Don't you enjoy listening to these guy's verbally thrash out their differences,so much passion!!

This was actually pretty comprehensive and one of the better and simpler conversations about consciousness.

This was brilliant. I've not heard someone talk so well about a physicalist position on consciousness. It was kind of funny watching Robert Kuhn respond from an irresistible dualist position, although Carroll perhaps set him up for that by agreeing with the idea of being able to "upload yourself". His explanation of the detail refutes that, at least as it relates to how that expression is usually thought of (because it is inherently dualistic, suggesting that there's an entity, "your self", that is put somewhere else). With that bubbling around in Kuhn's unconscious, he can then start imagining that the new copy being "identical" must mean it has Carroll's unique personhood, hence he's confused because then he thinks there are two Sean Carrolls. If he just thought about disassembling an apple molecule by molecule, yet copying each into a new apple, he'd not argue that the two apples being "identical" are therefore just one apple in two places. They're necessarily made of different actual atoms; only their type and arrangement are identical. So really, you can't "upload yourself" because you have no "self", but you can copy the physical state to create a facsimile. Actually, all the neurons isn't enough, since a brain unsupported by a body will die immediately, and one without any senses won't have a similar conscious experience, so the whole body would need to be copied. And immediately, it would begin having different experiences.

I think the movie “The Prestige” gives an interesting take on this. The surviving clone always is the one who never experienced their own death. It doesn’t matter if consciousness does not “jump”, it doesn’t need to- as the survivor will have the continuous subjective experience that includes everything up to the branch.

Sooo much fun. Put a smile on my face, literally and figuratively.

In Robert’s neuron copy scenario: by what Robert means by “you”, the original dies. By what Sean means by “you”, it lives on in the copy. I’m a physicalist, and it’s hard even for me to not talk dualistically about “self”. Sean seems to have mastered it.

Without consciousness nothing exists

The question as to whether if you could make an identical duplicate of a person and whether they would (a) share a single consciousness, or (2) each have their own, is easy to resolve. Consider first that we are not “conscious” 100% of the time, even when we are awake. Sometimes you have a train of thought and you follow that thought, but you are are not conscious in the usual sense, as when someone asks you a question and you have to think about it very carefully. Sometimes you are just on autopilot and then you realize you are not really aware of what you are doing. Then you are conscious. But you are the same “person” in both cases. The difference is self-reflection - using your short-term memory to remember what you were just doing. So in a sense, there are two yous, one that is “not” conscious, and one that is, but they are the same person. So if consciousness can come and go, is it something that would be transferred when you duplicate someone? No! It’s a function of the brain. When you are in deep sleep, or anesthetized, you are clearly not conscious, and furthermore can’t remember anything. When asleep you can only remember your dream because that is a different state of sleep and your short-term memory is working, which is why you can remember a dream right when you wake up. If you don’t remember it right away, it will disappear. So consciousness is not a constant state of being. It comes and goes, and is only the same in terms of the person who is conscious. We all relate to consciousness the same way, because it is the same process in all of us. It doesn’t depend on the contents of our thoughts, but rather in fact that if you reflect on what is in your mind, you realize you were thinking or feeling or sensing something different a few moments ago, yet YOU are still “here”, so that thread of brain activity seems to provide a sense of constancy, which you intrpret as your “self”. Clearly this is quite paradoxical, yet it makes sense.

Kuhn made some very strong points. Sean was way more relaxed in his responses, Kuhn seemed a bit rattled and shaky with his questions and points, but still posed very cogent challenges to the "absoluteness" of Sean's position. Bottom line for me in all of the discussion of consciousness is that we'll probably not figure it out any time soon. By far the most animated CTT I've ever seen.

