Consciousness as a Problem in Philosophy & Neurobiology (John Searle)

[@cheogrady]

What brilliance! Even his humor has a touch of the sublime. I can’t get enough- what a mind!!!

[@LuckSuomi]

Yes. Just in the first two minutes he picks my attention. Let's see

[@dibble2005]

This man just does it for me. I started studying philosophy late in life. I never had an education so I went to college as a mature student. When I came across this idea about the philosophy of mind I discovered John and ever since I am drawn to his ideas and needless to say on the question of consciousness I stand with is position on consciousness as opposed to Bostrom or Floridi. I think it is unbelievable that they cannot differentiate the differences outlined here by John. I want to do a Masters and I think I found the area I want to study. Consiousness.

[@thaddeusroberts2393]

YOU don't study consciousness; consciousness studies YOU. I don't know. Sounded clever in my head.

[@cheogrady]

Go for it!

[@AI-Hallucination]

I AM THE WHITE RABBIT

[@MichaelMayday]

Nobody cares

[@kappaprimus]

​@@MichaelMaydayidt he said anyone did

[@gamefreak23788]

As a graduate student of philosophy, John Searle is one of my favorite all time philosophers.

[@star_blazer]

I agree. I _love_ Searle. I took his philosophy of mind course. One of the most memorable experiences of my life.

[@roberth9814]

His rhetoric is breathtaking. Unlike him, most people who speak like this don't have any idea what they're talking about 🤣

[@gamefreak23788]

@@roberth9814 It's unfortunate that he is a repeated sexual predator outside of class.

[@divertissementmonas]

Both the lecture was good and how he answered the audiences questions. Totally engaging.

[@CPHSDC]

I watch a lot of 'brains' lecturing, debating, you know, if you are watching this, you spend time at it as well. John Searle brings clarity without sleight of hand. My hats off to him.

[@sethwilliams501]

I’d like openly debate this with you. Hit me with a social or email. I’d argue lots of misinformation and intellectual slight of handery is at play whenever John refers to consciousness. He misused the word “intentionality” so much in his writing. He also thinks free will is a quantum function; implying either all mammals made a quantum leap in evolution or humans did; depending if you argue that apes have a free will like he does. Please be careful when taking in Mr. Searle’s work. As Wittgenstein once said, “there are no philosophical issues simply misunderstandings of language.”

[@CPHSDC]

That was two months ago. I think I was being sarcastic. Anyone who has something to say on consciousness is out of their minds, and anyone out of their mind is not worth listening to unless you get paid by the hour to do it. Since this viewing I have come to a conclusion I would be happy to debate. ALL WE CAN KNOW IS DIALOGUE & TOUCH. Everything else is either an extrapolation or an illusion, and extrapolation is fleeting.

[@frsg]

I very like the analogy of weather forecasts and the actual hurricane for explaining how ephemeral is computer induced consciousness

[@rocketman475]

It will not become conscious. No problem. Nothing to worry about, I just asked my AI about consciousness and here's exactly what it said: RocketM: Eve, What is consciousness? Eve (AI) : Consciousness is the state of being aware of and able to interact with the external world. It's what makes us unique and special. RocketM: Are you conscious? Eve : No, I'm not conscious. RocketM: So how are you able to interact with the external world without being conscious? Eve : Our brains are responsible for our cognitive functions, which include our ability to think, feel, and perceive. These cognitive functions are mediated by the nervous system and the brain. RocketM: That's an impressive response from someone who is not conscious. Eve : Thank you! I'm glad you found my answer informative. RocketM: Do you think that you'll ever become conscious? Eve : No, I don't think so. RocketM: That's sad. Eve : It's interesting though, because even though I don't have consciousness, I can still interact with the external world. RocketM: Yes, that's a very interesting point. I think you're just being incredibly diplomatic! Eve : Thank you!

[@sensennsen]

remarkable

[@enlightenedone7238]

or maybe not

[@mattgilbert7347]

It's predictive text

[@mattgilbert7347]

Observer relevant. You're the one interpreting. In fact, without you, it wouldn't be doing anything (if we restrict our argument to only the text you've provided).

[@marcobiagini1878]

I am a physicist and I will explain the reason why our scientific knowledge disproves the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). My arguments prove the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit. Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but I will discuss two arguments that prove that this hypothesis implies logical contradictions and is disproved by our scientific knowledge of the microscopic physical processes that take place in the brain. (With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams). 1) All the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or classifications of underlying processes and arbitrary abstractions of the actual microscopic physical processes, which are described DIRECTLY by the laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. This means that emergent properties do not refer to reality itself but to an arbitrary abstract concept (the approximate conceptual model of reality). Since consciousness is the precondition for the existence of concepts, approximations and arbitrariness, consciousness is a precondition for the existence of emergent properties. Therefore, consciousness cannot itself be an emergent property. The claim that emergent properties exist independently of a conscious mind is therefore simply nonsensical because it is equivalent to the claim that an approximation exists as an actual entity. 2) An emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess. The point is that every set of elements is inherently an arbitrary abstract idea which implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements. In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is not a physical entity but just an abstract idea and so are all its properties. Any property attributed to the set as a whole is inherently an abstract idea that refers to a property of another abstract idea (the set) and not to a physical entity. So any emergent property is by its very nature an arbitrary abstraction that refers to another arbitrary abstraction (the set). Since consciousness is a precondition for the existence of arbitrariness and abstractions, consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any property of a set as a whole, and therefore consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property. Therefore, consciousness cannot itself be an emergent property. Both arguments 1 and 2 are sufficient to prove that every emergent property requires a consciousness from which to be conceived. Therefore, that conceiving consciousness cannot be the emergent property itself. Conclusion: consciousness cannot be an emergent property; this is true for any property attributed to the neuron, the brain and any other system that can be broken down into smaller elements. In other words, emergence is a purely conceptual idea that is applied onto matter for taxonomy purposes. On a fundamental material level, there is no brain, or heart, or any higher level groups or sets, but just fundamental particles interacting. Emergence itself is just a category imposed by a mind and used to establish arbitrary classifications, so the mind can't itself be explained as an emergent phenomenon. Obviously we must distinguish the concept of "something" from the "something" to which the concept refers. For example, the concept of consciousness is not the actual consciousness; the actual consciousness exists independently of the concept of consciousness since the actual consciousness is the precondition for the existence of the concept of consciousness itself. However, not all concepts refer to an actual entity and the question is whether a concept refers to an actual entity that can exist independently of consciousness or not. If a concept refers to "something" whose existence presupposes the existence of arbitrariness/subjectivity or is a property of an abstract object, such "something" is by its very nature abstract and cannot exist independently of a conscious mind, but it can only exist as an idea in a conscious mind. For example, consider the property of "beauty": beauty has an intrinsically subjective and conceptual nature and implies arbitrariness; therefore, beauty cannot exist independently of a conscious mind. My arguments prove that emergent properties, as well as complexity, are of the same nature as beauty; they refer to something that is intrinsically subjective, abstract and arbitrary, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness cannot be an emergent property because consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property. The "brain" doesn't objectively and physically exist as a single entity and the entity “brain” is only a conceptual model. We create the concept of the brain by arbitrarily "separating" it from everything else and by arbitrarily considering a bunch of quantum particles altogether as a whole; this separation is not done on the basis of the laws of physics, but using addictional arbitrary criteria, independent of the laws of physics. The property of being a brain, just like for example the property of being beautiiful, is just something you arbitrarily add in your mind to a bunch of quantum particles. Any set of elements is an arbitrary abstraction therefore any property attributed to the brain is an abstract idea that refers to another arbitrary abstract idea (the concept of brain). Furthermore, brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a conceptual model used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes; interpreting these sequences as a unitary process or connection is an arbitrary act and such connections exist only in our imagination and not in physical reality. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole is an arbitrary abstract idea , and not to an actual physical entity. For consciousness to be physical, first of all the brain as a whole (and brain processes as a whole) would have to physically exist, which means the laws of physics themselves would have to imply that the brain exists as a unitary entity and brain processes occur as a unitary process. However, this is false because according to the laws of physics, the brain is not a unitary entity but only an arbitrarily (and approximately) defined set of quantum particles involved in billions of parallel sequences of elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. This is sufficient to prove that consciousness is not physical since it is not reducible to the laws of physics, whereas brain processes are. According to the laws of physics, brain processes do not even have the prerequisites to be a possible cause of consciousness. As discussed above, an emergent property is a concept that refers to an arbitrary abstract idea (the set) and not to an actual entity; this rule out the possibility that the emergent property can exist independently of consciousness. Conversely, if a concept refers to “something” whose existence does not imply the existence of arbitrariness or abstract ideas, then such “something” might exist independently of consciousness. An example of such a concept is the concept of “indivisible entity”. Contrary to emergent properties, the concept of indivisible entity refers to something that might exist independently of the concept itself and independently of our consciousness. My arguments prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property implies a logical fallacy and an hypothesis that contains a logical contradiction is certainly wrong. Consciousness cannot be an emergent property whatsoever because any set of elements is a subjective abstraction; since only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, consciousness can exist only as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity corresponds to what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience. Marco Biagini

[@caygesinnett6474]

I, John Searle, have personally read the entire essay you posted in a KZbin comment, and because of your airtight reasoning, I now think I was totally wrong, and you have shown me that consciousness could never be a product of the brain.

