The Source of Consciousness – with Mark Solms

42 thoughts on “The Source of Consciousness – with Mark Solms”

1. Thank you very very much Mark this is absolutely fascinating. I would like to repeat as Patrick says below -RI please please stop putting time limits. I seek these subjects and are prepared to listen and think. This is not the kind of facebook click sensation 2 millisecond attention span stuff which seems to be becoming the norm – I was able to get a fairly good grasp of this really complex subject after listening 3 times to the lecture and having invested well over 50 hours exploring other sources on this subject this is by far the best.

2. Q: What is Consciousness?
   A: a simple photon pulse!

3. A cup of dark roast coffee in the morning makes me conscious. Problem solved. The more interesting problem ,of course, is how the coffee was made prior to consciousness.

4. When I would be dreaming and something would bite me in the foot, I would try to remove that foot from the pain but it would almost be something automatic. The way lower animals, like worms, react to stimuli could be like that. Even we move and do a lot automatic. Why there is feeling, must have to do with a basic property of the universe. Problem: why "a basic property of nature" only useful on this insignificant speck of dust, lost in space.

5. The real question is; is inducing unconsciousness throughout the weekend ethical?

6. Give me Finkel! He can give a lecture without saying um 8 times a paragraph ….and guess what im not up there trying to so no im not going to! They wanted to be there!!!!!!

7. The research and insights expressed by Mark Solms may indeed be highly significant in neurological circles for a number of reasons. But it unfortunately does nothing to advance the needle towards solving the “hard problem of consciousness.” It is undisputed that correlates exist between consciousness and brain (and/or brain stem) activity. However, identifying where in the brain (or brain stem) those correlates may take place does nothing to resolve the underlying hard problem: “Does physical matter, by way of some mysterious electro-chemical process, somehow generate consciousness? Or is consciousness an antecedent of those electro-chemical processes, and is merely channeled through them like a radio channels electro-magnetic radio waves?” This is the age-old dilemma that has perplexed scientists and philosophers for centuries. The disciplines grounded in 19th Century Newtonian physics, as illustrated by Solms, opt for the former hypothesis; whereas the disciplines grounded in 20th Century philosophical idealism (and, more currently, 21st Century quantum theory) lean towards some version of the latter. Mark Solms’ presentation unfortunately disappoints by ignoring the hard problem altogether. Merely defining consciousness as “feelings,” or by any particular cognitive thought or event, is not a resolution of the hard problem of consciousness.

8. " How Visual information processing occurs at the visual cortex, at13:20 and how incredibly elaborate all these different component processes are" This, was not by accident. This would be impossible, for one possessing the ability to think, and have consciousness. No way that a human cell containing 100 trillion atoms, came up into existence out of the dirt. and from out of nothing, was by accident. === Evolution = Self Assembling Atoms = Impossible ====

9. an expert is a person that know very much in a domain that very few know something, so a perfect expert is a person that know everything in a domain that nobody know nothing.

10. Thank you Mark Solms . To make an analogy of the connection between function and feeling I would say that the function of my car engine is to bring me in my car to visit the seaside and experience the sea birds and the surf on my face .So my point is that while studying the workings of the engine of my car that will get me there I will never get to understand or feel the experience of my seaside trip .

11. There is consciousness and then there is Consciousness.

12. Frustrating! The brain can't know the mind! I feel like he is back in the 80's! What's with all the quoted statements? A very convoluted discourse. He uses all the "thinking" language that has nothing to do with consciousness. No doubt, he is a researcher. Consciousness "knowing" isn't about research… it's about experiencing. Has he researched historic Indian meditation processes? Has he discussed Holographic models of Consciouness? Not a very impressive presentation; makes me want to start my own channel.

13. Brilliant talk!. Loved the way you elucidated and teased out this problem. The problem of consciousness is something I have thought about for a very long time (I'm 65 now) without anyone in my life really wanting to engage with me about it. I will be getting your book (I'm in the UK). Thank you very much

14. A scientist – especially a modern one – will NEVER solve that "problem". First of all, it is not a "problem". Secondly, if you start your "search" already assuming consciousness resides "in the brain", you're assuming way too much.

