Professor Brian Cox and an expert panel explore the elusive science of consciousness – what it is, how it arises, whether it can be observed in the brain, and the most compelling theories explaining it.
In a deep, often mind-bending discussion, the panel tackles the many ways of interpreting consciousness itself, and how fields like psychophysics can be used to quantify imagination and perception.
With questions from the audience, the conversation delves into hallucinations and reality, how memory helps to build identity, and whether AI could ever be conscious too.
#Consciousness #PhilosophyOfScience #CognitiveNeuroscience
*In this episode*
00:00 What’s this episode about?
02:33 Can we define consciousness?
03:50 Can we see consciousness in the brain?
12:35 How are consciousness and memory connected?
15:38 Can you hallucinate something you haven’t experienced?
18:47 What if you didn’t have a memory?
21:17 Are animals and plants conscious?
28:16 What about other theories of consciousness?
35:30 Where do perception, hallucinations and delusions fit in?
38:42 Is consciousness linked to free will?
44:33 Can AI be conscious?
*Panellists*
• Anil Seth – Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sussex
• Katharina Schmack – Consultant Psychiatrist and Group Leader, Neural Circuits and Immunity in Psychosis Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute
• Steve Fleming – Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL
• Alex O’Connor – Host of ‘Within Reason’ podcast
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AI: I love Star Trek and this topic crops up in some variations there. When is a lifeform a lifeform? Positronic, holographic, intelligent tools…? It is "fascinating" to see that many questions of today have been around for a long time already long before the technical.
It was an immense pleasure for me to follow your invitation to this kind of playground and play with the concepts, theories and perspectives. Sorry I wrote so much. Maybe some things can be like a tennis ball played back over the net. If you like, the ball is in your field now. You decide what to do with it. 😊🙏🏼❤️
Consciousness is not an entity but rather, a process. It is the process of a triple helix: (i) strand natural – 4 billion years of chemistry; (ii) strand cultural – 70,000 years of enhanced human cognitivity; and, (iii) strand digital – 10 years digital agency.
I love how scientists are full of doubts, while the “YouTube philosopher” is absolutely certain. lol.
This panel is really interesting, but I reckon the heart of consciousness lies in disconnection. The more we analyse and debate it with our thinking minds, the further we drift from simply being it. Humans feel so special because of this ego-driven separation — and ironically, that very disconnection is unconsciousness.
I believe consciousness (or that "something it is like") runs through everything — even inanimate matter — in the energy and atoms that hold it together. There's a kind of life in the fundamental pulse of existence. We have these discussions precisely because we've lost the knack of simply being in total consciousness. The ego (the disconnected "I") traps us in endless explanation, using the very tool that blocks direct experience.
The science is compelling, but perhaps we're trying to explain water while drowning in it. Stop overthinking it, and the pulse reveals itself.
What do others think — is consciousness fundamental, or just a trick of the brain?
Consciousness is the answer to our brains compute. The fuzz, the heat, the result of every process
So we no nothing but 50 years of a waist of their time and tax payers 🤑
BRIAN FOX is one of the most famous plagiarist with no substances in his statemants and tipical favorite famous fake GURUS advertised by british medias…
Animals solve problems, think ahead and plan, analyze, have empathy, build and communicate. There is a continuum. Snails are lower and only have 10k to 25k neurons. Ants have 205k neurons.
Severe AD with very little memory is conscious.
Dr. Schmack's wonderful definition of consciousness is epistemic. Awareness is knowledge. This could make cognition central in consciousness studies.
Consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain. Without a brain you cannot have consciousness. Therefore Consciousness should not be reified into a phenomenon independent of the brain if we see a color is the color and Consciousness or merely in our vision? Etc
Would we have consciousness without memory?
What about dreams and Lucid dreaming? Is that some sort of psychosis as well?
Short answer, we don't have a clue.
How to light Vulcan cx 80 or cx 90 by match
Consciousness is a feature of the physical brain that enables one to be aware of the environment and experience it.Just like vision is a feature to see the world produced by evolutionary algorithm by blind,mindless,motiveless ,purposeless, mechanical process called Natural Selection.Consciousness is a feature of the physical brain that enables experiencing the world just like vision is a feature of the eyes.But a consciousness which is devoid of MEMES or thinking tools can not be used for any other thing other than survival and reproduction only.Memes enable the consciousness to evolve culturally by producing highly improbable cultural artefacts that we see all around us.A carpenter can not do much carpentry with bare hands but he can surely do much carpentry using tools like hammer,saw,chiesel etc.Similarly a bare brain cannot do much thinking but he can surely do much thinking with memes and thinking tools like language,mathematics,economics,surgery,engineering etc.Consciousness is a very simple thing like vision,hearing,touch etc.The much hue and cry is to know the process by which physical brain produces consciousness at the atomic or quantum level.Simply use this consciousness to survive,reproduce and evolve culturally ;just like we use vision to to do the same.While driving a car we do not think of how it moves in terms of atomic or quantum levels,we simply drive a enjoy.Thanks to Natural Selection and evolutionary algorithm that gave us highly complex brains ,consciousness and evolution of culture by cultural selection that gave us memes and thinking tools to do much thinking.🙏🙏
Missing a spiritual perspective here u fortunately!
