Kind: captions
Language: en
let's try to go to the very simplest
question the events are anytime but
perhaps the simplest things can help us
reveal even in time some some new ideas
so what in your view is consciousness
what is qualia what is the hard problem
of consciousness consciousness I mean
the word has used many ways but the kind
of consciousness that I'm interested in
is basically subjective experience what
it feels like from the inside to be a
human being or any other conscious being
I mean there's something it's like to be
me right now I have visual images that
I'm experiencing I'm hearing my voice
I've got maybe some emotional tone I've
got a stream of thoughts running through
my head these are all things that I
experience from the first-person point
of view of sometimes called this the
inner movie in the mind it's not a
perfect it's not a perfect metaphor it's
not like a movie in every way isn't in
every way and it's very rich but yeah
it's just direct subjective experience
and I call that consciousness or
sometimes philosophers use the word
qualia which you suggest if people tend
to use the word qualia for things like
the qualities of things like colors
redness the experience of redness versus
the experience of greenness the
experience of one taste or one smell
versus another the experience of the
quality of pain and a lot of
consciousness is the experience of those
of those those quality of consciousness
is bigger the entirety of any kinds of
experiences of thinking is not obviously
qualia it's not like specific qualities
like redness or greenness but still I'm
thinking about my hometown and I'm
thinking about what I'm gonna do later
on maybe there's still something running
through my my head which is subjective
experience maybe it goes beyond those
qualities or qualia philosophers
sometimes use the word phenomenal
consciousness for consciousness in this
sense I mean people also talk about
access consciousness being able to
access information in your mind
reflective consciousness being able to
think about yourself
it looks like the really mysterious one
the one that really gets people going is
phenomenal consciousness the fact that
all this the fact that the subjective
experience and all this feels like
something at all and then the hard
problem is how is it that why is it that
there is phenomenal consciousness at all
and how is it that physical processes in
a brain could give you subjective
experience it looks like try on the face
of it you have all this big complicated
physical system in a brain running and
without a given subjective experience at
all and yet we do have subjective
experience so the hard problem is just
explained that explain how that comes
about we haven't been able to build
machines work a red light goes on that
says it's not conscious so how does how
do we actually create that or how do
humans do it and how do we ourselves do
it we do every now and then create
machines that can do this you know we
create babies yes that our that our
conscious they cut these brains as brain
does produce consciousness but even me
even though we can't create it we still
don't understand why it happens maybe
eventually we'll be able to create
machines which as a matter of fact AI
machines which as a matter of fact our
conscious but that won't necessarily
make the hard problem go away any more
than it does with babies because we
still one of them how and why is it that
these processes give your consciousness
you know you just made me realize for a
second maybe it's a totally dumb
realization but nevertheless that that's
a useful way to think about the creation
consciousness is looking at a baby so
that there's a certain point at which
that baby is not conscious mm-hmm some
sort of the baby starts from maybe I
don't I don't know from a few cells
right there's a certain point at which
it becomes consciousness arrives its
conscious of course we can't know
exactly outline but it's a useful idea
that we do we do create consciousness
again a really dumb thing for me to say
but it not until now that I realized we
to engineer consciousness wouldn't we
get to watch the process happen we don't
know which point it yo happens or where
it is but you know we do see the birth
of consciousness yeah I mean there's a
question of course is whether babies are
conscious when they're born and it used
to be it seems at least some people
thought they weren't which is why they
didn't give anesthetics to newborn
babies when they circumcised them and so
now people think oh that would be
incredibly cruel yeah of course of
course babies feel pain and now the
dominant view is that the babies can
feel pain actually my partner acharya
works on this whole issue of whether
there's consciousness and babies and
over of what kind and she certainly
thinks that newborn babies you know come
into the world with some degree of
consciousness because then you can just
extend the question backwards to fetuses
suddenly ur too politically
controversial exactly territory but you
know there the question also arises in
the animal kingdom
you know what where does consciousness
start or stop is there a line in the
animal kingdom where you know the first
conscious organisms aren't it's
interesting over time people are
becoming more and more liberal about
ascribing consciousness to animals
people used to think maybe only mammals
could be conscious now most people seem
to think show off fish are conscious
they can feel pain and now we're arguing
over insects you'll find people out
there who say plants have some degree of
consciousness so you know who knows
where it's gonna end the far end of this
chain is the view that every physical
system has some degree of consciousness
philosophers call that Penn psychism you
know I take that view I mean that's a
fascinating way to view reality so you
could talk about if you can linger on
Penn psychism for a little bit what what
does it mean it's not just plants are
conscious I mean it's that consciousness
is a fundamental fabric of reality what
