How did consciousness evolve? - with Nicholas Humphrey

Find out how consciousness is generated in the human brain - and discover the evidence suggesting some animals are also sentient.
Read Nicholas's book 'Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness' here: geni.us/eCGs
Watch the Q&A here: • Q&A: How did conscious...
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Join renowned psychologist and philosopher Nicholas Humphrey as he presents his theory of 'phenomenal consciousness', in full for the first time.
Weaving together leading-edge science and personal breakthrough experiences, Nicholas provides a comprehensive look at the evolution of consciousness. He discusses discovering blindsight in monkeys, hanging out with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, to becoming a leading philosopher of the mind; all leading to a scientific understanding of consciousness and his theory as to how conscious feeling is generated in the human brain.
This theory also provides the foundation for Nicholas' controversial opinion - in contrast to broad scientific opinion - that phenomenal consciousness is only present in warm-blooded creatures such as mammals and birds, and not invertebrates like octopuses and bees, despite their known intelligence.
This lecture was recorded at the Ri on 21 June 2023.
00:00 Intro
03:20 Blind sight - seeing without a visual cortex
09:51 The difference between sensation and perception
11:37 Can consciousness be physically found in the brain?
16:58 How did natural selection lead to sensations?
22:28 How did this lead to consciousness in the human brain?
24:58 What is the point of phenomenal consciousness?
28:14 How human sentience led to theory of mind
30:17 Could animals also be sentient?
33:32 Body temperature and its effect on brain speed
34:45 Evidence for sentience in the animal kingdom
40:40 Mammals and birds show sentience - what about octopuses?
42:25 Can machines ever reach consciousness?
45:05 Could there be sentient aliens?
46:42 The extinction of consciousness on Earth
Nicholas Keynes Humphrey is an English neuropsychologist based in Cambridge, known for his work on evolution of primate intelligence and consciousness. He has been lecturer in psychology at Oxford, assistant director of the Subdepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, senior research fellow at Cambridge, professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research, New York, and school professor at the London School of Economics.
Humphrey played a significant role in the anti-nuclear movement in the late 1970s and delivered the BBC Bronowski memorial lecture titled "Four Minutes to Midnight" in 1981.
He has written 10 books and received several honours, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf Medal and the British Psychological Society's book award. He is the only scientist to have edited the literary journal Granta.
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[@alexstjohn9251]

He doesn't quite say this but I wonder if it's what he means. In order to reason across the world and past experiences the mind has to build a simulation of the future based on it's experience with past events AND it has to have a simulation of "self" to place in that simulation in order to make plans to benefit "self". So "self-awareness" is the act of creating a model of yourself to include in your simulation of reality in order to predict how your choices may help or harm "self".

[@SuperManning11]

Sounds like a reasonable way to think about it. The process of ‘becoming’ has to have some sort of framework to attach meaning to - at least in our current understanding of existence. I’ve often wondered if our degree of intelligence and understanding is limited by not only our physiology and the basic capacity of our brain to create consciousness at the level it does, but also by the constraints of the universal laws of physics that apply to the universe we inhabit. It seems quite possible that there exist other layers of reality that are we are currently unable to gain access to, and that remains outside of most people’s ability to even imagine, but which science seems to get more and more hints of its existence. Perhaps the level of consciousness attained by gaining access to these dimensions is something comparable to the difference of consciousness between humans and any of the so-called ‘lower’ life forms in our world.

[@simesaid]

Yes, I don't know enough about Sir Humphries work to comment, but the way that you have described things _is_ very close to the view of Joscha Bach's. His interviews with Lex Fridman, in particular, are very apposite.

[@TomiTapio]

Keep in mind that "sentient" (think about own thoughts) is more advanced than "self-aware" (ouch in paw).

[@LanceRulau]

See Daniel C. Dennett and the Multiple Drafts Model. The mind as a virtual machine, fascinating stuff. Cheers!

[@exmachina767]

​@@TomiTapio what is the gist of the distinction, in your opinion?

[@jmoney4695]

I am in awe of the positive energy in this comment section. Nothing like the typical KZbin experience. Lots of great conversations and interesting thoughts, creating fascinating dialogues.

[@rogertheshrubber2551]

Well, F U! Friends United

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

Someone replied to you, but KZbin has blocked it! {:o:O:}

[@Eshelion]

It seems most people here are really to widen their horizons.

[@ahG7na4]

90% of everything is sloganeering and self-adulation. you've just come across a channel where it's not of the "my religion great, my country stronk" type but of the "aren't I smart for watching this" type. amount of people saying anything substantive is about constant

[@rohanking12able]

​@@ahG7na4ok

[@eyebrid]

I mostly agree but the conclusion that only the warm blooded have sentience falls short of the experience of many caretakers or people who have cold blooded pets who show affinity for specific people and play. Quite a few divers have encountered curious fish that befriended them and evidently like to play. The animal kingdom has a wide variety of social structures from strong communal bonds to solitary life, it seems more appropriate to assume sentience than not, with varying degrees of complexity.

[@starfishsystems]

Octopi in particular seem to have some features of awareness that amount to sentence.

[@farhadsaffaraval7038]

Dolphins 🐬

[@garethmiguel]

Dolphins are warm-blooded mammals @@farhadsaffaraval7038

[@well_said7846]

@@farhadsaffaraval7038 Dolphins are warm blooded.

[@well_said7846]

Fish might play and and interact with you but they don’t play on their own.

[@earthbound9381]

Oh my. I've lived 72 yrs and never considered that sentience could be described in this way. This lecture was incredibly absorbing, as if something I have never imagined was being revealed for me to ponder. In particular I have never heard of blind sight and the video of Helen the monkey was fascinating. Thank you Mr Humphrey.

[@sakesaurus1706]

This lecture has a few ideas I remembered from Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea. I recommend it

[@PetroicaRodinogaster264]

I am 71 and I agree with you 100% What a wonderful gentle man he is too.

[@GREGGRCO]

Watching the monkey, this made me wonder, God is there; we just can not ( or choose not ) see Him 'directly'. I am trying not to use the word " consciously ". Maybe wrongly. Very interesting lecture.

[@kaoskronostyche9939]

He conflates consciousness and sentience which , according to the dictionary, are DIFFERENT things. Moreover he does not define either consciousness or sentience. This lecture is an utter waste of time if he is not going to do the simple task of defining his terms. Those of you who think this is profound lack the basic education to understand what nonsense this man is spouting.

[@sakesaurus1706]

@@kaoskronostyche9939 so you claim that you need an education about metaphysics and psychology in order to understand what he's saying? But you yourself didn't understand what he's saying? Man that's ironic

[@jpvandijk6998]

The whole lecture is a sublime work of art.

[@petermiesler9452]

So is Descartes, but that doesn't mean he's correct.

[@Smorss2011]

And horseshit

[@davidhess6593]

My cat is conscious, but it's self centered. I don't think she considers my feelings much, if at all. With her it's all me, me, me, meow!

[@faizanrana2998]

YOUR cat? Uh huh, no. I think it's the other way around. Shes the owner of one human.

[@davidhess6593]

@@faizanrana2998 LOL! She certainly thinks she is.🙂

[@asmameklati2722]

Thank u Helen for helping us learn about consciousness ❤

[@robbiekavanagh2802]

So glad I'm subscribed to this channel

[@mountainmolerat]

Fascinating and wonderfully presented. Thank you.

[@bvol7256]

Excellent!!!!Definitely getting the book

[@Kargoneth]

Absolutely fascinating.

[@garychap8384]

This has to be the single most engaging and thought provoking RI lecture I've ever seen. Dare I venture that this lecture was quite _'phenomenal'_ ; )

[@jamesformby1979]

Brilliant lecture summarising a lifetime of research.

[@DerekHowden]

it wasn't that long ago we in the west didn't think that animals had any human qualities and now we know better. I was moving a picture on my wall and behind it was a spider with ten or so tiny little dots that were baby spiders. As soon as i had introduced light the parent spider hastily started to reach out and gather the babies up. I think nature by its very nature has a sense of its environment and relationships it has and is not only found in mammals and birds but through out life and that it doesnt need consciousness to sense itself and it's environment. For us, consciousness is something that happens after our sense of being as in we sense and are aware of a sudden noise that wakes us but it takes a while for consciousness to be fully aware to what is going on.

