The Meta-Problem of Consciousness | Professor David Chalmers | Talks at Google 

Ah, if only this were true. Academic philosophers do not study the big picture. They study the little bit of philosophy that is respectable within the faculty.

@@peterjones6507 I agree, academia is such a cult.

Chalners is not the average philosopher

I don't think so. A scientist, say 2000 years ago, said something for example principles of archimedes and it was verified by observations, that statement of him, is a piece of knowledge even today. In contrast, a philosopher who presented his metaphysics just a century ago gets his ideas questioned, his premises trashed and his all metaphysical ideas for all practical purposes remain pieces of literature, or just examples of old ideas. What david chalmers is doing is plain old speculative trickery. He is just latching on to a gap in scientific knowledge and bringing in usual mysticism and mysteriousness. Similar bullshit which people have been doing since aristotle. If science cannot explain consciousness, then nothing can explain it. If it is not science nor a strict logical derivation then it is always someone's opinion. David chalmers is doing a disservice to science and humanity by giving his ignorant opinions. Best he can do is just present the problem as clearly as he can do. Adding non-scientific ideas to a clearly scientific problem is an old trickery in the playbook of cons.

But they never answer any questions.

That's the usual line from Sheldrake, the existence of an illusion presupposes consciousness, so the argument is circular

No, you are not a weirdo. You are just thinking more clearly on the topic than most scientists. The 'hard' problem exists only in the natural sciences. You could read a thousand books on consciousness by people who actually study it and never hear the problem mentioned. It may be defined as the impossibility of explaining consciousness while ignoring what the mystics have to say about it. I suspect that one day the professors will wake up to this fact, but it may require that the current crowd first make way for some younger and less ideologically blinkered researchers. It makes me mad, as may be obvious.

@@peterjones6507 many scientists recognise the hard problem of consciousness mystics are bsers for dupes

Same as you

bullshit. he doesn't even know what consciousness is, BY HIS OWN ADMISSION. yet you worship him. here is what I have unequivocally demonstrated (that means PROVED) by my 10 year research program- *Consciousness is not some great magical trick played on us by a cruel, secretive god, but a movie-like subjective process that arises naturally from the objective business of making behaviour. It's complementary state, sleep, is a specific mechanism that consolidates short-term memories into long-term ones, by the appropriate allocation [3] of our limited attentional resources.*

He's an interesting thinker, but in mysticism he would be a rank beginner.

@@peterjones6507 Yes begineer in mysticism because he is a scientist

@@hugo-garcia He's not a scientist. Indeed. my complaint is precisely that he doesn't take a scientific approach. The hands-on scientific study of consciousness is called mysticism. DC appears to know nothing about it, which is incredible for a philosopher of mind and an odd approach to scholarship. . .

He's made a career out of declaring he doesn't understand something that others do understand.

Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*?

@@vhawk1951kl You're opening a can of worms.

@@ReasonableForseeability hardly, unless you suggest that these are matters beyond the wits of our less well endowed brethren with no Latin and fewer wits - or just Americans short

@@vhawk1951kl I don't really understand what you wrote. What I was talking about is aka the "Other Minds Problem". I searched in Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds

Three years later, how is this project going?

All we have to do is study what the people who study consciousness say about it. It doesn't occur to Chalmers to do this. He just studies the theories of people who theorise about it. Then he wonders why he can't understand it. Crazy.

Nice comment, but you're speaking to the deaf. Most people seem to think Chalmers is an expert, not having been taught about such things at school.

”Among other things” you got that right.

" There are no geniuses, there are only dreaming machines"

What's the 11:11 thing?

Bryan Grace it’s the phenomenon of seeing 11:11 everywhere you look. Usually on your clock. You’ll check your time and it’s 11:11 consistently over a long period of time. In the RU-vid menu, this video is listed as 1:11:11 long

@@toddd2137 holy fucking shit dude I read this at 8:42

@@toddd2137 so do I..wow . Its what made me click on this video.

consciousness explained, and more facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453

Yes. It's not easy to say why Chalmers takes no notice of the people who actually study consciousness. I put is down to dogmatism and ideology.

Good point.

Nice gibberish there.

@@Oners82 exactly.

