How Science Is Trying to Understand Consciousness

42 thoughts on “How Science Is Trying to Understand Consciousness”

1. Thanks to LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. Click here to start using LastPass: https://lastpass.onelink.me/HzaM/2020Q2AprilSciShow

2. I think it's a combination of interactivity, memory and the ability to compare new information to that old information (aka… learn from past experiences? I think this, too, exists on a spectrum), and needs plus a reward system for satisfying those needs (and perhaps an internalised "punishment" system for failure to satisfy them), giving rise to wants and motivations.

   Afaik, the Internet, while it may have interactivity and memory in the most basic sense, it doesn't do a lot of comparing of information in order to learn, nor does it seem to have any innate needs that it strives to satisfy. Alexa and Siri… might, though? IF they have a need to satisfy their human users, remember and learn from when you tell them they got something wrong…? I'm not terribly familiar with how they work and only have limited experience with one. So limited, I can't even remember which one of them it was. =/

3. Why would there be resistance to the idea that consciousness is just a matter of how the brain is hooked up? That’s literally the basis of science without some supernatural navigator.

4. well this made my consciousness hurt

5. "Any amount of interconnected information might already be conscious" Could that be extrapolated to other non living things? Nature? Space? Theocean? A black hole?

6. I thought conscience ment being aware of yourself, like… dolphins…

7. But you didn't talked about Roger Penrose aproach to consciousness, he says consciousness it's not a computation, ir order to have a better grasp of consciousness you can't considere only the pure materialistic aproach, because consciousness might be funfamental

8. You use the word "theory" interchangeably with the meaning of the word "hypothesis".
   Do you then wonder why there are people who imagine the theory of evolution to be "just a theory"?

9. If you reach some extreme points you see some extremely strange and mind boggling results.

   1) We're humans but did you ever think that we are made up of atoms. Atom itself isn't a living thing but how an arrangement of them made something living further in evolution it made something living that could experience the world and that's us humans.

   Isn't that crazy that a extremely complicated labyrinth of atoms made something extremely different?

   I believe if you explore extreme points you'll definitely see unrealistic results.

   Atoms is not a living thing but their billion combinations made something that's living.

10. We'll become super beings if we ever fully understand our brain in distant future, That would be a exact depiction of what happens when computer hacks itself.

11. If some arrangement of such simple non-living atoms can make living beings full of sentience, consciousness and awareness. Then why can't we make something that is so extraordinary, i think we might experience a day where robots will be aware, conscious and sentient.

12. Well i believe complexity is the only way to magic.

13. What is consciousness ?
    Hank: meh 🤷

14. Consciousness is non-local. It is not just something humans experience. All matter experiences some sort of self awareness. The rocks, Earth, planets, air, water, trees, every organic and everything inorganic experiences consciousness. There is only one.

15. Imagine in the future where your waifu reject you just like in the real world

16. me: pleasebehankpleasebehank
    Hank: LAST PASS LAST PASS

17. Even necessary! Naaah total bs, we're focusing on war for another couple hundrad thausand years first. If the almighty usa doubles brain research budgets and cuts military budgets by half, do you know how much better things would look then? Not much. 😶😑😁😄😅😂😂🤣🤣🤣… an entire species running away from itself.

18. If consciousness is unified how do you explain people with multiple personalities? Not talking about myself. It would be an interesting defense for the Joe Exotics.

19. I think maybe consciousness means being a part of the whole(universe), and knowing, experiencing and feeling that you 'are'.

20. The Void series written by Frank Hurbert.

21. Video length 12:34. 👍🏼

22. "Humans are the only things we know that are conscious." Uhh yeah right explain that to the rest of the evolutionary chain. They are conscious.

23. Oh, so maybe babies aren't conscious because their brains havent learned to make a workspace yet, but over time it wort of figures it out or maybe after a few years it's just a side effect of neurons firing and connecting. Idk.

24. Ill say it.

    I think mycelium networks are conscious.

25. Based on his definition of consciousness all animals are conscious. This should be noted. Really the only thing that separates us from animals is language and this idea is being eroded as we discover animals can communicate in unique and complex ways.

26. I got here from SOMA gameplay LOL

27. I am disappointed that we did not discuss the ideas in this video in my cognitive science classes back in college.

28. Is it just me, or does Hank's voice sound different in this video??

29. According to the state I’m a mass murderer, according to me I’ve been saving the world from all of these philosophical zombies!

