There is no "buzzing around" for photons. They exist at the origin and the destination simultaneously without the passage of time...for the photon that is...no matter how far apart the origin and destination are.

@@larrysiders1 that seems not true. We know photon has a speed, fastest possible speed but still limited. So it takes time to travel through space, therefore, for example, a photon from sun takes about eight minutes to reach the earth; it can't be at the two places at same time. Isn't it?

Sorry but light (photons) only travel at the speed of light in vacuum, Space is not a vacuum. When light hits the planet a lot of it gets topped and turned into thermal energy. LEARN SOME BASIC SCIENCE PLEASE. Its bad enough with bullshit artists like, stephen hawking, brian greene, machio KUKU, all are doing all they can to damage science, Hawking no longer can damage science but his lunacy as already damaged science to the point it starting to look like religion. Some one who calls them selves a scientist and gets papers accepted that state "HOLES CAN HAVE MASS" ,is damaging science. Worm holes as they are described can not exist under the laws of the universe we know.

@@seeker9241 the reason it’s said they don’t experience time it’s actually because photons are massless (being massless is also the reason they’re traveling at the speed of light, but that’s another topic, although still related). Mass is intimately related to the passage of time.. I’d recommend you to watch some videos on this because it’s really a fascinating topic. Cheers! :)

this is unironically a really beautiful quote

You are your soul.........................................falundafa

you definitely do not sound ridiculous. I feel that at times as well

Yes. I remember feeling that feeling when I was very young, like 4, 5 or 6. Almost terrifying in a way. Like you realize you're a soul in a body

I have that feeling two or three times per year. It lasts a few seconds, and it is very unsetling. It is terrifying.

Yep. Me too

I think he is taking us back to Classical Greece, when why questions were thought to be useful in our understanding. He ignores that in science and in every other method, strong correlations and causal relations are what we can observe ! He sounds like he never had a course on Philosophy of science!

Consciousness study will add a new chapter to human history which will help to bridge between spiritual and meterial views .

@@Sbcommerceguru Rubbish!

Brother coppens, before insulting and disrespecting other views one must be knowledgeable and sensible about the true sense of the view. Here, I wanted to express that ongoing debate between material and spiritual scientists will help to explore a new dimension in human history through Consciousness studies.

@@Sbcommerceguru I am not your brother and I disrespect unscientific obscurantist rubbish!!!

Well "what is consciousness" is a general question. Its an abstract concept of our ability to be aware of things and thoughts. "How we are conscious" is a question investigated by science. A specific part of our brain is responsible for it's arousal , allowing to direct it's attention to the stimuli and reflect on it by connecting the rest of the brain areas responsible for memory , reason, prediction, symbolic language heuristics etc.

@@nickolasgaspar9660 Thank you

@@nickolasgaspar9660 who is our? , what about animals, and so on...

@@miguelmmc5817 I am describing human consciousness (our). I hope everyone in here reading are of the same species. Every organism having a brain is conscious of his environment and it's self. Animals can be aware but the quality of their conscious states chances since the rest of their mind properties are not so advanced.

Consciousness is an illusion. Thinking is not consciousness. Thinking is just interpreting data your senses receive. Reality is just the illusion of light, just like a movie. Its just a picture light show the sun projects. All the universe is light and a deep knowing that extends from the sun. Your just a machine the sun manifest. Your thinking is just interpreting a previous picture light show projected buy the sun. Your consciousness is just your senses interpreting light. Everything from matter itself to sound and smell are just different frequencies and vibration of light. In that sense the reality we live in is a simulation. Physics will soon prove all this. The elites already know this. Like Jesus said God is light! Thats all we will know him as in this reality light. Its the creator of our universe. Thats is an example of a knowing. Knowledge is power!

Materialism has nothing to do with Methodological Naturalism (science). His comforting speculations fail to meet the demarcation standards of a scientific hypothesis, rendering his ideas pseudo philosophical. We have good reasons for using logic and the principles of Methodological Naturalism in our scientific frameworks. Without those tools we allow magical thinking to intrude in our epistemology ...and we are not in the dark ages any more. Such practices are unacceptable. This is how we do science. Stop trying to push your supernatural principles in an empirical evaluation system. Stop demanding from the academia to include your supernatural principles....this is the exact reason why science split from philosophy! Please go set up your own discipline of inquiry with your own set of principles and your own frameworks. Time will show if your ideas are able to produce accurate predictions and technical applications.

@@nickolasgaspar9660 methodological naturalism is the belief that there are no "super natural" explanations for natural phenomena. But if you look back in time, speculation about all kinds of things which we now accept as scientific fact would have been considered "super natural" explanations by today's standards. Nothing Chalmers proposed is fundamentally different from many of the ideas that were considered way outside the bounds of naturalism before they were discovered and explained, but which are now widely accepted as natural. Invisible fields of energy that give rise to space and time and all matter, haha, indeed. Supernatural nonsense, you drug addled hippy freak. See what I just did there.