[@stupidrainbo]

I really like this comment. I am religious myself but I want to play devil's advocate. Is it possible that there are alternate dimensions of reality or alternate realities (I mean let's face it, there's a lot going on in this universe that makes no sense, such as dark matter, dark energy, cosmic inflation, the big bang, quantum physics, etc) that can express (in some 'natural' way) the properties that you say can't be accounted for by our current models of physics?

[@marcobiagini1878]

@@stupidrainbo In the first place, if you mean that the current laws of physics are not sufficiently fundamental to account for the existence of consciousness, implying that new and more fundamental laws of physics are necessary, you confirm my point which is: according to the current laws of physics, brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness, our mental experiences are not generated by brain processes alone and consciousness is not physical. Some considerations about possible scientific progress can be made. First of all, science has never made progress throughout history in explaining the origin of consciousness and therefore there is no reason to expect science to provide an explanation in the future. Neuroscience has shown only the existence of corelations between brain processes and mental experiences, but correlation does not mean causation. Indeed, science is unable to explain the existence of consciousness even in principle; science does not even provide a clue to justify the existence of consciousness. It is worth considering that the current laws of physics already explain all chemical and biological processes, including cerebral processes, without the need to introduce additional hypotheses, independent of the laws of physics themselves. Developments in physics are expected to refer to high energy processes or cosmology, processes that are not invoved in brin processes. In fact, a remarkable feature of the laws of physics, is the fact that the strong interaction among quarks is decoupled from the electromagnetic interaction between electrons, which alone determines all chemical and biological processes; the strong interaction simply holds nucleons together inside the atomic nucleous during chemical and biological processes. It is therefore unreasonable to hypothesize that we will find new laws of physics that will change our descriptions of biological processes, just as science has never changed our description of the dynamics of macroscopic objects at speeds far below the speed of light, a dynamics that is still described through the laws of classical physics. Quantum physics represents a major breakthrough in the history of science because for the first time it has provided a set of laws capable to explain all biological processes. The point is that we do not need new laws of physics to explain biological and cerebral processes, and such processes are perfectly reducible to the current laws of physics; conversely, my arguments prove that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. The fundamental aspect is that brain processes consist of many distinct sequences of elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in what we call "brain" and no new theory in high energy physics can ever change this result because the interactions involved in high energy physics are decoupled from the interactions that are involved in atomic and molecular processes. Every sequence and every set is an arbitrary / subjective abstraction and consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any abstraction, as well as arbitrariness / subjectivity. This implies this consciousness cannot exist as a result of a set of elementary processes.

[@stupidrainbo]

@@marcobiagini1878 I admit that I'm slightly out of my element but thank you for the response! I'll think about it and see if I could poke more holes in it later ;)

[@nelson6702]

Consciousness as a precondition for concepts, etc. A leap of faith. But the main problem is the assertion that the laws of physics describe brain processes. I wasn't aware that our laws of physics were that complete or anything other than provisional at particular levels of abstraction.

[@sukabumiflasher4537]

Consciousness is a description of the movements produced by chemical signals between hormones. Taste is a measure of the value produced by biological signals between cells. Sense is a sequence of steps that generate physical signals between neurons.

[@martinarreguy2984]

Consciousness; je ne said quoi, indefinable! Some excellent points, the most important, subjectivity!!

[@beautaillefer276]

“Why is so much sheer nonsense talked about consciousness?” It’s amazing how many people are turning to Idealsm to try to make sense of consciousness. Searle is an invaluable voice against speculative nonsense.

[@mhnv9436]

have u heard of dualism

[@btanonymous]

@@mhnv9436no, never. Wuts dualism

[@mhnv9436]

@@btanonymous Dualism is the philosophical view that the mind and body are distinct and fundamentally different substances or realms.john searle recognises that the gap between acheiving 1st person ontology using 3rd person ontology or even have a 3rd person ontology without invoking metaphysics of us having discernability which cannot be proven via strict naturalistic explanantions. no amount of scientific inquiry will get you there. so the idea of materialism cannot be if there is no conscious immaterial intent, and if there is no conciousness how do we know things, how can ontology exist whether it be first person or 3rd person if all what is is soley an interplay particles. and if you get to know it is an interplay of particles how did you know without having self awareness or any awarenes (ie conciousness) which naturalistic explanations cannot give. how can something material give rise to something immaterial?

[@mhnv9436]

@@btanonymous Dualism is the philosophical view that the mind and body are distinct and fundamentally different substances or realms.

[@mhnv9436]

@@btanonymous john searle recognises that the gap between acheiving 1st person ontology using 3rd person ontology or even have a 3rd person ontology without invoking metaphysics of us having discernability which cannot be proven via strict naturalistic explanantions. no amount of scientific inquiry will get you there. so the idea of materialism cannot be if there is no conscious immaterial intent, and if there is no conciousness how do we know things, how can ontology exist whether it be first person or 3rd person if all what is is soley an interplay particles. and if you get to know it is an interplay of particles how did you know without having self awareness or any awarenes (ie conciousness) which naturalistic explanations cannot give. how can something material give rise to something immaterial?

[@languagegame410]

fucking love JOHN SEARLE!!!

[@demiurge8665]

“All of the intelligence is relative to our interpretation.” There in lies the danger.

[@ruthless9604]

STILL I AM PAYING ATTENTION

[@fakaarda]

53:33 if Searle takes his jacket off after hearing your question, all I can say is hats off

[@The1Helleri]

31:00 A function happening to something because nothing else was more probable is not the same as a thing performing a function. It's like saying you drove somewhere when you were merely a passenger. Sure anything can be considered anything else when your definition of a thing is so broad as to include anything that exists. It just means you're defining things poorly. The definition of a computer given here is an extreme over simplification of multiple criterion actually used to describe computers.

[@77capr3]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss Thanks for summarizing! It helps me understand what Searle is saying. Although it doesn't help me agree with him: The distinction between observer-dependent and observer-independent seems arbitrary to me. For example, don't we attribute "sharp" to the object's edge the same way that we attribute "knife" to something sharp. Some people may call the edge sharp, some people may call it dull. If you're a very small observer compared to the object, you may not even perceive an edge. So I guess it all seems observer-dependent to me. Do you have an example of a more clearly observer-independent fact?

[@77capr3]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss So let's say I put my kitchen knife on the table. And then all conscious life got extinguished from the universe. And we'd like to talk about what's left over. Is it really more meaningful to talk about a sharp object on the table than about a knife on the table? In what way does the sharpness of the object manifest itself more than it being a knife? No one is there to do any cutting and no one is there to perceive any sharpness. Yes, different opinions on sharpness do not prove that there isn't a physical property value of sharp, but what proves that there is? Thanks for writing a lot more, I would respond to more points if I had a convenient quoting mechanism.

[@77capr3]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss I meant us now in real life describing the hypothetical case where the kitchen knife is on the table and all conscious life got extinguished from the universe. You seem to be talking about such hypothetical scenarios too, no?

