The Whispering Mind: The Enduring Conundrum of Consciousness 

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After listening to them all arguing about consciousness, it confirms my belief that no one really has any idea what this life is.

"what is mind? no matter...what is matter? never mind" - homer simpson

I wish they included a Hindu philosopher in the mix..we are thinking about conciousness for last 5000 years..

brain is the instrument, mind is the product of that instrument, consciousness is the observer of both and realising the existence of all...

Throughout my life the one thing I miss the most is my peace of MIND..PERIOD

This was by far the best discussions on consciousness I've listened to to date.. all those brilliant minds having a conversation about the brilliance of the mind... bravo...

This is the best discussion of consciousness that I have seen. The ideas flow effortlessly and carry one through a delightful journey of scientific and philosophical thought. A true masterpiece. Highly thought provoking and enlightening. Remarkable.

I am enjoying the cast of characters in this presentation. They are holding their own in their field of study. The discussion is very interesting in understanding the mind/brain problem.

The disagreement right away at 17:45 is a perfect example of how these discussions become instantly enjoyable. It's more enlightening to see exactly where they disagree, and it pulls them away from the script toward heartfelt organic responses. I hope to see more of these discussions staged as such... To whomever chose the speakers, thank you and good work :]

This is one of my favorite world science festival talks. Not just because of the topic but the balance in the panel. The middle two speakers really helped to mediate and clarify the more general conversation. For example, It would have been difficult to watch Christophs reapted failed attempts to concisley convey his point to the philosopher without the relief of them interjecting to help him out with anecdotes occasionally.

Thanks to WSF and youtube yet again. It amazes me how much time I spend watching these panels ... and non of it wasted. This is posted in the hope that votes count.

I think we're just too young a species to know what consciousness really is just yet. It'd be interesting to look back on this in a thousand years

Consciousness emerged and evolved from awareness to consciousness projecting further and further to the universe and back.

They're all brilliant but have to say I really warm to Nicolas Schiff and his approach to debating and reconciling ideas.

I totally agree with you John. Matter does not exist as we think, it is a manifestation of consciousness. The philosopher is wiser and more precise in the approach to consciousness than the neurologists were.

Holy cow, I've said that phrase almost verbatim for years: "You can't prove anyone or anything exists outside of yourself because the world is all in your head." This is one of the most fascinating topics.

Because we all experience consciousness, we imagine it must have a simple explanation. There is no reason it has to be simpler than relativity or quantum mechanics.

We are the universe's way of experiencing itself!

i love doctors. It's not just about the mechanism, but the meaning. His basis in consciousness research is largely informed by watching families of vegetative people struggle and rejoice when someone is revived. Medicine is art & science.

the well-chosen panel enlivens the debate. Thoughtful and respected discussion that feeds our mind

Unexpectedly hillarious! That was fun to listen to! ❤

Best part of whole talk was Koch acknowledging that we should not cause suffering to other life forms...if you want a good talk on consciousness...listen to Amit Goswami!

It is nice to see a news anchor from a major network doing something like this. To me, it seems to make them more normal, more human, more regular. It shows that they are not just a sharp spoken, pretty face in front of the camera.

OMG... so, I have finally understood what some of these people actually think about this topic. According to them... "Consciousness ceases to exist when we are asleep." Now I can clearly see the source of shortsightedness.

Wow, this was one of the most interesting discussions I've heard in a long time. Great moderating, and its given me a lot to go and investigate further. Thanks for this video!

I can remember coming here from a long distance,or another time, one in the same, I remember, knowing where to go, I went to the house where my Dad was in the rocking chair. My mother was in the bed, and I was in the baby bed next to their bed, when I entered my body the angels were all around, and the feelings were like.I was floating , giggling in bliss.i couldn't have been more than weeks old.

A handshake as he receives each speaker will be great

We are one! So RESPECT others perspectives.

Excellent discussion. Thank you so much!

I find this a very nice bouquet of such different quality people...Each in his own area..and I like the hypnotic shirt ,the colour he brings in and the fire with which Christof Koch speaks...very nice indeed.. Wish now ye'all find the secrets which are written for us on losethenamecom

Ended up here looking for something to help get my creative juices flowing for an English assignment. It really helped, consciousness is a very fascinating topic.

There is nothing like a little mescaline for raising the level of consciousness, including spirituality.

Consciousness begins upon conception. I had conscious experience's in the womb, speaking to my twin sister in our own language, listening to other's, while in the womb and utilizing our same language as well as recalling lesson's learned in the womb. My twin sister and I communicated to each other on our way to the womb. The physical body is the confinement, with an assignment, of the Soul. It's between individuals and our Creator. It's a "dog eat dog" Universe. Sink or swim baby!!!

