New Scientist
Cognitive scientist and philosopher, Professor Daniel Dennett, from Tufts University, takes us on a tour of the mind explaining why consciousness itself is a kind of illusion. For more on the brain, read our feature: https://bit.ly/2Isifvx
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What is consciousness? Philosopher, Dan Dennett explains.
Dennett will talk about the Representation of the Purple gown, but he is not able to talk about the Experience of the Color Purple. He seems not to have the same kind of Experiences of Qualia that I do. I have always assumed that all normally functioning Human Minds would have at least similar kinds of Conscious Experiences. I have thought this for decades. But after many years of discussions about this with people it has finally become clear to me that some people actually must not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. I limit this observation to things like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste and so on. The Experience of Colors and especially the Experience of Redness has been a major target for my discussions with people on the various Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Forums. There are people that flat out deny the Existence of the Experience of Redness. I think they give it their best shot at understanding it but they always fall back to just dismissing the Experience of something like Redness as pure Fantasy, Superstition, Magic, and Illusion. I have become convinced that their denials of Conscious Experience, their very words, show that they truly and simply do not perceive Redness as a kind of Experience. There is no Redness Experience. They are not Color blind so they can Detect Red in their Visual Field in some way but it seems to be more at the level of the Neural Activity. They can somehow sense that their Neurons are Firing for Red and indicate that there is Red in their Field of View but there seems to be no Experience of Redness in their Field of View. They deny any such extra Consciousness Phenomenon is happening. I used to think they were just messing with me, and I was hoping that after all these years that they would get tired of continuing their Fraud. But they are not messing with me, they truly do not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. In fact they say that Qualia was invented by Idiot Philosophers. They are usually nasty and arrogant like that and I wonder if that is a symptom of their lack of Qualia. It is interesting that their lack of Qualia would make them living examples of the P-Zombies from Philosophy. One thing I can say is that if they really never have had an Experience of something like Redness then I can completely understand how they would think it was something Magical, and Illusory. These people simply deny the Existence of Qualia and are completely stymied by talk of Qualia, which naturally results in their complete inability to understand the Hard Problem of Conscious Experience.
I have been astounded by the possibility that some people (mostly the Physicalists) actually might not Experience the Color Qualia. It is a mystery to me what their Inner Experience of Color could be like. I have always tried to use the Experience of Redness as a discussion point for talking about Conscious Experiences. These people literally will say that there is no such thing as Redness and they always try to compare descriptions of Experiences of Redness to Religious Experiences. I have tried for a long time to get them to describe what the Experience of Redness means to them. After receiving mostly insults, one of them gave me a description of what the Experience of Redness was from their own point of view. He dismissively said that his Experience was the same as everybody else. He described the multitude of Emotions and Memories that were Experienced while Seeing Red. He went on to describe particular Emotions and Memories. I noticed that there was no recognition of the Experience of the Redness itself, but rather it seemed like his Experience of Redness wholly consisted of Associations to other things. This seemed a little odd, but telling. So I then asked him to strip away all the Emotions, Memories, and other Associations from his Experience of Redness and tell me if there was anything still remaining in the Experience. Here is his reply: "How the {!#%@} would I know? It isn't possible for me to 'strip out all the Emotions, Memories, and any other Associations'. Further, I don't believe for a moment that you can either, Steve. This is navel-gazing, pure and simple." This person obviously does not Experience the Redness, but rather Experiences all these other things in place of the Redness Experience. He literally can not figure out what I am talking about. Notice the reference to Navel-Gazing. He still thinks that the Redness is a Religious Experience.
