The illusion of consciousness | Robert Wright & Keith Frankish [The Wright Show]
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- Опубликовано: 13 ноя 2016
- 02:15 Consciousness as an illusion
10:02 How would a belief look in the brain?
23:07 Two kinds of dualism
29:49 What if you and I see blue differently?
38:34 Is it like something to be Keith Frankish?
01:05:37 Why thinking about consciousness is so hard
Watch the entire conversation on MeaningofLife.tv meaningoflife.tv/videos/37216
Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero) and Keith Frankish (keithfrankish.com, The Open University)
Recorded on October 25, 2016
![Solving the mind-body problem | Robert Wright & John Horgan [The Wright Show]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eDn1e9-5bbo/mqdefault.jpg)
that illusions exist physically requires accepting a larger assumption than simply accepting qualia
Imagine a robot that has at two components designed by two different companies and assembled together by a third. Component 1 is not language capable. It's main goal is to protect the robot from physical harm such as getting burnt by fire. This system communicates by causing interference with the motor control such that the motors slow down or even come to a complete stop. So when the camera eyes see fire and the body senses heat, this component will try to make the robot to stop. This component also has memory. So if it encountered a fire in a kitchen once, it will mark kitchen as dangerous and cause motor function interference on seeing a kitchen even if there is no fire inside.
Component 2 has language and can control motors to accomplish goals. However Component 2 does not communicate with Component 1, and does not know about rules used by Component 1.
One day Component 2 decided to cook something in the kitchen. On going near the kitchen it experienced deterioration of motor control. It wanted to cook but something inside was resisting it's desire. Another robot observed this hesitation and asked for an explanation, which was "I do not know why, but I do not have a good feeling about cooking today. Perhaps I will go out to eat instead"
The mistake we make is to credit the language or decision making part of the robot to know everything about all the other thousands or even millions of other systems that work mostly independently.
The question about consciousness exists because we have at least two mostly independent systems in the brain, and only one can do language. To us, the language part, the other is mystical.
The quandary's of attempting to think about,totally dismantling ,compartmentalising in order to understand an extremely fragmented and fractal by nature function of the sentient being is so so very difficult almost as if questioning and the ability to think in complexity is almost a psychosis....if nature is meant to be 'natural'...you know acting sub consciously ...achieving a to b in the shortest time possible using as less energy as possible,when we achieve a physical action we tend to succeed when we 'just do it...second nature,not over thinking....is thought a kind of disease or condition....it seems the forbidden fruit or Aminita Muscaria mushroom which is what it was that I believe gave rise to the level of consciousness and awareness may be our downfall after all,a fungi,s natural defense mechanism being the ultimate and holding us in our tracks...adversely might it be our version of symbiosis with it and be something to behold...always it boils down to the pivetal battle between good and evil....which way will things go and determine our fate as a species... peace,love and stillness be in you brother
Robert still get ahead in the discussion. To register information about a the status of the robot (eg.: temperature energy, evaluation of status of any task at the moment, etc...) is not the same, IMO, to be aware in a human sense ( maybe some animals too). Awareness is in essence something beyond explanation. What is to be aware? autoreflective reflection about to be in a state of reflection. But to reflect about being aware seems an intrinsic property to being human ...
This conversation was awesome! It helped solidify, for me, the link between memory and conciousness. As soon as I finished watching I googled "Are babies conciousness?" and wondered how in the world I never thought much about that before. Some of the studies they have done on this are quite interesting. This may also be why the idea of having your memory erased is so scary and why many feel it would be the equivalent to death.
