So he basically starts with denying the hard problem of consciousness, then goes on to describe a machine that procedurally mimics human behaviour, and believes this would be consciousness. Really sad to see people not getting the simple fact that behaviour is not the same thing as inner experience.

I think Andy Clark's line of enquiry is a good one. He is trying to solve the meta problem of consciousness. That is, why do we think consciousness is mysterious in the first place. And I think it might be possible to build a mind from first principles, just from understanding what a mind needs to do (from a functional point of view) and evolutionary pressures. e.g. a mind would need to construct an inner 'model' of the world and of the self.

I love Robert's questions

Love is all that matters.

That shirt he's wearing might be conscious.😂

One thing is for sure, consciousness is NOT purely limited to the body. I have had various Out of Body Experiences throughout my life (without taking illegal substances, I might add), and I was able to travel beyond my body and see things which I could not have seen had I not actually been there in some form. I wonder if Quantum Physics has an explanation for this (Entanglement). Somehow our awareness is "non-local" and seemingly can travel away from the physical body. I would've considered this impossible once, until I had my own experiences, which I am pretty confident were not illusions.

Andy could have summed up his view on this question in 2 seconds by simply saying: I DON"T KNOW.

We seem more afflicted with consciousness than endowed with it.

Maybe consciousness happens like the receptors in our nose for smelling where different experiences only line up and fit with the right “shapes” to distinguish between them and somehow through the process of the receptors receiving the signals and the brain processing or translating these signals generates consciousness. That and the ability to store information and to access that information again.

There are specific cases that could be studied to get closer to the truth of Robert's questions here, but to just ask some one from an established field to comment in general about such exceptional ideas is definitely asking for someone to rely purely on imaginative speculation.

Get with it Establishment Materialists-Consciousness is primary!

Can you imagine doing Acid with this dude.

I love these consciousness videos with all these experts. Robert should make a series or at least ask questions regarding consciousness and Artificial Intelligence. We could be at the brink of new paradigm shift in human history. We should be asking the right questions now. I hope all this talk about consciousness and souls, will lead to new questions, when the talk involves A.I. I really hope you will implement it at some point. It is very relevant.

Free energy minimization rules! And feelings rule free energy! I just know it!

What am I?Answer: I am that which allows me to know that" I exist" or therefore "be" therefore being a conscious knower is what consciousness is.

An information system

What if one, rather than trying to “understanding“ “what“ consiusness is- one could have an “open“ mind, where perceived perception of reality shapes the experience of existence in the now? For consciousness to be experienced- must it be “understood“? If a thought can be perceived by perception, is the thought the “root“ of the experience of existence, in perspective? In the moment, maybe concepts like perception, awareness and *put in the blanks, absolutely anything you can think of*- it's all parts of the experience of existence in the everlasting present? “The unthinkable“ to the “impossible“- and anything believed should maybe not be limited by indoctrination of explaining one's personal- or collective understanding of “what is“- and by being totally “free“ from though, does perceived perception of existence in the moment, no matter what the experience- one is not merely observing from perspectives- one and everything perceived is existence. One can dive deep down the rabbit hole- that can also be perceived, at any moment, in the present moment- now. Regardless of what the observer perceives at any given moment, right or wrong, why, how, to what cause is still- no “matter“ *put in the blanks*- is- now. Only because you understood, you misunderstood? All I know is that I don't understand anything, and personally I “belive“ that awareness is simple and also beyond comprehension. Eternities within and beyond the spark of electricity- in frequencies within frequencies, overlapping from “nothing“ to “anything“. Regardless of one's opinion on the matter- perceived perception of existence is “now“, all ways, “allways“ by the observer? I was going to say- hope you're having a great time experiencing existence in the moment, then I reflected on it from other perspectives, “disconnected“ from though- and then thought, what is a “thought“? Why, what, how and to what consequential degree has it anything to do with existence? Therefore I ask you- how do you perceive existence in awareness? ❤ *Fill in the blanks* ❤

those that say there is no hard problem of consciousness are certainly not conscious of their own experiences. I think consciousness exists outside the brain like WiFi and the brain is a receiver.

Robert shined here with excellent questions.. In my humble opinion, Andy is almost certainly giving us a glimpse of what drives consciousness.. Simple, direct, and nothing supernatural required..

Finally a straightforward defense of commonsense approach to consciousness in the era of panpsychism fad.

7:25 we still have to solve whether consciousness is a product of structure or a property of matter itself 🤔

Dark matter plays an important role because it is the foundation of existence and all particles depend on its wave functions and vibration something similar to the way the ocean foundation works for all sea animals and the ocean also comes with its own wave functions as well. And all sea animals are able to communicate through a digital network of electrons that convert particle information into waves. All this is possible because dark matter is the foundation that holds everything together for existence to grow.

