Susan Blackmore - Is Consciousness an Illusion?

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Is consciousness something special in the universe, its own category, irreducible to physical laws, a carrier of meaning and purpose? Or is consciousness a mere artifact of the brain, a by-product of evolution, a superstition exaggerated by human misperception? If you think or hope consciousness is special, then you should surely be a skeptic.
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Susan Jane Blackmore is a writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@anaccount8474]

All that these 'experts' in consciousness have managed to establish is that the brain does something and we experience something. They can talk for hours about how that's all they know.

[@ProLaytonxPhoenix]

Pretty much. There's still a lot we don't know about consciousness and whether we'll ever know more, Time will tell.

[@jamenta2]

I don't know, but for some reason it's pretty funny to me the brain talks about itself (the brain) and doesn't even know how it is able to be a brain - or how it is the brain talking about itself - when it is THE BRAIN. It just sounds like the most bizarre oxymoronic fact, and belongs in a comedy skit or in some comedy hall of fame.

[@backpackbattles4176]

@@jamenta2the extra irony that your brain typed this out too

[@stellarwind1946]

It sure doesn’t feel like an illusion

[@user-hr2oi6jd7m]

Consciousness is absolutely 100% an illusion. This is all a simulation that proves the big bang is no longer on the table. The Big Bang is quite literally one of the dumbest concepts to ever hit science. Everyone today should know by now that we "exist" in a simulated reality.

[@9snaga]

Just like an illusion should 😊

[@jackarmstrong5645]

It isn't. When one experiences the color red they know beyond any doubt they are experiencing the color red. Red is a brain created experience but it is not an illusion nor is the knowledge one is experiencing red an illusion.

[@onemind4402]

@@jackarmstrong5645 What about colorblindness?

[@jackarmstrong5645]

@@onemind4402 That is evidence the brain creates the colors we experience. The color blind person and the person who experiences red as a distinct unique easily recognizable color have the same light hitting the eye. But in the case of color blindness the mechanisms are disturbed and the brain does not create a unique distinct color experience. The color blind person does experience something however. And they know what they are experiencing.

[@Earthad23]

You can’t reduce consciousness into something unconscious. The illusion is the self. You are not your ego you are the awareness of it.

[@jimskeuh]

so that 's why we can't be in another person. it's an illusion that your ego is making you feel like a person. which in reality you're just a person that lives

[@Mystified2012]

I agree, the mind and body are two AND one. Not singular, not dualistic, but the combination of two AND one. We are not our bodies, we are not our minds, we are our minds and our bodies experiencing a section of reality.

[@Ekam-Sat]

No no no!!! That’s advaita vedanta. And it’s incomplete self realisation. Please study mystic, Christianity or Kashmir Shaivism.

[@Earthad23]

@@Ekam-Sat it’s one ☝️

[@Ekam-Sat]

Yes. That is true. @@Earthad23

[@bigentertainer]

Simple question ! What is the one that is experiencing the illusion ? -- while our senses provide us with data about the external world, consciousness is the broader state of awareness that allows us to perceive, process, and reflect upon that data, as well as experience emotions, thoughts, and self-awareness.

[@yourbestsail]

To say that it is an illusion is an elegant way to say “I do not have the slightest idea what it is”. A more scientific approach is the one of the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi and his promising Integrated Information Theory of consciousness.

[@blijebij]

Yes, consciousnes needs to be an integrated state of information, else how can there be self reflection and self awareness.

[@nsbd90now]

Existing and being aware of it is just so _weird!_

[@rizdekd3912]

And that is the case no matter what we think is the source/basis of consciousness. IOW it may or not be based on the physical brain. But 'saying' is't not based on or happening IN the physical brain...that is implying it's something nonphysical still isn't getting at the question of what it IS and how it works. Self awareness is as close to miraculous as I think the natural world comes.

[@onemind4402]

Indeed.

[@nsbd90now]

@@onemind4402 Teal'c? Teal'c of Chulak? Is that you?

[@onemind4402]

@@nsbd90now lol, indeed.

[@nsbd90now]

@@onemind4402 I'm gonna guess it is so weird because "normal" is actually being One in The Unified Field which is a dark, expansive, infinite quietness.

[@duncanwallace7760]

An ant, a bat, and a human all experience a consciousness in a different way. I don't think attempting to isolate consciousness by asking 'where in the brain is it', is particularly helpful, because it is the sum of our senses and thought processes, interpreting our environment. If we close our eyes and block our ears, our experience changes dramatically, and illustrates that it's a process, not a thing.

[@jackarmstrong5645]

You experience consciousness differently from any other human as well. Your "self talk" is unlike the "self talk" of any other human. You see all things from your perspective. There is no such thing as a general "consciousness". There are only specific organisms that each have a specific consciousness.

[@ianwaltham1854]

She appreciates the hard problem of consciousness more than most. She knows we can't explain conscious experience from what we know about the brain. The OBE she had as a student put her on the right path but she lost her way as she got older. She tried to fit everything into a framework of mainstream scientific belief. And in doing so she became a materialist.

[@SchoolOfReallyHardKnocks]

The hard problem is of her own mistaken, thoroughly materialist making. It stems from falsely believing that matter creates consciousness. Take consciousness away and there is no matter but no materialist can fathom that. She can lie to herself all she likes but materialism is on its way out; it simply doesn't work. There is more than enough scientific evidence, which materialists ignore, showing that consciousness is fundamental, not matter. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck.

[@Dion_Mustard]

i've had OBEs all my life, and i know beyond doubt that consciousness is MORE than brain.

[@missh1774]

Bonita Roy talks about this as not related systems thinking, even though for most people it is near impossible to refrain from thinking in that way.

[@sustainabilityaxis]

There is no doubt consciousness is very difficult to define. It was expected of her to add something in addition to the ordinary. Somehow she got lost in oversimplification while presenting her point of view. A good inquiry was posed by Mr Robert in the beginning regarding what consciousness is not as per the guest, which was not given an appropriate place. Thanks for the very nice production.

[@santacruzman]

Hmm. I wonder if she has a point of view. She admits to having no theory of C. Her whole bit, maybe this is her POV, about looking in the brain and not seeing it, strikes me as very naive. Perhaps she's a naive illusionist. At any rate, the illusion question itself seems unfounded considering nothing is offered as real in terms of which C would be illusory. The phenomenal aspects of (lived) subjective experience, the present, are not the sort of "things" one would see by looking inside the brain. The illusion would seem to be one of her own making, one that lies in the conceptual sphere. It seems clear that she is not thinking about C in a manner that would yield much more than confusion - which she faithfully conveys here.😊

[@SchoolOfReallyHardKnocks]

@@santacruzman Hello, awake person.

