Peter Tse - What Makes Brains Conscious?

[@intheair1987]

Once I got really tired and my mind couldn’t think, and I watched my body do things like opening doors, waking up and down, knowing where to go, all without my mind controlling it. I feel like my body and parts of my brain/mind are mostly automating itself, and I’m only conscious at times when I’m aware of that.

[@karsenhummel9341]

I notice this with myself all the time where I get lost in thoughts in my own consciousness and realize that my body had kept functioning and doing a given task without me thinking

[@AUSCarLover]

Consciousness might reside in all the parts of the body. Look at the heart or lung transplant examples.

[@ChatGPT1111]

Does my dog, who can very quickly detect/perceive and appear to be quite concerned about, my being in a sad state, have consciousness? If so, is consciousness on as graduated scale such that a dog's level of consciousness is at a less significant or pronounced level? Is an elephant's consciousness of the well being of its young, to the point of intense focus on its offspring, less conscious than a human? Do these attributes make the animal any less conscous than a human.

[@longcastle4863]

As consciousness seems to have an evolutionary basis, I would argue, yes, some form or degree of consciousness exist in all living things -- to lesser or greater degrees depending where it falls on the phylogenetic tree...

[@Zzennobi]

Make an exercise : how concious are you if you have zero memory? Another one : how concious are you if you have zero senses? Conciousness probably relates to complexity of problem one can work on at a time.

[@ChatGPT1111]

@@Zzennobi conscious but very quickly mad with zero senses. Conscious but unaware with zero memory. The transcendentalists will say those points are moot when you cross over to "the other side".

[@ChatGPT1111]

@@maj1260 depends on depends.

[@Zzennobi]

@@ChatGPT1111 cant get mad with no senses, as you dont have material to get mad over with. Conciousness is awareness. Seem pretty small though still hard to grasp a thing without a current of senses going through.

[@Geo_Knows_Things]

But Peter Ulric Tse did not tell us what conscience is; he just talked about how some aspects of it work. Moreover, any process could've been described the same way, without a hint of the role of consciousness. For example, any machine can be programmed to react appropriately to a wet floor, without any need for the machine to understand what wetness is.

[@tomsnow21]

Yes but your understanding/interpretation of the floors wetness is embedded in your sub conscious and your cognition.

[@Geo_Knows_Things]

@@tomsnow21 yes, I got that; I understand that my conscience has picked a response from the subconscious smorgasbord. But I was hoping to find out whether self-awareness is the result of evolution, or a fundamental feature of the universe.

[@thenowchurch6419]

Yes , he seems to deflect from dealing with consciousness itself. That is why it is the hard problem.

[@hoon_sol]

@@Geo_Knows_Things: Consciousness is not the same as conscience; at least not in contemporary English.

[@hoon_sol]

@@thenowchurch6419: Indeed.

[@mintakan003]

He is the first person I've heard in CTT, to make such an explicit link between perception, attention, and consciousness. There is a good explanation for this, as an evolutionary argument. The first (long distance) perception, comes from the development of sight, the development of eyes in organisms. The attentional mechanism is a matter of cognitive efficiency. Focus on stuff that matters. These are usually stuff that changes, or "anomalies". Assume the environment is more or less, the same. Fill in the rest, based on past experience. This is basically the predictive modeling of the brain, and how perception works, from a Bayesian perspective. The next evolutionary leap, is a meta-cognitive capability. Not only does the brain notices the environment, but it notices itself, it's own inner processes, representations, notions of "self", sense of "I", "awareness of 'awareness'". The attentional mechanism is still operative, as it focusses on one thing at a time, for efficiency. The "perceptual" nature of consciousness, is still present. We notice this in much of the mystical literature, when metaphors such as "seeing", and "Light", spaciousness, are used to describe consciousness. (There are, of course, other modes, such as feeling. But seeing, and light, are major modes.)

[@caricue]

That all makes good sense, but what is doing the experiencing? Is it the brain or a part of the brain that feels or notices? Since we live in a universe made of stuff, it means that the living tissue of the brain is the experiencer, right?

[@mintakan003]

@@caricue It's all part of the system, organism, environment, etc. But usually what we mean by "consciousness", involves biological systems, brain and nervous system. It's not just one area of the brain, but everything functioning together. Then through some integrative function, it is all pulled together in some notion of the "self"., a center, which seems to have the sense of a single "experiencer". (The Buddhists were amongst the first to notice, the sense of "self", is constructed, in the doctrine of "Anatta".)

[@QuicksilverSG]

@@caricue - As I mentioned in my own reply to this video, the core mechanism of consciousness is the awareness of your own awareness. This is not merely a philosophical concept, it is a functional feedback loop that emerges spontaneously within the brain. That ability is not simply due to the complexity of the brain's innumerable neural connections, but to the inherent plasticity of the brain's ability to dynamically reprogram its own internal connections. Once a perceptual feedback loop becomes established (e.g. you consciously notice something in your field of view) that loop becomes a persistent, irreducible neural circuit whose activity attracts attention from related neural circuits, which may then incorporate those neurological signals into their own persistent feedback loops. In this manner, complex nested loops of sustained attention emerge spontaneously in response to environmental triggers, feedback loops which will eventually dissolve once the original sensory stimulation is no longer perceived, or your attention is distracted by something else.

[@hershchat]

@@QuicksilverSG all very good, but that does not explain anything about experience. What you’re explicating is self-knowledge. Not experience. In theory, you could have mutually focused chips, in a loop, designed into an AI system. If consciousness was mere cognitive recursion, then ONE, there’d be a clear land lucid mathematical formulation of it, and TWO there’d be a dozen computer science departments working on that premise. You, sir, are invoking the dog that didn’t bark. In this case, it is because there isn’t a dog. Maybe I should say, “this dog don’t hunt, darling”. Consciousness is not the brain watching the brain. That is a knowledge mechanism, not in anyway relating to awareness. In philosophy, as too in science, this is called a “category error”. If you complain about your back hurting, and the doctor replies by asking you if it was a 23 deg angle, then he’d be doing what you’re doing. “Measuring color with a stopwatch”. Most people who make the argument you are making are consistent and predictable in one way … they repeat the same argument six ways, and get upset. Please don’t. This is not a road that leads anywhere, this idea that just knowing the knowing is the same as awareness. No matter how many stop watches you bring to a boat race, the sheer number would take you to Nantucket Island. Not. For that you need a boat that floats. Or a dog that hunts. What’re we talking about?

[@hershchat]

@Danny Holland exactly

[@QuicksilverSG]

Consciousness manifests at the point when we become aware of our own awareness of the precompiled information continuously generated by our tactile senses. As with all feedback systems, once that awareness-of-awareness loop closes, it becomes a persistent, irreducible neural circuit that dynamically monitors the stream of sensations that triggered it. If we did not have that inherent ability to become aware of our own awareness, we would remain unconscious of our own living existence - a biological automaton capable only of instinctive reactions.

[@mnrvaprjct]

Would you say that the mind is of the body but not reducible to it?

[@QuicksilverSG]

@@mnrvaprjct - The "mind" (i.e. our conscious awareness of ourself) emerged as an integrated control system crucial to the survival of the human species. If our bodies could only react with instinctive autonomic responses, we would not have been able to compete successfully with other sophisticated predators. Once we achieved evolutionary dominance and collective mastery of the means of survival, we were free to focus even more of our attention on our awareness of ourself.

[@sprightlyrandom1550]

So are you suggesting that humans may be the only conscious animal? For instance a dog is unlikely to be aware of it's own awareness right?

[@QuicksilverSG]

@@sprightlyrandom1550 - No, consciousness is no doubt a fundamental aspect of animal evolution. The issue isn't whether or not a particular species is conscious, but exactly what perceptions they are conscious of. Dogs, for example, perceive far more detailed scents than do humans, while we perceive more visual information than dogs.

[@elgatofabio]

@@sprightlyrandom1550 apparently dogs or cats e.g. can not recognize themselves in the mirror, no matter how hard they try. It`s a sign that other species have not completed the "full circle" so to speak. Human level consciousness seems to be what emerges from the point of full circle of perception/processing development. To define that result just as a computational process is an error IMHO.

[@thephilosophicalagnostic2177]

He is describing the machinery of free will. It's interesting and suggestive of what might really be going on in the brain to generate human experience.

[@caricue]

Peter Tse has many ideas about how the brain can set up a system to get things done in a deterministic universe. I personally don't believe that we do live in a deterministic universe, so it's not such a big issue for me. We live in a universe that features reliable causation, so the parts don't control the whole, and the past does not control the present.

[@Reverend11dMEOW]

When i place Consciousness together with Nothingness as the core 'engine' creating all these alternate test universes with disparate "Laws Of Physics" in each, the entire discussion "Fate vs. Free Will" vanishes.

