What is Consciousness?

What on Earth (or the universe) is consciousness? What is it that makes the stuff between our ears work in such a way as to produce subjective experiences? In this video we explore what the meaning of consciousness is, its philosophical development, theories that attempt to explain it, and if it can even be reproduced artificially.
One of the most frustrating, fascinating and mind-bending topics that we cover here on Turtles all the way down!
Please help support my efforts at bringing these great topics to you by simply SUBSCRIBING to this channel and watching and enjoying these videos. I thank you very much.
*************
CREDITS: ------------------
Background Image: By Derivative work: Pbroks13Original: Jennifer Garcia (Reverie) - Image:Cartesian Theater.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.5, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Nagle Paper: www.jstor.org/stable/2183914
Papers: www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pd...,
Jackson, Frank. 1986. “What Mary Didn’t Know”, Journal of Philosophy, 83, 291-5,
www.ida.liu.se/divisions/hcs/...,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...,
findit.dtu.dk/en/catalog/537f...,
link.springer.com/chapter/10....
CONTENTS OF VIDEO:
0:00 Introduction
0:35 Defining Consciousness
1:43 Philosophical History
4:28 The HARD Problem
8:42 Research
9:06 Theories of Consciousness
13:55 Artificial Consciousness
**********************************
Links to my 3 books on physics:
Volume 1:
"Everyone's Field Guide to Physics: Volume I: The Familiar World": www.amazon.com/Everyones-Fiel...
Volume 2:
"Everyone's Field Guide to Physics: Volume II: The Ethereal Trinity": www.amazon.com/Everyones-Fiel...
Volume 3:
"Everyone's Field Guide to Physics: Volume III: The Unfamiliar World": www.amazon.com/Everyones-Fiel...

[@williamburts5495]

I think consciousness is more subtle than internal impressions that we feel ( qualia )because the " self " can be conditioned by what it experiences in life.. What Am I? Answer: I Am that which allows me to know that " I Am " therefore I am a unit of self-awareness because to be aware is to be self-aware.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

That which allows you to know that you are, itself is not aware of doing such thing, nor it's existence. The brain is more like an interface for consciousness.

[@infinitygame18]

What is Consciousness? is the Question the Consciousness asking all mind from decades but in reality consciousness never have excess to understand self through material mind , reality is beyond mind , consciousness can only understand self when its pure in nature from mind the chatterer , Pure & lighter Conciousness is God while heavy material consciousness become or called a mind , Fundamentally all is one Reality

[@volkanvutichnotes]

❤❤❤❤

[@superconscious.]

After dropping all those big names and stroking their egos....What exactly is consciousness again?

[@TurtlesWayDown]

@superconscious., I can only present what the current state of knowledge on the topic is. No one yet knows the answer. I certainly don't. These big name scientists are those who have been working on the problem for decades. They seem to be getting closer to an understanding, but obviously no consensus yet exists on an answer.

[@williamburts5495]

Descartes said " I think, therefore I Am" but to me the truth is, " I Am, therefore I think."

[@BugRib]

But couldn't you exist without thinking? 🤔

[@williamburts5495]

@@BugRib In deep sleep there is no thought because the mind has no objects to focus on like it has in wakefulness and dream states but still the conscious self exist in that state because if someone were to whisper in your ear " wake up " or if they were to touch you you would wake up.

[@BugRib]

@@williamburts5495 - Yeah, I actually suspect that even in dreamless sleep, there is still content in our awareness (i.e. qualia), but our brains just don’t lay down memory of it. Actually, I think even in death, there is still experience, perhaps a more expansive experience of reality that is not constrained by a brain…

[@SmileyEmoji42]

To which the obvious counter is that when you are not thinking, such as when drugged, asleep or unconscious, you are not, i.e. you do not exist. This seems ridiculous unless you adopt an unintuitive definition of being or oine that is equivalent to thinking which makes one of the two words unnecessary and your argument a tautology

[@BugRib]

Nice video! But I don't agree that IIT is even trying to _explain_ consciousness. It's really only a theory of what kinds of physical states _correlate_ with consciousness. In other words, even if IIT was somehow proven to be correct, it still wouldn't explain _why_ those physical states correlate with conscious experiences. And really, under standard physicalism, these states can't just be said to _correlate_ with experiences; rather, they must _just be_ experiences--a claim which, to me, straightforwardly violates the most fundamental principle of logic, the law of identity.

[@BugRib]

Same for Global Workspace Theory and every other "theory of consciousness". None of these theories, even if somehow proven correct, would actually _explain_ consciousness. None of them even touch the Hard Problem of Consciousness, and none ever will because it's impossible in principle. All we can ever hope to do is speculate about the metaphysical (and _necessarily_ non-physical) nature of conscious experience. IMHO. (BTW, I personally lean towards some kind of metaphysical idealism, or perhaps cosmopsychism.)

[@TurtlesWayDown]

@BugRib I agree, the "theories of consciousness" discussed, with one seeming exception, only helps explain correlations and may help in determining the existence of conscious states. The one exception on offer that I can see that comes close to an explanation is pansychism. But it, too, has its problems and critics as well.

[@BugRib]

@@TurtlesWayDown - Yeah, I think panpsychism is a step in the right direction, but I think single-subject idealism is more parsimonious and doesn’t have the “Hard Problem” of how zillions of tiny, simple subjects combine into a unified, seemingly unitary subject. And idealism’s “Hard Problem” of _de-combination_ seems to be explainable in the same way Dissociative Identity Disorder (i.e. split personality) might be explained…assuming DID is a real thing anyway, haha. Philosopher of mind Bernardo Kastrup has a lot to say about all this, and his writing is extremely clear and accessible, unlike so much philosophical writing-even his academic papers. He kind of converted me to idealism at a time when I thought some kind of substance dualism was the only answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. 👻 =/= 🧠 ;)

[@boomiboom3900]

But is information physical? My point is, that decartes viewpoint might not be that wrong after all. Maybe its even the other way around and the physical is a subset of the metaphysical and information is more fundamental than matter. Matter could be just information too and the universe might be virtual and information based

[@williamburts5495]

I think awareness is something more subtle than information since to describe something as information it must flow along the stream of awareness or consciousness for it to be known as such.