[@dag410]

I have been working on a modular Ai system that works in parallel with each mod locked in a constant feedbacks loop that rewards itself to lower the probability to zero. I have been building this from scratch. Each module component has it's own data collection, preprocessing, normalization, engineering, transformation, scaling, and storage. Then each modular system feeds the main, but is also interconnected. All these are in parallel. The finish product is storged, but I have been working of a module to learn to forget data, if necessary. Still a work in progress, but I do think she is right, this is how consciousness works. I thinks "self" is a parallel processing system with multiple modules constantly adapting to the feedback loop in the system. The question is: is this consciousness? Only time in study will tell...

[@geeks4greyson425]

I read your comment imagining it being spoken by Leonard Nimoy in the character of Mr. Spock. It was a wonderful concious experience!

[@deanodebo]

AI cannot be conscious any more than a calculator can

[@dag410]

@@deanodebo did you not listen to the lady? She was saying "self" is an illusion. All the parts of the brain, working together in parallel, create the illusion of consciousness.

[@deanodebo]

@@dag410 I’m addressing your question

[@dag410]

@@deanodebo 👍 👌

[@waldwassermann]

Truth is One. - Rig Veda

[@kspangsege]

Really appreciate her way of highlighting the mystery of consciousness. I think it seems mysterious to her in exactly the same way as it seems mysterious to me. It seems indeed to be the question of consciousness that is the most mysterious thing in this world. We have no idea how to understand it, nor whether it is even something that can in principle be understood. It certainly seems to defy any methodology, that we currently know of, of how to understand things.

[@longcastle4863]

There are whole fields of biology, neuroscience, biopsychology, cognitive psychology, good ol’ psychology etc that you should explore. Our knowledge of and ideas about consciousness are not at all as nonexistent as you seem to think. It’s an unsettled area of inquiry, but an exciting one and by no means not one without promising answers and hypotheses.

[@kspangsege]

@@longcastle4863 Yeah, ok, that is a fair point, but it also means that we are not exactly talking about the same thing. This is one of the problems with "consciousness" 🙂, that it means so many different things, that it is hard to get to a point where we are even talking about the same thing. I agree that it is reasonable to use "consciousness" to refer to things that are open to inquiry, observation, and experimentation. My point was to say that there is something that it is like to be a human being, which does not seem to fall in this rubric. It is both obvious and extremely bizarre.

[@longcastle4863]

@@kspangsege Agree. 🙂

[@MacWiedijk]

@@kspangsege It is not much of a problem to explain qualia from neurobiology using hormones, innate instincts, reflexes, senses, learned responses and homeostasis as long as these processes are unconscious. The only thing that needs to be explained is the process of becoming aware of these qualia and that is not a problem either.

[@Ekam-Sat]

Diversity within oneness. Love. Love. Love. That’s the purpose.

[@wattshumphrey8422]

Very refreshing to hear someone taking a scientific view -- clear about what she does and does not know (brain scientists take note) -- she is clearing away the detritus, and there is a truck load of it accumulated.

[@eternalme6077]

Consciousness would be meaningless without the capacity of memory, to give continuity thus meaning. I think that without memory, to be Consciousness and awareness one would have no reference point to measure Anything at all! I'm not sure if I make any sense, but I do think that memory is the key or at least one of the three major things about Consciousness. ❤

[@Stegosaurus12345]

Memory explains the "I" aspect of consciousness. It could have some bearing on the binding problem as well. Though I don't think it gets at the question of where consciousness gets its qualitative aspect.

[@telesniper2]

Not really. For example in dreams i seldom have much memory about anything, yet I'm definitely still subjectively "me".

[@spikespiegel9919]

While meditating and being in the "now" you don't have any past reference points and this doesn't affect being conscious and aware. I would say on the contrary, consciousness and awareness are more clear.

[@Promatheos]

Consciousness isn’t something we experience. It IS experience. Red is something we experience. Dreams are something else we experience. Consciousness is the witness of ALL experiences. The body changes, the mind changes, experiences change, but consciousness remains exactly the same. That’s because it is the real you and it is the real reality.

[@browngreen933]

YES! ❤

[@kitstamat9356]

That's exactly what she doesn't understand, despite of all her years of meditation.

[@kspangsege]

Yeah, it is certainly tempting to jump to that conclusion, but then the onus is on you to explain how it can be that EVERYTHING else seems to be explainable with no reference to consciousness, even the behavior of other people.

[@Promatheos]

@kspangege My intuition is that consciousness is the subject and everything else are objects. You can explain objects because language forces us to objectify to explain. Consciousness is not an object, it’s the subject that reveals all objects and can’t be explained. Even in these discussion we keep naming “it” but that is making “it” an object. Can you see why this is so problematic?

[@simonhibbs887]

Her point is that when we analyse individual instances and aspects of experience, they are not actually unitary. Detailed psychological cognitive and perceptual studies show that we have different, separate sensational experiences independently, and then these are integrated after the fact into a cohesive view. There is evidence we are consciously aware of these experiences before they happens. There is a mechanism of consciousness that also then constructs the cohesive experience, but is a post-hoc rationalisation. So there are sensational conscious experiences, they are separate, and we construct a post hoc narrative surround them, and all of these are independent capacities that work together. This is what she means by there not being a single unitary consciousness.

[@michaelschaefer3124]

I don’t know, and I really don’t care, but I certainly will try to enjoy it every day that I am here on this earth. Sometimes serious thinking is best left to other people.

[@justinpardee1894]

That’s the mindset of a 9-5 employee the rest of their lives

[@mgmcd1]

To whom or what would this illusion be presented? Who is having the illusion of consciousness? A conscience perhaps? Then what is having THAT illusion of consciousness? Is it turtles all the way down?

[@legron121]

Of course, the problem is that the concept of an illusion presupposes the concept of consciousness. Only creatures who are conscious can be subject to illusions.

[@Simulera]

It seems like illusions presume consciousness.

[@mikel5582]

That was my first thought but she defined illusion somewhat differently. I think she defined illusion as meaning "not what it seems to be."

[@ianwaltham1854]

She knows an illusion requires a conscious observer. She isn't stupid. I think she's saying consciousness can't be what it seems because we don't know how brains could make it. She dismisses the obvious answer: Brains don't make it!