@@yellowburger Unfortunately you are describing Philosophical Naturalism (that is a common error). Methodological Naturalism acknowledges the limitations of our methodologies to investigate nature. The Natural is all that we can observe, falsify, evaluate or verify, so we can not accept non naturalistic explanation . That is not because of our philosophical presuppositions but due to pragmatic necessity! We can not verify claims with supernatural causation, so we can not accept such claims in our explanations. -"But if you look back in time, speculation about all kinds of things which we now accept as scientific fact would have been considered "super natural" explanations by today's standards." -Not really, I do understand that this claim is the last hope of most super-naturalist , but that is not true at all. On the contrary. From the dawn of western philosophy with the Ancient Greeks, we constantly struggled to explain things by introducing mind properties in to the ontology nature.(Intention, purpose/teleology, god/creators etc). Claim after claim, our observations managed to discredit this supernatural idea of mind properties existing in addition to nature. So 2.300 years later, after we first posed those same question, we now have a huge epistemology that does not include the supernatural at all! There isn't A SINGLE CASE in our, descriptive frameworks that needs the supernatural as a necessary and sufficient explanation of an observable phenomenon. Name one scientific framework and you are the winner of this debate! -"Nothing Chalmers proposed is fundamentally different from many of the ideas that were considered way outside the bounds of naturalism before they were discovered and explained,, but which are now widely accepted as natural." -They are widely accepted as natural, because their principles are natural. Chalmers is projecting mind properties in addition to nature....by rejecting them to be a product of nature (biological brain). His principles are supernatural be definition. He is making an unfalsifiable, supernatural hypothesis well beyond the limits of a Null Hypothesis. That doesn't mean that his idea is wrong....only that is is irrational and epistemically or wisely useless. Invisible fields (means invisible to our eyes BUT NOT UNDETECTABLE) have OBSERVABLE effects on how the particles behave and interact. These are measurable , quantifiable properties which display empirical regularities!!!! They do not need supernatural principles to "exist". They are just natural fields with specific properties, without intention, purpose , biases, choice or any other mind property necessary to affect the basic blocks of matter. what you did is that you demonstrated your ignorance on the basic definitions of Methodological Naturalism, the Supernatural and you that you are unable to identify the differences between natural principles and new age super natural principles!

@@nickolasgaspar9660 How would you respond to the idea that methodological naturalism views the "natural" as only things that can be measured/observed, and the super-natural as explanations which involve things that cannot be measured/observed. If you agree with this definition, then I would argue that speculation about hypothetical causes which have yet to be discovered is a fundamental part of science, but this is basically using what are by definition "supernatural" explanations. They only become "natural" once empirical evidence of said causes has been observed. But science could hardly evolve if scientists didn't speculate about as yet unobserved causes. To restrict science to explanations that have only observed empirical causes would be to ignore how science is actually done and how it has progressed. Furthermore, Chalmers is not proposing "mind properties in addition to nature," he is speculating that mind properties might exist in nature outside of the brain, or perhaps outside of the strictly neural networking of the brain (in some aspect of the quantum particles and field which encompasses the physical substance of the brain, for example). The idea is that there might be some as yet unobserved "natural" quality in the material substance of the world which gives rise to our internal subjective states. Why does he speculate like this? Because attempts to reduce our internal conscious experiences to brain states have only succeeded in showing correlation, but not in explaining how we have the internal aspects of those experiences.

@@yellowburger I have to clarify some things before I respond to the idea you are presenting. Methodological Naturalism isn't just a "view". Its a description of our CURRENT abilities. This is what we can do with our current methodologies and this limits the ontological principles we can use in our hypotheses....if we are interested of course in the production of knowledge. Now the problem with your "definition" of the supernatural is that it doesn't explain anything. If you can not observe and quantify the cause of a process...then you are not justified to say anything about it because you don't have a way to evaluate your speculations. THis is why we don't use such principles in science and when we do so in philosophy we identify it as pseudo philosophy! "If you agree with this definition, then I would argue that speculation about hypothetical causes which have yet to be discovered is a fundamental part of science, but this is basically using what are by definition "supernatural" explanations." - You are conflating the unknown with the supernatural. Metaphysical speculations are essential in science...you are right. But you are missing a really important detail. Metaphysics in science are always based on Scientific Principles. It took us 2300 years to get rid of the supernatural causation and that led us to the run away success of science in epistemology as we know it. Now you are asking to introduce it back again , not because we have examples of how successful magical explanations are, but because we have some comforting ideas about our existential anxiety since our expiring biological body is not what defines the limits of our existence (according to Chalmers agenda)! A hypothesis DOESN"T become natural because it is empirically observed. This is not the criteria of evaluation of a hypothesis. You need to understand the differences between the supernatural, the metaphysical and the empirical knowledge. A metaphysical hypothesis is one that goes beyond our current knowledge (physika/science). So eg the claims of string theory are metaphysical, Chalmers' claims are metaphysical etc. The difference between those two is that string theory does not use supernatural principles while Chalmers's idea does. By excluding supernatural principles from science , we don't "restrict" our methodologies. We are only protecting our hypotheses from unjustified presumptions. Science has really strict standards when it comes to what it can be assumed. The starting point of our speculations is based on what we currently know and it extents in to the unknown. YOU SHOULD never accept the unknown as the basis of your presuppositions and extent even beyond that . And to be clear. We don't claim that Chalmers is WRONG. Not at all. He could be right about everything he says. What we point out is that he is IRRATIONAL to accept things that he doesn't know how possible they can be. He is practicing pseudo philosophy. "Furthermore, Chalmers is not proposing "mind properties in addition to nature," he is speculating that mind properties might exist in nature outside of the brain" -This is what "in addition to nature" means. He is arguing that it is possible(!!!) that a phenomenon that can only be observed by the functions of the brain, can manifest without the need of this biological structure.....as a substance on its own. First of all, we don't know what nature allows so its irrational to claim about such possibilities. To go further, if we accept that he is making the claim that an invisibly "cosmic brain" from matter is responsible for mind properties....then we need to accept so many assumptions that it becomes Unarsimonious and useless, plus its unfalsifiable. (and we ignore the value of a NULL HYPOTHESIS in logic!). 1. we need to demote the role of the brain without evidence. 2. we need to assume the existence of a field which interacts with the brain(matter)....but somehow we can quantify it or observe this interaction!(we need to throw all our physics out the window and Frank Wilzek's Core theory on what we can observe in nature!) 3. We need to assume a new type type of matter which our cosmic brain is made of...without evidence Lets stop here with these assumptions...... -" Because attempts to reduce our internal conscious experiences to brain states have only succeeded in showing correlation, but not in explaining how we have the internal aspects of those experiences." -Science CAN ONLY point out to STRONG CORRELATIONS between a phenomenon and a process. that is not new and its not special for the phenomenon of the mind. eg.- We only have correlation between mass and gravity...but we can always go beyond and talk about an external source (like Emergent Gravity hypothesis suggests!) - We can only show correlations between the shape of a fluid in a cup and the electromagnetic structure of the cup....We can never exclude a unobservable "cup soul" type of substance responsible for all fluids taking the shape of the cup. - We can re-assume phlogiston as the invisible catalyst of combustion...the enabler of the property known as chemical reaction...go test that!!!! WHERE DO WE STOP...and what are our criteria? We Humans tend to push our questions some steps beyond the observable in order to take care our ignorance on how things emerge. This is not science or philosophy.