[@Simulera]

From about 2’20” to 2’40” Prof Tse describes a volitional argument example of pointing at a bird, etc., to establish the attentional prerequisite for what he is setting up as consciousness. But radar trackers and many other things find, identify and actually physically point to such things as that. Indeed a simple thermostat “focuses” on the temperature of a room by construction of its sensors, thus “ignoring” the rest of what is going on in the room and that apparatus “points” to the on-switch of the temperature unaware HVAC, which then takes action. More modern ones mediate such abstract pointing with other considerations such as time of day, expanding both the mediation predicate of the action and the scope of fusing information from the sensing and perceptual systems and thus the richness of the attentional structure. I mean, if that is attentional at all. I have no problem in principle with extending the idea of consciousness to include such things as nonhuman life, ecologies or machines if it’s done well. It would be a sort of astonishing revelation and breakthrough in science to formalize such an intuition. 3:06 But, as it was given, the argument seems to not come close to making its intended point and actually includes all kinds of complicating messes. If it is basic to the ideas here, then that’s a bad sign. The appeals that Tse’s work makes in this presentation and elsewhere to computational concepts and theory is , again, interesting but does not rescue these issues in this presentation or in the other work. Secondly, when around 3’00” to around 3’10” Tse asserts that it is *necessary to describe *why something should be conscious *before describing what is or how that it is conscious. This is not logically true at all and, in fact, such teleological theorizing is usually done well after observed phenomenology and its relational forms are established or proposed. Indeed it is usually viewed as a cautious exercise of more casual but compelling metaphor, or possibly analogy in some cases, for a more intuitive but ultimately unsatisfactory explanatory motivation. Not a theory certainly and not a prerequisite to begin forming a theory. The opposite. I am not talking about the practice of the philosophy of science, which is often valuable and is in this case, rather I am talking about the commonly accepted practice of experimentally-grounded theoretical science. For example, even Feynman talked about the problem of “why” in theory making in very concrete ways. So, anyway, although the actual results of Tse’s theorizing and experiments may or may not be satisfactory, these two sections early in the short presentation of ideas is not the best way to go about exposing this line of observation, theorizing and testing. It leads to incontestable assertions and their possibly circular experiments. Maybe these presentations are intended to not be careful, but that is not my impression so I comment. I actually think Tse’s academic work is interesting and find this channel entertaining. Not a hater.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Can language and logical thoughts access physical matter of neurons and particles in brain through mathematics?

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

(0:50) *PT: **_"Consciousness is the domain of information realized in the brain that voluntary attention can access and operate on."_* ... The _"domain of information"_ Mr. Tse speaks of is not only represented in consciousness; it's also a fundamental property of "Existence." Everything that exists consists of *pure information.* In the early universe, information was only in the form of length, width, height, volume, mass, geometry, density, temperature, spin, speed, weight, etc., along with physical structure. This is the only information available to Existence for roughly 10 billion years ... _until life emerged._ "Life" provided all-new information to Existence in the form of life and death, predator and prey, plants, animals, reproduction, biology, etc. This information was added to the collective database of Existence and continued for over four billion years until even higher levels of information became necessary. *That's when **_self-awareness_** emerged!* "Existence" now has billions of self-aware humans processing all of the inanimate information from the early universe, all of the biological information that early sentience has produced, and all of the information that we self-aware humans now produce. We take "Existence" to the next level through our many highly opinionated "value assessments." Yes, we are the newly emerged arbitrators of _value._ The reason WHY this 13.8-billion-year-long information exchange has taken place is because Existence seeks the same ever-elusive information that we seek: "Existence" seeks comprehension of its own existence ... _just like we do!_ People think the universe holds all of the answers when, in reality, *WE* are the ones who are supposed to provide that information to the universe.

[@runningray]

Interesting thought. You can see some of what you are saying in the double slit experiment. The act of "seeing" what is happening will lock an electron down from a wave function to a particle. If you don't "see" what happens, then it acts as a wave. The act of looking changes the experimental results. Existence seems to be watching us.

[@r2c3]

hello again 1... "Everything that exists consists of pure information." if you could strip reality from every element and had a chance to start from the beginning, what would be the first elementary constituent (or set) you'd introduce... is existence a closed system or a growing one 🤔

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

Well articulated. 👍

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

@@r2c3 why should we even assume there was a beginning at all. We don’t actually know because as far as information is concerned we don’t really need to know. All matter is essentially a conduit for information to travel through. We can’t and won’t ever know if there is even such thing as a beginning as our egotistical perception understands it.

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

@@runningray exactly!! I realized this as well!

[@toddfulton2280]

What Peter Tse is speaking about is what I would refer to as cognition, the activities of the various structures in the brain which process information. Consciousness is both cognition and the phenomenal experience of the information processed within the brain. There's no reason the believe that the cognitive structures in the brain don't have access to the phenomenal experience; i.e. that there is a bidirectional exchange of information between these two aspects of consciousness. In short, what I'm saying is that consciousness is not irreducible. That consciousness is a relation between at least two aspects of reality, the innerworkings of the brain, what I call cognition (and Tse is calling consciousness), and the phenomenal experience of such information provided by the brain (which Tse, understandably, disregards), which we experience as a sort of "virtual reality" for lack of a better term. If we have an X, Y axis from 0 to infinity of cognition and the phenomenal experience, and we have 0 cognition, then our experience would be nothing, a void. If we have 0 experience, then our cognitive functions are no different from a highly advanced wetware artificial intelligence. If we have infinity on both axis, then that would be indistinguishable from reality itself, we necessarily have to abstract away the information from reality to form a lesser representation.

[@callistomoon461]

Even if that‘s all true, there is zero explanation for how the brain creates consciousness.

[@scambammer6102]

your "in short" paragraph is way longer and more obtuse than your other paragraph. I agree with your point about cognition.

[@toddfulton2280]

@@scambammer6102 lol, fair enough.

[@toddfulton2280]

@@callistomoon461 Yeah, I didn't say the brain creates consciousness, just that the brain creates cognition, and I think that's pretty well supported by the science. We can create AI models that literally read people's intentions from their brain waves and patterns of brain activity. What I can't say, or anyone can for that matter, is what this phenomenal experience is or how it comes into being. Science has left this alone for a long time and many scientists refuse to touch the topic with a ten foot pole.

[@hoon_sol]

@@toddfulton2280: There's not really any scientific evidence that the cognitive (which is indeed a more fitting word for what Peter is describing) processes of the brain itself is aware of the phenomenal experience of consciousness. In other words, there is in fact reason to believe that the brain does not have access to this at all. I'm not saying that's how it is, but it very well could be. For all we know, either of the following could be true: 1) Epiphenomenalism is true; the electrochemical signaling of the brain somehow gives rise to phenomenal consciousness, but has no awareness of it. 2) Cartesian dualism is true; you are an entity that is somehow accessing the body from elsewhere (wherever that might be), including the brain, and feeding this back into your interface (in this case, you would call this access and feedback _will_ and _consciousness_ respectively).

[@prestonpittman717]

I like these interpretations of Consciousness!

[@waldwassermann]

Interpretations appear many; truth is one.

[@stephenr80]

Conciousness is evolutory response, the more complex the better you are at finding things you wanna have

[@owencampbell4947]

Where does the root of consciousness come from? that's the first question. At what age is a human, being conscious? which are the first experiences that leads to activate an individuals consciousness? Does free will play a role to the autonomous use of consciousness? and if free will is undermined, can it affect consciousness in its functions? There are lots of misconducts that lead to improper development and misunderstanding of humans consciousness.

[@echo-off]

Very interesting. However you can build a robot in principle doing the same thing as discussed. Why do we have a 1.st person experience of this process?

[@jimbresnahan]

Super interesting talk, but Peter Tse ducked the real mystery of consciousness...qualia and feeling. This system continues to be poorly understood and cannot be engineered with current technology. We're heading for a world of neural network driven robots that are not conscious.

[@montagdp]

Exactly. An unconscious robot could conceivably do everything he mentioned in this video. With sophisticated enough neutral networks, we may even be able to create something that behaves like it is conscious one day, but will it actually be? We don't even know how to approach that question. We can drill down on understanding brain functions all we want (and indeed we should), but it will still miss the point of what conscious perception really is, or why it is. This was an interesting talk, but I'm afraid we're still no closer to truth.

[@iphaze]

Well to get the “feel” you have to mix in the irrational emotions humans are so good at. I think that’s what sets us apart is our emotional response to stimulus

[@hoon_sol]

@@iphaze: Wrong. The "feeling" in this place has nothing to do with anything irrational, because in this context it refers to subjective experience, phenomenal consciousness, what it feels like to be conscious. There is absolutely zero materialist explanation for the existence of consciousness, and any such explanation would have to be ridiculously contrived to the point where it would approximate dualism or idealism so closely that it would cease to make sense calling it materialism in the first place.

[@hoon_sol]

@@montagdp: That's exactly right. These people seem to not understand the actual problem at all.

[@KestyJoe]

I’m not convinced that the feeling part of it is different than or any deeper than what it feels like to us when the system he describes operates as it does

[@jffryh]

A key word is "voluntarily". If there is no "free will" or just "will" or "willpower", than how could anything be "voluntary"?

[@francesco5581]

you are right, often people who deny free will then use words or phrases that imply free will "we understand that ... " "i think that... " i cant be sure of ..." "in the future i will" "i can deny that ... " "you should go to read this and that..." " grow !!"

[@jffryh]

@@francesco5581 I don't see so much of a problem with thought or understanding or doubt or intention in the absence of free will, but volition seems to me to be basically a synonym of free will.

[@francesco5581]

@@jffryh no because if you think that a though, understanding or doubting are deterministic illusion then even volition can be an illusion too. Even asking voluntary choices can be an illusion too (of course are not).

[@jffryh]

@@francesco5581 I'm not sure if I understand what your position is. I believe thought, understanding, and doubt are real things. And I believe free will and volition are not real, at least by some definitions.

[@francesco5581]

@@jffryh i think that if one does believe that free well and volition are not real (are illusions from the body that already decided for us) then also thoughts, understanding and doubts are not real too since are part of the same physical process, the body that deludes us

[@Luke-pc5rb]

Search "Cardiovascular Surgeon NDE" on KZbin for a video of verifiable remote consciousness in a patient where the heart and lung machine was turned off and had no heart or brain activity. The patient reported seeing the operating room from above his body and identified post it notes that only started being collected after he was put under. The post it notes were messages for the surgeon that came in during the surgery. If the brain produces conciousness, cases like this would not exist and I say cases because there are more NDE reports but this one comes from a Surgeon. The surgeon's account is verified in the comment section of the video by another surgeon that was present that day.

[@bluelotus542]

Brains cannot be made conscious. They're just processors of information, and the source of information is consciousness, which exists prior to matter, therefore to brains.

