The illusion of consciousness | Dan Dennett
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- Опубликовано: 2 май 2007
- www.ted.com Philosopher Dan Dennett makes a compelling argument that not only don't we understand our own consciousness, but that half the time our brains are actively fooling us.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
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A brilliant mind, may he rest in peace.
He was a truly beautiful mind. A true philosopher. May his ideas continue to spark.
i am not the voice thinking in my head. i am the awareness of the voice.
Well that's kinda deep.
exactly ... but nobody wants to go there in the lab.
Consciousness is a dumping ground for thoughts, feelings, and mental imagery.
It has no power to DO anything. It is merely a witness of your non-conscious activity.
You have zero free will. Your non-conscious already decided what to do next well before it told your consciousness about it.
You are a back seat passenger to a life unfolding.
@@onemoreidea8379
You not only failed to refute anything I've claimed, your reply only serves to confirm your housefly intellect.
@One more idea
The reason I'm on YouTard is already addressed in detail in the pinned comment on my channel's main video
The fact that my senses play tricks on my mind is not the illusion of consciousness, the fact that I am aware of my brain playing tricks on me is consciousness.
Maybe it's not the thing knowing it's a thing, it's a thing knowing the other things are things.
It seems that Buddha said I was meditating , silent , very careful but i could not sense anything like presence of god but there was only emptiness. After thousand and odd years, AdiSankara replied that being aware of not sensing anything except emptiness is actually pure consciousness , godliness .
Awareness is not consciousness. You are consciousness in that you are present and have the feeling “I am here.” regardless of any information you have about your body or the situation or history or thoughts or perceptions. Just raw “I am”. Even in dreaming. Awareness is finer and you CAN be aware that you are conscious, and even aware of awareness (a different experience).
Or so you think.
The fact that you are aware, that is consciousness. It is that simple. Illusions or not illusions are just content. Consciousness is beyond content.
Dan Dennett appears at my local department store every mid December and lets people sit on his lap. He wears a red velvety jump suit and is always in a good mood. He NEVER talks about such things as here. He is always jolly.
What😂
That's not Santa Clause man, don't be silly.
It's David letterman, and he comes with a pencil that has an eraser on both ends.
This guy is amazing.... He gave a TED talk on consciousness without saying a SINGLE THING about consciousness. Wow....
Cormac Beirne enlighten me, then....
This is what Daniel Dennett does all the time
That’s his whole point.
Actually he did, he said he knows more about my consciousness than I do :-)
@@peterhladky5481 and he does
"We are all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality.” Anil Seth … neuroscientist.
I find this kinda true, because sometimes I try to zone out of it and make up faint images of everything dissolving in my mind but am never able to expand it,
Nothing significant... 18-19th century psychologists would have already worked on such idea. 🙂
@@terminusadquem6981 If those 18th and 19th century psychologists had thought that they were hallucinating when they gave their supposed professional advise and charged money for that advise, do you think people would have paid them?
People in religion (for instance) did not, and do NOT want to be told that they are hallucinating, when they are absolutely certain that a savior is going to materialize on earth, and take their souls off to heaven, and reward their souls with eternal bliss.
I see the illusion of a documentary as a disguise for a BMW advert
The video was an illousion of a conscious video. The info was so useless I almost b came unconscious.
That about sums this lecture up for sure!
Optical illusions in 240p... BRILLIANT !!!
...Also: GET YOUR VOLUMES RIGHT!!!! I nearly got a heart attack in the end!!! )) ) ) ) ) ) ...Jesus
This is what i told my mom dejavu is when I was a teen.
It is a moment your brain is triggered by details of a situation that resemble a previously suggested hypothetical scenario and instantaneously suggests and remembers a collection of enough suggested detail to trigger what feels like a memory of what is happening as it is occuring as a situation that has already happened as it is unfolding.
Exactly
I like that. Ima use that
Deja Vu is the skill of some part of the being, in some level or dimension see the others levels of you, that is living, like see another timeline! Many people from ancient times to now, could use this skill, it's genetic skill was developed by a certain way of life,and routines!
Hmm... he does a great job of demonstrating how optical illusions affect visual perception, but that doesn't explain how the brain creates conscious experience...
+DeadSirius Missing the point. The fact that you think you're aware of something even though it's demonstrated that you aren't is the very definition of having an illusion which is what he's trying to convey. It's an illusion of awareness. How the brain exhibits this illusion is an entirely different question that depends on all the billions of complex interactions between neurons.
+Jon 93 Using that same line of reasoning you could deduce that the whole of reality is an illusion. Since all of what we perceive in objective reality is filtered and processed by the subject - and you're saying that subjective awareness is illusory - how can we possibly "know" anything about the world out there? Beyond the 'phaneron,' as it's called.
It still does not explain why awareness/consciousness exists in the first place. To say that it's simply a by-product of the complex electro-chemical interactions in the brain is purely speculative. It would be nice to know HOW it is, since that is what science aims to explain, right? It's not that people want it to remain a mystery, like the analogy Dennett uses of the audience of a magic act. I myself am perfectly open to a cogent scientific explanation to the mechanistic origins of consciousness, but in order for one to come about I think the scientific paradigm needs to expand and start acknowledging the existence of certain phenomena.
***** "Consciousness" is essentially just a term for perception in all its forms along with memory of those perceptions. Haptic, visual, auditory, etc. If you lose both visual, auditory, olfactory, and haptic perception along with the memories of such perceptions then the brain loses function and the concept of "consciousness" becomes meaningless since there's nothing to perceive and process by that brain and nothing to think about since no memories have been recorded. No pain or anything.
So yes. If your entire brain was dedicated to visual perception and someone had sewn your eyes together at birth or something you wouldn't really be "conscious".
Ergo; Since your perceptions do not represent what you think they do* then your perceptions are fundamentally illusions as well. Thus your "consciousness" is also an illusion per the definition.
* There are lots of macro-scale examples of visual, auditory, haptic, and yes; even olfactory illusions -- and these are all essentially the same biological function so illusions are to be expected for all of them. Everything you perceive has to be truncated by the brain into shapes and patterns which are themselves essentially illusions (even sounds, smells, etc.).
We call the more macro-scale phenomena of this pareidolia, but we effectively exhibit a sort of micro-scale pareidolia for everything since the brain really can't process and infer where e.g. each of all the billions of photons hitting your eye receptors came from or where each wavefront packet came from. So it truncates it into a much simpler memorable pattern.
This of course comes as no surprise given how evolution favors pattern "recognition" (more like pattern induction) in all forms in order to simplify the narrative and ultimately promote survival.