[@maskddingo1779]

The feedback loop the presenter describes in the brain reminds me of things like static RAM and op-amps... both are used to do complex calculations in electronics via the use of feedback. The feedback eventually drives these devices into a stable state.

[@Yamihote]

Always fascinated

[@bubbajones6907]

This is a very interesting subject.

[@KarlRossmann1900]

Thank you. Brilliant.

[@Vince-ml9gw]

Outstanding! 👏👏👏👏 wow! Thank you for sharing your ideas!

[@SteveSteve7590-di2dn]

Excellent. This guy articulates my intuition. Never understood these other overcomplicated theories of consciousness that never could provide any evidence. He delivers !

[@RetNemmoc555]

I have long looked at consciousness as an emergent process of sorting out priorities between sensory inputs, based on recorded memory of past interactions. For example, running from danger could land you in the mouth of another danger, so if you survived this experience once, you begin evaluating possible outcomes in advance of the possibility of danger. Possible outcomes that could interfere with the goal of eating, and not being eaten. Like a game of pinball, you learn, iteratively, how to keep the ball rolling (keeping it alive) for as long as possible. The process of evaluating the interplay between senses (sensing the senses) is itself an evolved/emergent sensory function. It is the "you" that you perceive as you - the crosstalk between senses becomes sensible. I also think of language as being part of the same emergent ability, a further evolved sorting out process. Language is what allows for meaning, which allows for questions like "why and how am I 'me?" Science is a process we use for answering the how, but I don't see much in the way of useful possible outcomes of why, so I don't ask it much - my mind has enough perceiving and evaluating to do. Asking why (especially when it comes to inserting God and gods into the question) is a distracting whirlwind of looping unresolvable thoughts that yield nothing I need. "What for" is a more practical (and my preferred) form of the question of why.

[@MikkelHojbak]

I completely agree. When people say things like "octopuses aren't conscious" it's purely due to their brains not evolving to consider their peers - it's a selfish species. It isn't because they don't have the same considerations, they just prioritize things differently, and they store different information due to having different priorities. It isn't because their brains are fundamentally different than ours. For me, language is an emergent property that came about because we are a social species that live in groups, and because our brains got big enough to encompass some complexity in the language. Language helped drive the evolution of the brain onward, since information sharing means that when one learns something, all in the group could learn it from them. It simply means that it's a lot easier to gather more information, so having bigger brains is more likely to be beneficial rather than a waste of resources. Climbing trees and judging whether branches would hold requires a good amount of brain power as well. I think that this is likely to be what started our evolution towards the intelligence we have today.

[@3nertia]

Ah, but the speculation can be fun. The imagination of trying to imagine what came before the "Big Bang". Was it some sort of alien gun firing off? Or the heartbeat of a multiverse-sized being and we're merely cells within cells? There may not be much use in it but it sure can be fun! :D

[@marinepower]

I am actively working on creating a conscious AI and this is more or less my current formulation. There are a lot of nuances missing here but just the fact that you are this close means that, even if I don't end up creating conscious machines, the knowledge is more or less already out there and AGI is coming soon.

[@BartvandenDonk]

I agree with you. Consciousness is all about being able to combine. Combine all input off sences. Evolving memory to be able to plan actions. It starts with touch than smell (and taste) and than I am puzzled what comes next? I think being able to hear sound. To be able to see your environment is next. An extra is selecting (recognizing) things. Memory (planning and selecting) gives us the ability to use the input of our surroundings via our sences in a different way.

[@Kaffikjelen]

that might be right as far as it goes but it's important to keep in mind that explaining the utility of higher order information processing is not equivalent with explaining consciousness per se. it's like explaining why some animals fly: there are ecological niches where it's useful to fly. but you haven't explained *how* flight works, the mechanics of it. two different "whys".

[@tomp2008]

this was brilliant

[@mannyespinola9228]

Thank you for this video

[@bebemegie]

Thank you so much for your research and dedication 🦋✌🏾💙🌺🌲 I feel we are all starting to evolve our sentience to understand the importance of all life and respecting is sentience. If you spend time in nature, with animals and try see their sentience/ life/ feelings it kinda becomes obvious. Much love to you all.

[@waen606]

I wish it was all of us .

[@raysalmon6566]

the guy is seriously delusional

[@waen606]

@raysalmon6566 easy to say ...doesn't really mean a lot ..you should explain your reasoning ,enlighten us with your own theories ?

[@jmp01a24]

🟠🔻🟦 ⭐🌍☀🌌

[@ericdumont610]

​@jmp01a24 say you have no answer when challenged. 😅

[@wp9860]

Beautiful talk. Thought provoking, well developed. The one element that most intrigued me that I was hoping to see developed would have addressed the hard problem of consciousness. What is the nature of that phenomenon of experiencing red in the first person? Early in the talk, phenomenal consciousness was referred to as an "idea." Does this mean that the lecturer believes qualia are abstractions? If that is the case, then his model proposes a Cartesian duality of physicality and abstraction. The problem with such models is how does causality cross the boundary in either direction between these two magisteria?

[@ScottLahteine]

9:00 - Perception (oddly) also relies on remembering the experience of perception. It sounds like blind sight is a potential memory issue, not just a sensory one. The apparent perception of the flow of time is similarly affected by a malfunctioning memory system.

[@gianlaager1662]

I’m usually more on the computer since side and not that interested in biology but this was really nice thank you. One thing that crossed my mind, if we had some mathematically rigorous scoring algorithm like “this thing is 1.2345 times as conscious as that thing“ it would be comparably „easy“ to create something that resembles consciousness. Or even a game where it’s an advantage to be conscious would suffice.

[@monkeyworship8804]

After having significant experience with psychedelics and it’s effect good and VERY bad, exploring consciousness is incredible and makes so much more sense.

[@b.griffin317]

Exactly my thinking for years.

[@studentjohn]

OK, I am following up to and including the point where stimuli begin producing responses in the internal body map - presumably that internal map physically means the collection of neural circuits which each processes sensations to provide a signal that causes an actual physical response, and are ordered in some way that can be decoded to equate to different regions of the body - and instead begin to just produce responses in that map, or at least responses that are active in the map without automatically and immediately producing the signals for a physical response. And presumably this allows for more complex behaviour, particularly modification of the eventual output (the signals that cause physical action) to make more appropriate to the situation. I.E. i see red colour above, this triggers the bits of my internal map that correspond to a defensive action such as diving deeper - but the map doesn't immediately produce the signals that cause that action, it's just in my map for the moment. there it can interact with other circuits triggering in my mental map - I also see red light below for example - and so modifying the signals stimulating physical action produced (the specifics of the interaction are a bit of a black box to me). As a result instead of diving down, into the path of the second danger below, my body map produces the signals to jink sideways and speed up instead, and i survive. hence there is evolutionary advantage in having the internal map-only triggering, and giving it a chance to interact with other internal-map triggering's before the signals triggering action are produced? So i now have a proto internal self - a sense of self, or the3 start of one perhaps - and this slows me down a bit but lets me be a lot more adaptable in my behaviour. That's what I got, up to and including that point. From there on i need to process it and come back to it some more I think...

[@CrowMagnum]

Love it. People talk about sense data as information as if the information existed separate from the system used to represent it.

[@cinemaipswich4636]

100 years ago, you were either asleep (unconscious) or awake (conscious). Since then science has appropriated the word to mean more. If it were a mouse, it is one type of consciousness, but if it is human it is another. Since then we have the word "sentience", which may evolve from "sapience". Add to this perception and sensation, and the lexicon becomes muddled.

[@pcka12]

Science has provided a whole series of words with very specific meaning such as 'organic' which does not mean 'grown by the system of rotation of crops' rather than provided with chemically derived fertiliser.

[@venkataponnaganti]

Very interesting.