I think I can elaborate a bit on Sean's position. Each moment in time is another you, having a different "now" experience. All "now" moments have state (i.e the configuration of the universe in that moment) that is consistent with that moments "now" state being related to a prior moments "now" state, as described by a transformation permitted by the laws of physics. You could imagine that like a jigsaw puzzle, all these moments, like puzzle pieces, were all cut together in one stroke. Therefore one did not derive from another, they were all derived together to be consistent with the laws of physics. You are experiencing one "now" moment. The order thing called time you are experiencing is just that this is the only thing we can derive from any given now moment that we find ourselves experiencing. If the universe jumped between states of you being a baby, and then you being an adult, you would know nothing of this jump; in both instances you would be aware of being a baby with complete set of memories and state consistent with that experience; and likewise for the instant where you are an adult yod have the memories of a lifetime consistent with that experience. So what does it mean if your brain was uploaded into a computer? Your set of "now" moments where you were a human are all possible experiences. Another set of "now" moments for the conciousness happening in the computer is abother set. In fact in anything where conciousness arises - this adds to the set of "now" moments that can be experienced. This set now includes me, and you and everyone we have ever met. So why am I feeling like I am me right "now" and not "you" or my brain uploaded into the "computer"? Well.. how can we be so sure we are not also those things - we can only ever experience a "now" moment, I have no idea who I was experiencing a moment ago. According to this "now" moment I am presently writing a youtube comment. I have memories consistent with this. I feel like I have been sat here 10 minutes.. but so would you if you were experiencing this "now" moment. Who is to say you are not? Language lets me down here because terms like "you" and "I' are ambiguous. The total set of all "now" moments for concious being will be experienced, and when they are, that experience will result in something that thinks its an entity with an identity that is flowing in time.

Robert: “What happens to you??” Sean: “You becomes us.” Robert: 🤯

I don’t always agree with Sean, but he really is a great physicist and a fabulous speaker.

1- While I agree that the hard problem of consciousness ought to be solved by purely materialistic means, I think the hard problem of consciousness is very much a thing.. and after years I still find the philosophical zombie argument very compelling.. Today we have LLMs.. If it starts talking _exactly_ like a human would, does that equate to consciousness? No! On the issuenof identity that they got tangled, I think Sean is spot on. I find it interesting that even intelligent thinkers like Kuhn cannot see identity for what it is, a higher level concept, extremely useful for humans, yes, but nowhere to be found on fundamental reality.. We have no problem thinking of a duplicated river, or cloud, also higher level constructs, but then most people can't make the leap and see that what you call "you" is not fundamental, but rather just as much as a higher level useful construct. As Sam Harris puts it, there is no thinker of thoughts, experiencer of experiences, there are just the thoughts and the experiences.

Well that was frustrating.

If you have a copy of the same program on two devices, which one is the "real one"? Consciousness is just sort of a program. If there are identical copies of the same consciousness they would be working independently from each other but in similar way until they diverge over time.

Sean Carroll is presenting a version of reality that I feel is closest to truth because it doesn't fall victim to a subjectivity bias. Our brain is a computer that composes what we call consciousness by way of the totality of the electric impulses transmitted every moment. Thinking that consciousness is some magical property of the universe is in my opinion quite arrogant considering how complex we know the brain is. Why should we need anything else to explain experience than such an enormously vast network of interconnected neurons?

Considering the Unfolding Conscious Actuality of ...Phenomenology, Metaphysics and Conscience.... coming forth and going forward.

Robert seems pretty thick, slow, in his understandings here. He's still seeking a magical, dualist, description of the world and humans. Nevertheless, we owe him a great deal in making his wonderful series of interviews possible for all of us to hear. Albeit he also gives time today to theologians (sober-seeming quacks who are nothing more than fictional storytellers), but that is expected when you look into his background. What is missing from most all discussions of consciousness are two essential things. Much like free will discussions. Define your words. Such as free will means "One could have done otherwise, at that micromoment of decision, in that place and at that time." Now go on with your discussion without falling into the swamps. Do the same here: 1. Give clear definitions of what you mean by consciousness. Consciousness is X. Consciousness is not Y. List these in two columns, then begin your discussions. It is an honest necessity if one is sincere. 2. It is patent that dogs and cats and other primates are conscious, so do not ever leave this out of discussions of the subject, or you will move into dualism and other sillies or worse.

Sean is insanely patient here. Holy crap

Would help to agree on a definition of consciousness before going into arguments

Doesn’t this thought experiment beg the question by presupposing some kind of dualism? If they are physically identical to humans in every way, then they will necessarily have the same physical properties such as consciousness. If you have two identical people separated by spacetime, they will necessarily have different conscious experiences. If they are not separated by spacetime, then they’re indistinguishable from a single person. What am I missing?