I also like his use of ‘genealogy’, it’s how I use the word phenomenology. And he interrogates some of the assumptions about genealogy as a impactful/persuasive response.

Bill - It would not be possible to study consciousness and not be a student of Vedanta. This is the 'hard' problem of consciousness, which arises where we don't study the people who do study it. Note that Chalmers does not study consciousness. He speculates about theories of consciousness. This would why he can entertain so many daft ideas.

@@peterjones6507 the neuroscientists have no clue about consciousness, where it comes from, how it works, or why we have it. They will even tell you as such. This is because they approach the problem in the wrong way.

@@manlikeJoe1010 Yes. Neuroscientists do not study consciousness but brains. The clue is in the name. Likewise 'philosophers of mind'. Chalmers' 'problem of consciousness' does not arise for people who actually study it. It's odd that more people don't notice this and truly weird that Chalmers doesn''t.

@@peterjones6507 what about cognitive science, david chalmers is also a cognitive scientists

@@ugwuanyicollins6136 Chalmers is better than many, but the idea one can study consciousness while not studying mysticism is blatantly idiotic. It means scientific consciousness studies is a complete waste of time. Lots of words but it has yet even to catch up with William James' tentative musings.

It does not seem to have done you much good since you use those asinine and infantile little yellow symbols. Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*? Reply

...why?

@@nickolasgaspar9660 because it would be awesome, that's why

@@lbarudi I understand, people love echo chambers that reproduce their beliefs (the case against reality).....

@@nickolasgaspar9660 I never said I necessarily believe in anything, I just think they have interesting ideas that would lead to an interesting conversation. I also happen to be interested in the work and ideas of people that espouse pretty much opposite views, like Max Tegmark or Daniel Dennett - but hey, good luck being low key obnoxious to total strangers on the internet 👍

@@lbarudi lol.....reason is an essential ingredient for the "health" function of our societies. When people "love" irrational ideas...that is alarming.

Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*? Reply

I think the problem is in what is the meaning of real or illusion. In priniple, one can say that all of our existance is illusory, because it is not the real world we see, just our interpretation of it. So I agree on the fact that something is happaning. I just think you cant really say that we experience anything apart from our own existance as true. So yeah, "I think, so I am", but I wont ever know for sure 'what' I am. Or if what I experience, even my own consiousness, is actually true. I dont know if my thoughts are mine, even the ones about my own existance. But I for sure I do exist. Might just be not the way I think. I might not be real in the sense that anything I think is really 'me'.

Yo can start with the etymology which gives you with_knowledge, but well done for not just bleating about whatever consciousness may be as if it were in a vacuum. All English words with 'sci in them, such as science conscious or conscience, have to do with knowledge, the sci coming from the Latin infinitive sciere to know and its first person singlar scio -I know Whose* Consciousness *Of_what*? Without that the word is utterly meaningless, Reply

How is that a problem for physicalists? Are you saying that the “redundancy and reflexivity in excess of the means of survival” are not realized in the physical brain? Even Chalmers would not support such a substance dualism as he would consider everything you just mentioned “easy problems.” As for the genealogical explanation for why we have these abilities, there are completely naturalist explanations. Dennett’s “From Bacteria to Bach and back” is an excellent work on exactly that topic.

i'm sorry, but thats bunk. i dont want to be offensive. have a nice day

basically yes what they say is about self-consciousness. they only objection i have is the way you translate it. the rock is not conscious of the event because it is consciousness it self. "rock" is a pattern which human thought identifies as it is.without thought no rock. The universe is not made of consciousness but it is consciousness itself.

You understand that evolve means unroll? Apparently not, you just swallow all that religious bunk about unrolling that gets forced down your throat while you were to young to be able to question anything for yourself. Scientism is a religion for sheep that follow the flock because they are too timid to think or question for themselves. Evolve, my arse!.

"Naught"?

@@LO-gg6pp "Hasn't got aught" = "has naught." (Just as "doesn't have anything" = "has nothing.")