[@jjay6764]

Materialism is dead and you can’t reduce conscious awareness to the material. The brain is a receiver like a TV or DVD player. The DVD player allows you to play Wedding Crashers but it doesn’t tell you why you chose Wedding Crashers or what you experienced watching Wedding Crashers. The Brain allows you to interact with the environment but it doesn’t tell you how you should feel or what you experience while interacting with the environment. So consciousness and awareness comes from something other than the material.

[@science212]

Materialism is FACT.

[@fj103]

​@@science212thank you

[@longcastle4863]

If materialism is dead, who killed it? Because as far as I can tell my smartphone still works.

[@CMVMic]

Idealism is dead! Mental states/phenomena are reducible to physical events.

[@science212]

YES.@@CMVMic

[@dondattaford5593]

Have we reached consciousnesses approval for the experiences in existence

[@leehudson2074]

Listen to her words, whether you look into your own experience you don’t find yourself, who’s doing the looking into who’s experience Sue?

[@behavedave]

It depends upon your presupposition about what consciousness is, if it is realisation of self then that isn’t an illusion. If it is about the world being represented back upon itself for analysis beyond what the mind can then maybe. If it is intelligence beyond the brain then that is most likely a feeling, ergo an illusion.

[@Samsara_is_dukkha]

She's just proposing another put down version of experience. That being the case, she should follow her own logic, dismiss her own experience and remain quiet for ever.

[@peweegangloku6428]

That consciousness has power can not be an illusion. It is the power, the activating force of consciousness that enabled you to have this conversation. Remove consciousness from your body and all your body parts will become powerless despite having all the physical components of your body present. Something being enigmatic does not make it an illusion.

[@audiodead7302]

My heart beats without a conscious decision from me.

[@peweegangloku6428]

@@audiodead7302 Most people confuse consciousness with self-awareness just as you're doing right now.

[@tadmorrison]

Exactly the right view

[@zfm1097]

I don't understand what the mystery of consciousness is from her point of view, i.e. if you believe there is no "hard problem". Why could consciousness not be a synergy that arises from memory, intellect, analogues of sensory information, anticipations, reflections, etc, each feeding into each other, back & forth, constantly in flux, brain & body as a whole creating 'mind'? I'm not convinced that explains it personally, but that would seem to provide an explanation from her viewpoint. Also, are we sure the brain is the only 'thinking organ'? Isn't there some research showing the heart & gut have neuron-like structures that communicate with the brain?

[@zfm1097]

Surely what we are experiencing day-to-day is 'functional reality', the hand grabbing the cup of tea, taking a sip, for instance, whereas 'true reality' is all the stuff we don't experience consciously, the sequence of muscle contractions required to carry out those actions, etc. I mean, if you wanted to think in terms of a computer, perhaps ordinary functional reality could be represented by the icons on the screen, whereas actual reality is all the complex machine code being processed, that maybe we only access through meditation, prayer, altered states, psychedelics, etc.

[@dipankarmallick5543]

woman voice is refreshing...gentleman be happy with...

[@onemind4402]

Consciousness, despite her push back regarding objective perception, the parallelness(sic) of sight, sound and physical sensitivity, could actually be the result of a synergistic creation relying on the Whole of this input. Consciousness may be the only way we can process all of the data, to make sense of it. If other life forms, animals, insects, etc., are not conscious (probably?), this may be because the amount of information being processed by their brains does not meet the minimum requirements for consciousness to exist. I think that maybe this is supported when we are sedated, our data input is blocked, and we become Unconscious. This interpretation of consciousness, I think, would remove the requirement for a "place" in the brain that it exists, it is a result of all parts of the brain working together to bring about consciousness. Synergistic and all encompassing. It is then up to each of us to utilize consciousness in a positive and meaningful manner, at least I would like to think that we all would.

[@neilcreamer8207]

The word consciousness has become almost useless because it is used in many ways which are not compatible with each other. What Susan is talking about is experience and that is the word I prefer to use because it's not plagued by ambiguity.

[@mikedoesstuff4222]

My personal belief about consciousness is that it started from our distributed symbiotic microbiome trying to communicate quickly with non-local colonies in a multicellular body. The nervous system essentially became a high-speed internet backbone for those colonies. Initially the nervous system was only an information relay, but eventually evolved to "know" what the microbiome was communicating, and then became what we believe/feel to be "consciousness"; the network becoming self-aware.

[@longcastle4863]

And perhaps eventually that ability to “know” was found advantageous for survival and so Nature kept “selecting” for it and improving and expanding on it over time.

[@markpmar0356]

More than likely consciousness began much sooner than mere primates. Life is abundant on the earth. Is it only humans who have consciousness? And to be clear, I do NOT mean "self-awareness" when I use the term "consciousness".

[@marioceva7163]

Consciesness the origen and substance of reality

[@jamenta2]

@@longcastle4863 Yes, except many modern biologists (not Richard Dawkins old school biologists) now say there are clearly demonstrable traits and improvements that CANNOT be simply traced back to a "natural selection" of incremental changes as Darwin proposed. That there is something ELSE going on, not just natural selection of the fittest. By the way, this doesn't mean one needs to throw out evolutionary theory altogether, only that like anything in science, new evidence needs to evolve better scientific theories.

[@longcastle4863]

@@jamenta2 Yes, I know there are other mechanisms involved in biological evolution like genetic drift, sexual selection and some other things I can’t remember off hand. I hope one day I can find the time to take a deeper dive into these more recent discoveries. One thing I find very interesting right now, however, is the findings in abiogenesis of how there seems to have been a kind of pre-biological natural selection taking place in the chemistry leading up to biological life. That’s natural selection _prior_ to life! Maybe that’s not a new discovery, but it’s new to me and it sure seems point you some deeper thing / principle / law in Nature that may pervade more than just chemistry and biology.

[@neffetSnnamremmiZ]

I am in principle not catchable, that's the reason some think I am an illusion..

[@longcastle4863]

A net can’t catch itself. That sort of thing?

[@S3RAVA3LM]

​@longcastle4863 a dog can't eat its face?

[@S3RAVA3LM]

Very nice words and true.

[@se6369]

She's smart it seems. Conciousness can't be a confusion in the way the interviewer talked about

[@longcastle4863]

I can understand why a sociopath would want there to be no such thing as consciousness or free will, but why would anyone else advocate so forcibly for these two things being an illusion when so much in our experience says the opposite? And when there is by no means any solid data for the illusory nature of either of these things?

