What is Consciousness?

Where is it? Can it be measured? Replicated? Created? Marcus du Sautoy puzzles the problem of consciousness.

Brain imagining techniques have shown that our minds work differently when we're asleep compared to when we're awake, conscious vs unconscious. Integrated information theory attempts to measure how conscious a system is using mathematical formulae. Could maths answer the question about what consciousness is or do we need to look to philosophy?

This animation was produced by Diana Gradinaru, our 2018-19 animator-in-residence, supported by the Sfumato Foundation and was inspired by Marcus du Sautoy's book "What We Cannot Know".

[hisham_as]

For a second there I thought this was Ted Ed.
Great video!

[thewiseturtle]

My approach for measuring consciousness is super simple:

**Consciousness in general gets defined as the ability to model reality internally, at some number of dimensions.** (Modeling is essentially fractal copies of larger systems. All of this is just randomness (a deterministic mathematical one as seen in Pascal's triangle), aka, entropy, so yes, it is emergence.)

Levels of consciousness increase with the number of dimensions that can be modeled:

0D - preconsciousness - simple matter "models" only itself, it's internal state is its internal state (1:1 modeling). It's not really conscious, but it is "aware" of itself in a sense, at the moment, so it's sort of the fetal stage of consciousness.

1D - physical consciousness - a single celled organism (and maybe plants?) models itself, now, plus a future state, or an outside state. It can have a goal state in mind, essentially, or be aware that "there's something I like/dislike out there". Current, linear, computers are at this level as well I think. They have a current state and a goal state, and try to move from point A to point B.

2D - emotional consciousness - a simple brain and similar things can model both its own current and goal state along with a current and goal state of another individual (animal, vegetable, mineral, etc.) and see where they both intersect for more complex, non-linear, problem solving.

3D - intellectual consciousness - a social animal has the ability to model things logically, by looking at a whole group of individual perspectives (current state to goal state) starting with the self, and moving outward from there in an "objective" space where problems can be solved by triangulating the intersection point of the three different paths.

4D - philosophical consciousness - a mature human brain can model all four dimensions of time and space for a model that can problem solve for "me, you, and everyone else, now and into the future" all in one impressive go (neuroscience, and some funny math, suggests this starts coming online around age 40, when the two sides of the prefrontal cortex start functioning in parallel instead of only one at a time).

[ROFLPirate_x]

The mistake this video makes, in my opinion, is confusing the "consciousness" with "self".
You can still be conscious with almost no sense of self. Consciousness is just the phenomena of experience. Nothing more.
Self is a collaboration of awareness of a single conscious experience tied with memories that also seem attached to this continuing experience of "self". You can also throw in the experience of volition to this, although I am not sure if this is essential. But the first two definitely are. In my opinion, memory is the biggest contributor to "self". Whereas consciousness, plain and simple, is just awareness. A deaf and blind person can still be conscious without a single thought in their head.
It could be easier to say, there are many times in your life don't remember, but you were still consciously experiencing at that time despite the lack of memory. Yet a computer could have a memory storage of everything that has ever happened to it with zero experience of any of those events.
I apologise for the repeating and rambling 😂

[thejesuschrist]

Fascinating! I used to be in the duelist camp, but science has converted me to a materialist. Science > Faith.

[richardgreen]

Operational Definitions Simplify
- If input from sensors is acted upon, that is awareness.
- If records of actions are kept, that is memory.
- If such memory is analyzed to improve performance, that is self-awareness (consciousness).
- If operations are guided by rules (vs ANN), that is reasoning.
- If rules are augmented as a result of self-awareness (above), that is linguistic-based learning.
- If actions are produced using ANN, that is a kind of instinct or muscle-memory.
- If ANN are modified as history (memory) accumulates, that is a kind of evolution. (resembles DNA gene activation in effect if not in structure).
====

[alainborgrave]

Emergence theory is no explanation because it is only in our minds that things "emerge" (like the property of wetness, or the appearance of a cloud from droplets of water). So it won't give any explanation about the nature of consciousness itself.

[resistanceisfutile]

My best guess: Consciousness had to evolve from the machinery that was available and molded by conditions. Brains developed for the purpose of evaluating the environment for the creatures that posses them. They do this by modeling the inputs from sense organs and continuously monitor and adjust the models to plan ahead and navigate for resources and reproduction. The images (models) we see in our "mind's eye", are only approximations of what our sense organs "see" and hear. The reasonable inference here, is that this constant, real time, evaluation and adjustment of the creature's self-position in space is what most likely produces the sensation of self. And why it mostly disappears (and plays re-runs) when the creature is sleeping and navigation is unnecessary.

[ZeedijkMike]

Hmm - different but interesting and nicely made.
Thumbs up for creativity.