Yes; this is essentially the same as the idea Chalmers quoted that "if the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't." His retort was pretty good, I thought: we *do* know a whole lot about the brain, after all. We understand it extremely well from a behavioral, functional perspective. But I think there might still be something to this idea. Because really what this all comes back to, maybe, is the brain trying to simulate itself (or another brain). When we're trying to understand how consciousness arises out of a lump of gray matter, what we're really doing is running a super basic simulation. We're saying, "Okay, I'm imagining a bunch of densely connected things sending electrical signals to each other, and I'm not seeing how that leads to there being something it's like to be that thing." But maybe that's the problem. Because obviously we can't really run that simulation accurately. I.e., we can't *hold in our mind* a full functional model of our mind; we can't fully imagine billions of neurons sending trillions of signals to each other. We simply don't have the hardware to do that. Our processing power is far too low. Perhaps one day we'll get a supercomputer that can simulate a brain exactly, but even then, it will still be something of a black box. It still won't allow us to *understand* the full extent of what all those connections as a whole really entail. My theory is that consciousness is an emergent property of our crazily complex brains, and that our puzzlement about that has everything to do with the limited logical and imaginative capacity of those brains. Our brains are amazing, but not so amazing that we can hope to fully understand them by turn them on themselves.

I think the question "how do I know the red I see is the red you see?" is an example of the hard problem that a lot teenagers will eventually come across. They may not explore it, but I think maybe more people than you think are familiar with the hard problem, even if they don't know it by its moniker.

@@ForOrAgainstUs The point I was making is that using " problem reports" as a measure of consciousness in AI would be invalid if we sometimes miss it in natural intelligence. Qualia, the theory of mind and many philosophical issues are worked into early childhood education in the forms of stories, fairytales and religious education. If we do not afford AI the same education then don't get the same behaviour we should not be surprised. It may seem I am contradicting myself here, but I mean the first group may not have had the education, or may not quite have grasped the implications of their education.

Chalmers thinks consciousness is irreducible and that our concepts of consciousness are primitive. So of course he is not going to define it because he thinks there is not a definition. The phrase What is it like is usually used merely with heuristical purpose, and I actually think it works: still, you should distinguish the problem of finding a good heuristic to the problem of a definition, from the fact that what is it like is not a good heurisitic it does not follow that a definition can be non question beggingly asked.

@@pontifrancesco439 Viewing the problem as irreducible and pursuing the solution as such would be functionally equivalent to Viewing the problem as reducible but using a heuristical approach to get a useful and practical answer quicker than a full understanding of the mechanisms. The difference would be a reductionist would know the answer is an interim answer, where as a non reductionist would claim to have solved the hard problem.

@@truthseeker2275 I am sorry but i dont understand what you are saying

@@pontifrancesco439 In short, Chalmers may get the same useful result as a heuristic reductionist, but neither would be as accurate as a proper reductionist theory.

Is there something that feels like getting your toe hit by hammer? Y/n I don’t see why it is a circular question.

You'd think he'd have SOME measure of embarrassment for giving the same gawd damn speech for the last 30 years. Every comic needs new material. This idiot hasn't had a new thought in at least 20 years.

@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt Chalmers has worked on issues in philosophy of mind, perception, epistemology, philosophy of language, all in addition to his work on consciousness. This is just one branch of his work, and it is what he typically gets invited to talk about. You can see the variety of papers he has published on his website, consc.net/all-papers/

@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt yet he is a highly esteemed philosopher and you have profile name like "taste my stunkhole"? 😁

​@@LO-gg6pp Ironically your idiotic moniker is no better. The difference is, mine was specifically chosen in order to act as a logic test so that illogictards would inadvertantly reveal themselves by equating irrelevant information like my name or pic with my intellect. Now on to the good part... Upanishad philosophy has already addressed 99% of the questions you could possibly ask about consciousness and has done so with logical soundness. No faith or belief required. The fact that the materialism worshipper Chalmers hasn't even mentioned the incredible work that already exists on that, and the fact he's too stupid to recognize that matter doesn't exist, he's been chasing his tail and spreading stupidity for decades. You'll never, as in ever, answer the question of consciousness with materialism. Start with Donald Hoffman's consicous agents videos to dip a toe in the water of truth, and when you're ready for a mental ass whooping, find a master of Upanishad philosophy to show you why everything you believe is complete horse shyyt.

