Everything Is Made of Quarks-Why Are Only Some Things Conscious? | Max Tegmark | Big Think

[@bigthink]

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[@Johnny20022002]

Id recommend watching Sam Harris’ podcast with max tegmark: episode 94. They spend a significant portion of the conversation discussing consciousness. I have a snippet of the conversation on my channel. Sam Harris gives one of the most complete and concise explanations of the hard problem of consciousness I’ve ever heard.

[@HaggenKennedy]

Thanks for the sharing that with us, Johnny. I'm listening to it right now.

[@asecretturning]

I'd never recommend Sam Harris

[@phillustrator]

Sam Harris is a raging bigot

[@FoOtFoOt542]

I’m pretty sure my toaster oven is conscious and is judging me right now.

[@_hootjohnson]

The human conciousness is less explored than the cosmos

[@_hootjohnson]

FirstRisingSouI Yeah, the exact thing goes for the universe. It's infinite in variety and complexity and there is no limit. It is expanding indefinitely, and space is likely moving faster than time. To me, that's dark matter, the space that is expanding faster than the time we are able to perceive.

[@ABitOfTheUniverse]

Probably closer to dark energy than dark matter, but we really haven't shed much light on either, yet. I'm sure it'll be nice when those terms are outdated placeholders for aspects of the universe, so well understood elementary school children have better grasps on them than our best minds in the fields, do today.

[@rejy92]

As above so below! There is a universe inside you

[@EPICPACKOPENINGSXD]

hootjohnson Of course, the cosmos is only a small part of consciousness.

[@brianlinville439]

actually human consciousness is the cosmos, part and parcel of it, interesting eh?

[@cardinalprinciples9756]

The more I think about consciousness the more I get confused ... it's such an interesting mystery of nature, but sometimes I wonder wehter we'll ever find out what it it's all about ... because the experience seems so different from anything material we otherwise know and understand. I strongly hope though to witness this mystery solved :) Also, Max Tegmark is amazing

[@FocusMrbjarke]

Isn't that what neurosciences and cognitive science is for?

[@Johnny20022002]

FocusMrbjarke I can’t see neuroscience answering the hard problem of consciousness. I could see a 1000 years passing and we will be no closer to answering that question as we are now.

[@FocusMrbjarke]

are you an expert on neuroscience?(or productivity for that matter) if not that a pretty bold claim

[@artificiallyflavord5588]

Can tell you what it's not; A spirit/soul.

[@Johnny20022002]

FocusMrbjarke no I’m not an expert in Neuroscience but people who are wouldn’t disagree with that assessment. We are no closer to answering the hard problem than we were during the time of Plato and Socrates.

[@lightsidemaster]

"The Talos Principle" ( the game ) offers some amazing thought experiments and overall food for thought for the whole concept of consciousness.

[@KeymoEmbryo]

We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.

[@ABitOfTheUniverse]

Track 8 from Selected Ambient Works 85-92? kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXq7ioOgfryDfbs I can only imagine how many things, how many memories, in your mind, had to be associated with one another, for this to be your reaction to this Big Think video. Maybe it wasn't that the line was repeated in Richards track, maybe it was the movie and the visuals themselves that ties these things together. Also, good to see you still active Keymo. I'm pretty sure we've shared words in the past, but we have so many channels, so many interests in common, I can't pin down what comment section of what video we conversed, and on what subject. I just recall it being positive, but that doesn't help when everything that exists is a positive inclusion to the otherwise limitless variety of nothing that may have happened in it's stead.

[@raresmircea]

We are the dreamt characters.

[@Quantiad]

The Lord, God, disagrees with all of this. Thankfully, he doesn't exist, so we're good.

[@Zajcooo]

spotted the know-it-all "intellectual" atheist

[@LelouchVelvet]

And if he does he probably doesn't even know or care about humans.

[@oth4ever32]

iSquared thank you for making me laugh

[@JoryBlake]

iSquared lol- what about gods magical fruit ? Or the ark in Kentucky ?

[@fredthomsonthomsonf6412]

Atheist said it, I believe it, end of story. Why? Because I have "faith" he said is true.

[@stevena8719]

Life is a natural process of the universe, self-evidently, so its interesting we lose our minds about our minds when it’s just as natural as the tides. Still fun though!

[@jeryuen6563]

Were it as natural a process as you say, would we not have found more? Or is a quirk, that we seem to be the lone location of life?

[@stevena8719]

@@jeryuen6563 how could it be anything else? When we’re the very fabric of existence, nothing is unnatural

[@jeryuen6563]

You are perfectly correct, I realize I was referring more towards being common or rare, a different metric.