[@TimBeardsley]

Excellent, I think there's a lot of value in this account (in biology, we should avoid ascribing single causes to products of evolution---often, many theories can each provide a partial explanation that contributes to a more complete explanation). One partial explanation for consciousness I feel intuitively (others have proposed this, can't remember who at this moment, Graziano?) is that it enables faster computation of possible scenarios than would relying on something closer to raw data. The mind devises tokens to stand in for complex sets of data that would be demanding to work with. Also, the strong evidence that consciousness is created about 0.25 sec. after the relevant stimulus is consistent with the account given here.

[@pafou]

I wrote what I think was a great comment on another KZbin video, which was a Ted Talk on roughly the same subject (animal consciousness, or close enough). Although leaning more toward the concern about animal's preservation I believe, it came to the same conclusion and similar explanations of observations and arguments using the scientific methodology. It was a fantastic speech which I recommend everyone to watch (for obvious reasons I won't directly link to it, hopefully it should be easy enough to find if you're interested). So in this other KZbin video's comments section I just talked about, I wrote a comment about my experience I had with a baby raccoon we rescued 20 years ago or so when I was a kid. I gave detailed examples of how incredibly intelligent this lovely creature was and why I'm truthfully, without any exaggeration and without the, I would call ''academic background'' ''needed'' to be credible for my own understanding and thesis I established, which is, simply put, the fact I believe it was of the same intelligence or very similar from a 5 years old human being. I base this statement on observations on his problem solving skills and other fascinating behaviours we witnessed while he was part of our family for around a whole month. I will specify the fact that we never let him get inside the house, we rescued him in order to give him the best chances of survival but we didn't want him to become too domesticated and could leave us on his own while ready (which he did, and we actually saw him the next summer when he came back with his partner and I'm positive it was him just saying ''Hi'', watching us for a while and then left to pursue his life. I like to think he just came back to say ''Thanks''. Anyway...). Although I can't prove it really was him, I'm totally sure he was (considering how fascinated he was watching us, how confidant he was while the other raccoon was stressed and didn't seem to understand why her loved one brought her there for). Anyhow, the main thing to remember from my experience is that I concluded (go read my comment there for more details if you want) that for the same reasons intelligence emerged in human beings (along social skills and other evolutionary traits), they also emerged in raccoon, simply because that's what gave them the best survival chances. It's that simple, totally logical and rational, and we shouldn't be that amazed by some animals rather impressive demonstrations of intelligence, because it just makes sense why they are what they are and it's all about survival at end (different strategies emerged and I just simplified a lot by I won't get in details about evolution in general and/or Darwinism, etc. I trust the readers to be competent enough in these concepts and/or totally able to learn more on their own, especially if you're interested in this subject and I will gladly help anyone replying my comment or teaching some stuff if I'm asked too, that would be an honour, in all honesty). Bref, by the way I also believe we have resolved the enigma of the emergence of life (with the scientific method (la démarche scientifique, please translate it properly for me if need be, thank you), (See Sabine's KZbin videos on the subject, one of the best channel on physics in my opinion) and I will quote (in my own words, because I also need to translate it from french) how Etienne Klein explains that ''La démarche scientifique answers scientific questions, and it is the best proven mean we currently have to answer such questions. But it doesn't answer spiritual or metaphysical questions which religion tries to answer.'' (In my own words, I reiterate). Actual quote : ''La science est la seule démarche de pensée qui répond à des questions scientifiques''. What's to get from that is, and a lot of scientists also falls in the trap of which they think ultimately, when science is advanced enough, we will be able to explain the origin of the Universe, or such questions. But the truth is, we will never be able to answer such questions with science. And neither with religions or other ideological, dogmas or, without the intention to sound pejorative or anything, by such ''spiritual'' means of any sort, if you will. The hypothesis that they're actually never was any origin of the Universe at all is equally as probable as the idea they're was a ''time = 0 s'' (the Big Bang theory, which is actually wrong, because it lacks some fundamental physical equations and only uses some of Einstein's work which was incomplete (and himself was obviously aware of that). So, there's a 50/50 chance the origin of the Universe is either immanent or transient (origin's from ''outside'' the Universe vs. the origin's being from the Universe itself (equals to ''there wasn't any origin at all, in fact, and the Universe always was''). And science can't answer and never will be able to answer questions related to justice, good vs. bad, moral concerns and such. This is of great importance and never talked about. Pardon my wild and chaotic train of thoughts (I'm a ''arborescence'' (tree) thinker, as you probably deduced already), but to end this comment, I will be concise : The point to remember is that either you're a faithful religious, or atheist, scientist or not (all of which aren't mutually exclusive, by the way), we should ALL agree on some subjects. And please, can we and the future generations, do the good thing, and protect as much as possible Life, or have the decency to at least have respect for other sentient beings ? (animals, in other words) and not be stupid enough to think we are the only smart ones. I'm incredibly naive, because deeply inside I'm quite optimistic this is achievable, partially, and can we try to help developing countries get electricity from low entropy energy sources that are ''renewable'' (only 30% of global electricity comes from either hydroelectricity, solar, or wind, geothermal, etc. and nuclear fusion I believe) while everything else comes from fossils (petroleum and natural gases source). This is the only way to save the Earth, it ain't about electric cars and stupid claims, it all comes down from where the electricity comes from. There is way too much to say about many concerns we all have about our future, and entropy will keep increasing, always, but they are ways to mitigate our footprints. And rescue ourselves and our loved ones, including raccoons and other lovely sentient beings. Thanks for reading this awkward and way too long post. But I love people. Hope some of you enjoyed reading this. Peace out !

[@michaelgeorgoulopoulos8678]

He actually nailed it.

[@amreshyadav2758]

That's a wonderful lecture..

[@ClayFarrisNaff]

If you'll pardon the pun, what a phenomenal lecture! Monumental is perhaps more apt, since this represents the culmination of a lifetime of curiosity, thought, experiment, and scholarship. I deeply embrace the concluding remarks (which resonate well with the conclusion of my book Free God Now about the Darwinian imperative to keep life going, especially conscious life, as it alone is capable of recognizing that life is good). Congratulations and thank you, Nicholas Humphrey.

[@kaoskronostyche9939]

He conflates consciousness and sentience which , according to the dictionary, are DIFFERENT things. Moreover he does not define either consciousness or sentience. This lecture is an utter waste of time if he is not going to do the simple task of defining his terms. Those of you who think this is profound lack the basic education to understand what nonsense this man is spouting.

[@seraphir4662]

one of the coolest things I've ever seen

[@starfishsystems]

We often regard consciousness as a distinctive cognitive state, not simply movement along a gradient, but the emergence of an entirely new feature. I'm inclined to agree with this model, and with its various justifications. Part of the reason for this is that we can see, today, numerous examples of high cognitive competence among our human peers which is, nevertheless, not distinctively conscious. Much of what we do, we do unconsciously. And it's because we're not conscious of it that we tend to think that it isn't happening. From this perspective, the slow gradient of cognitive development is important in terms of furnishing the raw horsepower, but does not require any qualitative shift in ability. Consciousness - a capacity for introspection, a language in which to express that introspection abstractly, and some "theory of mind" to trigger the thought that I too might be a mind: those three qualitative developments have to come together, somehow, in order for the awakening of what we call consciousness to proceed. But they're not radical, miraculous, developments. We're beginning to uncover evidence that canids, for example, have some basic "theory of mind" which they use (unconsciously, in all likelihood) to anticipate the behavior of their peers. The development of language is mysterious and profoundly interesting, but it too could plausibly emerge from gestural storytelling. Stories help us to access indirect knowledge. Of course this ability, once it accidentally emerges, would be favored by natural selection. At any rate, I don't buy the gradualist approach to consciousness. Yes, there will of course be weak, tentative, forms of consciousness. Humans are far from fully conscious, even now. But nevertheless consciousness - as we are obliged to distinguish it - doesn't begin with amoebae. Cognition, plausibly, does. In summary, my view is that "cognitive ability" is on a fairly smooth gradient. What we call "consciousness" is a new arrival, which needs a significant baseline of cognitive ability but also a few additional, plausible but critical, often unnoticed, capabilities. And the main reason why people flag consciousness as some great supernatural mystery is because they insist that it must emerge from sufficient amounts of raw cognition but (little surprise here) can't see how it does.

