Giulio Tononi on Consciousness and Phi

Das Bewusstsein ist eine komplexe Angelegenheit - für den Einzelnen ist es alles, für die Wissenschaft aber nur schwer einzukreisen. Guilio Tononi ist einer wichtigsten Forscher auf diesem Gebiet - wir sprachen mit ihm vor seiner Lecture auf der NWG 2019.
Datum: 20.03.19
Sie dürfen den Inhalt zu den folgenden Bedingungen vervielfältigen, verbreiten und öffentlich zugänglich machen, sowie Abwandlungen und Bearbeitungen des Inhaltes anfertigen (cc -- by nc):
1.) Namensnennung -- Sie müssen den Namen des Projekts wie folgt nennen: © 2019 www.dasGehirn.info
2.) Keine kommerzielle Nutzung -- Dieser Inhalt darf nicht für kommerzielle Zwecke verwendet werden.

[@JahTzu]

A thousand thank yous for sharing this!

[@LoonaSwan]

Tononi clearly answers questions, which is great. I want more of his interviews. Thanks.

[@MrJamesdryable]

*Father Tononi*

[@adelvoid1530]

hahahahah when I just started watching I was: "what the f...". Tononi is a very interesting human nevertheless.

[@ecosystemevolution]

Thank you for this posting!

[@timwoodruff7984]

Professor Tononi is a visionary and a genius. His work ranks among the most important science being done anywhere on the planet today. I just wish those who have been inspired by his revolutionary theory of phi would look down the food chain to some of the animals once in a while. We can learn a lot about how or why a shrimp or an ant are (or are not) “conscious.“ Not to mention dogs and cats, etc.

[@veraintuizione6497]

We all creatures are consciousness. No one is excluded. There's only a consciousness in the Universe.

[@tryhustryhus2618]

@@veraintuizione6497 from what is a creature?

[@veraintuizione6497]

@@tryhustryhus2618 From CONSCIOUSNESS

[@davedouglass438]

You will find inspiration in Prof. Mark Solms' recent work, including: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHnJeKitpKiLf5o

[@Hgulix62]

Interesting. Thanks for posting

[@SabreenSyeed]

This theory IIT is going to be a Copernican Revolution in Consciousness Studies and by extention all of science. I really feel that way.

[@DavidG2P]

Consciousness is an emergent property of every autopoietic (i.e. self-sustaining/self-recreating = living) system and emerges from the reduction of complexity (i.e., perception, representation) of the infinitely complex environment to the relatively few perceptions, i.e. to the model-building, that is necessary for autopoietic self-recreation and survival. These perceptions or models also include system-internal (i.e., within-the-body) processes, thus forming a self-representation contained in the representation of the environment. This is the definition of consciousness. One of the simplest organisms that have consciousness (i.e. a model of itself inside a model of its environment, thus a perception of itself) is a single living cell. Interesting that IIT predicts that a computer AI can never have consciousness. This seems to be in line with the autopoietic theory of consciousness, since AI is not an autopoietic system that re-generates, maintains and thus creates itself through its internal processes, using a complexity-reduced internal model of its environment and of itself.

[@objetivista686]

I would say consciousness is the sensation that create experience.

[@MegaDonaldification]

This professor is so smart he didnt have to fragment his experience to mere numbers. I wish he had time to apply his knowledge of consciousness plus kind and patient moments and feel his consciousness replenished with more better insight.

[@paulaustinmurphy]

Hi phi Giulio!

[@dibble2005]

Is he a priest?? The collar?

[@insaneinthebrain1978]

I am curious that still to this day nobody is bringing language itself to the table. Questioning unmatterable stuff like consciousness etc ain't workin because you creating a loop with only words. Consciousness only can be experienced live, mathematically formulated or solely spoken in parables. Ol'J knew! Thx for sharing

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Try Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain kzbin.info/www/bejne/h16lkIKEf654mac

[@nanotam89]

This has been my issue with explaining qualia. Things are defined in contrast to other things. A tree has quality A that is not possessed by a bush or the bush does not have the extent or amount of A that a tree has. How do you compare taste for example to something else. Conscious experience appears to me to be the fundamental building block that defines language. It is the datum of language. It is as if you are trying to define the concept of a set by its elements instead of by the idea of a set. It is in fact worse than this because you can not conceptualize conscious experience because you can never find yourself outside the experience to define it. How can you define the mechanism that creates definitions? Conscious experience contains our entire reality so the paradox is does the set of all linguistic sets contain itself? and if so how do you place it in contrast to anything such as to have it revealed/defined. The paradox arises potentially from a linguistic failing or perhaps it is a true limit to our knowledge. How do you objectify the very thing that gives rise to subjective experience?