chewyjello1 This is a great question, but first ask yourself, when do you think you first became conscious? Can you think of what is the first "sense of consciousness" you can remember? First of all, note that if you and I don't both agree that consciouness exists, that question is meaningless. I don't think anyone would really say that they are not conscious once you talk back and forth a bit - as Wright and Frankish do. So "consciousness" certainly exists in that sense. But the question of when you first thought you became conscious brings to light the importance of memory. You can be aware without memory, as in fact some with brain damage are, but you cannot be self-aware or self-conscious without memory. The question "what is it like to be ..." has the implicit requirement that you are comparing one state of mind with another - a bat's, a friend, or a past state of mind. Consciousness then can be considered a concept that our brain has developed to keep track of our state of mind - past, present, or future. How can you tell if you are "in the present", or dreaming of some past experience? What we conceptualize as consciousness, for myself, is the ability to be in many different places but of one mind. Suppose you are watching a show describing a house someone is trying to buy or sell, with lots of nice features. You are both evaluating the rooms, fixtures, layout, yard, etc., and comparing that to your own home or living space. How do you really know which is which? How do you keep track of where you really are? Consciousness is the field of those mental spaces, which normally we can keep separate, while in schizophrenia the boundaries break down. I think the Velveteen Bunny becoming real is a great metaphor for the emergence of consciousness in children - children become conscious when they interact with others (parents, siblings, playmates) that make them realize that their conceptualizations about the world around them are also held by others.
self consciousness exists as part of any given instant of consciousness. this is why not just red is known but also that the knowing of red is occurring is known.
also any given memory is a transitory factor/content of consciousness occupying space in awareness but is not an intrinsic part of awareness which is why u easily forget things. wiping all memory would wipe much of the current content arising in consciousness but would do nothing to effect the space of awareness to continue into the next moment, all that would happen is you'd become emotionally agitated if ur prone to being attached and identified to memories the way common animals also are.
So Keith is claiming he has no subjective experience? I can't make head or tails of what he's saying.
I think he is claiming they have a different understanding of what the word subjective means.
@@chewyjello1 Same, but i'm not sure what Keith's understanding is.
@synchronium24 His understanding is that there are no “lights” that come on in a second medium where some inner “you” somehow perceives them “directly.” In other words, consciousness is not a show. What consciousness really is is a whole set of functional capabilities which allow us to monitor our environment and ourselves. One of these capabilities is our ability to reflect on and report on our perceptions and internal states, i.e. introspection. However, the idea that introspection somehow gives you an unfiltered, literal “view” of what’s going on in your mind is where illusions about consciousness creep in.
@@lenn939
infinite mass energy in infinite combination by definition cannot produce an emergent property which is not seen upon seeing the basis of that property.
furthermore we all know it all gets more and more clearly demonstrated that physical objects on any level possess the functions of being able to give rise to emergent propertie of mind the more we examine them
/facepalm
@@backwardthoughts1022 I have no idea what you're talking about, sorry
Prof. Frankish's endeavor to claim the phrase "what it is like" for the illusionist has not aged well at all. The illusionist literature has gone the other way, with basically every illusionist theorist starting their papers with phrases like: "Illusionism about consciousness is the view that there is nothing it is like to be anyone, merely that it seems that there is". I wonder why Frankish was trying so hard back then to avoid saying that.
On example from Kammerer: "For illusionists, none of our mental states instantiate phenomenal properties, and there is nothing it is like for us to be in any of our mental states."
I think he tried to avoid it because a lot of people have this visceral gut reaction to illusionism where they’ll think something like “OF COURSE there is something that it’s like to be me!! This view is just hopeless!” and then they won’t even entertain the idea.
It’s probably easier to convince people that there is something that it’s like to be them, it’s just not what they imagined, rather than that there’s nothing that it’s like to be them.
If there is something that it is like to be a bat, at what point in evolution does that “something” emerge? Is there something that it is like to be a sea urchin or an insect or a worm or a bacterium?
This is such a confusing topic. To add to the confusion I'll just say that point of view can also be that you don't exit and concious moments exist sometimes. We are always talking like we exist 100% of the time. We exist when we are observed kinda thing.
Quite interesting and yet odd discussion. The brain is a concept created by consciousness. Hence it cannot be the source of consciousness.
And materialism/physicalism are self-refuting. Do any intellectuals really believe this stuff?
When he talks about fire and tables and so forth, again he’s talking about concepts created by consciousness.
Also, he was mention the idea that everything is closed under causation. But if we take the physicists word for it, the measurement problem establishes that the cause of wave function collapse is not physical.
Seems like incoherent science to me.