+Jon 93 Interesting point. If there was nothing to perceive, i.e., no sensory input, then we would be effectively unconscious. Moreover, dreams or thoughts wouldn't even occur because they are based on memories of past visual, auditory, haptic (thanks for teaching me a new word, by the way!), olfactory and gustatory perceptions.
But it still doesn't quite get to the root of my question. Why does conscious experience exist in the first place? Or rather, why doesn't all of this sensory processing go on in the dark? We KNOW we are alive - aware, conscious, sentient, etc. If the universe is purely material in nature, then surely this immaterial sense of 'I-ness' should not even be there.
This question can be easily misinterpreted because it is difficult to communicate conscious experience in its rawest form, since language is our common currency in exchanging information about phenomena that are fundamentally OBJECTIVE. We can easily address how the brain processes sensory stimuli to create perception, but we cannot seem to address the origins of the source of this perception, i.e., the subject perceiving. As an analogy, we can each exchange experiences of what it is like to see the colour blue, but there is no way in which we can unambiguously communicate what 'blue' actually is, nor how the billions of electrochemical interactions between the neurons in our brains give rise to the experience of 'blue'. Even though, viscerally, we can all appreciate what 'blue' is.
Consciousness goes a lot deeper than perception. It transcends it. It is the source OF perception. It is the subject that IS perceiving.
+Walk Light are u concious when i deep.sleep? no. did you remember your sutle dream?no consiousness is the brain activity which you falsely claim "i". so is an illusion
Did I miss the part where he addressed consciousness
jk no one is really talking about consciousness when they present a theory of it, at best they're referring to a social event and at worst they're talking about something entirely different (attention, information processing), and we're fooled into thinking that there is a coherent field of thought because no one distinguishes the terminology in their language-games
He did not address it. He did not even touch on the question of consciousness.
biebersgurl98 I was wondering the same thing. There is absolutely no reference to consciousness here. I think this is just someone on the gravy train.
ancient optical illusions are the gist of this NEW theory?
The talk wasn’t about the meaning or origins of consciousness, rather it was addressing our perception that we are experts who know all, see all, even control all, aspects of our own conscious experience and therefore dismiss folk like him who try to educate us.
He never talk about consciousness, it was a talk about perception, which is very different
*"peoples memories inflate what they think they saw and the same is true of consciousness."* _- Dan Dennett_
I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I've would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few days/weeks in his memory, I was distraught to know that my favorite philosopher/intellectual passed away, got some consolation that his lectures will be online and I can watch them over and over again 1:00
The Illusion of Talking About Consciousness.
His speach was so useless I almost b came unconscious.
Only awareness exists, but what we are watching does not
For people here who can’t follow along, early in the video he mentioned how philosophers tend to talk about things by referencing around the edges of a concept so that listeners can triangulate the answer for themselves. This is why he didn’t give a direct explanation of consciousness here. He specifically said that he wouldn’t.
What he is implying is pretty clear. His examples show that our brain (without our knowledge) fills in the gaps, even when there is no information. We are doing the same thing when we arrogantly claim to understand our consciousness. The point is that we don’t care that we don’t have information. We are inclined to make things up anyways.
All he is trying to do here is reduce the total level of arrogance that people have about their conception of consciousness. Look at the comments, and you can see the level of arrogance he’s contending with.
@@MrClockw3rk He should try something else. What he's doing is clearly no more effective than the "knock out" argumentation technique that he describes at the beginning. And for those who are already fascinated by consciousness (like myself), they're not filling in any gaps with bogus data. The whole speech was a waste.
cognitive dissident if he did what you wanted him to do, his ideas would be rejected even more aggressively. People are absolutely filling in gaps with bogus data. Look at all the comments under this video, and the comments under every other video on consciousness on RUclips. They mainly consist of people who insist that pshychadelic experiences are the only legitimate method for understanding the topic. Science is out, logic is out, “spiritual” experience is in. They are completely certain of themselves, with no room for interpretation, like religious zealots. Arrogant to the core.
This is not about conciousness its about awareness of conscious cognitive functions.
Dan Dennett ..master twister of truth.
....Or Master Magician????
That is 23 minutes and 45 seconds of my life that I never get to undo or get back.
This had nothing to do with consciousness, only cognitive recognition.
You are so right... the more words they use to explain consciousness, the less they know on subject...
Senses
Cognitive recognition is not possible without consciousness, so therein lies the conundrum.
@@AM-xe4iq what about consciousness of own self consciousness? Self consciousness many animals have magpies etc
prove that there is something other than cognitive recognition
For Heaven's sake normalize the volume on this video. Oi vey.
For fucks sakes!! right?!
I SECOND THIS MOTION AND MOVE TO
..the next video.
*Can I get a gavel up in here?!
It's because he's not actually conscious, so therefore he's not really talking, and you're not really hearing it, since you're not conscious either... It's all just an illusion caused by lots of stupid cells firing in concert. But I didn't write that BECAUSE I'M NOT CONSCIOUS EITHER.
this was 2007 babe
For real!!! I turned it so far down in the beginning? I didn't know if this was the part when my consciousness was supposed to start talking to me.
Haaaahahaahah this comment made me LAUGH SO HARD. Thank you.😂🤗😂
For people who can’t follow along, early in the video he mentioned how philosophers tend to talk about things by referencing around the edges of a concept so that listeners can triangulate the answer for themselves. This is why he didn’t give a direct explanation of consciousness here. He specifically said that he wouldn’t.
What he is implying is pretty clear. His examples show that our brain (without our knowledge) fills in the gaps, even when there is no information. We are doing the same thing when we arrogantly claim to understand our consciousness. We don’t care that we don’t have information. We are inclined to make things up anyways.
All he is trying to do here is reduce the total level of arrogance that people have about their conception of consciousness. Look at the comments, and you can see the level of arrogance he’s contending with.
Many would say the arrogance is largely on the part of the speaker himself, since he pretends to have an understanding he does not possess. His is a very shallow attempt to portray perception as the key to understanding consciousness.
I fundamentally disagree with his analogy and interpretation of consciousness
axe2grind911a we don’t really know what he thinks about consciousness from this talk since he didn’t actually explain his view. He gave this talk because he realizes that arguing his view directly doesn’t really change anyone’s mind since everyone thinks they are already an expert.
I would argue that most of the arrogance comes from everyday people who think that taking a few psychedelics makes them a consciousness guru.
