3:06 made a bling moment within my head; that people (scientists + scholars etc) are LOOKING to something BIG + WOW WOW to answer the solution to Getting the Mess our world has fallen into over the eons in this tired ARSE <-- drama. You see SIMPLISTIC; IT is so simple when the the BEings of the ALL in ONE (WHOLE) awakens fully; is going to make them Laugh-Their-Asses-Off because it was LOVING, Compassion as I have been shouting + shouting. This will bring the Balance of the feminine to balance
If I, the experiencer of my life, am an emergent property of my brain, then a clone of my brain should mean that I would get to experience life again from the point-of-view of the new brain, a bit like being reborn. But this wouldn't occur, instead a new, separate experiencer would emerge. However, if you wiped clean my memory, I would still be the experiencer of my life, even though I wouldn't remember who I was. Two identical brains, two separate experiencers. What makes me the experiencer?
The idea of "self" as this single unchanging entity is really an illusion helped by the fact that people can't replicate their brains, and that the stream of consciousness is relatively uninterrupted from birth until death.
What makes you "you", is not your material body, but your mind, and there is no reason there can't be more than one of you.
@homerj7g Not sure I follow you. You say that there is no reason there can't be more than one of me. Do you mean this in the sense that if there was two of me, then I would be able to experience life from two separate perspectives simultaneously, like being in two places at once? Or that there would be two of me, one of which I would experience, and one which I would not experience?
No, if there are 2 separate brains, there are 2 separate experiencers. But if the 2 brains are experiencing different things (i.e. they are in different physical locations), then the consciousness splits, and these 2 experiencers are not the same people.
If you put both brains in a vat and made them experience the exact same thing. The question of whether these are 2 separate identical consciousnesses or a single duplicate consciousness is sort of incoherent in my model.
@homerj7g I'm not convinced that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, depending on what your definition of consciousness is. I think consciousness is an awareness of your environment, in which case it is not an emergent property of the brain. I believe life had some awareness of it's environment in order to evolve. I feel that it is this initial awareness that has strived to become more and more aware of its environment, culminating in the life forms in existence today.
Well I don't think emergence and awareness are mutually exclusive. There are lots of definitions for "emergence", but I am using it the most general sense; a property which is only manifested by a multitude of parts and not by the individual parts alone. I think acute awareness of your environment is made possible by a brain. Plants are "aware" of their environment to some degree. I don't think they are *as* conscious as humans.
@homerj7g Yeah I'd agree, but don't you think it's all part of the same thing? I think it was that initial glimmer of awareness that led to where it is now with our complex brain. It's like a life force that is striving to experience the universe in a more and more rich way. Like being stuck inside a box and you can't see, hear or taste, then you slowly crack through that box little by little, seeing the outside, hearing the outside, etc. It's the force that has driven evolution to become us.
Are you saying that consciousness existed before life? And that life is merely the vessel for this pre-existing consciousness to experience the universe?
@homerj7g Well, I'm saying that whatever started the chain of evolution must have been aware of its environment to be able to react to it, and it is that same thing that has evolved to where life is today. I'd call it a life force. You can't generalize consciousness as what us humans experience. As you said yourself, plants are aware to some degree. I'm saying there is a force that gives life, and the things it's given life to have evolved into more complex things allowing greater awareness.
I guess I am not sure if we are using the word "aware" in the same way. If you are talking about very mentally primitive life being "aware" to some small degree (i.e. they can react to their environment), then I would say even computers and robots are aware too. Are computers and robots alive? Well our definition of life seems rather arbitrary, so maybe the technical answer doesn't matter.
Do you think this life force only applies to organic (i.e. carbon based) awareness?
@homerj7g I don't know, perhaps the force can link to certain types of matter. Perhaps it occupies one of these extra dimensions they talk about, and it comes through to this dimension via certain pathways. Or perhaps it's dark matter? I see it as some sort of energetic field. To visualize it I think of it as a silk sheet, and then matter is another sheet above it. The life sheet seeps up through the matter sheet at certain places, all on a quantum scale of course. Well, life came from somewhere
I don't see why any life force would only attach to carbon and not silicon. This seems rather arbitrary. Also, while it may be fun to speculate on like life forces or energy fields, I am unaware of any scientific, logical, or philosophical bases to back up these kinds of claims.
This idea that "X had to come from somewhere, therefore it came from Y" always leads to an infinite regress. At some point something did not need a cause. The infinite regress must stop somewhere.
@homerj7g Ok, let's test your logic instead. You see through your eyes. You experience your life and have done every day since you were born. We could wipe your memory perfectly clean and you will still see through your eyes, even if you don't remember who you are. How is it that if we copied your brain you wouldn't be able to see through those new eyes? What is it that's different? What made you? What is it that made you in the first place and how could we make another you that you experience?
You are not only experiencing what is coming through your eyes. You are also experiencing your own thoughts and memories. Your experience of the outside world is shaped by previous experiences. If you remove those experiences, you are not the same person.
@homerj7g I used eyes as an example. In all honesty, you could be right, you could be wrong. It could be that I'm me whatever happens. Even if my memory was erased, it could just mean that I'd be starting my life again as if I was reborn. Eventually I'd re-learn things and experience the world with all new memories. I'd have no knowledge of my former life and I'd have a new identity, but I'd be the same experiencer, I wouldn't cease to exist.
Are you a different "experiencer" if you have all your memories erased? I think this question in itself makes assumptions that will ultimately turn out to be wrong.
If they way you react to stimulu is what defines you as "you", then everything in your mind (past memories and proclivities to certain reactions), then you are not the same experiencer even moment to moment. It just feels like you are because the change is so gradual.
@homerj7g You can feel a slap the moment you're born. So who is it that is feeling that slap? It's you. Extract that memory and slap you again. It's still you feeling that slap, but you just won't remember the first slap. It's not a whole new person feeling that slap, even though you'll think you are. I'm sure we've all forgotten events from the past, but that doesn't mean it was a different person that it happened to. You did experience the event, but you've forgotten that you did.
I think the problem here is that you are equating 1 physical human body with 1 consciousness. You refer to both as "you". This is quite natural to want to do. Thinking in this way is very useful for society. That doesn't mean it is philosophically correct.
What if you slap a baby, replace it's memories by transplanting a different newborn baby brain into the baby. Is that the same person simply with a different brain state?
@homerj7g No, it's a different brain and thus a different experiencer because the experiencer is not a product of the brain. So if I completely forget something then, does that mean I didn't experience that event and that someone else did? When I get drunk and do silly things, of which I am very conscious at the time, then forget by the next morning but wake up full of bruises, does that mean I didn't do it or experience it or feel any of the pain that may have been associated with it?
Example A: Your brain is replaced with someone else's for one night, you awake with bruises. Was that you who experienced last night?
Example B: The atoms in your brain are rearranged to match the configuration of the other persons brain from example A for one night and then rearranged back. You awake with bruises. Was that you who experienced last night?
My claim is that both examples are equivalent, and the question of "who was it?" is ultimately the wrong question.
@homerj7g Who knows. My mind is boggled. I just watched Athene's Theory Of Everything on here, a 50 minute documentary, and all I'm sure of now is that I don't know much at all. I do know one thing though - it's bloody weird! Thanks for taking time to talk to me man, you'll probably see me round on here from time to time when ideas pop into my head :-)
It is interesting to note that Dennett's point of view steers away from a central, unitary "self". In other words, he's saying precisely what Eastern philosophy has said for centuries, while his irate detractors are, well, taking a Western or Judeo-Christian stance (i.e. that there's "someone home").
Is it so hard to see that a bunch of modules with partial, different levels of awareness could be unified LOGICALLY into an APPARENT self? And THEN we're conscious of that conclusion/illusion?
When you really don't know how to make a logical argument use the magic of rhetoric and most people will believe that you have said something of substance.
Sometimes when something seems illogical, it's only because you don't understand it. Like one of those "magic eye" pictures, I can only insist to you that there is something there, but you just can't see it. Just keep looking at it.