The young man with the mustache is well below the panel. He should've been either left out or challenged a bit more. A lot of his meanderings were very simple compared to the other members of the pannel.
Consciousness isn’t a thing we find in the brain — it’s the story the brain keeps inventing to explain itself.
Consciousness = space
Ai has proven to be big nuisance thats for sure.
Like the world around you not the people telling you how important and GREATLY DEVINE and connected to the Universe,..once you die,..a few times youll understand,..
Consciousness is not explicable by the scientific studies of the matter called brain.
It is the inconceivable power of the Almighty existed even before creation. It is infinite, exists everywhere, without any change in time and it is the essence that empowers the brain to work, heart to pump, kidneys to excrete , eyes to see, ears to hear. Without the presence of this Almighty power these organs may look perfectly healthy but cannot function.
Only Indian scripture have an explanation but not demonstrable by laboratory tests of any kind any time now or in future. It is the subject, whose power enabled scientists the thinking power .
It is an experience of awareness of material world which exists only by the presence of The Almighty power.
People of Swami Vivekananda can explain better and a study of his works helps scientists to understand what they are dealing with and try to call that they are looking for laboratories evidence.
Dr Nagaraju MD
Spiritual teacher
Suvarnamukhi Samskriti Dhama
To make that more simple you're just a point of view nothing else and I can explain that very easily, like a webcam on the sill watching you but doesn't have a physical body it's just the point of view, and i can show you because i do that easily and i need help with i need to publish my researchs to all of you and moreover i want to show you in your laboratory and easily reproduced!
I can reproduce all your different parts of the brain that you work on separately, i can remember every thing i don't forget my experiences and there is no hallucinations!
Im the Feynman of the consciousness for real that's why i need help please!i need to show to someone! I can answer literally to all your bequests questions
I'm the pilot the only 1 pilot the 0.01% and i want to do it for all of you in laboratory!
ludzie nie sa z ziemi🙄
I enjoyed this so much! I'm a science buff and I did understand most that was said here. Yet, even if I don't understand all that's being said, I keep reading the books and watching science talks. I could watch a movie instead, however, I feel so much better about being alive after watching some talk on science. Thank you to Brian Cox and all the guests for giving us this gift. I will keep watching.
No Douglas Hofstadter? No David Chalmers?
What a shame that Dr. Eben Alexander, Neuro Surgeon, who had a Near Death Experience, was not invited to this panel. All possibilities must be considered when asking the question, "What is consciousness?
Awareness is known by awareness alone .
Disappointed
We established consciousness as the subjectivity of experience in the first question
Only for that definition to be abandoned in literally the next question
I'm glad they included Alex, I would not bother even watching after the second question if not for him
Saying we see consciousness in brain, is like saying the wave of light IS the color green (the experience of green).
And that we can understand green by further researching the length of a wave
I am new o htis. And I havd a question wich is whether we should lood at existence verses what we woul like to expian our unverse. After all. when we exlain the aUniverse, we are still left with the qestion of what amefore????? My asnswer iS THAT
Estão descutindo consciência ou neurônios de 1 quilo e meio de massa cerebrais
Neurônios nem cérebro são consciência
A ciência tem separar das crenças mentirosa e limitantes criada pelo sistema de que so a ciência e cientistas sem evolução são todos manipulados pelo sistemas de crenças mentirosa criada por sistema de Roma
Consciência não tem nada ver com neurônios
Man Alex is incredible, he has an incredibly open and brilliant mind!
23:52 that is insane not to think mice are conscious. They just aren’t self conscious
46:26 talk about ‘hand wavey’
Mc Glilcrist L Hemisphere 42.5
My question would be:
Is consciousness a "high"?
or what if consciousness is a "high"?
Materialism vs. Open mindedness through a logical lens. You could feel the dismissal here.
What about information? It's not solid, it's not liquid, it's patterns that have significance within a certain system – and the pattern can be nucleic acids in a row, or letters in a row, or bands on an electrophoretic gel, or radio impulses in the air that are ordered the same way — or memories in the brain, for that matter. So what is information, and how does it relate to intelligence? Is consciousness the willful processing of information?
Why is it that every time during the conversation that Alex gets asked something the host decides to pivot to a new topic
consciousness in ancient Greek = syn-eidsy, where the concept "syn" expresses commensurability and the term 'Edidsy" expresses information. The entire expression of consciousness, as well as in Latin, is a term that expresses the product that derives from the commensurability of information received from the senses.
Based on the concept of the soul according to Aristotle, then consciousness is the product of the ability of the soul. It should be noted that according to him the definition of the soul results in a geometric concept that is the "Perfect Realiaation"
This definition must be verified geometrically as "a mean proportion", which he affirms in his book "Peri- pchihy" (entelehya)
Based on the first power that is nutrition, the soul has the ability of touch, with which hunger and thirst are realized. In this view, touch is the first "eidsy" that the sense of touch realizes.
If we analyze the second power of the Aristotelian soul which is sensation, we have the realization of pleasure and pain, associated with the image, so these products or abilities are realized according to Aristotle by commensurate with the product of the relationship that is created between the sense of touch and a second sense or more. In this sense this product that is realized by two or more senses, where one is the sense of touch commensurate with the aliveness of the soul, where it becomes anima, and this results in a proportional product called syneids
Would be interesting to see AI solving more problems in our lifetime