[@pallaciccione7885]

@@jeryuen6563 everything is meant to be ,all is determinated(at least not at the level of quantum fenómenos )so we were a natural occurrence, but it took so long and so many lucky incidents for us to become conscious,inform yourself about the great filters of life and civilization

[@jeryuen6563]

@palla ciccione I know the great filters etc, you perhaps mistake my mistake for something else. You cannot argue that we are determined and great filters in one breath, that is a point that contradicts itself. If we were determined to exist, no amount of filters could prevent this. If the filters are as ultimate as you might claim, then we are lucky, not determined. And since existence seems to build up from the underlying undetermined quanta, how can that build something inevitable? Fate or luck? Perhaps like quantum, these two things are not both knowable? The more you know one, the less precise the other measure becomes.

[@eddieking2976]

I would love other drivers to become conscious of their turn signals.

[@mace9930]

I think the whole idea of emergent consciousness is based on the experience of energy increasing in the human brain as one becomes a mature adult. What is emergent is a high energy state, which includes greater awareness. Later in life, projects that are completed help us reach a level of illumination and energy plateau. Consciousness without energy increase is not attractive nor significant, and the mind is not alerted as much to its own existence. The subjective experience foremost consists of emotional peaks, which are the most evident for the realization of mind. Would pumping energy into the brain and mind naturally increase the likelihood of emergent experiences of consciousness? Probably so. This does not mean that pumping energy through a metal rod would increase its consciousness. What it may mean is that energy flow is required for experiences of consciousness and are fundamental to it as well.

[@mischake]

This dilemma really has me going. I am truly deeply troubled by it. On the one end we are biological machines with a sophisticated piece of computing in our skull, and then there's my day to day experience. I'm stuck in this body, forced to experience life every single day and one day my life will end and it will be the end of my experience, i'll never get to see how humanity's story continues, and that scares the living hell out of me. But if we are just machines with some pretty smart software, just quarks arranged in a certain matter, then why am I? Not the body me, but the experience me. Why is my body not just that zombie masquarading as an actual person? Is consciensness nothing more than a complex illusion? Then why am I? And out of all the things my experience, my "soul" if you would take that softly, could have happened to be stuck to, why is it stuck to this body in this time and place called my lifetime? I'm really so torn up about it. My belief is that there is nothing more to life than what we see and know and that science pretty much has it figured out, and we humans have no soul stat continues on after our death. Our brains die, we die, we're just machines and one day even we will be capable of repairing people past that point of no return we still today call death, and we will simply continue on with our lives as though we weren't just dead. Restore our brain functions and we restore the person as far as experience is concerned. So then why, if it is so easily explained that we are machines with software, why then am I this one specific person? I know there are a lot of us out there and there are other species of animals capable of experience, but that makes it so that I happened to be this person? What, beyond the mechanical side of it(you were born and such) makes that I actually am this experience inside this specific body. I know there is nothing in this world that would spontaniously cause my contiousness to jump ship and inhabit a different body, but I also cannot quare why I'm me.

[@Gibbypastrami]

Well, what makes you *you* are your experiences, you take your brain and body and plop you down in a city on the other side of the planet, you would be a different person That's what some argue, I think it's both, I think we are plopped into our bodies with preconceptions, and that experiences change and modify those preconceptions as we find our "truth" Idk, I'm not a scientist, but there's definitely a scientific explanation for what makes you *you* I personally believe consciousness is a form of energy or matter or something along those lines, that it's tangible and separate from the mind, so, when you're a baby, you're filled with a consciousness that has already been *somewhere* at some point, and then your experiences through this life change that consciousness, or reveal more of it, etc.

[@jimbones1916]

consciousness exists on all levels. all atoms are 'aware' of one another. The forces that attract them is a form of conscious awareness. Our consciousness is like he says a pattern, one that has been amplified by the patterns and electromagnetic energy is able to travel and traverse our nervous system. It is the sum of all our cells

[@lovepeaceisneverguaranteed7385]

Yea that's well put together

[@sophiastar9713]

Jim Thank you VERY much !!!!

[@skydude221]

That's such a brilliant thought that only a human could come up with

[@tuams]

I would like an update on this!

[@JustCozItsMe]

My biggest issue in this video is the use of final frontier. Knowledge is like a fire in the dark of a cave, we cant be certain there is a wall somewhere until we have the place lit up and explored. We cant be sure that anything we eventually learn from a "final frontier" wont lead to another "final frontier" and so on.

[@1p6t1gms]

Are the patterns of arrangement true or would Quarks be able to carry other information besides what they are already?

[@casualsweater]

These are incredible words. One thing I’d challenge this guy on is his underlying assumption he’s already determined what is & isn’t conscious - isn’t that kind of central & prior kind of, to everything he’s saying ?? Gotta leave it somewhat to the philosophers....

