Was despondent before watching this and now I feel much better. Thanks, Dan, for all the work and for sharing it with us, especially in such a delightful manner.

The background music is such a contrast to what he's saying. Thanks for the footnote on the music piece. This is professional.

Incredible interviewer! I wish more interviews on experts were by people actually knowledgeable about their work and were well read on the subject at hand. Thanks for this.

@lesfilmsprimatice5738

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks, LL. You're welcome. :)

@matthewbartsh9167

Жыл бұрын

I liked it when the interviewer said, "The color red is not instantiated in my brain. It is represented in my brain." Or words to that effect. And then Dennett said, "The former does not exist. The latter does." Or words to that effect. I felt I could understand and hold on to that idea.

A very beautiful interview that touched me deeply. Thank you

@lesfilmsprimatice5738

2 жыл бұрын

You're very welcome. :-)

I believe this man is a living legend!

@Renvoxan

17 күн бұрын

Not anymore

Very interesting interview. I will say though that no matter how flawed our experience or our interpretation of our own experience of consciousness, the fundamental mystery of conscious experience remains. That said, perhaps the answers will be 'relatively simple' when we can better understand where reality and consciousness meet on the scale of existence.

Wow, an actual capable interviewer. Delicious dialogue, mind opening and self-tearing ideas.

This is so perfect. I understand and also desiring to understand it all more.

Love the discussion!

"I cannot imagine, will never know, could never know, it seems, how Bach sounded to Glenn Gould. (I can barely recover in my memory the way Bach sounded to me when I was a child.)" from Quining Qualia, by Dennett Maybe that's why they used Bach's Goldberg Variations for the music of the video.

This blue door in the wilderness is such a beautiful metaphor

Very Good interview, only such scientific and analytical insights will get rid of religious and mythological ideas, thank you for making it freely available 👍

@asun8797

3 жыл бұрын

I think it lends more to that science itself is mystifying and that breeds the desire in us analyze and learn more.

@electrical_cord

10 ай бұрын

If anything i've noticed that scientific studies have only deepened by belief in God. Especially in regards to quantum physics.

Superb interview.

Great conversation, enjoyed it a lot. Loved that subtraction thought experiment too 👍

Thank you so much for sharing this video of Dennett. I've always enjoyed his talks about how some of the things we take for granted as we go about our lives can be beautifully deconstructed. Dan delivers his messages with joy and charm. He is a global treasure.

Dennett is a great philosopher.

I found that I couldn't just listen to Mr.Daniel on this video as if it were an audio podcast, due to the slight slurring and volume modulation on individual words made the task for listening without headgear incomprehensible. Before using this auditive crutch I decided to read his lips as well. This helped my situation immensely, making his discourse almost crystal clear. Being interested in thorough comprehension of the argument I switched on the subtitles. To my dismay, I'm getting a different translation of what my senses at first decanted from experience. If I were to analyze both versions of Dennett's text in all their permutations I would arrive at a nonlinear quantitative paradox.

@edcottingham1

2 жыл бұрын

I also had a bit of trouble and kept trying to get a little more volume out of my maxed-out audio. Near the end, Professor Dennett said what sounded to me like SEquale or SEqualia. Maybe I'm just to ignorant of the jargon to recognize quite what he was saying.

@matthewbartsh9167

Жыл бұрын

@@edcottingham1 Sequalae are things that result from something. I guess it's a fancy word for "results". It means all the things that are caused by something. In a sense, they "follow" from it, I suppose, and just as the sequel to a movie follows on from the original, the sequelae follow on from whatever they are the sequelae of. Like most philosophers, Dennett is often hard to understand and sometimes seems to avoid speaking plainly.

Ironically viewing the world as purely material feels more profound than seeing it from the spiritual perspective that we are brainwashed into believing it's truly amazing.

I have a pain in my knee. It isn't what it does which is awful, it's that it hurts. It's intrinsically awful. I don't think we can reasonably escape that conclusion.

Does anyone know the name of the motor proteins Dan mentions that use this sail-like mechanism for movement?

3:00 at this part of the video I think it's helpful to focus your eyes exclusively on his right arm and simultaneously pay attention to the detail of his face.

I have been reading and watching his lectures for decades. The unbelievable truth of qualia, is that they are like all things, matter and energy moving through space and time. In the brain, action potentials responding to other action potentials result in the primary motor cortex stimulating the skeletal-muscles of the diaphragm and larynx extending and contracting to say, blue door.

Weird that this doesn't have more views, great video

Re-watching this after hearing that we lost Dennett six days ago. I'm going to miss his deep, agile thinking!

Suppose there are 3 doors in front of you each of a different color. You don’t necessarily recognize that they are different colors - you don’t appreciate the different “qualia” of the doors. But if someone says to you, “Go over and open the red door”, then you LOOK at each door and compare them (to each other, or within your memory), and identify the one that is RED. At that point, you experience the qualia of the door, but it is embedded in the experience of a comparison of some sensation with other sensations or remembered inforation.

If I had to choose one person in the world to have as a dinner guest it would be Daniel Dennett

Fantastic.

8:55 - privileged access to our own experience. This is like computer programs that need administrator permissions to access some advanced functions. Additionally you can get some misfiring programs to work if you start them as though you are the admin

The problem is you can't duplicate the experience. Even if someone were to make an exact copy of me it can never be put in my time and space. The only bridge to reality is consciousness.

@ralphmacchiato3761

2 жыл бұрын

You can't step in the same river twice.

@HyzersGR

2 жыл бұрын

An exact copy of you is fully exact, including brain states. An actual exact copy of you (not an identical twin) will share all the same memories you do.

@woodygilson3465

2 жыл бұрын

Yet everyone exists between the front and back covers of psychology, neurology, and every other medical textbook. The reality is that we are neither "special" nor "unique," despite what our mothers told us. Also, plant life exists, interacts, and thrives in reality without the need for a "consciousness bridge."

@sopanmcfadden276

2 жыл бұрын

@@woodygilson3465 I'm not claiming anything special. Actualization of the universe requires consciousness. Look at a molecule of estrogen. It's a component to a system. A system situated in a larger system. Plants are living systems with what appears to be minimal to no consciousness. It's still a component to a system.

@sopanmcfadden276

2 жыл бұрын

@@HyzersGR and because of time and space copying a brain is impossible

Daniel is really gorging on his "one free miracle". IF you start out in the wrong direction (or with the wrong assumptions), you will miss the truth by wider and wider margins.

@colingilchrist7005

Жыл бұрын

Are you riffing on ideas from Donald Hoffman?

@Simon-xi8tb

Жыл бұрын

@@colingilchrist7005 DH is a legend, also bernardo kastrup

My best guess: Consciousness had to evolve from the machinery that was available and molded by conditions. Brains developed for the purpose of evaluating the environment for the creatures that posses them. They do this by modeling the inputs from sense organs and continuously monitor and adjust the models to plan ahead and navigate for resources and reproduction. The images (models) we see in our "mind's eye", are only approximations of what our sense organs "see" and hear. The reasonable inference here, is that this constant, real time, evaluation and adjustment of the creature's self-position in space is what most likely produces the sensation of self. And why it mostly disappears when the creature is sleeping and navigation is unnecessary.

@zumagallerte4669

2 жыл бұрын

Three thoughts on that: 1. Binding Problem. Our brain is fully mapped. We know from each part what it does in receiving, processing and storing sensory input. But there is no part of the brain dedicated to putting it all together. These "models" you talk about, we have no idea where and how in our brain they would be created. 2. A brain doesn't need a consciousness to do that. Just process input and optimize behaviour, tons of lifeforms do that and even machines nowadays. What do you need to have a conscious experience of doing that? 3. It doesn't disappear in sleep. You dream, most of the time. You react to stimuli and so on

@RaptieFeathers

2 жыл бұрын

@@zumagallerte4669 OP here is pretty much correct. If the senses and especially the sensation of the passing of time (which is stored in a memory buffer of a few seconds) is what leads to a sensation of "self" and consciousness. If you disrupt that, then it results in experiences almost beyond description. Example - if one took too many edible THC products, then one experiences a complete breakdown of the self, as well as subjective time and any feeling of reality. That buffer of memory is truncated to the point where there is no longer an internal narrative. Interestingly enough, the experience itself gets recorded in an entirely different part of the brain, where long-term memory resides. This means that one can have a clear recollection of what it all felt like.