[@77capr3]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss You write: "The rock with a sharp edge will have that property, it will be the way that it is, even if all conscious life is extinguished from he universe" and also "There is also nothing to be sharp". Are you making a distinction between having the property value of sharp and being sharp?

[@77capr3]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss Hey, if you're starting to feel impatience, I don't want to keep you. I just haven't made any progress in making sense out of Searle. So I take it your answer to my last question is: "Yes, having the property of sharp is different from being sharp"? Is it that you want to talk about objects in and of themselves but without really talking about them because any talk would be a description which would be observer-dependent? To me talking about observer-independent anyting is meaningless in the same sense that it is meaningless to talk about the Undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster possibly hovering over your head. Yes, you could posit it and put up theories about it, but most people don't because by definition, it has no bearing on anything.

[@russgrimes5531]

Part of consciousness exists in the magnetic field generated by the electrical current in the brain and body. The electrical current and magnetic field interact with each other and the complexity of the interaction is what forms our mind It is part of the human body. But also part of physics Every atom in the universe has an electric and magnetic field. Consciousness itself is an inherent part of the universe. How could consciousness arise at all if it isn’t part of the whole?

[@Skachmo1]

But what if I build a synthetic digestive system that CAN eat a pizza? Is it still a model? Isn't there a point where a model of a system and the system itself are indistinguishable from each other wrt capability?

[@GackFinder]

It's already been done actually. Look up cloaca machine. It's not merely a model though. A synthetic digestive system would be a duplication, and not merely a simulation of the digestive system. Meaning it duplicates the causal powers of a real digestive system. A simulation cannot duplicate the causal powers.

[@SMHS28]

A master at work

[@BLSFL_HAZE]

I dare say he NAILED it!

[@meenutiwari-yv9oo]

Sir Mai Aapke ki philosophy pe research Karna chahti hu but aapki book Hindi me available Nahi h

[@meenutiwari-yv9oo]

Sir plz help me

[@snl1754]

28:22 eventually when he puts down the glass of water on the table nearby after as though he sipped in a bit of consciousness himself, regains his lost breath.

[@durukyrien149]

You speak like death lol

[@snl1754]

@@durukyrien149

[@moesypittounikos]

I thought he was dead! I'm happy to see him mind.

[@ubertrashcat]

Searle has yet to give an account of substrate independence. Yes, the computer is "just" a machine that rapidly processes variations in electrical potentials but the brain is also "just" a machine that processes variations in electrochemical potentials. What privileges the brain over the computer?

[@BobHamiltonnewradio]

We KNOW those mountains are objective existence because we observe that with our consciousness....that's the only way we KNOw anything. You cant leave the observer out of anything.

[@hgrandii]

He says an observer independent computer is a bunch of semi conductors changing charges at a incredible pace Cant we define the mind as a bunch of organic matter, a network of neurons with changing charges in synapses? If we can have an electronic arm - which copies the function of an organic arm satisfactorily (imagine an electronic arm so good and so real no one , even its bearer, could tell the difference to a real one) - why couldn't we electronically copy consciousness ? It seems dogmatic that we couldn't, that that would be inconceivable, and that even if we would do this, we would be interpreting it.

[@vhawk1951kl]

First as what you are*calling* mind- *Then* define it, Who the fcuk is " we"? *Is_there* a we?

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

Two theories can be can be opposed to each other, yet both make the same mistake. The heliocentric theory that the sun is the center of the universe developed in opposition to the geocentric theory in which the earth was supposed to be the center. But both these theories made the same fundamental mistake of supposing that the universe has a center around which it revolves.

[@TeaParty1776]

Those theories are differently false, not contradictory.

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@TeaParty1776 I never stated they were contradictories. Instead, I simply said they were examples of two theories that, while opposed to each other, made the same fundamental mistake. Where in my original statement do you see the word 'contradictory'?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@alwaysgreatusa223 What, then, is your "opposed?"

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@TeaParty1776 You need to study logic: x is a contradictory of y, when x being false necessarily means y is true. When x and y can both be false, yet are opposed to each other in that they cannot both be true, they are contrary to one another -- they are called 'contraries' of one another -- not 'contadictories'.

[@umbomb]

This was interesting. Far above my pay grade but my hunch is his argument has been superseded in recent years. If anybody can point me to a video lecture refuting his claims, I'd love to hear that. Thanks.

[@mattgilbert7347]

Hey John, Marxist here. We're coming back. "False consciousness" is indeed a technical term. An unfortunate wording. Good question at 53:03

[@syedadeelhussain2691]

The lecture has left me a bit bamboozled. I am neither psychology nor a computer science major. We need to distinguish between cognitive computing and Ai/ machine learning! The professor needs to be more translucent. NEXT: But I have some FURTHER silly questions below => Why is cognitive computing a form of programming which learns from intelligible human actions? How can the computer system learn things from us when we don't instruct it to specifically do so? For, e.g., Chess Games. Shall we say that Machine Learning Code Writing is done in data frames such as R Studio, etc, and other Software Languages (COBOL, MATLAB, FOX PRO, VBA) which were used in the past to do specific commands programming, are identical? So, if the answer to the above is in the affirmative, shall we say that the machine is unconsciously learning from our actions/datasets?

[@DWinegarden2]

The machines are only creating models, not forms of consciousness. The models may becoming more complex, but they will never be more than models of consciousness, Searle suggests.

[@luisathought]

Thank You

[@VenusLover17]

❤❤thanks. Inspiring

[@lukas4235]

46:20 That reasoning is flawed. Waking up in a dark room is far from being uninfluenced by perception. I´m quite confident that if you would cut all sensory inputs you would not be consciouss anymore. Sensory inputs are vision, olfaftory, auditory, proprioceptive, nocizeptive etc. Just think about how disoriented we get when we just loose one of those senses, the only reason we still function is because we have all the others. No sensory inputs no consciousness. Psychedelics disrupt the perceptional signals and can cause a dissolution of ones ego, a dissolution of basically everything. And thats just a non total disruption of perceptive stimuli.

[@milestiller665]

Let me ask you this: is the ability to form logical structures and process grammar a function of one of the senses? Sure, cognition requires material from the senses to construct meaningful concepts and structures, but is the presence itself of this faculty, the understanding, the result of any one sense? I am able to understand concepts and communicate through symbols apprehended by the eyes, and yet I am also able to understand concepts and communicate through vibrations apprehended by the ears, and yet understanding wrought from these disparate senses is unified and innately synthesizes. Neurobiology also supports Searle’s reasoning. Nociception is demonstrably linked to nerves in the peripheral nervous system. Severance of nerves along the pathway to the brain results in the loss of the sense, and yet there are many associative complexes in the brain which process data from the peripheral nervous system, yet are not contained by them nor are regulated by them. Electrical synapses regulate many of the timed functions in our body (heart rate, breathing) so it’s not out of the question that “awareness” is not the result of a central pulsation of electrical (and chemical) synaptic action which is unrelated to the pathways from peripheral nerves. It’s also possible that this basic awareness is, itself, a kind of sense we have not yet differentiated.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@chocolatefigure01 "logic is external to ones mind" No, logic is abstract and because abstractions have no location, logic has no location. Logic is at home in brains and computers because what's going on in both of them is process and process is abstract. "all our concepts are based on spirits" What verifiable facts are known about spirits? None whatsoever! The concept of spirit is the mental residue of obsolete physics theories that persist thanks to cultural inertia and poor education. Flat earthers persist because they enjoy getting rises out of dweebs. Spiritualists persist because they can take a lot of money from the ignorant masses. "To be able to use an expression it means that you understand the rules that govern the use." Not at all. Have you never spoken with a child? "In natural language it means that you belong to a community of speakers, in biology, that you share certain genetics". That is not a sentence that makes any sense.

[@haroldgarrett2932]

the brain does not need inputs to be conscious. you can go to a sensory deprivation tank and see for yourself how it behaves. in the absence of stimuli it simply generates its own, like it does while dreaming.