@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt I've just listened go D Hoffman. Thanks... maybe that's why Chalmers is so well regarded by dogmatic mainstream science - bc he just posits the questions and dances around the consciousness issue😊. ... can't find any accessible upanishads explanations on YT so if you have any good sources will be much appreciated.

I did. I see it everywhere. I see it as 1:11:10 though

First thing that caught me eye

Yeah, 4271 seconds doesnt look so pretty!

Did you notice it, or were you looking for it?

@@chiraggupta7580 saw it straightaway

Not only are there no so-called " near death experiences" there could not possibly be any such thing as a near death experience any more than there could be such a thing as a near standing on your own shoulders experience. Consciousness which translate as with_knowledge is like knowledge itself - utterly meaningless unless you specify *whose* knowledge and knowledge*Of_What* with ou sprcifying that you would be better of replacing consciousness with stuff, which is equally vague and meaningless. Ooo spooky... stuff; what fools you creatures make of yourselves by speaking of consciousness (of which you are totally incapable)without having any clear idea of to what you are referring , having absolutely no experience of it. Why not just say stuff, you would convey as much? You heard the word with which you are familiar by its consonance but have not the faintest idea what you mean by it. To help you it is derived from two Latin words: Con-which means with and sciere-which means to know, thus giving with knowledge which is meaningless without specifying *whose* knowledge of what; surely even a complete halfwit can grasp that, but you would get just as far as if for consciousness you substituted stuff or bla. Go about it methodically systematically and ask yourselves:" Exactly what do I mean or what do I seek to convey by the word knowledge; what would be a clear example of knowledge, and remember that your definition must be good for al instances of whatever you mean by knowledge? Know ledge is direct immediate personal experience, as direct immediate and personal as pain, is it not?If not, come up with something better than that. It is foolish to witter and bleat about consciousness if you have not the faintest idea what you mean by knowledge

@@vhawk1951kl In my understanding, yes there are NDEs. And ultimately, there is only one real consciousness, called many names, namely God.

@@AllanHawke Your understanding is clearly very limited because you simply cannot grasp why what you call near death experiences are exactly as impossible as standing on your own shoulders is impossible, but there are few depths to which men(human beings) will not sink in order to deceive themselves; they don't just lie to others they lie to themselves as you illustrate most vividly

@@vhawk1951kl Hundreds of reports using lie detectors about NDEs have convinced me, I respect your opinion, but my understanding remains the same

@@vhawk1951kl Since your intelligence is so superior, don't waste your time here, isn't that contradictory?

Do you enjoy talking complete nonsense?

@@Oners82 Yes. It brings me much-needed solstice.

CORRECT!!!! this is an indication of a pseudo philosophical approach on this subject.

I think part of the problem of defining what consciousness is is that we all have it, but we don’t know what it is in a way. I think ‘experience’ is the most relevant thing here; it’s the fact we phenomenally experience things I think I’ve also heard it argued that science at least as it exists today can’t explain consciousness because science deals with things that are publicly observable but consciousness itself is not publicly observable

@@stillnesssolutions "I think part of the problem of defining what consciousness is is that we all have it, but we don’t know what it is in a way." -The first problem is that people assume consciousness is a "thing" (substance, deity, force,agent). Consciousness is nothing more than the abstract concept of the quality of a brain property. Science has a great and simple definition about this mind property. "Consciousness is an arousal and awareness of environment and self, which is achieved through action of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) on the brain stem and cerebral cortex " www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/ SO its the ability of our brain to direct its attention and process environmental and organic stimuli. -"I think ‘experience’ is the most relevant thing here; " -Yes, conscious states allow us to have subjective conscious experiences that are registered by the rest of our mind properties(memory,reasoning, intelligence, ) and are used to construct our mental model of reality. -" it’s the fact we phenomenally experience things" -Sure, our Cataleptic Impressions are affected by the way our sensory systems interact with the world and the way phenomena emerge in the observable (by us) scale. -"I think I’ve also heard it argued that science at least as it exists today can’t explain consciousness because science deals with things that are publicly observable but consciousness itself is not publicly observable" -That is an Ambiguity fallacy. Consciousness refers to our ability to be aware of things, our self and our thoughts....not about an substance...doing enabling us to be conscious! People are still fixated in an obsolete way of thinking with a historical negative record in our epistemology! Phlogiston , Caloric, Élan vital, Orgone and Ordic energy, are some of the made up "agents" hold responsible for the qualities of a phenomenon. First we need to stop creating mysterious entities (unparsimonious) in order to explain mysteries . Secondly we need to avoid logical Fallacies. (Special Pleading). We don't assume any substance/entity/agent/force for Digestion or Mitosis or Photosythesis or Wetness so why we should assume that for Mind properties like consciousness? Now something that many ignore. We have the technology to accurately decode complex conscious thoughts by just reading brain scans. www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/june/brain-decoding-complex-thoughts.html