I mean, he is a professor of philosophy. He is expert at doing lectures

It's a movie remember? Perhaps his brain is reading off an invisible (to the naked eye) teleprompter after all!

He is a bit different. He taught himself coding at 10 years old.

If he's talking about something that is not only a concept but that he has truly assimilated, there is no need for teleprompters. He can talk about it from his experience.

It's because his conciousness is at work, utilizing the intelligence, mind, and physical body (brain etc) to deliver his subjective experience...his passion into conciousness research. "Speaking from the heart".

no

@@stellarwind1946 Why?

@@stellarwind1946 no it's not. There are thousands and thousands of research taken place on this subject. You just lack knowledge and that doesn't mean that it does not exist.

@@stellarwind1946 what's to lol about?

@@stellarwind1946 lmao. You really are a sad person bro. Take care.

Who's this Max Planck guy?? Sounds like a total crank.

Yoan Dragiev Some hippie I think.

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, FRS was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.

That is an argument from authority fallacy. Max Planck was not a Neuroscientist or a Cognitive Scientist. We know understand QM far better than people did in the days of Planck. We understand that consciousness has nothing to do with our quantum observations. Existence is primary because in order to be aware there must be something to be aware of. This debate is over many years ago. Pseudo philosophers like Chalmers insist in these idiotic claims.

Metho Natu The problem of consciousness was solved years ago? Wtf

Your consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

Some of us are yes, but others know exactly what consciousness is. Some of us know why we were placed on this planet, how many times we have reincarnated and what happens when we die.

Figuring out consciousness? What is so difficult, it is our soul, the part of you that is reading this right now.

@@jeffforsythe9514 Hup! There's that word.

@@jeffforsythe9514 Oh. Ok.

Came here after seeing that video.

I do not have theories, I have facts. It is your choice to accept or to reject them. We are all here for one reason, to earn our way back home to Heaven and a great teacher is needed....................Falun Dafa

@@jeffforsythe9514 The only truth is written in the Quran my friend.

thank you for this clear articulation of thoughts i share!

what comes to my mind when i read the comments that maybe most ppl have had no experience to learn about their consciousness. maybe not even the opportunity to reflect about it outside of their own heads. i am quite certain most ppl will agree that consciousness is a fascinating topic. yet most ppl may only reflect on it within themselves. thinking they are experts on the topic because. and in a sense they are because it would seem that no one can know more about your own consciousness than yourself. seeing ppl react to this talk makes actually sense if you look at it from that kind of view.

sol exactly. as Chalmers mentioned in this talk, it is even impossible for you to tell if I or any other being for that matter is consciousness as well. ;)

Scott Douglas Bravo! Couldn't agree more. It annoys me to no end when people dismiss such questions as pointless or absurd. OF COURSE the answer will seem absurd and counter-intuitive. Have we learned nothing from the history of science? Whatever the right answer is....it's bound to be incredibly counter-intuitive, in the same sort of way that quantum non-locality is counter-intuitive. Dismissing these questions as "silly" strikes me as profoundly cynical and jaded. True geniuses(like Einstein) were not above asking the sort of questions usually only asked by children. If anything, children's naivety is a good starting point. Once a child grows into a cynical adult who thinks they've got it all figured out...real discovery and progress grind to a halt. It's beyond refreshing to hear someone tackling the "hard problem" with honesty. I read Dennet's "Consciousness Explained" and was left completely unimpressed. He explained the mechanics of consciousness to a T. But...never once addressed the real question. Sure, we can explain, in detail, how "I see a flower," for instance. But...we can only explain the SEEING....we never address the "I" that sees. Why doesn't the brain merely process input(like sight) and respond accordingly? Why is there a "self" watching all this...at all...when it's entirely unnecessary to explain the mechanism of seeing? Is there any question in science more alluring and fascinating? Personally, I can't think of a single one.

He is a pseudo philosopher. He bases his philosophy on useless why questions and he ignores our current scientific epistemology on purpose. He is a mystery promoter and of the idea that our brain ability to direct our focused attention to important stimuli is something special. That is an anti Copernican why of thought that fails to promote our understanding.

Here it is simply put, you have a soul, it is you. next answer. Why are you here? To earn your way back home to heaven.................Falun Dafa

I could choose to commit suicide. So consciousness is not fundamental, from what I understand.

What does committing suicide have to do with anything?

@@ubu6949 you thus assume that by committing suicide, you would end your subjective consciousness. I would offer that your consciousness continues, and numerous studies have been done to soft prove this. Either way, no one really knows. See you on the other side dude.

You're confusing the subjective with the objective. Of course consciousness is fundamental to everyone's subjective experience - that's true by definition. The idea Chalmers is discussing is the idea that consciousness could be a fundamental part of the Universe - the objective world - just like mass, spacetime, and charge.

