Giulio Tononi - What's the Essence of Consciousness?

Consciousness is what mental activity feels like, the private inner experience of sensation, thought and emotion. Watching a dramatic movie. Imagining your family's future. Attending the funeral of a loved one. Consciousness is like nothing else. But what is consciousness, the essence of consciousness, at its most fundamental level?
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Giulio Tononi is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who holds the David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, as well as a Distinguished Chair in Consciousness Science, at the University of Wisconsin
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Closer to Truth 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.

[@rh001YT]

recovering from a mini stroke that affected only some muscles of my right ankle and buttock, at first things felt very segmented. My gait was very choppy and shaky. As recovery progressed it got smoother and smoother. It occured to me that brain walking commands, lots of fine muscle movements and control, are more like a continuous and complex wave than a series of commands. A very few dead brain cells chop up the wave, but the wave is what finds new pathways around the dead bits. Consciousness may be a bunch of such waves that need brain cells to propagate but the cells themselves are not the consciousness.

[@nsdksstktzi89765]

I love how Giulio Tononi approaches consciousness. From all scientists interviewed on this channel, if someone would figure out consciousness or at least drastically progress it would be Giulio Tononi no doubt

[@fffffplayer1]

I feel like Giulio is saying everything I've wanted to say, but better because he's an actual neuroscientist and has studied those subjects of consciousness. It's very refreshing to see people actually talking about this perspective and possibility of things rather than the continuous waves of materialists and naturalists and functionalists you often see in the modern world of science.

[@OurLifeJourney365]

Very interesting discussion. The host, great as always. Giulio Tononi makes very interesting claims, and with style. Will definitely keep track of this individual

[@AlessandroBottoni]

Very interesting and thought-provoking discussion. Tononi seems to be one of the rare scholars that actually try to define "consciousness" with precision before trying to discuss it. This must be appreciated. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that we are still putting too many different things under the one single definition of "consciousness" and that this confusion makes it very hard to explore this concept. Maybe, we even expect too much from "consciousness". Our excessive expectations make it even harder to study the concept.

[@psicologiajoseh]

These types of interviews are what make this channel incredibly valuable. Fascinating!

[@AvadhootDandekar]

I fully agree with his claim that the simulation will be a perfect zombie. It can never be a self aware entity. In my understanding this will be a limitation in that situation of technological singularity.

[@eggsbacongritsandsausage8178]

This guy is brilliant. He can come back. 👍

[@jamesbentonticer4706]

The jungle graffiti makes for a nice background.

[@HayleydeRonde]

Such a serendipitous thing to stumble upon this.

[@geraldvaughn8403]

I agree. Consciousness isn’t a computation which is purely deterministic. Consciousness is being aware of ones thoughts. The thoughts might be computational but the awareness of them is not.

[@largecoke4087]

Great topic. This expert's general attitude is very self righteous considering how his field hardly has any of the answers. I admire the interviewer's humbleness and interest in the subject.

[@thedillestpickle]

Everything that we refer to as "our conscious" experience, is that which we are able to encode in memory. It is very plausible that there are aspects of our felt experience that we are not logging into our memory, and so, cannot ever refer to. But, the experience itself is still happening.

[@elonever.2.071]

I like this guy, Guilio Tononi, and the way he thinks. He understands the limitations of what he and we know regarding the state of Consciousness and very clearly states it that way. In my book that is a true Scientist...no unnecessary extrapolations to provide evidence for an agenda driven theory. 'This is pretty much what we know and can safely say with cautious enthusiasm and we really cannot say much more.' His thinking makes me think and I like that because he clearly sets the boundaries with what is now known and what is assumed to be known because of it.

[@DualAnalogReviews]

Super interesting conversation. I love how clear and concise the speakers are.

[@NickyNustar]

"Hi... My names Nick Clark... And I have consciousness above zero... It's great to be here. Let's party".

[@albert23199]

I like his view of consciousness. I think it's pretty accurate to the physical reality and philosophical implications.

[@znariznotsj6533]

Consciousness only exists as a first person experience. Second or third person experience is therefore always a projection. This is the deeper and usually misunderstood message of Turing's paper The Imitation Game. I strongly recommend reading it.

[@francesco5581]

Tononi here is spot on, removing silly "AI is the future !!" claims (even if i don't like his general idea about consciousness... )

[@atomnous]

I understand that the consciousness wouldn't be the same, at all. I agree that mind transfer is impossible simply by the fact that having multiple copies of your mind would break the logic of the mechanism. But I wouldn't say as far as that the thing isn't conscious at all. It is simply unknown. It could be conscious, just not the same consciousness.