23:30 He doesn't seem to delineate a difference between consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is more than an adrenaline-enhanced ability to react to the external world, it involves ability to perceive an analog "self" and an 'analog world (inside one's head), the ability to ask questions like "why am I me?", ability to understand representational gaming and concepts without referents like "mass" or "velocity". This comes much later than birth. I find myself more in agreement with Soviet psycholinguists of the 1930s who postulated that language learning through interactive instruction is what is responsible for the phenomenon of consciousness. Luria and Kolcova even conducted a single case study where the language instruction was delayed to demonstrate that development of consciousness in humans is impossible without early interactive language instruction. Other factor that points to consciousness not fully developing until 3-4 years of age are Dissociative Identity Disorder - current theory on it is that abused children tend to develop separate "selves" as a psychological defence against the abuse. Presumably why adults are far less likely to develop DID later in life is because the "idea of self" when it first emerges is much more neurologically vulnerable, and it's around early development phase where things can go wrong and the "self" can fracture. Another thing which DID convincingly demonstrates is that "the self" is an illusion maintained by the brain, another explanation simply doesn't satisfy Occam's Razor. Neuroanatomy and physiology of the brain also suggest, that far from a unitary organism with a "central control" brain consists of interdependent colonies of neurons, that it is deeply divided, while any unity likely consists of this illusion of "self". Another clue is Piaget's Theory of Mind which doesn't fully develop until that age. Another thing is - personally significant memories are very rare before 3 years of age. And it's very unlikely that we begin to ask truly philosophical questions like "where do we go when we die" until the age of 4. Paul Bloom's experiments (among other things) show that these aren't even dilemmas in early age. It is only after 3-4 years of age that we begin to wonder about non-being and non-experience - realizing there was a time when we did not exist, before then we assume continuity and persistence of personality automatically. This shows continual development of consciousness throughout toddler years So it is very likely that the ancient notion that "one is not born with consciousness or "soul" is correct. It is born out of interaction between oneself and others and gradually develops when we age. "The self" is thus - most likely a product of the brain. If consciousness was possessed by "every atom" as Panpsychists claim, it is strange why much simpler organisms do not appear to possess it, why they lack such phenomena as culture, and why it took billions of years for this phenomenon to develop in only the most complex organisms. Overall, in approaching this problem, Type Functionalism had replaced Eliminative Materialism since 1970s. Modern Science does not really hold the position that the Brain and The Mind are identical. But Type Functionalismis not a dualist or Cartesian philosophy. The reason why Type Functionalism is better is because Eliminative Materialism appears to deny the possibility that other matter than neuronal cells can be organized to support consciousness at least in theory. Type Functionalism does not deny the possibility of consciousness to machines, for example, or perhaps to some alien life which evolved other structures than neurons in order to support conscious thought.

Thank you Christof Koch on sharing your insights with us

I like how second dude from left refused to shrink himself for this “debate”. He truly approached the discussion with the pure intention of exchanging ideas.

The brain is the vessel that allows consciousness to become aware of itself.

Very interesting session indeed !

i find it extremely comfortable to be on the fence about this issue. christof koch compared the search for the infinity small with the search for the infinity large, and really struck a chord with me when he said how beautiful that was.

Nicholas Schiff and Melanie Boly really shine through McGinn and Kochs squabbling here... :)

The fact that some of these experts still believe in dualism (even though science and evolution refutes that notion) leads me to believe that our understanding of the brain is still in pre-infancy.

Duality is not the normal multidimensional experience of humans, you are a spiritual being , experiencing a duality existance💜

The baby is having stimulation by sounds and light While in his mothers womb I actually did experience this when my wife was pregnant I will Shine light to me wife stomach and talk to my baby! It was responding to me with such violent movements! My wife and I would cry an awe!

Catch this one: Once I got to see how conciousness work in me, my mind keeps all perceptions and emotions from the beginning of my life and runs them at thousands times per second, adding each fraction of millisecond each time. All sounds at that velocity are just an acute constant pitch, and all images are just lights that shivers, you can hear the sound at night before you go to sleep and see these lights when you close your eyes. Yet when I was experiencing this state of conciousness, the velocity only let me feel the strongest emotions, destruction of the world and destruction of myself. So I needed to get out of my life, with great effort I managed to get out of this ever running story and find out that I, we, have another level of conciousness, where the codes does not exist, so there are no questions and no thoughts, yet it is a solid awareness state. (I know now you are wondering how I got to this state)

Reality is an infinite field of consciousness.