[@knutfranke6846]

Fascinating topic. Unfortunately, consciousness is one of those phenomena that are notoriously difficult to pin down scientifically - and Tegmark's interpretation is no exception to this. The definition he gives in terms of subjective experience merely replaces the question "What is consciousness?" with "What is subjectivity?". I can find out what information my computer is holding in its memory at any given moment, yet few people would interpret this as my computer being conscious of, say, this youtube video, or having a subjective experience of it. So what (if anything) is the essential difference between a computer's memory and a person's consiousness? Tegmark's experiment doesn't help with this question. Write a piece of software that can classify a computer's memory content, add a text-to-speech engine, and you get a self-reported "consciouness content" that you can match up with what you see on screen (or in a debugger).

[@mycount64]

I certainly can image how consciousness evolved. Creatures sensed more and more of the environment which demanded the ability to focus and plan little by little we got to where we are.

[@rubenpartono]

I don't see a problem living among zombies... I mean my emotions are wired to react in the same way regardless of whether people are truly conscious.

[@anypercentdeathless]

THIS VIDEO GET'S YOU GOING LIKE A MORNING CUP OF COFFEE. One thing though: by his own reasoning, consciousness is only the final frontier from our current perspective; we'll go past even it.

[@lisaschuster9187]

The final frontier? What about the origin of the universe and of life? We’re just animals and the magazine “Physics Today” dedicated a whole issue last year to how laughably far from “a theory of everything” we still are. Did you know that a “singularity” means “we don’t know what”?

[@myothersoul1953]

He is right, people mean a lot of different things by "consciousness", once a pin down the definition consciousness becomes a lot less mysterious. In other the mystery comes from us not know what we mean more than it does from the nature of being. 2:30 "Subjective experience" is a good definition of consciousness. There's a perfectly good evolutionary explanation for how subjective experience came about. Sensing the world can increases the odds of surviving so it's selected for. We know some of how our sensory systems work, for example how light entering the eye results in neurons firing, how those signals then effect the brain and thus are experienced by us. How is it that sort of brain activity leads to some particular experiences? Isn't really a hard question to answer if you question the question. That question posit that the experience is something different from the brain activity. That is the question first posits that they a separate and demands to know why. It's a subtle introduction of dualism and dualism has never been shown to lead to understanding.

[@Askatechannel]

‘ A physician looking through a telescope trying to understand the universe... is pretty much the universe looking down the telescope trying to understand itself.’

[@JanetteBuhler]

Fascinating!!! Much to ponder!! 🤔🤔

[@Krasbin]

Nice video. I am deeply fascinated by consciousness. I think of it as fundamental, as even scientific findings are only relevant if something/someone conscious perceives them. Just as fundamental as elementary particles in physics. It is that these foundations operate at a different level. This is one of the reasons for me to be interested in psychology, neurobiology and a subset of Buddhism(mindfulness and other forms of mediation), as a layman. And on the other side I work as a physicist to futher explore fundamental physics. It is unfortunate though that the title is incorrect. There are more elementary particles than quarks, for example electrons.

[@danbee6103]

Unrelated question: gravitational waves are stretching us when they pass Earth, is there any affect on biological mechanisms on a micro scale OR is it just really cool?

[@jenathent4840]

We can’t really detect it passing through earth ( very faint) the larger the object the more it affects it and it affects the waves. ( with our machines) At a molecular level it’s to our eyes invisible/undetectable.

[@anubisvex3309]

I think instead of everything being made of basic particles it is all made of subjective experience. Essentially a bubble of meaning enveloping a certain body of distinguishable change. The term perception divides is a good example of this. When you zoom into an atom we divide it into electrons, protons and nucleus. Zoom into those you get quarks and other fundamental particles. No matter how much we zoom in we will keep dividing.

[@orbismworldbuilding8428]

When we zoom in on an electron we don't get anything, but it turns out particles are manifestations if fields

[@nobo1682]

Reality is a arbitrary illusion of preconceived assumptions, it has meaning as long as you think it does and it doesn't when you dont, like how the act of observation or the choice to observe affects the truly microscopic, or how time is a figment of our imagination.

[@thedawnoftheblackhearts2745]

When it comes to philosophy all these scientists appear as what they really are: Educated clowns

[@dvdrtrgn]

How is this scientist a clown to you?

[@nickking6371]

Consciousness is an emrgent property of the interactions of many non conscious things interacting.

[@NikaBoyce]

Theres barely anyone “home” here on earth and thats dwindling each day... but maybe it just feels that way w the current political climate

[@Jimi_Lee]

None of it means anything to anything but consciousness. Irrelevant or not, it's the only thing that cares either way.

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

Consciousness is self-referential and rather private so not much can be said about it, generally.

[@luciferangelica]

"i think consciousness is both irrelevant and incredibly important." way to take a stand

[@colecorbett255]

he's saying it depends on what perspective you take/ what scenario your in

[@luciferangelica]

@@colecorbett255 lololol

[@lisaschuster9187]

I expected to foam at the mouth, but everything you said was a relief. Self-evident, even. It’s hardly the final frontier, but I’m tormented by the question of how “I” ended up in this body, looking out these eyes, and not some other human or animal. Scientists don’t accept the idea that there may be questions that are beyond our ability to ever comprehend - beginning with comprehension itself.