Sean is a dedicated physicalist and an accomplished physicist. I believe that the concept of 'consciousness' may not be within his area of expertise. It's similar to hearing a cardiologist discuss sports nutrition. Consciousness is a profoundly intricate phenomenon that surpasses simplistic explanations. Moreover, the central question remains: what triggers the onset of consciousness, by what mechanism? As of now, science has not provided a definitive explanation for this. Hence, this conversation delves into the realm of the unknowable.

Here is MY Mathamatical formula for consciousness: C= A(i 5f+O5f)c2 I= inside output electrical pattern f= feeling O =outside input electrical pattern A= awareness 5= senses C2= speed of light squared Here is my take on mysterious consciousness: Physical body and Brain is like a TV 📺 and Consciousness is the electrons flowing through wires creating images and voices on TV. Without flow of electrons TV is like a dead person. With web cam it can analyze the surroundings. Consciousness is little more than electrons. Chain of mitochondria arranged in brain 🧠 nerves that have ATP and phosphorous of ATP is similar to phosphorous of TV screen. When the TV is turned on, the phosphor coating absorbs high-energy electrons that are directed at them by a device inside of the TV. Some day, Consciousness could very well be 5th dimension. Just for fun 🤩 It is too disconcerting to think deep about it and so I stopped analyzing it.

I think Sean made one mistake. He chose one of the copies to be "him". That implies there's something special about the him that's in his brain. If you're a pure materialist, the feeling of individuality is produced by the brain. Each copy would feel itself to be him, but it wouldn't be a shared feeling, and each copy (in a purely materialist viewpoint) would be correct. Our memories are key to who we feel we are. Any brain imbued with an exact copy (to date) of every memory we have stored in our brains would sidle those memories with the consciousness it produces, and in turn, believe themselves to be us, but that's purely an internal feeling held by every copy, as well as the original. All of them would be a separate "you".

This was one of my favorite conversations. The question I wish had been asked to Sean was : if we uploaded your consciousness, would the location of the upload house the phenomenal experience you are having in your current physical state? Or would it be another consciousness, as in the clone thought experiment? A separate "thing" experiencing its own consciousness.

I love Sean Carroll. He looks you in the eye and says what you refuse to believe is true. Aliens? ‘No’, Copenhagen? ‘No’, Consciousness? ‘Look at me… NO’

This is great--thanks for uploading

interesting conversation that truly exposes our limitations to knowing consciousness.

You could argue that without a quantitative complement * , there's no either emergent, nor not emergent, consciousness. * The complement of one in list one two is two.

If Sean had made his point about consciousness being an emergent physical property existing only in this MOMENT OF TIME they could have avoided 10 minutes of arguing. This issue of what actually makes me ME or you You has got to be the most perplexing and fundamental in philosophy or science. I know it's been argued for thousands of years, but if someone made an atom for atom copy of me and then destroyed the original no one would notice. But I would be dead, right? Or not?

Two cloned brains' states of consciousness would not be the same a day after they were set apart. After a month, even their initially identical memories would be different.

The flaw I see in Western thinking re consciousness is locating consciousness and awareness of self in the physical brain. When someone is severely traumatized and dissociates such that they have no recall of awareness of the traumatizing event, what happens to self and consciousness? Does an end-stage Alzheimer’s patient have consciousness? How about split-brain studies?

The first one would have continuous experience, supported by the remaining set of biological neurons at a given point in time, and the replicant wouldn't. That is, the transistors that are in place in the original during transition are being updated while the ones in the replicant aren't? So memories (conscious or otherwise) wouldn't be the same and that might define identity.

I think we've all learned from Dennett that if a person *really* wants to dig in and deny qualia, there's not really any further, uncomfortable consequence of that they have to accept. Once you've 'bitten the bullet' on denying qualia (and the possibility of 'zombies'), everything else is quite easy. Indeed, that's (in a sense) at the core of the mystery (and frustration) of the 'Hard Problem' for those of us who do accept the existence of qualia: they add absolutely nothing to a complete 3rd-person description of the world.