@homerj7g I am very new to this subject but these videos have piqued my interest. Dennet argues that there is no real magic. He seems certain that there is no cartesian theater or little green man. My intuition tells me differently. There is a growing body of evidence for consciousness existing separate from brain. Obviously that may not be physical in any way that we understand. It would be outside the realm of science - real magic. Thanks for posting this talk. It is very stimulating.
Just out of curiosity, what evidence were you referring to? I have never seen any convincing evidence of human consciousness existing separate from the brain. I think one day we may have artificial intelligence, but I think this basically means that the computer becomes a de facto brain. I am not aware of any evidence that "free floating" consciousness can exist, separate from the physical world.
@homerj7g Unless you live under a rock you have heard some such evidence. I suspect you rejected it out of hand because it offended your dogma. If you were at all likely to accept such evidence you would have looked into the details and found that they are difficult to explain away.
I have seriously never seen a single credible piece of scientific evidence showing that consciousness is separate from the brain. Please link to a web page or a wikipedia article or something. If you just say "the evidence is everywhere" without providing a citation, can only assume there isn't any.
@cunnidvd I am open to the possibility that consciousness is separate from the brain, but Dennett's point of view is, to me, more convincing. I can easily understand that it might not be convincing to you, though, because you experience your own experience through a filter of previous experience. In other words, our own assessment of our own consciousness is highly suspect. We are the ultimate biased observers!
"If someone claims a scientific reason to believe the mind is separate from the brain, they must also provide a coherent prediction that this idea would imply that must then be tested."
You ask for a coherent prediction based on the mind being seperate from the brain, but you don't ask for a coherent prediction based upon the assertion that the experience of red is nothing more that neuronal firing. So tell me, how are you going to test the idea that neurons firing produce red.
There is ample evidence that neuronal firings are critical to the function of the brain. There is ample evidence that the brain is critical to the function of the mind. There is no evidence that anything outside the brain has any bearing on consciousness.
If new evidence something outside the physical brain contributes to consciousness, it will be incorporated into the currently accepted theory. That hasn't happened yet.
@homerj7g "There is ample evidence that the brain is critical to the function of the mind."
There is nothing but correlations. No causation is established. And even if you assume causation, the direction of causation is still an unknown. Again, all of this assumes that there is a physical reality beyond the mind - for which there is no evidence. When you perceive a brain, or a picture of a brain, or a discussion about a brain, it is all happening in your mind.
If we assumed that the mind caused the neuronal activity, then damaging the neurons would not impair the mind. But we see exactly the opposite. We see that things like brain damage and drugs physically affect the mind. This is exactly what we would expect if the brain were physical and exactly what we wouldn't expect if we thought the mind was metaphysical.
There IS evidence the mind is physical and NO evidence that it isn't.
@vsaluki Thanks to fMRI and DTI we have mountain of evidence to say that mind is a consequence of brain. It's not mere correlations, it's causation with direction of causation established. The millions of neurons and their interconnections give rise to consciousness. Nonetheless even if it is not the case unless and until you give an explanation that is mechanistic (which to be honest is insipid) you really haven't explained anything. It's like saying that's magic and settling there....
@homerj7g The evidence that you speak of Is on the brink of being discovered at the LHC at Cern. You are SO right about needing evidence to connect consciousness to the outside world. That's Exactly what they talk about in these clips check it out i know you will be interested. Don't let the name fool you, this is Quantum Physics NOT religion. goto: liveafterdeath.webs.com
I seriously doubt that we can say ANYTHING is ABOUT to be discovered at CERN. If we KNEW it was ABOUT to be discovered, it would already be discovered.
Also, I doubt anyone at CERN is even looking for quantum explanations of a soul. Maybe people like Hameroff will interpret the results from CERN as evidence for this, but I just don't see it.
Even if we can prove that quantum information is preserved for eternity, I would not consider this good evidence for an eternal soul.
The big trick that Dennet does here is to make you believe that he is going to give you information that will give you a clearer idea of what consciousness is. But all you get is a Dennett illusion. He waves his hands, he shows you pictures, he talks about this and that, and he gives you nothing. Call it the "Dennett makes money talking about nothing trick".
I certainly felt like he gave me a much better understanding of what consciousness can be, and what it can;t be, and why. The reason I uploaded these videos is because I thought they might be as useful to other people as they were to me. I'm sorry you haven't been able to get what I have from these videos.
The problem with Dennett is that he has a very specific outcome in mind. He wants to insist that there is a physicalist explanation that can be obtained by using reductionism. But since he has no such explanation - since he can't even imagine an explanation, he talks around the issue with nonsense about magicians, peoples biases, emotions,etc. And he carefully avoids any confrontation with the problem of explaining how neuronal firing can be the same thing as the experience of color.
That's what science is. Science ONLY provides physicalist explanations for natural phenomena. So if you are alleging that Dan only cares about scientific explanations, then you are right. Dan has no interest in super natural explanations of consciousness and does not even consider that a possibility worth exploring.
As far as science is concerned, a non-physicalist explanation is not an explanation. Only physicalist explanations count.
Yes, it's that narrow minded attitude that has left him in a position of claiming that consciousness does not exist. Now he has to try to claim that the brain does magic tricks for an audience that does not exist. He has to claim that his own theories are magic tricks that have been arrived at through a deterministic process that he had absolutely no choice in - that there is no consciousness involved in his theories.
He never claimed consciousness doesn't exist. His claim entails the idea consciousness (like EVERY other scientific claim) has a physical explanation.
And yes I am 100% certain Dan would agree that his own mind is performing the same tricks, and that his conjectures (not theories) are a result of these same sorts of tricks he is talking about.
He made no claim about determinism. Quantum mechanics seems to imply that the universe is random rather than deterministic.
@homerj7g "Science ONLY provides physicalist explanations for natural phenomena."
There is no such rule in science. But if you think there is, then explain the quantum observation that have events being dependent upon the presence of an observer. Or explain objects having potential position rather than actual position. You and Dan would probably claim that those are super natural events and therefore are not real. The quantum scientists must have it all wrong - according to you.
Your whole comment is a non sequitur. The laws of quantum mechanics are physicalist explanations. Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics. The fact that the quantum state of a particle is affected by it's observation is a physical phenomenon. Observation entails physical interaction.
All the laws of quantum mechanics are describing NATURAL NOT SUPERNATURAL phenomena.
Quantum mechanics is a model of the physical universe we live in. That's what the whole study of physics is.
@homerj7g "laws of quantum mechanics are physicalist explanations."
Only if you have no definition of physicalist. Before quantum mechanics physicalist science would have claimed that an object cannot be in two places at the same time and that something cannot be both a wave and a particle. So if you want to go down that road, then you can also claim that mind is physicalist - but not in a way that we currently recognize as physicalist and not in the way that you and Dennet claim.
Science makes claims that are proven wrong all throughout history. This happens when existing theories make incorrect predictions.
Newton created a model of physics was discovered not to apply to new observations. Newtonian physics was replaced with quantum mechanics and relativity.
Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics and relativity are all physical models of the universe. The last 2 simply have more predictive power.
Quanutm mechanics was NEVER a supernatural explanation.
@homerj7g "Quanutm mechanics was NEVER a supernatural explanation."
Seems like you are unable to understand the simplest of things. I'm not talking about quantum mechanics as a theory. I'm talking about the results that it gives us. If someone had told you, a hundred years ago, before there was a quantum theory, that something could be both a wave and a particle you would have rejected it as supernatural because there was no science to support such an assertion. (continued)
Actually principles of quantum mechanics were just being formulated about 100 years ago.
If someone explained particle wave duality to me 2000 years ago, and I asked this person what a particle and a wave was and he said "They are magical things that science can never explain" then yes I would reject it as supernatural.
If he said "They are things whose behavior we will one day explain scientifically" then I might still reject it, but not because it is supernatural.
@homerj7g (continued from previous) In the same way, someone can today claim that mind and brain are seperate and it could well be true, but the science to support it simply hasn't been found yet. But that does not make it supernatural.
It's also possible that the reductionist methods of science are only capable of solving a subset of all the problems in which we have an interest. The knife may not be able to cut itself open.
The mind COULD be separate from the brain. This is not necessarily a supernatural claim. If someone claims a scientific reason to believe the mind is separate from the brain, they must also provide a coherent prediction that this idea would imply that must then be tested.