After some further conversations I now understand what an Experience of Redness is for these Physicalists. When they think about Experiencing Redness they always branch off into talking about Emotions and Memories. For them, it appears that the actual Experience of Redness is an Experience of Emotions and an Experience of Memories. That is the Experience for them and there is nothing else for them to report. This is of course why they hate the word Qualia, because it does indeed imply that there is something else happening with the Experience of Redness. I can fully see how they would think that the concept of Qualia is Redundant to their Experience. I can fully now understand why they would think that Qualia and the Experience of Redness are different things. For the Physicalists the Experience of Redness is not what I expected. It is something different than my Experience of Redness. I Experience Redness as a Quale and they Experience Redness as associated Emotions and Memories. In fact I can say I really don't even Experience Redness as Emotions and Memories at all. I just simply Experience Redness as a Thing In Itself.
Another discussion thread I have participated in where the people denied the Existence of Qualia was one where the people were convinced that we cannot see a Color until we have a Word for the Color. This seems like a very strange thing to believe. I tried in vain to convince them that the Word for the Color does not make the Color real but that the direct Experience of the Color is real. They could not understand what I was talking about. This can only make sense if you consider that they might never have Experienced a Color Quale. They instead receive some kind of Signals from their Neurons that give them some type of Indications about the different Colors, but without any actual Conscious Experience of the Colors. I can see how the Words might be of prime importance to them.
But yet another example of People that probably have no Conscious Experiences or Qualia are the people that don't understand the difference between a Computer detecting Red and a Human detecting Red. They probably also just Detect Red in some way but have never had an actual Experience of Redness.
The evidence for this lack of Conscious Experience in some people is continuing to grow. It explains the endless arguments about Conscious Experience and Qualia. These people simply do not have Qualia. The Lights are out in their Minds.
Why would the brain need a user interface?
This " I amness" is real enough, but is not who we really are…the eternal nameless beyond thought
I love how he uses physical concepts (connected to physics), even as simple as free fall, in the completely wrong sense.
Conciousnes is life
Global Workspace is not a theory of consciousness. Take a look at Attention Schema Theory. It IS a theory of consciousness.
Excellent description by a man who has spent his life working on understanding consciousness.
He doesn't address the question of consciousness itself.
He talks only about how the brain responds TO consciousness. So even if the brain causes consciousness – as he implies – that still doesn't explain the intrinsic nature of consciousness.
So, even if consciousness is an illusion, then WHAT or WHO, is EXPERIENCING the illusion!
When I hear descriptions of the difference between subjectivity and free will it always sounds like there is a distinct difference between one or the other. Either you are reflecting back on your subjective states or you are not. But I think it has to be more of a spectrum. There are parts of my day where I am much more aware of my states than others…but even during those semi-aware states I'm still conscious. I represent it in my mind like a circular arrow with a starting point where you can say that one is conscious (I think all mammals would probably meet the requirements for this starting point) and the arrow represents a spectrum of states where a fuzzy self awareness morphs into deeply conscious states. The self would not always have to be the focus, but subjective states would. Then you get into how to define the self and that seems to be quite a fuzzy concept also.
The thing is, the content of what we perceive is for sure an ‘illusion’. But perception itself cannot be an illusion. Obviously Daniel Dennett knows his stuff about how cognition can be mapped-onto the neurology of the brain. But this is unfortunately all he offers, and to say that a claim about the nature of consciousness can be deduced from this information is an illogical leap. It is like answering the question of “why did the chicken cross the road?” With “Well, he put is left foot in front of his right, and then his right in front of his left until he reached the end of the road. That is why he crossed the road”.
So many scientist want to get to the root of everything and seems like they find a dead end when it comes to consciousness. Could it be that their is a GOD and we’re not made to understand everything. We people act as if we ourselves are GODs and we’re not. Stop trying to figure out all the hard questions about life and leave it up to GOD. If I could understand how GOD works he wouldn’t be worthy of being a GOD. I pray for all you guys who are atheist and hope
That God has mercy on your souls.!
Trying to understand consciousness by looking at “material” is a failure to understand that consciousness constructs material. The material world is a construction of the mind. The world we perceive is a construct that does not exist in reality. Science (quantum physics) is clear about this.
fascinating
By rejecting free will you first need to conceptualise it. And by conceptualising it, the best example of free will I could come up with was a computer-like system with the capacity to reflect on its processes. Which is what we have… So.