[@birgith9183]

I read somewhere, that plants grow faster and healthier if they listen to music or if someone sings for them. Also they can communicate through the roots, and they help each other: if a plant is sick, they will send energy to that specific plant. I think that everything is conscious on some level, but it is very human to think, that we are such wonders and that we are alone with the consciousness along with SOME other animals - only the cute one right :b It must be the quarks that are conscious. Great video, thank you for that btw ! :D

[@technomage6736]

Soundwaves seem to have many various effects. Considering we now understand that all things are waves, it makes more sense that various sound patterns could resonate with the things they contact. It is now thought amongst some that life itself arose from vibrating matter.

[@LeeboProductions]

Science is concerned with "What?" and "How?" questions, not so much the "Why?" question. This is where Nietzsche went wrong. Sometimes a "Why?" is explained by science as bi-product, but that isn't always the case because the big "Why?" questions are mostly found in the realm of philosophy. The problem with people's conscious "experience" is that it's extremely biased and unreliable. I think Neurology will be where the next frontier will happen with the help of AI, and I think that people will be highly disappointed when we figure out what consciousness actually is, technically speaking.

[@tarcal87]

I think you have confused the title's "why" word with the otherwise correct answer that science doesn't deal with "why" questions in general: science _can_ deal with why questions like this if it's to understand a lack of uniformity in a given group e.g. why only some stars explode (while others implode), or why some birds aren't able to fly (while others can), etc. Behind such "why" questions are actually "how" answers, just like in this one. It would be different if the title was "why do we live" or "what is our purpose" etc. that are purely why questions that presuppose intent or a plan, and are meaningless scientifically. Science doesn't deal with those why questions, indeed. But if we (beings being part of nature) evolved to _ask_ the why questions (we all grow up to wonder about purpose at some point), then we must study its origins and how that develops in a brain - just looking at the tree of life, back to a point in our branch of species the type of animal wasn't conscious/self-conscious, clearly the difference between that and us is due to a natural/physical change during evolution; thus it is no longer a philosophical question but a hard science one. Moreover, we need to understand consciousness as it's a natural thing and AI can acquire it (we prefer a smarter AI than us, and if we already possess it, why wouldn't an even smarter one do?). Consciousness being a natural phenomena can actually be a very basic part of nature in terms of how information-processing entities operate. Possible as basic a law as every other scientific fundamentals, e.g. all the chemical reactions, properties, etc.

[@LeeboProductions]

I wasn't talking about the title, I was answering a point he made in the video. I thought I made it clear that I was talking about the big "Why?" questions that are a part of philosophy, and don't tend to be an aim in science, which is why I referenced Nietzsche. I didn't say that science never answers them, sometimes science does incidentally answer them, but the big philosophical "Why?" questions; are not even really an aim of science.

[@LeeboProductions]

I do however completely agree with your final paragraph.

[@jamesstaggs4160]

I'm not sure if science will ever be able to explain the "what" in regards to consciousness. We're getting much better at the how, at the nuts and bolts of it. We're already able to predict and control the behavior of certain simpler minds. You can order up a cockroach and a kit on the internet, make an incision in the roach, then attach the equipment and have yourself a little remote controlled biological entity. That's a pretty sophisticated understanding of the mechanics of that roaches mental processes. We have a decent grasp on subjective experiences such as pain. We understand how certain stimuli triggers actions in our nerve cells, how the signal gets to the brain and what area that signal goes to. However we have no clue what pain actually is. We don't understand sensations in any fundamental way and I'm not sure we ever will, at least not with any of the language and techniques we use now and have used in the past. I think it will take some completely radical method of understanding and description completely alien to us now. I've spent a lot of time looking at the issue from any angle I can get on it. I've come up totally blank and apparently everyone else has as well. It's one of those things like trying to figure out if the universe is finite or infinite and then understand, I mean really comprehend, what either of those two choices means. You'll blow an o-ring trying to visualize a finite universe then knowing what is outside of it and how that could even be possible. Same thing with infinity. You'll pull a neuron with that one. I'm just not so sure science will ever be equipped with the tools necessary to do anything besides describe the processes of consciousness.

[@FocusMrbjarke]

isn't science concerned with observation?(at least in some areas)

[@encounteringjack5699]

Yeah, consciousness is definitely something more people should look into, plus the more we understand about consciousness, the closer we’ll get to answering the question, does free will actually exist. CRAZY RIGHT?!! But the pessimistic side of finding out what it is shouldn’t stop us from trying to figure it out since it’s an interesting topic and given by this video, there’s clearly a great importance to it.

[@sirsir9665]

Can thought even happen without some form of consciousness, even if it's as small as a Bugs? I think consciousness was developed to help things survive. People get more self aware as time went on which allowed us to think better. Like "how will I survive tomorrow?" Because of this you can plan ahead and be better ready to handle the next day.