Thanks! This hard struggling between you and your opponent about cloned person, boils down to the fact that person and his body is not the same thing. See, the tree has visible part and invisible, which holds the visible. I'm talking about the root. No one is impressed by it (no one sees it), but it is the most important part. When the tree is chopped down, everyone forgets about it, until.. grows a new body from the same spirit

I love listening to Sean. I don't always agree but he seems so sure.

I think Sean makes a strong argument that it's not somehow special to "you." But does that negate the value and remarkableness of this weird emergent property? Even if it doesn't have an impact on the wave function, it's still a crazy amazing phenomena. I, for one, would love to be able to create consciousness in a non-biological structure.

Consciousness: important and useful, and Not fundamental (necessarily), (perhaps) emergent

The transporter theory; If a person is beamed down from a starship to another location, the “copy” doesn’t have the first person consciousness of the original. The original consciousness “dies” along with the person who was originally transported. The copy is unique and different from the original, but fundamentally the same.

Difference between the experience, and a description of the experience

I think one must define “world” first. What is existence and what created the first laws of motion kind of questions

Sean seems to understand this quite well.

I liked Carroll's 2016 book The Big Picture. It thourougly and clearly contrxtualizes the poetic naturalist position on metaphysics, time, space, minds, and morality. The chapters on the origins of the universe, the arrow of time, quantum mech, evolution, and consciousness gave good insight into a physicalists use of the term emergence for explaining many of our philosophical troubles. For Carroll, consciousness emerges weakly out of a phase transition that results due to increasing entropy in the universe. In other words, conscious experiences are a product of the right kind of structural organizations that arise in proportion to the increase in universal complexity. His example for entropy is that of a cup of black coffee with cream. At t=0, the cream sits as an undisturbed layer on top of the coffee. As time passes, the cream begins to seep into the coffee, thus producing different patterns, until it seeps completely into the coffee, thus becoming one homogeneous solution. This is his analogy for entropy in the universe. How does that relate to consciousness? In the book, Carroll answers by laying the foundations of how organic molecules can be formed out of inorganic molecules. It has something to do with thermal vents producing the right kind of compartments for metabolism like reactions to take place(I can not remember the exact explanation, but go look it up in a bio textbook😅). The argument goes: As the entropy of the universe increases, the complexity increases. If the complexity reaches a certain point, then a phase transition occurs. Conclusion: As entropy increases, phase transitions occur. Next: Phase transitions give rise to different macroscopic descriptions of the same microscopic phenomena. Evolution is a series of phase transitions. Consciousness is related to the brain. Conclusion: consciousness is a phase transition, macro level description of evolved organic complexity. Please excuse my argumentation. I hope that made sense. My question to Carroll would be: Are we even talking about the same thing anymore? I understand talking about a box, or the moon, or water in terms of elementary particles or chemicals, and forces. I find that the same reasoning is difficult to apply to consciousness. To me, there is deep sense in which the materialist position just boils things down too much. Not in a reductionist way, but in a personal way. From a medical perspective, I deeply admire the transition from the biomedical model to the biopsychosocial model of medicine - or at least the attempt to transition - because it treats people like their subjective experience matters. Given this context, should we take the pragmatic memo and stop trying to ground everything in metaphysics, or should we keep trying? I have no idea. Finally, an omage -paraphrased- to Alex O'Connor in relation to truths that are very difficult to propositionalize; try to put a Dostoyevski novel into a syllogism. In my view, i just dont think it's possible.

I don’t think there is a threshold for consciousness, as exemplified by the current American condition.

Robert firmly believes that he will always be the same unique Robert all the time meanwhile Sean, he firmly believes that his entire being at this one moment in time, is just one of many other thousand consciousness that emerged from the brain the morning he woke up and always died in the following night

Whoever is behind this must be very smart.

There is no single stream of unbroken universal metaphysical consciousness anyway. It gets shutdown whenever we sleep and aren’t in a REM state, or when we’re put under for an operation. If I fell asleep, and some duplication machine made a copy of me, swapped the “original” for the “copy” in bed, and then humanely destroyed the original. Then the copy would just wake up as I normally do without any knowledge of it ever happening, just as I do every day. Going on thinking of itself as “I” or “me”. For all I know it could already have happened, and “I” would feel or notice no different, and will think of myself as always being here.