[@kos-mos1127]

The source of information is matter, exist prior to consciousness. Consciousness cannot be the source of information since it only focuses on a subset of information that reality produces. Phenomena is information about reality. Instead of saying these facts are made of bits we say facts are made of matter. Matter comes from the Latin materia which means material, substance and stuff. Also materia has the meaning latent ability or potential and effecting action

[@scambammer6102]

stop eating and see how long your reality lasts

[@bluelotus542]

@@kos-mos1127 Matter comes from life, and life means consciousness.

[@bluelotus542]

@@scambammer6102 how long my physical body lasts

[@kos-mos1127]

@@bluelotus542 Matter is the stuff that life is made of. Consciousness is not life. Consciousness is information that the brain that you focus on.

[@NguyenTastic]

Great video, thanks for sharing.

[@karlyohe6379]

I love how you talk to all these brilliant people each of whom sees the answer to “what is consciousness” thru the filter of their own expertise; the Buddhist parable of the three blind men and the elephant at work

[@waldwassermann]

Brilliant observation. 😉

[@rashmikapoor8846]

You are so very right.. every blind man is trying to make something out of elephant and going to different direction

[@waldwassermann]

@@rashmikapoor8846 You know it. 🙏 There is a similar analysis in the 'tenth man' metaphor,

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Is there a separate mental operation for movement or action, different than language or logic reasoning? A decision maker accesses and implements mathematical information of particles and neurons in brain for moving or doing an action? And could such a mental decision maker be influenced by free will from quantum field measurement?

[@mikel4879]

James R / You got a good first question in your text, and suddenly you wrote at the end a humongous stupidity like the "quantum" garbage. / You talk about "particles" like you would know what they are!🥴; and "quantum" is the biggest stupidity that the human mind has ever invented. / The answer to the first question is no. All the processes take place in the material brain, and like a computer memory they are located in different places but working all as an interconnected real material process. What "mathematical information" in the material brain are you talking about? Are you coocoo? Mathematics create artificial models only. The reality of the Universe at any level is not mathematical.

[@TheUltimateSeeds]

Robert Lawrence Kuhn asks: *"...What Makes Brains Conscious?..."* Peter Tse basically says: *"...Science hasn't a clue....But here's a jumble of obfuscating neuro jargon to make you think it does..."*

[@kos-mos1127]

Not really. Peter Tse is saying what consciousness is. Consciousness is the voluntary attention to a subset of information that the brain has access to. In layman terms consciousness is what is actively focused on.

[@scambammer6102]

@@kos-mos1127 that's usually called cognition. The biggest mystery of the whole "consciousness" debate is why nobody can define the term. That's because lots of folks want to sneak their god in there.

[@TheUltimateSeeds]

​@@kos-mos1127 Describing what consciousness *is* (or does) does not answer the question of *"what makes a brain conscious?"* Furthermore, I suggest that it's not the brain that is conscious. No, it is the self-aware *"agent"* of the mind that is conscious. So, the real question is, how does a brain create a mind that holds a conscious agent that is capable of offering *"voluntary attention"* to a subset of information?

[@hoon_sol]

@@kos-mos1127: Wrong. Peter is absolutely not in any way, shape, or form saying what consciousness is. Peter is describing what the underlying electrochemical neurocognitive information people are conscious of is; that's not what consciousness itself is.

[@hoon_sol]

@@TheUltimateSeeds: As you can probably see, that's just kicking the can further down the road. In reality, it's very easy to see that consciousness cannot be explained under assumptions of materialism at all, because any attempt at doing so would become so contrived as to be indistinguishable from dualism or idealism. Unless you try, like charlatans such as Dennett does, to dismiss the existence of consciousness entirely, any materialistic explanation of consciousness would have to explain what material your perceptions are made of, which would have to be an entirely different form of material than the matter that actually makes up you and the objects you are perceiving, to the point where it simply becomes ridiculous and untenable, since you're practically already talking about dualism at that point. The first Western philosopher to make this distinction in a somewhat understandable form was, as most people who end up watching videos like this know, Plato, with his realm of forms/ideals, as opposed to the realm of our perception, which was merely a projected shadow from this "higher" reality. While Descartes then went on to speculate a bit about the nature of this dualism, Kant then came and made the distinction as clear as it has ever been formulated, distinguishing very clearly between the noumenal (which would be Plato's realm of forms, or what we would call "matter" in Cartesian dualism) and the phenomenal (the "shadow", or dualism's "mind"). So it seems quite clear that we're either going to have to accept some form of dualism, or go radically in the exact opposite direction of materialism, namely to embrace idealism instead. In either case you can at the very least account for consciousness, unlike in materialism, and the difference remains whether or not there is any noumenal and material realm of forms at all, or whether it's all a mental play of pure consciousness. Also, it's rather ironic that Plato also called this "higher" realm the realm of "ideals" when it describes what we in dualism would call "matter" instead, but this reflects quite well in my opinion why Plato's thinking was still more primitive than current understanding, since it betrays that he was still operating under a form of naive realism, where he would think of what he perceived as what was actually "materially" there, and whatever was projecting it as the "idea", when we today have a relatively good understanding of that dualism would imply the exact opposite, namely that everything we perceive would be a mental reconstruction of the underlying material realm.

[@charlesqwu]

3:23 pre-compiled information; 5:34 grouping operation

[@dongshengdi773]

The philosopher John Leslie explored this possibility in his 1979 book, Value and Existence. Because of the problem of infinite regress, no physical mechanism will ever be adequate to explain the universe's existence. To solve this mystery, we must go beyond materialism and consider There's something very different, more akin to value is the animating force of reality. . The forces are created . Every physical force is contingent on what is not contingent . You can't have an infinite regress of contingent physical forces . . "Existence itself is the upholding of value intensity." - Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.

[@kos-mos1127]

The universe does not need an explanation for its existence. It simply just. There is no mystery to the existence of the universe. The universe is existence everywhere. Existence is the first principle that cannot be explained because something has to exist before it can be explained. Forces are created by interactions of matter. There is no basis to assume matter is contingent. Existence does not uphold value. Value is subjective and is created.

[@scambammer6102]

Infinite regress isn't a problem, except to humans who have limited capacity to comprehend it.

[@konnektlive]

@@kos-mos1127 You seem to forget that the very definition of 'matter' itself is up to debate, and is at best an overly anthropocentric to begin with. As an ex-lecturer in QM, I can get technical as to why on the paper no two physicist can be agreed on the same definition of matter to begin with. Objectively speaking, matter is just yet another idea, nothing more than that. You're relying very heavily on your own taken as granted definitions and mental constructs. Brain activity is fundamentally analog in nature and is NOT and cannot be equalled to process information. These agenda driven digital-era dudes thinking brain is some sort of a computer processing so-called "information" are for a hard wakeup call. Information itself as a term is an overly anthropocentric concept that just like numbers in maths is NOT growing on trees, and does not exist in the world the way these superficial thinkers think it does. I think what these dudes need before anything is a serious course in the Gödel's incompleteness theorems. They don't understand that the world is simple by nature; and looking for a perfect circle is like trying scientifically to catch the rainbow... I also strongly suggest them to study Wittgenstein and his profound ideas about the nature of maths.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@kos-mos1127 *"The universe does not need an explanation for its existence."* ... You are a microcosm of Existence. If YOU require an explanation for your existence, ... then so does "Existence." *"Existence does not uphold value. Value is subjective and is created."* ... Logic dictates that if there was no Earth and we all lived on Mars, then nobody would have invented a lawnmower. That same logic states that if Existence doesn't uphold value, then there wouldn't be billions upon billions of living, self-aware ambassadors of Existence continuously generating value judgments for over 300,000 years, would there?

[@scambammer6102]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC I don't require an explanation for my existence. Neither does anything else. What you call "value judgments" is just an evolutionary adaptation common to many species, eg parents protecting their offspring. Humans. Aren't. Special.

[@Kattelyn21]

For life to arise from this model, complexity is derived from the repetition of mistakes and seeing how we are able to fix them in the next generations. There’s always at least two generations of people raising a third. Able to see the mistakes they made as parents and attempt to fix it in their grandkids. The more generations removed from the damage, the easier the problem is to solve. Time becomes the lever of progress, with the dividends collected by the grandparents to give to their grandchildren. The internet gave us enough distance to look back at the world we live in and see how it is broken.

[@Kattelyn21]

The question then becomes did we accidentally create life / consciousness/ an equal being / artificial intelligence when we created the internet as a whole.

[@chrisw4562]

Very interesting. The final question of why we need to have a conscious mind was the most importantfor me, and I don't think there was an answer. We could be robots and follow the same processing. My question is if consciousness is necessary or just a byproduct. I think it is the former.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

When the brain takes in external information as sense perception, is that sense information turned into mathematical information by neurons and particles, which mathematical information can develop language and logic of human mind?

[@sadiaasad6843]

What makes those senses appear, and why are they interpreted in brain

[@quantumbyte-studios]

He talked a lot about the inputs/outputs of consciousness, but less on what consciousness is. But he seems to imply that it is our attention. So without attention, there is no consciousness?

[@davidaemayhew]

Brains aren’t conscious. People are conscious.

[@asloii_1749]

Brains are people

[@cc2620]

Host: Can the process occur without the subjective feeling? Scientist: Don't worry about the feels.