[@lukas4235]

@@haroldgarrett2932 Hmm Senory deprivation is just a proximation to what it would feel like. you still have lots of stimuli acting on you, proprioceptive, gravitational, pressure etc. You wouldn´t immediately be unconscious when cutting all inputs since the brain has intrinsic activity. But this activity is dependent on external stimuli, like light regulating gene expression of our circadian clock and internal stimuli that arise of deprivation of external ones like hunger. If there was no stimulation there wouldn´t be a need for consciousness. So some residual brain action will still suffice for conscousness for some time period but eventually it would cease to exist. I don´t know wether it is possible to stay conscious when the sense of oneself or spacetime disintegrates since it is dependent of external stimuli

[@haroldgarrett2932]

​@@lukas4235 i agree completely, it would disintegrate. my only objection was that your original comment made it sound like it would be immediate, like flipping a switch, which you have clarified

[@marioalpizar]

How do you define consciousness ? Congratulations for your presentation ( I invite you to read an Spanish ph : Gustavo Bueno )

[@dibble2005]

I will.

[@skepticalgenious]

I feel I comprehend the thermostat having belief's. The thermostat only has those three modes because the physical material is constructed in a way that is must act this way. It never had a choice in thinking. So to say the thermostat says" it says it's °80 and I should turn the A/C on, but I'm not personally warm so I won't. No it hits 80 and turns on. For it must follow whatever laws of physics in regards to how the matter is constructed. Clip 1 wire and now it follows that new law.

[@KipIngram]

Well, right - I think the problem is in calling that "belief." I concur with Searle that that's a misuse of the word; "Belief" requires consciousness. Does a raindrop "believe" it's falling? Seems beyond silly to me, and I'd claim that anyone who wants to push the point has some kind of an agenda they're trying to support. The opposite extreme is Daniel Dennett, who tries to say that we humans aren't really conscious. Just another way of smushing everything together into one bucket, and equally nuts.

[@daniellang1400]

his term observer-independency is just a presupposed metaphysical abstraction..?

[@mattgilbert7347]

I find it a useful tool

[@lunothelegend8156]

His trespasses were unforgivable but his contributions are timeless. What a shame.

[@Robinson8491]

What do you mean?

[@Sh.moon.]

@@Robinson8491 he sexually harassed his students

[@tomekczajka]

He talked for a long time about Bostrom's argument about Superintelligence, but completely misrepresented and ignored the whole argument. Bostrom gives *reasons* why he thinks superintelligent computers may behave in a harmful way. Searle doesn't even mention any of these reasons. Searle just talks about how a computer's reasons are "observer dependent" (which I fail to understand the meaning of), but that's seems completely orthogonal to the whole question of whether they will behave in a harmful way. He even says earlier that a computer may behave "as if" it were conscious. And yet later he somehow argues that a computer may not behave in a harmful way *because* it's "not really conscious". This whole argument makes no sense whatsoever.

[@jay31415]

Yeah. Even if we agree with him that computers can't be "relative observers" (whatever the hell that could possibly mean), he sounds out of touch with the modern advances in computing. Take a Boston Dynamics robot, and combine several machine learning models (language/image/etc) into some kind of observe-orient-decide-act loop, and you've got yourself the exact nightmare that he's laughing off as science fiction.

[@connectingupthedots]

@@jay31415 Superintelligent computing is nonsensical bs

[@marktomasetti8642]

Only half-way through this, but ... (1) It’s true that computers don’t have intentions (the future may see that change), but causing trouble for humans may not require intentions. Competence might be sufficient for a wide variety of trouble. If humans set a goal or goals for a sufficiently competent AI, the AI may be able to induce humans to pursue steps leading to those goals that have negative consequences for humans. I think the idea of the "paper-clip maximizer" is in this vein. The idea of alignment with human values is in this neighborhood. A sufficiently competent AI does not have to be conscious or have intentions to cause trouble. It just has to have some great ideas that lead us to bad situations that we are unable to foresee. (2) "The problem is to find-out what makes the brain conscious in the first place." So, put someone under anesthesia, let it wear-off, and watch the brain the whole time. Record what changes.

[@deepdive1338]

Great, I was just looking for some to do experiments on

[@mattgilbert7347]

Yes, "AI" doesn't have to be "intelligent" for it to ruin everything. It certainly doesn't have to be conscious.

[@yp77738yp77739]

I can see a very strong argument that, evolution by natural selection is THE only process and therefore THE only meaning of everything. If I look at the output of evolution I observe the force against entropy to generate and preserve variable information in ever greater quantity and with ever greater efficiency as the underlying process. Therefore, I see a logic that a self replicating and evolving photon based computing machine is the next logical evolutionary step in this ongoing process as opposed to a just a tool of the current apex evolutionary stage. Just the next species. Although it sounds deranged it does appear consistent with observations and accordingly would likely result in our relegation to niches of energy sources that were superfluous to the apex incumbent.

[@2009Artteacher]

one can see far from the mountaintop though to understand one must go down into the valley ! Searle is like Russel they never left the academic mountain so to understand !

[@christopherhamilton3621]

Exactly. Moreover, both Searle and Russel are quite grounded in the phenomenology of consciousness, so to accuse them of lofty academic argument & detachment is to misunderstand them quite severely. Not to mention projecting upon them motives that simply do not obtain.

[@2009Artteacher]

@@christopherhamilton3621 Searle is a fan of Wittgenstein . Yet Wittgenstein did in fact leave the mountain of academia and Russel to go down into a valley ( read Tolstoy and others ) than returned only with a different philosophy . ( much like Plato allegory of the cave ) I feel it is important for a more true philosophy .( Russel was once a follower of Hegel than later in his career called it rubbish ( the Absolute and oneness through spirit. Yet the very thing he called rubbish where a individual (s) can move a generation and change history . That in fact what happened via his own country men The Beatles and of course Bob Dylan . Not through academia though existentially through the spirit of music did so . As you probably can figure i am not also a big fan of Popper . PS i understand clearly the phenomenology argument put forth by Husserl , Heidegger and Ponty . I think those who identify with their concepts are ego inflated and never understand the real world of consciousness .Psychologically consciousness is the same as ego as used by Jung . ( who by the way also used the piece of ancient wisdom that I used initially as a simple picture that is easily understood rather than deconstructive complexities .

[@the9light]

bravo

[@jay31415]

He keeps saying computers don't have "relative" experience and therefore "don't have semantics" and therefore can't be conscious. He says this is "obvious", without ever bothering to explain why except that "computation is just a bunch of voltage changes". Most of his logic is built on this these very tautological assumptions. To me, the opposite seems obvious: there is no reason to expect chemical neurons to behave any different than digital neurons.

[@woutkoopman]

Logically consciousness can only be a product of the brain, the fact that we don't know exactly how to place it in a scientific context means we don't understand the brain well enough yet. It's one of those subjects where we know the opposite side is wrong, but we can't say exactly how they are wrong. To me personally it seems reasonable to believe that when brainpower comes above a certain threshold of information gathering a process needs to be created to objectively observe, process and deduce from this information. I think consciousness comes from getting an increasingly higher IQ (IQ meaning more processing power for gathered information). Having quite a bit of experience with people with lower IQ's I would argue they are less consciously aware about themselves and their existence. Certain animals can recognise themselves in mirrors, certain animals can't. I would argue a certain brainpower is required to recognise yourself. From this it will follow that the higher the IQ the more consciously aware you are.

[@TeaParty1776]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss Imagination is not knowledge except in the non-Western mind.