@@nickolasgaspar9660 None of what you said addresses of qualia, how do any of these links explain the emergence of qualitative experiences?

@@badmittens5160 Qualia is nothing more than a word representing the phrase "individual conscious experiences". So our experiences rise from external and internal (environmental and organic) arousing our Ascending Reticular Activating System or any other more specific, smaller area that we have found out in our latest scientific investigation. The subjective qualities of our experiences are defined by how our glands' production work, how many receptors we have available to receive the produced hormones, our homeostasis setup, our previous experiences about any specific stimuli. i.e. If my sugar levels are low and I enjoy sugars and I have previous experiences of enjoying apples, my qualia about having an apple will be different to yours....based on poor previous experiences of eating apple or having less taste buds on your tongue or having elevated sugar levels etc etc. Our Qualia are defined by parameters provided from our body functions, by previous experiences (inputs) and our biological setup....a pretty complex system that enables subjective qualities in our experiences.

a religious way of believing you have talked your way out of the hard problem

I think Richard rorty would agree

The Copenhagen interpretation is not very compatible with what happens in a time series with regard to our perception and consciousness. The Multiverse interpretation is more compatible - wave function actually does not collapse, we simply continuously branch out to the universe in which such phenomena is consistent

This is a very good question on the nature of collapsing wave function. The basis of your question is how do various perceptions collapse the entire universal wave function into one unified reality, this seems perplexing when we take into account the various perceptions produced by multiple observations at once. Though this view only takes into account human consciousness as the result of the Universe, but as we all know we did not create ourselves as humans, instead we understand that we are here in relation to our physical environment. Therefore, what is the source of observation which collapsed the infinite possibility wave function into this unified reality which we share. My answer to this would be consciousness itself, therefore, there must be a one unified consciousness which collapsed the infinite wave function into this one unified reality that we observe. Thus, the new question from your question, is what is the primary source consciousness which collapsed the wave function thus, creating our physical bodies as well as other physical objects, by which this primary consciousness uses to interact with our bodies, in turn, using the body to interact with physical reality? There are many names for this primary consciousness, but at its base it is consciousness itself, the one unified consciousness which can give rise to multiple consciousness and collapse the universal infinite wave function. Within Vedanta philosophy, one would call this Brahman or Absolute - in other words, the formless unmanifested consciouness which gave rise to the universe and all phenomenons such as individual consciousness. Though one can see how our individual consciousness also creates various realities within our unified shared reality, this is the phenomenon one recognizes as their individual life, by which they create their personal experiences, for example you deciding to write this question independently of others writing other comments. Your personal consciousness created the reality in which you asked this question and now are receiving an answer, while others wrote different statements which resulted in different outcomes. Thus, we are simultaneously collapsing individual wave functions through our individual consciousness, yet there is a primary source consciousness which is collapsing the universal infinite wave function which creates us and our unified reality. Therefore, we live in a Universe of shared multiple consciousness due to the true nature of our reality being a result of one primary consciousness which can collapse a wave function so large and create the world we see before us. Hopefully my response is a viable answer to the nature of your question.