Note that Andy Clark is a physicalist who thinks there is no hard problem, and Dave Chalmers is the foremost proponent of the hard problem as a fundamental issue. Nevertheless, this difference hasn't been any obstacle to their very fruitful collaboration on the concept of extended consciousness. It's a great example of how having different opinions, even on contentious and foundational issues in a field, doesn't have to define our relationships.

There is only one word for both consciousness and awareness in Indian languages , looks like semantics has confused a lot of people . If we stick to just things we are sure about, life becomes simpler. We know if we are aware of not,.for sure. We know an anaesthetic can reduce awareness of pain and also it's memory. Why not leave it at that ? Why the need to dig into a word that was created long time in the past and is most likely to be pointer to nothing

Wasn't this interviewer in like every single Woody Allen movie?

I always say consciousness evolved just like everything else , we were aware of our surroundings at initial stages to survive the wild, now we are just more aware of our surroundings at a larger scale and have more time to explore as we live at top of the food chain.

I would ask different question, how our conciousness works when we're sleeping or when someone is in coma for many years or after the injury? And if conciousness lives after body dies and if conciousness is a spirit/ghost of us after death?

The means of explaining all the things we say and do will be schematic, mechanical, it won't provide a birds-eye view of the entirety of the organism. It will attempt to abstract aspects of it to a schema. This does indeed look like begging the question as it's saying 'we'll understand consciousness when we've understood everything about beings that are conscious', but the hard problem of consciousness precludes that complete understanding.

So, how long before AI becomes self-conscous? Might have been an interesting question to ask modern experts about the phenomena of consscoussnesss.

Andy believes that a complete scientific explanation of consciousness is conceivable, and that if such was actually discovered, that the hard problem could go away. Using such a theory you ought to be able to observe and measure the world around you, and detect where conscious existed and where it didn’t, maybe you could even build a machine to detect it. So you take this detector into a room with a bunch of people and it lights up whenever you point it at one of the people, including yourself. Now this is the question: If the detector tells you that the conditions for consciousness exist all around the room, why do you only experience your own, why don’t you experience the consciousness of the other people in the room, what is the difference between here and there such that your particular consciousness attached to your particular body and not to the others? You can tell when someone is talking about the easy problem when they talk about consciousness as an observable fact, like when Andy talks about explaining in minute detail the observations of human being, like when he postulates that if a robot could perfectly mimic a person that it must also experience consciousness. But that’s not the hard problem. The hard problem recognizes that all the other facts in the world, including observations of other people awareness, are contained in the one fact of your conscious experience. The hard problem is not to explain why consciousness exists in the outside world but why it exists in you. I kind of accept that there is a neural correlate of consciousness, that consciousness is tightly bound to the arrangements of matter. But correlation is not equality. The best explanation in the world still can’t explain the uniqueness of you.

Everyone has sophisticated eyes but one needs light to see thing in dark space. Similarly I would expect although one has sophisticatedly structured brain but surely in needs of "something" to recognise and/or to feel information within the information signal. That "something" @ conscious agent brings consciousness.

You are not 'born' into a body. You are a body born into the world.

Hmm, this just side-steps the hard problem of consciousness.

Our senses are the filters on all possible incoming information. But consciousness preceeds language, because a baby handing me my car keys, and taking them back, is learning "to" and " from " and these presuppose " me " and " everyone else ". After that, it hurts my head to think about it 😊

Does Consciousness still exist without Life on Earth ?

All reductionists end up being snared in circularity. So, for instance, they want to talk about the sensory but without the least suggestion of integral consciousness. They do this by making untenable leaps from what in AI or robotics is called “sensory” to what we actually experience as sensory. Our ordinary use of that word involves consciousness whereas the so-called “sensory apparatus” of a robot does not. Their arguments amount to a succession of ill-founded, unwarranted analogical jumps, all while trying to conceal their circular premise. It’s quite puerile really, a sort of modern variation on animism.

Quantum Information and Quantum Entanglement....are Fundamental.

Theses are old but still worth watching

What is unconsciousness and more importantly, what causes it ? Well, in my case, drinking too much.