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"but why would anyone else advocate so forcibly for these two things being an illusion when so much in our experience says the opposite?"* ... I believe people do this because they have a *core ideology* that they've subscribed to, therefore any opposing ideology must be marginalized (or spun) to correspond with their core ideology. No atheist is going to support any type of metaphysical consciousness as this could too easily be used in support a metaphysical God. ... _Gotta nip that one in the bud!_ Likewise, Hard Determinism knocks us all down to the level of hapless sock puppets carrying out the predetermined wishes of purposeless particle interactions. Atheists love this type of thinking because their core ideology holds that we have no purpose or meaning attached to our existence. Reality gets spun to match the reality we need it to be.

[@mikedoesstuff4222]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC Those who believe there is no purpose or meaning attached to our existence are nihilists, not atheists. Atheists only reject the affirmative claim that a god exists, full-stop.

[@longcastle4863]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC I wouldn’t call it an ideology, but I think you’re right about hard determinism being such a strong seductive way of looking at the world-especially for physicists which is where hard determinism shines and, let’s acknowledge it, where the scientists have made such amazing progress employing it-that not even the, what would seem to me, undeniable joys of being able to have some level of say and input into the destiny of one’s own life must be denied. I get it, but really don’t get it. Because even if different living creatures are found to have varying levels of consciousness and free will, a deterministic, cause and effect way of exploring the universe will always be exceedingly useful and one of our best inventions. Why does it have to be an either/or?

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@longcastle4863 *"Why does it have to be an either/or?"* ... Exactly! My argument is that "reality" a combination of both. There are x-amount of *predetermined conditions* (obstacles) that we can overcome based on the *free-willed decisions* we make (navigation of obstacles). The way I determine which ideology is most likely to reflect our reality is based on how much information can be produced. The amount of information produced within a totally "Hard Deterministic" reality would be *exponentially less* than the amount of information produced within a "blended reality" consisting of predetermined conditions and free-willed responses. A reality that allows for variations in outcomes (unpredictability) would produce far more information than a reality based on a predetermined script (predictability).

[@audiodead7302]

I think it goes back to the point Sherlock Holmes made: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Some people would argue that it is impossible for consciousness to arise from molecules / atoms. So it leaves you with the conclusion that consciousness just doesn't exist, even though our experience tells us otherwise.

[@copernicus633]

It seems to me that the bare fact of consciousness is irreducible from other concepts, and must be independently postulated as a proto-property of matter. No amount of neuro physiology will “explain” consciousnesss, without some fundamental property already present.

[@annleland6422]

It’s not difficult to conceptually understand that nobody is there to experience things, but we’re constantly living with that feeling. So the hard job is how not be a slave of that feeling of self. I bet neither Dennett nor Blackmore can live like that.

[@kallianpublico7517]

Is eating the only real thing: non-illusory thing? And consciousness merely the trauma "justifying" the eating? Justifying the transforming of other selves into "the self"?

[@longcastle4863]

Why would evolution select for us the illusion of consciousness and the illusion of free will, when actually selecting for such things would be so much more beneficial for survival?

[@blijebij]

Free will is a human interpretation of will, not all interpretate it like that. It is not a fact. Not all share the opinion our will is 100% autonomous and in an abolute form independant. Human Consciousness is not an illusion, its a potential for overseeing outcomes and possibilities. It has self reflection and self awareness, wich is an integrated state. You can not find a layer deeper then an integrated state, there for its not an illusion. It might be relative, but thats another matter.

[@markoshun]

Evolution doesn’t decide anything. So, what your asking can’t really be applied to natural selection. Nature is full of things that would be much better if the evolution had just taken a ‘better’ path. A common example is the laryngeal nerve that takes an unnecessarily long route in mammals, but which made sense in the preceding fish-like creatures. In a giraffe, it loops all the way down the neck and back up for no advantage. But the stupid long nerve is less of a disadvantage than the long neck is an advantage. So, you can ask how this came to be and trace it through the stages, but to ask why it didn’t just take the short cut across is to miss the gradual unintentional process.

[@blijebij]

@@markoshun The answer is here a layer deeper. Evolution is biology, but consciousness uses chemistry, physics and math principles. So its a matter of..it is there as it belonged to the natural equilibrium of possibilities from out natures quantum fields organisation. It belonged to the possibilities of organisation of information without a reason that it should Not happen.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@blijebij *"The answer is here a layer deeper."* ... Yah, there's always that "deeper layer," isn't there? The "deeper layer" in simulation theory is that everything we think represents our reality is just an unimaginably complex computer program. Let's all raise a beer to the many "deeper layers" of reality! We won't really be raising our beers, though. The "deeper layer" is that there is no "up" or "down" in space. ... Raising a mug of beer is just an _"illusion."_

[@markoshun]

@@blijebij Sounds like some interesting ‘deeper’ principles that might be a part of the process, TBD. But your sentence about evolution is biology but consciousness uses chemistry, physics and mathematics doesn’t make sense as a distinction. Biology is also chemistry and physics. 🤷‍♂️ I would go one further and say my sense is that consciousness is also biology, but I’m afraid I’d have a hard time explaining that myself as I’m neither a biologist or a physicist. But from what I’ve read, consciousness arising out of simple awareness is what’s made the most sense to me so far.

[@user-xn4wq4sv3r]

(1) Of course, there is a distinction between a perception picture of a physical thing and a scientific picture of it. For example, 'red light' is a perception picture, which is subjective, while 'electromagnetic wave with 430 terahertz' is its scientific picture, which is objective. (2) When I say to myself: "I am neither the body nor the perceptions, nor the thoughts, nor the emotions," I perceive Nothing in me...

[@Clancydaenlightened]

Rather is consciousness a hallucination

[@science212]

Owen Flanagan is for zen and tao. Wrong position.

[@tomrobingray]

Consciousness is not an Illusion BY DEFINITION: for some thing to be an illusion it must be possible to reveal this thing AS an illusion. How is this possible for consciousness, how could we possibly wake up and realize we are not in fact conscious.? If our models of reality are in conflict with the idea of consciousness, then it is those models that are wrong.

[@Jaymim]

Tat tvam asi 🙏🏼

[@doctorcrankyflaps1724]

I see the hair, then press X to doubt. X

[@jamesconner8275]

Did anyone else have the same 'experience' as me; she didn't explain a single thing? This interview was totally vacuous.

[@rickwyant]

More of his interviews are getting like that.