@Electro_blob You're also confusing the subjectivd with the objective. Chalmers isn't talking about the idea that consciousness is a fundamental part of your subjective experience - that's a completely obvious tautology. He's saying that consciousness might be a fundamental part of the Universe. But it would be very strange if this is true because, as ubu pointed out, consciousness can be destroyed.

lol , he looks better with extra few pounds too lol !

Indeed) It's amazing how he got so much time - to successfully train football players and deal with consciousness.

😂😂😂😂

Puhaha hilarious. He misses Kane & Son.

😂😂😂

Your consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

@@jeffforsythe9514 I've sometimes thought, could it be that we are conscious when we are asleep and not dreaming, but the reason why we perceive ourselves as not being conscious is because we have no memory of it? In other words maybe it is our memory that stops working rather than consciousness when we are asleep and not dreaming.

@@RPKGameVids Not at all. When we are asleep we are unconscious.

@@jeffforsythe9514 when i am asleep i dream. i have an experience similar to the waking world. consciousness doesnt seem to stop at any moment in time

​@@jeffforsythe9514 So, you are saying here that; you ain't have your soul when you fall asleep. That is a contradictory statement for someone that have said here that when people die, their souls and conscience still exist and can be transferred through reincarnation.

We all have a soul............................falundafa

Not really. The first is a biological process while the second is a cosmological process

​@@nickolasgaspar9660 🐒 🐒 monkey answer be like 😂

I have no reason to believe that

@@MrMebigfatguy energy is consciousness it's why E=MC^2 if particles and molecular compounds are not conscious, how do they know a consistent way to interact with other particles and how to behave under different circumstances? How are they able to react to their surroundings without some form of awareness?

@@tinywillis that's not what consciousness means. There is no evidence that matter or energy is conscious. When your argument is "how could something be without. .." that is a logical fallacy

@@MrMebigfatguy Dave Brosius con·scious·ness /ˈkän(t)SHəsnəs/ noun the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings. the awareness or perception of something by a living being. the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world. So that's exactly what conciousness means. How could mass exist without energy How can hot exist without cold? Or, light without dark? Good without evil? How can space exist without a smallest length? (Max Plank) Want to tell me again its logical fallacy to make statements like that? Connection and exclusion is exactly how you solve logic puzzles. You are ignoring a logical and founded statement because you dislike the way that logic is framed that's willful ignorance. And You say there is no evidence, what experiment could one do as proof or disproof of the consciousness of a particle?

@@tinywillis I don't know what experiment one could do. But you can't make a claim without evidence. There is no evidence that matter or energy or particles of themselves are conscious..

Consciousness IS the label used to explain an emergent property of the brain Jim. In order to make a different classification, you will need something else called evidence. In science we can only evaluate a Null Hypothesis due to its falsifiability. Anything beyond the "Null" state is irrational and irrelevant to science.

Damn same thing .bravo . Finaly someone with the same world view as mine

Jim Griffiths you're smart XD. That you went all the way in to get to this

Jim Griffiths SIMULTANEOUS! Fluid theory (Reproduction/Feed/Reasoning) decanted selfmultidimentionalover... The polydynamics of the movement generates pseudo-autonomy as material property, of the autogenous phenomenon; existing.(...) Simultaneous as my unidimensional variability... unidimensional variability = live-beings

Nickolas Gaspar Fluid theory (Reproduction/Feed/Reasoning) decanted selfmultidimentionalover... The polydynamics of the movement generates pseudo-autonomy as material property, of the autogenous phenomenon; existing.(...) Simultaneous as my unidimensional variability... unidimensional variability = live-beings

Everything that exists consists of matter, including thoughts. But the matter that makes up thoughts is many times smaller than quarks. But a great spiritual master can see this matter.....................falun dafa

I disagree on the notion that it can't be imagined. Though it might it might be my own consiousness, I can imagine a different person with a different consciousness then myself, but asking this question I have a question for myself, and you. Is this consciousness I imagine independent from my own consciousness. And if this consciousness I can imagine becomes popular through the masses. Would it still be the consciousness I orignally imagined?

Most of what your brain does is unconscious. There are literally billions of neurons and we are not aware of how they are all are interacting at any moment. Consciousness is that very small part of your neural experience that you are aware of and can report to others. For example when your visual system and brain respond to a certain spectrum of light, most of the processing is completely unconscious; we are only aware of the experience of seeing the color your brain assigns to that light spectrum (it's an "experiential label" that your unconscious neural machinery applies for you to be aware of), which is a minute portion of the overall processing that occurs. Consciousness has an evolutionary purpose for survival, which however does NOT include understanding the underlying neural mechanisms - that was not needed. Nonetheless, consciousness, as the part of your neural processing you are aware of and can report to others, is easy to imagine and conceptualize. But you might say, what about the part of me I know is there, that I can feel? Answer: that is your awareness of the mostly unconscious part of your brain that directs your mental focus. So if you decide to focus on that pretty girl across the street, most of what happens is then again unconscious, since the neural machinery is so incredibly complex. But you do have an awareness of redirecting the unconscious neural machinery, which gives you a feeling of a self with free will, or "consciousness". That feeling of a "conscious self" is also evolutionary enforced since it helps us value our life. Our conscious awareness, which models the neural process of attention in a simplistic way, does not clearly reveal itself to us, and that is indeed confusing when we try to explain it. But this awareness is nonetheless adequate for its purpose of modeling and control of the physiological process of attention. HOWEVER, what makes this even more confusing and hard to understand is that our models of what we perceive through our senses, such as the redness of the apple, are also based on unrevealed neural processes. That is, the perception or experience of redness is the brain's visual label (a visual hardwired modeling process) that it applies when a particular spectrum of light impinges on our visual system. The redness that we experience is simply the brain's shorthand, and highly adaptive, way of telling us about the spectral characteristics - it's a visual label (analogous to a verbal label, but applied unconsciously). As with the conscious awareness control of our attention neural processes, we do not perceive the underlying physiological processes that perform this visual labeling. So when our conscious awareness focuses on the redness of the apple, there are actually TWO types of parallel neuronal action that are hidden from us: 1) the hardwired labeling of the sensing process (e.g. experiencing red in response to a certain type of spectrum impinging on the eye) 2) the attention process that focuses our brain on this sensory experience. This double layer of unperceived "trickery" that our brain performs is therefore extremely counter intuitive.