[harshitmishr]

So a bunch of waves and particles are the eseential reality .
But on the Mariscopic level, the waves interact with each other, the waves start forming a pattern, the waves start trying to change other waves, the waves figure out what they actually are, but still the waves are bound by laws, but who defines laws ? Why do waves behave as they do ? Do the tools of reason and logic work in the esate of understanding the language in which the laws were written ?

Mathematics is the language of the program called the creation, but what is the language in which mathematics is written ? Can it be changed ? Can we edit the language of creation ? Is Mathematics an absolute limit ? Is there no flaw or bug in this language of creation? Is there any loophole ?

[ericchevalier]

I get the general impression that what we call consciousness, is a phenomena that applies to all living things. It's like a layer of thought that self learn in an attempt to survive/ protect the host. A self feeding loop necessary to adapt in world full of dangers, needs and things to be learned. What we see in our dream is a simpler approach to the things we realise during the awake time of our life. The process of dreaming would be the remapping of the brain necessary to be more apt at living the next day. We need that off time to store the information because the brain seem not able to learn and store this information simultaneously.

[vast]

Consciousness is such a rubber term: If one defines it, the other one will declare its not what he means by consciousness.

[AS-xqlz]

"one molecule of water is not wet, yet put many molecules together, and wetness emerges" 🤔

This theoretical exploration does suggest that consciousness (like wetness) is a subjective and created phenomena that is built from "code in the game". If true, we could potentially change the code, to create all sorts of cool and fun consciousness stuff. "I" could inhabit all sorts of consciousness states. both independent of other life, and grouped with other life forms.

[whycantiremainanonymous]

Consciousness as such is not a phenomenon, emergent or otherwise. A phenomenon (literally, in Greek, "that which appears") is something appearing before consciousness. When you speak of phenomena you already take consciousness for granted. There's a TED talk by philosopher David Chalmers, where he correctly states that this "movie" of conscious experience you have in your head, so to say, is not quite accounted for by anything. There's no reason for that movie to exist at all. And that's true, but this is only the second-hardest problem of consciousness. The *really* hard problem of consciouness is not to explain how come the movie exists; it's to explain how come there is somebody actually watching it. That requires a whole logical leap from an account entirely couched in terms of events observed from an external vantage point to the appearance of an internal, first-person, perspective. If you think of it a bit, you'll see that the problem of consciousness is strictly intractable as specified.

[Evangelio-Eterno]

Best video I've seen in a while, good job!

[Philosia]

Felling of I is result of pseudo entity created by consciousness through mind. Consciousness is far beyond feeling of I, or it can be experienced only in the moment that happens on it’s own and feeling of I ceases. No one can experience I and consciousness both at one time. So if one person is still bound by I then he cannot experience consciousness. It is beyond our power to explain it through any means. We can only create situation in which it can be experienced. My blog site for more about the ways that situation can be created.

[jamesregli]

Well this video was unbelievably biased towards materialism. Considering everything we know about the link between consciousness and the brain, we have a bunch of correlation especially in observation of the brain. Sadly, materialists will ignore the utterly confusing existence of consciousness as we know it and simple see how closely the brain reflects how the mind interacts with the brain and say they are the same. Perhaps that is because dualism is not a pretty or clean, or perhaps believing in something more than the physical makes them uncomfortable? Strictly speaking, there is no adequate answer for consciousness, and although we know quite a bit about how brain functions generally, none of it can at this moment can have the slightest hope of understanding where our thoughts come from and go, or why you thought one thing and not another. We understand consciousness much better because we ourselves live as conscious than any of the mist in-depth study of the brain has revealed about it. On that fact alone, and the fact the we experience our lives with quite a handsome amount of disconnection from the brain we call our own, only being able to have a say in very few functions the body takes part in and seemingly less control over our brain itself, it is still fair to say that consciousness is not in our brains but separate.

[oneofthesixbillion]

Seems like people like to reduce everything to either/or. Either quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organs make consciousness, or, consciousness is a separate phenomena. What if a more pure form of intelligence, one that has no form, has no conscious of, no deliberate thoughts or sense of self, is the source of quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organs which give rise to consciousness that does have form, sense of I, perceptions and thoughts?

[johnwhorfin]

Since science involves phenomena that everyone can point to and measure, and also the problem of other minds remains unsolved (and unsolvable), then consciousness itself can't be measured, validated, verified. It is not fully scientific to even discuss it. After you face this, then there is a large science-ish area you can explore these questions within. It's not clear how much any of this philosophy salon regarding consciousness could ever contribute to the advancement of science proper.

[MSandPD]

Does anyone know what kind of art style this animation is? Or any related phrases I could google to find more things that look like this?

[DiogenesofSinope]

Emergent phenomenon. Seems correct. The color green is not the same as light of X nm wavelength. One is a conscious perception, the other a physical entity.