@marco_mate5181

Жыл бұрын

@@zumagallerte4669 "Binding Problem. Our brain is fully mapped. We know from each part what it does in receiving, processing and storing sensory input. But there is no part of the brain dedicated to putting it all together. These "models" you talk about, we have no idea where and how in our brain they would be created." It could be that there is a phisical field for consiousness connected to the brain, where the binding occurs. 2) a brain might not be capable to optimise behavior through the simple connections between neurons. Any computer we have is nothig similar to a brain. And by optimization we are talking about abstraction and correction, the only beings capale of doing that are considered conscious. 3) it does disappear. You sleep for few moments at night, most of your sleep is like being in coma ( not exactly but similar).

@123duelist

Жыл бұрын

@@marco_mate5181 The way I see it, the brain is very very very susceptible to illusory perceptions. Even if all we are is a brain(something I'm VERY skeptical of), does not mean we have reason to trust it in relationship to consciousness.

@marco_mate5181

Жыл бұрын

@@123duelist not the brain, your consciousness is susceptible. You are a consciousness, not a brain, but that consciousness is determined by your brain.

8:23 third person evidence, picture playing a top down video game and seeing the character, not through it's eyes (first person) you can see farther and are more aware, but in these games you also become more responsible for more area around you.

The last point clanged like a warning bell, imho. If you come across a system of thought as you are developing your intellectual identity, _feel_ its rightness, and then go through your whole career finding no roadblock to your progress, what is the likelihood that it is actually true, vs. some kind of intellectual narcissism? Even the most narrow minded biblical literalist could say exactly the same thing: they've never found a sensible objection, something that wasn't trivial to dispatch; the more time they spent studying and applying their knowledge, the more they felt it was right. I would worry that experience is a very very very bad omen! FWIW: I am very much in the same bucket as Dennett. But I think we should fear that we are powerful rationalisation engines.

18:07 is why I liked this video lol.

In a universe of nothing but matter, nothing matters, including convincing anyone that the universe is nothing but matter. Nothing he says matters, by his own belief, nor does his own life.

He seems so perplexed by what the big mystery is. Almost as if he’s a non-conscious P-zombie who knows the lingo and knows the arguments, but actually has no idea what people like David Chalmers and Philip Goff are talking about. So, naturally it sounds like woo to him. I was like that until my mid twenties. I was a big rationalist and atheist, and a big fan of people like Dawkins and Sam Harris (and I still am all those things), but all of the sudden it hit me! There’s a vast explanatory gap in getting from the purely physical to subjective, first person experience. Who or what is the “thing” that’s having the experience? And I don’t think this gap can ever be bridged by empirical science. I don’t know what’s really going on “ behind the veil”, but if you think about it, there is no possible concept of an underlying reality that wouldn’t be bizarre if true. I mean, look at all that quantum weirdness. Is it really a stretch to think the explanation for consciousness is incredibly weird and, for lack of a better word, mystical?

@torcher88

3 жыл бұрын

I applaud your sudden insight and agree with nearly all you say here about Dennett but I don't see how you could still be a big fan of Dawkins. He strikes me as a militant polemicist, but no great thinker nor particularly scrupulous about mastering fields (like philosophy) that he likes to talk about.

@BugRib

3 жыл бұрын

@@torcher88 - I think Dawkins’s “militant atheist” label is a bit unjustified. When the “New Atheist” movement was getting popular, their were a lot of truly militant religionists trying to put pseudoscience into our public school curriculums, blocking sex education, pushing prayer in school, putting religious monuments in public spaces, etc. I think some robust pushback was justified. But I do think Dawkins has underestimated and maybe caricatured some philosophical arguments for theism, or at least some arguments against strict materialism/physicalism. And I have lately come to realize that a lot of materialists are arrogant, and rather unsophisticated in their philosophical arguments. Most of them don’t even seem to realize that materialism is a metaphysical position that fits the evidence no better than other metaphysical positions like dualism, panpsychism, or idealism. They also seem unable to “see” the Hard Problem. Dennett seems completely blind to it, and conceptually confused. Which I actually understand and sympathize with...because that used to be me.

@BugRib

3 жыл бұрын

All that said (and I feel very weird writing this), I think the Intelligent Design people actually have some valid arguments. Reading Thomas Nagel’s “Mind and Cosmos” definitely made me a bit more sympathetic towards some of their arguments, but I still resent their attempts to inject what is _clearly_ pseudoscience into public school curriculums.

@torcher88

3 жыл бұрын

@@BugRib One of the problems of the "new atheists" is that they conflate science and materialism, which are not the same. Science is a program of investigation into whatever regularities can be found in matter (whatever that stuff might be), and materialism is the conjecture that all that exists is ultimately material. It's easy to see that the first thing does not entail the second, and I think Newton and the others who actually pioneered science would have expressed puzzlement by the conflation. I think it is in the interests of modern materialists to conflate these distinct things, because materialism is (if I may be frank) utterly untenable, but science has been successful and has acquired a lot of prestige. So, if you can brand those who oppose materialism as "unscientific", you can more easily dismiss their arguments. Unfortunately many people assume that the success of science automatically lends support for materialism, but IMO nothing could be farther from the truth. If everything is material, what exactly are the laws of physics that science posits/discovers? If everything is material, what are the scientifically curious _minds_ who endeavor to posit and test the laws of physics? If anything, a full consideration of science as a human activity totally upholds the traditional three-fold ontology of ancient philosophy: matter (the thing under investigation), mind (the agent investigating), abstract objects (such as mathematical equations, the things under consideration in the investigators' minds). Looking at science in this wide-lens view lends no support to materialism whatsoever.

@BugRib

3 жыл бұрын

@@torcher88 - Yeah, I’ve definitely picked up on the conflation of science with materialism/physicalism. They’re so dismissive of anyone who even questions the materialist worldview. I think it really all comes down to whether one can “see” the Hard Problem. I think the philosophical arguments against there being a purely physical explanation for consciousness are slam dunk arguments. But don’t think they’re persuasive enough to convince a longtime materialist who just doesn’t “see” it. I was seriously questioning materialism long before I had ever read any of the arguments against it just because of “seeing” the problem. Of course, you’re never going to persuade a materialist just by trying to tell them what you “see”.

I will be thankful to anyone who can help me with my two questions: First, given that one of the ways consciousness is defined (by Professor Dennett) is representing representations and reflecting on reflections, can someone tell me what are the processes involved in acquiring such ability of representing our representations and reflect on our reflections? It is obvious that we do not have such capabilities at birth but it is gradually acquired over journey to adulthood, or. still better, journey to "maturity". Second, are there any any possible ways to promote such processes in a healthy way? Thank you.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

In a nutshell, this refers to the feedback-loops in our brains. Its not only new info coming in but also allready processed info beeing fed in again and again. And it is not correct, that we do not have such capabilities at birth. Its only obvious that the result of this process is not a meaningfull one at birth and that the brain constantly adjusts its connections by using them to gain better results. On the second part of your question: Beeing good parents and teachers does the trick quite well.

@AdenwalaM

2 жыл бұрын

@@petermeyer6873 Thank you for your reply to my query Peter. This is highly contentious issue and I would like to continue to the dialogue for further clarifications. If you are inclined to continue the dialogue, my mail address is mukesh(underscore)a99(at the rate)yahoo(dot)com. We can agree to limit the emails at mutually agreed upon periodicity of once a week, a fortnight, or a month. Please let me know. Permit me to hint at possible questions: Given that human brain is not fully developed at birth, what happens to consciousness as various functionalities are added to the brain? As regards what are the "good" qualities of parents and teachers also needs further discussion. Once again, thank you for your reply.

