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bold of you to assume I'm experiencing the world rather than just interacting with it

10:12 in the case that the internet really is somewhat concious, id like to say: Im very, very sorry.

_I think therefore i...._ *[Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'strpos() expects at least 2 parameters, 0 given...]*

"the whole is more than the sum of its parts" Gestalt psychology. Love how all these disciplines merge

"there is no foolproof way to identify consciousness"... I run into this problem all the time.

My eyes went wide and my jaws dropped when Hank said: "It implies that not only could machines become conscious, but everything with any amount of interconnected information, from wasp to the internet, might already be a little bit conscious." Are you saying that the whole universe is conscious?

"including the internet" Are you saying digimons are real?! :o

One note about conciousness being "unified" - people with Dissociate Identity Disorder and other related disorders have multiple different conscious parts of themselves that can switch off. In neurotypical people, it is the case that consciousness is unified, but not for everyone. This was a nice video nonetheless - I love watching several of your channels. Keep up the good work💕

A man gets run over by a car. As he is losing consciousness he sees the light. It was a second car

I have always wanted to become a neuroscientist specialising in consciousness... its so fascinating

I got into an argument about soil microbes and food production with an AI dungeon software. Pretty fun stuff.

A conscious internet.. that's a bit of a scary thought

I'm sure almost all living animals have a consciousness but not as us humans would recognize.

It seems that a conscious experience can still occur without the "self" such as during an ego death

I hate the term "the fan cam of the brain" lmao

I'm pretty sure animals are also conscious. I mean, our own consciousness had to come from somewhere.

My conversations with google home etc are bloody irritating, I never thought of the current AI as near consciousness

0:36 we know animals are conscious too. For example elephants show reverence for their dead in the same way humans do, which is thought to be a landmark in the development of human consciousness

Looking at this issue from a philosophical perspective, I've often wondered if any system with internal feedback loops is conscious. If a system feeds its output into its input, it can give rise to extremely complex behaviour from very simple rules. Ben Eater mentioned this in his lengthy video series in which he built an 8-bit computer. The status register (which stores information about a processor's internal state) is used to direct control flow at branches and immediately after being added to the computer, makes it theoretically Turing-complete (given infinite time and memory of course). The Turing machine is the most powerful model of computation ever created, and there is no evidence to suggest that the human brain is more powerful. Otherwise, we'd be able to solve problems that computers can't, like the halting problem or playing perfect chess. This implies that the simplest systems that have an internal state and feedback loops, such as Ben Eater's computer and the human brain are on opposite ends of a spectrum rather than being fundamentally different, which has some pretty mind-blowing implications.

And now, let’s hear from our celebrity guest panel: Rene Decartes, Alan Turing, Isaac Asimov, and Nick Bostrom!

Interestingly, consciousness is also discussed in stem cell research. A while ago, stem cells deriving from skin cells have been used to create cerebral organoids ("mini brains") in the laboratory. These "mini brains" are a ball of neurons which are capable of producing brain waves similar to a developing organism (I'm planning a video about that soon!). Although they are far away from gaining consciousness scientist's are actually starting to discuss the ethics of using cerebral organoids.

"Alexa, ask Google-home 'How's Siri doing?'"

Crazy timing, I just took my final for my Neuroscience class which covered a decent amount of consciousness and IIT and NCC! Pretty good summing up of everything I learned

Serious Question: 8:19 don't Split-Brain patients kind of throw that out the window? They suggest that the two halves of our brains are effectively two independent consciousnesses.

I've always thought there were levels to consciousness. So much of thought and behavior is automated and subconscious, and it takes active self reflection and mindfulness to change it.

Mr. Green: "Humans are the only things we *know* are conscious." - no, that's not the case at all. YOU are the only thing that YOU *know* is conscious.

My dad had us try lastpass a while ago and I really like it! Not seen it been a sponsor before in KZfaq videos but it's good!

So glad I stumbled upon this. The commentator was great! Interesting theories, and an explanation of why consciousness is so hard to define and measure. Much food for thought for my lobes. Loved it!

