Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness

http://www.ted.com Every morning we wake up and regain consciousness -- that is a marvelous fact -- but what exactly is it that we regain? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio uses this simple question to give us a glimpse into how our brains create our sense of self.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

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  Science & Technology

[guineapig713]

Absurd? Did you know that stimulating the brain's right angular gyrus causes out of body experiences? Or maybe you've been anesthetized in which you lost consciousness on drugs that suppress the central nervous system (aka your brain). These examples are causal. Probe the brain, consciousness is altered. Quantum non-locality is far from understood in physics. It "proves" nothing about our minds. This could change, but I suggest you ease your blabbering until then.

[guineapig713]

I don't agree with that kind of censorship, but controversy does not imply validity. The problem with humans is we're biased. In the absence of rigorous skepticism, we are liable to make connections that do not exist. That is not to say we shouldn't think creatively, quite the contrary. We should--as many theoretical physicists are--speculate about the nature of consciousness. The crux of the issue is hard evidence. Without it, we'll never know if we're fooling ourselves.

[QuantPhilosopher89]

That was one of the best TED talks ever.

[ariues]

wow. so its all physiological. how depressing.

[guineapig713]

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I like your phallic emoticon. 3==> (as you can see, mine is much longer)

[Marc Treiser]

Yes, yes, thats it. Funny I posted below before reading any here prior to mine then saw yours. Creative, with infinite possibilities. ............................. NO GMO, NO monsanto, no altered food supply, no Round-up pesticide and DOW products, ETC... If you don't know research monsanto, Dow and the other killers of us and all life. Can you say Cancer, Agent Orange: Thank Monsanto and all the government officials allowing the death of us all. OOps, sorry, am I in the wrong place here? 3>

[Marc Treiser]

@ 14:00 looks like a Pac Man game board. I am not a Doctor just creative, and enjoy life by eating and living Naturally as possible and never eat anything in a can or get any vaccination shots. I hate needles any way they make me faint. All healing agents are Natural and grown on Earth by a higher Power wiser than scientist and doctors. Nature always wins in war against man and with destructive and violent authority when man needs a wake up call..

[TheTRUwins]

WOW - I have just typed this in google and see what I have found - INTERESTING?! URL > bit . ly/10C3Qkw And this is only if I use one source (google) to do research... imagine how good "scientist" researcher you could be if you do proper research and study and MOST IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS!!! Clearly you can find that non local consciousness MUST BE A "FACT" almost - even if you are very very sceptic - if you conclude otherwise, you proved that you are trapped is delusions/beliefs :) 

[TheTRUwins]

.. con > Therefore you can not have any empirical proof or cross record, right? I can tell you that you can verify his story, experiences if you are really doing well as researcher, but this is another subject. Still it is real science, with protocoles and scientific standards applied to the study, etc... Maybe we can exchange emails or skype and talk about this if you fancy :) Who know... we may have fun... time will show :)

[TheTRUwins]

Regarding, quote: "If the patient described details that could be confirmed by others that would suffice." If you have a dream, this is only "funky" example, how can you find anyone to confirm your experience, details?

What you've experienced was personal and interpret subjectively by you! SO - IF PATIENT IS DESCRIBING EXPERIENCES DURING COMA - being in places, meeting some beings and having all kind of physical sensations - you assume that this did not happend "here" in this reality. con...

[TheTRUwins]

...con > Blind person can be made (by argument) to believe that there actually is something like vision but HE/SHE will never "Know" have direct knowledge of it. Same here. That is why I rather point places to look at, do research and have first hand knowledge of it instead of having intellectual debate, which in facts DOES NOTHING to any of us beside creating concepts about concepts - all is illusion.