[@Robin-bk2lm]

Like: without consciousness there is no value to anything.

[@prashantthakuri6074]

Science can never solve the problem of Consciousness!

[@rocketman475]

It's called an FMRI machine. They should be using it in studies on comatose humans to find out if anybody's home. In conjunction use TCMS to observe if possibilities exist for positive therapeutic effect on the comatose person.

[@MitchApley]

But wait, if a conscious mind finally understands the underpinnings of what makes consciousness happen, does that not in and of itself represent the evolution in consciousness he describes? What are the ramifications of that, and how is this being addressed?

[@everyoneswireddifferent1712]

A better question to the machine would be,am I consciously aware of my thoughts?I believe we are but I think we too often confuse are thoughts as being awareness or consciousness itself.This is why I think Renee Descartes should of said I'm aware,there for I am.I personally believe that something can be conscious as in aware without thoughts or feelings I feel too many people are just assuming something with awareness has to have thoughts and emotions.

[@needheartranken]

It's so egoistic for humans to say why are only some things conscious based on their perspective of what consciousness is. To tell you, EVERYTHING is conscious. Feedback loops of everything is what makes up the reality and the grand play.

[@waltermcmain3461]

I could get a cup of coffee with Tegmark. So much science.

[@carbon1479]

In short - Max doesn't know, he's just promoting serious thought on the question and explaining why he believes it shouldn't be dismissed.

[@l0g1cseer47]

That's was a very informative! Nice one!

[@robertmiller6444]

All good stuff I mostly agree with. The one philosophical point I do disagree with is this narcissistic notion that our conscious existence is what gives the universe "meaning". That doesn't stand up to any critical thought. Why is it implausible that the universe could exist just fine regardless of our conscious existence. In fact, that has been the predominant state of the universe to NOT have any conscious beings. And there is the problem that it is a narcissistic projection. And what I think is the motivation for that narcissistic projection is this apparent "need" to feel there is some purpose to existence. Firstly, again, just narcissism to think one must have some cosmic purpose. Second, why does any purpose necessarily come from the universe? For me, that I exist is sufficient "purpose". If one is in need of some perceived "purpose" then what is wrong in finding purpose simply in one's existence? Why is it not sufficient that you exist to provide you with purpose and meaning in life? Why do I need some sort of externalized "purpose"? Why is my internalized experience not sufficient "purpose"? I exist, may as well make the most of my existence while it lasts.

[@christianeaster2776]

How could consciousness be irrelevant? Without it, this conversation would not be happening. Without it, we would not be contemplating the universe and its workings. Without consciousness no civilization, no art, no science, no grand schemes to explore the world and universe. Without it, we would not exist.

[@angelic8632002]

OK so can someone explain/define to me what Consciousness really means? And I mean a good explanation. When i try to grapple with it I don't come any further than awareness. But I'm assuming its something more, the way people are talking about it?

[@Johnny20022002]

Simone consciousness can be defined as awareness. Or how Nagel* puts it “something it is like.” There is “something it is like” to be a bat in a way that there isn’t “something it is like” to be a rock.

[@Sandsack2311]

Scientists are still arguing about the definition of consciousness. You may find some definitions but as far as I know, none is widely accepted. edit: I agree with Johnny. Chalmers definition is probably the best we have for now

[@taragnor]

Defining it is actually probably the biggest issue scientists have right now. We're all certain it exists, because we ourselves are conscious, but we can't even really prove others are conscious like we are. It's pretty much assumed they are, because they certainly act like conscious beings. As far as an actual definition though, that's hard, because consciousness itself isn't really a "thing" in terms of conventional science. It's not necessarily matter or energy, it could easily be something we haven't quantified yet. I tend to think it has something to do with the mystery of life itself, as we're still not sure how to create life from unlife, and supplying consciousness might be a reason why.

[@DevilDude]

It's weirdly ingrained part of everything we as a humans do. Not fully understood to the point where we can't even say clearly if other great apes are conscious. It helps to think that there are different kind/levels of consciousness and we as people cycle through them when we are awake, aware, tired, working on a problem, holding a baby or completely asleep. All of that takes place in a compressed network of connection within our skull. It's one of those things that isn't just "one thing", but rather everything that we ever know. For a simple example think about how much information you can access and how little you can truly know about everything that exists, and all of that unfathomable amount of knowledge came out of this one specific thing that can be replicated over and over to the point that there are 7.5 Billions of them right now on this planet in the middle of nowhere. All of human knowledge exist on this one little planet. Statistically it does goes to prove that there is something of inherent value in it but we don't truly know what it is and what is not it. When someone tries to attribute one thing to it, they just ignore other possible integral parts to it. Imagine watching a sports match where one of the players is your family member or friend and you start cheering when they are close to winning sitting beside others like you and then ask of yourself whether this experience is important to everything else in the world. Now imagine you are solving a technical problem fixing the fuse breaker in your house before your family can have dinner and ask yourself what does this feeling mean. The same goes for everything someone who is conscious is ever going to experience. What value is to all of this when you can have robots sitting in the audience and a mechanical helper that helps you solve your problems. Why does your existence matter to anything of it. tl;dr: Consciousness is the most complicated and hard to explain things which over time and time again have had theories with huge support that has been completely refuted. We know 2 things, The arrangement of the neurons in our brain and throughout our bodies have something to do with it and it's WEIRD AS FUCK. Watch this if you are still interested kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHm7dJxsrr9gm6M There are more stuff on RI's channel regarding in-depth analysis of things we understand better about consciousness.