[@mrbwatson8081]

Science study’s the behaviour of nature under controlled circumstances ie the measurement/observer must not have any effect on the controlled behaviour. This way of viewing nature helps us build models make predictions and ultimately create new technologies. HOWEVER the measurement/ observer is also a behaviour of nature. How can you give a full account if you exclude such an important part of nature. The observer is as much a behaviour of the universe as is a black hole or a volcano. The observer needs to be understood in order to give a full account of nature, science by its nature excludes the observer that’s why consciousness has been swept under the rug for so long. Science has its limits but thankfully people like Tononi are willing to go against the grain to try and give us a fuller picture of reality. I am not saying he is right but he is at least making serious attempt to shed light in this area. Well done Tononi :)

[@TheHistoryguy10]

Consciousness doesn’t equal experience but allows for us to have them. Consciousness is very difficult to pin down.

[@kevinfairweather3661]

watched

[@DieJungherr]

The old metaphysical statement "thoughts are things", must have a place in this kind of philosophy?

[@jwingit]

I agree!

[@fineasfrog]

@@jwingit I agree as well. Also we need to consider that the nature of thought depends on the quality of the energy that gives us 'thought'. And we can say that the quality of energy can have different levels of coherence or integration. Living systems such as the human being can be looked at as a dissipative system capable of building up unused energy as potential energy such that the system can go through higher and higher levels of 'coherence' or "integration'. A sage can be said to live in such a way that he has learned in his/her experience to remain with the 'groundless' (wordless wonder or even the felt sense of acute fear) of the inner or outer situation and not just have to retreat to the safe territory of conceptualization (thinking). To the extent we are lacking in this capacity or skill the tendency is to mainly, if not completely, nest in the head and the other 'nests' in the bodily being such as what is called the 'heart' and 'instinctive centers' remain either only partially activated or they are out of balance and even somewhat working against each other. For example, "I want to do this but I feel I shouldn't" is usually functional conflict due to lack of a refined quality of energy that can allow us to have an 'insight' that will reconcile the conflict. In other words "what a thought-form is and is made up of" can be of radically different natures depending on the level of integration or coherence of the human being. Thanks be.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

"thoughts are things" only if one understands 'thing' to be anything a noun refers to. It seems to me the thinking process loses competence when thinking disregards the tricky difference between nouns that refer to concrete objects and nouns that refer to abstractions. Thoughts are self evidently processes. Process is an abstract concept. Are abstract concepts 'things' or not? Cheers, eh!

[@davedouglass438]

Several groups of analysts have very powerful views on consciousness and intelligence and sanity. I am aware of no one of these groups who can cover everything - and no two of them who agree entirely with one another. But by using ideas from all of them (despite their being mutually-non-compatible), taken together it seems they do come very close to 'getting it all.' Does this perhaps mean that one must be CONSCIOUS of abstracting, in order to understand consciousness? (Alfred Korzybski, Gordon Pask, Gregory Bateson, Gerald Edelman, Jaak Panksepp, Antonio Damasio, Mark Solms, Mark Johnson, George Lakoff, Karl Friston, Guilio Tononi - so you don't have to ask.)

[@Jaesonlee1]

Try bufo and you will see he is right about it.

[@PaxtonLO]

Mr. Tononi: From what does WILLFUL INTENT arise. What is the cause of WILLFUL INTENT?

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Thirst, for example, causes me to intend to slake it. 'WILLFUL' is redundant in the phrase, perhaps even meaningless.

[@PaxtonLO]

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL Hello RP, an example, continuing on your theme, would be a person on a hunger strike whose willful intent is to NOT eat. For some reason the role of "will" is downplayed by societies thought leaders. A person being "willful" is viewed mainly negatively. I'm thinking that it's because our society wants the masses unaware for advertising (sales), governing, etc. Docile followers are what is desired by many governments, industry, and science leaders, whether they are aware of it or not. Without directly referring to the use of will, everyone is encouraged to "go for it"-- become a successful entrepreneur, athlete, etc. etc. I programmed computers extensively for many years as a career. I watch the A.I. developments closely for how the A.I. thought leaders are positioning A.I. capabilities, and in my opinion, lying about a key aspect of A.I. The dirty little secret that all of the A.I. leadership knows is that NO A.I. system has "willful intent'. I, when programming a computer, am the willful intent of what it is accomplishing. The A.I. leaders and developers ARE providing the willful intent behind every A.I. based product. They are producing electro-mechanical human mimicry loaded with their willful intent, and passing it off as just another kind of human. Willful intent is the unique property of what we term consciousness. Consciousness can be mimicked, but it can't be created.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@PaxtonLO "Consciousness can be mimicked, but it can't be created." If we were to mechanically assemble atoms into a construct that was structurally and functionally identical to a human fertilized human egg and then implanted the construct into a womb so that eventually an organism was born that grew into an adulthood indistinguishable from human, would you still assert that that organism's behavior was purely the result of the willful intent of we the assemblers? Now, if we were to mechanically assemble atoms into a construct, battery powered, steel, copper, silicon etc., that was *perfectly functionally isomorphic* to a human adult, could we know that that construct's behavior would be purely the result of the willful intent of we the assemblers? I don't think so because it seems to me that I could be no more or less confident that the construct was conscious than I could be confident that you are conscious (and for exactly the same reasons). See?