does that mean to you how do we supposed
to think about that well we're used to
the idea that some things in the world
are fundamental right in physics like
what we take things like space or time
or space-time mass charge as
fundamental properties of the universe
you don't reduce them to something
simpler you take those for granted
you've got some laws that connect them
here is how mass in space and time
evolved series like relativity or
quantum mechanics or some future theory
that will unify them both but everyone
says you got to take some things as
fundamental and if you can't explain one
thing in terms of the previous
fundamental things you have to expand
maybe something like this happen with
Maxwell ended up with fundamental
principles of electromagnetism and took
charge as fundamental because turned out
that was the best way to explain it so I
at least take seriously the possibility
something like that could happen with
consciousness take it as a fundamental
property like space-time and mass
instead of trying to explain
consciousness wholly in terms of the
evolution of space-time and mass and so
on take it as a primitive and then
connected to everything else by some
fundamental laws because I mean there's
basic there's this basic problem that
the physics we have now looks great for
solving the easy problems of
consciousness which are all about
behavior strike they give us a
complicated structure and dynamics they
tell us how things are going to behave
what kind of observable behavior they're
produced which is great for the problems
of explaining how we walk and how we
talk and so on those are the easy
problems of consciousness but the hard
problem was this problem about
subjective experience just doesn't look
like that kind of problem about
structure or dynamics how things behave
so it's hard to see how existing physics
is going to give you a full explanation
of that certainly trying to get a
physics view of consciousness yes there
there has to be a connecting point and
it could be at the very exome addict at
the very beginning level but first of
all there's a crazy idea that sort of
everything has properties of
consciousness there's a would at that
point the word consciousness is already
beyond the region of our current
understanding like far because
so far from at least for me maybe you
can correct me as far from the
experience and the experiences that we
have that I have as a human being it to
say that everything is cautious that
means that means there that basically
another way to put that if if that's
true then we understand almost nothing
about that ass fundamental aspect of the
world how do you feel about saying an
ant is conscious to get the same
reaction to the head or is that
something you can understand I can
understand ant I can't understand an
atom applying chol plant so I'm I'm
comfortable with living things on earth
mm-hmm being cautious because there's
some kind of agency where there's
similar size to me and they can be born
and they can die and that is
understandable intuitively of course you
anthropomorphize you put yourself in the
place of the plant but I can understand
it I mean I'm I'm not like well I don't
believe actually that plants are
conscious of that plant suffer but I can
understand that kind of belief that kind
of idea how do you feel how do you feel
about robots like the kind of robots we
have now if I told you like that you
know a Roomba at some degree of
consciousness or some you know deep
neural network I could understand that a
Roomba has coasters I just had spent all
day at iRobot I and I mean I personally
love robots and have a deep connection
with robots so I can I also probably had
to prioritize them there's something
about the physical object so there's
different than a neural network then you
all network running a software to me the
physical object something about the
human experience allows me to really see
that physical object is an entity and if
it moves and moves in a way that it
there's a like I didn't program it where
it feels that it's
acting based on its own perception and
yes
self-awareness and consciousness even if
it's a rumba then you start to assign it
some agency some consciousness so but to
say that pants psychism that
consciousness is a fundamental property
of reality is a much bigger statement
mm-hmm that it it's like turtles all the
way - yeah every it doesn't end the
whole thing is so like how I know it's
full mystery but if you can linger on it
I go how would it how do you think about
reality if consciousness is a
fundamental part of its fabric the way
you get there some thinking can we
explain consciousness given the existing
fundamentals and then if you comment is
at least right now it looks like then
you've got to add something it doesn't
follow they have to add consciousness
here's another interesting possibility
is we'll add something else that's
called a proto consciousness or x-ray
and then it turns out space-time mass
plus X will somehow collectively give
you the possibility for for
consciousness we don't rule out that
view either I call that pan proto
psychism because maybe there's some
other property proto consciousness at
the bottom level and if you can't
imagine there's actually genuine
consciousness at the bottom level I
think we should be open to the idea this
this other thing X maybe we can't
imagine this somehow gives you
consciousness but if we are not playing
along with the idea that it really is
genuine consciousness at the bottom
level of course this is gonna be way out
and speculative but you know at least in
say if it was classical physics then
we'd have to end up saying well every
little half everything with you know a
bunch of particles in space-time each of
these particles has some kind of
consciousness whose structure mirrors
maybe their physical properties like its
mass charge its velocity and so on the
structure of its consciousness would
roughly correspond to that and the
physical interactions between particles
I mean there's this old worry about
physics I mentioned this before in this