At 00:23 Robert introduces embodied mind, which must surely be the most important development in the history of our life sciences. Why? Because, short-form: bodies wire brains. Long-form: experiences intercepted by bodies wire neuroplastic, DNA-entangled brains. At 2:04, Andy Clark introduces predictive brain (I take it this is an Anil Seth reference). On this I have some disagreement. Predictive brain, if I've interpreted Seth correctly, is a Bayesian inference metaphor. This cannot be correct, imho. Association (semiotics of CS Peirce) is the essential universal principle that explains the cognitive processes of all conscious agents, from amoebae in ponds, to ants in colonies, to neurons in brains, to people in culture. The neo-Darwinian notion of a prewired bran-in-a-vat with its functional specializations etched into its DNA is an egregious pile of nonsense. Beginning around 3:01 Robert hits the nail on the head, why - it's because *so many* belief systems throughout the world have failed to grasp the implications of embodied mind... not just brains in vats but also souls in heaven. At 4:15 that keyword - neural plasticity. At 5:05 - "how we bring the world into view". Yup, indeed. *Everything* that we know - including space and time - we know through the body's engagement with the world, and its wiring of the neuroplastic brain. The neuroplastic brain is a *colony* of neurons, not a computer of circuits. At 6:55 Robert introduces "the mentality starting that" (the predisposition to immerse in simulations). What Robert is alluding to here is the human mind-body's predisposition to language and cultural cognition. Our human mind-bodies, with tongues with which to speak and hands with which to manipulate, predispose us to a cultural richness that other kinds of mind-bodies can never share (intelligent corvids with beaks and intelligent elephants with trunks are pretty smart, but I can't see them getting into simulations). At 7:50 - qualia is mentioned. Qualia cannot be understood properly in the absence of association. Factor Peircean association in with Clark's embodied mind thesis, and we have the beginnings of a most important breakthrough for the life sciences. At 9:26 - "It becomes conceptually incoherent to defend the zombie intuition..." Ok, here we come up against my earlier objection to the predictive Bayesian-inference model. The Bayesian inference algorithm implies that you CAN simulate consciousness. The semiotic association principle, by contrast, implies that you cannot. Why? Because association implies the attribution of meaning, and meaning-attribution, by definition, cannot be simulated. In summary, I side with Clark's deflationary take - yes, the "hard" problem of consciousness is definitely overrated. The semiotic theory of CS Peirce should, imho, be the next crucial step in softening the hard problem, to make it even more accessible. That's my 2-cents for this paradigm-busting topic.

Give to Caesar what's Caesar's. Andy is here completely right.👍👍 Even if his explanation doesn't give the exact practical method to fully manufacture the conscious process artificially now, he is very good in understanding partially how it works correctly.

He cannot distinguish what is really conscious from what only appears to be conscious, and yet he thinks he can explain consciousness!

all the tiring hustle , all are thinking they are doing , is done by consciousness, but consciousness knows all things about existence, its just playing with the mind and brain of so called humans , the root is in the understanding the language model & its understanding with brain & mind , the day when anyone truly & intellectually understand the relationship between words & their meaning , all search is over , rest are the fooling system of higher consciousness to overrule the lovver consciousness,, O 13th February Great God M Day celebration

TOMMRROW IS MY DAY , N IS SAYING TO M , I AM NOBODY,NOBODY LOVES EVERY ONE, HAPPY VALENTINES DAY , ALL MY AMORE IN LOVE💗14 FEBRUARY TO ALL MY GOD MOTHERS & FATHERS,

Could it be that Consciousness is very easy to understand, model, and predict? Could Consciousness be a good definition of life? Could Consciousness be the source of intelligence?

“If we build a robot.” The robot did not build itself? It needed a higher intelligence to build it. Why?

Maybe consciousness evolved through many things working together for a very long time and evolving different purposes for different parts which were necessary to its survival or was related to repetition of certain activities performed over an extended period of time causing adaptation. Also maybe the ability to communicate at the microscopic level with a certain level of efficiency. Maybe there is a so called “Planck” set of requirements for consciousness to develop. Point is, if working together helped us evolve consciousness, maybe to further evolve our consciousness we need to bring our consciousnesses closer or together or in sync with others somehow and are unable to do it alone. If microbes never began working together, we wouldn’t be here now.

You have to ask your self what is driving dark energy, if not dark matter itself. The answer will be all particles. And what is dark energy moving around inside. The answer will be it is moving around inside Dark matter which is the one and only foundation for all things to grow and bond together inside of. Dark matter is the one and only main source that creates vibration and waves for all particles to help them send their signals when they need to come together or respond through communicating between each other for better creativity an knowledge and workmanship and for keep a tight Bond. There is no greater supporting than dark matter. Dark matter is also embedded into all particles since the beginning of their creation similar to a child that has the same DNA of it mother. This dark matter DNA inside all particles is one wave function that connects all particles through dark matter vibrations and wave functions triggered by each particle which gave rise to digital information above the world of particles to be pass through dark matter wave and vibrations fields.