[@PaxtonLO]

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL My assertion is that consciousness is the fundamental. Perhaps consciousness would have the willful intent to utilize either of the bodies different in construction that you define in your hypothetical? I have no other answer.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@PaxtonLO Once, when I was young, I held a spoon before my eyes, concentrated on it intently and 'willed' that spoon to bend with every ounce of mental effort I could muster. It did not bend. Will power and wishful thinking are the same thing. Wishful thinking does not do anything until the muscles are enlisted. Will power, wishful thinking and ordinary thinking are the same thing and may or may not result in this or that behavior. I really haven't thought deeply on it, sorry.

[@josy26]

Is he also a priest of some sort?

[@robmoru23]

is he a priest?

[@user-sb9ml1ef4q]

I second this question.

[@andreac5152]

No

[@lourak613]

How does he know that we know "nothing" when we sleep? Isn't it possible that we are conscious of things on some level, but we forget about it. Many people wake up in a dream and remember the dream. But later, when getting up from the bed, the dream is forgotten. Is it possible that such a mechanism of experiencing and forgetting goes on throughout the period of sleep?

[@nuno.peixoto]

He does say on a different video that when you're dreaming you are in fact conscious. It's only when you're not experiencing anything that you're not conscious. Even when you don't remember what you dreamt about, you are still aware that you've dreamt therefore you were conscious.

[@VenkatPanchadi]

Consciousness never goes away even in dreamless sleep, the mind (thoughts) goes away, after waking up from a dreamless sleep, you are saying I had a deep sleep, the witnessing self of calmness in a deep sleep is your consciousness. It is a subjective reality, in fact, it is the only reality and the appearance of another thing is due to your ignorance (Like water in a mirage).

[@rogerjohnson2562]

'witnessing self' sounds like dualism, which is another important topic

[@VenkatPanchadi]

@@rogerjohnson2562 No, not dualism, it is pure absolute, there is no duality. Only I, need not say I exist or I am. Absolute I

[@AndrewUnruh]

Inherent to IIT is the notion that consciousness and the organism experiencing consciousness are co-located. From this, it follows that if the organism’s consciousness perceiving mechanism is disrupted, then so too is consciousness. My hope and my intuition is that this is wrong-that there is only one consciousness and that the self is just an illusion. That said, I think the professor has most of the evidence on his side.

[@centricweb2920]

He says it is what goes away when we sleep as the shot definition of consciousness. Amazingly here is what Quran says: Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die during their sleep; then He withholds those on whom He has passed the decree of death and sends the others back till an appointed term; (Sūratuz Zumar, No. 39, Āyat 42)

[@timwoodruff7984]

One thing I‘be noticed is that the more quality data available to the entity in question, the higher the likelihood of a deeper consciousness. Where does that fit in to the theory? A cave person with exactly the same brain as an astronaut would undeniably have a lower level of consciousness, thanks to the astronaut’s vastly superior access to and command of information....

[@joostengelsman4755]

What do you mean by 'quality data'? The system is integrated so there is no qualitative distinction in data going in. Otherwise it would probaly mean that blind people are less conscious which I don't believe to be the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the possible amount of phi is entirely dependant on the architecture/structure of a brain in terms of neurons etc, not on the content of sens input.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@fredrik8806 Yes, the self is conscious OF things. How many things the self is conscious of in any given moment is irrelevant to the nature of the being conscious process but aside from that, no cavemen were conscious though, because cavemen did not have a self concept and having a self concept is the necessary prerequisite for being conscious. How do we know they didn't have a self concept? There is no mention of a self in all the literature written before three thousand years ago. So, easy to extrapolate backward from the seven millennia of civilization in which there was no self concept. Cheers, eh!