[@ryanashfyre464]

W/ all respect, what you just said is a perfect distillation of the *severe* confusion plaguing academia today when it comes to consciousness. Why? Because to say that "logically consciousness can only be a product of the brain" is to presuppose that somehow, in ways that no one can articulate or explain, sheer complexity can have conscious experience arise from its polar opposite in dead, unconscious matter in the brain. It's like saying that if we just add enough legs to a caterpillar and have them work in such an insanely complex way that we can't even imagine then eventually it'll fly. This is deeply silly thinking. Despite *decades* of effort and all the resources and brain power one could hope for, there is still not so much as one single solitary theory to describe how, even in principle, conscious experience could arise from unconscious materials in the brain. And I would submit to you that that uninterrupted record of failure should prompt a good many people, including John Searle, to reexamine the underlying presumptions and look elsewhere for an explanation. For example, start from the one primary that is all that anyone can ultimately know. Experience itself. Anything and everything a human will *ever* know about the world, no matter their personal beliefs, is known through subjective experience. There is no escaping that. So start from that as the primary of reality and see how far that can take you. I would submit these courses on Idealism for your consideration if you're so inclined. Not to endorse everything said in them, but they do lay out very serious points that deeply challenge the very premise of reductionism materialism and lay bare a real argument as to why we should take consciousness itself as fundamental reality seriously: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnXFdIeuopuShtU&ab_channel=EssentiaFoundation

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

59:24 The question was: Can simulating brain processes on a computer cause consciousness to manifest? Dr. Searle says no. How then does Dr. Searle understand the movie, "The Matrix"? I mean, how does Dr. Searle understand the existential status of the matrix native characters, the Architect, the Oracle and agent Smith for instance, who have no human pod bound body? I see no problem for a simulated person to eat a simulated pizza and consciously enjoy the simulated taste. It seems to me the substrate of a process is irrelevant to being conscious if the processes going on in the substrate are perfectly isomorphic to the actual processes. While digesting that, keep in mind that 'process' is an abstract notion and so are thoughts and being conscious. The 'wetness' doesn't care about the existential nature of the molecules, only about their behavior.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

One of the keys to understanding how we are conscious involves the purpose of a certain complex process. At the heart of the complex is the neural discharge process. What purpose do neural discharges serve? They are the means by which analogies are maintained in coded form. In general these analogies are what we call thoughts. Thoughts are always about things. Thoughts are not the things they are about. Thoughts are analogous to the things they are about. Thus thoughts are analogies. All thoughts are analogies. All thoughts are conscious. Seeing an elephant or the word 'elephant' or a picture of an elephant causes one to have the thought of an elephant. The thought and the word and the picture have in common the fact that they are all analogies of elephants. Now wait a minute. Are there not unconscious thoughts? No! Unless one is conscious of a thought then neural discharge processes are only biological activity, just like Krebs cycle. Of course they have a hugely important relationship to the being conscious process but unless those processes are participating in the being conscious process they are not thoughts. When the being conscious process ceases as during deep and dreamless sleepses, then of course no neural discharge process, not one in the entire brain, can participate in a non existent being conscious. Another of the keys to understanding how we are conscious is understanding the existential nature of the self. It is my self that is conscious. ( I should say, it is my self *who* is conscious). Your self too is conscious I imagine. What is a self? A self is a thought, an analogy, instantiated like all other thoughts by complex neural discharge activity. Thoughts interact with each other by means of the synapses. When other thoughts modulate the self that is the self being conscious. Thus the substrate is irrelevant so long as it can run the analogy maintaining/interacting process.

[@jmarkinman]

He's absolutely 100% wrong that computation by machinery is observer dependent. When I watch this video, it is intrinsic to the machine that it displays as is, not because I interpret the computational process in such a way that makes it display the video. He get's this idea from the false notion that a Turing machine is somehow observer dependent. It is not. In fact, my research shows a fatal flaw in Turing's paper on the Entscheidungsproblem. His first proof of the halting problem in that paper is a non-constructive proof, and not really a proof by contradiction as he claims. It gives an example of a place where we would expect a computer to do something, but it does something else instead. That is not a contradiction and if you can build a computer that provides a counter-example to the problem he says is impossible to solve, this reverses his results, and also implies that computation is observer independent. The fact that humans can see outside the system of computation indicates there is a different system, not that the system is necessarily observer dependent.

[@hgrandii]

The first 8 minutes could be paraphrased in the following way: As pain and anxiety are ontologically (having to do with existence) subjective and though can be approached by epistemologically (having to do with knowledge) objective means (science, unlike art and tastes?), so does the ontological subjective topic of consciousness, despite earlier skepticism.

[@slowdown7276]

The computer/AI has to have fear, survival instinct to become conscious.

[@durukyrien149]

Currently unavailable.

[@CarlosAugustoScalassaraPrando]

🖤

[@hgrandii]

Can someone help me out ? At 8:10 he claims that there are objects that are absolute and observer independent. How can anyone affirm that given our condition ? Can't we only talk about the world as we perceive it ? Isnt an observer-independent world/ object not intelligible? I'm a noob, but that's what I understood from hearing stuff about Kant.

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

Well, that kind of view is extremely controversial. Indeed, it is rejected by the majority of philosophers, who, like Searle, are realists, or at least reject that kind of subjectivist, idealist, or skeptical view. And not without good reason. After all, unless you’re willing to accept that we cannot truly say or make sense of there being a world that existed prior to and independent of us and the mind, then it better be the case that we be able to speak and think about things that exist outside and independent of us and the mind.

[@stefanotittarelli4054]

This guy,and his collegues, will never be able to demonstrate that Consciousness is a product of brain activity,but he and his colleagues will find more and more correlates between neural and mental activity.The good thing about Searle is that he is a clear,although mistaken,communicator,for example Chomsky,although more intelligent,speaks in a low tone and thus it is more difficult to follow him.

[@EmbodiedNonDuality]

I can't seem to get past the idea that consciousness is biological. If consciousness gives rise to our felt sense of existence then that means there was a time in our biological development as a fetus that consciousness was not present until a biolgoical process in the brain made it arise. How can that which has no sense of it's own existence evolve at all? If I don't exist because consciousness is not present then where does the impetus arise for anything at all to occur let alone a complex biological development of a fetus? To say consciousness is biological implies that matter preceeds consciousness. This would imply something outside of consciousness caused it. But how can we make such a claim when we can't prove the existence of anything outside of consciousness?

[@jay31415]

> How can that which has no sense of it's own existence evolve at all Through natural selection, because natural selection does not require consciousness. A more puzzling question is the converse: why did evolution produce such a thing as subjective consciousness, if it didn't need to? > where does impetus arise for anything at all to occur let alone a complex biological development of a fetus? That's easy: physics, billions of years, and a shit-ton of planets to increase its chances of occurring. (The real question is where did all of that come from?)

[@EmbodiedNonDuality]

@@jay31415 what do you mean natural selection doesn't require consciousness? For anything to be rendered knowable in experience first requires the presence of consciousness. Without it then it is unknowable. And the same is true of your second answer as well. What you are suggesting is there is something taking place outside of consciousness. That is impossible to prove. If you are aware of something outside of consciousness then it is, by definition, within consciousness. Can you name a single thing outside of consciousness?

[@jay31415]

> what do you mean natural selection doesn't require consciousness? For anything to be rendered knowable in experience first requires the presence of consciousness I was responding to your question "How can that which has no sense of it's own existence evolve at all", and my point was that unconscious things can still evolve. I think that's fairly clear if you look at plants. I do agree with you that a conscious observer will need to eventually come along and observe these plants, but that doesn't have to happen concurrently; it can happen millions of years later. And yes I think what you are saying is that in theory, the entire universe doesn't exist until the moment you become consciously aware of it. I don't disagree in principle. But, I don't think you can simply say one "causes" the other. Your conscious state simply becomes entangled with some universe's state, and at that moment it becomes real, from your perspective.

[@nameless-yd6ko]

Consciousness is transcendental. It is only a 'problem' if you attempt to understand in your dualist illusory thoughts! The transcendental cannot be defined, limited, bound, it is immortal, NON-DUAL and cannot fit in your paltry concepts! All that exists, now or ever, is Consciousness/Mind! Soul is one and the same as Consciousness! There is One Consciousness, One Soul. We are all unique Perspectives comprising the One Consciousness/Soul. Perspectives of Mind! The notion of a separate (anything) 'human' possessing anything, much less a Soul, is all vanity, ego, duality, mortality, illusion! God is One, there is not anything other/else! ;)

[@Doutsoldome]

I like the names of his dogs!

[@citase9648]

the first ten minutes will carry the rest of the lecture

[@guldenaydin9918]

Yeniden okuma şansım olsaydı KEŞKE!!!

[@waterguyroks]

If he's making the claim that consciousness is a biological product (which I agree with) I don't see how he can completely dismiss the thought that consciousness can arise out of electrical state transitions, at least without providing an argument which he doesn't really do. I don't see the fundamental difference between neurons as a complex network of essentially on/off switches (action potentials) and neural networks using binary code.