[@russellbarndt6579]

I thought she was doped up

[@browngreen933]

They try hard to be edgy and different, but come across as Flat Earthers. 😅

[@Hedgewalkers]

I felt the same yes. Almost as if she's so afraid of what it could be, that she's desperately looking for alternatives without any base for agument.

[@David.C.Velasquez]

Just an indication that the subject is at the boundary of human knowledge.

[@le_dude3201]

its the fact that the brain can process light and feel thing by nerves "touch" but spiritual its just a thought of comfort that humanity has implied through history like religion. the "Consciousness" its a complex subject to talk about when you have people already believing in whatever they feel right about to believe. Our brain doesnt function equally or 100%

[@abdelchemami6964]

Where to classify photos sent by JWST😂????

[@thewaythingsare8158]

Because I'm guessing you are really a virtual self inside a story that the brain tells itself. You don't really exist as such, you are an avatar interacting with other avatars inside a virtual model of your universe that you have constructed and are updating in every single living moment - I think

[@AlOfNorway]

Consciousness is not an illusion. Sensory perception is. Sensory perception varies and changes according to the position of the body in space and time. And that which changes, is not the truth, hence an illusion. But consciousness is the foundational principle of life behind that which registers sense perception. Consciousness is the only truth, as it never changes.

[@francesco5581]

A reality without something that is aware of it would seems totally irrelevant . Then how such a key piece can be an illusion ?

[@David.C.Velasquez]

The anthropic principle, in a nutshell.

[@thomassoliton1482]

Consciousness is just a really cool idea “we” made up a long time ago to explain the most basic exprience we all have but no one really knows what it is. You can’t define it, and it’s different every moment and for every person. That doesn’t mean we cant make up a word for it, and someone did ages ago sitting around a campfire eating wooly mammoth burgers. “Hey Abe, pass the blood pudding ok?” You know Abe has something inside him that understands things just like you do, because he passes you the pudding and smiles. You have no idea what it is, and it comes and goes like when he sleeps. So even though you can’t feel, smell, or see it, you do what you do what you always do - you give it a name -which today happens to be consciousness. It’s an idea, a concept, like love or red or death. What’s the big deal anyway? But one thing it’s not - it’s not some VR program. That just a stupid rationalization by people that are too smart for their own good. Here’s something to think about though. Are you conscious when you dream? Not normally - you are not aware you are dreaming, until you wake up and remember it. If you do remember it, it might seem like it was a conscious state. But if you awaken from a dream and do something else, the dream vanishes and you won’t be able to remember it. That brief memory of your dream is what enables you to be self-aware or self-reflective when you are awake. It’s always there in the background. If you ask yourself “am I conscious?”, that’s what enables you to say “Yes I am!”

[@AntonioRottigni]

You known that you are , you have no doubt on it, this Is consciousness

[@R.J.C.]

Consciousness is real, having emotion proves this for me. Also I feel the brain is energised by the spirt/soul. A car needs a driver. Body needs a operator. Machines run on power, which man supplies. Brain runs on power which Consciousness provides.

[@wefinishthisnow3883]

She's spot on. If someone lost all of their abilities to sense (see, hear, smell, taste and feel) and were paraplegic, what experience of consciousness would they have? What if they then lost their memories? Ability to feel emotions? The entire human experience of consciousness can be explained by our brain activity and response to what we sense. Do dogs experience consciousness? ants? bacteria? I'd argue that they do.

[@Dion_Mustard]

there are many altered states of consciousness, and not all explained by brain, so i have to disagree.

[@deanodebo]

Consciousness is prerequisite for brain. Not the other way around

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

Moreover, if you kill me, I will die, and that will show me! I'm not quite sure what argument you are making, beyond the trivial point that our conscious experiences are embodied. It's an important point, to be sure, but not so much in the context of this debate.

[@anteodedi8937]

​@@deanodeboDestroy your brain then, since you don't need it...

[@Sajuuk]

You're conflating consciousness with self-awareness, they are not the same thing. Consciousness requires the limbic cortex, the brain function of which allows cognizance of one's body, and existence in the world. Self-awareness is the recognition of that consciousness, namely how an individual experiences and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires. Both require a limbic cortex and a minimum degree of processing power, especially self-awareness, so no, I doubt lower life forms such as insects and fish are conscious or self-aware.

[@browngreen933]

These Ivory Tower types forget that consciousness is just a Nature devised tool to help us evade predators long enough to reproduce. Instead they fly off into lofty abstractions.😮

[@longcastle4863]

Y e s _! ! !_ 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@cjc520]

Maybe but that still doesn’t explain what it is or how it can exist in a material universe

[@longcastle4863]

@@cjc520One way to think of consciousness at its most basic level is too consider some Precambrian animal that develops a light sensitive patch of cells on its surface that leads by means of a thin line of neurons to a larger clump of neurons inside the creature’s body that represents a kind of incipient proto-brain. This allows the creature to be “aware” of lights and shadow in its environment and allows it, let’s say, to scurry down its burrow in the shallow sea bed whenever it sees a large shadow passing overhead. Or, alternatively, when it sees a flickering of small shapes of light and shadow it knows it can come out to feed. All this is consciousness; an awareness of one’s environment at a very basic level. But one can see how it would keep being selected for and improved upon by Nature due to the advantages it gives for survival. I hope this answers your question, “what is consciousness”.

[@browngreen933]

@@longcastle4863 Exactly! That Precambrian scenario should be their starting point and then work up from there. Instead they start with modern human complex consciousness with 3.5 billion years of Evolution behind it which makes them instantly fly off the handle into mysterious abstract speculations. They rarely mention the Great Stone Book fossil record. But whatever consciousness is now in humans, it started out very simple just like you said.

[@mikel5582]

​​@@browngreen933I think one should start at an even simpler level, perhaps the point where organisms first evolved the molecular apparati to make "choices." For example, certain bacteria have cell surface receptors that sense the environmental concentrations of certain nutrients. Gradients in nutrient concentrations trigger a cascade of intracellular events that lead to motility of the bacterium towards the higher concentration of nutrient. Even that unicelluar phenomenon is a very complex process that had to be broken down into much simpler components that are "assembled" as a model for the entire process. The key point here is that, even without any brain whatsoever, a bacterium responds to simple environmental simuli by making choices that affect its chance of survival.

[@fablb9006]

If one thing in this universe cann’ot be an illusion it is consiousness. The entity that have illusions is conciousness, but consciouness itself cannôot be an illusion

[@eustacequinlank7418]

It is, at least, a 'phenomenon'?! edit: still Cheerio.