15. if speech language is hindered does that also mean that signed-languages like ASL would be hindered, or can signed languages BE LEARNED if they don't have speech language access?

16. incredible! .. so basically life stands against entropy and doesn't want to die.

17. Red type on blue background??!? Bad choice,producers!

18. Thank you so much for your great work…and I am trying to budget my time to read the book…one question after watching your lecture twice….so are you saying that "I" "self" exist in the brainstem? Without a functioning brainstem I no longer have consciousness…and if so…then, do I cease to exist? Or, do you see a scenario where "I" go on….???

19. Consciousness existed before the brainstem was created. It even existed before the Universe was created. I believe Consciousness created the Universe. Consciousness as a whole (Cosmic Consciousness) is God. Everything in the Universe has a certain degree of Consciousness working up to human mind and beyond, through natural evolution. Ultimately, we all go towards God, merging back to our Godly essence, like a drop of water merging into the ocean. Beware that I am not talking about any human created Gods, whether Christian, Hindu, Islam or any other Theistic Gods. I am talking about a Universal Consciousness which is beyond any definition.

20. "It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, … ", Widely agreed in the small circle of neuroscientists. There are thousands of Buddhists who have studied consciousness for centuries who wouldn't agree with this statement. Just widen your view and you will discover that there is no "problem of consciousness".

21. his binding of feelings and emotions into the mix is something i would agree with. Ive been studying my own consciousness and ability to recall situations ive been in good and bad. I HAVE found that my memories are bound more to a feeling, or more of how i remember feeling when i last interacted with that person or situation. so i guess what im saying is ive found that im naturally storing emotions and feelings as a sort of way of stacking the little details of the situation into a compact feeling or emotion. and if i need to recall the details i can recall the feeling and emotions and it links me to the reasons i felt that way which are connected to the details of what happened in that interaction.

22. I completely disagree counciousness is not the number one problem the number one problem is people trying to stay unconscious all the time by the way of alcohol consumption and use of the so called recreational drugs.

23. Dear Dr. Solms, thank you for your researches, always so concrete and stimulating.
    
    Now you move the seat of consciousness from the cortex to the brain stem. But don't you think this was already Jaak Panksepp's line?
    
    Unfortunately this does not solve the “hard” problem, but simply displaces it.

24. We are responsible for our actions. The laws are written in our hearts .

25. "Spacetime is doomed" – Nima Arkani-Hamed
    "Spacetime reality is just a data structure." – Donald Hoffman

26. I was just browsing through and I stumbled on this I just want to say you’re simply amazing just because even someone like me you explain it so easy and everyone can understand your a legendary hero man

27. When Dr Solms talks about the RAS as being the power supply, I don’t think that’s the right terminology. I would say the RAS is the viewer. Imagine a person on a sofa in front of a TV and speakers; the person in the sofa is the RAS, fed by the interpretations of sensory input of the Cortex.

28. Admitting that there is such a thing as "consciousness" is one end of a slippery slope.
    The other end, where you can't stop, is the Christian religion or some other mad abyss.
    So stop now, before it's too late. Deny that there is more than grey matter.
    Save money !

29. 9 minutes in and I'm broken hearted

30. 47:30 : Neville Goddard: "feeling is the secret"

31. You said something along the lines of "Why are we conscious and why doesn't all of this go on in the dark?"

    There cannot be a non-experience for something that collects information and thinks towards a projected future, which can help the organism prepare for winter, etc. That's an adaptation that helps the spieces survive. It has been fine tuned by natural selection, and we call this conscious experience.

32. Coffee.

33. In my tradition a title such as "The source of consciousness" will be dismissed as ridiculous! This is because consciousness is deemed to be the only reality/truth. All else is unreal and a mere projection of consciousness. When consciousness is the source of all creation, how can one talk of a source for it?

