TEDx Talks
Michael Graziano is a scientist, author, and ventriloquist, who has studied the brain for over thirty years. His TEDxCornellUniversity talk focuses on how a collection of neurons might perceive subjective consciousness in itself and other agents, how consciousness is a part of our social selves, and how we might build conscious machines in the future. Michael Graziano is a scientist, author, and ventriloquist, who has studied the brain for over thirty years. His TEDxCornellUniversity talk focuses on how a collection of neurons might perceive subjective consciousness in itself and other agents, how consciousness is a part of our social selves, and how we might build conscious machines in the future. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Source
Consciousness & the Social Brain | Michael Graziano | TEDxCornellUniversity
I think we have very good reasons to respect the primacy of subjective experience aka consciousness by calling it a mistery… One would be to be loyal to common sense. "I think we understand what consciousness is." – "We" and "understanding" are subjective experiences taking place within consciousness.
I like the puppet show 🙂 However how is this talk about a theory of what consciousness is? Having an evolutionary reason for why we may need something like consciousness is totally different than actually understanding it. Interesting how this professor says many people have a vested interest in keeping consciousness a mystery, while I often felt many scientists have a vested interest in coming up with some (unconvincing) explanation for it. Anyways thx for the talk!
This is a level of ignorance that is difficult to quantify. What passes for sophisticated, learned yet difficult-to-understand theories are often simply what they seem to be: pitiful hybrids of obfuscation, bad logic, and linguistic sleights of hand. Daniel Dennett has competition. Unbelievable.
I absolutely love this theory of consciousness. Everything else I've read and watched feels like people trying to explain something they desperately want to believe but can't possibly prove.
Consciousness and imagination as an evolutionary means to an end. THIS makes sense to me. Thanks so much for doing what you do, sir.
For years I thought I'd never understand consciousness. And then a puppet monkey explained it to me. What a time to be aware.
Seriously, this theory is one of the best things I've heard and read about in my life (and I highly recommend the book, "Consciousness and the Social Brain").
I think this dude has nailed it.