Supremely well done! Great panel and conductor, thanks so much to all involved

Brilliant discussion! Bravo!

I remember the 'MODERATOR' .. Terry Moran .. from way back when 'Cable T.V.' first became available here in the 'Greater NYC Area' on the 'Court T.V. Channel' .. He ( along with Greg Jarret ) .. were the two best moderators. Both are very bright and well spoken.

Light, Sound, Stage, Camera excellent production, thank you!

I became fully Conscious several years after a brain aneurysm.

I feel like lot of different concepts are being discussed here under common terminology of consciousness. On one hand we have the awareness of self and its boundaries, and on other we have the autonomous ability to control the parts of our self. The awareness and the ability are distinct. And then there is also general mapping of cognitive functions to the mechanisms in the brain, which has very little to do consciousness at all, but however discussed a lot about in this debate. Conditions varying from tetraplegia (loss of body control), sleep/coma (loss of awareness) or schizophrenia (loss of self identity) are all issues of consciousness in this crude sense, but actually are quite different in thier manifestation.

interesting discussion, thankyou for the programme.

Bravo for Christof Koch and his comment on eating conscious animals! :)

I think of the brain as a veil of consciousness something like a filter that controls how our senses perceive the physical universe. Its like how different kind of animals can perceive different frequencies or see certain frequencies of light. Thats why when people practice stillness and clearing the mind (meditation) they have an outer body experience and can perceive so much more thats separate than physical reality.

Science gives us useful things that make life better, if they are not misused. Philosophy asks questions, but it often doesn't give us anything of practical value. Though McGinn makes some excellent points here that are difficult to refute. For example, the mouse and human brains at a microscopic level look pretty much the same, yet the levels of awareness are very different, so there is something else happening. It's only a matter of time before brain transplants are real.

Great host.

@McGinn: It may indeed be possible that we will never be able to fully bridge the gap between the matter of the brain and the experience of the mind. But to say such an uncertain thing with such certainty is indeed the sign of a mind that has given up on the problem. A better name than mysterium is handwaveitawayium. As long as we suppose the answer might be explainable, we stand a far better chance of doing so than if we don't suppose it to be explainable. And in a period where our understanding is getting better than ever, where we can better understand the neural correlates of experience, it seems exceptionally short sighted to dismiss the endeavour as impossible for us. As an aside, by understanding our own neural correlates, and then examining how the neural activity of a bats brain works, we can understand to some degree the information flow that is occuring in the mind of the bat. e.g. If we present the bat with a predator sound and its brains surges with the neural chemical correlates of fear, we can infer that the experience of the bat is to feel fear at the sound of its predator. We can even to an extent imagine that sensation, linking the two events together in our mind. Also, Integrated Information Theory is a very promising pathway of integrating the idea of concsiousness with materialism. It is in essence an expansion upon what we understand about materiality. It's perhaps a cheeky way of making things fit into the monist view point - but this may indeed be the critical factor that Colin thinks we are missing in our inability to articulate that materialistic view point of the mind body connection.

I’m just a regular person without any degrees and I didn’t learn anything. Maybe it’s because I’m constantly watching intellectual youtube videos to expand my knowledge of myself, spirituality, consciousness, and more.

Thanks a ton for the brilliant info

The Mind is the Whole Body and all of its parts. The Brain is the Chief, the Heart is the E-motion, & The 🎶 Pelvis is the Elvis of The Passions.

22:49 Interesting how the first breath of a newborn is a gasp as is that of the last breath of a dying person. I wonder if consciousness is tied to it somehow? P.L.D.

Animals interact with our souls too. They talk too.💚

Thank you 😊

I'm no closer to understanding consciousness after listening to this than before.

plants do react to stimuli FYI check it out

I have already proven (to myself) Through experiments What consciousness really consists of And what it is !!! 🙂🙂🙂

If materialism is right, mankind is even worse off than we are now... The fact that we can lift our hand and focus attention to become better at something and even the placebo i think pretty much dumps materialism... So interesting conversation and ideas, but definitely not at fullest frontiers of phenomenal research.