To ParoMation: Read, or listen the audiobooks on youtube of Nissargadata, there is a level of consciousness that cannot be accessed by reflection. You are it, but cannot see it. I believe in translations of his work they call it "awareness". In this interpretation, awareness does not have an object. There is something beyond the imaginer and the imagened, that makes both of them possible, which itself cannot be imagined. If you would try to image it, you would again lapse back into this lower level of consciousness. The only way is to "be" it, and in it everything dissolves, including distinctions, memory, object and subjects. That is, what I think, Nis. would say. Approximately.

Even the salvation of the soul is in the consciousness that I cannot pass on to anyone: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it" - Revelation 2:17.

@@andrewtaylor9799 classic. So, the concepts about consiosness is more valid then direct expirience of it? Odd logic. All you got is your consiosness, how does the concepts within it can be a stronger argument?

I see your point, but science goes way beyond simply describing natural phenomena in other ways that are commonly acknowledged. Take string theory or the multiverse. Strictly speaking, consciousness is much closer to our daily reality and implementation of research than other observations, if you consider how much progress has been made on the development of AI in the last couple of decades, the trend towards designer babies and even with regard to our climate crisis and the implications for ethics and responsibility of using our crude scientific know-how for better or worse, because we have mastered everything but ourselves. Does consciousness really precede our mindscape in a way that is outside of the natural world or does that definition reflect our current limited horizon? what makes you think it's not measureable?

When you say science, what you really mean is phsics. Science doesn't need an objective viewer, just think of psychology. All the sciences come from the philosophy. Philosophy is a meta-science, so this topic is at exactly the right spot. The philosophy should build up a science of conciousness.

THANK YOU! Everything you've said is in the direction I've been desperately looking to find someone else going in, regarding consciousness. Excellent job with the argument against all these people (as brilliant and well-intended as they are) who require that consciousness submit to material science on at least some level. I would say that if a person has even begun to accept the nature of consciousness as they experience it, they would have the good sense to not be making any intellectual demands of it whatsoever. A large majority of the voices I've heard speak on the mystery of consciousness completely fail to define consciousness without sneaking in plenty of opportunity for material reduction. I think the reason for the mass avoidance we see may just be an existential anxious fear, which I can completely empathize with. If the nature of your own consciousness hasn't horrified you, I have to wonder if you've genuinely tried reconciling it with your understanding of what our universe is.

Consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

Consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

I’m learnding!

***** that's like saying reality is clouded with mathematical and physics ideas.

***** anything at all can be referred to from a spiritual point of view. But there's no reason for a false explanation to work.

***** yes, exactly! But only from a broader view. Under scrutiny, bad explanations can be shown to collapse.

I hope your philosophy degree was worth this comment.

philosophy is what you study after physics fails.

"Why is it that this series of chemical and electrical processes organized in a circuitry like fashion which is the brain give rise to consciousness, and not that slightly altered version of the brain where nothing is happening." The version of the brain where nothing is happening would leave its owner helpless to defend itself against nature and therefore would never propagate its DNA in the wild. In other words, we think because the thinkers are the ones who survived while all the others were wiped out long ago. "As far as we know it, its impossible to measure whether or not something is conscious." That's true, but don't forget that we know almost nothing about it, so the fact that we have no way to measure consciousness is a very poor indicator of whether it could be measured by people who know more than us. "Could you even attempt to mimic consciousness or would you always result in creating somehting that is conscious?" You certainly can mimic consciousness. The Watson computer is famous for having played Jeopardy and it sometimes answered questions as if it understood the questions and the answers it was giving, but sometimes it gives answers that make it clear that it does not actually understand what it is saying. Watson works by taking shortcuts and using tricks rather than being a fully thinking machine with understanding of everything it is hearing and saying. I see no reason why it might be impossible to create a machine with the full inner life of a human mind running somewhere in its software. That would be real consciousness, as opposed to a machine that is merely programmed to appear conscious.

The brain is not made of "simple neural" processes. The sheer number of neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters make the brain the most complex structure we know of in the entire universe. Consciousness is an emergergent property of this complex material brain. DC is dabbling in WOO Woo.

quagmire444 Man you get this stuff... Thumbs up!

Yes and it's clearly obvious that this "why" question is both fundamental to our human sentience and an intrinsically non-empirical question. There is absolutely nothing you can do empirically to approach the "why" question. Your only option is that if you want to see what is beyond the senses and the mind, you will have to control the senses and the mind. Materialists are too attached to their bodily pleasures to take up any form of spiritual discipline, even as an experiment. Materialists are desperately holding onto the dogma because it props up their materialist identity. It's entirely about egos, and in fact has very little to do with genuine scientific inquiry. This is the sad situation for 99% of the population.

@@Ansatz66 I agree that we could create a machine that feels qualia. But how about free will? Or do you have to assume no free will?

AJJAJAJJA

@@rijpmajohan That doesn't make any sense. Consciousness not being what we think it is, is not the same as consciousness being an illusion. First of all, the entire CONCEPT of an illusion presupposes consciousness, so what are you talking about?

@@rijpmajohan Ok, if we take that and run with it, what exactly is having the illusion? What is being deceived? If you say that consciousness is an illusion in the sense that it's not real (which you don't seem to be doing, but a lot of people are) then I show you the door, but if all you're saying is that consciousness is not what we think it is, then you're not adding anything novel or relevant to the discussion. ''This is just a “useful fiction” for us to survive, that as a byproduct creates the illusion that there is a “thing” called consciousness that is different from everything that it is conscious of'' I don't know what you mean by this. Are you saying consciousness is not qualitatively distinct from everything else in the world, that our awareness and experience is not different from the outside world at all?