That’s why this is an important talk. He’s trying to get at the root of the social pathology that has developed around a topic that deserves more humility. He believes arrogance is preventing people from considering even the knowledge that’s already available.
He references the psychological studies to show how error prone human cognition is, and to show how that sort of self-deception likely extends to our thinking about consciousness itself.
SleezDeez he didn’t provide one here
Because the missing piece is imagination
Why is this man so respected?
He's got a title, a beard, a big belly, wire-rimmed glasses and he's bald.
Read his wikipedia bio, dummy.
And you're more than welcome to upload your own better video, idiot, lol.
TasteMyStinkhole
You don’t need to go to wiki to work out he’s giving a very shallow talk on consciousness.
Because the world has gone nuts
@@79Lexxus
-->"I recommend Getting Laid"
I've been married 20 years, and if you visit my channel you'll get a small glimpse of how awesome my life is.
-->"why are you so angry?"
Stupidity and ignorance impose very high costs on society. More welfare programs, more police/prison/court costs, more medical costs, ..., ... raising the cost of living for everyone in higher taxes.
Ideally, we would ship off the country's stupid people to their own island nation where they can create their own paradise of criminality, despair, and desolation.
Until that happens, my best option is to go to YouTard, where all the worlds trash gathers in the comments, and give them the intellectual beat downs they have earned.
Imagine the paradise the U.S. would be if we shipped all our drug addicts to MexiCOKE and solve two problems simultaneously....
1. MexiCOKE won't have to smuggle their drugs to the U.S., they can distribute them to the locals we sent to them.
2. The U.S. can be rid of the enormous burden that human garbage drug addicts impose on us. Tens of millions of fewer crimes, fewer hospital visits, fewer arrests and prosecutions, .... what a paradise.
Anyway, stupid people should be hated with a passion, and stupidity in all its forms is evil and despicable.
A good speech about perception but hardly an explanation of consciousness.
Perception is a huge part of consciousness wouldn't you say?
@@fietspompje259 Not if it's about consciousness & perception is a way of explaining consciousness :p
you see only what you know.
@@shaunk.s.1556 no it's not
Antonio Damasio is better at explaining it. 🙂
he's talking about perception more than consciousness
I have read Dennett's papers and heard numerous interviews with him on illusionism and I still have no idea what hos actual cliam is ontologically or phenomenonally.
This presentation has as much handwaving as a magic show!
Right!
That’s a fault on your part, not his.
@@SellarsJonesa statement of pure faith no better than, "Jesus is our saviour". Philosophy 101 is that you have to SHOW why something in incorrect. Only our mothers care about our opinions.
Dennett's central claim is that there are no categories of things called qualia or conciousness. But he is unable to explain WHY this category of things should be dismissed as an ontological primitive. As my supervisor Reynolds argues, "views that deny these distinctions still need to explain the putative differences in how it arises" (Reynolds 2022). In other words - for Illusionism to be persuasive you have to explain why perception mispercieves conciousness. Instead, Dennett just assures us it does because if we accept conciousness as an ontological primitive that creates a problem for the worldview of physicalism that cant explain it. In short, Dennett's claim has absolutely no explanatory power - which is the requisite for a persuasive thesis. Just claiming something is true isnt even a philosophical argument - it's just a statement which is alll that Illusionism is because it has no thesis or justification.
As Strawson observes of Illusionism, "we should feel very sober, and a little afraid at the power of human credulity to be gripped by theory, by faith. For this particular denial (the denial of conciousness) is the strangest thing that has ever happened in the history of human thought" (Strawson 2006:6). In other words Dennett is denying the one single fact we can be certain of - experience.
You also need to think about how denying experience also denies empiricism which is the fundamental basis of the scientific method. In fact, as an illusion cannot be a basis for any reliable epistemology - Illusionism wipes out the whole basis of human knowledge.
Anyway you've identified yourself as an expert so I look forward to hearing your justification for Illusionism & see how you provide an account for the illusion?
@@dhammaboy1203 the “showing-why” is not a single category (Dennett explores it suggestively in the video), and it’s partitioned to different disciplines (ever wondered why in the 19th century, psychology and physiology were different disciplines yet same subject-matter?).
Dennett indeed *does* argue on various occasions for how consciousness pervades our use of language as well as identifying the root of the problem, which he identifies as social norms, and since social norms lack normative force, he is entitled ipso facto to discard any ontologically positive understanding of consciousness.
Now, the rest of your comment is way too long for me to comment on, so I’ll just focus on one particular point you made, i.e. a reckoning against enpiricism that is the result of Dennett’s investigations.
(1) There is no inference to the idea that an undermining of empiricism is an undermining of “the” scientific method. Post-20th century, most scientific theories aren’t even observationally-primary.
(2) Admiring and accepting consciousness is more contra empiricism than Dennett’s investigations. This idea of a spooky workspace that produces non-inferential entities called “qualia” is somehow a more sympathetically empiricist idea is historically contra empiricist advocates. Have you actually read any genuine “empiricists” for the past 100 years? Ryle? Sellars? Wittgenstein? Geach? Anscombe? They have all disavowed “consciousness” in the spooky sense you purport as nonsense.
@@SellarsJones (1) the problems is not that undermining empiricism in turn undermines the scientific method. The problem is that first person interpretations cannot be separated from our epistemology. If the interpreter is an illusion - any knowledge interpreted by it is unreliable. You cant have knowledge without interpretation.
The problem you are also evading on the weak claim "that my response is too long" is that you're cherry-picking what I said and ignoring the central counter to illusionism. Add to that your need to keep falling back to argument ad hominem. Yes I have read Sellar's RE the myth of the given & Weinstein's PI - no need for you to pop on the hat of Captain Condescending. That doesn't win arguments - it just makes you look like you cant make any! It's desperate & base.
Engage with the primary critique of Dennett - namely that if you cannot account for why perception seems to give rise to the appearance of conciousness - all you have is acrobatics of philosophical abstraction.
You have also failed to back up your first claim that I don't understand Illusionism. Less hot air and more substance.
I never stop being concious of how genuinely funny intelligent people can be..... great Ted talk
I totally don't understand his use of the term "Consciousness". Everything in this lecture was about perceptions and how things are perceived. It's not about what I would call "consciousness". For me, consciousness is the actually experience of having perceived something. Precisely how something was perceived is irrelevant to consciousness. Although it may be relevant to how well perception matches the reality of the stimuli that causes the perception to occur. .