"Stay Hard" - David Goggins

He says we need to be able to explain the first-person point of view in third-person terms, otherwise we don’t have an explanation. And then says, we have a third-person point of view now so we don’t need the first-person point of view anymore. We have the explanation of the thing so we can just keep the explanation and drop the thing that is being explained. He is confusing the explanation of something with the thing itself. He thinks the explanation is real and the thing being explained is an illusion. So when he says, ‘I’m not saying consciousness doesn’t exist, it’s just not what you think it is’ he is saying consciousness is the functional explanation of consciousness not the phenomenal experience of consciousness. You can’t deny experience by explaining it. Being able to explain how something works doesn’t make that thing an illusion

@BugRib

3 жыл бұрын

Totally agree. Denial of first-person, subjective experience and qualia is desperate and just...insane. They are the most certain things to exist in all of existence.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

The point Dennet makes here ist that consciousness is giving back an illusion when it is trying to explain itself. It is not the right tool for a recursive analysis. The Third person view will get rid of that illusion by explaining how consciousness works objectively, it will not eradicate the phenomenon itself.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

@tkwtg Ok, then for evasion of any misunderstanding, can you briefly explain the hard problem and distinguish it sharply from the soft problem(s)? Honestly, even the different formulations on wikipedia are inconsistent: either ambiguous or trivial. And in case your definition contains the term "qualia", please explain or at least distinguish these from the words "feelings" and "sensations". I have a hunch, what Chalmers & Co mean, but there might be an army coming in on me screaming, "You just dont get the hard problem!", like one can read allmost everywhre in the comments on YT to Dennetts vids, so I just wait until I come across a definition to work on.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

@tkwtg Thanks for your detailed answer! Its rare to find people on YT, who really are interested in an honest discussion and willing to put in the efford. So, Im with you on most of what you stated above. The definition with the "what its like..." approach feels a bit vague, but then I guess any more precise definition could allready contain/imply an answer at least for HOW consciousness is made. So, Ive learned: The hard question is "WHY is there consciousness?". - A WHY-question is of course more ambitious than a HOW-question. In science, WHY-questions are usually broken down into two parts: A HOW-does-it-work-question, where the functional principle is routed to other allready known functional principles from the pool of latest state of research (the easy problem, I take it) and a rather flat WHY-as-in-what-for-question, which is usually just referencing the accomplished function to a benefit to or even a necessity for the whole system like e.g.: Q:"Why do we have a heart?" A:"For pumping the blood around, to distribute the nutricians and collect the waste..." The benefit from a consciousness seems to me to have a second layer on top of the sub-consciousness, where feelings and thoughts are seperated a little more stringent and thus more objectivity can be achieved. The benefit of consciousness would then be a means to not give into any spontanious impulse and double check decisions by comparing them more objectively with the past and so plan further into the future. This conscious result is then fed back into the sub-conscious decision making process to gain better results. - But there is also another way to look at a WHY-question, as it can imply an option. I take it "Why is there consciousness?" implies: "- There neednt be one for the system to work.". This is where Chalmers zombie comes in play. I can agree for simple beeings like spiders etc it would be hard to distinguish a spider zombie from a spider, but that would only be due to the allmost non-existent level of consciousness in a regular spider. But the zombie thought-experiment in my opinion only delivers human zombies, that would be immediately recognised by any conscious person: We would call them either "severely retarded" in case they were allready born in that state or "severely brain damaged" in case that state was reached as a result of an accident or a disease. In no way would a human Chalmanian zombie act like a regular person and it certainly could not speak, as speech is an expression of contents of consciousness (ok, very rarely some sub-conscious content makes it into speech in form of a freudian slip). In fact, one could argue, whether severly retarded humans can reach the same level/state of consciousness. The two of us having this conversation really eliminates the question, whether one of us could be such a zombie. Consciousness thus has a necessity, when it comes to compete with other conscious beeings - Chalmanian Zombies would die out real quick, except for some good looking ZILFs. - There might be an even simpler way of answering the WHY-question: Consciousness could be INEVITABLY what it feels like to think with brains of such complexity. So, since we allmost all can accept rather flat answers for the WHY-question of most body-functions and the body-parts that fullfill those (nobody claims the question of why we have our blood pumped around by our heart to be a "hard question") and not even bother twice, then why is it so hard to simply go with the same flatness about consciousness? I cant see it as giving up rather than assuming the other one holds an empty sack and was tricked into buying it without opening as the knot is too complicated, still.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

@tkwtg ​Hi again. In round 2 Im just quickly going through your answer paragraphs highlighting some things I have problems with or ideas for. Feel free to answer if you like, np if you dont. So far this is a very productive discussion. For the question HOW consciousness is created, I favour good old system theory (the peak achievement of modernism in my opinion) as the approach. Consciousness in my view is a higher function of the brain-system. It emerges alongside higher complexity of the brain. I consider that explanation to be sufficient, though it seems not to many, as it is in contrast to the intuition, that consciousness produces about its own nature. "This and everything else in your paragraph seems to already presuppose the notion that the physical brain cannot function and behave the way it does without having an inner experience." Yes! I really dont see an alternative to this. Such a complex brain without producing consciousness would be either malfunctioning or optimized for solving an extremely narrow category of problems - like a super parallel super stupid pocket calculator - what a waste of energy - evolution either would kill it or come up with a better useage. For the zombie: If fully functional human zombies (as observed from outside) are no problem for your imagination, then can you explain, how they can speak without beeing conscious? Wouldnt that mean speaking without knowing what they say like in the chinese room thought experiment? Why should they be interested in hearing about something, that doesnt exist to them? Its like a psychopath listening to person in agony telling him about pain without having a wound - the psychopath is completely puzzled in that situation and thinks that person has gone mad. "If speech is just a manifestation of physical states then how could it not speak??" Not of any state, only of higher ones and those are just as physical as the lower ones. When consciousness is a higher level of reflecting the data processing of the lower ones (the sub-conscious) then it is necessary for speech, because speech is nothing else than coded thoughts about thoughts and feelings. A sub-conscious zombie cannot speak, because it doesnt have this level of reflection. in short: - sub-consciousness: thoughts/feelings (but no words); product and state of the brain (regular and zombiotic) - consciousness: meta-thoughts/-feelings and also capable of coding these in words; also product and state of the brain (zombies not allowed here by definition) - speech: meta-meta-thoughts/-feelings coded in words; information once produced and coded by a conscious brain to be decoded by another conscious brain. (not of any interest to zombies at all, due to their disability of meta-thinking and decoding) The second WHY-question: I admit, I dont understand it. :( Third person explanation: Of course the third person explanation is, what we are after - we all have the first person experience allready, what else would you expect there?: - A first person experience combined with a first person explanation? Therefor evolution needs to make the step to give the brain a detailed self-diagnose-feedback (very expensive and might be even more in the way of getting laid than beeing intelligent allready is (kzread.info/dash/bejne/pYRm1reQYKuqeKQ.html)) The only self diagnose of the brain so far has 2 escalation steps: 1: headache (warning) 2: uncounscious (emergency) - A third person explanation combined with a first-to-third person experience? Connecting 2 brains - SF, not going to happen within 100 years from now at least. There is a natural possibility: Siamese twins. But then, same problem for us on the outside: How could we understand, what they experience and then tell us? How could they even understand the difference as long as we dont kill one of them or cut them apart? I also have to admit, that I dont fully understand the party crasher analogy - Why would a mind crash its own party, when its allready there throwing it? On the posibility of the involvement of anything non-physical: Well, I dont have a problem using language of the dualistic view, but just in the metaphorical way, so that everything non-physical ist just a higher function/state of a physical base (here the brain). I refrain from putting a supernatural ingreedient into the puzzle to be solved and I dont see any need to do so for three reasons: 1. Never have I (or anyone through history) come across a puzzle, that needed such a supernatural piece for completion. Actually, without any evidence, the claim for a supernatural ingreedient turns into a belief. 2. Such a supernatural piece would make such a relatively simple puzzle enormously complex. I would rather say "I dont know yet" as opposed to summon a new god of the gaps. 3. Claiming that consciousness is made of a supernatural ingreedient, which isnt needed for anything else in the universe, makes this approach just too anthropocentric, like the soul in religion.

