consciousness, love, hatred, anger) come (has been written/computed, sourced) somewhere else but no in the brain. the brain (and arms, legs, mouth, etc) is only an instrument that make consciousness measurable. this is why psychotherapy is such a powerful tool otherwise taking pills ( disturbing the chemicals in the brain) will sufice to treat, for example, depression.
@@cmiguel268, so according to your logic a thousand years ago lightnings must have had manifested from some supernatural dimension because electricity hadn't been explained or produced in a laboratory?
What you saying is simply another form of vitalism: that somehow consciousness is altogether different from other manifestations of life. A few hundred years ago people would have said the same thing about life, which must have been the result of some "life force" totally different from other measurable quantities of the physical universe.
I don't understand your music analogy at all. You cant "smell anger from a petri dish" because both smelling and anger are functions of the the brain and the nervous system (including the sense organs), neither which are present in a petri dish.
Is he still alive?
It's somewhat easy to explain what consciousness is but the real mystery is why. Why this mechanism and not a more simplicit version or no consciousness at all. It's just as much a mystery of why the universe than nothing. This compounded with consciousness and it becomes mind boggling. Just the circumstances for living beings to come about in the first place is astronomical. Just for our very own existence we required to be in the right time during the universe. Too early and it's too chaotic. Too late and everything is too far away and cold. This holds true for our position in the galaxy. Too close to the galactic core and its too chaotic and radiation is too lethal. Too far away and your solar system doesn't have the elements that systems closer to the core would have. Magnify again and we need a planet to be just the right distance from a star so it's too far that its cold and everything freezes but too close and everything evaporates and becomes hellish. This is just a few instances that make conscious bodies become viable. Our entire universes forces are fined tuned such that our existence is possible. Gravity, The electro-magnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces and a multitude of other constants. All this for you and me to exist. It's remarkable. I often wonder if we are just the conscious universe experiencing itself.
TL;DR
At 22:25 he explains why consciousness evolved. It's not hard to think of ways in which being reflective is an advantage to an organism. Inventing things like farming, for example, would have taken a lot longer if we hadn't been able to reflect on the observation that seeds seem to lead to tasty plants.
The argument from fine tuning has a ton of flaws. One of the big ones is that you're presupposing that conscious life was a foregone conclusion, which there's no reason to assume. Why does it matter that consciousness was very unlikely to come about? Unless there's an a priori reason to expect that result, the odds are meaningless.
@@turnipy88 as far as we know the circumstances for life to be supported means life requires a multitude of parameters to be met. I mentioned a few above but without them it's apparent with our current understanding that life just wouldn't exist regardless if self conscious or not. I think you are mistaking my claims for a fine tuned universe built specifically for life to exist. This is not what I'm saying. It is rather peculiar that the universe does appear to be fine tuned for life such as on this planet can arise but what I was implying is that because the universe can and does support life at all given the known parameters we know there are a set of circumstances that need to be met in order for life to take hold and our position in the cosmos plays an important role in that. I would take it even a step further and say given the rarity of intelligence amongst all species that ever lived I would imagine human comparable consciousness would have just as much variables for it to arise as life itself. Living beings have lived on this planet for over billions of years and in all that history human level consciousness wasn't required. Countless species lived, died and went extinct without ever a need of intellect beyond eat, sleep, breed and don't die. You must be able to appreciate the implications and privilege we have given how hard it is for life to even arise in the first place.
The fine-tuning argument has been debunked so many times. People get outta here with that nonsense.
consciousness explained, and more facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
Soon Ken Wilber, Daniel dennett and Richard dawkins will be gone. It will be very hard to let them go :[
They've left behind a trail of information, which future generations can use to find even more new insights.
Pinky Yeah, hopefully he comes to Christ so he will experience eternal life instead of eternal death.
dan dennet isn't a conscious person and entirely lacks subjective experience by his own admission so it really won't be much more of a loss than when a supercomputer is broken.
All this talk of agents and the oracle, can't be a coincidence that he looks so similar to the architect can it?
In a debate with Alvin Plantinga I am reading his argumentation is so ridiculous - he does not even answers serious on fully logical questions....
This doesn't sufficiently address the hard problem, but I guess that's why it's hard 😊
Why does the word CONsciousness have the word con in it.. So If our minds are our enemies then could consciousness be the archontic TOOL of this reality? Consciousness generates this experience. Maybe we need to ditch consciousness, maybe that's the biggest con of all.
Consciousness is a condition of this construct. Awareness transcends this **construct**. if you want to "raise consciousness" then you simply become AWARE. The Silent Observer, The Empty Wholeness, the only way I can explain it is to BE AWARE, which transcends this reality aka con -struct (this structure or reality is a con)
As long as we are conscious of this world, and agree that it is real, we are stuck here. To get out we have to become aware of the game, we have to transcend the CON~ of knowing (scious etymology: to know).
The subconscious is where all our programming/beliefs are stored, the subconscious is in control. I guess that can be like the overlords who run this false system, They are in control unless we get out of consciousness and become aware.
Once you transcend consciousness there are no more definitions, judgments, no more stories, beliefs, no more stories generated. That is probably pretty scary to most people, it leads down that road to NO SELF. There is just AWARENESS.
Consciousness is not truth.. because it limits.
There is something without Limit, that becomes hidden when we become conscious.