They actually both argued the same point from different perspectives tbh. Both seem to agree that fundamentally conscious experience is unique. Sean says it emerges Robert may be incline to argue that it has a role beyond emergence and is more vital in formulating reality.

Consciousness is just what the nervous system does-all of it, including the automatic. What they’re arguing about is the self, which is an amorphous executive function created by the brain which responds to the map of the environment created by the nervous system using different languages and baggage stored in the brain. Make a copy and that copy simply has its own operating self in a separate space and time. You’ve got two boats in an ocean but twenty feet apart they are hitting different waves, etc.. They have become immediately different selves.

Why is it so important that consciousness is non physical? I still am conscious of pain if it (consciousness) is non physical. I guess the thought of non-physicality of consciousness is a form of magical thinking. Maybe the term informationprocessing is more accurate when talking about the brain.

I think we need to change some of the language we use in QM that are not quite appropriate to what is going on or at least distinguish between different processes. One of those Terms is measurement. If you could make measurement without interfering with the system than that could indeed be called measurement but if the act of measurement involves purturbing the state then that is not just measurement. Then we can quantify how much puturbation a specifics state can tolerate before it is affect the state. This will involve some real quatification and then extrapolation. What happens when a wave turn Ms into a particle. Do they really exist concurrently or simultaneously, or oscilating between one and the other. The whole language needs to be reviewed. The language is not concise enough and leads to unnecessary misunderstanding. You often find philosophical inconsitancies that are risen linguistically. A lot physicists are blasai about the language they use. Natural language are notoriously fluid. Words change meanings from place to place, time to time and in translation. The people who have been most aware of that Included the German philosopher Heidigger and the French psychologist Lacan. Of course there was a time when linguistic was part of psychology. Maybe there was a reason for using Latin in science. If the exact meaning can not be translated then it shouldn't be or a whole new term needs to be used with a scientific dictionary kept rigourously Update‌. Public lectures are often Places where lazy terminology takes root and before you know it it has crept into the classrooms and the scientific papers.

A question I've been wrangling with: Does MYCELIA have its own consciousness??? Might it provide a sounding board for the evolution of biological life? Thank you for the inspirational education!!! ;-)

Does phisycs explain why matter believes in a purpose or questions it? That's what bloggles my mind.

Not sure much was discussed on emergence from this discussion. A pump emerges from a specific structure of heart cells. Does consciousness emerge from simple Darwinian sub-directives? Why exist at all unless emergence is more in control than chaos? My interest "emerges" w these discussions. Thx.

Curious, if you were to then interview the exact copy of Sean, would he remark that his POV remains intact and unbroken? In other words, would the exact copy of Sean just assume he was now sitting to the side of you, unbeknownst of the Sean sitting across from you? In this thought experiment, each Sean would then diverge as individuals but I would ask them, “which one of you is…you?”

The fallacy of studying consciousness via the modalities of reductionist scientism was made immediately apparent to me when, post-LSD trip, I was asked by a reputable psychedelic scientist, "On a scale of 1-10, how ephemeral was your experience?". At that point, I realised it was pure folly to keep probing consciousness through the narrow lens of modern materialist dogmatism.

Kirk: “Beam me up Scotty!” [molecular copy, delete, Kirk dies, molecular paste on the Enterprise] Scotty: “Did it work?” Kirk: “Yep!”

I still don't know which camp I belong to, although I'm slightly leaning to metaphysical. That said, I think you missed an opportunity to argument Sean when he was talking about the "redness of red", it's not about the color as a physical interpretation in our brain, it's the fact that I and anyone else can like or dislike the color red. If i had to draw the line I'd say that that's where consciousness starts.

Amazing argument! I would ask Sean "where is the mind located?" And then push this question so hard!

Ekam Sat. ❣

The LONG digression into the persistence of personal identity in Parfit-like “upload” cases was tedious and really kind of a diversion from the central topic.

One of the epistemological limits of many physicists is the incommensurability of first-person experience, that is, of consciousness. However, an absolute description of reality needs to be able to account for first-person experience because, in fact, it exists, that is, it occupies a "space" within reality. What many physicists find difficult to accept, however, is that such "space" is not, in itself, physical. Maybe Kabbalah could help.