30. screw you guys, im outta here *reduces conciousness to stimulus reactions*

31. I am far from convinced that such ideas are more than people's attempts to massage their egos. By defining "conscious" as something humans have and patting ourselves on the back when we demonstrate that machines, other species, or even less capable people don't seem to have as much, we are simply condoning hi-tech discrimination.

32. To say the body and mind are the same thing . Is to say that a computer and internet are the same thing. The computer can be destroyed but the internet and its compiled information will still exist. It exist in the past. It will influence's the future . like the future is malleable. With humans there tends to be this medium of universal internet medium. That some how life every where in the universe and is connected. All animals are conscious and have small reasoning ability. Even wild animals try to control me through reasoning. I start to feed them. Then they control me by when they want to be feed by being annoying. By reasoning they see what works and what does not work. No one believes that life its self is an accident. Life is everywhere in the universe. Its a non material thing. Using magnetism to create. This ideology that a creator can not be part of his creation is a lie. To create a painting you have to grab and position the canvas. You have to create the paint colors. The light and your refection is bouncing back and forth the canvas. Your are in the same medium as the canvas. Gods presence is in the Universe. We just don't see it. A Creator can not totally distance him self or his physical presence from his creation. This is why praying is so important. The Creator is in the Universe and is listening. Can man create Synthetic life in a computer. Man cannot create Synthetic life it can only manipulate God life creations. Would it even be smart to create a machine that is afraid to die.

33. To be is consciousness. I guess

34. i live for 3 questions : how is consciousness , how evolution really works and how univers works

    and play rengar and meet extraterestres and know if humour is universal and eat chocolate bread

35. Hopefully the machine that we build to measure human consciousness doesn't become self aware and start implanting slavery routines in its test subjects.

36. Has been one of the best videos. Thank you SciShow.👍

37. It would be wiser to not use the words "truth" or "proof", or variations of these. Truth and proof imply 100% certainty. The practice of science can give us high certainty in an idea or a measurement, but seldom if ever 100% certainty. P.S. I am very pro-science

38. Consciousness and Special Relativity?
    "I" can perceive simultaneous events. "I" am a single entity (The conscious experience of self is a single entity). A fundamental consequence of Special relativity physics is that no physical entity can connect simultaneous events. Therefore the thing "I" cannot be a physical thing.

    https://philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS
    https://tianweb.com/eventsTodualism.pdf

39. Pain keeps your consciousness on it's toes. Not trying to sound sick. But think about fire and how you know it is painful to the touch. So what would be the fire equivalent to an android? Ask a cyborg?

40. Our brains are just Hive Minds. Many little bitty thinkers coalessing into something bigger, all listening to each other, in a network. The things that signal the loudest or with the greatest amplification, gets heard.

41. "you can't decide to only process certain kinds of information"…? dude, you don't know my mama, maan…! x'D

42. I have a question/theory and I'd like to hear what other's think. Conciousness has yet to be defined, therefore how can anyone truly discover it. Think of it this way. Emotions are universally accepted we all know what it is to be happy, angry, sad, etc. We can identify emotions in others by recognizing them in ourselves yet some emotions are just as elusive as consciousness. For instance Love, probably the most universally sought after emotion and yet ask any two people to define it and they are different. Mind you I have always considered emotion to be a product or by-product of consciousness. Or maybe even a check and balance system for consciousness. The basis for this thought was something I remember learning from Piaget, cognitive dissonance, it is the developmental stage where we as an individual can no longer operate satisfactorily within our own definition ir world model. Therefore we must develop a new one. For me this is were consciousness arises. It is the ability to distinguish ourselves from the world and recognize our role in it. For that consciousness to occur I believe that not only must we recognize we are not part of the world only an extension of it but we must recognize that everything we interact with is an extension of that world as well. Consciousness is the ability to not just distinguish yourself from you environment but to be aware that our environment is an interconnected web of distinguishable pieces. Pieces that contribute to the whole beyond there capacity (Sum is parts is greater than parts combined individually). The conscious comes in being able to intuitionally (not quantifiably) recognize that greater sum. Even though the equation is balanced you still know you still are not satisfied with the answer. Consciousness is the most prominent path that experience aligns with. It's what we base on intuition on, it's what cognitive dissonance evolves from, and what, if the phrase isn't coined already, emotional dissonance occurs.

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