I can remember when I was In my mother's womb I remember seeing a soft glowing light and my umbilical cord. I felt like I came into the body from somewhere else

There are data to suggest that the mind can exist outside of the brain, but it would require a new paradigm that is not in love with physicalism. Although they are talking about dualism mostly in this video, its a brand that privileges the brain as necessary for the existence of the mind at all times and even suggests that we may get to the point where we’ll be able to attribute physical attributes to consciousness. Clearly there is a strong correlation (absolute even) between the brain and the mind, but it seems to always be discussed unidirectionally in that the brain is the independent variable and the mind is the dependent one. How about when the mind affects the body or the brain itself? I guess they would assume that the brain is affecting the mind which is then affecting the physical body, but is it necessarily so? In some near death experiences people report having left the body and gone to other rooms. They can identify specific occurrences that were happening outside of the room they were in at the time of their clinical death. This is then corroborated by other evidence. There are also cases of children who claim to be reincarnated and can accurately produce specific details of the deceased person’s life that they could not have accessed other than by interviewing the family of the deceased or conducting a thorough investigation with records that are not publicly available (as the researchers do to corroborate it). Assuming that this data has been gathered faithfully, how would these folks reconcile those finding with their assertions that the brain is necessary for the mind to exist at all times? Perhaps the brain conditions the mind, but upon bodily death, it may be “set free,” so to speak.

I'm in love with everyone on this stage. Studying peano axioms now.

Some points about Consciousness from the view of Indian Spirituality (Advaita Philosophy). Every Individual is made up of 3 types of bodies + Consciousness. 1. The Physical Body 2. The Subtle Body (Mind and Intellect) 3. The Causal Body (The finer impressions lying deep within us which directs our life's next move) If you can't understand "Causal Body", this example can help. You and your friend go to restaurant to have food. The data in us which determines the food we are going to order, is coming from the Causal body. This Causal body has only the data that has deeper impressions on our minds which is Steep likes or Dislikes. Unlike in the mind, there is no junk data stored in the memory of the causal body. If you like Sweet over Spicy, this data is stored in the Causal body and hence the first immediate choice you would make is to select the category with sweets on it. The data that helps you determine which of the many sweets to have, comes from our normal memory. So understanding the difference between deeper memory impressions over our regular memory is very important in the field of Subjective science. Advaita Philosophy says ... We are Pure Consciousness who happen to have 3 states of experience everyday. 1. The experience of Waking world. 2. The experience of the Dream world. 3. The experience of the Deep sleep world. We all can confidently say that we have experiences of the Waking and Dreaming world, but not the deep-sleep world. Advaita philosophy says, you are conscious of the deep sleep as much as you are in the waking and dreaming world, but unable to have any experience because in the deep sleep, the mind is completely resting and hence there is no data for our consciousness to witness. That is why after a deep sleep, when we wake up, we don't say "I slept, I dreamt and I woke up", we just say "I had a peaceful sleep". The state of deep sleep which we experience is completely peaceful without the agitations of our mind. When there is no light in a room that has many different objects, we still don't see anything. But does it mean, our eyes has lost its vision? Similarly, when the mind is shutdown and has no objects to project to our Consciousness, we cannot conclude that we don't have consciousness at that state. The points above are all from a Subjective Perspective of Science. We Humans need to realize that, we are closer to the truth subjectively than objectively. Let Modern Science wait until the right instruments are invented, but as Conscious beings, we have the opportunity in this life to dwell deeper within and have a glimpse at our Consciousness in its pure state. The Yogis of India are all those who have experienced this subjectively and also are guiding those who have the same quest. We the people of 21st century must not engage in fist-fights between Spiritual and Materialistic views or Subjective vs Objective views. The Real advancement happens when there is harmony in our minds. Let Material Science wait, Let Material Scientists do their wonderful jobs, but for every ordinary common man, we have the area of Subjective Science, where we are the sole first hand experiencer. For those who are interested, Please checkout the Vedanta Book named "Mandukya Upanishad". Manduka means Frog. The Book deals with the 3 states of Experiences, where we Individuals keep jumping to like a Frog. Please try it out. This is a century where the next generation must explore both Spiritual and Material Science equally without being biased.

Pan-consciousness is independent of time, so our life stories exist forever, and can even evolve outside of this physical universe.

It seems to me that consciousness is only a "problem" for proponents of material explanations of consciousness. There is no hard problem of consciousness for an idealist.

9:00 If consciousness comes about merely due to tissue irritation would then the irritation or its effects have to be substantially stable, constant and autonomous?