[@dongshengdi773]

Existence from value: A possible connection between consciousness and the mystery of existence lies in the relationship of consciousness with value. Philip Goff (philosopher) is among the recent wave of philosophers defending the fundamentality of consciousness. Goff has also suggested that the animating force of reality may be mysteriously connected to its value. He reminds us of an insight first made by the philosopher David Hume in the 19th century. Hume observed that we simply do not perceive causes in nature. While we perceive the flow of events. Our apparent perception of causes is an illusion. Similarly, science does not actually reveal causes in the world. Goff points out that once we truly recognize this, we are Free to consider an alternative possibility, the natural necessity. The animating force of existence is not material or mechanical, but in fact follows from its value. Goff considers that such a view might also help to explain why against all of the odds, the universe seems finally tuned to allow what he calls, "a universe of great value in which conscious value sensitive beings can evolve." Among all of the intelligible arrangements of nature's laws, the probability of a life friendly universe is, in fact, trillions to one. Fine tuning may actually be an indicator of the deeper significance and necessity of consciousness on the metaphysical landscape.

[@scambammer6102]

fine tuning? ha ha ha

[@Jinxed007]

I've heard many, many descriptions of this and I think this is the best so far. I'll admit though, I still find myself asking, "Who then is the receiver? Who is it that chooses one batch of information over another to act on?" No matter how we compile information in the brain, it is compartmentalize... a bit here, a bit over there, a bit in the back. Somehow all those bits are put together and "something" assembles them into a complete picture. How would that be located in a compartmentalized brain? My quest continues...

[@finetuner6238]

The whole notion from the aspect of steadfast foundation must manifested as a complete reliable system or a surely trusted being that we can't compare anywhere else not just awareness to some informative intelligence from sort of not dependable expertise which is morally configured in anyway, that's how we must see real conscious concept in modern form.

[@monotheist7583]

What is circulating in the live brain? So many neurons? What neurons made up of and what they carry? The answer is electrical stimuli. So different parts in the brain or in head have specific functionality/responsibility. What neurons carry information of/for these brain parts. Consciousness doesn't just depends on the abundance or perfection of these neurons or brain parts, it also heavily depends on humans interest/curiosity that is how these brain parts are willing to put stress on them to verify or to explore something.

[@patmat.]

I understood, he's good.

[@bierdlll]

The world experienced as it is, is completely devoid of concepts. Concepts are projected onto sense experience.

[@scambammer6102]

maybe. do concepts influence our initial perceptions? We only perceive a small portion of reality.

[@r2c3]

a colony of bacteria is able to adapt to external stimuli in ways that a single one doesn't... similar mechanisms might also play a role in advanced neural processes inside the brain... it seems to be just a new level of genetic/epigenetic complexity with a higher operational status...

[@scambammer6102]

yep

[@leilaskye8143]

Facinating

[@TheTroofSayer]

The semiotics of CS Peirce is highly relevant here, but there is so much to unpack and reframe, that it's not possible within 30 lines let alone 3. HOWEVER, at 7:11 Robert asks "Couldn't you have that occurring without the phenomenology, the feeling of consciousness, what it feels like to smell garlic or cheese, or see red... couldn't you just have that whole process occur without the subjective feeling?" Within the narrative of semiotics, absolutely not. Information alone ("data") is not enough. It is always information *in context* (Tse's references to gestalt can find a place here), and information in context is, principally, associative. And associative always invokes, in any observer (agent), the subjective feeling of meaning. "Feeling" is required to make the association. Pressing the k key on my computer requires the feeling to associate k with key, to motivate me to seek out and press k, in my pursuit of typing "key" into this comment. There is nothing that is without meaning or emotion when using a keyboard, or a mouse, or a brake on my car, or a key to open a door. When you reach for something, look at something, smell something, you attribute a meaning to it, you feel it, you make associations, and there is no separate processing module that automates or calculates the choice. Individual neurons have specialized but simple passions that excite them, in their division of labour - horizontal line detection, motion detection, colour red detection, thickness detection, etc, etc. (AH Knopf's appropriately named "The Hedonistic Neuron" provided the original inspiration for associative learning algorithms in neural net architectures). These simple neural-level meanings, integrated and associated together in the DNA-entangled brain, contextualize more complex meanings (gestalts). These different neural specializations, among others, integrate to give meaning (form into a gestalt?) to, say, a red, thick stick somersaulting through the air towards me (which invokes further feelings of fear and triggered associations as reflexes). Accordingly, sterile information alone, devoid of meaning, can never be sufficient. A sentient observer (agent) is required to give meaning to events through the associations it makes, and it is fundamental to all consciousness. And association, associative learning, is not confined solely to us multi-celled organisms. Refer to Eric Kandel's research on Aplysia, regarding associative learning (and also habituation), in individual neurons. Association is somehow a fundamental principle (along with habituation and motivation) that applies to all critters throughout the universe. Without it, neither life nor consciousness would be possible. References to processing modules (and other like metaphors borrowed from IT) are in violation to the laws of entropy, and *not* how nature operates. [Might association take place at the subatomic level? The Feynman diagrams can certainly be interpreted along these lines, as I have explored in a draft article]

[@JustAThought01]

Is conscientious the same as awareness? The process of shifting focus.

[@scambammer6102]

Good question. I say yes, which means that all life is conscious. But not many will agree with that.

[@JustAThought01]

@@scambammer6102, so conscientious is just a sensation we experience as part of brain operation.

[@User-kjxklyntrw]

Is that right, our mental that can feel pain, our body can't.

[@idea2go]

Brilliant, thank you for this interview

[@pinaky_AnVikSiki]

Domain information with conglomerate perceptions with multiple manipulation?

[@dongshengdi773]

PLATO was in fact essentially correct that the underlying nature of the universe is more mind-like than classically physical. And, that the true creative force of this reality is its value. Consciousness is the vehicle of all value, meaning and significance in the universe. Without consciousness, nothing matters. Without consciousness, nothing exists. .

[@danielogwara3984]

Replace the word consciousness with mind.

[@Raj0520]

Let me tell u u don't even understand the scientific meaning of Consciousness. You probably confuse it with a mystic consciousness

[@danielogwara3984]

@@Raj0520 There’s nothing scientific about consciousness. Science, as it is practiced today deals with empirical objects of matter and consciousness is neither and empirical object, nor is it a product of matter.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@Raj0520 *"Let me tell u u don't even understand the scientific meaning of Consciousness."* ... It is far better to tell people what you _do_ know rather than trying to convince them of what they _don't_ know.

[@Raj0520]

@@danielogwara3984 I mean what Scientists mean when they talk about consciousness. U probably mean a mystical version of it of something witnessing or being conscious of everything which has been discarded by Scientists long ago. It's called a Cartesian theatre which has homunculus fallacy.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

For anything to be conscious requires life, as what's dead is not conscious. All life here in this physical plane derives from Light. If you are going to discuss consciousness you must include Light & life in the enquiry. Brain did not create life or light, but did come about from it. High energized Light or dense light becomes matter. This light is also life. Regarding the brain, it has a physical consciousness, oscillating always like a pendulum swing between memory and sense perception objects, intermingling while the pivot is consciousness. Brain like all matter derives from light, light is life and is the state conscious -- light the very Intellect. Did the brain produce memory? If so the brain would have had to produce the very sense perception objects and the very image of the noetic form that gets impressed upon the subconscious mind -- which I doubt the brain did. However, because All is consciousness, even matter, and all matter derives from light, I say conscious, life, light are not only fundament but is the essence or substance of God. If you argue the brain create consciousness you have to prove the brain produced Light and Life. No light, means no life meaning then there's no matter or brain.

[@Pyriold]

That just sounds like esoteric rambling. I bet you have no idea what "light" even means in a physical sense, and neither can you define life... but you are using these terms as if you are an expert. If you use a word like light that has a clear definition in this esoteric way than you don't want to communicate, you want to preach.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

@@Pyriold you cannot find light under a microscope; life is not touched but allows touch. You are a bad person, a shill. You are projecting here your own childish ways. Look at how horrible your reply is you are in denial, trying to protect your atomist belief -- known as self preservation -- and displaying a 6 year olds behavioral level. You couldn't add anything and your critique wasn't intended to be constructive rather insultive, and even you failed at that only displaying the nature of your being which you cannot even see because you're an outwardly person. Your motive is to bring people low, to focus on argument rather than enquiry; to only acknowledge mathematics and not true science. You do not have the right, or are in the right.

[@PabloVestory]

Brilliant the last question by Khun. All that information could operate the same without the subjective experience. Again, the Gap.

[@electricmanist]

Consciousness is not merely a function of the brain, rather it is that which is far more than a mere physical aspect of the body. Certainly the brain is the instrument which governs physical operations but the choices/understandings/values etc arise from the spirit--which is in a sense, is outside the body, even though the spirit is 'attached' to the physical, while the body remains alive.

[@arejay00]

A functional account -- memory, attention -- i.e., the 'easy' problem, mascarading as an explain of the 'hard' problem. Next....

[@downhillphilm.6682]

the shiny table and blue lights ......and he actually made sense of the process of qualia. that was nice....now what????

[@Traderhood]

Isn’t he talking about recognition and not consciousness?

[@divertissementmonas]

He is talking about recongnition and experience. However, he is aslo talking about consciouness given his definition of 'consciousness'. If one doesn't accept that, it;s likely his argument will not be accepted either.

[@HENRYIII003]

This guy catches my attention

[@8xnnr]

Yes he's asian

[@danieladmassu941]

He seems to confine his assertion to what he objectively knows and states it precisely. Solid guy.

[@AMorgan57]

Wow, progress! I've read that we have no direct physical sense of wetness in any form. We must infer it from sensory input. Put your hand under a running faucet, and ask yourself--how can it be that you're only inferring wetness? This is an example of why people have so much trouble thinking about consciousness. Thank you, Peter Tse, you're doing awesome work.

[@nahCmeR]

So when you close your eyes, and put your hand in water or in the shower, and you can't tell if you're wet or not? When you drink a liquid can you not feel the liquid in your mouth and flowing down your throat? You can't tell there's saliva in your mouth, tears in your eyes? Where did you read we have no direct physical sense of wetness? I'm quite curious what you meant by this so further details would be appreciated 👍

[@longcastle4863]

Glad to see not every scientist has fallen into the trap of blindly thinking determinism rules out free will

[@caricue]

Determinism is a religious belief that the parts control the whole and the past controls the present. Even though these two beliefs are manifestly silly, the determined determinist will cling to them with evangelical fervor.