[@ivanbeshkov1718]

Who's having this illusion? I wish it was my (unborn) identical twin.

[@misterhill5598]

If you watch this and understand the words that came out of their mouths, then consciousness is real.

[@Ekam-Sat]

Exactly. Truth is Self evident.

[@ericjohnson6665]

Somebody is having trouble seeing the forest for the trees. It's one of those ironies, you have to have consciousness in order to discuss consciousness. On a simplistic level, "consciousness" just means being "awake." Susan is perhaps thinking of all those other things that people say consciousness can accomplish, like astral projection... Consider the following celestial perspective on consciousness: 111:1.5 Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul-the morontia self-will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. *Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above.* Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity. www.urantiabook.org/111-The-Adjuster-and-the-Soul/#111_1

[@anaccount8474]

She didn't really defend the idea that consciousness is an illusion as in it's not what it seems to be. What she rattled off were misconceptions about consciousness, that's a far cry from saying consciousness is an illusion. If it's an illusion, what is it an illusion of, what is it really and how does it manage to create the illusion.

[@harishkumarh8349]

Buddha also rejected hard problem of consiousness. How to use awareness is more important than proving what is consiousness(Invented yoga and meditation). Iam aware so my mind so Iam.....Its a loop

[@billeltot]

Science of the gaps . People nowadays will say all stupid things to escape saying there is something nonphysical in this world which science can't explain .

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

Debating physics and the brain is one of heck of an illusion. You have to be conscious to do that.

[@marioceva7163]

The exoerience is that we are mind and we (mind) use brain.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

Consciousness is Eternal, Stuff-side of the Thinking, is a Real Illusion. (Eternal Miracle)

[@catherinemoore9534]

Even if consciousness is an illusion, it'll change nothing to the way we experience it. It's probably more important to understand why we experience it the way we do and how differently we do so between individuals. Subjectivity and feelings are what we're made of after all.

[@CMVMic]

False. We dont experience consciousness, experiences are part of what we label consciousness. Subjectivity and feelings are not substances that things are made out of, they are processes/events.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@CMVMic *"We dont experience consciousness"* ... I am fully experiencing every aspect of my consciousness right now. I am experiencing "me!" You can't experience my consciousness nor what it's like to be "me" because my consciousness exclusively belongs to me, and only I can experience it.

[@kevinsayes]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLCbut consciousness is just the empty stage, the blank screen, on which your experience of “you” takes place. There isn’t some qualia or differentiated, specific experience that we could label “ok this is consciousness,” because that would imply that we were able to switch it off and have any experience sans consciousness. The feeling of “you” is a set of perceptions that unfold in consciousness itself

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@kevinsayes *"but consciousness is just the empty stage, the blank screen, on which your experience of “you” takes place."* ... Let's use "bag" instead of stage or screen. You are arguing that consciousness is just the "bag" that's holding all of the subjective experiences of "me" that take place. That implies there needs to be a separate container when no container is really necessary. If I have a "bag" full of $300 worth of coins, the bag itself is meaningless. The coins are all that matters. I could dump them all over the floor and I'd still have $300 worth of coins. *"There isn’t some qualia or differentiated, specific experience that we could label “ok this is consciousness,” because that would imply that we were able to switch it off and have any experience sans consciousness."* ... Each experience I have during my lifetime is a slice of *information* that I have assimilated, processed, and judged. All of these different slices of information combine to form a *database of information* that represents my consciousness. In other words, the "bag" from my previous statement is made of the same information as the information its holding, ..so I am indeed experiencing my own consciousness. *"The feeling of “you” is a set of perceptions that unfold in consciousness itself"* .... Lost me on that one.

[@AntonioRottigni]

Rene Decartes says "Ego cogito, ergo sum"

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

(3:45) *SB: **_What I mean by an illusion is the dictionary definition that it's not what it seems to be."_* ... The term "Illusion" pops up whenever our first-hand perception of reality is challenged by some mysterious "hidden layer" that's secretly pulling the puppet strings. In other words, what *reality* presents to you isn't *really* what's going on, which begs the question, _"What's so wrong with the reality that's being presented that it must be cloaked within a different reality?_ *Examples:* *Hard Determinism* argues that even though *reality* presents to you first-hand that you are deciding between chocolate or vanilla, the *hidden reality* is that you are just playing out what has already been predetermined to happen by a prior event. *Physicalism/Materialism* argues that even though *reality* presents to you first-hand that you are an autonomous, individual "self" that's something uniquely greater than the sum of your parts, the *hidden reality* is that you're just a _"bag of particles"_ that just thinks that you're something special. *Multiverse Theory* argues that even though *reality* presents to you first-hand that there is only one of you and therefore you must _choose wisely,_ the *hidden reality* is that there are an infinite number of you in other universes that are making every other choice that you didn't make in this universe. *Question for you:* I can carefully stack paying cards to resemble a house (i.e., "house of cards"). The more careful I am, the larger the house I can build. The *reality* of how I can do this is because the table I'm building it on is _stationary._ However, the *hidden reality* is that my table is actually moving at 66,627 mph through space while spinning at about 1,000 mph. *Q:* "My house of cards is still standing, ... so is my table actually stationary, or is this just an illusion?"

[@longcastle4863]

Also, I like the house of cards example. And additionally all the atomic particles of the table and the cards are having a field day of motion and commotion.

[@longcastle4863]

I would just say that there seems no reason to me that consciousness and free will could not arise out of a totally materialistic universe, if that is what the universe is.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@longcastle4863 *"Also, I like the house of cards example. And additionally all the atomic particles of the table and the cards are having a field day of motion and commotion."* ... There is a "reality" where the earth is flying through space, a "reality" where the earth is spinning, a "reality" where all the particles are all moving about, and a "reality" where my table is standing perfectly still. All of these are valid "realities;" no one reality rises above another, and none of these realities are an _illusion._ Freely making decisions is the "reality" that we experience. Possession of an individual, self-aware consciousness that transcends our physicality is the "reality" we experience. Walking around in life without an omnipotent being hovering over us with his finger rigidly poised above the smite button on his computer is the "reality" we experience.

[@longcastle4863]

The smite button I’m not sure about. I just hope no one trips over the wire and pulls the plug out of the socket. 😊

[@David.C.Velasquez]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC The only thing that can possibly be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, is the eternally infinite omniverse itself.

[@PaulHoward108]

This channel should be called "Deeper in Ignorance." It's incredible how clueless everyone on it is.