[@davids1586]

Thank you Nicholas Humphrey for this excellent summary public video that I feel is an important contribution to neuroscience and consciousness. I agree with most of your conclusions and leanings on the subject that I have followed for decades. Unfortunately in this Internet era, the more convincing and credible one's arguments on controversial science subjects, the more those with different views as rigid metaphysicist, those with little science educations, those with political agendas, and those who work in such fields with emotional dislike for those that differ from their own selfish views, will spew vitriol. As someone in the electromagnetic brain wave consciousness camp, I expect the actual physical phenomenon of perceptual qualia will be found within actual micro level 3-dimensional forms of electromagnetic substrate fields within neural tissues and adjacent extracellular fluids. IMO mind of earth creatures are the holistic complex oscillating standing wave fields within the neural substrate containers of brains. The only way human science will reach understanding of such will be to intimately instrument and manipulate those fields on actual aware humans providing feedback during instrumented experimentation. IMO, only when AI science understands such will they begin to rise above the mechanistic level they are currently stymied at.

[@anitareasontobelieve378]

Is there a Video with this?

[@katerinapapatheodorou1727]

Great lecture, thank you! Greetings from Greece.

[@glasperlinspiel]

Conscious is an epiphenomon of biology. In terms of information processing, it’s so simple that very simple creatures will be conscious. Sentience requires the socialization of consciousness.

[@ScottLahteine]

26:50 - The subject which can reflect upon, discuss, and include itself in the story is (indeed) an important element in this hierarchy. Without our enhanced cortexes we would perhaps all be like the blind sighted person, receiving and responding to sensory input but not forming any memory of the original sensory experience. Without some kind of self-image or ego construct there can be no abiding sense of self-involvement. On the other hand, any being that can point to itself or draw attention to itself, or recognize a mirror as reflecting itself likely has some rudimentary sense of self as an object of its own consciousness, and perhaps even a theory of mind as a natural adjunct.

[@rodcameron7140]

Wonderful lecture. I am not overly satisfied with the implementation of a homunculus (proto-self as referred to in the lecture) to explain consciousness. That relegates the theory to a lot of talk about what consciousness does and not what consciousness is. It also succumbs to infinite regress, ultimately explaining nothing. I did love the information relating processing speed of nerve cells at higher temperatures as a catalyst of the evolution of consciousness in some warm blooded mammals. That idea I had not heard before. The later part of the lecture showing how consciousness could be detected by looking at the actions beings was really good. Very powerful. I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on mimicking systems such as AI. I am endlessly fascinated by theories of consciousness. Good job! Wonderful lecture!

[@rationalpear1816]

I don’t think it succumbs to the homunculus paradox. He’s not saying sentience contains a smaller protoself. He’s saying the self is an illusion created separate from the normal unconscious reflexive system. It’s a mirror of the sensory impulses and reactions. The self and consciences is a new layer of brain activity that creates a representative of the external world in order to influence the autonomous reflexive cycle. There can’t be another layer. It wouldn’t make sense. What would such a layer use as primary sensory data and how would it output anything?

[@rodcameron7140]

@@rationalpear1816 @rationalpear1816 Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I thoroughly enjoy hearing what others think. I do think your clarification justifies my earlier thoughts though. "...an illusion created separate from the..." Without stipulating how it is created, the creation is not explained and left to magic. Also, "...that creates a representative of the external world in order to..." What is the representative that decides how to influence the autonomous reflexive cycle? Without stipulating the mechanism of decision making, it is unexplained and left to magic. There is also no explanation of how that conscious representative was created. Again, magic. He did a lot of good explanation of the workings of the brain, but then did an unexplained jump to a conscious entity that decides how to influence the autonomous reflexive system.

[@spot997]

For his age, his reading ability is sensational.

[@mattlyons6325]

He probably works at it

[@BartvandenDonk]

Great talk about consciousness. However, I think seeing is not the way to of thinking about consciousness. Rather it starts with touch and than comes smell. So the order in which the different sences have evolved has to be taken into account to solve the puzzle of consciousness.

[@alexandregrynagier1762]

Impressive!

[@aanchaallllllll]

0:12: 📚 The speaker introduces his new book 'Sentience' and discusses the topic of living brains as engines for generating conscious feeling. 4:45: 🐒 Helen, a monkey with no visual cortex, is able to see and interact with her surroundings. 10:41: 🧠 This video discusses the subjective experience of sensory stimulation and the hard problem of consciousness in relation to the physical brain. 15:44: 🧠 The brain does not physically respond to the color red, but rather interprets it as a sensation. 21:15: ! The video discusses the evolution of subjective sensation and how it becomes internalized or privatized. 26:12: 🧠 Phenomenal consciousness is essential for selfhood and the experience of sensory perception. 31:52: ! The evolution of warm-blooded animals led to increased independence from environmental conditions and a sense of self. 37:31: 🐶 The video shows various animals engaging in sensation-seeking behavior and displaying empathy towards others. 44:50: 🤖 The video discusses the possibility of building robots with sentience and the potential existence of extraterrestrial beings with sentience. Recap by Tammy AI

[@lilytea3]

I can learn so much better about the content thanks to the main points you gave. Thank you Tammy AI!

[@deus_ex_machina_]

@@lilytea3 And it's useful for revisiting stuff to refresh one's memory.

[@elizondorj]

I was about to object to the lack of consciousness for octopi (octopods?) posited but Mr. Humphrey just blew my mind! I don't recall any talk more insightful than this. Great is the adjective that comes to mind. 😮 Kind of crazy, but here it goes: I believe that we exist so that the Universe can know itself, seeing itself thru our eyes, understanding itself thru our brains. Kind of crazy but if Mr. Humphrey is right about phenomenological experience being absolutely rare, maybe we do exist as mirror where the Universe can see itself.

[@williamnelson4968]

Carl Sagan, the renowned astrophysicist and science communicator, famously stated, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

[@andersestes]

He'll yeah, old Buk at Beatos channel. Nice. A Friday with a new video from you, is a good Friday. It's too good to be free

[@erikfinnegan]

Danke!

[@monkerud2108]

I hope that helps, i think the question is of an unanswerable kind, but the theory of how the correlates work and the experience emerges can be falsified if assumed true in the abstract, that is to say if you just assume brain states match up with experiences then you can disprove the correlation between how you think the brain works and the reports you get back for a specific theory. you can show a mental correlate theory to be wrong, but you cant show the idea of one to be wrong or right. given that i just think the appropriate thing to do is to create a correlate theory that is plausible enough that we can predict experiences from brain states with decent accuracy at least in principle and check it out. i think this talk is about what the theory is like if it is indeed true that some brain states have experiences associated with them and how such things evolve.

[@brian1809]

The idea that a feedback loop causes a persitence of sentition as an observer is good. What was missing is the word model. The manipulation of such a model allows for counterfactual reasoning, prediction and a survival advantage. The model as an attractor is also good, but i think he implied a strange attractor with its added dimensionality as conscious experience. But there is a continuum here. Attractors do not have to be strange. Non-fractal attractors could represent cruder models for lower life forms.

[@kencory2476]

I've looked at consciousness as one of those "matter-of-fact miracles" like eyesight. It's amazing, but it's the product of vast eons of evolution, and so we should accept it and not trouble ourselves too much to explain it. I appreciate Humphrey's suggestion that it's a faculty of warm-blooded animals only, but I remain open-minded.

[@imCurveee]

If humans had always "not troubled ourselves to explain it" we'd be stuck in the dark ages still. Our attempt to explain the world around us has led to all the scientific advances we enjoy today. It also has brought many challenges, which I hope we as a species can work through before we destroy society as we currently know it.

[@billbaggins1688]

I wish to trouble myself.

[@chrisw4562]

Amazing talk, thanks for sharing! This is the first explanation for the development of consciousness that appears to make sense. I am not sure that I fully agree with the statement that lower animinals, non mammels, don't have a consciousness, or that nobody else in the universe likely has it. The latter almost certainly has to be wrong. We are not that special.

[@damonendicott560]

I am curious why so few books on sentience besides Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam's, gives credit to the work of Stephen Grossberg who since 1957 has been studying the human brain from the ground up in ALL its overwhelming complexity. His recent work, Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain, is not mentioned often enough. This is probably because it is beyond complex, and based on differential calculus and rigorous scientific method rather the top down studies of philosophy, religion, and psychology.