At 49:00 approx Keith says the robot monitor his internal state but the problem is who is that internal robot who monitors it???? You can imagine a program which check the state of its sensors but that's not like being something! Just a program and how any programmer knows that's far from being something
felipe. According to Keith´s position (eliminativism) the whole shebang is illusory.
Seems that Keith say this about perception and experience:
1. You (aka biological robot) do not experience and perceive the external world (matter). You experience and perceive a virtual model produced in and by the brain.
2. You do not experience and perceive the internal world (mind). You experience and perceive a virtual model produced in and by the brain.
3. That what you call "I". That which experience and perceive the virtual models of an internal and external world (Consciousness), is also an aspect of the virtual model produced in and by the brain.
Thank for your kind answer
Well, that’s consistent with his position but not enough as prove. Consciousness is beyond that. Why Do I know that? Because I’m conscious. And I had hundreds of hours of meditation. Not needed by the way if you think about it 🙏🏻
felipe. I agree with you that Keith´s theory does not seem to be the most plausible explanation for Consciousness. Cheers.
@@MidiwaveProductions You wrote "I agree with you that Keith´s theory does not seem to be the most plausible explanation for Consciousness." What do you think is the most plausible explanation for consciousness? If you have a video link that'd be awesome.
@@Riley321b I regard consciousness as fundamental and matter as derived from consciousness. Since there is no convincing reason to believe matter exists (as an ontologically real substance outside and other than consciousness), and since consciousness self-evidently does exist; idealism seem to be the most plausible worldview.
**Materialism and dualism are false and idealism is true
P1. If materialism and dualism are true, the fundamental substance called matter must exist
P2. The fundamental substance called matter does not exist
P3. If idealism is true, the fundamental substance called consciousness must exist
P4. The fundamental substance called consciousness exists
C. Materialism and dualism are false and idealism is true
A video explaining idealism (monistic): /watch?v=KXAEhZ7S4Ao
What a great guest! I'm not sure about panpsychism, it seems to me that consciousness is tied to cognition, doesn't come to us as if we were dipping a bucket into a well of consciousness, and consciousness isn't additive in the manner of making a pool of consciousness. My reasons are that thoughts can only come one at a time, so this is our representation of time (different than actual time as in the speed of light, heartbeat etc) like we have representations of so many other things. Also, consciousness isn't additive, this is just an awareness of many conscious beings doing the same thing ie clapping, but it feels like a single entity to the performer or speaker, causing stage fright. Identity comes in here, again as a representation, that of a single entity "I". Representations are then a barrier to consciousness, especially the identity of the "I" and this is what meditation achieves, it diminishes representations.
KF’s best point is the arrogance underlying the idea that by closing your eyes and reflecting you can know something fundamental and universal about the world. The Fermi paradox is a refutation of Panpsychism
Yes, that's just the type of arrogance I'm talking about
I find this enormously interesting especially from 51:00 Like Robert I can't see how we can possibly think of a robot being conscious in the same way as we are EVEN IF it is a biological one. Yet Kevin thinks so. I believe the difference actually is in terms of the two men having different types of consciousness. Kevin remains purely at the level of concept. Not being able to imagine something that is other than physical processes (his frame of reference) he remains locked into the view that brain IS mind. Bernado Kastrup, a current Dutch thinker suggests that this view, that brain IS mind/consciousness, is THE fundamental projection/illusion of modern science. I wonder if Robert has chatted to him?
This series is not complete without an interview with Anirban Bandyopadhyay . All of these disputes would be settled if Wright & Co could get a grasp of WHAT information processing architecture IS used biophysically. These illusory arguments assume linear architectures which lead to a state transition "lock out", ala Searles's Chinese room.
The brain isn't linear. Instead nature has evolved a fractal unified language (proving Koch's bit based NN models incomplete).
Frankish isn't wrong. But he's not quite right until he understands that the fractal nature of our neural encoding and its interlocked clocking map does allow for a oneness of experience.
So basically, consciousness is diffuse?
40.28 ;D ;D bad ass question ;b
Where Bob states his objection after 52:00, that's where I get off HIS train. It is not an argument to say that consciousness is outside the mandate of evolutionary biology. Prove it.