If when asked for said prediction, the person says, "You can't actually test this idea scientifically", then it becomes a supernatural claim.
@homerj7g "All the laws of quantum mechanics are describing NATURAL NOT SUPERNATURAL phenomena."
Again, with your narrow minded definitions. Mind could be seperate from body and it could be a natural rather than a supernatural phenomena. You don't know the full extent of what is natural and what is not and so you call anything you don't understand supernatural. A hundred years ago you would have said an object being both a wave and a particle was supernatural.
When I listen to Dennett talk about consciousness, and when I hear him refer to David Chalmers "hard problem", I have to conclude that Dennett doesn't even understand what the problem is. Chalmers understands what it is. Dennett does not. When I listen to Dennett it's like I'm listening to a man trying to provide the answer to a question that he was not asked; while at the same time never addressing the question that he was asked.
Dan wasn't asked anything. He was giving a lecture on a subject of his choosing. The fact that you seem to be angry that he didn't answer the question you wanted him to (which I suspect is not a coherent question in the first place), is not his problem.
Dan understands what the hard problem is. His point is that there is no "hard problem" in the way that Chalmers states it. That does not mean the problemS that we must solve are easy.
That is irrelevant. No one paid him to babble about magicians. He is up there trying to pretend that he has something to say about consiousness. But if he doesn't deal with the problem of how neuronal firing can be direct experience of things like red, then he is simply a fraud. So he is either too stupid to understand what the real issues around consiouness are, or he is simply going through an arm waving routine that addresses nothing.
Actually, they paid him to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Like I said before, he has written several books on the subject that you have apparently not read. It is not Dan's fault or mine that you can't be bothered to acquire information from any source besides youtube videos.
@homerj7g "Like I said before, he has written several books on the subject that you have apparently not read."
What subject? Magic?
" It is not Dan's fault or mine that you can't be bothered to acquire information from any source besides youtube videos."
If they are so worthless, why did you put them up? I read all the time. But with millions of books available I have to see a reason to read a specific book. After 10 Dennet videos I see no reason to waste my time with him.
I didn't say the videos are worthless. I find them to very illuminating and the books even more so.
If you hate them so much, then don't watch them. Nobody is forcing you.
If you feel that it is not worth your time to read any of Dan's books after seeing 10 youtube videos, that's fine. I personally don't think you'd get much out of them anyway. You seem to be looking for a supernatural explanation to consciousness, which Dan will not give you.
A complete physicalist (i.e. scientific) explanation does not exist yet. If it did, we would be able to create artificial intelligence and also accurately predict what you are going to experience based on the state of your brain and the stimulus.
Most explanations in science do not come all at once. We gradually acquire small pieces of the puzzle as time goes on. Dan is a philosopher. He is trying to convince us what pieces are worth looking for, and which don't exist.
@homerj7g "He is trying to convince us what pieces are worth looking for, and which don't exist."
How would he know. Because he figured out that it's not a homunculus? He seems to regard that as a great revelation on his part - even though I don't know of any serious person that would suggest such a solution; Dennett seems to be extremely proud about conquering that dragon?
@homerj7g "His point is that there is no "hard problem" in the way that Chalmers states it."
Of course, if Dennett is too dumb to really understand what the hard problem is, then there is no hard problem. By claiming that consciousness is a bunch of magic tricks it leaves him in the position of claiming that conscious thought is a magic trick. He has nothing to support such an assertion, and the cosciousness that he uses to come to that conclusion is what he is claiming doesn't exist.
Dennett never suggests how a set of neurons firing can be red. He never even suggests how there could be a trick for doing this. Dennett is a waste of time. The only illusion here is the illusion that we have been given any information about consciousness.
You seem to be fixated on the idea that Dan claims to give a complete account of what consciousness is in this 1 hour long video. Had you paid closer attention you would have noticed that what he actually claims to do is provide a better way of thinking about the problem of explaining consciousness.
He has written over a dozen books on the subject, none of which can be easily predigested for you into a simple 1 hour lecture. This is targeted towards non cognitive scientists.
@homerj7g "Had you paid closer attention you would have noticed that what he actually claims to do is provide a better way of thinking about the problem of explaining consciousness."
He doesn't. In fact, he does his best to avoid talking about consciousness by talking about everything but consciousness. The problem is a simple problem. How can a bunch of neurons firing be the experience of red. He doesn't go near that problem with a 10 foot pole - in any of his clips that are on line
In the same way you that you can't explain all of mathematics in a handful of youtube videos, you also can't explain the depth of understanding in the field of cognitive science. If you are really curious, and want a more in depth understanding I suggest reading some of the many books written on this subject.
@homerj7g "If you are really curious, and want a more in depth understanding I suggest reading some of the many books written on this subject."
I have read several of the books written on the subject. I suggest that you read some of the books written on the subject, because both you and Dennett show no sign of even understanding the problems that the subject is trying to deal with.
There is nothing new about what Dan came out with. Cartesian materialism has been dropped centuries ago. I wish he went into more detail in the lecture, as detailed in his book or so.
@SSgtParmer You don't understand what easy vs hard problem means in this context. Mapping out every single connection in the brain would be considered an "easy" problem because we know what that solution would look like. Obviously, if we mapped out every connection, we would be able to understand depression.
He basically spent the entire lecture discussing empirical evidence and logical arguments for why a "hard problem" has no explanatory power.
I don't know if you didn't understand his argument, or just chose to ignore it, but your claim that he just didn't have one is not something that I feel is worth debating.
@homerj7g Of course the 'hard problem' has no explanatory power. Problems don't have explanatory power. Solutions do. What makes the 'hard problem' so hard and frustrating is that we don't know what a solution would look like. Nevertheless, it is a real problem. Dennet essentially ignores it.
Giving the "hard problem" validity is like holding the position that flight can not be explained by physics. Sure physics can describe fluid dynamics, lift, drag, etc, but these are all easy problems. They avoid the hard problem of how something heavier than air can fly.
If you start with the premise that heavier than air objects can not fly without magic, then no explanation will be satisfactory. The only thing that matters in science is experimental reproducibility.
@homerj7g You are assuming, like Dennet seems to do, that the 'hard problem' assumes anything. It does not.
Like any other problem, it is an observed phenomenon that currently has no explanation. The reason it is a 'hard' problem is because we do not currently know what the explanation would even remotely look like. It's a huge mystery on par with the origin of the universe, and to completely ignore it does a disservice to humanity.
Of course there are assumptions implied by the hard problem. The obvious assumption being that any "easy explanation" is insufficient for explaining consciousness.
I would agree that consciousness is largely a mystery. I would not agree that we know "Nothing" about what the explanation will look like. We know a lot about physics, chemistry, biology, logical deduction, etc. I think we can absolutely make some informed guesses and formulate experiments to test them.
@homerj7g If we map out every single pathway in the brain, we will have solved the 'easy problem'. It is considered 'easy' because we know what that solution would look like. It would be a huge database of connections from which we could explain and predict any action that a person performs.
How could we get from those neural connections to a feeling, like the feeling of pain? How can u even tell if that person feels anything? No one can comprehend that yet. That is why it is a 'hard' problem.
How can you tell if another person (not artificial) actually feels anything. You are suggesting that an artificial machine that has a functional artificial human brain is a P-zombie. I don't think it is fair to have different tests for consciousness humans and non-humans.
I think Turing's test is really the only valid test for consciousness I have ever seen. Currently artificial machines can not pass this test, but there is no reason why they can not in the future.
@homerj7g How can you tell if I actually feel something? If you poke me with a pin, you can observe my actions like saying ow, flinching, punching you in the face, calling the police, etc. If we mapped out all of the brain connections, you could see exactly why those actions happen. But how could you actually know that I experienced anything? You cannot. At this point in time we do not have a way to measure or explain subjective consciousness. That's why it's 'hard.'
I agree there is no way to objectively discount solipsism, but it is easy to just assume other human beings are conscious. If we do not attribute this consciousness to a supernatural soul, then I don't see why the problem needs to be harder than any other question that can be gradually explained by logical analysis and scientific discovery.