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@fredrik8806 Do you think all living things are conscious and have been right from the moment life got started 3 or 4 billion years ago?

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@fredrik8806 "Non sequitur" Not at all. If you answer yes then we have different understandings of the nature of being conscious. If you answer no then I would ask when do you think our ancestors transitioned from instinct driven animals to conscious people, and what prompted that to happen and about your thoughts on how.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@fredrik8806 "My understanding of consciousness is for there to be subjective experience, any at all, that experience needs to be layered on top of consciousness. The moment life passed the stage of cold automatons to beings with subjective experience, there was consciousness." 'Experience' entails being conscious. The phrase 'conscious experience' is redundant. Unconscious experience is a meaningless phrase. Experience' also entails a subject. Nothing cannot have an experience, only subjects can. Thus, re your 1st sentence, "subjective experience" and conscious have the same meaning in essence. As to your 2nd sentence, yes, when beings became conscious they became conscious. Thus I am able to interpret your paragraph in a way that I agree with.

[@devakikaren]

We can sense someone staring at us from behind. How come? Part of our experience, yet it's not what we can see.

[@HASHHASSIN]

Is he priest ? i can't take him seriously with that colar!

[@MZONE991]

he isn't, but why not you bigot? many scientists were priests or monks or nuns the big bang theory was made by a Catholic priest the first person to earn a Doctorate in Computer science was Mary Kenneth Keller (Catholic Nun) a Catholic Monk pioneered Genetics atheists don't have a Monopoly on science, we did and supported science long before you were relevant

[@MZONE991]

Not to mention that the medieval Scholastics set the ground foundations of science

[@HASHHASSIN]

@@MZONE991 True and True.. What was the atheist/agnostic % in dark ages? Even early humanoids show "believing something".. Big thanks (mostly) to Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christian, Muslim), today they created up to 20% atheist/agnostic population in their dominant lands. Big thanks to them, they caused secular education. You can't give us medieval example when kings and queens used religion as creating holly land, holly ruler to control masses. Of course only scholars came from religious organizations because they killed, oppressed, tortured or exiled almost all free thinkers. They didn't create but they are the reason enlightenment, they used inquisition to kill not to spread knowledge. Sorry brother, when so called "scientist" believe in god spoke to someone behind the bush.. I can't be the bigot one.. Apology for my primitive English.. Peace from overseas!

[@MZONE991]

@@HASHHASSIN //because they killed, oppressed, tortured or exiled almost all free thinkers.// LOL "almost all" is a big exaggeration you don't have any historical sources for that, just because you hear something repeated often that doesn't make it true

[@HASHHASSIN]

@@MZONE991 historian says only Sixtus IV papal bull killed 30,000 to millions.. which number is good for you? How many people christians, jews and muslims killed because of heresy?

[@Kevin-rr1nm]

I am not sure we can prove consciousness actually exists. If simulation theory can be postulated with some evidence to show the possibility, then consciousness could be just as much of an illusion within such a theory. There really is no objective baseline in which to compare the reality of consciousness against, until death. Just like we can have an "experience" within a VR simulation, the temporary reality we quickly adapt to, is quite clearly separated once we re-enter the "experience" outside of it. I do wonder, if conscious motivation shifts from reality based mechanics and structure to lets say a virtual world in minecraft, where mechanics and needs are different and both worlds require residents to gather resources and build to survive. The state of the mind is completely shifted between them, and yet one deals with reality and "existence" and the other does not. Would old theologians have thought to consider all thoughts and motivations between these realms with the same definition and strength of consciousness if dreams were so explicitly separated themselves?

[@veraintuizione6497]

I think the "nothing " is the other side of consciousness so there is no " nothing" . A sort of unconscious consciousness. All is consciousness included the nothing. Also to feel the nothing is an experience in same way. It permit us to have and to feel a consciousness .My humble opinion.

[@devakikaren]

I hear nothing in this interview about how many humans report dream-sharing, wherein two people have the same or similar dreams on the same night, This occurred between my adult daughter and myself when she was 10. There have been many reports of others experiencing this phenomenon.

[@elpero83]

What about the possibility that you had a similar waking experience (A) the day(s) previous to your common dream, and it was that experience A that influenced directly your individual dreams (B, C), without B and C being causally related?

[@raresmircea]

2:11 What a dumbo :))

[@aircombatmaneuvers]

Jajaja a buddhists have it answered thousands of years ago: bodhidharma said "You cannot. use a buddha to find a buddha" but that does not mean buddha cease to exist, when he stop searching another buddha.To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature. Unless you see your nature all this talk about cause and effect is nonsense.