34. I'm waiting for acedemic to show how they make us Unconscious.

    While we wait, consider that any observer will observe light to be of one colour or another. The blueness of a light is an accident. A better question would be, how could one ever determine any experience without having a. subjective feeling about the physical phenomenonology. I argue, you cannot ever guarantee anything more than a subjective experience, of some sort of.

    Ps, he's making a great case that the research paradigm of cognitive philosophy has left out about a half of the mechanisms involved in vision. He defined them as only those that lay down the visual register, but none of the myriad of mechanisms directed at interrogating and organising the visual data stream. Do the research. Cite my support. ❤️

    Pps, you have no self. What you report as self is only a too attached observation of primary neuroprocess. If you pull back to the last obsrvor in the hierarchy, that observor is not yours. Your feelings are him feeling. and so you have no self.

    Ppps. Has removal of pituitary ever been observed?

35. The steep emery intriguingly try because frog dfly decay amongst a quick plow. regular, wary carrot

36. So, did his brother has had a damage to the brain stem?

37. Makes sense that motions are brain stem and also gut. It may very well be the travel of information between these rudimentary nueo-centers that creates the sense of self.

38. Eastern traditions have given the answer well over five millennia ago and expressed through each and every Upanishad of theirs, with consciousness as the central theme and described the indescribable in many ways to aid our understanding. It is arrogance in this day and age that ignores the eastern contribution.

    The learned speaker’s argues @3:20 that “raw feelings are the fundamental form of consciousness”.

    No sir! You fail at the very first step to ask, “to whom/what do these feelings arise?” as Ramana Maharishi had chided many to ask. The axiomatic truth is that, that which we can experience cannot be us. Therefore, thoughts, pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness etc. that we experience cannot be us. So, the question is who is the experiencer? Advaita Vedanta offers non-dual philosophical reasoning and yogic methods for self-realising the experiencer.

39. I was with him until the last 5mins, then ‘I’ lost my ‘I’….Perhaps if he had been allowed to finish?

40. #1? Hardly.

41. ITS CLEAR WHY THE OTHER SCIENTISTS,,TOLD HIM NOT TO ASK QUESTIONS LIKE THE ONE HE ASKED
    BECAUSE THERE IS NO NATURAL ANSWER TO WHAT IS A SUPER NATURAL QUESTION.

    HE SAID HIS BROTHER GAD CHANGED,,,,,WITH ALL DUE RESPECT,,,,,MANY. PEOPLE THAT SUFFER A TRAMATIC EVENT CHANGE.

    HE SAYS WVERYBIDY IS LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE,,,AND HE IS CORRECT.

    WHAT HE FAILS TO REALIZE IS THAT HE TO IS LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE.

    WE ARE ALL SPIRITS LUVING IN A ORGANIC BODY.

    HOW ELSE IS IT THAT A PERSON IN AMERICA CAN READ A LETTER THAT IS IN RUSSIA,,,,,
    THIS WAS PROVEN MANY YEARS AGO,,,, BY BOTH MILITARIES IN BOTH COUNTRIES.

    HOW US UT THAT ON TWIN KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE OTHER TWIN,,,,,,HUNDREDS OF MULES AWAY,,,AT THE VERY MOMENT IT HAPPENS.

    SCIENTISTS DO NOT WANT TO ADMIT ANY OF THIS,,,,, BECAUSE THEN THEY HAVE TO CONSIDER,,,,,,,IF THERE IS A SPIRIT,,,,,
    THEN WERE DID THIS SPIRIT COME FROM.????

    AND IT IS THEN AND THERE ,,THEY HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THERE IS A SPIRIT MAKER,,,,,

    THEY WOULD HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THERE IS A HIGHER SPIRITUAL BEING,,,,,,,

    OF WHICH WE ALL CALL
    GOD.

42. Don't try that homeostasis experiment at home. Fire normally does not give you a high CO2 concentration, but a high CO concentration. Which is seriously toxic. It does not lead to air hunger, it makes breathing have no useful effect, the blood does not take up oxygen. Just pointing it out because it seems to be relevant knowledge, the explanation in the talk works as it is.

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