I think the problem of understanding consciousness is semantics. There are things that we perceive that are not necessarily in our immediate ‘consciousness’. The word itself is confounding. Multiple elements are necessary to understand the thing we finally call consciousness. First is perception. This gives us the raw evidentiary data (not unique to us). Next is the fundamental mental activity of naming or classification of all this sensory input (not unique but rare). We do this ‘subconsciously’ and while dreaming. Next introduce the concept of imaginative memory, the process of integration by way of creative narrative development (the difference maker). We have the ability to remember sensory input and then creatively manipulate it into the narratives we perceive as real time awareness.

The lights are on, but no one is home! And there may be a party going on, but you wouldn't know it without language. No language, no you, no consciousness, no hard problem!

13:30 It's so interesting how the conscious experience of a blue door in itself cannot be found or detected (i.e. it appears simply not to exist) and yet our inner world says clearly that it does.

That's certainly one approach, but I prefer one that turns it on its head as Dennett does and starts from the premise that what we are inclined to take as primary (or in Dennett's borrowed term-- the manifest image) is actually emergent. One upside of this view is its amendability to scientific inquiry and experimentation.

Those who are certain that consciousness extends beyond death, become very competitive, in concern with whose consciousness will be rewarded with eternal bliss, compared to whose consciousness will suffer for eternity. “We are all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality.” Anil Seth … neuroscientist.

Mr Dennet should smoke some 5meo DMT really

@oortobject77

3 жыл бұрын

I have done so and I still remain a materialist. Sorry. So have many others. Thomas Metzinger, who meditates and has taken psychedelics, is also a materialist philosopher. In fact, one would think that after taking a physical molecule which has a proven effect on physical neurons in the physical brain with profound effects upon consciousness, one might come to the obvious conclusion that consciousness is produced by a physical mechanism.

@mikewazzupski

3 жыл бұрын

@@oortobject77 i have zero real credentials on these things however iam interested in them and my response would be this: Why would you conclude with 100% certainity that as you say these physcial mechanisms in the brain produce consciousness? because thats not something you or anyone can prove, or (how and why atleast) however what we can conclude with 100 % certainity, because we can measure it, is that consciousness and conscious experiences is ”correlated” with these physical mechanisms. Not produced by them. I guess you can believe that they cause it / produce it, however you have no answer to as to how or why. So its really just a belief

@verfassungspatriot

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikewazzupski "conscious experiences is ”correlated” with these physical mechanisms. Not produced by them." There is nothing to be produced. The physical mechanisms ARE your conscious experience. There is no difference between those two things.

@mikewazzupski

2 жыл бұрын

@@verfassungspatriot to say that these physical interactions actually are ”your conscious experience” seems wrong to be, and there certainly aint no proof for it, these physical interactions are as you say correlated with ”your conscious experiences” as an example to say that a specific kind of signal in the brain and in a specific area actually is/causes ”happyness” or rather ”your conscious experience of happiness” is crazy and completly neglects the fact that it actually isn’t. happiness in reality is the subjective ”feeling” of happiness.

@glormoparch5154

2 жыл бұрын

When the DMT crowd breaks the 4th wall I'll be convinced otherwise you're still stuck with your subjective experience possibly just being a construct of your brain. 86 billion neurons or something isn't something to laugh away.

Are not beliefs/conviction caused by physical make up of subject?

⁠ ​​⁠​⁠​⁠ The brain is essentially very much like any digital computer. All the neuronal stuff boils down to making connections between cells depending on information taken in through our senses as well as information already stored in other neurons. Ultimately, however, it boils down to patterns of neuronal activity produced by say looking at a face. Those patterns are compared (by other neural circuits) to stored patterns that generate a “response” in some neurons that says “that is Jerry” or “that is not Sally”. Fundamentally the brain is a comparator, just like a computer. You have no access to any absolute knowledge about the universe - only comparisons. “Qualia” are essentially “apples are red because everyone agrees that they are”. Then when you see a red car, you really mean, that car reflects the same light as an apple. No non-physical “field” is necessary for all this to happen. Consciousness itself is the highest level of comparison. You cannot claim you are conscious without thinking about it - that is, self-reflecting. That requires accessing your immediate memory - comparing your present state to previous states, and saying to yourself, in effect, I am still here, thinking about my “self”. You cannot be conscious without memory - particularly working / short-term memory. Consciousness is, then the “idea” that I am still here.

Do people have to be conscious enough in order to utter meaningful speech? If so, can we assume that a sophisticated consciousness is developed to aid speech?

almost inaudible. please re-upload this great interview with correct audio levels.

Who is this guy talking with Dan. He is immensely underated.

I am a physicist and I will provide solid arguments that prove that consciousness cannot be generated by the brain (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). Many argue that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but it is possible to show that such hypothesis is inconsistent with our scientific knowledges. In fact, it is possible to show that all the examples of emergent properties consists of concepts used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is in itself, which means how the object is independently from our observation. In other words, emergent properties are ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria and from an arbitrary point of view, certain processes or systems. In summary, emergent properties are intrinsically subjective, since they are conceptual models based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes; emergent properties consist of ideas through which we describe how the external reality appears to our conscious mind: without a conscious mind, these ideas (= emergent properties) would not exist at all. Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, subjectivity, classifications and approximate descriptions, imply the existence of a conscious mind, which can arbitrarily choose a specific point of view and focus on certain aspects while neglecting others. It is obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because consciousenss is a preliminary necessary condition for the existence of any emergent property. We have then a logical contradiction. Nothing which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness. Here comes my second argument: our scientific knowledge shows that brain processes consist of sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes; since consciousness is not a property of ordinary elementary physical processes, then a succession of such processes cannot have cosciousness as a property. In fact we can break down the process and analyze it step by step, and in every step consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes. It must be also understood that considering a group of elementary processes together as a whole is an arbitrary choice. In fact, according to the laws of physics, any number of elementary processes is totally equivalent. We could consider a group of one hundred elementary processes or ten thousand elementary processes, or any other number; this choice is arbitrary and not reducible to the laws of physics. However, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrary choices; therefore consciousness cannot be a property of a sequence of elementary processes as a whole, because such sequence as a whole is only an arbitrary and abstract concept that cannot exist independently of a conscious mind. Here comes my third argument: It should also be considered that brain processes consist of billions of sequences of elementary processes that take place in different points of the brain; if we attributed to these processes the property of consciousness, we would have to associate with the brain billions of different consciousnesses, that is billions of minds and personalities, each with its own self-awareness and will; this contradicts our direct experience, that is, our awareness of being a single person who is able to control the voluntary movements of his own body with his own will. If cerebral processes are analyzed taking into account the laws of physics, these processes do not identify any unity; this missing unit is the necessarily non-physical element (precisely because it is missing in the brain), the element that interprets the brain processes and generates a unitary conscious state, that is the human mind. Here comes my forth argument: Consciousness is characterized by the fact that self-awareness is an immediate intuition that cannot be broken down or fragmented into simpler elements. This characteristic of consciousness of presenting itself as a unitary and non-decomposable state, not fragmented into billions of personalities, does not correspond to the quantum description of brain processes, which instead consist of billions of sequences of elementary incoherent quantum processes. When someone claims that consciousness is a property of the brain, they are implicitly considering the brain as a whole, an entity with its own specific properties, other than the properties of the components. From the physical point of view, the brain is not a whole, because its quantum state is not a coherent state, as in the case of entangled systems; the very fact of speaking of "brain" rather than many cells that have different quantum states, is an arbitrary choice. This is an important aspect, because, as I have said, consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness. So, if a system can be considered decomposable and considering it as a whole is an arbitrary choice, then it is inconsistent to assume that such a system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary precondition for the existence of any arbitrary choice. In other words, to regard consciousness as a property ofthe brain, we must first define what the brain is, and to do so we must rely only on the laws of physics, without introducing arbitrary notions extraneous to them; if this cannot be done, then it means that every property we attribute to the brain is not reducible to the laws of physics, and therefore such property would be nonphysical. Since the interactions between the quantum particles that make up the brain are ordinary interactions, it is not actually possible to define the brain based solely on the laws of physics. The only way to define the brain is to arbitrarily establish that a certain number of particles belong to it and others do not belong to it, but such arbitrariness is not admissible. In fact, the brain is not physically separated from the other organs of the body, with which it interacts, nor is it physically isolated from the external environment, just as it is not isolated from other brains, since we can communicate with other people, and to do so we use physical means, for example acoustic waves or electromagnetic waves (light). This necessary arbitrariness in defining what the brain is, is sufficient to demonstrate that consciousness is not reducible to the laws of physics. Besides, since the brain is an arbitrary concept, and consciousness is the necessary preliminary condition for the existence of arbitrariness, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. Based on these considerations, we can exclude that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain. Marco Biagini