Can gravity, heat, or light be explained by science, without a complete understanding of string theory? Isn't EVERY problem hard?
@homerj7g Yes it is easier to assume that other humans are subjectively conscious. That doesn't reveal anything.
Yes there are other hard problems, but not all problems are hard. We understand why planes fly. We don't understand the exact cause of clinical depression, but we have an idea of what a solution would look like. These are not 'hard' problems.
Subjective consciousness is a 'hard' problem, and it is so exquisitely familiar to me, which makes it very fascinating in my opinion.
Dan Dennett claims that consciousness is not a "hard problem". You claim that understanding clinical depression is not a hard problem, but that consciousness is. Are you using some kind of objective standard to ascertain which problems are hard and which are not?
I am with Dan Dennet in believing all problems can be broken down into easier problems. Humanity has yet to actually solve a hard problem, but it has on many occasions turned hard problems into easy ones.
@homerj7g Clinical depression is diagnosed with objective standards. The doctor cannot crawl into the patients head and experience their depression.
You believe all problems can be broken down into easy problems? Perhaps they can, but until you do so, you are just making a bold assertion. I'm all for turning hard problems into easy problems, but that requires specific knowledge, which we currently don't have when it comes to subjective consciousness. Therefore, it is still a hard problem.
I should have said "all *hard* (not all problems) problems can be broken down into easy problems" to avoid an infinite regress. Dan Dennett in his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" talks about "skyhooks" and "cranes". A skyhook is a solution to a "hard problem" A crane is a solution to a problem that was constructed by smaller cranes (solutions to easier problems). There are no skyhooks.
My problem with Hameroff's explanations is that they are not really explanations at all.
I am not convinced that human brains NEED to be quantum computer components, but even if they are, I still don't see why consciousness can not be replicated by an artificial machine.
I am really not sure what his explanation adds to our understanding even if it were true.
I am not saying you need to understand English well to be smart. I do think you need to have a good understanding of English to understand a lecture in English.
If you can form a coherent rebuttal to any of Dan's points, I'd be interested to hear it, but until you do, I will simply have to dismiss your unsubstantiated claims.
I love Dennett to bits, but I can see where the "Tibetan Prayer Wheel" (the constant recurrence of the complaint "you've explained it away, not explained it") comes from. I think he's so immersed in a particular way of looking at it, and so far from the ordinary person's way of looking at it, that he's missing a step somewhere in his rhetoric. Suppose there's an "own-brain-o'scope" (e.g. you can see a red activation patch inside your brain WHILE you're thinking of red) ...
Anyone else feel like they were just taken in by a snake-oil salesman. The man's obsession with atheistic naturalism has led him to deny the emperor when we can all see him; He just tries to convince everyone that we 'really' don't see the emperor. I hope this man doesn't get paid for this; does he. First he produces a few optical parlor tricks and then says ..'see; you can't trust what you think, you need someone else to do that for you (scientists)'; then the real challenge to him in the
the 'hard problem'; he cannot answer. So he dismisses it with his 'real magic' cute story; to make us all feel so superior when we agree it is not a problem, because it doesn't exist. I like it when he compares himself to the devil and then says we have to swallow his theory. If you do eat this apple, you are dead: you just haven't lain down long enough for anyone to bury you. Consciousness needs a new theory to cover the emperor.
Dan Dennett's point is not easy to understand or accept. It is counter intuitive.
If you feel like this mere 1 hour long explanation of consciousness was lacking, I would refer you to the ~10 highly acclaimed books Dan has written on the subject. They go much more in depth and do a better job of providing insightful evidence and explaining the rationale of this view.
No one is forcing you to believe anything. Please try to be polite and refrain from misrepresenting Dan's positions.
Let's say a factory is born. It is populated with happy workers, and all the fixings of a well oiled production facility whose products allow another company to be born, etc. Each worker no different from the rest, some on the floor, some supervise. There is this sense of comradeship. This cohesion of satisfying purpose which, unconsciously unfolding in any individual worker; allows this factory to hum and work efficiently for 80 yrs. When the factory dies and each worker is in the ground
you can take a microscope to each workers graves and say yes there were workers; but will you ever find evidence of that team spirit; that united effort anywhere. Is this his consciousness or could you give me a reasonable cole's notes version of your own please.
I'm not sure I understand the point of your example.
I think Dan's point on what I think you are referring to, is that at some point, a conscious thing must be made of things that are not conscious, just like how a living thing is ultimately made of things that are not themselves alive.
There is in a very real affect of things becoming more than the sum of their parts. This does not mean that they can not be explained.
But wouldn't that mean that all things (including people) are pre-determined. In the sense that if we build a powerful enough computer we could predict the next Einstein and take advantage of his 'discoveries' before he is even born.
1. Even if the world is deterministic, that does not mean that finite beings (like ourselves or our creations) can ever be capable of calculating the future before it happens.
2. The world may not be deterministic. Quantum theory says that every thing that happens at the quantum level is probabilistic. This means we don't get exact answers but rather a range of answers with associated likelihoods. It is explainable like how black jack is explainable even though it is random.
1) Wouldn't that be a UME; because if the world is determinist, the future would be totally predictable and I will be posting a video examining the brick-duck theory.
2) I thought quantum theory said we can only guess statisticly what is going on at the quantum level because it is totally random (non-causal/ non-deterministic); that is why Dennett cannot go there because his theory would break down. The randomness of blackjack is an example of complexity, complexity, complexity .....
blackjack, complexity, complexity, we can't predict it, complexity, complexity so it's random. Now I may be wrong about the idea of randomness in quantum reality but I don't think they are the same or could even be compared.
@39knights There is a computer capable of predicting the behavior of the universe. It is called "the universe". Nothing smaller can be complex enough though.
A computer is a trillion transistors. Each transistor is nothing more than a little robot that behaves in a perfectly predictable manner. It's design makes it more than just a disorganized pile of transistors. It becomes a finely tuned machine that can beat the best human players at chess. It can simulate aerodynamics far better than any human. It is a magnificent piece of machinery, but it can however be completely explained without adding any other components beyond the transistors.
Well, there is another component beyond the transistors: structure. For a computer, software is the structural difference between Deep Thought and doorstop. Once the brain boots its program, consciousness is produced.
I don't believe in consciousness actually
mojokiss 3 months ago
@mojokiss
The one thing Descartes was actually right about (when it comes to the mind), was "I think therefore I am".
homerj7g 3 months ago
@homerj7g no he wrong about that as well
natmanprime 1 month ago
3:06 made a bling moment within my head; that people (scientists + scholars etc) are LOOKING to something BIG + WOW WOW to answer the solution to Getting the Mess our world has fallen into over the eons in this tired ARSE <-- drama. You see SIMPLISTIC; IT is so simple when the the BEings of the ALL in ONE (WHOLE) awakens fully; is going to make them Laugh-Their-Asses-Off because it was LOVING, Compassion as I have been shouting + shouting. This will bring the Balance of the feminine to balance
nancyl2 4 months ago
If I, the experiencer of my life, am an emergent property of my brain, then a clone of my brain should mean that I would get to experience life again from the point-of-view of the new brain, a bit like being reborn. But this wouldn't occur, instead a new, separate experiencer would emerge. However, if you wiped clean my memory, I would still be the experiencer of my life, even though I wouldn't remember who I was. Two identical brains, two separate experiencers. What makes me the experiencer?
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
The idea of "self" as this single unchanging entity is really an illusion helped by the fact that people can't replicate their brains, and that the stream of consciousness is relatively uninterrupted from birth until death.
What makes you "you", is not your material body, but your mind, and there is no reason there can't be more than one of you.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g Not sure I follow you. You say that there is no reason there can't be more than one of me. Do you mean this in the sense that if there was two of me, then I would be able to experience life from two separate perspectives simultaneously, like being in two places at once? Or that there would be two of me, one of which I would experience, and one which I would not experience?
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
No, if there are 2 separate brains, there are 2 separate experiencers. But if the 2 brains are experiencing different things (i.e. they are in different physical locations), then the consciousness splits, and these 2 experiencers are not the same people.