Carroll is great at explaining everything with pure materialism without actually explaining how it works. (He does the same in cosmology in pushing multiple universes, a theory that most physicists believe is non-provable.) No one has a clue how the color red is experienced, yet here he basically says it's "materialism" as he sails right by it. He takes the easy way out so does not have to do the hard work to prove his beliefs.

If the consciousness of a person is "a person looking at a screen," then what is the consciousness of the person looking at the screen? You could say their consciousness is "a person looking at a screen," but then what is that person's consciousness? It is an infinite regress.

that was good 20 years ago at the apex of new materialism ... Now is an obsolete conversation.

my favorite analogy for consciousness is when the fishes know they're swimming in the water, so a question like, "How's the water?" won't be answered, "What are you talking about? What a weird question!" but will simply lead to a discussion about the water they lived in.. recently, i keep feeling amazed with ancient scripture and every writer of any bible in any religion.. in their era, math wasn't as advanced as math now, the structural thinking is far from complicated equation, but they already had an idea that everything is connected .. as we already know about the conception of the Alpha n Omega; or all in one, one in all.. i also get so fascinated to know that the bible can be so rich in perspective and there's so many perspectives to read it.. for example, an understanding about sins and angelic things. in this modern world rational thinking is like "God" for thinking field; as genius is usually connected to logical ability to build constructive thinking from experiments or being an atheis is so common.. but there's a moment when rational thinking will reach a point of limit; when we meet a point where we need to admit that there's so many unexplainable mystery or too many unwanted situations that hard to accept rationally, as the Lucifer was beaten by the lower rank angel and fell to hell, our logical thinking might fall into desperation if we keep being greedy n arrogant of beating "God".. that's why humble ourselves down and accept the greatness of the Creator might be so useful for our own psychological need, so then we can easily accept the reality of our limit.. i find it so interesting and so cool! 😂

I love watching materialists explain consciousness. I wonder what molecule of water is experiencing its wetness on my tongue the most and which electron in which atom of 1 nanomole of serotonin in one of my synapses is laughing loudest?

Experiment to safely easily explore personal consciousness: Sing *HU* daily. Search how to sing *HU*, as a personal frequency tuning fork? "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."- Nikola Tesla. Have your own experiences and go beyond intellectual speculation. Keep It Simple Soul.

What about the third person consciousness that witnesses it. I have a broom I replace the handle but someone gets it out the bin. Then I replace the head and someone puts it on the handle. He has my broom what do I have. This is the same as multiplication.

He’s reasonable regarding the philosophical identical copy questions. But the eliminativism regarding consciousness is incoherent.

2:12 Show me one single example of a conscious experience you can map out in a very direct way in physical terms. Hard to take the conversation seriously after this point.

I think a good opportunity was missed here to discuss "the observer". Consciousness is just a physical process until you factor in awareness. Worrying about copying a consciousness process onto a hard drive or the like is a bit arbitrary

With luck and more power to you.

I've never seen someone's brain melt in real time as they learn about the concept of making a copy of a thing. Hilarious.

I stopped watching these videos because the host doesn’t seem to make any progress, he just likes talking about the few big questions that he likes the best (which isn’t to say he doesn’t have some good points, it’s just repetitive). Big fan of Dr Carroll. Today our host seems hung up on the definitional claim that in so far as you can define two things as separate, they are not the same thing.

I felt Sean was definitely on the edge here with his patience 😅

It infuriates me when Sean says "the zombie *thinks* it's conscious".

I am not going to accuse Carroll of incoherence for equating the continuity of consciousness over time with the continuity of identity between spatially separated clones because I think he was pressured into this position without fully thinking it through. He was pushing back against Kuhn's framework and ended up saying things he didn't entirely mean. He could have done better, given enough time. Instead, I accuse him of being intellectually dishonest, by pretending the intuition that consciousness has a certain irreducibility to every other known thing, process, or property is not the natural default position. He framed it as Kuhn's metaphysically magical view, when in fact, it IS the default view of basically all humans (including Carroll himself when not philosophizing), and the only people who claim otherwise are a few radical, out of touch physicalists who earn respect by having the audacity to claim the most ridiculous things.

It just hit me....close your eyes....he sounds like Hawkeye from MASH...but sober....Peace!

Upload. Does that include memory?