💯 agreed

+James Hansen This is honestly the most masturbatory comment here, I think. And I'm going to pray to God that you did not mean Dennett's view is popular consensus among anyone but the New Atheist population of the internet.

Your consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

@@jeffforsythe9514 Your comments are simply your written words.

Buddhism has infact taken this interpretation from ancient Hindu philosophy called sankhya and vedanta

@@brucewayne-og8ro The Buddha was first influenced by Hindu teachers from whom he learned how to calm his mind and reach deep and very pleasant calm mind-states. However, he realized that simply reaching these calm mind states do not answer many questions he had. This lead him on a ‘quest for truth’ for which he strived for many years - this eventually lead him to understand the nature of the mind (consciousness) which he described in great detail in his teachings (recorded in the Pali Cannon). He taught the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, dependent origination, the three characteristics of existence, etc., that enables anyone to gradually reach enlightenment.

Everything can be explained by a great teacher. Consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake............falun dafa

That's so weird I watched a documentary on him last week had never seen or heard his name before and now you've mentioned him in this comment

To make total sense of this world one needs a great teacher......................Falun Dafa

@@jeffforsythe9514 So, you are saying that you ain't have your soul when you fall asleep. That is a contradictory statement for someone that says that when people die their souls and conscience still exist and can be transferred through reincarnation.

I guess that shows that Chalmers wasn't clear enough. Consciousness, as imagined by the hard problem, is more basic than the self. It's experience in itself: The fact that red is red, pain hurts and so on. Why are we not empty information processing machines but actually have subjective experiences if we are made up of inanimate matter subject to the laws of physics? That's Chalmers' hard problem.

nice. nice. well said.

Its sad but that really is science in a nutshell - we have* to pretend it doesn't exist until we can quantify/measure and lock it away some place, that however is not the problem. The problem is the people who forget that this is just a strategic approach - these are the people who really suspect the world disappears when they shut their eyes. Great commend btw!

@Electro_blob Love science so I hate to sound like we are beating on it but the challenge is specifically where the greatest gains lie. I love the new crop of Scientist Practitioners who are emerging especially in the biomedical sciences - David Sinclair, Valter Longo, Peter Attia etc - these guys I think get it - that it doesn't become science when it enters the textbooks. For instance for generations cultures everywhere demanded - often for spiritual reasons - that people should fast. Then came science which ridiculed fasting as an adjunct in palliative care, prescribing and preferring pills instead; now the top labs are falling over each other telling us how wonderful fasting is - all I want to say is, when Grandma claimed it you said it was nonsense - now your reagents have changed color we should give you a Nobel? We all just need a little bit of humility for things that don't make sense to us initially is all.

I've never met a mathematician who couldn't quantify their consciousness. =/

LMAO ! :)

I think you are confusing it with intelligence. What part of judgement requires qualia to exist?

Your first sentence is nonsense. We all need a great teacher, that is all.................Falun Dafa

Why?

He is a good philosopher with an open and clear mind that considers all of the following as plausible alternatives: 1) C is nothing but an illusion (Physicalism) 2. C is in everything (Panpsychism) 3. C is essential along with mass, energy, charge, spin, space, time, etc. (Dualism) Isn't it fascinating?

That was explanation...that explained nothing through a strawman fallacy!

Different kinds of consciousness would still be an emergent phenomenon though?

Exactly my first thought.

He doesn't look badass anymore :(

Povilas Račkauskas Still the leather jacket so you know it's him.

***** Jackass.

+Povilas Račkauskas -- Imagine if he also bought some adult clothes.

sure, he takes advantage of people's scientific ignorance and he promotes pseudo philosophical speculations as important intellectual material...

@@rijpmajohan He does what science and philosophy used to do in their effort to explain "mysterious" phenomena. For Combustion they came up with "Phlogiston", for temperature...Caloric, for life... Ordic and Orgone Energy, for Diseases ....Miasma! For awareness he came up with a thing called "consciousness". People are acceptable to magical thinking resulting in creating agencies out from abstract concepts.

Consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

@@nickolasgaspar9660 bro seems like you don't believe in consciousness or soul, and that's sad.

Read again, old poster, I have solved YOU!

What if the edge of human understanding is knowing how consciousness is formed

​@Chip Reuben The scope of scientific investigation is bound by the limits of the 'spacetime ruleset.' In a manner similar to how Godel’s incompleteness theorem demonstrates the limits of mathematics, the study of our universe from within has it’s self evident limitations i.e.. boundary conditions can only be “viewed” from one side. Before, after and adjacent remain practically inaccessible, other than by inference using available models.- hence evidentially unknowable. Maybe. See Tom Campbell's modelling of the hard problem at www.tomcampbell.info/

It's still interesting to read everyone's hypothesis on it, none of us really know but maybe one day someone will figure it out, that will only happen if we have a lot of people thinking about it and researching it :)

Effectively it could be a returning to a three part understanding of human experience. Expect instead of mind body and soul. It's mind, brain, and consciousness.