If you put both brains in a vat and made them experience the exact same thing. The question of whether these are 2 separate identical consciousnesses or a single duplicate consciousness is sort of incoherent in my model.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g I'm not convinced that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, depending on what your definition of consciousness is. I think consciousness is an awareness of your environment, in which case it is not an emergent property of the brain. I believe life had some awareness of it's environment in order to evolve. I feel that it is this initial awareness that has strived to become more and more aware of its environment, culminating in the life forms in existence today.
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
Well I don't think emergence and awareness are mutually exclusive. There are lots of definitions for "emergence", but I am using it the most general sense; a property which is only manifested by a multitude of parts and not by the individual parts alone. I think acute awareness of your environment is made possible by a brain. Plants are "aware" of their environment to some degree. I don't think they are *as* conscious as humans.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g Yeah I'd agree, but don't you think it's all part of the same thing? I think it was that initial glimmer of awareness that led to where it is now with our complex brain. It's like a life force that is striving to experience the universe in a more and more rich way. Like being stuck inside a box and you can't see, hear or taste, then you slowly crack through that box little by little, seeing the outside, hearing the outside, etc. It's the force that has driven evolution to become us.
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
Are you saying that consciousness existed before life? And that life is merely the vessel for this pre-existing consciousness to experience the universe?
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g Well, I'm saying that whatever started the chain of evolution must have been aware of its environment to be able to react to it, and it is that same thing that has evolved to where life is today. I'd call it a life force. You can't generalize consciousness as what us humans experience. As you said yourself, plants are aware to some degree. I'm saying there is a force that gives life, and the things it's given life to have evolved into more complex things allowing greater awareness.
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
I guess I am not sure if we are using the word "aware" in the same way. If you are talking about very mentally primitive life being "aware" to some small degree (i.e. they can react to their environment), then I would say even computers and robots are aware too. Are computers and robots alive? Well our definition of life seems rather arbitrary, so maybe the technical answer doesn't matter.
Do you think this life force only applies to organic (i.e. carbon based) awareness?
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g I don't know, perhaps the force can link to certain types of matter. Perhaps it occupies one of these extra dimensions they talk about, and it comes through to this dimension via certain pathways. Or perhaps it's dark matter? I see it as some sort of energetic field. To visualize it I think of it as a silk sheet, and then matter is another sheet above it. The life sheet seeps up through the matter sheet at certain places, all on a quantum scale of course. Well, life came from somewhere
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
I don't see why any life force would only attach to carbon and not silicon. This seems rather arbitrary. Also, while it may be fun to speculate on like life forces or energy fields, I am unaware of any scientific, logical, or philosophical bases to back up these kinds of claims.
This idea that "X had to come from somewhere, therefore it came from Y" always leads to an infinite regress. At some point something did not need a cause. The infinite regress must stop somewhere.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g Ok, let's test your logic instead. You see through your eyes. You experience your life and have done every day since you were born. We could wipe your memory perfectly clean and you will still see through your eyes, even if you don't remember who you are. How is it that if we copied your brain you wouldn't be able to see through those new eyes? What is it that's different? What made you? What is it that made you in the first place and how could we make another you that you experience?
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
You are not only experiencing what is coming through your eyes. You are also experiencing your own thoughts and memories. Your experience of the outside world is shaped by previous experiences. If you remove those experiences, you are not the same person.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g I used eyes as an example. In all honesty, you could be right, you could be wrong. It could be that I'm me whatever happens. Even if my memory was erased, it could just mean that I'd be starting my life again as if I was reborn. Eventually I'd re-learn things and experience the world with all new memories. I'd have no knowledge of my former life and I'd have a new identity, but I'd be the same experiencer, I wouldn't cease to exist.
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
Are you a different "experiencer" if you have all your memories erased? I think this question in itself makes assumptions that will ultimately turn out to be wrong.
If they way you react to stimulu is what defines you as "you", then everything in your mind (past memories and proclivities to certain reactions), then you are not the same experiencer even moment to moment. It just feels like you are because the change is so gradual.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g You can feel a slap the moment you're born. So who is it that is feeling that slap? It's you. Extract that memory and slap you again. It's still you feeling that slap, but you just won't remember the first slap. It's not a whole new person feeling that slap, even though you'll think you are. I'm sure we've all forgotten events from the past, but that doesn't mean it was a different person that it happened to. You did experience the event, but you've forgotten that you did.
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
I think the problem here is that you are equating 1 physical human body with 1 consciousness. You refer to both as "you". This is quite natural to want to do. Thinking in this way is very useful for society. That doesn't mean it is philosophically correct.
What if you slap a baby, replace it's memories by transplanting a different newborn baby brain into the baby. Is that the same person simply with a different brain state?
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g No, it's a different brain and thus a different experiencer because the experiencer is not a product of the brain. So if I completely forget something then, does that mean I didn't experience that event and that someone else did? When I get drunk and do silly things, of which I am very conscious at the time, then forget by the next morning but wake up full of bruises, does that mean I didn't do it or experience it or feel any of the pain that may have been associated with it?
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
@1simonmatthews
Example A: Your brain is replaced with someone else's for one night, you awake with bruises. Was that you who experienced last night?
Example B: The atoms in your brain are rearranged to match the configuration of the other persons brain from example A for one night and then rearranged back. You awake with bruises. Was that you who experienced last night?
My claim is that both examples are equivalent, and the question of "who was it?" is ultimately the wrong question.
homerj7g 4 months ago
@homerj7g Who knows. My mind is boggled. I just watched Athene's Theory Of Everything on here, a 50 minute documentary, and all I'm sure of now is that I don't know much at all. I do know one thing though - it's bloody weird! Thanks for taking time to talk to me man, you'll probably see me round on here from time to time when ideas pop into my head :-)
1simonmatthews 4 months ago
It is interesting to note that Dennett's point of view steers away from a central, unitary "self". In other words, he's saying precisely what Eastern philosophy has said for centuries, while his irate detractors are, well, taking a Western or Judeo-Christian stance (i.e. that there's "someone home").
Is it so hard to see that a bunch of modules with partial, different levels of awareness could be unified LOGICALLY into an APPARENT self? And THEN we're conscious of that conclusion/illusion?
NeosimianSapiens 6 months ago
Wow, philosophers really know how to talk longly.
a575981735977018 6 months ago
When you really don't know how to make a logical argument use the magic of rhetoric and most people will believe that you have said something of substance.
cunnidvd 6 months ago
@cunnidvd
Sometimes when something seems illogical, it's only because you don't understand it. Like one of those "magic eye" pictures, I can only insist to you that there is something there, but you just can't see it. Just keep looking at it.
homerj7g 6 months ago
@homerj7g I am very new to this subject but these videos have piqued my interest. Dennet argues that there is no real magic. He seems certain that there is no cartesian theater or little green man. My intuition tells me differently. There is a growing body of evidence for consciousness existing separate from brain. Obviously that may not be physical in any way that we understand. It would be outside the realm of science - real magic. Thanks for posting this talk. It is very stimulating.
cunnidvd 6 months ago
@cunnidvd
Just out of curiosity, what evidence were you referring to? I have never seen any convincing evidence of human consciousness existing separate from the brain. I think one day we may have artificial intelligence, but I think this basically means that the computer becomes a de facto brain. I am not aware of any evidence that "free floating" consciousness can exist, separate from the physical world.
homerj7g 6 months ago
Comment removed
cunnidvd 6 months ago
@homerj7g Unless you live under a rock you have heard some such evidence. I suspect you rejected it out of hand because it offended your dogma. If you were at all likely to accept such evidence you would have looked into the details and found that they are difficult to explain away.
cunnidvd 6 months ago
@cunnidvd
I have seriously never seen a single credible piece of scientific evidence showing that consciousness is separate from the brain. Please link to a web page or a wikipedia article or something. If you just say "the evidence is everywhere" without providing a citation, can only assume there isn't any.
homerj7g 6 months ago 4
@homerj7g Maybe it's magic?
rawrock24 5 months ago in playlist Daniel Dennett - The Magic of Consciousness
@cunnidvd I am open to the possibility that consciousness is separate from the brain, but Dennett's point of view is, to me, more convincing. I can easily understand that it might not be convincing to you, though, because you experience your own experience through a filter of previous experience. In other words, our own assessment of our own consciousness is highly suspect. We are the ultimate biased observers!