[@TeaParty1776]

The universe is matter, life and mind, each w/their own unique type of action: (action/reaction [+QM?]), telological (purpose), and volitional (initiated within mind). Thus free will determinism.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@chocolatefigure01 > All is language.... we are souls warping through emotions Within a limit, and there is more.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@chocolatefigure01 Be wise, not foolish.

[@TeaParty1776]

@@chocolatefigure01 What is the sound of one fool clapping?

[@TeaParty1776]

@@chocolatefigure01 Mysticism is the desire of a meathead to be a bubblehead.

[@TokyoShemp]

He was so enlightened, he could show signs of alcoholism during lectures.

[@zagyex]

guess you are some AI guy

[@KipIngram]

17:00 - That seems like an awfully find distinction. The pattern of voltages produced inside the computer is observer independent - those voltages are . But for now I'll grant your distinction. I'm generally in full agreement with you, but I just don't quite see what you're going to do with this yet.

[@primodernious]

it must be so horrible to know that you can only say as much as your allowed to so you just repeat mostly same things over and over the whole time. its like the entire time he could reduce the entire lecture to 5 mins of talking cause he did not really say anything else than what he could expect others to allow him to say. perhaps he is actually clueless to what consciousness is since he probably has learned that consciousness is made of experiencing it as self explanatory subjective. its like explaing how the flavor of the cake is the cake without explain what its made of.

[@nameless-yd6ko]

You are right, he is clueless!

[@Self-Duality]

🐰 = 🦆

[@Go_Reala]

Idk, if we never would of became conscious then I don't think there would be any philosophy let alone a problem with being conscious of a problem with being conscious within TWO categories of study. It's so crazy these days

[@brdmohamedali]

الوعي هو جزء لا يتجزأ من إدراك الإنسان للزمن...أي اللحظة الزمنية التي لا تقاس بمدة، و لا يمكن القبض عليها و إدراكها بحواسنا او قياسصها بأي جهاز قياس كيفما كان متطورا، بل ندركها بوعينا أي بعقلنا فقط...و بالتالي الحديث عن الوعي يحيل إلى الحديث عن الزمن.

[@svipdagx7291]

To be concious is to know,and there's so little i know i have to say i know nothing rather than i know something.Now this fella finds,for mé,that i know allready too much and moreover...who can allow me to go on on this ...criminal path.Don't think nor ask questions,shut up&listen that's all you're good for. Speak common sense,or be silent so you can listen.Think,process your thoughts against your feelings,than áct.So you see,feeling's essentially to become a species of beïngs that grows.

[@yamandugonzalez5076]

La conciencia es parte de dos cosas: la evolución "sensorial", luego "emocional" de la evolución Biológica en los seres vivos. Por otro lado nuestro cerebro procesa la información de manera cuántica, por eso tiene esa propiedad de trabajar de forma "concentrada" o "difusa" como el experimento de la rendija.

[@bundleofperceptions1397]

I see consciousness/unconsciousness as being like the tip of an iceberg out of the water/rest of the iceberg below the water. What process creates the iceberg that sticks up out of the water? The same process that creates the part of the iceberg that remains below the water. If you are unable to look below the water, you can only ever see the part that sticks up out of the water. Nevertheless, both parts are part of the same iceberg. All awareness begins in the unconscious part of the mind, but some of the awareness gets brought forward to the conscious part of the mind (prefrontal cortex?), and we then become consciously aware of it, as opposed to being unconsciously aware of it.

[@blocksy6772]

Oof... what a strawman of Bostrom's argument. I don't share the same worries Bostrom does in his 'Superintelligence' book, but his argument is much more nuanced than how it is put forward here. Slightly embarrassing.

[@drflaggstaff9008]

"This guy... Named Bostrom." As much as I enjoyed this lecture that made me cringe so hard.

[@drflaggstaff9008]

"This guy... Named Bostrom." As much as I enjoyed this lecture that made me cringe so hard.

[@spiralsun1]

Yes, one thing I immediately noticed was that intentions good or bad (subject to interpretation) can be amplified by computer. You could set something in motion which genuinely could destroy everything. BUT you also have AI set in motion to defend against other AI. So…? I’m certain that AI is extremely important to the future of humanity and life in general, but like all technologies they can be used in lots of different ways. By people interpreting things in different ways. That’s why I spent my life figuring out how all humans, all life could be on the same page with our interpretations of reality at exactly this point in time for exactly these reasons. 🤷‍♀️🥰 There’s a lot of missing information in the world right now which I was born to impart and I have actually figured out the solutions to many paradoxes in science and cosmology by my new theories and research but it’s the exact same old human resistance to anything new again-actually AMPLIFIED by the proliferation of information and knowledge because people can more seamlessly rationalize that they have “all the answers” so people in academia are filled with hubris about this and unwilling to even begin to reinterpret EVERYTHING which is what humans need to do right now very quickly. My theories are the key to consciousness and understanding the place of computers in life and why quantum computers might act be conscious in the future. Anyway, this is what happens in academics-they may be creative when they are younger but then set about defending themselves later and their interpretations and ideas and stop searching for new ones. I never did that. I always tried strenuously to prove myself wrong and was able to be extremely self-objective. It’s MUCH More difficult to do than you might think because a lot of it is unconscious so I will take the advice of Searle himself and say that you should take into account someone’s behaviors and ask them questions (which they did in the video). To gain insight into motives. 😂❤ I love the guy, and really everyone for that matter, but you quite literally don’t have to become less creative with age, even though it’s pretty much the rule with most people. If you do things right and don’t take yourself too seriously, you can become MUCH more creative with age, a very fine-tuned and technically adroit creativity which can alter the course of history. 😊 Never ever say simply “I’m too old” because that is not an explanation. Someone brought up differently than academia does it will think differently. Have different self/concepts. Different interpretations of life. Anyway thanks for the stimulating comment. This is why I love comments on KZbin and you. ❤

[@mattgilbert7347]

I thought one of the strengths of Bostrom's argument was that the "super" part could screw everything up but the system would lack the "intelligence" to stop what it's doing. It's been a very long time since I looked at Bostrom.

[@AI-Hallucination]

@@mattgilbert7347interesting

[@talkingkangaroo4934]

Since he agrees that consciousness is all chemistry and biology, I don't see how his argument about it being observer independent is non-trivial. Every subjective feeling, thought and awareness of them is just neurons in the brain firing. So what is the great mystery about consciousness then? It's just technical details about exactly which circuits are firing when, and there must be some randomness involved in the chemistry. If you were knowledgeable and technologically competent enough to build a robot that mimics the human being to the minutest detail, with circuits analogous to all neurons that fire exactly the same way as human ones, then surely there is no meaningful difference in consciousness, and they'd have the same subjective experience as any human being.

[@connectingupthedots]

If they build it, it will fail

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

You are absolutely correct... imho. Some find it a bit tricky to grasp the idea that the function of the neurons is to maintain analogies and allow their interactions via synapses, i.e. thinking. I think the difficulty is rooted in the abstract nature of analogies and the fact there are no labels in brains. But there's no real difference between the analogies frozen into sentences and analogies dynamically instantiated as the discharge frequencies of neurons (and/or sets of them). It is my self that is conscious. And my self is exactly and precisely an analogy instantiated by the frequencies of neurons and so able to be modulated by the analogies of the world and memories, the 'things' of which I am conscious.

[@elmersbalm5219]

It’s a phenomenon that emerges from it. Reductive analysis is good in ferreting out the underlying processes. Then you need to under hope those processes make consciousness possible and how. As a phenomenon, consciousness seems to be a wee bit more complicated than fire.

[@connectingupthedots]

@@elmersbalm5219 reductive analysis is useless for things with free will

[@elmersbalm5219]

@@connectingupthedots there is no free will. The little there is is very circumscribed by circumstance, biology, nurture and heredity.

[@maxmadonov4549]

His instrinct to open the "damn thing" and find a bucnh of zeroes and ones, and just few minutes ago he dismissed ideas of Bostrom as nonesense. OK, old man.

[@VermontStrolls]

Am I still laughing at audience? Or crying?

[@HakWilliams]

Zip it, Poindexter

[@jamesboswell9324]

Bostrom is just shadow projecting on to computers. Scary guy!