[@kitstamat9356]

Consciousness knows that it is real and it knows it with absolute certainty. If you have clarity about this you will realize how inappropriate it is to say "Consciousness is an illusion".

[@08wolfeyes]

How is it that neurons don't understand anything yet as a brain full of them, it understands so much? I feel that consciousness is something of an illustration. We may have an experience or feeling that there is an ' I ' but it doesn't make it fact. We have bad dreams for example that we have experiences of, ones that may frighten us but again, isn't real. When we speak about ourselves, we can say " This body is my body, these eyes are my eyes, this brain is my brain " and so on. But wait, ' This brain is my brain? You are your brain, that is you. The rest of you is simply there as a way to move you ( The brain ) around. It's also a useful tool to interact with the world around you. It's other job of course is to keep you alive and protect you ( The brain ) I would say there are a few different definitions of consciousness. Being aware of the world around us and our own inner thoughts and images that only we are aware of. The difference between being asleep and awake. And maybe our ability to interact with the world and understand it is something related to being conscious. I would say the feeling we have as an ' I ' is related to feelings, memories and the fact that we can understand things. To our brains ( I'm doing it again ) , it us the only way it can understand who it is, to label it as an ' I ' because it doesn't see any other way to describe it.

[@mikel4879]

Consciousness only appears to be an illusion, because the real process behind it can "introspect" anything including "itself". In REALITY, consciousness is a true real and PRECISE material process taking place in the brain ( created by the brain itself ), process that creates the very true and final emergent result.

[@bananacabbage7402]

Consciousness is not an illusion. It is just self-awareness, intelligence and feelings. These can be explained in terms of neural and hormonal activity. The sensation that consciousness is something more than brain function is an illusion. Reality is relative.

[@Stegosaurus12345]

It is hard to account for how the brain's activity can produce qualitative sensations. For example, when you look at a red shirt, how is your sensation of red being manufactured by an electro-chemical process?

[@bananacabbage7402]

@@Stegosaurus12345 The sensation of seeing red is just our subjective experience of neurons firing. There is no objective means to identify anything beyond physical brain functions. However we experience an illusion that such conscious sensations are more than brain function. This is a survival trait that emerged during the brains evolution. It gives us purpose and empathy without which we would not pass on our genes. Conscious is a real feature of physical brain function, but the sensation that something non-physical is happening is just a very convincing illusion and there is nothing more to explain.

[@JHeb_]

​@@bananacabbage7402 Subjective experience of neurons firing? And where does the subjective experice come from? From neurons firing as well? You're not really answering the question.

[@user-or4hf4tf6b]

Maybe Consciousness is the sixth sense

[@MacWiedijk]

A few clarifications: There are no different unconscious and conscious things, everything is unconscious until it becomes conscious. Further; in my opinion, consciousness is not a stream, but the constant experience of the eternal now, immediately after the past and just before the future. All these parallel events are unconscious and it is indeed a function of the felt self to become aware of a number of things. Its function is, among other things, to be able to reason and imagine.

[@onemind4402]

I look around and ask the question...Is it?

[@MacWiedijk]

@@onemind4402 And what is your conclusion?

[@onemind4402]

@@MacWiedijk I had a long answer going and I lost it, hit the wrong button and its gone. Sigh...Basically, I differentiate between the unconscious and conscious. Much of what is UN can never become a part of the consciousness. We can't force that connection as we can't know what we don't know. I can't draw any conclusions for that simple reason. We are each an isolated consciousness and limited to our own Now as you put it. I struggle with Now, and have for some time. I hate to coin a phrase but I guess we can just "go with the flow".

[@MacWiedijk]

@@onemind4402 Of course we are aware of our past because it is more or less recorded in our memory (or not like your long answer ;). I also agree that we are in a flow, but at some point, now. We are at a certain point in that flow. If you think of it as a path, there is the completed part and the planned part. We form our thoughts like we plan a trip, in the now. And then we make that journey, in the now.

[@dipankarmallick5543]

sharlock holmes way the WOMAN...woman...woman theatricality with...cheers...

[@enigma7791]

Scraping the barrel now.

[@tao4124]

It is strange that she says that consciousness is an illusion, given that all the traditions in which meditation is present say exactly the opposite: consciousness is the ultimate reality, while the physical, corporeal reality is just the illusion of this reality that we experience. I'm also a meditator and I meditate a lot. And the most interesting thing is that, when you meditate a lot, the mind eliminates useless thoughts and we become more focused, aware of reality and that is when we can better observe the sensations in our body and when phenomena such as "astral projection" also occur. It is necessary to be aware of every breath, every sensation in the body, without any thought in the mind, and it is when such an experience happens that allows us to see beyond the reality we have here. And therefore I believe she is talking nonsense. Nor do I believe that she meditates as much as she says. Proving the ultimate nature of consciousness, which transcends the physical body and this reality, is not so easy: it takes concentration, meditation and a lot of effort, but it is possible to prove it empirically for all seekers.

[@Dion_Mustard]

spot on.

[@RolandHuettmann]

Great and an honest interview. She explains the impossibiliry to understand consciousness as an objective entity. Many here do not understand her point of view, I think.

[@russellbarndt6579]

Not to be out to be disrespectful but she was not coherent more on drugs

[@janeb305]

Rare to see Robert interview a woman.

[@tubes-lut]

Just take a hero does of mushrooms

[@ingenuity168]

it's all in the brain.

[@pruga20]

Conciusness is just to be. To be experience present moment, to be part of that space time universe in this body, our body is just suit, jacket, there is no difference. Our eyes, ears, smell its just gagdets to experience this interference in space time reality. Every living being, maybe everything has conciusness. There is no difference between my conciusnes and from rat, plant, or bacteria maybe even atom. We all have one conciusness, and that is just to be present, everything else is just tools to have experience vivid more in this reality. The thing that plant experience is so different from human that we cant comprehend what thas that plant experience. We can only compare us humsn beause we have similar genetics, so we have similar experience of reality. How big is conciusness? Probably smallest thing in universe, but it interacts with everything in special way that is computed in our dna.

[@onemind4402]

You are implying a conscious Universe. That mere existence creates consciousness. Atoms, rocks, water, plants, etc. all conscious. You could take it further and state that we, us persons, are all part of a universal, space/time consciousness. Not sure I agree with that interpretation, but its yours, so go with it.