[@thstroyur]

Integrated cognitive awareness; different aspects of our minds - (self-)awareness, cognition, and so on -, which people usually mention when they talk consciousness (bar 'wakefulness', which is more trivial IMO), are probably just a bunch of subroutines managed by an emergent superstructure. Basically, it's the cybernetwork of the CNS

[@travellintravis6373]

Very interesting, quantifying a sense of meaning to life.

[@sanjuansteve]

Fear doesn't only mentally wall-off empathy, but also critical thought in general including self-reflection. Fear (and the empathy it kills) is what separates the left from the right.

[@WestOfEarth]

Schroedinger (of cat fame) had an interesting conjecture that quantum mechanical processes were the defining element of life. The difference between an inanimate object and a living cell is embodied in the quantum physics processes happening in each.

[@bitchplease5895]

God. The effect of this video on my brain is like water for desert

[@johnbouttell5827]

Re: "It’s a lot faster to describe what little science cannot talk about sensibly." 'There has been a great shortcoming in the humanities in explaining themselves in order to improve the creative powers of the humanities.' E.O. Wilson. In other words, paleontology, anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and neural biology are branches of science that need to provide more information on the origin of humans -- and consciousness.

[@billbrenne5475]

I think that consciousness as we know it was particularly brought on by the advent of society as we know it (as opposed to tribal life). Once population crossed a line, people started having to deal with strangers every time they turned around. This made people much more self-conscious, which soon metamorphosed into "conscious self-awareness", or "conscious", for short. What consciousness boils down to, then, in my mind, is simply fear.

[@californiaplant-basedeater2761]

People who are blind have consciousness. Anyone with any sensory perception has consciousness.

[@billbrenne5475]

@@californiaplant-basedeater2761 it makes no difference whether a person is blind or not. The sensory perception that the world was becoming chock full of people, resulting in stranger-fear and self-consciousness nevertheless applies as I outlined in my previous post.

[@californiaplant-basedeater2761]

@@billbrenne5475 Something can't develop consciousness via using consciuosness.

[@billbrenne5475]

@@californiaplant-basedeater2761 consciousness is simply awareness. When conditions change such as when tribal life was no longer feasible, society as we roughly know it was born. In that new world, the number of strangers forced to interact with one another increased exponentially, and along with that, people developed a heightened awareness of these strangers, as opposed to the tribes they were once a part of. This is no small thing. Awareness of others was radically intensified. The flip-side of that intensified awareness was self-consciousness to a degree never before experienced. But self-consciousness as an idea wasnt all that popular. Relatively soon, I imagine, that self-consciousness was spun to mean conscious self-awareness, a term much in vogue today. From there, it was simply referred to as consciousness, and everybody was happy. 😉

[@billbrenne5475]

@@californiaplant-basedeater2761 you could further say, I believe, that consciousness is simply fear.

[@sophiastar9713]

I had a NDE or near death experience as a child where I became aware of the energy beings within another dimension. In my 20s I read the Seth Books written by Jane Roberts. Seth is an energy being existing within another dimension. Seth said consciousness is within quarks and atoms and that is how they are formed: with purpose. Seth did not say a robot could have a mind of its own like we do. So since it takes awareness/consciousness to form quarks and atoms and these are the beginning of everything, then everything is conscious. When quarks and atoms are spinning billions of times a second --- how do they spin as light? What makes light spin when at the core of this existence are waves of energy and light? You can't say chemicals because quarks and atoms come before chemicals. Physicists don't like thinking that a rock is spinning as conscious quarks and atoms, but rocks are, or else how does that rock exist? Seth said creation is constant. Each time those quarks burst forth to create those protons and neutrons, this is constant creation. And this is happening constantly. Quarks and atoms are not just sitting within an "object". They are still energy and light spinning and vibrating as electrical magnetic energy field vibrations. Our brains are electrical magnetic energy field vibrations. What if the core of our existence as waves of energy and light ARE this overall consciousness that is creating everything constantly? Has to be. I wish people/physicists would stop calling things physical and solid and then saying they die or decay. Energy does not die and decay. REALLY, those Seth books need to be taught in public schools all over the world. This would stop all the wars and prisons and other tortures because this huge field of electrical vibrations makes us all ONE.