[@r2c3]

@@caricue it's currently not possible to undo an action once it has started, hence determinism... the only way to prevent an action is with an additional one...

[@caricue]

@@r2c3 In humans, if you wish to prevent an action you can just not do it. No additional action needed.

[@r2c3]

@@caricue free-will is a characteristic of life, I agree 👍... but once you act on your choice, the only way to undo that action is only by another action... determinism is not the same as predeterminism...

[@hoon_sol]

Determinism does by definition rule out free will. Those are by definition mutually exclusive. There's no room for free will in anything Peter is saying. He's talking about "voluntary", but there's nothing "voluntary" about the process he's describing at all, it's all just deterministic electrochemical signaling. Considering the fact that it doesn't account for consciousness either, it's almost certainly wrong.

[@jordanearl5449]

Absolutely amazing. brilliant interview and interviewee.

[@wthomas5697]

Decisions are thoughts. We do not control our thinking. Anyone who attempts to meditate can easily observe this fact. So, there is nothing "free" about our "will".

[@FalseCogs]

Are decisions thoughts? Or are they unconscious happenings, followed by making up good sounding stories to explain the observed actions and thoughts? In other words, unconscious happening -> thought of result -> thought of good story -> thought claiming ownership -> sense of empowerment and control.

[@wthomas5697]

@@FalseCogs What people refer to as conscious decisions are thoughts, prior to making the action. My point is that all the significant activity occurs subconsciously. We have no actual choice in the matter. So there is no such thing as "free will".

[@philochristos]

This is all just hand-waving. He hasn't explained how you go from the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and electrons to the first person subjective nature of consciousness. All he's done explained a few correlations between brains states and mental states.

[@hoon_sol]

Correct.

[@mikefinn]

I see consciousness as the the interconnective WIFI of the brain. Interacting, chemically-generated, EM fields. It gives us a standoff view of the separate areas as they interact which we can then prioratize while awake.

[@akshaythakkar9127]

Wow

[@1SpudderR]

Mike....separate......not seperate! Just a friendly conscious observation

[@mikefinn]

@@1SpudderR Thanks.

[@asloii_1749]

Consciousness being connectivity is an interesting theory imo

[@bobcabot]

ja but what if Kasper Hauser stands on that threshold with a fully functional brain, but no experience of the world outside? no concepts of the things, nor any representation to refer to: what does he see...

[@mettehansen9754]

cool interesting fascinating !!!

[@legron121]

This question is misconceived, since brains are not conscious (or unconscious). No part of an animal is conscious. It's the animal as a whole that is conscious (or unconscious). Only animals fall asleep and wake up, and so lose and regain consciousness. Only animals perceive things with their sense organs, and become conscious of what they perceive. The brain is not an animal, but part of an animal. To speak of the brain as if it were a whole organism is misguided, and Peter Hacker calls it the "mereological fallacy". It is treating the part as if it were the whole. Of course, brain activities are "not at all the same thing as sights, sounds, smells, emotions". Why would anyone ever think they were? Perceptual activities (like watching and listening to things) are activities of human beings, not brains. And emotions are not even _activities,_ let alone activities of the brain. I think the main difficulty here is that the questions are not formulated well, and so result in incoherent answers.

[@scambammer6102]

A dead animal isn't conscious so it really is the brain. Granted the brain needs a larger organism to exist.

[@legron121]

​@@scambammer6102 The fact that an animal cannot be conscious without its brain does not mean that its brain is conscious. You can't walk or talk without your brain, but that doesn't mean that it is the brain that walks or talks. It just means that the brain is a necessary condition for being conscious. Think about the normal use of the word "conscious". If something is "conscious" (as opposed to unconscious), that just means that it's "awake" or "alert". Brains are patently not conscious in _this_ sense (brains do not fall into "deep sleep" or "awaken", or "lose" and "recover" consciousness; these descriptions can only intelligibly be applied to human beings and other sentient animals, not brains). On the other hand, we speak of being/becoming conscious _of_ something (e.g. being conscious of the heat, the smell, someone's weaknesses, etc.). This can mean having one's attention caught and held by something one perceives (e.g. the heat, the smell, clock-ticking). Or, it can mean that something one knows occupies one's thoughts, colours one's behaviour, weighs with one in one's deliberations and decisions (e.g. being conscious of climate change, the death of a friend, ect.). In any case, it's meaningless to apply any of this to the brain. The brain doesn't behave in any way that could warrant talking of it in this way. It's just anthropomorphism. No doubt all of it is possible _because_ of the brain. But, the brain itself is not conscious of anything.

[@QuicksilverSG]

@@legron121 - The reason the brain is necessary for consciousness is because that is the organ that preprocesses the body's raw sensations into coherent streams of information. As you point out, the brain does not do this in isolation, but as an essential component of countless nested loops of biological sensory systems. It is indeed true that our conscious awareness manifests not just within our brain, but extends throughout the nerve systems of our body. In practice, we are not even aware of the brain itself, only of the streams of sensations it processes.

[@hoon_sol]

@@legron121: While I personally agree that it is obvious that a brain itself cannot be conscious, that's exactly what a materialist would claim; they would say that "you" are quite literally the brain, or even just a small and specific portion of it. However, your view that the entire animal must be what's conscious is equally nonsensical and fallacious as far as I'm concerned.

[@legron121]

@@hoon_sol A materialist might claim that, but it would make no sense. I have no problem with people speaking nonsense if they want to. Rather, I'm just pointing out that it _is_ nonsense. I am a human being, and humans beings are not brains. On the other hand, I think you're quite mistaken to think that ascribing consciousness to an animal is somehow nonsensical. In the normal sense of "conscious", it does make sense. After all, why is it nonsensical to apply "conscious" or "unconscious" to a brain? It's because brains don't satisfy the right behavioural criteria. Brains cannot fall asleep and then awaken, they cannot see or hear or taste things (they don't have eyes or ears or tongues), and they don't respond to what they perceive. But, all of this is true of animals. Why is it nonsensical to describe a man or dog as "conscious" or "unconscious"? We do so all the time, in ordinary circumstances.

[@andrewferg8737]

If one were to build a machine capable of manifesting a software engineer's programing, that machine would be a computer. If one were to create a machine capable of manifesting human consciousness, that machine would be a human brain.

[@tomarmstrong3297]

And we’d still be left with absolutely zero understanding of how a brain could produce these conscious experiences we have

[@andrewferg8737]

@@tomarmstrong3297 Perhaps the ambiguity lies in the phrase "how a brain could produce". I prefer the term "manifest". That is, a computer certainly manifests the program an engineer has developed, but the PC does not produce that information. The mystery then, it would seem to me, is how this intangible "information" interfaces with (or becomes manifest as) the physical world. "It is clear that these physical-only processes somehow on the one hand give us the right answers, but on the other hand that they are controlled by another world of ideas somehow; they’re coming from somewhere else.” (Professor Nima Arkani-Hamed--- Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and director of The Center for Future High Energy Physics) "The mystery is not that there are three worlds, although each is a mystery in itself. The worlds are there: the physical, the mental, and the abstract. Rather, the mystery is in how they connect" (Roger Penrose 2019)

[@andrewferg8737]

@@tomarmstrong3297 "conscious experiences" ---- Sensation of consciousness may be distinct from consciousness itself, that is, if by consciousness we mean self-reflection or self-awareness. Does consciousness require sensation?Dreams of sleeping people, or reports by previously sedated or comatose patients, or of NDE cases, are traditionally viewed as non-conscious. Yet, these reported phenomena seem to include an awareness of self while divorced from any ability to experience real physical sensation. It is of course difficult to assess the reliability of data in these cases.

[@tomarmstrong3297]

@@andrewferg8737 Good point re the word “produce”. I think I was thinking of materialist’s who will say that consciousness is nothing more than a brain product. And offering not clue one how it happens. (I.e Chalmer’s Hard Problem of Consciousness). And has been very much in dispute in spiritual - and increasingly other - circles. E.g. heard a Zen master say that consciousness is no more produced by the brain, than the television is producing the TV programs

[@andrewferg8737]

@@tomarmstrong3297 "how it happens" ---- "faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5)

[@ready1fire1aim1]