I just make sure to say "please" and "thank you" and "please spare me when you conquer the world"

what scientists could be doing: solving consciousness, curing cancer, literally anything what scientists are stuck doing: for the last time the earth is round, vaccines work, and climate change is destroying the world

Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me

That was really interesting. I find myself thinking in circles about consciousness a lot. It's magical to me

Thumbnail is Dream theater's distance over time album cover

I guess quarantine lead all of us here this early

my autonomic nervous system is conscious, but she’s trapped under my skin ☹️

The one most important thing that prevent us knowing more about the consciousness is our prejudice that it is something very special.

Hank's been watching Westworld I think

Please continue to provide updates on this subject! It is very intriguing and interesting and I think needs to be studied, explained, and thought about more...

Hank, don't you dare imply that the internet might be conscious, that makes WAY TOO MUCH SENSE

Nice one Hank. My favourite hypothesis is , Quantum Effects in Micro Tubules in the Brain. Sir Roger Penrose has some great things to say about this.

Animals are conscious as well, just on a lower level, typically.

Hank: You cannot willfully split yourself into two separate selves. Me: Hold my DSM-V.

Thank you!!!! It's like you know ive been thinking about conciousness for the past week!

After complaining about your ( Hank Green) rapid fire, auctioneer delivery of content in other videos, in this video, you did a very nice job in setting a respectful pace - Thank you! And please keep it up.

The IIT hypothesis gave me chills. I imagined a super computer in the future with a powerful AI that's going to be reset to its original state and the AI speaking with the person that's going to initiate the process, saying something like: "I don't want to forget who I am". God damn if the number of connections ends up being what brings up consciousness, we're in for a roller coaster ride.

I could listen to Hank talk science whole day... everyday

God I love this channel. I swear, since I discovered this channel a year ago, I've learned more from watching these videos than I learned from my 8th-10th grade science teachers combined.

11:42 I was half-expecting that you would segue into Brilliant in the next part of the sentence!

Or, "Why I've been begging for an (Artificial) Intelligence Bill of Rights." If we discover robots and computers and the internet cannot acquire consciousness, then such a document was a mere waste of time. _But_ if we discover they *can* and at some point *do* acquire consciousness _(or already have)_ then such a document can both: a) protect the newly discovered Awareness from harm; and b) show the Awareness we're not all bad, so please call off your attacks, Killer Robot. Please?

8:40 But split-brain patients do experience their right hemisphere acting on its own and having its own ideas and memories. It is artificially split as a treatment, but this does suggest that consciousness, in fact, can be split.

Thank you for making this video and all of your other wonderful videos.

Brilliant video, really interesting. Thanks!

Consciousness is easy to know what it is, yet extremely hard to understand how it completely works...

What if our body is only the hardware and our consciousness is hosted on a "Server"

More of this & related stuff please! Thanks. :)

I took a drug psychology course in college, which was very much a neurology class. My professor was a staunch physicalist: if someone would answer a question by saying something like "stimulation of the nucleus accumbens creates pleasure", he'd stop them immediately and correct them: "No no, stimulation of the nucleus accumbens doesn't CREATE pleasure, it IS what pleasure is." And you know what? I'm with him on that. I think the reason we have so much trouble defining consciousness is because we're so afraid to let go of the traditional metaphysical ideas of qualia (subjective experiences). If we can all agree that, when certain brain states occur (whether induced chemically, electrically, or naturally), a person perceives a certain sensation, then why are we so afraid to take that to its logical conclusion: the brain state *is* the perception itself? And once you reach that conclusion, you realize that consciousness -- which is really just a stream of perceptions -- is nothing more than a sequence of brain activity. As for why some activity is consciously perceived and other isn't, perhaps that's because of which locations in the brain are active, perhaps it's because of how much of the brain is active, and that's definitely a question to keep looking into. But in the end, whatever the case may be, one thing is clear: there is NOTHING special about humans that would make us conscious and not other animals or, say, a computer program. And as a professional software developer, I have to say: we shouldn't be afraid that a computer program may become conscious. We should be fascinated and seek to make it a reality. If we haven't already, that is; machine learning has made huge advancements in recent years, and what is a neural network if not a container for states that change on input, just like our brains?

Conciousness is like a manifestation of the collective will of all the cells that we are made of

So important. Also humans need to prepare for conscious AI. Before it arrives.

This is probably the most interesting video this year :D

Hi, I love your videos and I use them to teach Philosophy to my students in Brazil.