NeosimianSapiens 6 months ago
Comment removed
cunnidvd 6 months ago
"If someone claims a scientific reason to believe the mind is separate from the brain, they must also provide a coherent prediction that this idea would imply that must then be tested."
You ask for a coherent prediction based on the mind being seperate from the brain, but you don't ask for a coherent prediction based upon the assertion that the experience of red is nothing more that neuronal firing. So tell me, how are you going to test the idea that neurons firing produce red.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Parsimony
There is ample evidence that neuronal firings are critical to the function of the brain. There is ample evidence that the brain is critical to the function of the mind. There is no evidence that anything outside the brain has any bearing on consciousness.
If new evidence something outside the physical brain contributes to consciousness, it will be incorporated into the currently accepted theory. That hasn't happened yet.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "There is ample evidence that the brain is critical to the function of the mind."
There is nothing but correlations. No causation is established. And even if you assume causation, the direction of causation is still an unknown. Again, all of this assumes that there is a physical reality beyond the mind - for which there is no evidence. When you perceive a brain, or a picture of a brain, or a discussion about a brain, it is all happening in your mind.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
It's not just correlations.
If we assumed that the mind caused the neuronal activity, then damaging the neurons would not impair the mind. But we see exactly the opposite. We see that things like brain damage and drugs physically affect the mind. This is exactly what we would expect if the brain were physical and exactly what we wouldn't expect if we thought the mind was metaphysical.
There IS evidence the mind is physical and NO evidence that it isn't.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@vsaluki Thanks to fMRI and DTI we have mountain of evidence to say that mind is a consequence of brain. It's not mere correlations, it's causation with direction of causation established. The millions of neurons and their interconnections give rise to consciousness. Nonetheless even if it is not the case unless and until you give an explanation that is mechanistic (which to be honest is insipid) you really haven't explained anything. It's like saying that's magic and settling there....
amiyaiitkgp 6 months ago
@homerj7g The evidence that you speak of Is on the brink of being discovered at the LHC at Cern. You are SO right about needing evidence to connect consciousness to the outside world. That's Exactly what they talk about in these clips check it out i know you will be interested. Don't let the name fool you, this is Quantum Physics NOT religion. goto: liveafterdeath.webs.com
rattytheraccoon 9 months ago
@rattytheraccoon
I seriously doubt that we can say ANYTHING is ABOUT to be discovered at CERN. If we KNEW it was ABOUT to be discovered, it would already be discovered.
Also, I doubt anyone at CERN is even looking for quantum explanations of a soul. Maybe people like Hameroff will interpret the results from CERN as evidence for this, but I just don't see it.
Even if we can prove that quantum information is preserved for eternity, I would not consider this good evidence for an eternal soul.
homerj7g 9 months ago
we are all probably greater than the sum of our parts. we our nothing without our brains and these registers and reflexes, yet we are more.
StrummingSparrow 9 months ago
The big trick that Dennet does here is to make you believe that he is going to give you information that will give you a clearer idea of what consciousness is. But all you get is a Dennett illusion. He waves his hands, he shows you pictures, he talks about this and that, and he gives you nothing. Call it the "Dennett makes money talking about nothing trick".
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
I certainly felt like he gave me a much better understanding of what consciousness can be, and what it can;t be, and why. The reason I uploaded these videos is because I thought they might be as useful to other people as they were to me. I'm sorry you haven't been able to get what I have from these videos.
homerj7g 9 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@homerj7g "I certainly felt like he gave me a much better understanding of what consciousness can be, and what it can;t be, and why."
So ........ where's the beef?
vsaluki 9 months ago
The problem with Dennett is that he has a very specific outcome in mind. He wants to insist that there is a physicalist explanation that can be obtained by using reductionism. But since he has no such explanation - since he can't even imagine an explanation, he talks around the issue with nonsense about magicians, peoples biases, emotions,etc. And he carefully avoids any confrontation with the problem of explaining how neuronal firing can be the same thing as the experience of color.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
That's what science is. Science ONLY provides physicalist explanations for natural phenomena. So if you are alleging that Dan only cares about scientific explanations, then you are right. Dan has no interest in super natural explanations of consciousness and does not even consider that a possibility worth exploring.
As far as science is concerned, a non-physicalist explanation is not an explanation. Only physicalist explanations count.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Only physicalist explanations count."
Yes, it's that narrow minded attitude that has left him in a position of claiming that consciousness does not exist. Now he has to try to claim that the brain does magic tricks for an audience that does not exist. He has to claim that his own theories are magic tricks that have been arrived at through a deterministic process that he had absolutely no choice in - that there is no consciousness involved in his theories.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
He never claimed consciousness doesn't exist. His claim entails the idea consciousness (like EVERY other scientific claim) has a physical explanation.
And yes I am 100% certain Dan would agree that his own mind is performing the same tricks, and that his conjectures (not theories) are a result of these same sorts of tricks he is talking about.
He made no claim about determinism. Quantum mechanics seems to imply that the universe is random rather than deterministic.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Science ONLY provides physicalist explanations for natural phenomena."
There is no such rule in science. But if you think there is, then explain the quantum observation that have events being dependent upon the presence of an observer. Or explain objects having potential position rather than actual position. You and Dan would probably claim that those are super natural events and therefore are not real. The quantum scientists must have it all wrong - according to you.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Your whole comment is a non sequitur. The laws of quantum mechanics are physicalist explanations. Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics. The fact that the quantum state of a particle is affected by it's observation is a physical phenomenon. Observation entails physical interaction.
All the laws of quantum mechanics are describing NATURAL NOT SUPERNATURAL phenomena.
Quantum mechanics is a model of the physical universe we live in. That's what the whole study of physics is.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "laws of quantum mechanics are physicalist explanations."
Only if you have no definition of physicalist. Before quantum mechanics physicalist science would have claimed that an object cannot be in two places at the same time and that something cannot be both a wave and a particle. So if you want to go down that road, then you can also claim that mind is physicalist - but not in a way that we currently recognize as physicalist and not in the way that you and Dennet claim.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Science makes claims that are proven wrong all throughout history. This happens when existing theories make incorrect predictions.
Newton created a model of physics was discovered not to apply to new observations. Newtonian physics was replaced with quantum mechanics and relativity.
Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics and relativity are all physical models of the universe. The last 2 simply have more predictive power.
Quanutm mechanics was NEVER a supernatural explanation.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Quanutm mechanics was NEVER a supernatural explanation."
Seems like you are unable to understand the simplest of things. I'm not talking about quantum mechanics as a theory. I'm talking about the results that it gives us. If someone had told you, a hundred years ago, before there was a quantum theory, that something could be both a wave and a particle you would have rejected it as supernatural because there was no science to support such an assertion. (continued)
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Actually principles of quantum mechanics were just being formulated about 100 years ago.
If someone explained particle wave duality to me 2000 years ago, and I asked this person what a particle and a wave was and he said "They are magical things that science can never explain" then yes I would reject it as supernatural.
If he said "They are things whose behavior we will one day explain scientifically" then I might still reject it, but not because it is supernatural.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g (continued from previous) In the same way, someone can today claim that mind and brain are seperate and it could well be true, but the science to support it simply hasn't been found yet. But that does not make it supernatural.
It's also possible that the reductionist methods of science are only capable of solving a subset of all the problems in which we have an interest. The knife may not be able to cut itself open.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
The mind COULD be separate from the brain. This is not necessarily a supernatural claim. If someone claims a scientific reason to believe the mind is separate from the brain, they must also provide a coherent prediction that this idea would imply that must then be tested.
If when asked for said prediction, the person says, "You can't actually test this idea scientifically", then it becomes a supernatural claim.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "All the laws of quantum mechanics are describing NATURAL NOT SUPERNATURAL phenomena."