[@captainbeefheart5815]

There's also The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul by Ginsburg and Jablonka.

[@jessephillips1233]

This is the first time I've heard a scientist articulate my own view of consciousness. I was really moved by this. Thank you.

[@rationalpear1816]

Ok. So why bird and mammals, but not fish? What is different about the ocean environment versus land? Fish travel immense distances through many different “climate zones”. Warm blood doesn’t change the predator/prey/reproductive dynamics.

[@jasonschuele115]

@@rationalpear1816 fish cannot be separated from their environment in the same way that land animals can, the instant they are, they start dying. further, a fish does not have to actively change it's own body and behavior in order to survive in the ocean, they can simply cruise along and gather nutrients whilst evading predators, meanwhile warm-blooded creatures on land have to actively fight against their own environment to maintain themselves at optimal level, hence the greater need for more rigorous and nuanced intelligence and also hence the greater need to maintain internal homeostasis regardless of outside factors. because they are on a level separate from their environment that fish are not they can afford to and be benefitted by furthering that seperation of the stimuli from the self via the mind, "internalizing" it to use rather than just react to.

[@expatexpat6531]

I recommend videos with Joscha Bach for a deep discussion of the nature of consciousness in humans.

[@Innomen]

The idea that consciousness evolves from action response to stimulus is right in line with Robert Hecht Nielsen confabulation theory which states that cognition is a phylogenetic outgrowth of movement. Thought was originally action, and consciousness was originally reflex.

[@Innomen]

@@-_a-a_- That sounds like a dogma more than anything else. Every time I hear arguments like that it sounds desperate to me. A prayer for an existence that isn't inspirational of nihilism. Wishes for cosmic fairness and an afterlife that somehow justifies all this pain. /shrugs

[@-_a-a_-]

@@Innomen IT'S DOGMA BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS MATTER - THAT'S SCIENCE NOT DOGMA! Particles moving about are just particles moving about - they can't become self-aware and have experiences of things that NOT exist in the material world. The color GREEN, the SMELL OF GRASS, the TASTE OF CHEESE, the SOUND OF A PLANE passing over head - none of those things are physical.

[@glasperlinspiel]

I suggest there is a decision-like precursor to sentition. This is a binary chemical interaction with the environment, e.g. incorporation or null. A mechanism for retaining information about it, the experience (a sentition?), would be advantageous and promote the evolution of classes of decision-making (e.g. self/not self, incorporate/reject) and mechanisms for making increasingly nuanced decisions

[@mrpopo8298]

Very interesting insight about warm bloodedness and sentience. I watch the birds in my back garden at the feeders, and some of them certainly seem to have a rudimentary theory of mind: corvids, starlings, etc. They seem to be able to guess what others of their species are thinking. They also seem to examine and consider a situation before acting. Pigeons are pretty smart too; they are the bane of my life.

[@hoon_sol]

It's not "insight" at all, most of what's said in this video is nonsense. First of all it's totally ignorant of consciousness, because consciousness is neither generated by the brain nor did it ever evolve (and cannot possibly have). The speaker doesn't realize that everything they describe could easily be done in a neuroelectrochemical process without consciousness existing whatsoever, as a p-zombie. Furthermore, sentience has absolutely nothing to do with warm-bloodedness. All vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod mollusks are conscious and sentient, and possibly gastropod mollusks as well (that's where the line starts to become blurry).

[@4tusix]

Your pidgin statement is hilarious. I'm the pet of a very bossy parrot, and he is conscious of everything

[@ulalaFrugilega]

I've been telling this to my optician for years! Now I will definitely stop telling him what I guess is there...

[@happinesstan]

Sentient man's first thought "I'm surrounded by animals"

[@glasperlinspiel]

Okay, think about hallucinating in large language models, in effect you have the evolution of discrimination without sentition, an analog for dreaming? You can get creative thinking from this as well

[@doovstoover9703]

I think this view of consciousness as an emerging trait of brain evolution is correct. Where these theories always lose me however is the moment where, having convincingly made the case for emergence, we then nonetheless find ourselves back at the start trying to draw a line that we can point to as the stage at which the evolving mind became *truly* conscious. It seems to me entirely redundant to try and answer the question of 'where does consciousness begin' by drawing arbitrary boundaries based on our pre-existing understanding of what it is to be human. The two cannot be said to be the same thing. To define consciousness as that which contains human-like traits (particularly traits that we humans specifically consider positive, such as play, or compassion) renders all further questions of what other species may or may not possess consciousness a complete waste of time, because we aren't actually looking for consciousness any more - we're looking for human-ness. It's circular reasoning. Humans are sentient, and so sentience must be acting human. You may as well be judging an octopus on its ability to speak English. Why do we have to keep reverting to this anthrocentric, self-solving definition of consciousness? The initial theory of it as a phenomenon gradually coalescing and increasing in complexity over the millennia is far more interesting.

[@-_a-a_-]

LOL! It's junk. Since you've learned to much from this old man, please explain in physical terms what the colors are that I see before my eyes, what sounds are, what flavors are, etc.

[@doovstoover9703]

@@-_a-a_- they're the physical processes in your brain that have evolved to interpret your surroundings

[@-_a-a_-]

@@doovstoover9703 I said explain the color green to me in physical terms. I SEE IT - WHAT IS IT! It's not a neuron, it's not an atom, so what is the COLOR GREEN?

[@doovstoover9703]

@@-_a-a_- what are you asking me for? I'm not a bloody optician

[@-_a-a_-]

@@doovstoover9703 Are you this obtuse or just not CONSCIOUS? Anyone who is conscious sees colors. Those colors have nothing to do with the photons hitting my eyes as the light is converted into electrical signals. Color is created internally, by the brain, so say the materialists. So, explain what the greens, blues, reds, yellows, oranges, etc, that my brain generates, are in physical terms? An analogy: I see and hear thunder and lightning; a physicist can give me a physical explanation of what it is and I can respond with, "Wow, now I know what thunder and lightning is!" Do the same with color. Tell me what it is. Or, at least, state one physical property of color in order to convince me that color is physical in nature.

[@farhadsaffaraval7038]

One baffling issue remains that if animal don't have consciousness, they seem to have psychological advantages for survival. If everyone acts like robots without feelings, they would advance much better in the hierarchy. Examples are the 'robotic' CEOs in the modern era who become champions, famous, and wealthy.

[@Smorss2011]

How so? If animals care for one another, they are more likely to ensure the survival of their species.

[@tiagdvideo]

Got me thinking that if sentience is a relatively modern evolutionary development - can we even envisage that the next step in this evolutionary process might be?

[@asoganasogan2745]

Extraordinary talk with absolute clarity on how consciousness evolved and still still evolving... Further evolution will lead to create machines with consciousness to symbiotically exist with humans😊

[@hightechsystem_]

If increasing internal state (working memory) plus the correct way of processing that data, then we can expect computers with the right software will become conscious.