That's functionalism - the "easy problem" of consciousness. As you say, it was solved the day we discovered computers. It's about the flow and handling of data and inputs/outputs. No big deal. But that is not all consciousness is. You could have a robot handle all of the same information and yet "no one is home". There would be no "first person experience" of "what it is like" to be such an information processor. Some people have a hard time grasping qualia because they haven't experienced consciousness apart from the *contents* of consciousness. Yet, it is possible to experience consciousness even without thought, memory, sensation, or any other contents. It is the visceral experience of what it is like to be a being. Various forms of meditation or other altered states demonstrate the distinction clearly. Nothing about the functional handling of data explains that. In other words, why should *any* configuration of interacting atoms *ever* create the feeling of what it is like to be conscious? You could imagine such a structure knowing all about itself, its context, having goals, and making decisions - even reporting on its states and yet have no actual inner experience of itself that is being felt. A thermostat is built to report on what it detects and take action in response to it. But no one believes it is having an experience. So why should adding any more components, data, or complexity ever begin to produce that feeling? That is the "hard problem" of consciousness and computers can't address it, even in principle.

That doesn't address the hard problem of c. at all

NOPE. TRY BEING CONSCIOUS FIRST AND THEN RUN THOSE CONCEPTS BY UR MIND AGAIN, WHEN IT'S IN SANE MODE, NOT WHEN IT'S IN DUMBASS SATANIC MODE TRYING DESPERATELY TO MAKE PEOPLE THINK YOU HAVE TO HAVE NEGATIVE THINGS TO COMPREHEND GOOD THINGS

Easy. Consciousness is the thing you don’t have when you go in a dreamless sleep every night.

UR STILL CONSCIOUS WHEN U DON'T DREAM U FUKCING IDIOT

I believe that's called epiphenomenalism.

It's also supposed to be about "ideas worth spreading". Which this isn't.

Matthew Prorok Why is it not? It is a very thoughtful question. Why should this idea be pushed aside?

Conor Baxter Because being a "thoughtful question" is insufficient. The question needs to be constrained by evidence. An answer needs to be at least in principle discoverable. I'm hardly the first to suggest that Chalmers is saying things which make no sense.

Matthew Prorok Science began with questions. Questions are vital for evidence to be gained. You don;t get evidence for something unless it is questioned. Who said that it is not discoverable. Many years ago what was above the sky was thought undiscovered. Until people questioned that. Questions are vital for discovery.

"Who said that it is not discoverable." Chalmers did! He wrote a whole book about it: "The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory". He's an epiphenomenalist. The whole point of his idea is that consciousness is a separate property beyond the physical, which has no observable effect on physical properties.

I feel you haha

yknow it exists but at what cost lol

It wouldn't. Your consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

if humans never came into existence how would consciousness ( even the word! ) be relevant or a thing ?... the cosmos would still be what it is until a possible expiration date without 'feeling '.....

@@johnkerr1113I'll try to explain. We live is the dimension of molecules and planets and when we look through a microscope we see that the particles get smaller and small but increase with energy. This decline in size happens a million times until the smallest of all particles, the human soul. In one particle of air there are a million universes, all different sizes that our technology cannot perceive. Each universe containing souls, conscious souls.

@@jeffforsythe9514 thank you for your explanation..

Yes but at what point would matter become conscious through evolution. It only makes sense that everything was always consciousness, and it just slowly got more complex.

Consciousness and the brain have nothing to do with each other. One is divine and the other is of the earth. Consciousness is simply your soul when you are awake.

You have a soul, what is so difficult to comprehend, now let us move on, why are we here? We are here to earn our way back to Heaven and Falun Dafa shows the Way.

@@jeffforsythe9514 Who is Falun Dafa? Are you high?

Lol@@julianmustermann1243

No. Find a great teacher and get the show on the road................Falun Dafa

You meant protons, not photons. Photons are neutral.

When you say "his second crazy idea", do you mean the idea he *called* the second one, or the actual second one? The first "crazy idea" he mentioned was Dan Dennett's idea. He then called the next crazy idea the first crazy idea, and the one after that, he called the second crazy idea. Really, they were the second and third "crazy ideas". An off by one error, and the most spectacular one I've ever heard of.

Your explanation is much better than the speaker's.

🤦‍♀️

That sounds like a fair set of starting points. But two questions, 1 - what's the difference between consciousness and the mind, by your definition? (aren't they part + parcel of the same thing?), and 2 - "Defined and bounded by the senses" ....What about psychedelic drugs (like DMT) causing experiences that are *way* beyond anything previously perceived by the senses? In states like that, the subjective experience is that you're perceiving visual/auditory/telepathic information that comes from somewhere outside of what the senses can normally perceive. Those'd be my only two objections, though...lol Otherwise, pretty good set of laws I think.

@@465marko First of all, great observations. Regarding your first question, what is the difference between the mind & consciousness, I'd suggest the "inner dialogue" we experience is a fundamental part of consciousness; one which is correlated, yet separate, from the physical mind. For, some time ago, someone (I've forgotten their name, hope they will forgive me) performed an experiment in which he would electrically stimulate a persons brain, specifically and solely with the intention to create body movement. (The subjects/volunteers arm would raise, or extend, after receiving this electric charge.) Now, afterwards, when he questioned these people about the experience, they would most often respond, "You raised my arm," or "My arm was raised." For me, this is enough "proof" that consciousness and the mind have a very clear distinction. Now, as far as your observations regarding drugs such as Ayahuasca, I'm actually a bit perplexed. (A very thought-provoking observation, I've been sitting here thinking about this for over 60 minutes, lol.) I am extremely familiar with the types of "experiences" substances such as DMT induce, being as I've listened to, and read, many first-hand accounts. In other-words, I'm aware just how "powerful" and "unique" these experiences can be. I don't have an exact retort, but just a couple of short observations. 1.) It COULD be argued these experiences are still bounded within the senses, though they are senses ordinarily only used when someone is fast approaching death. (Assuming the literature I've read on DMT is correct.) Heavily manipulated senses? Absolutely. Strange and foreign in comparison to daily life? Indeed. But, still, bounded within the senses all the same. Similar to NDE's. 2.) Yet, I also believe you're right, and my "law" would need to be altered. Perhaps "Largely defined by the senses. Infrequently defined by other parts of the mind, specifically excluding the standard senses." (Or something like that.) In close, thank you for your remarks. They have led me to a great "session" of thought, conversation, and further (previously unknown to me) realizations.