@ralphmacchiato3761

2 жыл бұрын

But you assume that consciousness is something else than an emergence of physical states. What makes you do that apart from causality?

@marcobiagini1878

2 жыл бұрын

@@ralphmacchiato3761 I have not assumed that consciousness is something else than an emergence of physical states; I have provided arguments that prove this.

@HyzersGR

2 жыл бұрын

Where did you get your PhD? For being a physicist you spend an awfully long amount of time on KZread copy and pasting this comment on every philosophical video you can find.

@luizr.5599

5 ай бұрын

Ok then, there is a little magic ghost living in you. Hahahaa

Consciousness as a nice illusion. Not really enough to get by in the world. This interview is an example of why we need Alfred North Whitehead's process thought.

Was Dennett joking when he said that motor proteins were like helmsman, and that this was somehow inspiring?

Dennett will forever be a nemesis to me. He once explained that our visual field only truly focuses on a literal quarter (the coin ) of surface area. This is observed to be true. So knowing when I look at ANYTHING, close or far I'm only really seeing this small area is a fact I cannot un know. I dont want to know things like that. Thanks for ruining my view...Thanks for nothing Dennett 😣!......🙂

مساء النور شكرا لك على مشاركة الفديو اتمنى لك يوم موفق 👍👍👍🌹

Great

Dennett's arguments are aimed at people who are non-technical. To an engineer the functional diagrams and circuit schematics can be interpreted by engineers who know they are just descriptions. The components on the circuit board even give an engineer marginal understanding unless its his design. Yes, consciousness is very complex, especially when we are only doing the science for only a few decades. However just like the key to electronic circuitry is knowing what happens INSIDE those individual components. Unlike electronics, neurons interact as something more than point to point devices. As an engineer I suspect electronics only mimic some aspect of brain biology.

HOLY HELL. THAT IS MY HOMETOWN. IT IS NEVER FEATURED ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is inane. There is proof everywhere that man creates a model of the world that is quite authentic while being efficient. Consider all the technology we use which requires both understanding of the world at great depth, and fine motor skill during fabrication. Military jets can spin in place without stalling. You're probably reading this on an OLED display, which is a sandwich of at least 8 different nanometer-scale chemical layers.

The description before 2:19 - is called LOD in PC video game terms for video processing conserving. LOD - Load on demand - if you have a computer with extensive graphic processing capabilities (big cache for holding instructions close to the processor .. eliminating fetching) - you can load (render) more objects in a game within a preset distance from the focal point.

Dennett is to me one of the greatest philosophers of all time. His functionalist, or let me say, enactivist perspective od consiousness is really enlightening. Maybe he is the biggest after Wittgenstein as a philosopher of mind.

@pepedestroyer5974

Жыл бұрын

So you are a materialist. You are nothing more than a bunch of athoms or if you change your level if description a moist robot or meat Machine.

@Simon-xi8tb

Жыл бұрын

check out Bernardo Kastrup, also a giant, but on the other side.

@Philo-ul2uq

Жыл бұрын

Chalmers > Dennett

@MM-du7je

7 ай бұрын

​@@Philo-ul2uqsuperintendent

I've followed Dan for decades and what shines through the (hard) intellectual descriptions is his humanity. Alternative philosophies (religions, etc.) diminish our humanity. Among other things, Dan shows us the wonder of being human.

@maecentric

Жыл бұрын

Dans metaphysical views on conciseness emerging out a material substrate, is a religious and alternative philosophy, not grounded in science and is even incoherent. There is no explanation for how this would be possible.

Wondering what is left of our consciousness if we were to eliminate all the senses…by way of experiment…in some sensory deprivation chamber…taking into account Daniel Dennett’s point about the inflated sense we have of our conscious state and experience…

@alenkratohvil7222

2 жыл бұрын

You would be in point consciousness at that time. In the pulsation state. Ready to go to any other reality. People call it astral travel but there is no travel involved. Just a change of reality frame. And of course reconnecting with the body in this reality frame

So what do we do with this argument. It could be an argument against any one subjective account of anything happening. Important but also an obfuscation that could be used against any kind of witness, which is scary. Sounds like a good suppression tactic.

@gnosticagnostic9326

3 жыл бұрын

Maybe, I see it as more an epistemological tool. Experience itself is insufficient to reach a true conclusion about external reality. That doesn't make it useless. Darwin observed a variety of finch's through his experience, it would be unreasonable to jump to natural selection from there. But that experience sparked a line of questioning and experimentation that eventually culminated in the theory of evolution by natural selection. Our experiences do not provide answers but instead fuel for questions.

@chemquests

2 жыл бұрын

Lone witness is an epistemological dead-end. Repeated corroboration builds confidence in the probability of the phenomenon being real.

@anewjemail7471

2 жыл бұрын

@@chemquests This is true, i agree. Everyone will always agree in Perfect

@carlhitchon1009

2 жыл бұрын

@@chemquests It exists. It's how you exist.

@chemquests

2 жыл бұрын

@@carlhitchon1009 you are correct to tie this question of qualia to the question of whether the self exists. Both are illusory in a similar way. One one hand there’s clearly something we are referring to as “I” but it’s in a similar category as “red”. We can agree it exists in a subjective sense but will probably part ways on whether it “really” exists. The “you” you reference is a collection of cells & neural patterns; much like Sam Harris describes , we can disassociate from this inner narrative to see it as a product of the brain, sort of like visual hallucinations.

Could also be an explanation for why we are blind to the truth. All the time. Which is something i will ignore. Or go insane.

What does the quality of our vision matter? Even without the faculty of sight, conscious experience prevails. If anything, how much we DO experience from such comparatively limited sensory information makes our conscious experience even more baffling - after all, if consciousness is a systemic functional outcome of our faculties, the less credence we give them, the more questions we have (why aren't HD cameras having experience, from their superior ability of vision?). Even without sight, the hard problem remains. The hard problem is not about our experience in itself, it is regarding why there is experience whatsoever.

@woodygilson3465

2 жыл бұрын

The point wasn't so much about vision as it was the unreliable nature of our senses in general as a source of epistemic truth. Your "Why" problem isn't a problem. It's a nonsensical question rooted in old myths and ultimately, science denial in favor of idealistic fantasies.