This is why the title of this Ted Talk throws me for a loop. How could consciousness be an illusion? Just exactly what is it that is experiencing this illusion? That is the thing I would define as "consciousness". It would seem to me that for someone who claims to be dedicated to studying consciousness Dan Dennett, as popular and educated as he may be, doesn't seem to have a clue what consciousness even means.
Perception is not consciousness. Having the experience of perceiving is consciousness. And even if that experience of perception is all wrong, or even dictated by how the brain functions, it's still the fact that some entity is having this experience that is "Consciousness".
In fact, consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with intellectually understanding things. You could be completely delirious, totally confused, and have no understanding at all of what you are currently experiencing, yet the mere fact that you are aware that you are having an experience is "Consciousness". You don't go "unconscious" until you black out entirely.
Therefore, Consciousness equals the ability to have an experience. How could that be an "illusion"? Just exactly what is it that is experiencing this illusion? That is the thing that I would say is "Consciousness".
It seems to me to be absurd to speak of an "illusion" of consciousness
Just my thoughts I thought I'd post for whatever they might be worth. .
We humans have the unique ability to reach the farthest corners of the universe (infinity), but cannot perceive infinity.
Consciousness is an extremely complicated concept. Do we know the definitions of simpler concepts like force, mass, space, time, charge etc.?
Consciousness is a divine gift, and is proof of how man and the 'intelligent designer' compliment each other, and is also proof of a divine 'purpose'.
Why do you think your consciousness/experience is more than perception and reaction to perception? The illusion is not of consciousness, but of what we think of as consciousness.
whats the difference between perception and the experience of having perceived something?
I build robots. The robots have sensors that produce electrical signals that the robot can "perceive". In other words, the robot obviously obtains the stimuli from the sensors. In fact, I write programs to react to these "perceptions" from the sensors and cause the robots to in-turn react to what the sensors had "perceived". You might even go as far as suggesting that how my program reacts to the sensory input equates to how the program had "perceived" the input.
But we don't imagine that there is anything in this robot that actually experiences these "perceptions". You could say that the program "experienced" the perception because it clearly reacted to the signal. But that's obviously not what we mean when we say that we have experienced something. We are having an experience, the robot is not. So clearly there is far more going on than just sensory perception.
How do you know that it isn't possible to built a sufficiently complex robot that would have conscious experience? Maybe with enough wires, transistors and circuit boards, a robot would experience consciousness.
I was actually excited when he was warned people how he would shake their very faith in the concept of their own consciousness.
Very disappointing.
I was so disappointed I b came unconscious after listening 2 him.
What did you seriously expect? Debunking what the average man holds sacred is a cheap parlor trick for people trying to make a name for themselves.
I know!!!!!!
A true master of sophistry
Rest in peace, Sir.
To save time, here's the argument;
A lot of people think they know what consciousness is, but only I do.
Because I am a philosopher.
Since nobody knows what it is, it's what I think it is and you can't argue.
People tell me that pigs have curly tails and I say "what about a cat?" And all those hilarious fools can say is; " a cat is not a pig".
Well, it is.
Consciousness is when you see stuff. But years of research have shown me that when you see stuff you use your eyes. Those things are nothing but cells! And sometimes you mistake what you see!
So there's no consciousness.
+Roopi Doopi LOL. Has he gone bonkers?
+Roopi Doopi - I never heard him say that there is no consciousness. Just that it is not magic. And since you (perhaps) get a dopamine payout when you consider yourself connected to magic, you are offended at those who, through reason, would deny you your dopamine.
+Endo Alley I don't think you understand Dennett's argument. He is saying consciousness is an illusion.
If it is, then whatever we experience is a result of that illusion, including his own conclusion that consciousness is an illusion.
If this is not a contradiction, I don't know what is.
+dubunking - I don't know if Dennett is saying consciousness is an illusion. It seems more that he is saying that many of our untested beliefs and opinions about consciousness are not necessarily sound. Our naïve mental representation of our own consciousness is an illusion. And that there are other explanations which are more sound.
+Endo Alley He is. The title of the video says so. If you read any of his books, he is trotting out the same line.
I am afraid he has paint himself into a corner. But then again, why should he care. He is near retirement now. Nothing can happen to him.
LOL.
Dan Dennett: The illusion of a presentation on consciousness.
Rest in peace, Daniel Dennett. While I find his argumentation for the unreality of consciousness somewhat infuriating, he was also a champion for reason, and a fighter against the tyranny of religion and mysticism. He now joins his doppelganger and sort-of brother in arms, James Randi, in the great void. Thank you, professor!
The illusions in consciousness would have been a better title.
Beware of the loud outro!
I turned it off and then out of curiosity looked to see if anyone else was irritated by that awful musical intro. Idiotic.
Steiner Sound studios RUclips needs volume normalisation
Felt like TED punched me in the face with that "DUUUNN!"
too late. 3.30 am too
could you repeat that? i can't hear after the end of the video
Just showing some visual perception illusions is not useful, this video is just a waste of time.
+Kanai Krsna dasa Then you're missing the main point. The fact that you think you're aware of something even though it's demonstrated that you aren't is the very definition of having an illusion. It's an illusion of awareness. One that can be quantified through these experiments where our perception is limited.
To put it in different words: The fact that our perception is limited isn't the crux of the argument. It's the fact that we think we perceive something that we aren't. So given that "consciousness" is defined as awareness it is essentially an illusion.
Jon 93 imperfect consciousness can be elevated to almost perfect.
How can you perceive something that you're not perceiving?
Even the perception of an illusion is a perception.
Anyway, when one says they are conscious, they aren't making a claim about the validity of their perceptions; they are expressing the simple fact that there is experience. That is how the word is used. When scientists study consciousness, they are explicitly studying some aspect(s) of the behaviour of the brain/mind. That is another way the word is used. One should be careful not to equate the two, and should always state which one they are referring to in order to avoid this whole pointless shitshow.
I thought it was interesting, although... did it make a point about consciousness... no not really.
That's what he wanted yr conscious mind 2 blieve. He actually used mind altering pics 2 send yr unconscious mind messages.
I know when I'm asleep I'm unconscious until the cat wants food.
Pulse2AM Schrödinger’s cat is going to meow before sometimes before it died.
I love these professor types.
I wrote an essay in my undergrad using this line of thinking (optical illusions) to support the concept of indirect realism, however I would never use it to say that we don't have consciousness. I don't think the two topics equate because he doesn't address the 'it'. Rather than addressing the 'it' he is essentially just showing how our sense perception is faulty. The problem is many philosophers who are immaterialists would agree with him, but they would not argue that consciousness does not exist. Descartes was fully aware of sensory deception, but still argued that he was a thinking thing.