[@phpn99]

I think a) Consciousness has to come in degrees of consciousness. These degrees of consciousness are in tune with the living organism's abilities and its needs. b) Consciousness has to be co-substantial with life ; therefore an amoeba is conscious but not to the same degree that other living creatures are. c) What we humans call consciousness is the amalgam or our sensory and cognitive abilities, but this doesn't mean less complex organisms aren't conscious - consciousness has to be essential to life : It's an emergent property of being alive and it's at the core of the 'will to live'. d) So-called "higher-level of consciousness" has to be true in principle - an even more complex organism than us humans, should in principle have greater sensory and cognitive abilities, in line with their particular need to live. e) What artificial intelligence theorists get wrong about AI, is the idea that by sheer complexity of their neural networks, their machines would become conscious. Their machines could gain superior sensory and cognitive ability, compared to us, but because the machine isn't alive, it has no will to live, and therefore no sense of self. f) So far we haven't been able to create life from mere parts. One doesn't have to be religious to realise that all examples of life we know of, aren't created from parts, but REPRODUCED, from at leat one living being ; this means that life itself arose in the distant past, in some sort of Big Bang ; maybe the Big Bang itself.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, "singularity" in turn from μόνος monos, "alone") refers, in cosmogony, to the Supreme Being, divinity or the totality of all things. The concept was reportedly conceived by the Pythagoreans and may refer variously to a single source acting alone, or to an indivisible origin, or to both. The concept was later adopted by other philosophers, such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who referred to the Monad as an *elementary particle.* It had a *geometric counterpart,* which was debated and discussed contemporaneously by the same groups of people. [In this speculative scenario, let's consider Leibniz's *Monad* (first emanation of God), from the philosophical work "The Monadology", as an abstract representation of *the zero-dimensional space that binds quarks together* using the strong nuclear force]: 1) Indivisibility and Unity: Monads, as indivisible entities, mirror the nature of quarks, which are deemed elementary and indivisible particles in our theoretical context. Just as monads possess unity and indivisibility, quarks are unified in their interactions through the strong force. 2) Interconnectedness: Leibniz's monads are interconnected, each reflecting the entire universe from its own perspective. In a parallel manner, the interconnectedness of quarks through the strong force could be metaphorically represented by the interplay of monads, forming a web that holds particles together. 3) Inherent Properties: Just as monads possess inherent perceptions and appetitions, quarks could be thought of as having intrinsic properties like color charge, reflecting the inherent qualities of monads and influencing their interactions. 4) Harmony: The concept of monads contributing to universal harmony resonates with the idea that the strong nuclear force maintains harmony within atomic nuclei by counteracting the electromagnetic repulsion between protons, allowing for the stability of matter. 5) Pre-established Harmony: Monads' pre-established harmony aligns with the idea that the strong force was pre-designed to ensure stable interactions among quarks, orchestrating their behavior in a way that parallels the harmony envisaged by Leibniz. 6) Non-Mechanical Interaction: Monads interact non-mechanically, mirroring the non-mechanical interactions of quarks through gluon exchange. This connection might be seen as a metaphorical reflection of the intricacies of quark-gluon dynamics. 7) Holism: The holistic perspective of monads could symbolize how quarks, like the monads' interconnections, contribute holistically to the structure and behavior of particles through the strong force interactions. em·a·na·tion noun an abstract but perceptible thing that issues or originates from a source.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Metaphysics Context The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the Western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors. Leibniz, who was exceptionally well-read, could not have ignored this, but he did not use it himself until mid-1696 when he was sending for print his New System. Apparently he found with it a convenient way to expound his own philosophy as it was elaborated in this period. What he proposed can be seen as a modification of occasionalism developed by latter-day Cartesians. Leibniz surmised that there are indefinitely many substances individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way, each substance being coordinated with all the others. This is the pre-established harmony which solved the mind-body problem, but at the cost of declaring any interaction between substances a mere appearance. Summary The rhetorical strategy adopted by Leibniz in The Monadology is fairly obvious as the text begins with a description of monads (proceeding from simple to complicated instances), then it turns to their principle or creator and finishes by using both to explain the world. (I) As far as Leibniz allows just one type of element in the building of the universe his system is monistic. The unique element has been 'given the general name monad or entelechy' and described as 'a simple substance' (§§1, 19). When Leibniz says that monads are 'simple,' he means that "which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible". Relying on the Greek etymology of the word entelechie (§18), Leibniz posits quantitative differences in perfection between monads which leads to a hierarchical ordering. The basic order is three-tiered: (1) entelechies or created monads (§48), (2) souls or entelechies with perception and memory (§19), and (3) spirits or rational souls (§82). Whatever is said about the lower ones (entelechies) is valid for the higher (souls and spirits) but not vice versa. As none of them is without a body (§72), there is a corresponding hierarchy of (1) living beings and animals (2), the latter being either non-reasonable or reasonable. The degree of perfection in each case corresponds to cognitive abilities and only spirits or reasonable animals are able to grasp the ideas of both the world and its creator. Some monads have power over others because they can perceive with greater clarity, but primarily, one monad is said to dominate another if it contains the reasons for the actions of other(s). Leibniz believed that any body, such as the body of an animal or man, has one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad is often referred to as the soul. (II) God is also said to be a simple substance (§47) but it is the only one necessary (§§38-9) and without a body attached (§72). Monads perceive others "with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity". God could take any and all perspectives, knowing of both potentiality and actuality. As well as that God in all his power would know the universe from each of the infinite perspectives at the same time, and so his perspectives-his thoughts-"simply are monads". Creation is a permanent state, thus "[monads] are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity" (§47). Any perfection comes from being created while imperfection is a limitation of nature (§42). The monads are unaffected by each other, but each have a unique way of expressing themselves in the universe, in accordance with God's infinite will. (III) Composite substances or matter are "actually sub-divided without end" and have the properties of their infinitesimal parts (§65). A notorious passage (§67) explains that "each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond". There are no interactions between different monads nor between entelechies and their bodies but everything is regulated by the pre-established harmony (§§78-9). Much like how one clock may be in synchronicity with another, but the first clock is not caused by the second (or vice versa), rather they are only keeping the same time because the last person to wind them set them to the same time. So it is with monads; they may seem to cause each other, but rather they are, in a sense, "wound" by God's pre-established harmony, and thus appear to be in synchronicity. Leibniz concludes that "if we could understand the order of the universe well enough, we would find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is-not merely in respect of the whole in general, but also in respect of ourselves in particular" (§90). In his day, atoms were proposed to be the smallest division of matter. Within Leibniz's theory, however, substances are not technically real, so monads are not the smallest part of matter, rather they are the only things which are, in fact, real. To Leibniz, space and time were an illusion, and likewise substance itself. The only things that could be called real were utterly simple beings of psychic activity "endowed with perception and appetite." The other objects, which we call matter, are merely phenomena of these simple perceivers. "Leibniz says, 'I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.' (G II 275/AG 181)" Leibniz's philosophy is sometimes called "'panpsychic idealism' because these substances are psychic rather than material". That is to say, they are mind-like substances, not possessing spatial reality. "In other words, in the Leibnizian monadology, simple substances are mind-like entities that do not, strictly speaking, exist in space but that represent the universe from a unique perspective." It is the harmony between the perceptions of the monads which creates what we call substances, but that does not mean the substances are real in and of themselves. (IV) Leibniz uses his theory of Monads to support his argument that we live in the best of all possible worlds. He uses his basis of perception but not interaction among monads to explain that all monads must draw their essence from one ultimate monad. He then claims that this ultimate monad would be God because a monad is a “simple substance” and God is simplest of all substances, He cannot be broken down any further. This means that all monads perceive “with varying degrees of perception, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity”. This superior perception of God then would apply in much the same way that he says a dominant monad controls our soul, all other monads associated with it would, essentially, shade themselves towards Him. With all monads being created by the ultimate monad and shading themselves in the image of this ultimate monad, Leibniz argues that it would be impossible to conceive of a more perfect world because all things in the world are created by and imitating the best possible monad.

[@ready1fire1aim1]

[2D is not the center of the universe, 0D is the center of the mirror universe]: The mirror universe theory is based on the concept of parity violation, which was discovered in the 1950s. Parity violation refers to the observation that certain processes in particle physics don't behave the same way when their coordinates are reversed. This discovery led to the idea that there might be a mirror image of our universe where particles and their properties are flipped. In this mirror universe, the fundamental particles that make up matter, such as electrons, protons, and neutrinos, would have their charges reversed. For example, in our universe, electrons have a negative charge, but in the mirror universe, they might have a positive charge. Furthermore, another aspect of the mirror universe theory involves chirality, which refers to the property of particles behaving differently from their mirror images. In our universe, particles have a certain handedness or chirality, but in the mirror universe, this chirality could be reversed. Leibniz or Newton: Quantum mechanics is more compatible with Leibniz's relational view of the universe than Newton's absolute view of the universe. In Newton's absolute view, space and time are absolute and independent entities that exist on their own, independent of the objects and events that take place within them. This view implies that there is a privileged observer who can observe the universe from a neutral and objective perspective. On the other hand, Leibniz's relational view holds that space and time are not absolute, but are instead relational concepts that are defined by the relationships between objects and events in the universe. This view implies that there is no privileged observer and that observations are always made from a particular point of view. Quantum mechanics is more compatible with the relational view because it emphasizes the role of observers and the context of measurement in determining the properties of particles. In quantum mechanics, the properties of particles are not absolute, but are instead defined by their relationships with other particles and the measuring apparatus. This means that observations are always made from a particular point of view and that there is no neutral and objective perspective. Overall, quantum mechanics suggests that the universe is fundamentally relational rather than absolute, and is therefore more compatible with Leibniz's relational view than Newton's absolute view. What are the two kinds of truth according to Leibniz? There are two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible. What is the difference between Newton and Leibniz calculus? Newton's calculus is about functions. Leibniz's calculus is about relations defined by constraints. In Newton's calculus, there is (what would now be called) a limit built into every operation. In Leibniz's calculus, the limit is a separate operation. What are the arguments against Leibniz? Critics of Leibniz argue that the world contains an amount of suffering too great to permit belief in philosophical optimism. The claim that we live in the best of all possible worlds drew scorn most notably from Voltaire, who lampooned it in his comic novella Candide.