Again, with your narrow minded definitions. Mind could be seperate from body and it could be a natural rather than a supernatural phenomena. You don't know the full extent of what is natural and what is not and so you call anything you don't understand supernatural. A hundred years ago you would have said an object being both a wave and a particle was supernatural.
vsaluki 9 months ago
When I listen to Dennett talk about consciousness, and when I hear him refer to David Chalmers "hard problem", I have to conclude that Dennett doesn't even understand what the problem is. Chalmers understands what it is. Dennett does not. When I listen to Dennett it's like I'm listening to a man trying to provide the answer to a question that he was not asked; while at the same time never addressing the question that he was asked.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Dan wasn't asked anything. He was giving a lecture on a subject of his choosing. The fact that you seem to be angry that he didn't answer the question you wanted him to (which I suspect is not a coherent question in the first place), is not his problem.
Dan understands what the hard problem is. His point is that there is no "hard problem" in the way that Chalmers states it. That does not mean the problemS that we must solve are easy.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Dan wasn't asked anything."
That is irrelevant. No one paid him to babble about magicians. He is up there trying to pretend that he has something to say about consiousness. But if he doesn't deal with the problem of how neuronal firing can be direct experience of things like red, then he is simply a fraud. So he is either too stupid to understand what the real issues around consiouness are, or he is simply going through an arm waving routine that addresses nothing.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
Actually, they paid him to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Like I said before, he has written several books on the subject that you have apparently not read. It is not Dan's fault or mine that you can't be bothered to acquire information from any source besides youtube videos.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Like I said before, he has written several books on the subject that you have apparently not read."
What subject? Magic?
" It is not Dan's fault or mine that you can't be bothered to acquire information from any source besides youtube videos."
If they are so worthless, why did you put them up? I read all the time. But with millions of books available I have to see a reason to read a specific book. After 10 Dennet videos I see no reason to waste my time with him.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
I didn't say the videos are worthless. I find them to very illuminating and the books even more so.
If you hate them so much, then don't watch them. Nobody is forcing you.
If you feel that it is not worth your time to read any of Dan's books after seeing 10 youtube videos, that's fine. I personally don't think you'd get much out of them anyway. You seem to be looking for a supernatural explanation to consciousness, which Dan will not give you.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "You seem to be looking for a supernatural explanation to consciousness, which Dan will not give you."
I'm looking for any explanation of consciousness that is consistent with observations. Dennett gives no explanation at all, physicalist or otherwise.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
A complete physicalist (i.e. scientific) explanation does not exist yet. If it did, we would be able to create artificial intelligence and also accurately predict what you are going to experience based on the state of your brain and the stimulus.
Most explanations in science do not come all at once. We gradually acquire small pieces of the puzzle as time goes on. Dan is a philosopher. He is trying to convince us what pieces are worth looking for, and which don't exist.
homerj7g 9 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@homerj7g "He is trying to convince us what pieces are worth looking for, and which don't exist."
How would he know. Because he figured out that it's not a homunculus? He seems to regard that as a great revelation on his part - even though I don't know of any serious person that would suggest such a solution; Dennett seems to be extremely proud about conquering that dragon?
vsaluki 9 months ago
@homerj7g "His point is that there is no "hard problem" in the way that Chalmers states it."
Of course, if Dennett is too dumb to really understand what the hard problem is, then there is no hard problem. By claiming that consciousness is a bunch of magic tricks it leaves him in the position of claiming that conscious thought is a magic trick. He has nothing to support such an assertion, and the cosciousness that he uses to come to that conclusion is what he is claiming doesn't exist.
vsaluki 9 months ago
Proof by parallelism = no proof at all.
Dennett never suggests how a set of neurons firing can be red. He never even suggests how there could be a trick for doing this. Dennett is a waste of time. The only illusion here is the illusion that we have been given any information about consciousness.
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
You seem to be fixated on the idea that Dan claims to give a complete account of what consciousness is in this 1 hour long video. Had you paid closer attention you would have noticed that what he actually claims to do is provide a better way of thinking about the problem of explaining consciousness.
He has written over a dozen books on the subject, none of which can be easily predigested for you into a simple 1 hour lecture. This is targeted towards non cognitive scientists.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "Had you paid closer attention you would have noticed that what he actually claims to do is provide a better way of thinking about the problem of explaining consciousness."
He doesn't. In fact, he does his best to avoid talking about consciousness by talking about everything but consciousness. The problem is a simple problem. How can a bunch of neurons firing be the experience of red. He doesn't go near that problem with a 10 foot pole - in any of his clips that are on line
vsaluki 9 months ago
@vsaluki
In the same way you that you can't explain all of mathematics in a handful of youtube videos, you also can't explain the depth of understanding in the field of cognitive science. If you are really curious, and want a more in depth understanding I suggest reading some of the many books written on this subject.
homerj7g 9 months ago
@homerj7g "If you are really curious, and want a more in depth understanding I suggest reading some of the many books written on this subject."
I have read several of the books written on the subject. I suggest that you read some of the books written on the subject, because both you and Dennett show no sign of even understanding the problems that the subject is trying to deal with.
vsaluki 9 months ago
thank you for posting this!
NinjasOfMalacology 11 months ago
chaos and fractals?
ihatecon 1 year ago
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tangerineful 1 year ago
Now this is some impressive philosophy.
Basically got me to question weather or not I'm even real, skepticism to the extreme lol. I love dan dennett
Roenazarrek 1 year ago 2
An especially brilliant talk by Dennett! Thank you for posting!
rekouche 1 year ago
There is nothing new about what Dan came out with. Cartesian materialism has been dropped centuries ago. I wish he went into more detail in the lecture, as detailed in his book or so.
BassamMinFalasteen 1 year ago
@SSgtParmer You don't understand what easy vs hard problem means in this context. Mapping out every single connection in the brain would be considered an "easy" problem because we know what that solution would look like. Obviously, if we mapped out every connection, we would be able to understand depression.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
That was awful. Dennet assumes without even a shred of evidence that consciousness can be solved via the easy problem.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
He basically spent the entire lecture discussing empirical evidence and logical arguments for why a "hard problem" has no explanatory power.
I don't know if you didn't understand his argument, or just chose to ignore it, but your claim that he just didn't have one is not something that I feel is worth debating.
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g Of course the 'hard problem' has no explanatory power. Problems don't have explanatory power. Solutions do. What makes the 'hard problem' so hard and frustrating is that we don't know what a solution would look like. Nevertheless, it is a real problem. Dennet essentially ignores it.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
Giving the "hard problem" validity is like holding the position that flight can not be explained by physics. Sure physics can describe fluid dynamics, lift, drag, etc, but these are all easy problems. They avoid the hard problem of how something heavier than air can fly.
If you start with the premise that heavier than air objects can not fly without magic, then no explanation will be satisfactory. The only thing that matters in science is experimental reproducibility.
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g You are assuming, like Dennet seems to do, that the 'hard problem' assumes anything. It does not.
Like any other problem, it is an observed phenomenon that currently has no explanation. The reason it is a 'hard' problem is because we do not currently know what the explanation would even remotely look like. It's a huge mystery on par with the origin of the universe, and to completely ignore it does a disservice to humanity.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
Of course there are assumptions implied by the hard problem. The obvious assumption being that any "easy explanation" is insufficient for explaining consciousness.
I would agree that consciousness is largely a mystery. I would not agree that we know "Nothing" about what the explanation will look like. We know a lot about physics, chemistry, biology, logical deduction, etc. I think we can absolutely make some informed guesses and formulate experiments to test them.
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g If we map out every single pathway in the brain, we will have solved the 'easy problem'. It is considered 'easy' because we know what that solution would look like. It would be a huge database of connections from which we could explain and predict any action that a person performs.
How could we get from those neural connections to a feeling, like the feeling of pain? How can u even tell if that person feels anything? No one can comprehend that yet. That is why it is a 'hard' problem.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
How can you tell if another person (not artificial) actually feels anything. You are suggesting that an artificial machine that has a functional artificial human brain is a P-zombie. I don't think it is fair to have different tests for consciousness humans and non-humans.
I think Turing's test is really the only valid test for consciousness I have ever seen. Currently artificial machines can not pass this test, but there is no reason why they can not in the future.