Consciousness is not illusion, magic, deception, voo-doo is.
I agree with you.
www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/exodus/30/#v2030012?insight[search_id]=48d94541-936b-4574-ac0a-8da49b1cd7f2&insight[search_result_index]=237
I agree. However, taking Descartes' argument further, is there consciousness between the gaps of thoughts?
Do we suddenly lose consciousness when we stop thinking? To me, the way I see it, thoughts are no different than emotions, perceptions, and any other "experience objects" that appear in consciousness. They come and they go. There is a constant background that seems to enable "conscious experience".
Instead of "I think, therefore I am", it might be more accurate to say "I experience/witness, therefore I am". But of course, without thoughts you can't doubt. So it is only valid to say consciousness is "self evident".
Bryan U I believe when he uses that term he is referring to awareness just as you stated. It is a very hard term to define but I understand your point and agree.
If consciousness is an illusion, then who, or what, is having the illusion?
If an illusion is an illusion, then who cares?
4:24 ~ 100T little cellular robots(automata).
The BMW robots
Base consciousness is when your awareness has been manipulated. The effects on perception puts you into states, functions, modes of conduct according to that manipulation and the desired effect. A psychological operation is transduced as a pre-packaged illusion. Compartmentalisation in effect keeps things hidden from active participants who are oblivious to such manipulations. Not being concious of the manipulation is mind control. Conciousness has a direct effect on the physical medium. What this artificial technique is doing is altering your consciousness and fabricating your awareness which is an illusion/psyop your attention has been fixed on. Explaining degrees of consciousness has many layers of deceptions because perception management is an active program. Being conscious is an euphemism for indoctrination. Your are only aware of, of what you have been instructed to believe.
We r ! Our conscious mind hears the info as not useful. Our unconscious mind is reaching by showing pics only our unconscious mind can understands. It's an exspirament
I would love to see him in a discussion with Bernardo Kastrup- that would be fun.
If consciousness is an illusion, WHAT is it that is experiencing the illusion other than consciousness itself? We are consciously having the experience. Dennett's self-defeating argument. And WHAT is it that is understanding Dennett's argument? And WHAT is it that rejects Dennett's argument?
Dennett is just absolutely brilliant - okay, if consciousness is an illusion, what is experiencing said illusion?
because he just become aware of illusion ....
so his consciousness is not in illusion but in reality, yes?
God
Not about consciousness but great stuff about perception
After just the first minute & 8 seconds.... I’m hooked. I’m watching the entire video !
Like Dan Dennett said, his presentation is about an aspect of a phenomena about consciousness but I'd rather learn more about the way he talked about Canaleto! Examining the shapes in the painting concerning how our consciouness recreates the images to represent what we perceive them to be. That area was really what I felt to be worthy of interest.
That turned out to be neither interesting nor informative. Can I get that 23:45 back?
Maybe you shouldn't watch TED talks.
you should have watched in 2x hahahA!! XoXO
I wish I felt like my time was valuable.
Thanks for warning me before I wasted all that time.
Snickering very calmly ....with one eye glazed over it was letting the other eye try being an adult tonight for itself first baby steps cant hurt after 61 years being a calm loving keystroke of a adult androgynous child
I always wonder simply and childishly....what am I without my eyes? I like to ask friends and family this question as I make deep eye contact with them. I feel that we forget how much we rely ofln them and how completely we could go on loving without them. I have always wondered how the brains of blind people work differently than my own. I would love more information about how our brain functions without explanations based on visual cues and ocular tricks. I feel it's a little shallow to focus only on how we take the world in visually when talking about consciousness. maybe it was just in this talk that Dan seems to focus on this a bit to much.
Dennett is the court jester for the Kings of materialism. He tries to make consciousness disappear with his verbal magic act. He's funny, I'll give him that.
Bong Gnostic well... where is it, then?
@@Ashrubel anything that can be pointed to is an object within consciousness
A B Can you point a finger at a finger which is pointing at itself?
Who is the pointer? What is the point?
Can't you criticise someone with some humility?
@@Malloubyn you tell me. You're the one walking around with a particular definition of "humility" in your head that has caused you to be triggered by my comment
I like the way he discuss disclosing how hard it is for us to he convinced the nature of consciousness
I swear people can spew absolute nonsense and get away with it, as long as you attach a big name like Dennett to it.
How can a professor, who presumably is paid, confuse consciousness with perception?
My thoughts exactly. He's not only a professor he is fucking famous. This alone just boggles my mind. Britney Spears has more reason to be famous than this guy.
It’s called hubris and limited understanding.
A very apt comment.
How to sepperate them? The one is meaningless without the other.
Perhaps they're aspects of one and the same thing...
Perhaps the same is true of every thing...
You articulated what was bubbling away at the back of my consciousness, or maybe the correct word is "Awareness"
Such a good speaker!
I think my brain lost a wrinkle watching this.
Mr. Dennet very roughly mixed up few concepts such as mind, perception and consciousness, which are not the same "thing". My intention is not to bring up various definitions, but obviously the hard problem of consciousness wasn't discusses here so the correct title for this particular presentation, imho, should be "the imperefections of human perception".
Tomislav Ocvirek the hard problem of consciousness isn't hard.
selvmordspilot
Yes it is. There are hypothetical solutions but the reason it is hard is because none of those hypothesis' can be supported with evidence. Unfortunately many people who are determinists have never actually put their theory to the test by taking DMT or Magic Mushrooms, or even by doing meditation. When you try/do these things you may realize just how hard the problem is; its impossible.
davis3d I'm a determinist, and I have confirmed my theory with LSD and meditation.
so yeah... not that hard.
selvmordspilot
Did you not gain an drastically increased awareness under the influence of LSD? I understand some people have different results than others. The only atheist I have met in person who has taken lsd did not experience fractals or an increase in consciousness - both of which I expect would atleast force an agnostic position on anyone with an open mind.
davis3d Haha! I'd say it alters awareness. I'm not so sure it increases it. I had visual distortions and the like, but it was oddly unimaginative. Nothing that blew my mind, so to speak. I came down from it, feeling very distinctly that I am a stupid biochemical machine, who ate something that acted on my biochemistry.
I feel like you'd have to not want to know the truth, in order to interpret it differently. So maybe I shouldn't push it on people... hm
Well this dispelled the illusion of consciousness for me, I've tried watching this 3 times so far and each time I nodded off after about tin minutes
So did I. See my comment posted about 12 hours after yours.