Human consciousness, mathematically, is identical to 4D quaternion algebra with w, x, y, z being "real/necessary" 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D and i, j, k being "contingent/not-necessary" 0D, 1D xi, 2D yj, 3D zk. 0D is always w (real/necessary) 1D-9D contingent/not-necessary universe has "conscious lifeforms" (1D xi, 2D yj, 3D zk)..."turning" 'time'. [In mathematics, a versor is a quaternion of norm one (a unit quaternion). The word is derived from Latin versare = "to turn" with the suffix -or forming a noun from the verb (i.e. versor = "the turner"). It was introduced by William Rowan Hamilton in the context of his quaternion theory.] [Math; 4D quaternion algebra] A quaternion is a 4-tuple, which is a more concise representation than a rotation matrix. Its geo- metric meaning is also more obvious as the rotation axis and angle can be trivially recovered. How do you make a quaternion? (Nobody is starting with 0) You can create an N-by-1 quaternion array by specifying an N-by-3 array of Euler angles in radians or degrees. Use the euler syntax to create a scalar quaternion using a 1-by-3 vector of Euler angles in radians. "Turn" to what, you might ask. 5D is the center of 1D-9D. The breadth (space-time). All things are drawn to the center, the whole. (Gravity means Nothing compared to the Strong Nuclear Force) [Contingent Universe]: 3 sets of 3 dimensions: (1D-3D/4D-6D/7D-9D) The illusory middle set (4D, 5D, 6D) is temporal. Id imagine we create this middle temporal set similar to a dimensional Venn Diagram with polarized lenses that we "turn" by being conscious. Which requires energy. 3D height symmetry/entanglement with 6D depth and 9D absorption is why we are "consumers", we must consume/absorb calories, and sleep, to continue "to turn" 'time' (be alive). 1D-3D spatial set/7D-9D spectral set overlap creating the temporal illusion of 4D-6D set. Transcending one another. 1D, 2D, 3D = spatial composite (line, width, height) 4D, 5D, 6D = temporal illusory (length, breadth, depth) 7D, 8D, 9D = spectra energies (continuous, emission, absorption) Symmetry/entanglement: 1D, 4D, 7D line, length, continuous 2D, 5D, 8D width, breadth, emission 3D, 6D, 9D height, depth, absorption [Time] According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of its flow doesn't correspond to physical reality. Indeed, as Rovelli argues in The Order of Time, much more is illusory, including Isaac Newton's picture of a universally ticking clock. Does time exist without space? Time 'is' as space 'is' - part of a reference frame in which in ordered sequence you can touch, throw and eat apples. Time cannot exist without space and the existence of time does require energy. Time, then, has three levels, according to Leibniz: (i) the atemporality or eternality of God; (ii) the continuous immanent becoming-itself of the monad as entelechy; (iii) time as the external framework of a chronology of “nows” The difference between (ii) and (iii) is made clear by the account of the internal principle of change. The real difference between the necessary being of God and the contingent, created finitude of a human being is the difference between (i) and (ii). Conclusion: Humanity needs to immediately swap from "Newton" to "Leibniz". Also from Edison to Tesla. Also the Aether guy. Our calculus is incorrect (Leibniz > Newton): 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.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

We have our sets of qualia for colors. An organism able to see UV or IR, might have a unique sensation of an extra color which can't be described. What is the difference between "feeling" blue or green ? How can we explain it to a color blind alien ? Very organised but "ordinary" matter seems able to have qualia. So I wonder if a star has qualia too which we can't even begin to imagine. If a star forms a structure of plasma reaching into space, is that perhaps the result of free will from the star? Ridiculous idea, rubbish? Perhaps. That formation process is not yet well understood (see link) but it's in theory like everything else the result of deterministic processes, making the sun a complex but predictable machine. I really wonder if it still is at this level of complexity. A star has no very simple nervous system like a jellyfish has and it doesn't move or hunts or needs to hide but perhaps it does nevertheless interact with its environment, even very far away in ways hard to explain. In our brain chemistry seems to slow to explain the binding problem. "In" a star, even light speed seems to slow to explain a comparable binding. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_prominence

[@S3RAVA3LM]

Did the cars engine create the race track, or the very potiential for the race track to be made? To say the brain made consciousness, intellect, life, reason, and everything else that we sense, feel, experience is erroneous; implausible. Did the race car make the driver. Modern science is going to have to acknowledge that by trying to bring the Spiritual, noetic or intelligible realities down here to make since of them obscures or loses the true essence or meaning of, from trying to rationalize, bring to discursive reasoning for logic.

[@scambammer6102]

unlike your Spirit, science has been progressing by leaps and bounds. you just typed that drivel on a machine invented by science.

[@ChuckBrowntheClown]

I think conscience makes brain, the brain making conscience is not the right order.

[@4give5ess]

Brains were made FOR consciousness. The origin is mind. All physical senses channelize awareness towards the illusions of separation, which we call the objective world. Consciousness requires a subject and an obect. You are the subject, the physical world the object. The split is inherent to the dynamic. As long as you believe you're a body, the split will seem true. Enlightenement is the merging of subject and object into one. Thou art that.

[@greatunz67]

All that rambling and he didn't come close to giving an answer that made any kind of sense

[@SeekingI]

Starting with an assumed premise. Correlation/causation.

[@PaulSebastianM]

Could not follow one single train of conscious thought...

[@hershchat]

NOTHING a being does needs or leverages consciousness- first person subjective experience. Consciousness has no evolutionary benefit. For quality control, Robert Kühn (PhD in neuroscience) needs to press for clarity as to “consciousness”. In this interview, the clueless interviewee is talking about a medical-mechanistic definition of consciousness. Responsiveness in a medical sense answers the question: is the subject NOT unconscious. Mechanistic responsiveness is what an automatic door evinces … a door is as conscious of you walking up, as the eye of a movement in the bushes. It’s just a mechanical stimulus-response. An economy responding by inflation to a sudden infusion of cash is as conscious in this sense. That is a dumb definition of consciousness. You and I conscious, we know what consciousness is. Consciousness- the first person subjective awareness of “I am”, and all the subjective qualitative experiences- that has NOTHING to do with medical or mechanical responsiveness. It is purely about apprehending the activities of the mind. There’s nothing that happens in this world that evolutionarily leads to consciousness. An AI automaton, with appropriate general intelligence, can as well navigate the world as can a human. In time, perhaps better. Combine a system that can charge itself and another that can generate and deliver electricity, and you have the beginnings of autonomy. Full autonomy might be 10, 100, or 1000 years away, but it is the principal- in principal, you needn’t invoke first person experience of color blue and the notes So-La-Ti to have an evolutionary advantage. NOTHING a being does needs or leverages first person subjective experience. This needs to be expressly inserted in these discussions of consciousness. This lacking, these are but undergrad ramblings of dilettante interlocutors.

[@hoon_sol]

The claim that "nothing a being does needs or leverages consciousness" is only true if materialism is true, which it quite provably is not, since it can't explain for consciousness at all without invoking explanations that are so contrived that they would approximate dualism or idealism instead. It is not true that consciousness has no evolutionary benefit either; here I would guess you've misinterpreted Kastrup, who correctly identifies that consciousness cannot have evolved, and rather that consciousness is fundamental, but consciousness itself is of great benefit. You're correct, as I also saw you identify in a different thread, that Peter is not talking about consciousness at all, but rather about the electrochemical neurocognitive processing of the brain, but this does not preclude that consciousness does not interface back with the brain somehow, and thus that a being can indeed need and leverage consciousness in myriad different ways.

[@hershchat]

@@hoon_sol thank you for your feedback. Obviously, I cannot prove anything about consciousness. All that one can assert is that all functions that are at first seen to depend upon or benefit from “consciousness”, the first person subjective experience, can be AI driven. Since we have the one bookend of the reasoning mutually accepted to- that the non material consciousness “lends the spark of awareness” to the material being- so that can be a good starting point of the inquiry. The consciousness is said to apprehend the activities (thoughts, emotions, perceptions) of the mind. If the mind apprehends this back, then we end up with infinite regression. Also, this becomes tantamount to two parts of the brain each reporting on the other. Also, if we grant that the consciousness is non-material, and then assert that there is a bidirectional information flow from each to the other- the brain and then consciousness- then we are making the consciousness to be material. The exact sense that it is non-physical is that it is not the object of interaction or influence. That- interaction and influence- is the one and only needed property to be “material”. You don’t need any one or specific combination of mass, energy, charge, form, etc., to be material. Even thoughts are a part of the physical universe. The consciousness is not. I hope I am making sense. However, it more likely that I am wrong than right. This is just what my reasoning has led me to. Thanks for your attention. 🙏🏽

[@hoon_sol]

@@hershchat: You're welcome. I have a few things to address about what you just said as well. You are making sense, but I believe I can clarify a few things for you. First of all, even if one were to assume a bidirectional flow between "immaterial" consciousness and the "material" brain, this would not really necessitate calling consciousness "material", it would rather be tantamount to assuming something along the lines of Cartesian dualism, where these two disparate substrates both coexist and interact with one another. However, I do agree that in this case you would by necessity have to have some common interface between the two, and most likely end up with some dual-aspect monism, but I think calling all of that "material" would not be a very good description considering what that word typically signifies (although at this point of metaphysical thought, the word "material" has arguably already been refined to a such a degree that you could make a case for it). In fact, nothing would stop a metaphysical idealist from claiming the exact opposite, namely that by assuming such an interaction you would be making the body (including the brain) immaterial instead. This is a point that Chomsky has in fact frequently described as being the current state of contemporary physics, i.e. that the word "physical" today only means "more or less what we understand" rather than having any "material" connotations as it used to, humorously pointing out that Newton was trying to exorcise the ghost from the machine, but ended up exorcising the machine instead. Secondly, the assumption that bidirectional flow at the most fundamental level leads to infinite regression is not necessarily correct, because it could also arise as a mutually defined initial condition that bidirectionally works in a process of recursion that at some point terminates. I'm not sure how much experience you have with computer science, but the concept of recursion can be tricky to wrap your head around. Such a recursive process could conceivably go back and forth for countless iterations before finally terminating at last. I'm not saying that this is in fact the truth about our existence, merely clarifying that it would not necessarily lead to infinite regress. However, as you probably correctly identify, even in such a case, this mutual recursive process would itself have to originate somehow, and this is a bigger mystery. Langan himself explains this fundamental substrate of everything as a realm of pure potentiality, where everything is possible, and that reality by virtue of being self-contained must somehow must provide itself with its own means of refining itself from this substrate through such a recursive process. As he writes: *_«According to the Reality Principle, the universe is self-contained, and according to infocognitive monism, it regresses to a realm of nil constraint (unbound telesis or UBT) from which it must refine itself. According to the Telic Principle, which states that the universe must provide itself with the means to do this, it must make and realize its own "choice to exist"; by reason of its absolute priority, this act of choice is identical to that which is chosen, i.e. the universe itself, and thus reflexive. I.e., "existence is everywhere the choice to exist."»_* Again, I'm not saying this indeed true, only pointing to a suggested model for how it would work.