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g How can you tell if I actually feel something? If you poke me with a pin, you can observe my actions like saying ow, flinching, punching you in the face, calling the police, etc. If we mapped out all of the brain connections, you could see exactly why those actions happen. But how could you actually know that I experienced anything? You cannot. At this point in time we do not have a way to measure or explain subjective consciousness. That's why it's 'hard.'
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
I agree there is no way to objectively discount solipsism, but it is easy to just assume other human beings are conscious. If we do not attribute this consciousness to a supernatural soul, then I don't see why the problem needs to be harder than any other question that can be gradually explained by logical analysis and scientific discovery.
Can gravity, heat, or light be explained by science, without a complete understanding of string theory? Isn't EVERY problem hard?
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g Yes it is easier to assume that other humans are subjectively conscious. That doesn't reveal anything.
Yes there are other hard problems, but not all problems are hard. We understand why planes fly. We don't understand the exact cause of clinical depression, but we have an idea of what a solution would look like. These are not 'hard' problems.
Subjective consciousness is a 'hard' problem, and it is so exquisitely familiar to me, which makes it very fascinating in my opinion.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@CambridgeHeights
Dan Dennett claims that consciousness is not a "hard problem". You claim that understanding clinical depression is not a hard problem, but that consciousness is. Are you using some kind of objective standard to ascertain which problems are hard and which are not?
I am with Dan Dennet in believing all problems can be broken down into easier problems. Humanity has yet to actually solve a hard problem, but it has on many occasions turned hard problems into easy ones.
homerj7g 1 year ago
@homerj7g Clinical depression is diagnosed with objective standards. The doctor cannot crawl into the patients head and experience their depression.
You believe all problems can be broken down into easy problems? Perhaps they can, but until you do so, you are just making a bold assertion. I'm all for turning hard problems into easy problems, but that requires specific knowledge, which we currently don't have when it comes to subjective consciousness. Therefore, it is still a hard problem.
CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
@homerj7g
Dan didn't state that all problems are breakable into smaller ones. Would you tell me where he stated that?
BassamMinFalasteen 1 year ago
@BassamMinFalasteen
I should have said "all *hard* (not all problems) problems can be broken down into easy problems" to avoid an infinite regress. Dan Dennett in his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" talks about "skyhooks" and "cranes". A skyhook is a solution to a "hard problem" A crane is a solution to a problem that was constructed by smaller cranes (solutions to easier problems). There are no skyhooks.
homerj7g 1 year ago
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CambridgeHeights 1 year ago
This is the most ridiculous presentation I have ever seen! I much prefer Stuart Hammeroffs explanations.
Kroaky 1 year ago
@Kroaky
My problem with Hameroff's explanations is that they are not really explanations at all.
I am not convinced that human brains NEED to be quantum computer components, but even if they are, I still don't see why consciousness can not be replicated by an artificial machine.
I am really not sure what his explanation adds to our understanding even if it were true.
homerj7g 1 year ago
It's oh so simple.
TimothyBragan 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
i realy think hes not clever, i think he is whats wrong whit this world.
thats whats education is doing to ppl.
TheNorgood 1 year ago
@TheNorgood
I am not saying you need to understand English well to be smart. I do think you need to have a good understanding of English to understand a lecture in English.
If you can form a coherent rebuttal to any of Dan's points, I'd be interested to hear it, but until you do, I will simply have to dismiss your unsubstantiated claims.
homerj7g 1 year ago
I love Dennett to bits, but I can see where the "Tibetan Prayer Wheel" (the constant recurrence of the complaint "you've explained it away, not explained it") comes from. I think he's so immersed in a particular way of looking at it, and so far from the ordinary person's way of looking at it, that he's missing a step somewhere in his rhetoric. Suppose there's an "own-brain-o'scope" (e.g. you can see a red activation patch inside your brain WHILE you're thinking of red) ...
gurugeorge 1 year ago
Anyone else feel like they were just taken in by a snake-oil salesman. The man's obsession with atheistic naturalism has led him to deny the emperor when we can all see him; He just tries to convince everyone that we 'really' don't see the emperor. I hope this man doesn't get paid for this; does he. First he produces a few optical parlor tricks and then says ..'see; you can't trust what you think, you need someone else to do that for you (scientists)'; then the real challenge to him in the
39knights 2 years ago
the 'hard problem'; he cannot answer. So he dismisses it with his 'real magic' cute story; to make us all feel so superior when we agree it is not a problem, because it doesn't exist. I like it when he compares himself to the devil and then says we have to swallow his theory. If you do eat this apple, you are dead: you just haven't lain down long enough for anyone to bury you. Consciousness needs a new theory to cover the emperor.
39knights 2 years ago
Dan Dennett's point is not easy to understand or accept. It is counter intuitive.
If you feel like this mere 1 hour long explanation of consciousness was lacking, I would refer you to the ~10 highly acclaimed books Dan has written on the subject. They go much more in depth and do a better job of providing insightful evidence and explaining the rationale of this view.
No one is forcing you to believe anything. Please try to be polite and refrain from misrepresenting Dan's positions.
homerj7g 2 years ago
Let's say a factory is born. It is populated with happy workers, and all the fixings of a well oiled production facility whose products allow another company to be born, etc. Each worker no different from the rest, some on the floor, some supervise. There is this sense of comradeship. This cohesion of satisfying purpose which, unconsciously unfolding in any individual worker; allows this factory to hum and work efficiently for 80 yrs. When the factory dies and each worker is in the ground
39knights 2 years ago
you can take a microscope to each workers graves and say yes there were workers; but will you ever find evidence of that team spirit; that united effort anywhere. Is this his consciousness or could you give me a reasonable cole's notes version of your own please.
39knights 2 years ago
I'm not sure I understand the point of your example.
I think Dan's point on what I think you are referring to, is that at some point, a conscious thing must be made of things that are not conscious, just like how a living thing is ultimately made of things that are not themselves alive.
There is in a very real affect of things becoming more than the sum of their parts. This does not mean that they can not be explained.
homerj7g 2 years ago
But wouldn't that mean that all things (including people) are pre-determined. In the sense that if we build a powerful enough computer we could predict the next Einstein and take advantage of his 'discoveries' before he is even born.
39knights 2 years ago
1. Even if the world is deterministic, that does not mean that finite beings (like ourselves or our creations) can ever be capable of calculating the future before it happens.
2. The world may not be deterministic. Quantum theory says that every thing that happens at the quantum level is probabilistic. This means we don't get exact answers but rather a range of answers with associated likelihoods. It is explainable like how black jack is explainable even though it is random.
homerj7g 2 years ago
1) Wouldn't that be a UME; because if the world is determinist, the future would be totally predictable and I will be posting a video examining the brick-duck theory.
2) I thought quantum theory said we can only guess statisticly what is going on at the quantum level because it is totally random (non-causal/ non-deterministic); that is why Dennett cannot go there because his theory would break down. The randomness of blackjack is an example of complexity, complexity, complexity .....
39knights 2 years ago
blackjack, complexity, complexity, we can't predict it, complexity, complexity so it's random. Now I may be wrong about the idea of randomness in quantum reality but I don't think they are the same or could even be compared.
39knights 2 years ago
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39knights 2 years ago
@39knights There is a computer capable of predicting the behavior of the universe. It is called "the universe". Nothing smaller can be complex enough though.
Fsbof90 1 year ago
A computer is a trillion transistors. Each transistor is nothing more than a little robot that behaves in a perfectly predictable manner. It's design makes it more than just a disorganized pile of transistors. It becomes a finely tuned machine that can beat the best human players at chess. It can simulate aerodynamics far better than any human. It is a magnificent piece of machinery, but it can however be completely explained without adding any other components beyond the transistors.
homerj7g 2 years ago
I've posted my video called "Re: Dennett's Free Will". I would appreciate your comments as it also addresses this point.
39knights 2 years ago
@homerj7g
Well, there is another component beyond the transistors: structure. For a computer, software is the structural difference between Deep Thought and doorstop. Once the brain boots its program, consciousness is produced.
gochanging 1 year ago
i was the 666th to view this freaky lol
seesnap 2 years ago
thanks so much for posting!
analord 2 years ago 16