[@TheShapingSickness]

Awesome talk. Had never heard of this guy before.

[@Zeithri]

I litterary could only think of, " _Come to Quark's, Quark's is fun_ " ~

[@shawarmageddonit]

"Litterary"?

[@puluzo]

To me consciousness is like operating system or software that our brain creates so it can operate easily and survive. It's like when we look hardware of computer we can't point here's where the software is or where is happening so consciousness is the same. When we look brain like looking hardware it's very hard to point consciousness.

[@timwoodruff7984]

Great talk, and so insightful. I do wish Dr. Max would take a look at biology once in a while. I know he’s a physicist through and through, but wouldn’t it be instructive to assess less advanced brains first? Why tackle the hardest brain to start off ? Why not work up the chain after figuring out the parameters on more simple subjects? For example, a dog or a cat are clearly conscious, by any measure that would make sense, But why an ant no & a shrimp maybe yes? Clearly you need sufficient processing power, but also enough data. The “quality” of the consciousness - i.e., it’s “pattern” - will clearly correlate with the quality and quantity of input that it can crunch. Imagine two nearly identical brains, one belonging to a 30 yr old Cro-Magnon from 40,000 years ago and one from a modern-astronaut of the same age. Imagine how different their levels of consciousness would be. The cave dwellers would appear to have more in common with today’s chimpanzees than with current humans.... . In sum, this is proof that our brains are indeed capable of creating our own reality..... Any questions?! (I got a few already)

[@mikicerise6250]

Whatever consciousness, or the illusion of consciousness, is, I think to be understood it must be understood as a four-dimensional pattern, not a three-dimensional pattern. Consciousness is necessarily a temporal object - a property that exists over time. You cannot take a snapshot of consciousness, it is an emergent, evolving object, in perpetual motion. We'd need to unlock the temporal mechanics of neurons to understand it better.

[@kokomanation]

I think that consciousness has not so much to do with the brain activity that operates regarding intelligence but mostly is related to the emotional output of the organ .if we can show or indicate that a AI software can perceive genuine intense fear or anger that means it is conscious if of course it is not programmed to fake those emotional behavior

[@RalphDratman]

"Subjective experience" -- what is that? How can you define it? I think it is pointless to concentrate on what we "feel" in a vague, undefined way. Try asking a question that could conceivably be answered. And incidentally, a bug is not a "mechanism," nor is it similar to any mechanism. A mechanism is something constructed to perform certain behaviors or functions for its maker's purpose. A bug was never constructed and has no purpose.

[@sophiastar9713]

Ralph Everything everywhere is constantly being constructed each time quarks burst forth spinning/vibrating billions of times a second as 3 points of light forming protons and neutrons. This is as exact as constructing a building or computer. In fact, the DNA within those quarks is the computer that delegates our forming.

[@tunahelpa5433]

As far as I know, I'm the only one who's conscious

[@danzigvssartre]

Tuna Helpa Then Who you talking to?

[@Dababs8294]

That's actually not true. You're an extra in my life and I'm the real one.

[@davidwilkie9551]

If the discussion remains in the reverse context, it will always be a mystery.

[@nirvachoritchy2933]

Fascinated by his analysis and the beautiful depth he is saying

[@stndsure7275]

Pattern is a function of consciousness, not the other way around.. As is identity. the relationship, including causation, meaning, and purpose. The physicists have it wrong.. The particle comes into existence from mere potentiality (the wave function) due to being onserved/known not the othere way around

[@skoky76]

I think the end is the best. It is clear that it won't be human beings travelling and settling new galaxies. I would prefer a conscious robot to settle in alpha Centauri planet to send me some photos using quantum entanglement device , while I will still enjoy coffee in my terrace on earth. If he tells me some jokes it would be even better....

[@freediugh416]

that's called children

[@TheSimonScowl]

Consciousness is PRIMARY, not secondary (the body and the 'outside world' are secondary). And even if consciousness were NOT superior to matter, you cannot 'think with' matter (even 'gray matter'). You can only think ABOUT matter.

[@classicmicroscopy9398]

Deny consciousness? To experience anything, to think of anything, to posit any questions, to even practice science presupposes awareness. If our own awareness of anything is an illusion then it all is... X_X The very question is absurd to the highest degree...

[@scottperry9581]

Consciousness is an emergent property of our wetware. Machine intelligence has a very different architecture, therefore machine consciousness, when it evolves, will be different from human consciousness.

[@majinperez6993]

Consciousness is something no one agrees to the definition of. I know that my feelings are an overarching sight of a large number of computations in my mind.

[@piotr780]

Question/hypothesis : are we unconscious during sleep or only subsystem of memory is turned-off, so we have an illusion that we weren't conscious ?