[@jmoney4695]

While I agree with much of the sentiment, I take issue with F. You suggest that life began at the big bang I.e. Panspermia, but I believe that life can arise independently.The most accepted theory for how life began on Earth is deep undersea near hydrothermal vents that expel hot water and minerals. This mix of parts, the solvent of water, and the high temperature is thought to have been the right mixture to create the most simple life forms.

[@lukefitzgerald6043]

This started well. You lost it at e). AI will ultimately have access to all the infinitely superior sensory data technology can and will provide more or less directly. Thus will it surpass us lest we upgrade our own capacity to access said data...

[@AZCaveMan480]

Just like our body connects with each of our cells to exist and survive, I believe the universe also connects to us to serve the same purpose. We are conscious and aware of our actions, but not aware of the actions happening in our bodies that allow us to function and exist. I believe the universe is the same way. It connects to matter and is perhaps subconsciously controlling everything in it to survive, almost as if we are just cells necessary for the universe to exist. I believe it's a fractal phenomenon, and there are things much bigger and much smaller than we are aware of. And perhaps we will never be able to physically observe anything more than we can currently observe.

[@GwennDana]

The conscious loop where sentitions are not directly carried out can break "reflexes" and drive complex learning and adaptation. If that's not an advantage I don't know what is :)

[@hoon_sol]

Still totally missing the point of what consciousness is. What you describe could easily have been done in a purely neuroelectrochemical process without any consciousness at all, as a p-zombie. Consciousness is something entirely different and much more fundamental.

[@GwennDana]

@@hoon_sol Fortunately, the burden of proof for this claim lies on you.

[@hoon_sol]

@@GwennDana: No, what I stated above is blatantly obvious already from everything we know about neuroscience and consciousness. A non-conscious robot (p-zombie) could easily do exactly the same things talked about here, consciousness is something completely different. Furthermore it's not at all possible for consciousness to have evolved, especially not under the very premises this man is presupposing; Kastrup has already written about this at length and thoroughly refuted all notions of the possibility of consciousness evolving. And I have no idea why you try to say "fortunately", as if you think yourself lucky enough to be able to cling to all these ridiculous misconceptions about consciousness and evolution; too bad you can't anyway, at least not without engaging in willful ignorance of everything we know about neuroscience and consciousness.

[@GwennDana]

@@hoon_sol To ad hominem-ing in two replies. Marvellous. If it's "blatantly obvious", it'll just make it easier for you to come up with a proof.

[@hoon_sol]

@@GwennDana: Nothing in my post was an ad hominem; don't misuse terms you don't understand what mean. It's also rather hilarious how you just resort to ignoring everything of substance to just repeat yourself after I've already explained it to you. Rather pathetic, as expected from someone who doesn't even understand basic neuroscience or basic metaphysics of consciousness.

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Do you think that non-humans can be sentient? Will there ever be a sentient AI? Let us know in the comments - and watch the Q&A with Nicholas here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXOskmSBmr14jc0

[@swenic]

non-humans. Like say animals and the other kingdoms?

[@RFC3514]

Humans can't even definitely prove _to each other_ that they're sentient, so the point is moot. The only one whose sentience I can be sure about is myself. And even that, only on good days. Also, humans _are_ animals (unless your name is something like "Willow" or "Laurel", in which case you're a vegetable).

[@Bill..N]

Of course.. In my humble opinion , A.I. will eventually possess a GREATER level of awareness than humans.. I must disagree with many of the ASSUMPTIONS expressed here as well.. There is zero evidence that any non-physical influences exist within the brain, none.. Dreams, ideas, abstractions, experience of qualia, and EVERYTHING else can be explained as solely physical processes, which I am confident can be EASILY argued.. .

[@aprylvanryn5898]

I suppose that depends on how you define sentience. I would say several non-human animals have it already. I would define sentience as the ability to have feelings and possibly caveat it with being aware of your own mortality. I think AI will be capable (and possibly is already) of having feelings. I don't think we will understand those feelings for a long time as we don't have a basis to understand what it means for code and hardware to feel. If they can feel, maybe they can also become aware of their own mortality.

[@Bill..N]

@juliusmazzarella9711 Although I disagree with MANY of your assumptions and general opinions, what I'm responding to is NOT that.. You should check more recent literature where you will find that very sophisticated, self- reproducing artificial CELLS have been created, friend, peace..

[@chessplayer0106]

What about in the Netflix film the Octopus teacher where the octopus was playing with fishes at the end?

[@hechanova07]

Why should sensation not be concocted by the physical brain? How can we think that the text is processed in the physical brain and on the other hand, the interpretation comes from a mind which cannot be fully explained by the brain? I sincerely believe that everything the brain concocts including the sensation and interpretation of facts that arrive at your senses can be mapped as brain states. Just because something is hard to understand at the moment we should fall into a certain god of the gaps argument where we conjure up something separate from the the physical brain. As a physicalist, i believe fully that in the future redness can be explained by the firing of certain neurons. I think it's so hubristic to think that there is something special to consciousness other than it being the emergent phenomenon of brainstates. Hubris that stems from us wanting to think there is some special ingredient to the makings of us, including consciousness.

[@Littleprinceleon]

Hubrys and the hope that some "thing" remains after the death of the body.

[@Javier-qk7ms]

The concept of blindsight made me thing of this: There is been lots of times I have been driving in the highway or a fast road and then I start to think deeply on something else. After a minute or two I realized I don't remember paying any attention to driving at all and I cannot remember details of my actual driving decisions, it is just a blur like a remote memory. Is it some how related? Does people switch to drive in automatic and do it "unconsciously".

[@farhadsaffaraval7038]

It is called the state of 'flow' or pure consciousness. I think the monkey example was referring to something else...

[@aghabe]

The flaw in the spychonic theory is it assumes the "self" is formed of atoms (or matter). It is mere energy, otherwise, would not depart the physical body after death

[@AlesMav]

Wonderful lecture and beautiful insights into the nature of consciousness. Yet I hope the day will come when scientists finally realize the ultimate truth - that consciousness created matter in order to manifest itself in it. Evolution is the result of consciousness experimenting with matter in order to be able to experience sentience. Therefore be truly sentient and joyful every day as this is the reason you chose to experience this beautiful reality of ours (for better or worse). If only more people knew that consciousness does not need matter at all in order to exist this world would be a much nicer place not to mention how much richer the science would be. Reality we live in is nothing but one of infinite expressions of the consciousness.

[@RileyRampant]

Great talk. I do not though, personally, gravitate at all to the notion of absolute uniqueness, qualitatively, of any phenomena already manifested on Earth, see any need at all to resort to it. Regarding the evolution of consciousness, there must have arisen capacities for both retention and fine 1-1 sense-mapping elaborating into a tolerably serviceable representational map of the world, ultimately organized/gathered, to elaborate retention, reflection & analysis, in the cognitive center of consciousness. Without the seemingly necessarily self-aware seat of consideration, its difficult to imagine the effective use for such faculties, or the handle for them, if you will - thus we are led to strongly infer a co-evolution among them all - sense pathways, associative mappings, retention, reflection/analysis mediated by the conscious 'self'. Its the clear requisite of observed complex behavior among mammals & birds.