Almost got lost before the end there, but it makes sense if there is no you.

The derogatory use of the word radical in front of physicalist shows Robert's prejudice. I am very happy to see Sean own it. Let us hear Robert use the word radical in front of pan-psychist or theologian.

This actually made me laugh. He really didn’t like Sean Carroll’s answer on consciousness, but apparently in the physics world it’s not acceptable to say “yo momma” in response.

Sean saying a separate consciousness by copying his neurons is just like the branching of a wavefunction was completely wrong. I'm surprised he said that because he knows the many-worlds theory is not actually physical at all.

Think of it like a save point in a game.

Robert fired up. Sean expressed a view and articulated. Not sure why Robert was so personally (ha) invested in the challenge.

The question of two identical beings or persons may well be similar to two identical particles such as two electrons. Although the two particles are identical for all practical purposes but they do not necessarily have the same experience because their environments are not quite the same. The same is probably true for two identical persons. If they are not exactly in the same environment then they cannot possibly have the same conscious experiences.

Technically, we're all clones. They say every 7 years, you get an entirely new body. So, a simple way to look at it, is you're a clone from the you of 7 years ago. That you of 7 years ago is dead, and a clone is their place with the same memories and genetic code, but a different you. It's no different than if you're dying, and your brain is "uploaded" into a cloned brain in a jar. Well you die, but you'll still think you're alive as a brain in a jar. As if you fell asleep and woke up as a brain in a jar. You're slowly being cloned, and so every 7 years, you've died while a new clone has materialized. Though maybe someone can tell me, does your brain neurons also get replaced over time, or do they remain unchanged? As I know there are some cells in your body that I believe never get replaced. Like I believe you hair cells in your inner ear never get replaced, which is why when they die, they never come back.

Sean is a multiverse guy!! This is how he sees the world. Very logical from that perspective. The surprised host does not understand this concept.

Imagine you work at a cafeteria and every casual chat between your customers is like this one. Please, AI cafeteria atmosphere around them!

same human consciousness having different experiences indicates a flexible yet still persistent consciousness?

Interesting discussion. Lawrence might want to follow up with a discussion with Antonio Damasio. Perhaps we have put to much emphasis on higher order brain functions which can lead to grandiose delusions. Maybe consciousness is just an evolutionary strategy to survive, and perhaps it evolved much earlier than what most people think. Damasio believes that the most rudimentary form of consciousness occurs in very old brain structures (in and around the brain stem) which implies many creatures have sense of self being different others. I am I, and you are you.

Each of us could have had an identical twin born instead of us. In that case, none of us would have existed, even if eight billion people had looked and acted exactly as we did. So, why did we have to be the existing twin, endowed with consciousness.

Hey Sean, wouldn’t it be cool to have many clones of you like this? Your dream of talking to people on the street about the latest physics breakthrough would come true! Well, until you notice they believe in pilot waves 🤔😬🤪

i LOVE this channel, i LOVE Dr Khun, i LOVE Carrol, but i don't understand how and why a(n awesome) physics scientist should know about consciousness.....I'm agnostic like Khun, I'm simply saying that only brain scientists should talk about consciousness and brain scientists should not speak about cosmos

Hmmm, as a psychologist, and as a conscious being, I think the idea of an internal consistent sense of oneself is completely compatible with saying that you are not the same you tomorrow morning as you are today. I'm glad Robert kept pushing him into that corner. This guy's sense of "I" or "you" is neither psychologically satisfying nor logical.

Probably need to define what a zombie is, if you are going to use it as an analogy

I have a problem with equating the brain cells with the person’s consciousness. My analogy is the whole library of the congress (representing consciousness) and the 26 letters alphabet (representing the brain cells) Saying that the whole library of the is nothing but 26 letters repeated a lot of times is unacceptable. The same applies to saying that 200 billion brain cells represent the consciousness. I am just a medical doctor with no background of physics

I disagree with Sean's take on the uploaded copy of his neurons. If you think of the neurons as the data on a computer, and you copy that to something else, all you would have is a record of your experiences, but there's something missing. It's missing the production of thoughts, feelings, hopes and forward thinking. Those things may be what gives you consciousness and a soul.

0:12 Alright!! My Second and Third favorite JHU Bluejays...lol 😎