Are you comparing studying the causes of consciousness with studying nuclear bombs? LOL

However, god is possible, but god is not a necessary condition for the possibility of thinking about god

who made mathematics? humans how? through thought process is the description of something "real"? no its just a concept what is fundamental to survival then? perception - reaction what is the link between perception and thought? perception is always now, thought are memories of the past. whats the link between thought and reaction? thought is a complicated form of reaction. now if it based on logical concepts or not its a matter of intelligence whats the difference between intelligence and thought process? intelligence is based on perception and can be expressed through thought. that's why intelligence can operate in the field of the thought while thought as a reaction can not operate in the field of intelligence. is thought process a physical reaction? yes is thought process fundamental to self consciousness? yes otherwise you couldn't recognize that you are alive is self consciousness fundamental to consciousness of the universe? no universe can exists without humans like a stage without an actor are the actors and stage one? yes otherwise what's the point of the play is the essence of the universe physical or spiritual? none both are philosophical concepts coming out of thought process. sorry i wrote that for myself as i was inquiring so posted it for a reflection.

Care to provide an example?

@@lenn939 Illusionist : "it is always the case that it introspectively seems to us as if there is a phenomenal state although no phenomenal state is there.". Debunk : "it is always the case that it introspectively seems to our consciousness as if there is a phenomenal state although no phenomenal state is there."

@kara mitros I don’t see any contradiction. Lots of reductionists are sympathetic to keeping the term consciousness to describe all the complex processes which Chalmers dubs the easy problems. I think I would sign off on the second statement if by “phenomenal state” you mean irreducible qualia.

@@lenn939 The first quote is taken from illusionism theory, which tries to prove that conscious experience is an illusion so the hard problem is to them an illusion (I googled it to give you an example). The second quote debunks it since there must still be a real consciousness to experience the illusion . Most illusionists I've heard (if not all) speak about the hard problem with easy problem understandings , they forget that the "you" or "us" part is actually the hard problem, since "you" is your consciousness . If you replace "you" with "consciousness" in these arguments then consciousness is something that still needs an explanation

@kara mitros “there must still be a real consciousness to experience the illusion” I think that’s a conceptual error. Remember for a moment that the proposed philosophical zombie also thinks that it experiences qualia even though it by definition doesn’t. How can that be? The reason is quite simple. The intentional objects of beliefs do not have to be rendered anywhere to make the beliefs possible. You can believe that Odin wears an eyepatch even though there is no Odin, he simply doesn’t exist. Likewise, you can believe that there is an irreducible red quale which causes you to say that there’s a red quale even though that’s not how it works. I do agree that lots of aspects of consciousness need explaining, but I see no principled reason to suggest that an answer to the “meta problem” will leave open the hard problem.

Mark Tomasetti This objection came up in my mind, but I realize there doesn't have to be a subject in the sense of "one who experiences"; it suffices for there to be a reasoning mechanism that arrives at a delusional model of the state of affairs. Edit: to clarify, I am appealing to the empirical data that all we know for sure is that "thought occurs": that we have no evidence for the existence of any "experiencer of the thoughts" than that thoughts to the effect of the said existence occur.

@@varunachar87 - I listened to another lecture (I think by Graziano) and came-up with a different understanding: Consciousness is analogous to proprioception but for our mental apparatuses rather than for our body parts. It allows us to hold in mind a model of our mental faculties so we can influence them. It has a degree of detail that is good enough for that purpose. So, I no longer think that the illusion to which Chalmers refers means that he thinks there is nothing there (like it's a mirage), I now think he means that how we experience consciousness is just a sketch of our mental life; because it doesn't need great detail to work correctly (i.e., to give us some evolutionary advantage over not having it). It's an illusion (or approximation) of our mental life because it only includes stuff that makes us more adaptive in the world. I think I'm saying something similar to what you expressed with: "[a brain-based] mechanism that arrives at a delusional model of the state of affairs"; except I would replace the word "delusional" with "incomplete." I think of the internal experience of our mental life (consciousness) as a sketch, leaving things out; not really out of touch with reality (as a delusion would be) but rather based on reality and informed by reality, but not all-inclusive. Something like human vision which does not include the detection of ultraviolet light because, I guess we never needed it (even though bees have it, so we might have been able to evolve with it).

consciousness explained, and more

facebook.com/guillermo.b.deisler/posts/10222050618470453

The idea of consciousness being an illusion is absolutely ridiculous. It's impressive how "science" people who claim "wherever science takes you" try to force fit this into their dogma so hardly