Even if technically there's a causal relationship linking back to every thought we've ever had, we're still are the most free-willed beings. And in the context of honest vs dishonest, nice vs unkind, in conjunction with the fact that reflection can bring to mind more than 2 ideas worth pursuing at anyone time, the capacity to do something kind or unkind is well within our control.
my best philosopher for our centre
🙏🏾✌🏾
The discussions on consciousness here seem to highlight an odd confusion I have with the term "consciousness". At one point it is more or less described as generated by the brain and that it is identical to the contents of sense experience and mental activity (something I usually call the particular subjective experience). Later on, the idea of the "reflective loop" is posited, pointing out that it is consciousness if it is aware of itself as consciousness (something I usually associate with sapience, as a sophisticated high-level reflective mental activity).
However, I usually associate the term consciousness with the reality that a particular experience IS in fact being experienced. A single-cell organism, even if it is drastically limited in its sense and mental faculties and is certainly not self-aware, should still be conscious and experiencing its own existence, on some level.
Sounds absurd to me that "free will" is something some people obtain and some somehow don't. There is no point where peoole suddenly become able to take responsibility to their actions. They just learn to think that way but they are still able to make the same childish mistakes with no control over it. Mistakes made without thinking too much and maybe on some primitive or emotional basis. They just take the responsibility of their actions afterwards.
But none of that tells you a thing about consciousness where it’s located Where is the smell of garlic the taste of chocolate how does that arise
He talks so high level of phylosophy, not easy to get it! I think its because the mind is most complicated thing as we know
The more I re-watch this, the more I realize how great it is. His analyses and explanation are excellent, holistic arguments that are logically tight and must be at least close to the true working of the brain producing consciousness.
I hold a Msc as a Chemist but I dont agree to this simplistic reductionist thinking .Science tries to dissect things .Neuroscience now can locate the place of the brain makes decisions (Pre frontal cortex); where our emotions take place (Lymbic System) , where short term and long term memories are located (hippocampus) ,etc.
The condition Seteris parivus (trying to assume correlations) doesn't allow see things hollystically, Intellect is so overrated , we even call our phone devices 'smart"
that being said memory is overrated the more memory you have then you are considered smarter,
the problem when trying to answer what consciousness is identification
Who are you
what are you
Are you your mind?
Are you your mental state?
Are you your body?
Was Decartes right : Cognito ergo Sumo (I think therefore I am ? ) or quite the opposite
Sumo ergo cognito?
The solution : Everything that can be measured,defined,assessed , control that is not Yo
Consciousness is YOU
Is he still alive?
You never figure out how a phone works by using the interface……. This old guy probably has not heard about youtube yet
Describe the color blue to a blind person , this quality of experience cannot be explained in any other manner than 3rd person. It doesn’t explain the first person perception of being, this is a contradiction in the materialist reductionism world view( which is a 3rd person description)
The hard problem is the measurement problem , we can describe the universe as a cold system, what we refuse to ask is who am “I” , who is asking the question? Who is making the measurement? Or what is a measurement? I’m not sure many people address this directly. What do I know 🤷♂️?
Well, let's see how this goes. In the past, I've noted that Dennett only had a small and somewhat distorted view of consciousness. So, I'm wondering if he has improved any.
1:10 "Consciousness is the brain's user interface for itself." ~ No, not even close. We aren't starting off well.
3:20 Disavowing the Cartesian Theater model. ~ True, that model is silly.
3:30 "knowledge of their own thinking is impoverished." ~ This isn't quite accurate. Dennett is conflating the action of thought with the mechanics of thought with the medium of thought. These aren't the same. This probably points to the limitations of a philosophical approach to consciousness.
6:45 "A brain is a kind of computer." ~ Although this view was common in the 1950s and even persisted for the next few decades, it is badly out of date today. It can in fact be definitely proven that brains cannot be computers and cannot be modeled within computational theory.