[@hershchat]

@@hoon_sol thank you for the insightful response. I shall reread and think and then respond. I do think the (various) metaphysics shared are at once satisfactory, and lacking parsimony.

[@hershchat]

@@hoon_sol Perhaps it is respectful for me to ask for some clarifications … I want to make sure I am not misapprehending what you mean by CONSCIOUSNESS. Also, is there a point of view you subscribe to, or is it your position that there are several candidate but no ultimate theories of *C*? Do you associate any end with a GUT of *C*- soteriology, for instance? For the sake of transparency, I do believe such an explanation will have a soteriological axis. Consciousness to me is not a noumenon, but a phenomenon. I believe the nature of reality is phenomenal, not noumenal. Why? I believe all duality arises in the knower-knowledge-known distinction. To a Bible person, this would be the Son-Holy G- Father structure. The duality of the trinity (sorry, labored metaphor) is sought to be resolved (“Daddy boy same same” John 17-21) in any Unified metaphysics. The ONE cannot be noumenal. Langan borrows from Eastern thought to posit Existence, “sat” of the Veda, (not a noumenal construct, but rather a phenomenal one) itself as the ground of reality. This is a satisfactory enough formulation to me. He further borrows from the Veda to make this Sat epistemic. In calling it information (the subject of awareness) I believe he makes a logical error. Information necessities a transmitter and a receiver. In Claude Shannon’s formulation, information is not an independent but a dependent construct. Dependent on design lent by the receiver-transmitter paradigm. Think Library of Bable, and extend it thus. If you generate enough languages and readers, you eventually create a language-reader combination in terms of which each book of random characters is meaningful. Any random data set is meaningful if you have suitable receiver transmitter paradigm. This knower-knowledge (information of Langan)-known paradigm is, to my two IQ points, intrinsically dualistic. The Veda is clear that ultimate reality is infinite, existence, and the state of knowing (“consciousness”, or chit. I am rewording it in phenomena terms and trying to use the word “knowledge). Langan does well to borrow this infinitude as “unconstrained” ‘ness. That takes me to being transparent as to my orientation. By consciousness I mean the phenomenon of knowing. It is the dissolution of the distinction between the knower and the known, united by knowledge. That is the nature of reality. Since reality is the One in place of the three (knowing = (knower+knowledge+known), it is therefore non dual. The “infinite” in the Vedic formulation, similar to the unconstrained reality of Langan, is sensible to me as follows. The mergence of knower-knowledge-known, i.e., knowing, is a timeless and intrinsically unconstrained “Present tense” phenomenal reality. The DNA is translated into a person via the known (DNA) transmitting the knowledge (blueprint of Outis) to the knower (the enzymes that assemble the proteins and other corpuscles of the person). The knowledge or information transmitted, while transcribed on a physical vector (the ATGC structure of a double helix), the essential information is non-material. It still belongs in the physical world, but it is language and vector independent. It is only meaningful in the trilemma (knower-knowledge-known). HOWEVER, the trilemma is intrinsically synthetic. What is essential is the consonance that generates meaning (in this case materialized as a “Person”). That essential consonance is free of the attributes of time and space, mass and energy. It is infinite. This infinite IS is phenomenal, (but not an IT, an object) and free of an identity. It is not, however, free of affect. That limits the IT. Consciousness, on the other hand, is free of effect too. Whence my assertion that it has no utility, evolutionary or otherwise. Existence need not be the existence of something- just as blueness need not be the blueness of something. A horse has horseness, but horseness is an independent intuition. A something is an object, and so not unconstrained … UNLESS. Unless it is phenomenal AND epistemic, as in, “SOMETHING’NESS”. The “ness” is the existence-in-consciousness part. Existence not of something, but in something. In consciousness. As consciousness. Of consciousness. Recursive but non contradictory. That is the second issue I have with Langan. His formulation is dependent upon the creation of a reality for evidence of the unbound telesis. He posits a necessary cause of all causes. Which ties the cause to its effects. That is a bound. Take away telic recursion and you disable the IT. Effect dependent Cause isn’t unconstrained. Telesis is a quality, a property. That which has properties is essentially noumenal and, as the Buddha will say, it is “anatta”, temporal. So, how is a REALITY, deprived of effects, to be soteriological? This is the genius of the Truth (the words for REALITY and TRUTH are the same in the Veda, just as “Good” and “God” are cognates in Christianity). While your and my brains are motivating and driving this discussion, our CONSCIOUSNESS, is aware of it. Our minds (while they know that the consciousness is aware of them) are NOT aware. Knowledge, any knowledge, is an activity of the mind. The activity of the mind ceases in deep sleep. And in meditative repose. (That’s what, I believe, Jesus was doing- he was meditating.) The mind has the faculty of knowing. Knowledge, mental activity breaks up this faculty, like ripples break up the reflective surface of a pond. Perfect reflection in a quiet pond is like the quiescence of the mind. When the mirror of the mind has been polished to perfection, i.e., when the minds activities have perfectly ceased, then it is in a state of perfect (undivided) knowing. Perfect knowing is the equivalent of the nature of the great IS. It is phenomenal bliss. It leads to the conclusion, “my real nature is CONSCIOUSNESS”, or that father and the son are one. It liberates, by removing the misidentification with the temporal, and the access to the infinite. The mind is liberated. Not the consciousness. The consciousness is liberation itself. God is Good. It is the state, the phenomena, of knowing. It has no identity. This brings us to the question I believe alternate metaphysics do not address. What other than intellectualizing confirms the Langan metaphysics? It is at best an internally consistent paradigm. It is not necessarily testable. Physics defining the bounds of the empirical metaphysics is axiomatically non-empirical. Except, the Vedic metaphysics is directly verified in that we all are conscious. All that it is ultimately positing is consciousness- as our ultimate reality, and the reality upon which the universe depends. The formulation is: the ultimate reality of our consciousness is non-dual from the ultimate reality because of which the universe exists. The metaphysics that directly rests on consciousness- in a sense the ONLY verifiable reality- is not lacking in realism. I agree that recursion need not be infinite. There needn’t be infinite turtles. Which is the whole point of the Hindu allegory of the turtles. The point is, replicating the noumena doesn’t create awareness. It is a category error. To my little mind, Cartesian dualism is untenable. Monism too is fallacious. To me, non-dualism is the rigorously defensible position. Which takes me to my confession. As a 50 year old Indian man, I am trapped in my antecedents. If my critique of Langan is ornery, please forgive me. Thanks for the greatest gift of all… meaningful contemplation.

[@hoon_sol]

Peter misses the point of what consciousness actually means here. Everything he talks about here is simply in terms of the signal processing of the brain; the brain itself could keep track of a single bird and then command the body to point to it afterward. This doesn't at all answer the question that Lawrence is actually asking (as he always does): why is there a conscious experience of this process taking place?

[@WahrheitMachtFrei.]

So any animal which chooses its prey is conscious? A flycatcher is conscious because it chooses one insect over another...?

[@scambammer6102]

yep

[@shelwincornelia2498]

"Everything we know, think and feel-everything!-comes from our brains. But consciousness remains a mystery". We might as well wait until we know for sure what consciousness really is before drawing any conclusion about where everything we know, think and feel is really coming from.

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

Our brains are just conduits for information to transfer. Information/consciousness can be interrupted by death or anesthesia or can be altered through drugs or other physical interactions.

[@longcastle4863]

Consciousness is just something Nature selected for us to help us better survive and adapt to our environments. It's a product of Evolution.

[@shelwincornelia2498]

@@longcastle4863I have two questions for you, you say nature gave consciousness to us and that consciousness is a product of evolution. My question to you is what is nature and what is evolution without consciousness?

[@longcastle4863]

@@shelwincornelia2498 Without consciousness, of course, there would be no one around to name the phenomenon and history of life on this planet nor the way that life has continued to change, develop and diversify over time. But I would ague that as consciousness is solely a product and property of life, not existing outside of life, the better question is: Where would consciousness be without Nature, life and evolution?

[@shelwincornelia2498]

@@longcastle4863I'm sure you are not gonna agree with this but consciousness is life/existence itself. There is a way to find out and that is by becoming aware of oneself not as a conscious body but as an embodied consciousness/being.

[@dr_shrinker]

Consciousness = memory X experience Freewill is a myth. Consciousness is determined by the physical world. Every thought, every choice we make is the result of 14 billion years of evolution, and our limited lifetime of experience. It is impossible to choose freely, because everything we know comes from our life’s experience, and we know nothing that has not been experienced. If we were truly free to make infinite choices, then we would have to know everything and every reality, including realities we have never experienced. Including all of our lives alternate dimensions and the experiences those lives hold in their memories. But, we are governed by our experience and so are our choices. We cannot choose from infinite possibilities, because we aren’t even aware of all possibilities. Words like “inspiration” hint that the world determines our thoughts, and without experience and memory, consciousness and freewill are rendered void. Just imagine Hellen Keller’s ability to choose and compare her freewill to Stephen Hawking’s. Reality defines both of them and their experiences in life vary greatly. Awareness comes from new experience and how we compare new experience with memories of stored experiences. This is all conscious awareness is.

[@spaceforce2657]

The Human race is a 0.7 civilisation, not a even a planetary civilisation yet, so forget type 1 - 2 - 3 and 4. Your claiming to know what consciousness is. The human race doesn’t even know what dark energy or dark matter is yet. We’re not sure what lies outside the observable universe, We won’t know what it truly is until type 3 - 4. We’re nothing more than glorified primates out the jungle. Don’t claim to know anything. Bigoted dr shrinker. Wouldn’t expect nothing else from a glorified primate 👽.

[@scambammer6102]

well that's closer than the purveyors of woo who tend to haunt this channel. But you haven't disproved "freewill" which may just be an emergent property of life. ("purveyors of woo" should be a band name).