[@nebuluos2032]

consciousness is at it's basic obvious level: a process/cycle in the way thinking beings can reference data absorbed by the senses. The aspect of this process that engages a subroutine of self awareness and experiences beyond self awareness (eg self projection/imagination etc) I presume to be highly sensitive and dynamic variations of the data absorbtion and arrangement processes. The mystery for me is in the question of why these processes self propogate so forcefully and go above and beyond basic survival needs of the individual or it's species (reproductive instincts).

[@sundeepdhar9734]

what about tress?

[@nofishtoday]

Depends on the definition of consciousness. Divinity? Self-awareness? Universal energy?

[@MsLilichi]

The thing with consciousness is, its ever expanding. I think we're all pieces of a larger puzzle, and some call that puzzle god, but it really is just every bit of consciousness that there was and is (and maybe even will be) in a kind of unity. in life, we're just more or less split off from the whole on some level, but always connected in someway. either that, or we're just a surprisingly well organized collection of matter, in which electrical and chemical signals unified into something meaningful. perhaps the difference between the 2 is a matter of how one phrases it, what kind of light you shine on it.. anyway, whatever came before, and whatever comes after.. is all wrapped in a thick mist, its better to look where you can see.

[@anon8109]

Finally, a scientist that takes the problem of consciousness seriously and wants to bring it into the realm of physics. It's about time.

[@thstroyur]

Not first, tho; search for Umezawa, Frohlich, Vitiello, for examples of physicists working on this from a condensed matter POV

[@davidlandsberg9455]

Life has no meaning *screaming conciously"

[@Jan96106]

"No disassemble!"

[@ChazyK]

Ethics are not based on experience, but on consiquences. Many unpleasant experiences are beneficial and not thought of as bad. For example exercise. The problem with rape is that it negatively effects the victims future behaviour.

[@ratatataraxia]

As a philosopher myself, I say you can leave this to us. Don’t worry your little scientific brain about consciousness, it’s kind of our thing.

[@davejacob5208]

the detector he talks about will never tell us whether there is subjective experience...

[@richardreddick5681]

it seems to me that a good question to ask first is "what is non-consciousness" To me, it seems there are many levels to consciousness from virus to human. Simply put its some form of awareness in varying degrees.

[@akabaker98]

Your individual cells arguably aren’t conscious, but collectively your body of cells is...

[@abpt7647]

I am pure consiouness apart from body and mind👌

[@dirkgonthier101]

That guy is also full with self-importance. Mankind can NEVER make all life extinct.

[@BathingAfrican]

science trying to decode consciousness is like catching water with a fork lol it will always allude

[@codyjones1098]

He dumbs it down so well!

[@hadara69]

"The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. WE are the custodians of life's meaning." ~ Carl Sagan

[@lololauren55]

Nonsensical. First he goes on to say that morality is full of meaning and value, then goes on to say that all subjective experience is reducible to meaningless quarks and electrons.

[@ericjohnson6665]

Consciousness is related to the following: life, mind & personality. None of these are particularly measurable from an energy/matter standpoint. But from the standpoint of experience, are all ‘real’ to us. The fact that we perceive them is a clear indication that we are more than just matter & energy since the observer is something other than what is being observed. One viewpoint says that Spirit is the true reality and that matter is abut a shadowy reflection of that. Since we’re still neophytes to this, we do not as yet possess any way to prove the fact of spiritual existence other than by experience, which of course is all too easily influenced by environmental factors, rendering all results subject to interpretation. To quote Forrest Gump, “I am not a smart man, but I know what love is.” Curiously the only way to “prove” the existence of God is through experience. And the keys to experiencing God’s Love require Capacity and Receptivity.

[@hunghenry]

Imagine if our consciousness works at higher dimensions. Experiencing mostly in the 3 dimensional world. Most minds can't process the concept of 4th, 5th, and higher dimensions, let along record it in a 3 dimensional experience.

[@jan-peterschuring88]

It’s strange Tegmark seems to “get” the teleological idea about consciousness in the universe but then he seems to revert back to it being a physical material phenomena. That would only make sense if you are a monist materialist and make consciousness a physical attribute to all matter....a notion endorsed by some. Some see consciousness as being produced and transmitted through the quantum vacuum, or empty space. Any system that has sufficient complexity and creates a certain level of energy, could generate or broadcast consciousness. But I’m not sure this is Tegmark’s view or not although he mentioned complexity as a factor.

[@dieguis86]

Agreeable in most of it main message, although very homocentric theory, thinking the universe is beautiful only because we are conscious of it... we need to expand our horizon realizing there is much more out there than what our minds can process right now

[@MrVanhovey]

I totally disagree. The universe has been and will always be consciousness. It can not exist any other way.

[@abpt7647]

Pure consiousness is the ultimate reality = shankara's non duality🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

[@kingkiller1451]

...So what if you end up figuring out that instead consciousness is just how we interpreted a particular method of spectacularly mundane processing that isn't fundamentally different from what my computer is doing right now?