I am an evolutionary biologist and you have no idea what you’re talking about. Explain to me specifically and mechanistically how consciousness evolved, and definitively tell me which organisms do and do not have consciousness.
Bender (Futurama) was conscious, and an alcoholic robot. But he got drunk on oil.
Listening to Keith Frankish trying to speak is a painful endeavour.
Read his books then.
and yet hes far more intelllectually honest than the pile of stacked trash bricks named dennett
this seemed like an argument, or talking at cross purposes, rather than an enlightening discussion or enquiry into Keith's views.
He's obviously such a very bright guest, but I feel as frustrated as Mr. Wright, when he squirms and doesn't really engage with RW's most fundamental question. It's some weird sort of dance, and I don't honestly believe it gets anyone anywhere. Maybe tenure. :-)
thank god for him otherwise u would be absent rigorous investigation that only rigorous opponents can easily provide
If Consciousness is an illusion.. in who's mind then? ... what a silly point of view... next!
What a silly objection.
@@lenn939 I don't think it is. The point is that it's absurd to think of illusions as having a stand-alone existence in and of themsleves. They are only illusions relative to a subject. So the objection implied in the commenter's question - illusion for whom? - is not at all silly, but grounded in a perfectly sound intuition about the nature of subjectivity and, indeed, reality.
@@vampireducks1622 What I find absurd is the notion that humans can have this profound insight into the metaphysics of reality simply by existing.
Of course there are still people who *have* the illusion. If Bob thinks that there’s a cartesian theater then Bob has that illusion. However, Bob does not have that illusion inside any cartesian theater (obviously), nor does he need to. The illusion exists simply in the form of a psychological process which reliably produces a certain conviction which doesn’t actually map onto reality. That’s all. As long as that psychological process is active, Bob will think and act *as if* there was a cartesian theater even if there isn’t one. That’s what makes it an illusion.
For the sake of argument, let’s propose for a moment that the cartesian theater isn’t actually an illusion. In this scenario, why does Bob act as if he believes that there’s a cartesian theater? Is it because there *is* a cartesian theater? Well, no, because physics is still causally closed and Bob’s behavior can still be entirely explained without ever invoking the existence of an actual cartesian theater. The only way to deny this is to reject the idea that physics is causally closed and to embrace cartesian dualism. Good luck finding any evidence of that. So you see, even if there were a cartesian theater, it wouldn’t even explain Bob’s stated conviction that there is a cartesian theater! There would need to be an entirely separate, entirely physical (or weakly emergent) explanation for Bob’s outwardly observable conviction that there is a cartesian theater. In this world, Bob’s conviction that there is a cartesian theater would only be right by sheer accident. What a miracle that would be indeed! Personally, I consider it a pretty safe bet that this *isn’t* the world we find ourselves in.
@@lenn939 "What I find absurd is the notion that humans can have this profound insight into the metaphysics of reality simply by existing." If humans having such basic intuitions, as nearly everyone does, as that illusions don't exist except in relation to a conscious subject is "absurd" (implausible) to you, I would suggest that is only because of some very basic and deeply ingrained (and inescapably metaphysical) assumptions you have about what human beings are.
@@lenn939 protip, only 19th century physics still thinks mass energy causally closed. everyone else whos not stuck just repeating dogma knows mass energy and space time are distinct but causally effective upon one another.
I am glad Robert Wright treats Illusionist views of consciousness with such disdain amd contempt
This guy is not a serious person, Bob. He is beneath you, to understate the matter.
You have got to be kidding. Bob is dismissive, he interrupts, makes jokes to sidestep Keith's actual argument and finally just says I can't accept the idea.
@@helenduffy5503 you must be asleep. listen to 58:00 onwards... Frankish does nothing except repeatedly appeal to magical thinking
Your conscious of things “colors, forms, touch,...” by learning them, if I don’t know them You’re not conscious of it. So consciousness is not an object to be experienced is just is. The illusion of a self is just a tool used for survival and reproduction. Yes our intellect helps to get laid.😂