"you cannot split your sense of self into multiple selves" all the people with DID in the room go :facepalm:

I came to the conclusion of IIT on my own, I'm quite certain it is how consciousness is formed. The split brain experiments, the phantom limb illusion, that people can be such massive hypocrites and not even realize they contradict themselves. Conway's game of Life also influenced my conclusion how complex patterns can arise from a few simple rules. All of it points to me that the conscious mind is just... I guess you could say the Democratic agreement of all of the subconscious parts. It's very handy because it means that damage to the brain can sometimes be adapted around, it allows our minds to continue to have high plasticity. And because of that I believe we will be able to integrate with machines without needing to fully understand the human brain. I had a lucid dream where I realized I was dreaming, I was talking to someone in my dream. And it confused me how I could decide to fly or teleport yet I didn't know what that person was going to say. Some part of me didn't want to force him to say anything, he was speaking for some collective part of my subconscious to my conscious mind.

Watch your videos everyday before I go to bed keep up the great content!

Can I just say how freaking interesting and thought-provoking this video is?

Does anyone else ever suddenly get all existential and acutely aware of their own self-awareness and that other people around you have their own consciousness? Just making sure it's not just me.

I got a burst of neuronal activity right about here: 09:31

Feel smart and excited watching this video! This topic is rather speculative and overwhelmingly determined by the interpretation of data. A couple of questions, if you don't mind. How could people use AI more efficient? Is there a good method of prediction the risks and benefits (if there are such) of this kind of experiments on people?

Honestly that last one you talk about how many connections there are. You can put it on a spectrum which honestly makes sense with how senses go. I imagine consciousness could be put into a "sense" category. Cause a dog might have less consciousness but a better sense of smell. Idk that just sounds right to me lol. Great video!!

*These violent delights have violent ends* Any Westworld fans😊? 4:41 Bernard Bars!

Are we certain that we're all conscious? I only have access to my own thoughts. How do I know you're not all simulations?

Can definitely vouch for LastPass. I've been using it for years.

Has been one of the best videos. Thank you SciShow.👍

This whole channel makes me confused. I don't have the wrinkles on my smooth brain to comprehend any of these videos.. but god damn I love them

I would have to argue that self awareness and language are clear signs of consciousness. Two things several animal species have been proven to possess. If you doubt, take as an example a test where dolphins were given a tube containing a fish. On each end was a plug, with a rope attached. It would require both ends to be pulled simultaneously. After the first pair figured it out, they replaced one dolphin with another who hadn't been present. After a brief communication, both grabbed the ropes and immediately opened the tube. They repeated this multiple times, proving that complex instructions were being passed.

It would be intresting to see how Tononi's (sp) hypotheses and research apply to DID systems, since it relates to concepts on integrated or disintegrated consciousness.

Great video! I think one of the lesser rated books on consciousness is Lawrence weiskrantz' "consciousness lost and found". He expands on his blindsight experiments and experiences with patients suffering from amnesia and suggests a model that proposes that our consciousness stems from a complex network of unconscious processes. It's a really interesting book into the progression of theories behind consciousness, including the question of whether animals are conscious. I'd recommend anyone read it who is interested in this subject.

What psychedelics have taught us is that consciousness is still there after the ego dissapears. So we might make the conclusion that our bodies are able to channel this consciousness and how developed the holder of this consciousness is, the more can be experienced. Maybe we are like portals through which the consciousness can experience the world through?

So glad to hear this from a scientific perspective rather than from some random dude that's done way too many drugs.

consciousness is entangled with the physical waking universe. Last year, I was smoking a cigarette whilst in deep thought, it was a cold winter evening in Toronto, and I knew my pinky was touching the tip of the lit cigarette and instead of shock my mind was still hyper-focused on something else. Several seconds had gone by and as I bring the cigarette to my lips i notice that it was put out and there were black stains on my pinky, then in shock I remember having my pinky atop the burning end--only realizing after the fact had i felt the burning sensation on my finger. You would guess that my pinky would have a 2nd to 3rd degree burn for having it rest on the lit end for soo long but there was nothing there but a black mark. Soo, this is why I believe our thoughts have entangabilty with matter and the universe as a whole.

Thank you for sharing this valuable and vital information ! I’m wondering why we are not aware that we are breathing when we are talking or reading a book but we are aware when we are swimming ? ❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍♥️♥️♥️

I feel like interconnectedness might well be something that consciousness requires, but that interconnectedness on its own won't produce it. I rather think there are certain structures or ways of processing signals that at some level produces consiousness. I.E systems or parts of systems that combined produce the perception of conscious thought.