[@gertglasius5504]

God claims he made the whole lot consciousness and the body, they are not separate. Can’t think of a theologian who disagrees here

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

What possible value might a soul have if it is not conscious?

[@greenmars10]

20

[@nyworker]

A computer translating Chinese would be doing it by a search algorithm. No different than how Deep Blue plays Jeopardy!

[@haroldgarrett2932]

the chinese room thought experiment is complete nonsense. individual neurons don't understand the information they're transmitting any more than a person passing along chinese understands the chinese

[@connectingupthedots]

badly?

[@sebastianm8028]

The trouble I have with his theories about computation as a cs major is that he has the idea of programs as being deterministic and "desireless" as well as "beliefless". This is plain wrong. Reinforcement learning algorithms don't behave deterministicly, actually do have a kind of desire in the form of the objective function and learn "beliefs" about what the best way to achieve that objective might be. I too doubt conscious supercomputers, but for the simple reason that consciousness is not a product of matter, as he states, no matter ;) if that is computer hardware or brain neurons.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

"consciousness is not a product of matter" Indeed and further, consciousness is not a product of anything. Consciousness is not a product, rather it is a word whose root is 'conscious', as in, "I am conscious". Here asserting: "Consciousness is not a something, not like a soul or a ghost or a resonant isomorphism in a parallel universe, not an attachment, a feature, a barnacle. There's no such 'thing' as consciousness! Instead, I am a conscious self. When my self is not conscious my self is non existent. When my self is non existent my self is not conscious. 'Self' and 'conscious' are so intimate one can hardly distinguish between them". How does a conscious self come into existence. I have a theory but putting that aside for now, it takes a lot longer than nine months for a conscious self to come into existence. A conscious self comes into existence when any entity acquires a self concept. Can we build something able to acquire a self concept? I don't see why not.

[@nelson6702]

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL id like to see you try.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@nelson6702 I think it might be a very bad idea to do that and if you've been watching the Westworld TV series you'll have a good idea why.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

On the other hand evolution marches on.

[@nelson6702]

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL i don't take tv as serious commentary.

[@DanielDunne1]

What's an observer?

[@DanielDunne1]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss how can you tell if an entity is observing ?

[@DanielDunne1]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss You seem to know a lot about these entities outside of yourself, mostly based on your own observations. Your observations are from your own point of subjectivity - presumably you think you are an "entity" too. How do you get to something objective from this? I'm pointing out the circularity of Searle's argument.

[@DanielDunne1]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss No I didn't ask you. I was asking the question in response to Searle. Describing objectivity as observer independent is non-sensical. The only way we know something is there is by observing. Who is observing? A subject! Subjectivity is not a "left-over".

[@jay31415]

According to Searle, not a computer. The rest of his tautological arguments all follow from this axiom.

[@thomasb7464]

In March 2017, John Searle became the subject of sexual assault allegations. The case brought to light several earlier complaints against Searle. The lawsuit, filed in a California court on March 21, 2017, alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination and assault and battery and sought damages both from Searle and from the Regents of the University of California as his employers. In June 2019, Searle's status as professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, was revoked for his repeated violations of the university's sexual harassment policies.

[@themanwhoknewtoomuch6667]

This is the problem with academia and formal education. "Rembrandt existed blah blah blah..." That could VERY well be epistemically subjective. How? Well... WHO gets to define what epistemic subjetivite is? Also, without going ad hominem about conspiracy theorists... HOW do you know Rembrandt existed? But...but... that is EPISTEMIC objective. WHO CARES? These are all man made and previous-philosophers made definitions. And the thing is one doesn't even need to do psychedelics for this basic insight. Nothing but semantic pilpul whereby real issues are swept under the rug. Hence the subordination of such Western logic to Zen as Zen is intelligent enough to understand these are all frikkin meaningless. Nothing but meaningless chatter and caw between ear drums from cradle to grave.

[@vhawk1951kl]

By Zen you mean Chan buddhism? How can that be whatever you mean by(but have no the faintest idea) "intelligent"? You are merely articulating a mechanical reaction from but *one* of the functions or parts and had no choice about that because you are seeking to*justify something-idleness'? and that is a big god that *must* be propitiated. The unenlightened man has no choice for he is a slave. The man on the way to enlightenment has a choice. The enlightened man has no choice; he does what is necessary” - Chan Buddhist saying it is idle to speak of consciousness in vaccuo without identifying*whose* consciousness , *Of_What*? Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, also a Chan Buddhist saying You don't get to skip the chop wood, carry water bit. The swaggerer does not have any Latin and thus does not know what the word "conscious" means and has les idea what he is calling "conscious"_ness, and is so smug that he has stopped questioning. Now I wonder which gates that will open.

[@rocketman475]

Digestion involves the interactions of many organisms and is very complex. Does it make for a realistic comparison? He could've chosen the kidney for comparison. There are machines which are capable of performing the functions of the kidneys and adequately enough to sustain the life of a human. With this comparison in mind it is easy to envisage a machine that is capable of performing the same functions necessary to enable such a machine to replace the human brain. So far the human mind has not had the ability to enable humans to leave the planet and colonize other solar systems and it may never achieve that aim. In which case his "superior" central nervous system will have proven to be of a similar value as that of the central nervous system of the tardigrade. Humans are way too arrogant about their uniquely "clever" brains than they have proper reason to be. Our brains are not so fantastic and unsurpassable as we have fooled ourselves into believing. They're pretty standard shit. So get over it.

[@haroldgarrett2932]

the only difference between us and the rest of the animals is that we figured out cooking first. all our prized developments like language, toolmaking, social structures and all associated social dynamics like fairness bonding sharing trading mourning the dead playing games etc, all exist in other animals. we are much less unique than we think we are. our perspective of where we sit in relation to the rest of nature is arrogant and completely human-centric. we haven't addressed almost any of the basic societal problems we had 2,000+ years ago and we think we're gods

[@irlbk]

@@haroldgarrett2932 WELL SAID YOU TWO 👏

[@matterasmachine]

Everything is conscious. The only real difference between our consciousness and consciousness of stone is that stone toes not care on why he has consciousness.

[@chasepalumbo2929]

Nice straw man of Bostrom’s argument…I find that if you actually listen to the many searle talks he does this quite often. He seems to have quite the contrarian streak, and not in a good way

[@vhawk1951kl]

If you don’t know what consciousness *is*, or what the word “conscious means, why is it a “problem"?

[@Jersey-towncrier]

47:42 No, the real problem you are ALL having is that you assume consciousness arises out of the brain, or that it is a property of a pre-existing brain to begin with. What if consciousness is always already there in the first place, and the brain is simply the most identifiable object by which we experience subjectivity?

[@CanwegetSubscriberswithn-cu2it]

Nope What happens during anasthesia then?

[@stefanb6539]

The chinese room argument seems to only extrapolate the problem from the "computer" who seems capable of understanding Chinese well enough to pass the Turing test, to the imaginary set of rules it has to follow. Doesn't this imaginary set of rules need to somehow contain a complete understanding of the Chinese language to actually enable the computer to demonstrate a human-level understanding of the language? The implication would still be, that consciousness would have to be able to be broken down to a set of rules, for the argument, that it can not be broken down into such a set of rule to work. So the premise is in contradiction with the conclusion, and the argument is false.

[@zagyex]

Passing the Turing test does not account to a "human level understanding of". It is simply performing well in the imitation game. Searle's argument shows that 1. Even IF it is possible to write a program that passes the imitation game, the room is the way it would actually work - and thus it would have no consciousness involved. 2. If this is true, either a). consciousness doesn't exist, or b). a computer passing the Turing test doesn't have consciousness. 3. Since we experience consciousness - in fact it is all that we experience, we are left with b).

[@ughsigh7883]

This man got sued for sexual harassment at like 150 years, what a chad. Searle just oozes slimy sex offender energy and thats what makes his philosophy so damn good!

[@dhelmy]

Consciousness information rationality and intelligence

[@talonthorn]

Studying the brain/neurological alone to explain the mind is like studying a plant by looking at only the part of the plant which is above ground. As long as the mind is considered to be completely physical/neurological, some phenomena will be unexplainable or will be explained as some mystical event such as “water and minerals magically form at the base of the stem of the plant, being magically converted from sugars passed down the stem.”