@@mycommentpwnz Hey, thanks for such a great reply! I don't want to drag you further down the rabbit hole than you have time for, but... What you mentioned about the electrical brain stimulation is really interesting. So, when you say "the mind", you're talking the physical brain (?). Just as an aside, wouldn't it be strange if the result was slightly different; if instead of saying "my arm was moved", the people always said "I decided to move it"? Even though they'd been told to keep perfectly still, the electric impulse was enough to create the sensation of making the decision...as if they couldn't help "deciding" to move their arm every time? Not really adding anything by that, I just thought that would be an even weirder result! But I'm with you on the distinction between the mind and consciousness. That they're related, correlated, but distinct. Makes sense to me (sort of..!) As far as being bounded by the senses.. First, now I'm wondering what that actually means. Does it mean, consciousness can only "work with" the information it receives from the senses? So for eg....a brain that's never seen the colour blue *probably* couldn't conceive of blue (although it has seen other colours, so maybe it could extrapolate). But I'm back-tracking a little bit now on whether I fully get that concept. Also, NDE's - YES, absolutely. Perfect example of what I was getting at. Or even more mundane; dreams. Imagination, even? Maybe. But I take your point about senses ordinarily not available to us. That could absolutely be it. Although, to be fair, the whole "extra senses" idea probably sounds a bit crazy to most. I can get down with it, though. So that's fair. I guess what's "bugging" me is; of all the sensory input that enters a brain, how much ability does it have to imagine completely new/novel things? And it's difficult because, we can extrapolate from things that *have* entered via the senses. Then I was thinking, if you had a brain in a vat, alive but with no sensory input...(it would be a bit cruel), but...what would happen if you gave it ayahuasca? But no, I like your answers there. And I like that you didn't try and argue that NDEs or psychedelic experiences are just the brain spewing out variations of information that originally *was* perceived by the ordinary senses, stored, and then shuffled around and spat out during the experience. You realise how profound those things actually are. Anyway, thanks very much for your response!! Much appreciated.

Consciousness clearly happens in time. One thought appears after another. I don't know what a static consciousness would be like. Can the qualia of orange exist without time? Further consciousness seems to directly depend on our immediate circumstance. When there is a tree we might experience the qualia of it's smell. When a part of our brain is missing, the experience of sight might end altogether. I don't know what "dimensionless" is supposed to mean here.

That is self contradictory. To be conscious means to be able as a thinking agent to be aware of things that exist. In order to be conscious of anything Something must first exist. Existence is primary in the universe (by definition) and conscious agents can observe and verify objectively what exists and what claims are either unfounded, wrong or unfalsiable.

@@nickolasgaspar9660 what.

Building blocks? It is the human soul.

No, consciousness is the soul.......................falundafa

@@jeffforsythe9514 A person with catastrophic brain damage is unconscious. On the other hand rats, like other animals, are believed to have some level of consciousness. Rats are capable of complex behaviors, such as problem-solving and learning, that suggest they have some level of cognitive and emotional processing. Studies have also shown that rats have neural activity patterns similar to those of humans in certain brain regions associated with consciousness, such as the neocortex. Soul is a human construct with no scientific evidence whatsoever.

Everything in existence as we know it is God's word, everything is a vibration or frequency. Conciousness is the breath of God.

@@danielmiller3967 Oh, ok.

Thank you

It's generally bs, and he's not even aware that's not an accurate term for the concept he was describing, it's better called self-awareness. A simpler and better start for going about this problem is to realize that if we were not self-aware we would be simply less intelligent and a regular computer isn't self-aware because it's simply not programmed to do it; we have to forget for a moment the charm of a human being and realize we are still computers, just programmed in a different way.

I think Salvia and DMT may be our best evidence for pan-psychism. Repeatably, after taking Salvia, a number of people experience being an inanimate object, such as chairs, plants, a fence etc. When one is having the experience it feels 100% real, and their life as a human doesn't exist anymore.

Ano Nymous prob the stupidest comment I’ve ever read on KZfaq

@@InterbeingArt the drug gabapentin did this to me, complete disassociation. was so weird....

and this is why we don't use the vedic tradition to do science. Science uses terms (like consciousness) as tags in order to identify and label observable phenomena. Magical explanations on the other hand make unfalsifiable claims about the invisible nature of an actual agent acting on nature. This ischildish god- like pseudo philosophy.

Jeffrey, what a lovely comment. It's funny, that we in the West, the USA, with our less-than-3-centuries of existence think to know so much more than those traditions dating back thousands of years. I wish I knew Sanskrit so I could read the Vedic teachings in their original form. What's amazing is how linear language - something so very relative - can manage to convey such depths & breadths. It helps so much to be Heart-centric rather than mind-centric to receive/perceive it. Heart's Knowing greatly transcends the more limited knowledge of the mind. ~♥~

@@sitarainbow8837 what we think we know is IRRELEVANT. Whether our epistemic methods are fruitful or not that is something that can be demonstrated and evaluated. The device and network you use to post your ideology against science.....is based on scientific knowledge. Your life in a heavily packed society is sustained by science (vaccines, antibiotics, painkillers, sanitation, access to basic needs without poisoning your self(water,food), your ability to commute, your ability to communicate....etc etc). Can you point to a single scientific framework which is based on an blindly accepted ancient Vendic traditional claim? I guess you can not...because there isn't one. And even if there was a similarity in a claim by chance, evidence is what rendered a statement...to be knowledge. What distinguishes knowledge from other claims is....empirical evidence....nothing more nothing less. As far as I know there isn't any other domain that uses a systematic empirical method as a tool to its evaluations.