1:15 "I think that if we could explain why it is that we say and do all the things that we say and do... then we would have solved the problem." That's a big if. By the same token, IF we could explain why it is that the Universe does all the things that it does... then we would have solved the problem. Since we can only very partially explain *how* it is that we say and do all the things that we say and cannot explain *why* we say and do these things, such approach is unrealistic at best and nonsensical at worst.

Anyone who has an inner life can't take his position seriously. It amounts to a simple denial of reality.

If a virus is conscious as it reacts to information coming from environment, then an ant is conscious so is the andromeda galaxy and universe is conscious. Being a living organism should not be a basic criterion. Consciousness is a species-based reaction against information which is equal to information contained in universe which travels back and forth faster than light.

You are God playing hide and seek with itself 😉

8:32 God, please no! Just not robots that will behave like humans !!! ;)

Consciousness is self awareness. It is not a big mystery as some people make it to be. A body becomes self aware of its environment and itself when it has sensors with an internal computing system. We have several sensors so we are more aware than a coke machine that can sense and respond to a coin and a pulled lever to put out a coke. It is a very low manifestation of consciousness. Now let's make a big deal of this and get confused. 😂😂😂

I dont think this guy understands the distinction between subject and object very well. First he denies consciousness. Then he goes on to say that a machine could be conscious. Lol dubious af

Robert wants god, Andy is sticking with reality.

I think Consciousness is how information feels when it's being processed in complex ways such as when the brain conducts complex calculations in its attempt to make sense of the word around it. **Settles down to watch video**

Meditation is the language for deeper interaction with consciousness.

Do robots dream?

Genetics, environment and memory condition consciousness.

So, basically he has no clue. Whatsoever.

I thought Sid Vicious died.

There will be no life and death of the body in first place if conciousness can not survive without living body, even it may not the same form of same conciousness from before.

Utterly baseless nonsense - love it 😁

It must all be consubstantial, there is no other way. Corporeal organism or body, the consciousness thereof sense perception organs and their faculties and activities are contingent and circumscribed to that body; as they arisen in time, too, dies in time. Consciousness(Turiya) as a predicate for Brahman is logical; rendered in english as 'consciousness'. Is okay. Consciousness as predicate for God implies: a type of awareness, all pervasive, simple, peerless, pure, indivisible, unalloyed, non dual, subtle, and so on. Ultimately, all must be of this One, the Source. Consubstantial.

Whos consciousness? Life tries all possibilities and you are just one of those. The real question is who built the framework for something rather than nothing. Just like dice, someone built the dice.

He shows his concept about conscieusness is keep out consistency neurosience sentence. It is rambling and show conscieusness with bluff proceendings. He doesnt knows nothing about conscieusness neurosience proceendings. Nothing absolutetly.

I don’t understand why you insist on taking the shine away from the actual guest, every time I look at the TV you are staring into the camera making sure they are focused on you. Super annoying

"What is Consciousness?" By the look of Andy Clark's hairs, I suspect he is not conscious.. 😂 Seriously, No One knows the elemental components of Awareness that is why Consciousness still remains the biggest mystery in science. This hints Consciousness is NOT PHYSICAL... Consciousness' ability to focus and be aware, with the freedom to decide what is the right choice to make among many choices, can not be a property of physical things that are slaves to physical natural laws, not free.... otherwise physics or physical laws is nothing but "pure science garbage" if matter can make free choices on its own.. ...and because these ability to be aware with free choice, can not be considered property of physical things, then this ability can only belong to a NON- PHYSICAL EXISTENCE that I believe is our free immortal souls who are part of the Holy Spirit. In other words, in this physical world, only humans can be conscious because we have free immortal souls. Yes, of course, humans have conscious immortal souls who are the free observing SUBJECT that receives what the physical brain conveys be it dreams, thoughts, pain and pleasure, emotions, etc., which serve as the OBJECTS being perceived.. Without the aware soul, you are nothing but PHYSICAL SLAVES of Nature, no different from animals that are just driven by natural instincts beyond control, not free and so not accountable, or just like an AI or any Computer driven by a program.. People who do not think they have souls would likely become extreme leftists who think "FREE WILL to CHOOSE" does not exist because they believe that Darwin's IGUANA is their Original Mama, just evolving driven by nature.... but then, mysteriously march in the streets, screaming on top of their lungs, demanding freedom and human rights while thinking they have no free will to choose freedom, like an incoherent funny clowns... sigh... Godlessness can damage your IQ without you even noticing it... so, be very careful when making a choice ..