The Simple Problem of Consciousness

Don't sweat over the difficult problem of consciousness - it's simple after all.

The books: "A Minority Interest" and "Corporeal Fantasy" can be found on Amazon.

[Darniros]

Thank you for uploading Martin, these videos are very interesting and entertaining. Makes me feel less alone :)

[olegwiththeknowledge]

There are also countless parts of my waking day that I cant recall but I know I was conciouss of when they happened. This is the same as deep sleep or general anesthetics, just because you cant remember doesn’t mean you werent there.

[almari]

"Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh."

[glendamann]

Hats off to your wife ... I am at the stage of self acceptance or the idea of. I saw you on tik tok and k owing there are no accidents in my life. I am happy to explore your content ty 😊

[francisdec]

In English you even say "brain fart", which indicates that consciousness is similar to digestion. We say "hjärnsläpp" in Swedish as well, though that word isn't as obvious, since "släpp" might mean both "fart" and "loosening" - "the brain is loose". And Scrooge says that Marley's ghost might just be a piece of badly digested potato.

[ZoniZahiRoniZahi]

But you can't cognize nonbeing. That's why you're here rather than there.

[WilburSmith-cwuo]

The concept of 'consciousness (CCS)' can help alleviate the fear of death in the following way:

1. Martin rightly states that when we die, our intellect, memory, feelings, desires, and everything that constitutes our mind cease to exist.
2. In CCS theory, the 'mind' is what we generally refer as the ‘I’. For example ‘I like banana’ should be read as ‘mind likes banana’. Not ‘my mind likes banana’. Because when you take out the mind there is no ‘I’. Of course you don’t practice this kind of thinking 24 hours a day. Only for 10 or 15 min, when you have free time, going through the day internally and then try to replace the ‘I’ where ever it appears in the narration with ‘mind’
3. The individual is then presented with a choice: to identify with the mind or with CCS.
4. If one identifies with the mind, then their identity dies when they die, as the mind ceases to exist.
5. However, if one identifies with CCS, then upon death only the mind goes, but CCS continues to exist. This means that when we sleep, CCS is awake and observes the emptiness because mind is not producing anything, and when the mind produces something in the form of dreams, CCS observes those dreams.
6. CCS is like a CCTV camera that merely observes what happens in its presence. So when you die the CCS will observe nothing because there is no mind to produce anything at all. Of course, why go through touching your nose around your head while you can simply say there is no CCS at all

From a young age, we are conditioned to believe in the concept of the first person through language. We answer questions like "What is your name?" "Where did you go?" "Why did you do it?" so many times that we develop the notion of an 'I' doing everything the body does. We mistakenly conclude that the thoughts we observe in our mind are thoughts 'we' created, and we take ownership of them.

However, if we acknowledge that billions of neurons come together to form the 'self, ' and that the 'self' is merely like a mouse pointer previewing what's happening in the mind, we can gain a new perspective. For example, if you're planning to see a bank manager for a loan and make a note on the calendar, you can articulate that it's the mind making these plans, and you're simply observing it. Whether or not the 'I' takes credit for the mind's actions, they still happen automatically, like the Earth revolving around the Sun.

These concepts can be useful as we get older and help us overcome depression. Initially, until around age 40, people may not be interested in letting go of the 'I' and replacing it with 'mind, ' especially if they're successful and happy with their life. However, as we get older and our journey starts descending, latching onto CCS can be helpful.

To truly understand CCS, one must engage in practices like breathwork and observe thoughts while holding the breath. CCS is like the concept of God; in popular culture, God is perceived as a being in heaven with feelings and plans like us, but the true concept of God is much deeper and not everyone will be interested in exploring it. Similarly, CCS requires practices that alter one's perception without the aid of drugs like marijuana.
It is the practice that alters the perception not just believing the CCS. The CCS acts as teaser to hook the person to get into the practice

[josefk]

Famous thought experiment: A hypothetical teleportation device works in the following way. Prior to teleporting it measures the position and type of every atom in your body, then dissembles your body before precisely re-assembling it in another location. Presumably ‘you’ and ‘your consciousness’ would momentarily cease to exist but then would reform with all your feelings and memories intact in the new location. However, the next time you use the device something goes wrong and instead of re-assembling just one of you it creates two of you. In which body and location do ‘you’ and ‘your consciousness’ exist?

[T.J]

There is just no way to prove that consciousness disappears when you fall asleep. All that we know is that whenever we are awake, we cannot remember having been conscious of anything during the night (or maybe we'll only remember a few dreams). That is all.

[stevefrompolaca]

what if consciousness is just an interface, a gui so to speak? what if I am not my consciousness? what if it is just my secretary so to speak?

[adamkallin]

Anesthesia could easily be awareness but not awareness of anything and/or a wiping of the memories and we wouldn’t know the difference.

[stewartj]

Instinct is another very strange one, how we and other animals are born with pre programming, this programming must be hardwired into our genetic code, it amazes me how that could even be possible.

[Ssssyyyyyyyyyy]

Unconsciousness is the story you think about while being conscious. As a matter of fact, you only ever know consciousness. There are stories about it being eternal and independent of the body and there are stories saying it's a function of the body. Both will forever remain stories.

[nathanwaller]

Martin, are you or anybody aware of any AI programming fundamentally built on the Philosophical idea of ‘The World as Will and representation?’ Forgive me ignorance if so, it would seem something as vast as this could drive some interesting result in terms of self-consciousness

[zbigniewmaleszak]

No. Consciousness is much more than a mere perception of reality. It’s alive and doesn’t need the body to survive. Martin presented a materialistic view. Soul is the thing!

[freewareplayer]

I find this type of reasoning odd. The obvious rational conclusion to me is: we dont know, for we have no current way to quantify any of it. Claiming consciousnes dies is just as presumptious as saying it lives. Definetly doesnt sound more rational..

[msredpoll]

I dont disagree with any of this but the fact that we can experience the process of consciousness makes me feel that there is something about life that we'll never fully understand

[That_Freedom_Guy]

Hi, thanks for that interesting video. Before we were conceived we were in the same state that we call death, (unconscious or more accurately, non-consious and without a living body.) Yet, "we" emerged from this background state and literally materialised, aware and intelligent! That's miraculous enough, so if it can happen at least once, why is it so unreasonable that it could happen twice or more? I'm merely speculative, but is that a valid view?

[DaringDan]

Imagine thinking all of this came from nothing.

[ChuuyaIDK]

It’s as if being “conscious” is unconscious and being unconscious(sleep ie true state) is conscious. I think Schopenhauer once wrote that when you die you waking up and in your supposed “waking state” you’re sleeping/dreaming.