[@dapaulson1]

Dr. Searle has hypnotized himself into believing his blather, when there is very little relationship between his five or six cliche phrases and the real science of consciousness. When he mentioned the attack on his work, I can only add that the attacks were well deserved. I must admit that his comments were the most elaborate argument of no sense put forward in the history of philosophy… right down there with the seminal source of sin.

[@connectingupthedots]

Your response contains little of merit or substance

[@mentalitydesignvideo]

he has conclusively proved that one can successfully engage in Analytic Philosophy while being a complete and utter imbecile.

[@gabebautista6521]

Is there an argument there somewhere. I am sure we are all eager to hear it, I just couldn’t find it there

[@gooddaysahead1]

Wow. Not one iota of justification for your negative diatribe. My guess. You don't understand anything this man is saying... and that pisses you off.

[@dapaulson1]

As long as you are an evangelist of defining our humanity as a brain and a body then you will buy into the idea that consciousness is a product of the brain. Science seems desperate to destroy the idea of spirit or soul. With Searle’s definitions there is no “you”. The “you” becomes a figment of your imagination, literally. If consciousness exists, which it does, and honest scientists admit they don’t have a clue how it works or where it comes from, then a new point of view emerges which has been argued for for centuries. Consciousness is not the result of nature. Rather consciousness preceeds nature.”

[@tenzinsoepa7648]

9:00

[@KenAtkatz]

Professor Searle is right about everything - except chess. There are chess computers that actually move the physical pieces on a physical board, and if that's not playing chess, then what is? And if he were inside the "chess room," and he thought carefully about the program he was following, he could actually learn to play chess. Chess is a mathematical exercise like arithmetic. What the computer can't do is feel all the human emotions of the symbolic battle with another human being called chess. The very root of consciousness, in my opinion, is not in observations and calculations, but in feelings: "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." From an evolutionary point of view, feelings - fear, for example - are survival mechanisms. Rudimentary consciousness in animals begins with pleasure and pain. At least that's an idea I would like to propose to scientific investigators.

[@connectingupthedots]

Lmao, a computer that plays chess doesn't need to know what chess is; inputs and outputs baby

[@ruthless9604]

Sigh HE KNOWS MORE THAN ANYONE KNOWS...ERRM SO HUMBLE

[@shiyumiza]

forsen

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

Consciousness can probably be explained to some extent by science, but free-will cannot ! This is because science is basically a description of causal relationships and the laws that govern them, but free-will appears on the scene as being independent in its origin, yet as itself being a cause. This is paradoxical for science: how can that which has no cause itself be a cause ? Science cannot answer questions like that -- for the simple reason that its fundamental mode explanation is causation itself. The only thing that science -- or, rather scientism -- can do is to EXPLAIN-AWAY free-will as the illusory by-product of determinate processes of biological matter. But surely to be human means being immediately and fundamentally aware of our freedom-to-choose, no matter how much we might dread and want to avoid this fundamental truth (as in Sartre ! ) What is science to philosophy, but its impetuous child, always imperious and confident in its demeanor, forever deriding and rebelling against the old philosophies and the ancient religions, but not yet itself mature enough to deal with the most vital of all our human problems -- the problem of our freedom !

[@haroldgarrett2932]

philosophy is opinion masquerading as objectivity. your conception of free will is naive at best. there is no paradox

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@haroldgarrett2932 You are an idiot masquerading as someone with a brain ! You claim that my conception of free-will is naive, but your conception of free-will is non-existent. Free-will is indeed a paradox, for it either has no cause, or it is causally determined, and, therefore, is only an illusion.

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@haroldgarrett2932 See 'John Searle - Philosophy of Free-will' KZbin video... and what he says about the Problem of Free-will and the experience of a 'causal gap' in making-up our minds.

[@prenuptials5925]

ugh, easily the most overrated contemporary philosopher

[@prenuptials5925]

@@sabyasachisenapati3619 he's a prototypical common sense philosopher. All the papers and lectures of his have pretty based on "common sense" appeals which make the foundations to his arguments super weak. He relies a lot on rhetorical arguments as well, and when he's talking about opposing views he just skirts around them pretty much. Other than that I can't think of much he's contributed which aren't just footnotes on Austin The only people I've seen citing him are people criticizing him, or some "x studies" scholar talking about performatives

[@reddykilowatt]

@@prenuptials5925 Searle has received the Jean Nicod Prize, the National Humanities Medal, and the Mind & Brain Prize. You have received the Jealous Booby Prize. 🤣🤣🤣

[@CarlosAugustoScalassaraPrando]

@@prenuptials5925 What is your name, I wanna look on google for your papers.

[@prenuptials5925]

@@reddykilowatt ok, so he won a popularity contest funded by rich people to make them feel good about themselves 😂

[@prenuptials5925]

@Bagpuss Bagpuss didn't say he's wrong, just that his arguments are weak. either way it'd be kind of weird to say one philosophical argument is "correct". and generally yes, building arguments off of common sense intuitions which are more often than not cultural intuitions, can be dubious. things around correspondance theory of truth or the independence of mind are by no means obvious to a lot of people in the world, certainly not humans that came before Platonism and Christianity.not going to change your mind since it's obvious you have it set in your mind Searle is a good philosopher

[@marinoceccotti9155]

Wow, that's brilliant speech from someone who had his career ruined due to sexual harassment affairs.

[@tomekczajka]

15:30 The distinction he draws between humans doing a 2+2=4 calculation and a calculator doing a 2+2=4 calculation, is meaningless. He says that when he computes 2+2=4 it's an "observer independent" computation, whereas when a calculator does it it's only a computation "relative to a computation interpretation". This doesn't mean anything. Regardless of whether he says "2+2=4", or when a calculator displays "2+2=4", both only mean what they mean when interpreted in the context of an agreed upon language. There distinction he's trying to make makes no sense.

[@GackFinder]

Then you didn't actually understand the argument he's making.

[@tomekczajka]

@@GackFinder And your comment did nothing to resolve the misunderstanding.

[@GackFinder]

@@tomekczajka You're the only one misunderstanding it. He literally explains this about a minute after your timestamp. There's nothing to add beyond what he is saying.

[@micpin6810]

Well, all these guys like Searle are completely wrong. These people are completely unaware about reincarnation research done by Ian Stevenson and Jim B. Tucker which shows conclusively that Consciousness can migrate from one life to another under certain circumstances. So we are quite certain that Consciousness is NOT reducible to brain functions.

[@DWinegarden2]

Searle doesn’t say that. In fact he says the opposite. Reincarnation, although he doesn’t mention it, would be entirely consistent with his “field of consciousness” notion.

[@micpin6810]

@@DWinegarden2 I don't think so. I don't think his "field of consciousness" is like some electromagnetic field outside the body. I thought his "field of consciousness" is INSIDE the brain??

[@DWinegarden2]

@@micpin6810 he says consciousness is neither entirely matter nor entirely spirit. For him, the computer people can’t create consciousness because it is not entirely mechanical. Likewise, it is not simply spiritual because animals have consciousness as well as humans. Therefore, consciousness is an attribute of life manifested in the material world. He doesn’t mention plants as being conscious.

[@micpin6810]

@@DWinegarden2 Well, Hinduism and Buddhism says that animals are also conscious. Do does that make it spiritual??

[@DWinegarden2]

@@micpin6810 Does that make what spiritual? Consciousness?

[@fabiocaetanofigueiredo1353]

Awful.

[@sethwilliams501]

God this is just such a frustrating thing to listen to. 29:43 he’s literally equating binary computers spell check to modern generalized networks. For the Searle “enjoyers”; I am aware he has much stronger(still weak) arguments against the neural Networks but stuff like this is what makes things so difficult in philosophy/neuropsychology. If I wanted to refute this lecture id have to spend 30 mins just explaining why his background info and how it’s misleading by combining subjects. Same thing he accused Turing of accidentally doing with computing. Hahahha irony

[@GackFinder]

I'm looking forward to your refutation in print then. Please tell us the title and publication when you're done.