@xenoblad

Жыл бұрын

@@woodygilson3465 eh… I think he’s getting at the point that the experience of vision is it’s own form of knowledge as is usually posited by people who bring up the thought experiment of Mary’s room. I do wonder if science could ever extract knowledge of subjective experience from physical material. I think some species of shrimp apparently have 17 more vision cones then humans. It would be cool if science could some how through text alone induce an awareness of the subjective vision experience of this shrimp that presumably has access to colors we have never seen. May as well throw in what it’s like to be a bat for good measure.

guys I'm in class what is he saying please sum up the video I need this please

I think he went off the rails at the point of disputing pain’s “intrinsic” quality. He moves to define the experience by its effects? No way Dan. That would mean that no sensations have intrinsic qualities. That is just ridiculous. Sex is only, what? Humor, music, etc…these have specific intrinsic identities. It doesn’t make it any less “real” as an experience despite it having a neurological or different level explanation. Music could be reduced to mathematical patterns of sound vibration, but then you’re not able to experience it properly. Is “beauty” an illusion. Yes. But it remains a truth in terms of experience. Why is this requiring a reductive explanation. And by the way, everything you’re saying was already said by Schopenhauer in Will & Representation (after Kant)…just that he didn’t have the scientific advantages of technology you have.

@ralphmacchiato3761

2 жыл бұрын

There is no shame in holding on to your beliefs when you have no other options.

@sectorsweep14

2 жыл бұрын

It's also silly to say that you can take away the negative aspects of pain and it would no longer be awful. If you took away those aspects, it wouldn't be awful because it wouldn't be pain anymore.

Blue sky breaks the whole argument

I can't help but make one more comment just to point out that to say that the fact that elimination of certain physical processes leads to the elimination of consciousness must mean that those physical processes are equivalent to consciousness is a just basic logical error that anyone should be embarrased by having realized they have committed this error

💚

Of course there had to be a blue door in a snowy field, why wouldn't there? :-D

Dennets positions seems totaly weird to me. If "Me" is illusion, then who is expiersing that illusion. I don't think that term illusion got any seanse if there is not a conscious agent.

@ethanolsampsonite7407

5 ай бұрын

We are more so products of the world than the world is a product of ourselves.

@jameslapinel2603

5 ай бұрын

I know this comment is 2 years old and I hope my reply finds you well. I’ve held Dennet’s position for a long time and I’ve felt that the way our language is structured around “me” makes that idea nearly impossible to develop.

@michakocher1392

5 ай бұрын

@@jameslapinel2603 the more I am into philosophy, there more I think, that it can be said about most of issues. A lot of problems cannot be solved, because they are based on poorly defined terms.

@Krod4321

4 ай бұрын

The lights are on, but no one is home! And there may be a part going on, but you wouldn't no it without Language. No Language no you, no counciousness, nohard problem!

@james6401

4 ай бұрын

I'm interested in the radicality of Dennett's position but I'm not sure if I subscribe to it. It's an interesting thought experiment that may be true. He essentially maintains we are zombies that can refer to ourselves - we have no internal life we just think we do. "Consciousness" is a trick of language... Humans can do this but animals can't- as far as we know. Animals can recognise themselves in mirrors but they may not have the thought "i am thinking about thinking". My cat may not have that particular awareness of herself as a thinking creature but I still feel she is "conscious"; she has a lot of the awareness that I have but there are limits for both of us - language for her (she can't talk) and the sense experiences that she has are beyond me as far as I know what hers are. She has a different world of smell and sight than I have and I have complex language wheres she has very simple language - she can tell me she wants food or to go out and such but I don't know if she has abstract ideas. She may have abstract thoughts but whether she does or not I know she can't articulate them. But how many conversations have you had with other humans about the abstract thoughts that they have? About whether they are conscious or not? It's not a conversation that we often have, we just presume we are all "conscious" which I'll interpret as "I am a being who will shy away from pain and deprivation and sources of stress or I will deliberately move towards sources of discomfort for some reason eg gym, winter swimming, fasting etc but I can largely communicate why I gravitate towards pain or avoid it." People are not confortable having conversations like that for long - they may believe it's a useless waste of time, or that you're under the influence of drugs or that you're even mad. For the world to work, many people must go around in a very limited state of consciousness to a large degree - they go working, shopping, homemaking etc without a single self-reflective thought from day to day.

what is not matter dos not matter

I didn't get the concept of qualia until reading about people with blindsight--a condition where someone's eyes function on all levels but consciously. They can walk down a hallway avoiding obstacles, yet insist they can't see anything. They just "get a feeling" something is in their way, and walk around it. They get scared when there's a snake or spider in front of them, yet can't explain why they feel scared. Hold out an object and tell them to say what it is; "I don't know. I can't see." Get them to take a guess, just a random shot in the dark, and they get it right. Somehow on a subconscious level they can still see, yet they lack the conscious perception of vision. What is it a normal person has, that someone with blindsight _doesn't_ have, if not qualia?

@badmittens5160

3 жыл бұрын

Blindsight isn't as advanced as you're describing. The people with it can only correctly guess how something looks around 80% of the time, and it isn't enough to allow them to walk through hallways or navigate the world without ordinary optical vision.

@_WhiteMage

3 жыл бұрын

@@badmittens5160 They can avoid obstacles. You can search a 2008 video here on youtube showing it. For someone who can't consciously see to be able to "guess" the correct item so much better than chance is astonishing. Dennett has spoken on the topic before, but to my knowledge never actually addresses the question of *what it is* you and I have that blindsight patients lack. "The conscious experience of vision" is what I'd call it... and isn't that just qualia's definition?

@badmittens5160

3 жыл бұрын

@@_WhiteMage So, I'm not actually disagreeing with your concept of qualia if that's how my initial comment came off. xD My comment instead was more an explanation for why Blindsight isn't necessarily "living proof" of David Chalmers P-Zombie thought experiment. A P-Zombie still has awareness of what they're seeing and is consciously able to differentiate between colors and the like which Blindsight inflicted people cannot. They only subconsciously have an awareness of their surroundings, and as I said before, it isn't nearly as keen as someone with normal vision. Even if someone with Blindsight can navigate a hallway, it's not as though they're advanced enough to feign sight to someone who doesn't know they're blind. I'm not sure if that was the point you're trying to make but people have used Blindsight in the past as an argument against the Hard Problem of Consciousness, but I don't feel like it holds much weight

@_WhiteMage

3 жыл бұрын

@@badmittens5160 I thought the whole point of the p-zombie is they aren't actually "aware" or "conscious" of anything at all. They're like a sufficiently advanced robot that would respond as if hurt when you poked it--even though it isn't actually experiencing pain.

@badmittens5160

3 жыл бұрын

@@_WhiteMage No, they're not like robots per se. Chalmers described P-Zombies as acting exactly identical to ordinary humans with the only difference being they have no "internal world" or qualia, they're just acting out the motions of it without actually feeling any of it internally the way we do