There are 1,184 comments so what follows might be redundant... I was surprised none of the participants thought it important to emphasize that what the neurons are conducting is coded context dependent representations of meaning (and that the overall meaning of what's going on is ultimately expressed by the muscles). (Though happy to hear mention that the structural layout of neural complexes may play a role in meaning (perhaps fundamentally responsible for what we mean by the collective unconscious concept)). Well known: The senses encode energies in the environment, the brain processes these encodings then sends appropriate coded signals of the same type to the muscles. Thus the dynamic 'self' concept, i.e. that which is essential to being conscious, is a vast set of dynamic encodings in a vast dynamically encoded context and it's the modulation of the self concept by that context (involving dynamic input from the senses and dynamic memory subsystems and no doubt others), that is key to understanding the meaning of the word 'conscious' in a person. Approximately! They came very close during discussion of the Jennifer Aniston neuron. We know it would have been better to have had probes in hundreds or millions of related neurons to get a proper appreciation of the impact of the Jennifer Aniston complex encoding (and if there's some kind of dynamic encoded form of holography going on in brains then one probe per neuron, ultra precise timing and a super duper supercomputer would be most helpful to our ultimate understanding). Language is both the means of (a kind of) thinking and a strict limitation of it, kind of frustrating. Words (which are all metaphors) are the encoded form of meanings and every word we know is cycling in the brain somewhere in the form of neural discharge frequencies, a coded form of a coded form. No wonder the topic is so tricky. Well, there ya go. Hope that clarifies your understanding of the meaning of the word 'conscious'. lol Correction: 1,190 comments.

The central , core issue , or question here seems to be - what is consciousness - missing from this debate seems to be the great body of ancient knowledge of the self offered in the hindu tradition- specifically the science of self realization through the application of Yogic practice as propounded by Patanjali - Namaste 😌

the enduring sound of tinnitus try to deal with that everyday haha!

Nice

15:30 Haha, nice start of the discussion!

Never thought I'd say this, but it seems like the philosopher had a more scientific view of consciousness than that dualist neurologist. The neurologist is just pursuing a theory that he'd like to be true. It almost sounds like a religious type view of the world

my brain is not my consciousness... my brain is influenced by my consciousness.

the information is represented by the connection... hence we understand that as consciousness. consciousness is not a thing by itself, It's the information you are consciousness of is what matters.

I really can't believe how no one said anything about the mind being a product of the brain body! Simply amazing!

Wow, right out the gate that German guy just flat out attacks philosophers.

'I am self aware' that is all i need to know and i am comfortable with that. I am 'not' a machine this too i know and am 'not' expendable. If you are comfortable in your belief that you 'are' then kudos. Keep that oil can at hand ; ) I have manifested and accomplished many things that Doctors and Scientists said were 'impossible'. I believe with 'my' own experiences and senses, not 'others' words on probabilities.

Around 1:10 Christoph gives the STEM of Space Time Energy Matter for IIT.

if the brain were simple we could understand it, but we would be too simple to do so

Consciousness is just an advanced part of the One Universal Process of Spherical symmetry forming +1=0 now -1 breaking.. . .

When they start talking about what an explanation is and then the host stops them, I was like "No! This is important! Set them free!"

Very interesting

Consciousness is the interaction between the environment and the physical brain. You can't physically grasp it but you know it exists.

I had this experience When I meditated I see a fractal rainbow repeating a Fibonacci pattern and as I moved towards the fractal, I became smaller and smaller until I became a single cell floating in a fluid with many others, seeing them as cells unable to communicate ( not sure If I tried ) I knew who I was, however, it was not who I am, Then I was snapped back to who I am now. As I started meditating I picture my third eye looking inward not outward and came to the realization that. Space is space, we are space or the colored strands of energy repeating a vibrational pattern refracting in a circular or infinity pattered. We are the energy. We moved around like bubbles in a pot of boiling water only we never rose to a surface and pop like water in a pot. We just flowed in the sea of light. As the fractal moves, your mind moves, with memories, we can never die we just shed our skin or body a metamorphosis death and rebirth.

My favorite consciousness smack down so far. 😳😝🤔

Ah. It's so good.

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

If you were to look inside of a hard drive, you wouldn't be able to SEE the files, just like if you were to look into a brain. But they're there, they just aren't processed into a form YOUR mind can understand. It's pure data, so of course you can't experience them just by looking at someone's brain - it doesn't mean that it's not there or that it is separate.

These folks should smoke some DMT together and then do the whole show all over again. :>) That would give it a new dimension LOL

Long story short... In Him We Live! MIND over Matter...Glory Be to God. God is Love. Love Lifted Me. Even Me!⛄⛄⛄

There is the body, the mind, then subject matter, and emotions. Or do emotions make the subject matter possible or vise versa?