issue about the manifest image
we don't really find out about the
intrinsic nature of things physics tells
us about how particle relates to other
particles and interacts it doesn't tell
us about what the particle is in itself
that was can't sing in itself so here's
a view the nature in itself of a
particle is something mental a particle
is actually a conscious a little
conscious subject with with properties
of its consciousness to correspond to
its physical properties the laws of
physics are actually ultimately relating
these properties of conscious subjects
on this view a Newtonian world actually
would be a vast collection of little
conscious subjects at the bottom level
way way simpler than we are without free
will or rationality or anything like
that but that's what the universe would
be like now of course that's a vastly
speculative you know no particular
reason think it's correct furthermore
non Newtonian physics say a quantum
mechanical wave function suddenly a sort
of difference on a vast collection of
conscious subjects may be the is
ultimately one big wave function for the
whole universe corresponding to that
might be something more like as a single
conscious mind whose structure
corresponds to the structure of the wave
function people sometimes call this
cosmos sarcasm and now of course we're
in the realm of extremely speculative
philosophy there's no direct evidence
for this but yeah but if you want a
picture of what that universe would be
like think yeah
giant cosmic mind with enough richness
and structure among it to replicate all
the structure of physics I think
therefore I am at the level of particles
and with quantum mechanics is a level of
the wavefunction and it's a it's kind of
an exciting beautiful possibility of
course way out of reach of physics
currently it is interesting that some
neuroscientists are act beginning to
take pen psychism seriously you find
consciousness even in very in very
simple systems so for example the
integrated information theory of
consciousness a lot of neuroscientists
are taking seriously actually I just got
this new book by Christophe clock just
came in the feeling of life itself by
consciousness
widespread but can't be computed he
likes he basically endorses a pen Sarkis
view where you get consciousness with
the degree of information processing or
integrated information processing in a
simple in a system and even very very
simple systems like a couple of
particles will have some degree of this
so he ends up with some degree of
consciousness in all matter and the
claim is that this theory can actually
explain a bunch of stuff about the
connection between the brain and
consciousness now that's very
controversial I think it's very very
early days in the science of
consciousness it's interesting that you
it's not just philosophy that might lead
you in this direction but there are ways
of thinking quasi scientifically that
leads you there too but maybe different
than pen psychism what do you think so
Allen Watts has this quote I'd like to
ask you about the quote is through our
eyes the universe is perceiving itself
through our ears universe is listening
to its harmonies we are the witnesses to
which universe becomes conscious of his
glory of its magnificence so that's not
pants psychism do you think that we are
essentially the tools the senses the
universe created to be conscious of
itself it's an interesting idea of
course if you went for the giant cosmic
mind view then the universe was
conscious all along it didn't need us
we're just little components of the
universal consciousness likewise if you
believe in penstock ism then there was
some little degree of consciousness at
the bottom level all along and we were
just more complex form of consciousness
so I think maybe the quote you mentioned
works better if you're not a parent I
guess you're not a cosmos artist do you
think consciousness just exists at this
at this intermediate level and of course
that's the Orthodox view that you would
say is the the common useless is your
own view with pan psychism a rarer view
I think it's generally regarded
certainly as a speculative view held by
a fairly small minority of at least
theorists philosopher
philosophers and most scientists who
think about consciousness are not pen
Sarkis there's been a bit of a movement
in that direction but last 10 years or
so it seems to be quite popular
especially among the younger generation
but it's still very definitely a
minority view many people think is
totally batshit crazy to use the
technical term the philosophical tears
so the Orthodox view I think is still
consciousness is something that humans
have and some good number of non-human
animals have and maybe a eyes might have
one day but it's restricted on that view
then there was no consciousness at the
start of universe then maybe not at the
end but it is this thing which happened
at some point in the history of the
universe consciousness developed and yes
it's on that's a very amazing event on
this view because many people are
inclined to think consciousness is what
somehow gives meaning to our lives
without consciousness
there'd be no meaning no true value no
good versus bad and so on so with the
advent of consciousness suddenly the
universe went from meaningless to
somehow meaningful why did this happen I
guess the quote you mentioned was
somehow this was somehow destined to
happen because the universe needed to
have consciousness within it to have
value and have meaning and maybe you
could combine that with a theistic view
or a teleological view the universe was
inexorably evolving towards
consciousness actually my colleague here
at NYU Tom Nagel but a book called mind
and cosmos a few years ago where he
argued for this teleological view of
evolution toward consciousness saying
this let the problems for Darwinism it's
got a mountain
yeah this is very very controversial
most people didn't agree I don't myself
agree with this teleological view but it
is a it's at least a beautiful
speculative view of the of the cosmos
you