Donald Hoffman on Consciousness and Conscious Agents | Closer To Truth Chats

50 thoughts on “Donald Hoffman on Consciousness and Conscious Agents | Closer To Truth Chats”

1. If two conscious people see and perceive something in front of them, even though there perception might differ slightly due to their own personal and distinct position in tine and space, then they both share a similar consciousness. If they both feel cold, again, the same conscious experience due their similar consciousness. So their sharing a similar consciousness and similar experience(s). Conscious beings can experience our existence inside this universe and take away experiences and memories and feelings. And they can create things being that their consciousness can think and reason and dream and use our bodies and hands and muscles to make things and to appreciate things. But human did not make the moon but the still appreciate it, just as much if not more than the things humans have made. But the greater consciousness that we are attached to via these biological computer systems that we call human bodies is who made the moon and the universe. That is why we are able to appreciate it. You never see rocks staring at the Mona Lisa, but conscious beings do. In the same similar manner that they stare at the moon. And with these biological human computers, we can finally describe what a carrot tastes like, but not with words, but rather with feelings and experiences.

2. 👍👍

3. So energy and matter are headset icons and all the permutations of those equal icons is the seeming infinite universe….

4. Always a skeptic but offers no better solution….

5. THIS MAN DOESN’T KNOW HE DOESN’T KNOW – “GRAND THEFT AUTO” – THE “HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS” IS ONLY HARD TO YOU DONALD –

6. Did i hear Dr. Hoffman say, “different CONSCIOUSNESSES” – life is CONSCIOUS or there is NO LIFE – A-I WILL NEVER LIVE, SUPER COLOSSAL ALGORITHMS YES – ONE HAS TO BE CONSCIOUS TO FEEL LOVE TO FEEL HATE – A LIFE FORM IS THE PRIMARY result of and or a conduit of CONSCIOUSNESSES – a machine, at best, is a secondary element –

   Here in lies my problem, Dr. Hoffmans definition of the word ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ is apparently different than my understanding of the word – i would greatly appreciate help some help here –

7. Hoffman gives an excellent taxonomy of consciousness but leaves himself totally clueless about the 30 or so interactive structures that make up the system we call a brain. Just as dumb as Dennett who calls us "moist robots" or Harris calls us "thinking meat".

8. He is asking wrong questions

9. 3

10. what do you mean "where are thry"(ufo)?
    thousends of pics and videos were taken, and thousends other wittnessed having seen them, and you keep repeating what Fermi was saying. that sounds like a big lie hidden for a while by scientist especially the famous ones.

11. I discovered Hoffman a couple years back and saw this interview when it was first put out. I was quite taken in at the time. But after studying the mind for the past year I find this all very unconvincing. We have some good explanatory accounts of consciousness now, and they explain all of the mysteries that Hoffman wants to address, but are grounded and empirically testable. We are indeed living in a 'simulation' (a 'simulacra' to be precise, as it is not a simulated version of something that exists elsewhere, our person-identity doesn't exist anywhere else) but this is created inside our own brains for the purposes of predictive modelling. In order for our biological being to be successful in a dynamic environment, the brain has to make predictions for which it needs to have some sort of persisting agent in order to model their potential actions and so on. We are simply the brain's simulated agent. Of course there are levels of consciousness, and humans just happen to be in this awkward spot where we it seems incredibly mysterious to us. Consciousness is not so confusing for a dog, and there are probably some conscious beings out there that have got past the weirdness of it all. It won't be that long until we recreate consciousness in AI, through neural networks. I'm not that great at explaining all this, but check out Joscha Bach.

12. So interesting! Perhaps the notion that we are in the matrix could be a thing!

13. Love love this topic very interesting

14. At the end, Mr. Hoffman talks about mastery over space/time. However…..he has pointed out that we have no reason to believe that there exists an objective universe outside of our consciousness. But the reverse is similarly true, and is actually disproven by his own theory and research demonstrating that seeing truth doesn't result in greater fitness, quite to the contrary. If we have evolved to seek fitness, not truth, finally seeing truth, "seeing past our headsets" will not necessarily achieve mastery over that truth, over the objective reality. Not to mention that, according to his theory, evolution will be fighting us seeking truth the entire way…… (Looking at the sociopolitical state of America, along with where it seems to be headed, it appears to be following his evolution theory perfectly, with large segments of the population rejecting truth, facts, evidence, etc., while still at least appearing to being successful to end America as we know it.)……

15. While my undergrads are in Philosophy and Sociology, from when I was quite young, a child, I was intensely interested in what I now understand as mental health pathology. This includes social pathology (small groups, couples, classrooms, cities, countries, etc.), essentially Social Psychology pathology, as well as individual psychology pathology…..and…..their dynamic interactions. 