[@mrbertaro4822]

I can’t stand this argument, ‘we can’t explain conciousness with our current understanding of reality therefore it doesn’t exist’. I like what chomsky says, its not our conciousness which needs explaining its our materialism which needs explaining. Our understanding of the world is incomplete and cannot account for the phenomena in the world, this is obvious

[@jamesmckenzie4572]

I feel like my brain does it's best to produce not an illusion but a facsimile of the real world. I wonder if the word illusion is just poorly chosen.

[@johnalden948]

Yes, and the facsimile is useful in helping us survive.

[@onemind4402]

It could be that any conversation around these subjects are matters of semantics. Our choice of words meet our own requirements for expressing our views, however they are not the word/s that another person might choose. That could be another topic, language and its relationship with consciousness.

[@valuemastery]

If consciousness is an illusion, who is having the illusion? By the way, the ONLY thing we can be absolutely certain of, is that we are aware. Anything else could be an illusion.

[@simonhibbs887]

Watch it again, she does not say that awareness is an illusion and says that is something that needs to be explained. She very specifically describes the common assumptions about consciousness she thinks are illusions and why.

[@jackarmstrong5645]

@@simonhibbs887 Her arguments are incredibly weak. For example she says we don't find some subject experiencing in the brain therefore our experience of a being a subject experiencing is an illusion. That is really no argument at all. It is just making claims from ignorance.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@jackarmstrong5645 She says she is making these claims from experience, and I have seen interviews with other people with similar experiences. The abstraction or dissolution of the sense of self in meditative states for example. Bear in mind she is not saying consciousness does not exist, she is very clear about that right from the very start. She just says it is not what it appears to be, and what many people assume it to be. I’m not even arguing for her point of view at all, I have no idea if she’s right or not, but a lot of comments here are patently ignoring what she actually says in the interview and hallucinating her having views she does not state. It’s very disappointing. I’d like to discuss what she talks about here, but that seems to be impossible because so many people don’t seem to be interested in what she actually says.

[@jackarmstrong5645]

@@simonhibbs887 Without a self experiencing there is no experience to talk about. The only way to lose the self is to also lose all knowledge of any experiences. Like when under anesthesia.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@jackarmstrong5645 People in some meditative states and some drug induced states report not having an experience of self. There are interviews with subjects under the influence of LSD for example on KZbin who say this. I would say there is a person having any given experience, but that’s the external interpretation of what’s happening in these cases. It’s not what the subject reports they experience, they say they have no experience of self. I think Blackmore is saying that there are aspects of that subjective internal experience that are misleading. It seems like the cognitive mechanisms that give us a self experience can stop functioning in the usual way. Some mystics interpret this as meaning the personal self is an illusion and that there is only the cosmic Great Self. This is a concept in Buddhism. It’s a way they interpret such experiences. A materialist view would be that the mechanisms of the brain that create the internal experience of self break down. For physicalism that’s not a problem because for us the body and it’s processes are the person. We already think consciousness is a contingent activity the brain sometimes does in various modes, and that it sometimes doesn’t do it, such as under anaesthesia or dreamless sleep.

[@science212]

Von Hartmann and Abdruschin were mad german thinkers. They were mystical.

[@MusingsFromTheJohn00]

Consciousness is not an illusion, but our human self-aware consciousness exists in an illusion, a virtual reality, created by subconsciousness parts of our mind to be a processed, summarized, analyzed, and modified representation of the actual real world the swarm intelligence of our body actually senses. That virtual reality we experience by necessity needs to closely correlate to the actual reality we exist within, but there are clear differences where it does not exactly track and sometimes the VR can strongly stop tracking, resulting in what we call hallucinations.

[@jimskeuh]

Now real food for thought is: would we be consious if we didn't have a soul?

[@playpaltalk]

Consciousness is light.

[@markpmar0356]

She seems more driven by her agenda to deny consciousness in some manner than by the desire to know more fully what consciousness is.

[@mgmcd1]

Golly, that sort of fallacious reasoning she is involved in would be called “rational construction,” which is the same fallacy used by religions; embrace the conclusion first, then pick your evidence and reason therefrom.

[@jamenta2]

Yes. A good take on not just Susan Blackmore as a well-known Skeptic, but most Skeptics in that society. They are centered more on their biases than the objective facts. One can't really take them too seriously given such is the case.

[@jamenta2]

@@mgmcd1 Yeah except she is at fault of the very same fallacy: Skeptics conclude first, which then precludes them from accepting any scientific evidence that goes against their fundamentalistic Materialism/Atheism. And it is a bias, there's no doubt about that.

[@science212]

Colin Blakemore and Richard Restak. Great scientists.

[@science212]

Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers, John Searle and some thinkers are wrong about mind and intentionality. Mind is just cognition, computational events in human brain.

[@rickwyant]

Agreed. No brain no consciousness.

[@science212]

Any funcional system like human brain can be conscious. A computer can be conscious. @@rickwyant

[@skiptalbot]

@@science212 Can it? How would you demonstrate this or find evidence for it? I'm really warming up to people like Anil Seth who suggest that conscious may indeed be the process of a biological system, the wet hardware that it contains, and that the same kind of consciousness may not be possible on silicon alone.

[@science212]

Mind is not a strange vital force in biological material. Mind is a functional organization in a material system. @@skiptalbot

[@skiptalbot]

@@science212 I agree, it's not a strange vital force of biological material. But the organization and composition of biological material might be playing a key role in how we experience consciousness. Not unlike how biological material is necessary for what we would label life itself. A computer controlled mechanical robot could respire and metabolize using an air breathing engine and fuel, sense the world and move through, and even reproduce using its own genetic code by assembling copies of itself from other bits of machines. But most people would probably say that's not reeeaal life. It's a crude mimicry of it. Digital computer created consciousness may indeed by the same.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

GREAT guest!!

[@marioceva7163]

Reality is conscioness.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

The India Wiseman state Brahma is pure absolute consciousness. Obviously not meaning the psycho physical self of being, rather a higher one. So, yeah. I personally think Light is intelligent or conscious.

[@marioceva7163]

@@S3RAVA3LM agree with you. My wish.

[@science212]

Topobiology ( 1988) is a bad book by Gerald Edelman.

[@YuTv1408]

Stop assuming you know about consciousness.

[@science212]

There is no memes. Read Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran, for example.

[@MikeG-js1jt]

Is it just me, or does Robert not look very much like Einstein?

[@kipponi]

Yes he does and more as an older.

[@browngreen933]

More like Einstein's brother-in-law.

[@MikeG-js1jt]

I'll meet you halfway and say his brother, that way, at least their still related.......@@browngreen933