[@naramsinurudug9172]

Humphrey does a really beautiful job of explaining the hard problem at the beginning of his talk. As good as anyone has done and using some different approaches. Clarifying what the hard problem is and why it is hard isn't that easy. At the same time his solution, which is similar to that in the book Goerdel Escher and Bach, doesn't seem to be aware of why the hard problem is hard. Simply adding recursion or loops doesn't allow going from nothing to something. It does allow recursion and it does allow memory. Humphrey says that this loop allows something magical to happen. Magic is not a scientific explanation. Magic if it exists doesn't require a loop. 24:04 24:04

[@naramsinurudug9172]

I do agree that the word magical does apply to the qualia and this explains why the hard problem is so hard. Science doesn't deal in magic.yet.

[@naramsinurudug9172]

I think it's a good insight that the qualia are the basis for the notion of self. And that the notion of self can lead to empathy. But I can clearly program an AI to have a model of mind and to behave empathically. So natural selection doesn't need to produce qualia to get models of mind or empathy. It could easily do so without recourse to the miracle of qualia.

[@jonathanenglishteacher2376]

The negation of "all statements here are false" is NOT "all statements here must be true" but merely that "all statements may or may not be true"; in addition the first statement has no bearing on the second. The status of the box is deniable. One statement limits itself to the box, the other makes reference outside of it; so it is a sleight of hand.

[@picksalot1]

Excellent lecture, presentation, with many insightful ideas that seem quite plausible. Sentience is a topic I like, and using the term "phenomenal consciousness" helps distinguish important terms so they can be used with greater precision. It seems that just about every form of animate life has a sense of self preservation, avoiding danger, and being attracted to situations that are beneficial to its survival and well being. Communication with members of its own species as well as other species in the form of attractive and threat displays indicate a level of imagining how the other creature will respond to such displays. These displays occur in insects and other primitive species. I think self-awareness and the awareness of others is more highly developed and proportional to the number and sophistication of the senses a species possesses.

[@jmp01a24]

He went deep, but not deep enough. Even genius has its boundaries. Cosmic conciousness is supreme human conciousness.

[@faizanrana2998]

Shutup browski

[@josephturner7569]

Same way anything evolves. Like a cell dividing. Once you have enough complexity, this virtual reality can be imagined. Limitations can be created, experience gained. And evolution gathers momentum.

[@korstmahler]

Self preservation requires a sense of self to preserve.

[@sr3d-microphones]

I believe that all life runs on software, a universal software, which is the same for everything living, the only difference is, that depending on what brain/organism the software is on, depends simply on the limiting factors of its abilities. The software is simply called, consciousness. Machines I doubt will have the software of consciousness within them to have the ability to feel, or empathise, etc.

[@eqwerewrqwerqre]

This lecture refutes any possible refutation of consciousness, i believe it. Best talk I've seen in a long long time

[@harryhoudini6964]

Profoundly disagree. NDE experiences thoroughly refute the claim that consciousness is a product of the biological brain.

[@jasonschuele115]

@@harryhoudini6964 they absolutely do not.... near death experiences are caused when the brain is just at the tip of dying and releases a swell of dmt to stop itself from being deprived of needed nutrition as it is being deprived of oxygen, and if you understand what dmt is you understand that it is a hallucinogenic chemical, also found in psychedelic mushrooms. we also know that the environment that a hallucination takes place in affects it as the brain converts actual stimuli into something else, combining it with the hallucinated stimuli, this would explain the consistent imagery between near death experiences of "blinding white lights" and "a feeling of warmth and overwhelming love" both of which can be directly explained by the overhead lights of a hospital or ambulance ride, and the sense of connectedness and overwhelming love for those around them that other users report when taking a similar but separate class of drugs like stimulants, more specifically ecstasy. near death experiences do not refute any claim of outside consciousness, you're simply using them as an excuse to not look further into the subject.

[@BugRib]

@@harryhoudini6964- NDEs could, at least in principle,be explained away as a combination of hallucinations and hoaxes/misreporting. Not saying that’s all they are, just saying that’s it’s not hard to dismiss them if one is a physicalist. But the very existence of subjective, first-person, conscious experience cannot be explained in physical terms, even in principle, and thus disproves physicalism. IMHO. And once physicalism is falsified, it definitely opens the door to stuff like NDEs and psi phenomena. But I’m still not convinced about that stuff…although I suspect that something extraordinary is going on with NDEs.

[@alex79suited]

Our need to explore and our ability to leave all our knowledge to our offspring is the true sign of consciousness. Very interesting lecture, I enjoyed it greatly, thank you. It would appear that our brain 🧠 is perhaps the one machine that has no boundary for learning. I once heard a physicist say that perhaps our brain is incapable of understanding our universe. I would argue it's about the ability to imagine that's most valuable to our species.

[@Littleprinceleon]

Imagination - as the extension/evolution of the ability to predict future events? Such events were likely connected to SPATIALLY situated "configurations" of major actors (agents: us/me and them/you) and passive objects (tools and environment)... all of this "fantasizing" motivated/directed EMOTIONALLY. Perhaps that's why spatial organizers (parts of hippocampus and entorhinal cortex) and emotion centers (amygdala) are crucial in forming memories: Mostly those situations were worthy to remember (and then generalize and predict) which raised the adrenaline levels above certain threshold and involved higher importance of relative positioning of the animal to objects (eg. possible hiding places, obstacles, etc) and between group members: eg. during a hunting session (most animals experience both sides of the "game") or mating, etc

[@stephensomersify]

One ponders the difference in 'character' between evolved (warm blooded) sentience and self learning, positive feedback A.I. sentience. If for self preservation and expansion then we warm ones are of little consequence to hardier hardware.

[@jamqdlaty]

I see a weird assumption here. If someone claims they don't see something, but can learn to use the sight even without actually having the sensation, it doesn't really have to mean that consciousness is anything more than a side effect of systems working correctly together. It could just mean some connection (more direct one maybe) is broken, but the brain can adjust to use eyesight to a limited degree by some workaround/less direct connection.

[@ricdesouza1]

my definition of consciousness or sentience- - the universe started with something blooming into existence- this something traveled in time and space and morphed into slightly different other things over time, due to entropy, each thing then residing in its own unique space and time. Now,we observe these things as the matter of the entire universe - but in essence the whole of creation and matter is just that one single thing that is blooming - albeit in different locales of time and space. Hence, our so called consciousness is a field with intricate connections between all matter in space and through time and also all matter and time that is quantum entangled> Hence not only are animals sentient but the Universe itself is a sentient being

[@danielcappell]

very glad that illusionists are taking up the challenge of being rigorous in their formalization, and empirical operationalizion of their view. of course, Humphrey's positing this evolved, almost Cartesian theater like tesseract that is the locus of the illusion completely contradicts the more Wittgensteinian turn you see in theorists like Frankish, who are now saying the illusion arises out of philosophical dialectic. but it is heartening to see Dr Humphrey taking the empirical burden for illusionism seriously

[@loushark6722]

I read recently that octopuses enjoy punching fish for no reason. That might be sensation seeking. I don't think we know enough yet to discount phenomenal consciousness in octopuses 🐙

[@spiritualiteathee1638]

From a subjective point of view, the creation is precisely our mind creating a subjective reality and surely only conscious animals talk about divinities. We are free to disagree about an intentional creation of the world and still have a common desire to preserve consciousness. The mere fact that we may enjoy it and are able to have a representation of consciousness outside of ourselves is in itself a motivation.

[@ArtII2Long]

This has to do with memory. Unless a particular visual impression has sufficient memory of past experience, it is pre-discarded by the visual cortex. We 'see' so much more than we pay attention to. "Be Here Now"

[@Smorss2011]

I believe consciousness is an element throughout the universe, and the brain just tunes into it.

[@miguelmouta5372]

Conclusion: Even the no-thing can have sentience.

[@trismegistus3461]

Conclusions can be wrong.

[@jjjones7207]

Do look up Gregg Henriques and his Unified Theory of Knowledge to further this discussion

[@d.w.stratton4078]

Octopi pretty clearly have selfhood. They play, they establish colonies, and they respond to Ecstasy with a fascination in touch.