Nice
The incredible difference in the volume of the intro music and the volume of the content of the video is a psychological illusion
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk
Consciousness, in my opinion, is a whole . It just is , our individual minds are only vessels viewing bits and pieces of it. Perceiving it in our own individual experiences at least that’s what I think. If reality is just reality it cannot change indefinitely if it’s already happened , only be looked at or experienced from different perspectives.
Good explanation here~!~ The problem with human beings is, we love to be a part of
the experiences of a person (or persons) and even when we can't, we will lie to ourselves and others that we actually managed to do so~!~ To which the slogan I've come up with describing such ridiculousness is: ~Human Beings~ ............ we're all........... full o' shite~!~ (I used the King's English!!! Lol!!!).
Now, I finally understand the difference between a magician and a clown
I agree with someone who commented below that this seems to be a discussion on “perception” and “point of view” rather than consciousness. As an artist, I practice tricking the eye just as a magician does, by using nuances of color, a variety of brush strokes, and light vs. dark. Although our perception is that a 2d bowl of fruit appears to have dimension and volume and our eyes are in a way being tricked, we are still fully conscious and aware of our self and surroundings. I think the title would be more appropriately named “Within consciousness there are illusions”.
What an entertainer
in todays episode of TED talks, a guy denies his own existence!
Funny and beautifully put in the shortest possible form!
I became once more convinced about the better thinking skills of my own compared to that of one more professor. Thank you Mr Dennett.
I like Alan Watts description of everything in the world even concerning our own thoughts and the voice in our head is just “noise” all of it is noise. It has become the single most powerful way for me to calm my mind in any situation , everything is just noise all of it.
10:40 not noticing the changes is not because of the fovea, it has to do with attention. They’ve done studies where they’ve had someone stare directly at a shape while focusing elsewhere, and they don’t notice when the shape they’ve been staring directly at changes because they weren’t attending to it
I'm sorry I wasted 23 minutes trying to become conscious of the fact that I'm not conscious...
That's what he wanted u 2 think. His speach contacted the conscious mind. His real purpos was 2 reach the unconscious mind by showing the pics & video. We need 2 awaken the unconscious mind b4 we can bcome conscious.
Shut up you bunch of cells.
It is like saying a steak will talk to you!
It too is a bunch of cells. So is a tree?
You were never told you were not conscious. That is something you came up with and it is wrong completely. That was his point.
That's funny.☆
Generally speaking... An unanswered question does not make for very good reason to overturn indelible experience.
thank you for the music
the song 's you're singing
who can live without it?
so thanks
Intro music is absolutely brilliant 🤯
The more I watched and listened, the more concerned I became about this mans health and shortness of breath. Sounds like a chap I knew who had a failing heart!
well hes nearly 80 years old, it is fairly normal at that age.
I'm thinking of studying neuroscience after by bachelors in psychology, I just can't stop thinking about consciousness.
why really inspire you to study about consciousness ?
There are a lot of people on this page complaining that Dennett doesn't really prove that consciousness is an illusion, and I agree that he doesn't really give you the full story here. The purpose of this video is to shake your confidence in the idea that you understand your own consciousness, but he never gets around to telling you what to do with that knowledge. I will attempt to explain.
First, I would like to point out that the video title is misleading. If I understand Dennett correctly (from reading some of his other writings), he doesn't deny the *existence* of consciousness per se. Instead, he asks: "would the existence of consciousness make any difference in terms of observable behavior?" and he answers in the negative. Our behaviors, Dennett claims, are exactly the same as what they would be if we were very sophisticated but nevertheless unconscious and unfeeling robots/zombies. The conclusion he draws is that consciousness is merely another name for (or perspective on) various physical phenomena related to mental states, neural firing patterns, etc.
Then there is the question of why my brain presents me with vivid qualia such as colors and smells while if I probe yours with scalpels and electrodes, all I see is meat. The reason for this privileged first-person perspective (which we all claim to experience) is not something that science has adequately explained, which is why it is known as the "hard problem" of consciousness. I suspect that it is simply a "built-in" property of the universe and that any sufficiently complex system has the potential to perceive in this way. I have a theory that the key to understanding the hard problem may lie in the dichotomy between quantum states which collapse when we observe them and unobserved quantum states which evolve probabilistically without any change in information content. Again, however, the question is: does the observed state behave any differently than the unobserved one in any scientifically verifiable way? From what I understand of quantum mechanics, the answer is no.
We may refer to this first-person perspective as "consciousness" if we like, but if Dennett is right, then it has no more explanatory power in terms of observable behavior than the biologist's scalpel. At best our brains confirm what neuroscientists already tell us, but at the same time they confuse us by distorting our view of the world in ways we are not always aware of. As far as I know, the science backs Dennett up on this. Perhaps someday, we will discover some thing that only "truly" conscious brains can do and which brains made of meat cannot, but I don't think there's any good reason to expect it. How could such a truly conscious brain be created, and what properties could it have that are any different than that of the brain belonging to a well-designed robot? According to Dennett, the neither brain is any better than the other because they are the same. Any "truly" conscious brain would be fully matter and vice versa. The realization that our conscious perspective is just as fumbling and fallable as the anatomist's scalpel, I believe, lends credence to this idea.
So, imagine your front door, what colour is it? Paint it a different colour. Now try doing the same thing only without consciousness of mental objects in imagination. Design a building, create a story for a book or a film etc. Take a photo of a neural synapse firing when you are imagining something and ask someone else what it is you are thinking about?
The 'hard problem of consciousness' is created by the Cartesian split between mind and matter and the adoption of the Greek atomic theory where the basic building blocks of reality are surfaces with no interiority from here matter becomes king. We don't need quantum leaps, change the world view to one in which consciousness is an inherent property and problem solved. A number of other cultures do already. For the impact of consciousness on the 'material world' and evidence of entanglement of these two, take a look at the research of Dr Dean Radin at Institute of Noetic Science.
Thanks for the warning, about the sound
I really missed the connection he was trying to make.
thanks for the audio spike at the end there, really cool thanks.
This video proves a Personal Hypothesis of mine: we believe what we
WANT to believe, and we see what we WANT to see.
But if all you could see was what you wanted to see, how would you know the difference between what you wanted to see and what you didn’t if you’ve never seen what you didn’t want to see?
I’m going to save this just cuz I like Dennett. That it’s a ted talk, with it’s pompous overblown self importance, a venue where most speakers really say nothing at all, won’t stop me this time.
Did you get the hoax: He says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about consciousness.
Tom Appletree I don’t see any fruit trees in your avatar, either. So you’re just a kettle calling the pot black.
