8. Susan Blackmore - Brain, Mind, and Consciousness - Skeptics Society 2005

This is from the 2005 Skeptics Conference where leading scientists discuss issues that strike at the very heart of the matter, our brains. Topics range from morality to evolution to consciousness to life after death. It's an absolutely amazing collection of lectures.

As with all of my videos thus far, I do not actually hold the copyright for this material. I am only uploading it here to give it the audience it deserves. If I should be asked to remove it, I will.

However, you should do yourself a favor, and do the entire skeptics community a favor and purchase this from the source: http://shop.skeptic.com/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=SS&Screen=PROD&Produc...

Or at the very least, donate: http://www.skeptic.com/donate/

I hope you enjoy.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Susan Blackmore
• Brain
• Mind
• Consciousness
• Skeptic
• Skeptics Society
• Skeptics Society Conference

[AKICKTOTHEEYE]

"You didn't come here to make the choice. You've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it." ;)

[LightningKnee]

Very interesting talk. Everything that Blackmore says feels intuitively true and she delivers her arguments in a very honest way. Simply great.

[balancingman]

It's disappointing to hear otherwise intelligent people being convinced by these studies that there's no free will. In every "free will" study, the actions performed by the subjects are inconsequential. If we did have free will, we'd delegate these trivial actions to a randomizing part of the brain. That would explain why the "decision" was made prior to our being conscious of it--without eliminating free will as an arbiter. That this possibility is never considered shows a revealing bias.

[soldatheero]

As with the case of Danielle Dennet, all these arguments are irrelevant to her premise that consciousness is an illusion.

[katana187]

Wow, very powerful indeed after watching the brilliant Susan Blackmore, but now I feel powerless!

[MrPiccolop]

So, is she taking a position that we are kind of 'transitively' (perceiving) conscious but that's not really conscious in the way when we reflect in a moment of thinking about it. Sounds very Higher Order Thought (HOT) to me.