These perspectives of qualia are circular questions either way. It's like the concept of moral absolutism which requires parameters to hold. We are beings which experience things "as we know it". To wonder whether this human experience is a subjective journey is a natural thing to wonder. Sure. That does not get you anywhere though. The entire premise is a huge waste of time. This is why we assume a scientific objective reality out of utility. What is the point behind thinking molecules exist otherwise. All things perceived by default are subjective and that is the only thing that is truly absolute. How does a person expect to proceed if actually living by that idea? Naturally we have to assume some common ground in order to move forward. Forcing myself to believe in this objective reality out of utility, I at some point will have to believe in the idea that the experience any person has at any time is just a set of data corresponding to the internal and external physical world at the time. Demonstrable and reproducible. Not humanly 'special' in some magic way, but an astronomical number of things occurring which in subsets can be reproduced within the universe. Whatever you're thinking and experiencing right now as a person can be reproduced EXACTLY minus the point in space and time it's occurring because we do not have omnipotent power to control all time and space as we know it. You can either assume that or choose to assume any number of metaphysical questions to get lost in, never to find any answer. I was recently asked about the Mary thought experiment and it just seems ridiculous to me. Mary is automatically just given this absolute understanding of 'everything there is to know' about color without actually having that absolute understanding as proven by the premise. It's like asking if 1+1=2, then does 1+1+1=2 also? We have been capable of at least somewhat comprehending the countless variables our brains are constantly processing via the sensory input. Astronomically more than that of semi conductor computers. People don't want to admit how similar we process data to actual electronic sensors and computer processors because it puts us in the same "meaningless" category as Godless accidental chemical happenings in the universe and people hate that. We may function different but I don't see how we both don't process data we receive from sensory input. The depth of the programming is where the real question comes into play for me. Pain simply cannot be a simple programming of triggers signaled by nerves. It's like an automatic response with more complex forms of if's and elses which allows us to choose to endure it. Obviously I can't hope to comprehend it comparing it to basic programming though. It would be programming I'd imagine all of the Earth's coders would take many lifetimes just to understand the depth of before learning how to reproduce it. Even after all that time we would still be left with the question of whether our creation was having a conscious human experience. We assume so with other humans we meet because they look and act human. So hypothetically hundreds of years later we would still have the same unanswerable question even if we thought we knew everything there was know to know about creating consciousness.

@4haruchan

4 жыл бұрын

I don't pretend to answer all the questions you introduce, and I'm not sure if I got all you said (don't speak fluent english and the matter is complicated) but the perspective of qualia and subjectiveness for me is utile in some disciplines as it's a remember that we can't know things just by how they behave and the most important, not only from our perspective. For me it is a useful perspective for example in social sciences and psychology (we don't study qualia in the carreer but postmodernism and the fact that we have to coexist with the unknown of other's minds and complex social realities. Perhaps I'm wrong or I don't understand it properly but what I want to say is that it's not really a nihilist or obsolete perspective. It opens the door and considers reality a very complex thing.

@Magneticitist

4 жыл бұрын

@@4haruchan I see what you're saying in that it's a form of utility and thought exercise which can be seen as beneficial. I just think we are too young in our discovery of how the brain works that we assume we have some magical and special lens of the universe which is unique and impossible to reproduce in any other unique person. I highly doubt that is the case. It just really seems that way as of now.

@4haruchan

4 жыл бұрын

@@Magneticitist I aggree with you, but one thing is the uniqueness of our configuration (related to identity, being) and the other is the experience itself. Those are different things in metaphysics. A bad examle (I should think deeply to find a good comparative but) Perhaps we both have the same qualia (we experience the color red the same way) but you will have your own experience and I will have mine. Perhaps we both experience red the same but you experience it daily and I just experienced it once (or even never). And all this of course, for now at least, can only be theorised. Provably we will never confirm it. Dunno if all this makes sense. Of course I aggree with you that uniqueness of being is rare and it's a very antropocentrist concept. But I think that experience is another branch. And thanks for your answer, I find this topic very interesting! I have to read more about it to have a solid opinion.

@Magneticitist

4 жыл бұрын

@@4haruchan I agree our personal stories which lead all of us to our own unique views and feelings is certainly interesting in that there are an innumerable number of variables at play throughout a lifetime when a person is building his or her 'programming' so to speak. We have a large task ahead of us trying to figure it all out but I feel like the next 100 or so years is going to be very interesting in that regard.

No. It's in the form of the response of my senses to the world. It is response to contact.

So if our brains create everything other than a thumb nails worth of image at arms length, Please explain photography, do our brains influence what the camera images too? Either way your premise is floored by your own Blinkered scientific view of what we are and how we are. As always there is a thread of truth in what he says, our holographic existence perception is fundamentally true.

I find Dans interpretation of the self empty, hopeless and almost certain to justify ideological atrocities: you only think you exist and experience hope and fear... let us kindly relieve you of that illusion.

Fascinating as always. I'm entirely in agreement with Daniel's undeniable logic that: 1) There is nothing in the brain but electrochemical signalling. 2) Most (all?) of what we experience about the world is a "user-illusion" generated by the brain based on incomplete or poor-quality sensory data. As useful and important a foundation as this is, it raises additional important and hard questions. 1) What is the purpose of qualia or indeed the conscious sense of self. It seems to be an unnecessary extravagance for the universe to add the rich vivacity of qualia and consciousness to mere electrochemical signalling that do not require them to do their information processing. Why are we not all mindless zombies, bereft of internal conscious experience? Why do we experience something rather than nothing? 2) If sensory experience is a user illusion, then to what or whom is the user illusion for the benefit of, especially if consciousness itself is "user-illusions all-the-way-down" as it were, and there is no "I" to experience the illusions. If we dissect a frog further and further until we get down to individual atoms we will logically conclude that as the atoms are demonstrably not alive, then the frog could as a whole cannot be alive, (it only thinks it is). Likewise, by analysing brains we observe that as all experience is mediated by electrochemical signalling which contains no qualia or consciousness, we could logically conclude that brains cannot experience consciousness or vivid qualia, and any personal reports of internal experiences to the contrary must be due to a "user illusion". The error in both cases seems to be that somewhere in the reductionist dissection process we have shot-past the intermediate level of structural organisation at which life and conscious experiences emerge and can be analysed scientifically.

@peterstanbury3833

4 жыл бұрын

If consciousness is an 'illusion'....then the whole of science is an illusion. There is not a single scientific experiment that has ever been performed from a genuine third party perspective as far as consciousness is concerned, as every result ultimately has to pass through someone's consciousness. Third party 'reports' of conscious experience are first party experiences of the hearer....something Dennett totally overlooks.

@frankfeldman6657

4 жыл бұрын

You wouldn't have a point even if you could show that the brain "generates" consciousness. But, needless to say, you cannot.

@peterstanbury3833

4 жыл бұрын

"1) There is nothing in the brain but electrochemical signalling."............there's nothing in Shakespeare but letters of the alphabet.

@MaxWattage

4 жыл бұрын

@Danny Holland No, that is not what that means at all. I was discussing the difference between brains with internal qualia and "philosophical zombies". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

@MaxWattage

4 жыл бұрын

@@frankfeldman6657 Anaesthetics provide an unequivocal scientific demonstration that consciousness can be affected by manipulation of the brain and its electrochemical signalling. This has been known for so long, it is not even worth further discussion.

Daiel denet is materialist matter only get shapes from conciouness they are interdependent

This guy is a wannabe zombie that either pretends he's not conscious, or believes that if he is conscious, that his consciousness is just an illusion. He forgets that even illusions dont occur in the absence of consciousness. lol

Its all about linguistic

His illusion is when nnot explained by by tinest detail in matter

Nice Video I am new

14 minutes in: the figment of a pigment? I'm getting the Buddhist sense of anatta, no personal self. This sense, I brevet part of tge Buddha's enlightment, is behind his egalitarian and non-violent pholilosophy. It's silly to make hierarchal assessments or make war over fabrications that have no foundation in reality. Thoughts?

@MundaSquire

2 жыл бұрын

Or, 23 minutes in, on disenchantment, to use a Christian reference though out of context: 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

"armchair theorizing is almost bound to give you a very distorted sense of what the phenomena are" Dennett: *proceeds to armchair theorize*

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

But Dennet does incorporate the state of scientific knowledge into his theories. I dont know of many other philosophs, who do so to that extent.

@b0ondockz838

2 жыл бұрын

@@petermeyer6873 I think Bernardo Kastrup blows Dennett away in making an opposing argument.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

@@b0ondockz838 I dont see him beeing moved at all. I havent read much from Kastrup yet, but I find his statement, that there is only kosmic consciousness/all consciousness is part of a kosmic whole, not in the least provable let alone see any indications to why it should be this way. This combined with the many statements online about his theories, that target at silencing any critics, allready gives his theories the taste of a belief system.