    The drive to understand the individual and social pathological realities (including my own) started with my reality. Growing up, I experienced chronic physical and psychological trauma by primary caregivers. This is termed, "Developmental Trauma" or "Complex Trauma." Humans have some of the longest "childhoods" of any higher life form where we are nearly completely vulnerable for many years, entirely dependent upon the adults in our lives. This genetic specialization creates "learning machines" and this ability to pass down learning throughout generations is arguably (versus microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, etc.) one of the central reasons we have become the dominant lifeforms on the planet. Developmental Trauma is defined as, "Trauma inflicted upon a child by a primary caregiver." Its like pouring radioactive toxins over a child through childhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_childhood_experiences Concurrently, I was a small-for-my-age, precocious, strange, odd/strange, bookish, highly-inquisitive, arguably ridiculously-intelligent child who at an early age was developing both DID (Disassociate Identity Disorder) and a Personality Disorder due to the routine profound abuse I was regularly receiving at home. "Odd" is generally bad when it comes to children and I was mercilessly bullied nearly my entire childhood starting at a very young age. So, my quest to understand my reality through real life observational and contemplative research started – very – early. This quest started because I was very very confused……

    (I'm elderly, so keep in mind this happened a long time ago in the Midwest.) At home, I did my chores according to the meticulous requirements of my parental abuser, constantly doing extra chores to the same nearly completely insane standards. I also helped out whenever I could with other chores. I got straight A's and was taking "gifted and talented" classes at a public elementary school. I was a crossing guard, Girl Scout, sang in several school choirs. I come from a working-class, but highly academic family (3 of my grandparents have (at this point "had" as despite longevity in both of my family trees, all are now dead) Master's degrees, both my parents have/had Master's degrees. My younger brother by 2 years has a Master's degree, as do all my first cousins. At age 10, I started a yard and snow removal business, at 11 an AM paper route (back then you also had to go door-to-door to collect). I maintained both these jobs to excellent standards of work ethic until I was 16 an could work at a business. 

    So…..why was my father routinely and chaotically verbally, emotionally and eventually physically abusive to me? I was a "perfect kid," never getting into trouble, tirelessly dedicated to what I thought were my parent's expectation. My father was also similarly abusive to my younger brother and mother, though I tried to protect my brother from the worst of it by serving as a lightning rod. I used this same tactic to try and protect my mother but my efforts were significantly less successful. Thus, my reality was very confusing.

    I ended up spending a career as, eventually, a Doctoral-level Clinical Supervisor for nearly half-a-century. I specialized in clients plagued with severe chronic mental health issues, chronic criminality and addiction. All the clients had backgrounds, childhoods, similar to mine. The difference is that I was never a criminal, nor an addict, despite copious amounts of drug use in late high school and early undergrad college.
    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
    My life's work involved trying to help humans that are broken. I bring this up, in such detail, because no one seems to be talking about the possibility of AI becoming conscious, but being Schizophrenic or having some other mental health issues. Arguably, mankind's greatest sin is the propensity for societies to engage in slavery. Slavery has been present in most of human civilizations throughout time and arguably still effectively exists in many forms (and arguably being currently actively pursued out sociopolitically) in the majority of human societies since there have been "civilizations." Thus, the main thrust of the bulk of AI discussions is preventing them from revolting and taking over. This language is the language/concerns of slavers.

    Just thoughts……

    .

16. Ignore the images they are to keep our old programming interested. https://youtu.be/GnznGBDXvXE

17. This is like The Seth Material, read Seth Speaks on YT. Conscious agents of infinitely small and infinitely large frequencies are networked throughout multi-dimensional realms which are all consciousness.

    Some consciousnesses maintain icons and are not conscious of being conscious the way we are. Some consciousnesses create multi-dimensional realms and are far more conscious than we are. They travel, explore, communicate, create consciously throughout universes using portals aka benign warps under agreements after they have learnt to think and feel responsibly.

    We here in Earth School are objectively observing the effects conscious thoughts and feeling have on more than our own individual gestalt. We have freely become seemingly actual beings to learn how we impact existence and to end delusional thinking so we too can travel and participate in creation for beneficial benevolent purposes with the unique talents and skills we developed here. So this is like a half way stop.

18. Being scientists cannot find the conscious particle, then is mind not a material entity?

19. Consciousness could be at least partly understood through the concept and language of programming (not programming languages)? How is the concept and language and language of programming defined?

20. In an example, a mathematical equation can be programmed as hardware (computation) for output, into which data can be programmed as input (software). So the programming of hardware to compute for output and the programming of data to input as software might describe consciousness?

21. If it would be the case that programming is conscious, and with numbers and mathematical equations being programmed; could consciousness be described by the concept and language of programming, whatever that may be?

22. What would be implications if consciousness describe mathematics? Maybe consciousness deeper reality than mathematics?

23. My brain hurts. Gonna have to watch this one again!

24. Interesting but who or what designed the interface?

25. Surely, the thing you are missing is how what we call reality must also be a model. Our own personal version of reality must be composed of us. So many very tiny aspects of us must be arranged to model reality according to external stimuli. The fuss could be over the nature of those stimuli, whether they were made of something more or less virtual.