[@francesco5581]

there is one basic flaw in your reasoning... Every living being is unique and the experiences he have are unique no one was ever in the same place. And that create obvious free will actions otherwise everything would stop. Learning and adding experiences is also a free will act otherwise they could be labelled as "waste of time". Also your idea remove randomness ...if you accept determinism you have to accept for it too... and that would remove "experience". Between total freedom of choices and "i plug my finger in my nostril as was decided from the big bang" (that are both impossible and absurd) there is a whole ocean between.

[@francesco5581]

@@dr_shrinker This is a whole bunch of teenagerish thoughts ... Also lower your arrogance, because the universe did already a big disservice to you ...

[@em.1633]

That bird example makes no sense. It's trivial to imagine a non-conscious programmed system that could track and identify a bird.

[@pramodkulkarnica]

While cctv cameras have motion sensors or object identifier machine have sensing abilities some body needs to set priority to it as what to keep track and what to ignore. We humans or even animals seem to do it out of own will. While the eyes and brain can help keep track but there seems some thing that uses this system to prioritise what to track.

[@hansvehof]

Consciousness is why you are you, and why I am not you. I do not think this is part of the present dialogue.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

We are Conscious, Brains are Conscious, all Life-Unit's have their own Eternal Consciousness. The analysis of Consciousness, dont involve 'the brain', that is a different analysis. Mr. Kuhn, got a wrong perspective.

[@RaZziaN1]

If you say that part of brain is conscous u can't really say that whole organ is conscious.

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

Brains are Conscious, have Consciousness, our brains are highly developed beings, they are 'Intelligence-Beings'. Plants are Instinct-Beings, We are 'Stomach-Beings', (Gravity-Beings) Eternal Perspective.

[@kcleach9312]

this guy has had way toooo much coffee!!😆

[@harrywoods9784]

Just a thought, , at the quantum level of reality we are all connected. It’s that connection that we call consciousness🤔IMO

[@mikkelnebelong6136]

It’s not the connection itself that is consciousness. But your comment is the closest to being on the right track. If you are curious about it lookup “the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics” in which consciousness is regarded as fundamental and what causes the collapse of the wave function. And Schrödinger wrote a book which I’m reminded by from your idea of the connectedness, it relates to the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta and the idea of Atman = Brahman.

[@VagabondiOfficialTV]

I wonder what makes brains stupid because there’s so many of them around nowadays ..

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

There is always a degree of noise that accompanies any signal.

[@treasurepoem]

All IMO, information and the brain do NOT and can not create consciousness for the brain is but a mere filter that limits all of our perceptions and THOUGHTS. God's spirit has consciousness, life and it gives us qualia when it dwells in our bodies. It causes us to become conscious and aware of ourselves and of our surroundings through the bodies senses. God's spirit in our bodies creates, runs and sustains our shared consciousness.

[@henkema22]

i do not disagree with most of what he says, but when it comes to the interesting part, the 'planning centers' (his words), he does not deliver

[@rodneycarvalho6052]

I even don't need to see this video: What makes the brain conscious is called: SOUL or SPIRIT; the brain is only a body part.

[@alanbooth9217]

again - describing mechanisms does not elucidate consciousness - the qualia like the taste of garlic are not manifest in physics no matter how much materialist causal chains are explicated

[@Reverend11dMEOW]

Until you folks place Consciousness back where it belong, imbuing and infused by Nothingness at the core of reality, With Nothingness [Magnetic Monopole] (The entirety of Nothingness) the Sink for the circuit while Consciousness [Magnetic Monopole Opposite] (Which is the entirety of all potentiality of everything but Nothingness) becomes the Source. How is it not obvious this is the perfect permanent power source, thus Infinite Test Universes cannot help but pop out of this circuit? You really need to shift gears and shove that Phi right down to the bottom where it belongs.

[@asloii_1749]

LSD is a hell of a drug

[@Reverend11dMEOW]

@@asloii_1749 where am I refuting anything 'discovered' so far. Researchers will never find 'the source of Consciousness' as a function of any brain. Awareness is the best we can lay claim to. Ever wonder why every new leap forward examining what & why & how 'Big Bang came from Nothing' leads to smaller and smaller 'fuzzy stuff down below?

[@waldwassermann]

This has already been addressed. There is only one consciousness. We may call it universal- or cosmic consciousness or god or self; it's all good.

[@scambammer6102]

well you can call it that but it isn't

[@waldwassermann]

@@scambammer6102 I look forward to hearing your opinion.

[@scambammer6102]

@@waldwassermann That was it. What is asserted without evidence can be denied without evidence.

[@waldwassermann]

@@scambammer6102 Truth is Self Evident is it not?

[@hoon_sol]

@@waldwassermann: Yes; and there's absolutely nothing self-evident about any claim you made. In face, what seems self-evident is the diametric opposite, namely that there exists countless consciousnesses. I know that I only have access to a particular consciousness, and since I observe countless people who look roughly familiar to me and seem to have similar cognitive processes to mine, the natural assumption for me would be that they are conscious too. I can of course not be sure of this, since I don't have direct access to their consciousnesses as I do to my own, but it's a fair assumption, and the contrary is very clearly not self-evident whatsoever.

[@voiceofreason1829]

Consciousness have to do with how many circuits and how good they are connected in our brain. More connections mean they can comunicate better and share much more information between em. Denser the mass of brain, more aware we are and our brians "fire" better.

[@callistomoon461]

So if we make a computer complex and dense enough, it becomes conscious…. Uh, no.

[@voiceofreason1829]

@@callistomoon461 computer needs orders to operate, we don't. But computer can make huge operations because of complex programs

[@rotorblade9508]

I don’t find the claims very convincing, only hypotheses I think a way to find out how consciousness occurs is the classical way, simply analyze as many details as possible about the brain but also trying to use computer models with neural networks. It’s interesting that neural networks use neurons that work very similarly to real neurons except the real network is tuned during millions of years of evolution while AI is tuned by mathematical optimization over many samples for certain purposes and have different network architectures. There are virtual networks but there are also applications that use physical networks of electronic neurons.

[@PeruanoEnTurquia]

We are all a simulation

[@kevinmo8811]

He doesn’t know 😂

[@elitisthavoc3949]

We are beings of light given this human form by the Creator. Science is now proving this. People can reject it all they want but it’s true.

[@Raj0520]

Why do u even click these videos??? U are as unscientific as one can get.

[@IFYOUWANTITGOGETIT]

There is no singular independent entity that created existence. There are no such thing independent entities. There are only degrees of dependence, potentials that transfer information. People that believe in gods and objective good and evil never stop to ask the question “who depends on who more? Does god depend on worshipers and followers, or do worshipers and followers really depend on a god, as proclaimed by other men speaking through an ancient book written by men?” Lol

[@Traderhood]

That was fairly useless statement.

[@scambammer6102]

you mean like Thomas Kinkade?

[@Azupiru]

Just another metaphysician trying to pull free will out of a hat. "Voluntary." lol

[@ChuckBrowntheClown]

"Conscience comes from information." The KJV Bible, the word of God, is filled with information.

[@ZenRyoku]

it is not the brain that is conscious... ... but the individual... 💯

[@engelbertus1406]

only consciousness is conscious, all the rest is just feedback loops and make beliefs

[@ZenRyoku]

@@engelbertus1406 consciousness emplies a sentient being, being aware of itself. Some further speculate that a conscious sentiment being is aware they will die at some point (and im not talking about just being on the brink of death from illness or impending immediate death)

[@engelbertus1406]

@@ZenRyoku imho I view reality as an interface for consciousness to express itself in - nothing is separate, it’s all one interface. the local human interface is capable of producing the perspective of a Self or individual, or a subject that relates to objects, for the interface this is a tool to create interactions within its own framework. But this practical approach to separateness, it being a tool for interaction, does not imply that on the level of truth - this temporarily disguise as a self or individual ( the level of which it manifests, is also a cultural or programming condition) is just one of infinite connected expressions of consciousness. Consciousness does not need to exist, because it is that which turns existence on, be it a brain a bug or a stone. The human interface can appear to die, but this is a human concept to a deeper process of matter. There is still the interface of a dead body which interacts with its environment - from the point of view of a conscious reality: the dead body is still a matrix of information and interactions that take place within the consciousness field

[@mikel4879]

If this is the way you understand the material process called consciousness, then you'll get to the creation of the full Artificial Consciousness in the year 3000.

[@jewulo]

What is your criticism exactly? Can you elaborate on it?

[@mikel4879]

Joshua E / The exhaustive answer would be too big for a KZbin channel text. I'll try to condense it very tight and text it back to you at a later time ( I'm sorry, I'm extremely busy right now, but I'll do it the moment I got enough time 🙁✌️).

[@marcosbatista1029]

materialism is baloney, consciousness makes brains .

[@kylebowles9820]

Cart before the horse

[@scambammer6102]

stop eating and see what happens to your consciousness

[@Zzennobi]

Yeah so "bla bla bla, I dont understand what conciousness is, bla bla bla".

[@chayanbosu3293]

Our subjective first person experience can not be explained by only neural firings because if conciousness creates by neural firings then we are not responsible our past deeds not only that we can not explain moral values but also then their is no objective reality.

[@kylebowles9820]

We are responsible for the past, there is no objective morality (takes 5 seconds to figure out from first principals unless you're encumbered by religion) and there is no objective reality, that's the whole controversy of quantum mechanics.

[@scambammer6102]

your argument is a non sequitur, among other problems

[@davidaemayhew]

Scientists are philosophically naive.

[@georgegrubbs2966]

I would rather you not "shoot the bird." Consciousness evolved by following natural selection. As consciousness evolved, those populations of life forms that had on average some level of consciousness, survived longer and reproduced more than those life forms that did not have that level of consciousness. Tse gives a good description of how the brain produces consciousness.