He did magic and hypnosis , we watched it so....i wonder what the trigger word is and what happens? Trigger word probably has something to do with the think bubble in that painting lol. He even right out is talking about magic. The point is ,your consciousness doesn't recognize when its being tricked , bcuz its to busy searching for the pattern or the correct answer. Really clever actually what he just did!
I’m thinking you people struggle with English or your video was redirected...
@@archaicsoul4597 If you really think Dennett says something about consciousness, you should revise your concept of consciousness.
@@HighestRank lol 😄
This is the first or second time I’ve seen Dennett speak. He’s entertaining, and easy to follow; an effective speaker. But I’ve read some of his books, so I already expected to hear nothing profound or “faith-shaking”. He definitely delivered on the nothing profound. What he didn’t deliver was any significant revelation about the nature of consciousness.
With all due deference to your praiseworthy deferential approach, the bottom line is that he is. . . booorrriiinggg.
I don't say that because I disagree with anything he said, only that I can't see how he even said anything that I could either agree _or_ disagree with.
He delivered that conscioussness isn’t what we percieve it to be. This could be a seed which shakes your foundation.
He's so clinical and bland. Outdated.
This guy has nothing useful to add.
Why trust his books if he is consciousness is nothing but an illusion! Or believe anything any one says?
Incredible that this comment section reacts exactly how Dennett tells them that they will at the start - considering that Dennett is a remarkable philosopher who has made major contributions outside of consciousness, maybe you should think - hmm, maybe I actually can't just refute a complete genius by telling him that he is just wrong or stupid? Maybe these issues that I'm bringing up are issues that he tackles head first in academic articles that I haven't read (because why would you ever need to read anything? You already know everything already right?)? Maybe Dennett has spent 40 years discussing with the others right at the top of his field about these issues? Maybe lots of other intelligent philosophers agree with him?
No - of course you wouldn't ask any of that. You just know everything. Would any of you like to actually refute the things Dennett says? With an argument?
He knows his pappenheimers. It is the lack of education and the one yt video they saw which changed their life and made them ignore anything else. Mostly religious to a certain degree without even knowing their religion right.
Ah yes, I remember... those good old days when TED idents were set to METAL VOLUME. Thanks for the reminder, my ears have stopped bleeding now.
This talk should have been called 'The illusion of reality'
He didn't really prove anything. But points for looking like Santa.
It seems that we can only perceive a tiny bit of what's actually out there and the brain makes up a way to interpret it. We only have five senses after all.
Implication is that there's more to life than we think?
It seems that we can only perceive a tiny bit of what's actually out there and the brain makes up a way to interpret it. We only have five senses after all.
Implication is that there's more to life than we think?
LOL
He is trying to reduce consciousness to an illusion. It doesn't work.
HereMeWaz ... Or a rabbi. Or a saint. Coopting a look to establish authority😏
yes - poorly titled, but the objective he states at the start is to shake your confidence that you’re an expert on your consciousness; worth reading some of his extraordinary output to understand what he thinks consciousness is - or check more recent links on youtube;
First, it is not necessary to contemplate how molecules create consciousness, anymore than they create a heart-beat. Secondly, human consciousness is simply more self aware than other consciousnesses that exist in our world. We can say that because we can tell ourselves that. So, by definition, it's true.
Dan Dennett. One of my fave stand-ups!
Perhaps the best and most concise response to this video was found below, so I will "re-tweet":
From: unwinsis 4 years ago
Consciousness is a prerequisite condition for illusion to exist. Therefore, the idea that consciousness is an illusion is fundamentally flawed.
Good point, though it needs clarification. To say consciousness (C) is a prerequisite condition for illusion (I) to exist, or briefly, C is a condition for I, means that I and C are two different things (one being the condition for the existence of the other).
In fact, illusion is a form of consciousness, i.e., not all forms of consciousness are illusions, but all illusions constitute a form of consciousness. 'Illusions' are a sub-class of 'consciousness forms.'
But actually, Dennett never argued "that consciousness is an illusion"! It's a misleading title, as it often happens on RUclips. The illusion is only to think that we know what consciousness is, due to our 'familiarity' with it. Unfortunately, his contribution in this video to clarifying what consciousness is tends to 0 (zero). He does much better in his books (such as "Consciousness Explained").
Strictly speaking illusion IS dependent upon consciousness, while the inverse relationship does not exist. So they are two different "things", but I see your point, and it's a reasonable clarification to say illusions are a sub-class of consciousness. However, it could also be that consciousness is a "thing" in itself, which has nothing to do with "objects" of consciousness, such as the notions of "real" or "illusion". Perhaps consciousness itself IS the only reality, and all perceived objects of it are ALL illusions. It may be that consciousness in its purest form is "all that is" and was the source of the Big Bang, and all of the space-time continuum. Our very perception of self-consciousness or "I" may be the ultimate illusion, given that it is inherent in our very ability to understand consciousness.
@@axe2grind911a The notion of 'illusion' (I) is inseparable from that of 'consciousness' (C), therefore C cannot be an I (in the common usage sense, that C actually "doesn't exist"); C certainly must exist, otherwise I (illusions) wouldn't exist either (but we just asserted there is an I). This easily leads to saying "C is a necessary condition for I". However, this implies that C and I are two different things. But this runs into certain problems, which have been discussed by philosophers for centuries. It depends on how C is defined. For empiricists and positivists, C is the stream of consciousness, i.e., the totality of its interrelated "ideas" (some of which are 'illusions'), and nothing beyond that. My comment came under this definition. Your initial comment is sustainable, under the definition of C favored by traditional rationalists, and later on, by transcendental philosophy schools: under these standpoints,
C is the Self, or Mind, or I (as Ego - not as 'illusion' here!), and as such it's something else than merely the sum total of its ideas. I actually agree with the latter definition, but defending it is a complex issue (e.g., traditional rationalist approaches are not sufficient for that); that's why I went by the first one, because it makes it easier to support the same conclusion (that Consciousness is not an Illusion, in the common usage sense). This addresses the first three sentences of your last comment. Regarding sentences 4 & 5, that's one way to summarize Subjective Idealism (which is rather easily criticizable; Berkeley responded to the criticism, in a way that involves faith. His ingenious solution is hardly credible even for people of faith, and crumbles immediately without it).
As for your last sentence: are you giving up on the viewpoint of your first comment (with which I agreed, just subject to the above clarifications)? No reason for that: if you have a false idea (i.e., an illusion), then it simply means that you have a consciousness (otherwise, that illusion itself CAN'T exist); consciousness is not reducible to illusions, but any illusions presuppose consciousness.