When Babies are born they operate by awareness, observing with out language, with out definition, without judgment and slowly they become conscious of words and symbols they are trained into thinking by defining all things.
You have a point. Thank you!
Well said. I notice most talk by philosophers and AI people about "consciousness" is useless wheel-spinning and regurgitation of old, debunked myths.
The only people with some idea about consciousness are neuroscientists and buddhists. Leibniz also had a great insight--the universe is conscious--everything in the universe, even photons of light are conscious. Different things have different types of consciousness.
Our own brains have many different types of consciousness coexisting--and the part of the mind that thinks of itself as the "I" is just one type, a very egotistical and self-deluding type. Most actual thinking and awaremess happens elsewhere, but the "I" often "never gets the memo" and remains unaware of the other types of consciousness.
S. Kierkegaard once said: " Spirit is the power that man´s comprehension excercises upon his life"
And I wonder what Mr Dennet will say to thousands and thousands Near death experiences rolling over youtube the las decade??- Thousands of evidence -yes evidence : people van tell what was going on despite they where "gone"
He has definitely lost his case!!
You have to learn to use the concept evidence correctly. There is absolutely zero evidence of what you are talking about, which is why science does not take it seriously.
@@jenso7129 Do you think science operates outside cultural/ideological implications?
Sorry, but reports about near death experiences do not count as evidence by any means.
Well, you had to say that so no offense.
So many scientist want to get to the root of everything and seems like they find a dead end when it comes to consciousness. Could it be that their is a GOD and we’re not made to understand everything. We people act as if we ourselves are GODs and we’re not. Stop trying to figure out all the hard questions about life and leave it up to GOD. If I could understand how GOD works he wouldn’t be worthy of being a GOD. I pray for all you guys who are atheist and hope
That God has mercy on your souls.!
Apparent man with brain explains why the model created by the brain is inaccurate by using the inaccurate model created by his brain.
It’s called postmodernism and it’s rotting academia Lol
Just kidding. But wouldn’t surprise me if this type of jargon he’s pulling might just be paradoxes in disguise.
@@deanmccrorie3461 analytic philosophers every other day of the week: facts, logic, mathematics, science
analytic philosophers talking about the mind body problem: consciousness is actually the illusory perceptual distinguishment at a subjective conscious level of the perception of perceived, embodied representations of reality that are ultimately only illusions, in a neural network or some shit, and therefore this explains how it evolved by natural selection and is actually identical to chemical reactions, therefore there is no "hard problem" which is Bible stuff, and the brain is just like a thermostat, we don't actually "Feel heat", nor do we actually have "thoughts" any more than a table does. thanks, i'm going to now install an update on my "how to eat food like an earthling" software, fellow humans. excuse me while i shut down.
@@JB-kn2zh lol pretty much.
Basically they believe in 'hand cant grab itself but we will pretend it can to make this problem go away so we can move on to more atheism again. Stupid pesky religion. TAKE THAT'
@@deanmccrorie3461 yeah, and another thing is there could potentially be some physical explanation for consciousness that someone comes up with one day, (although it seems by its nature insoluble to me in reductive terms) but they obviously aren't going to ever figure out how consciousness works if they won't even admit that there is a problem to solve in the first place.
@@JB-kn2zh huh. I didnt think of that. To reduce the question itself to being a non issue. Thats interesting
Makes me wonder what the real agenda is if their is one.
I doubt the nature of consciousness will ever be reduced to matter or found with an enthusiastic "EUREKA' simply because it takes a consciousness to do the reducing.
At first glance that seems possible, but not really.
Try getting your hand to grab itself or a foot to kick itself. Or ask the question: How many feet must you walk to get to yourself?
These are all the same paradox which is:
Can the source of the knower be known to the knower?
Eastern philosophies say no. Because their is no source to them. Because consciouness is fundamental to everything. Thats why you can never 'find' it. Yet simultaneously feel its utterly fundamental to everything
So we have tons and tons of images we just need a theory...? Sounds like ufology .
How does sodium molecules passing through a membrane create experience.🤔 that is the most implausible ridiculous idea. How can sodium passing through a membrane experience more sodium passing through a membrane..? If that's not dishonest..?its pure stupidity then.
Genius.
But none of that tells you a thing about consciousness where it’s located Where is the smell of garlic the taste of chocolate how does that arise
To me anyway Mr. Dennets musings seems absolutely banale. I remember many years ago as a student enjoying reading his toughts on these matters. But in this interview he never really goes beyound talking about the neural correlate of consiouness, which is al very good and fine. But he never really touches on what is refered to as the hard question of consiouness. Maybe it's just my own by now wastly more extensive knowledge and experience with formal logic, expert systems, AI, neural networks, epistemology etc. that makes him sound quite banal at this point. No progress in 35 years.
consciousness explained, and more facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453
You come off like someone who just learned the word, banal. You use it twice. Both times it is forced and odd. You even misspelled it half the time. Does anything strike you as more banal than a rant on banality by a moron trying to sound like it has a perspective? Dennett is always coming up with better intuition pumps. Different arguments, etc.
Yes once you've used neural networks you realise that an explanation at the neural level is pointless. If someone asked what any neuron was contributing to an output you quickly change the subject because it would be embarrassing to tell them it was a stupid question.
You just don't study neural networks like that.
And....?