@reasonforge9997

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed, and it is theorizing in arm chairs (and other places) that lay the foundation for our faith in any scientific method. Cut out arm chair theorizing and you cut off our trust in science.

@Drkon6

2 жыл бұрын

@@reasonforge9997 While that is true, science works whether we like it or not. Our technology is the evidence.

Then you’ll explain the illusion by another illusion.infinite regress to avoid the failure of explaining what really moves us.

10:39 glitch

In reference to the story about his friend’s mom with dementia….if the brain is the creator of consciousness then that is that…but if you think of the brain as a receiver/transceiver picking up consciousness from an outside source than the physical degradation of the brain still disrupts cognition and memory etc….and ultimately leads to the death of the brain and body…but not of identity and consciousness…in other words, given a non local source of consciousness you can observe the same loss of cognition and function without concluding that the conscious being is destroyed…a materialist view really suggests that we’re not really here at all…

@woodygilson3465

2 жыл бұрын

Where in the universe is the transmitter of consciousness located? And over what medium are consciousness broadcast? What is the receiving mechanism within the brain? Materialism doesn't suggest in any way that we're not really here. Materialism fully recognizes that we're here. Not only that, but that we're also only here for the brief period of time that we're here - we didn't exist prior to our existence and we won't exist after. We humans have a tendency to want to believe we're something special in the universe (anthropocentrism), even going so far as believing that we might wield some kind of power or influence over it, and that we're somehow (magically) more eternal than the universe itself. It doesn't take a psych degree to recognize the root of such beliefs.

@docsoulman9352

2 жыл бұрын

@@woodygilson3465 that’s a great question…excellent! Ben Franklin said something to the effect of; “ Beer is proof that there is a God and he wants us to be happy”…I think he knew something about the attributes of cannabis and would have considered it evidence of providence as well…😎✌️🍺🎶🛸

@woodygilson3465

2 жыл бұрын

@@docsoulman9352 😊✌️

I watched a philosopher talked about a door..

@MundaSquire

2 жыл бұрын

You mean you thought you watched a philosopher about a door. (Har, har)

Consciousness rather than being perceived as a state is often seen as function and confused with the mind. If it is not understood, seeing it as an illusion does not solve the problem. We cannot be aware because of an illusion unless a genie is involved. What should be discussed, and never is, is whether consciousness is subject to motion as is the mind. If it were subject to motion, to the three forces; strong, neutral, and weak, how stable would our existence be then? It would be elemental if it post-dated the three forces, and fundamental if did not. These discussions are always disappointing as the same superficial questions are asked.

This is just what zen and other (spiritual) philosofies say. And the next challenge of humanity is just what they and Daniel say:Take the mystery out and see what is.

All that exist is subjective experience. Show me something that exist outside of subjective experience. "If you close your eyes, the tree in front of you still exist" one might argue. The answer is to me - my eyes closed - what exists is an idea of the tree still being there in front of me, while I have my eyes closed. This idea is appearing in my subjective experience. The idea holds true most of the time yes, but the tree itself only exist when I look at it. "So when you hallucinate/dream a pink elephant, does that then exist?" one might argue. Yes, it exists when I'm experiencing it. But we have to differentiate between the consensus hallucination and individual hallucination. Individual hallucination has the characther that when it is over, the person can see that it wasn't part of the consensus hallucination, but an individual one, and also the characther that no other perons can perceive what that person is perceiving. Yet, both types of experience are equally real.

@petermeyer6873

2 жыл бұрын

I thought you were worth an answer until you said "consensus hallucination".

Dan Dennett's view as he expresses here seems to me to be nothing more than an intentional ignorance or misunderstanding. Clearly qualia are not equivalent to our convictions about them. I can't tell if he's trying to tell us 'you don't experience things, you are just programmed to say you do like an npc', or 'I don't like the word qualia because it feels too non-material/subjective', either way he's feining ignorance of the obvious fact that qualia are there. (or he's just an npc himself)

Unfortunately, the depth of field effect we experience is most likely due to both hardware and software limitations.

I really like something about his old-timey nautical vocabulary and his wise obese man Santa clause vibes. ...and I think also he talks about free will and stuff or something.

6:53 no it can science studies fact not knowledge you cannot reduce transcendental psychology into empirical psychology it is just hard fact

@chemquests

2 жыл бұрын

“Transcendental psychology” sounds like the most useless phrase I’ve ever seen

@Max-xz7kj

2 жыл бұрын

@@chemquests dude just because you have not read sh*** it is not useless When talking about transcendental concept you are talking casualty, free will etc that not empirical (part of form) are transcendental

@chemquests

2 жыл бұрын

@@Max-xz7kj I know what transcendental means, I’m calling psychology out as not being scientific and don’t think they’re field is bringing much to the discussion. I also assert that concepts are either empirical or meaningless (devoid of content). Free Will is empirical as defined by Dennett in the sense of neurobiology. What could be more empirical than causality? I understand it’s reality is debatable harkening back to Hume & Kant, & you can tell I’ve embraced it granted the philosophical discussion it invites.

@Max-xz7kj

2 жыл бұрын

@@chemquests “I know what transcendental means, I’m calling psychology out as not being scientific and don’t think they’re field is bringing much to the discussion.” A.so you should have said psychology is useless not transcendental psychology B.let's leave Mass psychology behind and just talk about the these two type of psychologies soft psychology and heart psychology On soft psychology yes I agree On heart psychology no I disagree and that's what's Dan is Doing Hard psychology “I also assert that concepts are either empirical or meaningless (devoid of content)” “If sheer logic is not conclusive, what is?” -W. V. O. Quine Free Will is empirical as defined by Dennett in the sense of neurobiology. that's why people hate Dan Dennett what he is confusing is the sensation of volunteerism that people then make the Intuition or inference free will Free will is not content but the form

@chemquests

2 жыл бұрын

@@Max-xz7kj well put, You must then understand Dan is a compatiblist who doesn’t reject free will, just says it’s not what you think it is. I tend to be more deterministic but I like the idea that qualia doesn’t exist. That “sensation” is just what it feels like to have certain brain states, and you don’t have agency to select your brain states. In that sense I reject volunteerism, you just don’t have that degree of freedom. What I love about Dan Dennett’s is the elucidation, not confusion, of the phenomenon. I don’t think psychology is useless per se, it’s just redundant to neuroscience. It’s been around longer so we’re still working to map the biological correlates. Ultimately psychology contributes to the confusion because it masquerades as if there’s something emergent from the biology which I doubt. In this way I consider transcendental psychology an empty term, from the perspective of explanatory power, but it doesn’t offend me if you want to use it.

There is always language problem about illusion

There's not just the "representation of blue things in are heads" which might someday be measurable (the easy problem), there is also the reality of blue to subjective observer (the hard problem), which is a completely separate--albeit related--thing. Dan doesn't seem to understand what the hard problem is. I wonder if the ability to understand the hard problem might be a sort of Turing test for p-zombies.

@HyzersGR

2 жыл бұрын

In order for any thing to meaningfully be said to exist it must have some sort of fact-fixing relation with the world. The “blueness of blue” can only be described in by the way a specific wavelength of light interacts with our brain. That description is the exact same thing as the qualia of blue.

@fayefischer1751

2 жыл бұрын

hearing some people recommend me this video and talking about how they "dont believe in qualia" has kinda shook me tbh. because you dont "believe" in qualia, you either have it or you dont. the only conclusion I can come to is that some people, likely including Dan, really are p-zombies, that it isnt a theoretical construct but in fact very real. which is.. frightening considering my entire ethical and moral framework is built on the idea that other people experience pain or other negative qualia when certain things are being done to them, and that experience of negative qualia is what makes it morally/ethically wrong. if I have to assume that some people just do not have negative qualia no matter what is being done to them, then... it is hard for me to justify any act against them being wrong, no matter how horrible or heinous. and when we get to that point... yeah we have a problem.