This discussion was interesting enough (for me, at least) on its own; nice having this conversation with you! However, let's remember: its starting point was nothing but a misleading RUclips title (this is what I explained in the second part of my first comment).
Ah yes, let us never underestimate the value of clickbait! Not giving up on my first statement at all. Just suggesting the possibility that "self-consciousness" (the "I" or ego) is itself a sub-class of a greater singularity of Consciousness, in which our presumed reality is actually false or "illusion" from a more broadened perspective. This is a core tenet in Advaita which declares the individual self to be an illusion born of a false identification of Consciousness with an individual mind/body/ego. Of course, this presents a major problem given the common experience of human individuality is that we do not identify with this hypothetical universal Consciousness. Though many have claimed to pierce the veil if only temporarily, it is not subject to the scientific method. Though human consciousness appears to have limited capacity, it is interesting that we can at least imagine a greater reality. For example, what if we could multi-process - carry two unrelated thought streams concurrently? Computers give us a basic model. What if we could carry on infinite thought streams simultaneously? What if we are each merely a component thought stream within a singular universal consciousness which can access/process all thought streams simultaneously? How would we know?
@@axe2grind911a 1. The idea that each self may actually consist of a plurality (2 to 'n'...) of consciousness streams (CS), without us being aware of it, is unsustainable - because the existence of self-consciousness is a fact, and it invariably reveals immediately, or directly, the existence of one CS only, besides also, mediate access only (through signs - language, body language, etc.) to other CSs. That means, there is a plurality of selves, each one having direct access to his/her CS only, and mediate access to a multitude of other CSs.
2. The idea of any particular mind, as a separate individual self, being only a "false appearance", while its "reality" (of which we are unaware) consists in being part of an Universal Consciousness, is a form of Indian Idealism (which you mentioned).
These are varieties of speculative metaphysics, which I always rejected for reasons of method. If a thinker (whether Indian, or British, or German, etc.) proposes a speculative theory, which pushes both imagination and credibility to their extreme limits, it doesn't mean that anybody has any obligation to disprove it (which, in the strict meaning of 'proof', may well be impossible).
The point is to demand a stronger contact of theory to what is observable (including within self-consciousness), plus to logical thinking. This is the methodical reason for rejecting the kinds of speculative thought, which resort to unbridled flights of imagination, to the point of losing contact with the observable. Btw, these excesses of speculative theorizing are not much favored by contemporary philosophers anymore, due to such developments of critical thinking on the methods of philosophy that result in rejecting excessive speculations.
Yet, wildly speculative theories continue enjoying a 'Golden Age' in theoretical physics, 'thanks to' developing certain mathematical models that are not verifiable, or testable, empirically.
Of course, I refer here ONLY to relatively recent theoretical models, which lack any empirical grounding - to be differentiated from those theories whose mathematical models have passed empirical tests.
Also, with regards to systems known as belonging to 'speculative metaphysics', not all is 'nonsense" (which is what analytic philosophers usually claim). Besides many ideas that indeed have a 'loose fantasy' character, there are also many valuable insights, born out of reflecting on what is known as observable (e.g., Hegel's philosophy, an amazing mix of fantastic and highly unlikely concepts, and on the other hand, of extraordinary, deeply insightful, theoretical reflections and arguments on the nature of reality).
The official Where's Waldo approach to explaining conciousness...
Comments saved me from that 21:54 bang! Thanks guys
In the beginning, there was consciousness. Next, we found that we could be unsure or wrong about some of its contents. End of story. How does this tell us anything whatsoever about 'the illusion of consciousness'?
Sort of. He is citing visual illusions to show that we can be wrong about what we experience, however confident we might be. That's the people on the bridge, the blind spot, etc. He then infers from that filling in process that our consciousness per se is similarly filled in. It is all just filler created by the brain. Figment, as he calls it.
The alternative view is that we really do have consciousness, experiences, etc., and that we can make mistaken judgments about the content.
*****
Yes, I take that to be Dan's strategy, but as I said, I think there is a big difference between filling in the blanks in our visual field and only 'seeming' to be conscious.
If consciousness is an illusion, who is having the illusion? In other words, who is experiencing (having consciousness of) the illusion?
The idea that consciousness is an illusion can only be supported by circular arguments.
You dont need anyone. What “you” really are is 100 trillion cells which are aware of themselves. The system of atoms themselves have become aware. You should check out “who is it that knows there is no ego Alan Watts” on youtube. He tackles this exact questiom
Misleading title. I hope I'm not doing it injustice, but the argument seems to be that conscious perception is sometimes (maybe even often) wrong (at first, since later it can evidently understand how and why it is wrong), therefore consciousness itself is an illusion. But the distinction between reality and illusion depends upon the concept of consciousness for its intelligibility, for what is illusory is just what is present to consciousness (people) as opposed to what is really there (blobs of paint). I don't see how the idea that consciousness is an illusion follows from the fact that consciousness gets things wrong. If it doesn't really exist, how can it get things wrong? How can it do anything at all?
I still don't understand how it is possible that a bunch of unconscious atoms can create consciousness.
I couldn't quite hear the intro...could u make it LOUDER?!?!
It's more an explanation of how your mind interpreters vissual sensory inputs, didn't get any wiser about consciousness
13:27
"We say in customary speech, “Well, it has to make an impression.” So, in a way, all present knowledge is memory, because you look at something, and for a while the rods and cones in your retina respond to that, and they do their stuff-jiggle, jiggle, jiggle; it’s all vibration-and so as you look at things, they set up a series of echoes in your brain. And these echoes keep reverberating, because the brain is very complicated. First of all, everything you know is remembered, but there is a way in which we distinguish between seeing somebody here now, and the memory of having seen somebody else who’s not here now, but whom you did see in the past, and you know perfectly well, when you remember that other person’s face, it’s not an experience of the person being here. How is this?
Because memory signals have a different cue attached to them than present-time signals. They come on a different kind of vibration. Sometimes, however, the wiring gets mixed up, and present experiences come to us with a memory cue attached to them, and then we have what is called a déjà vu experience: we’re quite sure we’ve experienced this thing before.
Alan Watts "The Void"
Regarding the "Change Blindness". Prof Dennett explained earlier that we have a very small angle of acute vision and it's fuzzy elsewhere.
If you have sharp focus at the point where change is occurring, it is easily seen. Otherwise, more difficult as the brain is used to filling in the detail (or accepting the fuzzy as detailed).