[@lucofparis4819]

"But is information physical?" he writes, on the very physical Information Exchanger 9000, while his neurons were busy firing countless electrochemical messages across his brain as usual. Descartes didn't live at a time when humans knew how to send information encoded on invisible, untouchable, yet very physical carrier radio waves, nor was he alive when the WiFi was invented a century later. Some humans are now busy developing quantum computers as we speak, and there you are, wondering if information is physical. As a side note, we've also become somewhat adepts at using various drugs to effect consciousness in many different ways by... effecting the neurons in the brain. Information is a particular pattern that's purposely made intelligible, and compatible with some means of communication. _The exact same information may be encoded in vastly different forms._ Because the substrate matters very little, so long as the same pattern can be made intelligible with it, even if the technique used is fundamentally different from other methods. Signal bursts sent in a metal wire intermixed with no signals are quite different from a mix of chemicals called ink poured on paper in some arbitrary shape that we've agreed convey some more or less specific meaning. Again, information is what we make of it, nothing more or less than whatever pattern we come up with, pattern which we can duplicate in a wide variety of ways, because the substrate doesn't matter that much, so long as we can find some method to make it convey this agreed upon pattern. Some forms of information evolved naturally (e.g. nervous information). Some other forms of information evolved culturally (e.g. spoken or sign language). And yet other forms didn't evolve at all, we made them up very deliberately, and they worked just as well (encryption, yet other languages, computing, quantum computing, and even artificial nerve signals). www.science.org/content/article/new-artificial-nerves-could-transform-prosthetics news.stanford.edu/2018/05/31/artificial-nerve-system-gives-prosthetic-devices-robots-sense-touch/ Long story short, it's been demonstrated six years ago that it's possible to send sensory experience directly to the brain. Other experiments have shown how it was possible to trigger a variety of subjective experiences of a spiritual nature using... a physical device effecting the brain with magnetic fields. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15368379009027758 Not to mention the various medical cases such as split brains which further illustrate the strong correlation between this thing we call consciousness and the brain, as well as countless clear instances of causation going from brain to consciousness. Although is doesn't show that this relationship cannot go both ways, at the very least it shows rhat these are not separate substances, since they _physically_ interact with each other. In other words, dualism is false, and Descartes would have probably agreed, if he had access to the wealth of knowledge we now have.

[@williamburts5495]

@@lucofparis4819 What is using the information and why is it using it?

[@benc8747]

Consciousness is one's ability to recognize pattern and discern meaning from events taking place in one's self and in the realm the self exists.

[@SmileyEmoji42]

That's just sweeping the difficulty under the rug with the words "recognize" and "discern" and "meaning". You have multiplied your poorly understood or defined terms by 3. Occam would not be impressed.

[@SmileyEmoji42]

Wake up commenters! Whatever your definition of consciousness is, it cannot be any more right than anyone else's unless it explains observations in the real world better or is so commonly understood that it is the de facto definition. There is no god of dictionaries that you can appeal to.

[@vovoer]

We ALL share the same consciousness and let me explain to you why : If we were to come and split your brain, where would "you" be ? You would be correct to say you would be living in both of those brains but being incapable of seeing what your other brain think or sense. If we would to destroy one of the half of your brain, would you say you are dead ? Of course not, you would continue living in your other half brain. And since there is no difference between 2 brains split after their birth and 2 brains split before their birth, we can only deduce from that that the death of a brain is not the death of the continuity of the experience of a person but simply that this brain stop existing but us, or should we say, "I" continue living through the other brains that we have. We are one.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

why can't there be more than one consciousness?

[@vovoer]

@@lonesomealeks4206 otherwise you can't explain the continuity of existence of your self if you get cryod, you're dead, but then you get revived 1000 years later, you're alive. Is the consciousness habitating your brain another one ? No it's the same, with the memories of your old brain.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

@@vovoer confusing argument. See, there are different levels and different kinds of consciousness. Since there is difference between yours and mine, this already proves there are two, that are not the same. By that i don't just mean memories in our brains, consciousness can expand or shrink.

[@vovoer]

@@lonesomealeks4206 you're wrong. The difference between us come from our memories. Would we connect our brain like those joined sisters at birth our consciousness would be one.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

@@vovoer Okay, but, unless we connect, we are not one. Compare consciousness to water. Pour one glass of water into the ocean and it becomes one with the ocean. Take water from the ocean and it assumes the shape of something else, which is not the ocean.

[@williamburts5495]

Take away awareness and nothing could be known, so we can say consciousness is the basis of knowledge itself and is therefore " knowledge " itself.

[@SmileyEmoji42]

Your argument is circular based on your implied definition of knowledge.

[@alexmirza5210]

Consciousness is just response to sensory input including language (other animals rely on more different sounds, pitches and posture). It is just more developed in humans than say fish. So there will he "higher" levels of consciousness as the processing and communication ability of the brain evolves over many generations to make better use of the (ever more diverse) input. Not in all though.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

not really. processing information does not result in consciousness.

[@alexmirza5210]

It must be interlinked with memory and the physiology of the brain. It evolved selectively just like the other organs.

[@lonesomealeks4206]

You are not talking about consciousness, but brain capacity. A bigger, more capable brain may have evolutionary advantages, consciousness has none I'm aware of.