What is the Mind-Body Problem? | Episode 205 | Closer To Truth

How is it possible that mushy masses of brain cells, passing chemicals and shooting sparks, literally are mental sensations and subjective feelings? They seem so radically different. Featuring interviews with John Searle, Ned Block, J.P. Moreland, Marvin Minsky, and Colin McGinn.

Season 2, Episode 5 - #CloserToTruth

Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.

Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[ogent]

We’re very close now. Than you Dr. Robert. You’re a rockstar!

[tunahelpa]

Dr Kuhn is quite probably the only person alive who could have interviewed so many super geniuses and held his own

[MrStranger]

This has always been one of my favorite episodes.

[brandongodin]

Marvin didn't really explain anything he just said everyone else is dumb, what a great argument, hopefully he developes a unified field theory

[NoobTube]

This channel is amazing. This has been the number one question in my life and this is the first time I’m seeing a library of serious debate from reputable scientists on the matter. I have my own ideas mostly from reading about Buddhism and Buddhist cosmology and just thinking about all the possibilities. But it’s so refreshing to hear similar views from leading scientists. Thanks so much for this channel! Answering the hard question of consciousness is in my view something very important.

[davomccranko]

I love how the intro makes it feel like we're gonna be watching Rosemary's Baby

[richardomier]

Watched a few of these. This one is the absolute best I've seen. Really exposes the huge problem that it is! Great work. Very fascinating.

[beyondthehorizon]

The ability to use a 'metaphor' is a gift. To me, the ultimate demonstration of consciousness and awareness. Something a newborn cannot do meaning consciousness and awareness are imbued over time as the child grows. Before then, its preprogrammed mechanisms.

[YoureFriendlyChristian]

Is yoga or meditation ever used in the research of the brain and consciousness.

For example, I like to point out to the strong sensations one has in the Theta and delta mind state. It’s like the mind has a deeper understanding of the self, surroundings and hearing, than the physical attributes. I had this sensation quite some some. So, it’s when the thoughts and feelings are shot down, sensations get stronger. Isn’t that worth studying.

[frankyjayhay]

Marvin's very convincing. If every last detail in a person's brain down to the last atom could be duplicated in a computer then that person's awareness together with all the deepest emotions, love, happiness and personal identity would be associated with the computer, the computer would be alive. The five senses could be inputted to be interpreted by the computer, the brain works in exactly the same way.

However there may well be another realm not based on physics at all. The point is we can't say what is and isn't possible based purely on our experience of this world.

[لالهوةإلالهوتي]

How is dualism a theory what does it predict and how can it be tested?

[jeffreyschweitzer]

Anyone who deals with brain injured patients should have no doubts. Specific injuries cause specific deficits, including cognitive ones. For someone who believes in a soul, does this mean that particular functions of the soul are attached to specific locations in the brain? So the soul can be divided and that with injuries, parts of it detach? How would that explain anything that is not completely explained by identifying self with brain?

[tixch]

It is surprising that all science is based on proper definitions to start with. I have not seen scientists agree to a definition of consciousness or even mind. So there is an issue from the start for science to elaborate on something that we don't know how to define, or that no one agree on a definition.

[irfanmehmud]

It is sad that even with such a nice car, as Dr. Robert has, one can not get closer to truth!

[leticiamagalhaes]

Thanks! It's something really revealing and important. I've been pretty curious about the mind-body problem since I kinda was diagnosticated with DPC

[hershchat]

Since we are talking “consciousness”, it’d help to start with some useful definition. I’d propose that consciousness is the awareness of our own thoughts, perceptions, and emotions.

It is NOT the thoughts, emotions, perceptions themselves. Those are activities and states of our mind. Mind is the software on the hardware of the brain. Our consciousness is the awareness of the states and activities of our mind.

I’d like to clarify that Consciousness is the sense “am”, or “I am”. This isn’t the same as “medically conscious. Just for clarity sake: Medically conscious means a doctor can detect evidence of consciousness in a subject.

Consciousness is not a computational ability. Ability to process bites, and algorithms that implement logical solutions lead to automata that can solve problems. Solving a problem, no matter how complex, is not the same as being aware. The sense that “I am” is consciousness. The sense that I see, feel, taste, think— that’s consciousness.

To me that if an autonomous car is the best example. I sit in the car, and it takes me from point A to B. The car uses sensors to detect obstacles, gps to detect and control direction, a map in the memory to identify a route, an a CPU to solve problems.

None of this is awareness. I, the driver, sitting in the car, possibly aware of all these processes, am not FUNCTIONALLY doing anything. Just observing.

This observer is Consciousness.

Can we make functional automata act as if they were aware? I am sure we would get better and better at it. However, the simulacrum is not the thing it simulates.

What I find cruel is that, if you go by this thinking, then you conclude that consciousness is purely subjective, and not amenable to detection. Since it cannot be detected and it’s existence not proven scientifically, we are stuck with belief and faith.

[ronaldfellion]

The brain is a translator (also a restrictor of what we can translate) of the vibrational field around us. It doesn't hold information inside itself it translates that information from the torsion field around us, yes even our memories are just vibrations around us. Kind of like phone or tv signals that are always around us and when we have the right device we can translate that signal into sound and or pictures but only what is a vibrational match to our device. Consciousness the connection between our physical and spiritual bodies. The mind is our awareness of existing and the reality around us on all levels.

[realcygnus]

A modern monistic analytical Idealism such as "Bernardo Kastrup's alters" is currently thE best game on the table imo. & as many times as you might hear the word idealism in passing here, such formulations seem to scare these kind of "mainstream truth channels". Check out the new 7 part vid series on the YT channel Essentia Foundation.

[davec.]

I heard someone say that "The Mind Is what the Brain Does." I think that says a lot.

[anirudhadhote]

Hi Sir, I have a simple question. Inside a factory at the end of the shift a supervisor and his co-worker are counting the produced objects, the objects are approximately the size of a tennis ball. It is their daily routine, the worker counts the objects as he takes it from the production lot and puts it inside a bag. The role of the supervisor is to keep watch so that there is no mistake while counting. One fine day, before starting the counting process, the supervisor looks at the lot and writes down some random three digit number as quantity of the produced items, in short he assumes that the actual quantity would probably match with that number. Now the question is what are the chances of that actual quantity matching exactly with that random number?