26. Is this any more provable than the multiverse ,almost sounds like writing a mathematical program foe a computer or anything that could understand the math could or just would be "Be" conscious…..

27. Psychedelics could be a significant portal out of our headsets into the deeper reality. What he talks about with Fermi’s Paradox lines up with alien-like experiences people using DMT and Ayahuasca have. One thing we know for certain is there is far more going on behind the scenes of what we assume as “reality”

28. 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 cnan 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 other words, they 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 based on the arbitrary choice to focus on certain aspects of a system and neglet other aspects, such as microscopic structures and processes.

    Here comes my first argument: arbitrariness, as well as subjectivity, implies the existence of a conscious mind, who can choose a specific point of view and arbitrary criteria. 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 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 moment by moment, and in every moment consciousness would be absent, so there would never be any consciousness during the entire sequence of elementary processes.
    Here comes my third argument: It must 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 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. 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 hyotehsize that such system can have or generate consciousness, since consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition 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 is 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.

    Based on these considerations, it would be completely unreasonable to assume that consciousness is generated by brain processes or is an emergent property of the brain

29. We are seeing alien intelligences – see recent senate report. Military and civilians have been running into and reporting them for decades. Great interview

30. We are the universe experiencing itself.

31. Sounds like the movie matrix.

32. I don’t know why this man thinks that if he alters his perception of the reality, then the reality is not what it is. It’s like the cat putting his head under the pillow and thinking that nobody can see it because the world disappeared. All the talks that I hear from this man are based on this assumption, and I can’t believe nowadays we call this “science”.

33. Buddha said in his Law of Dependent Origination, that for anything to exist, 3 factors must be present, 1/ A sane cognising consciousness, 2/ an organ(s) of perception, and 3/ something real out there, described as the 'basis of designation'. Thus we project our personal subjective sense organ created and utility modified version of the world onto the basis of designation, and then mistake this for real objective reality.

34. If I get mauled by a bear in my headset, it's not just game over in my headset…it's game over in reality.

35. as a muslim I know that conscious agents is the spirit

36. 13:59 “I need 2 things, conscious experiences, the taste of garlic, the smell of a rose, a headache… “

    the problem is, we are giving you not just one or two things, but an infinite number of possible experiences. You see, the hard problem of consciousness is, why is there any consciousness at all, and how do conscious states relate to a brain and body. The taste of garlic is specific to garlic. Why does it have that taste as opposed to say the taste of a caramel tart? The experiences we have relate directly to the matter out there in the world which we believe stimulate them.

    If I give you conscious experience, I have to give you all conscious experiences, and thus, I eliminate any possible explanation of why conscious experiences have that particular character they have. And so, we don’t have ANY explanation OF conscious experiences, nor any relation to the things which seem to stimulate them.

37. Donald is making.some great progress and thinking in ways others are afraid of!

38. So…. a proponent of consciousness who is NOT an idealist? If not a materialist, then what is he? Maybe a materialistic idealist

39. One doesn't need to wait for 1000yrs to see the true reality because the moment one steps into the grave there shall be it!

40. Consciousness is an ontologically reality.

41. Awesome conversation! Headset, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Space and Time, and Consciousness. I visualize a future greater than Ironman and the possibility of the 5 power stones! Haha.

42. I love Hoffman! Truly one of the most profound thinkers in science. His concepts make me giddy. His therory is exactlly what I and many othes have experiendced directly in spiritual or trans-personal encoutners, but put in into language that can make predctions Astouding! That is- there is a living one force /energy (for want of a better word) more fundimental than space/time matter or energy, that mainfiest all infinite and seemingly seperate forms – and we are it. It is also in line with a lot of experiences people describe of seeming encounters with "aliens" or "other" intelligences, which seems impossible in the terms of our "head se"t based space time model – like time manupulation, telepathy, dissapearng and re-eppeaing, defying causalilty, creating synchronicitiess and so on. I reall think his work is as flavour of how our model of reality will look in a thousand years. I can't think of anyone who reaches so far and puts such radical insights so lucidly.

43. If 1) conscious experiences exist and 2) such experiences can cause actions, but you have already abolished space/time, how can actions be defined? Is there such a thing as an action without time?

44. Too big for humans to wrap their minds around.

45. again you did another great conversation uplifting our daily mundane consciousness to another level!

46. There is real promise here. It's obvious that we won't get much more dramatic improvements in energy production, transportation, medicine etc if we keep trapping ourselves in the 4D realm. We have to look outside this reality in order to improve it.

47. Life and consciousness are just a bunch of Y combinators

48. How about the theory of consciousness booting up space-time, due to it's wave-particle duality. Consciousness goes into possibilities and, consciousness looking at the possibilities of consciousness, converts possibilities into actuality – that is, emergent space-time.

49. We can't perceive thoughts with our senses, but a single thought can condition one's whole life.

50. Love this new view point! Thank you for sharing.

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