7:30 "Global neuronal workspace is a good model.' ~ That comes as something of a surprise to me considering that I disproved that model four years ago.
9:00 Dennett is absurdly optimistic about the Global Workspace model. There have been no big advances using this model.
15:00 What Dennett is describing with regard to illusion isn't metaphor; it's abstraction. Unfortunately, consciousness is not an abstraction or metaphor so this description is ridiculous. Again, this seems to be related to the limitations of a philosophical approach.
21:10 Wow, after a long, convoluted description, Dennett proves that he doesn't the understand the difference between consciousness and self awareness. These are not the same thing.
23:00 Consciousness evolved to overcome visual illusions? Seriously? Dennett doesn't seem to understand evolutionary theory either.
25:10 "Human consciousness is as different from animal consciousness as language is from bird song." ~ Well, not exactly. There is a greater gap between communication calls and language than there is between human and other great ape (chimp, gorilla, orangutan) consciousness. In fact, there seems to be only one distinction between human and Erectus/Heidelbergensis/Neanderthal consciousness. That difference is generally detrimental which is why it isn't common.
26:00 "Over-endow clever species with mental lives modeled on our own." ~ True. I'll give Dennett credit for this conclusion since I've seen rather ridiculous cognitive abilities ascribed to dogs, octopus, parrots, dolphins, and even Neanderthals.
27:30 Free-will? Dennett doesn't have a grasp on this concept. I've seen very high level philosophical discussions on control, agency, causality and free-will, but none get close to reality. Philosophy won't be able to discuss this until it is explained by science.
The rest of the discussion about legal and moral responsibility is somewhat pointless.
Excellent analysis on an impossible subject
The world would be a lesser place without our beloved Daniel Dennett.
A small nitpick: Dennett says at 29:01"that's free fall [his emphasis]" but free fall means there is no air resistance, or that air resistance can be neglected. This is clearly not the case with leaves "being pushed about the wind" as Dennett said (or words to that effect). Free fall, in science, is for example an object moving freely in a vacuum, whether falling straight down, or orbiting the earth, or even being in the process of escaping the earth's gravity due to having more than the escape speed. An object in free fall moves freely under the influence of gravity. It may be moving upwards or in any other direction, but it's acceleration is entirely due to the gravitational field. I hope Dennett knew this and was joking with the New Scientist interviewer, and us.
Romans 10:9
King James Version
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved
John 3:16
King James Version
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
1 Corinthians 15
The Resurrection of Christ
15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures
If you believe that there is such an abstraction thing called matter and there is a a material world, then you naturally conclude by this bias that consciousness is an invisible thing generated by the brain. But the question is how imaterial is generated by material?
Will Dennett ever in his very long lasting career of being a clown in academical circus, present a valid formal argument? It doesn't need to be sound, a valid argument would be enough. Will he ever stop acting like an expert in biology and show, if at all, any expertise in philosophy? Of course not, this guy smuggles his poetic prose as philosophy, and his neo darwinian zealotism as scientific fact. Imbecile!
"Use your illusion" – awesome GnR albums
the very fact a CRT works is an illusion due to the eye not being fast enough to catch up with the signals
Brilliant knowledge and thinking about consciousness and metaphor of smart phone… Less curious about free will and odd to think that dolphins and primates not worthy of consideration… Free will stuff too polemic for me and really not interesting as the first bit… Not heard or read of him but what does he think about trauma and attachment?
By far the best Dan Denett interview. He actually understands Dan's philosophy.
Simplistic at best, a nice way to close out a simple career in a simple century to simpletons who would rather give up that reach their full potential and actually derive meaning from this disappointment of a world.
Smartphone analogy only applies to how people physically function. It does not apply to consciousness because we cannot have knowledge of other people's consciousness (its nature or even its presence) by interacting with them. You cannot infer from an interaction that a person's expressions are reflections of their brain functions, and you cannot infer that those brain functions correspond to consciousness in them that you know you have. Poor analogy