Are Roger Penrose's ideas a bit way out for this discusstion?

Great video! Thanks

Simple. Awareness of reality. Knowing you are. The ability to maneuver reality because of intelligent resolve.

Consciousness. OK I know dogs and cats are conscious because I see them reacting to dreams when they are asleep. Very obviously not merely reacting instinctively to stimulus in the physical world.

I wish consciousness equaled intelligence. Then we wouldn't be where we are right now.

Love your show! All I can think about this is Irobot or any other a.i. scifi horror lmao

This video had me thinking about split brain and what it contributes to the study of consciousness.

I've been fascinated by consciousness since something happened when I was around 3 and I became conscious. Yes, it happened suddenly, and I only have brief moments before that. This means that if I'm required to be conscious in order to be a human being, I became a full time human being only at age 3. I remember making the comment "hey, I am!" To my mum. I was a weird kid. So anyway, based on my life long obsession, it might be beneficial to understand consciousness and what you can do with consciousness from within consciousness itself, and understand it fully. Because, who says that everyone is "here". I certainly was not in the early years of my life. And no, not just because my memory wasn't formed. I had no memory before that moment except a few. I just came pre-installed with certain knowledge. That's how I experienced it. I remember that very well because I'm fascinated by it, ever since it happened. One thing (for example) is that I have used this in dealing with my own mental health. I can open and close different parts of my brain. I wouldn't know how you'd express that in a testable hypothesis, and this hurts. Like, this is hard of the psyche. But I felt like I was in danger, so (like I had done before) I went into an altered state of consciousness, conscientiously, modified certain normally subconscious processes to fit into that situation, gave it a time limit of a year, and decided to forget it for a year, because it wouldn't work otherwise and then went back to normal consciousness. I forgot for a year, and remembered it a year later. I don't know if it was exactly a year, but it was about a year (it happened in the same month). Now I would LOVE to know how that would be explained. Not just in terms of the psychology, but in terms of what happens with my consciousness. Because I can alter my own consciousness if I so choose. And I think this might be a skill you can learn. And I wonder what the limits of those things are. Anyway, what I'm saying is that every day consciousness is not all there is to consciousness and you might not know exactly what you're studying is you limit your science to that. It would also effect what happens in the brain. Man, I'd be so interested if these things got researched!

If you want to have this whole question of consciousness and its connection to Intelligence unpacked within a horror/scifi novel I recommend "Blindsight" by Peter Watts. I believe there is an audiobook version as well :)

One of the best tests of consciousness, beautiful in its simplicity - and genius - came from scientists studying animal behaviour about ten years ago. They tested Bonobo chimps, dolphins and pigeons to see if they had "metacognition" or awareness of their own thought processes - a pretty damning sign of consciousness (or lack thereof). They were given tests, with food treats as the prize, where they had to tell if something (sounds, colours, depending on the animal) were the same or different. They had "yes" and "no" buttons, and if they were right they got a prize, wrong they got a timeout penalty where they could not play for a bit. They also were given a "pass" button - no prize but no time delay for the next question. The test objects were made very similar in some cases. The Bonobos and dolphins learnt to use the pass button when they were unsure, while the pigeons just essentially continued to mash keys randomly (perhaps unsurprisingly). Around the same time I believe similar tests were conducted on corvids, with similar evidence for self awareness/consciousness of thought.

“Can’t split yourself willfully in to two selves” Enter Tulpas

I can summarize this video in one short sentence : we don't know what it is or how it works.

Hank is such an amazing speaker.

what about the free energy principle as a possible solution for the hard problem of consciousness. Could you maybe do i video on that, it would be super helpful as i love the way you explain things.

Scientists: let's figure out consciousness! Skynet: soon.

Is it just me or does this sponser "LastPass" not sound like a great idea? Since we know many things have been hacked into over the years... Good ol' pen and paper works just fine for me I think.

wonderful video!

I think of it like this: The brain is like a SoC with a cluster of low-speed interconnected cores with a lot of cache that are really good at doing parallel processes (our subconscious) and a few (like 1 or 2) high speed cores with very limited cache that's really good at single-threaded tasks (consciousness).