Roger Walsh - Does Consciousness Have Purpose?

How has inner experience radically emerged from cosmic dust? How has our vibrant private awareness developed in what seems to be a wholly physical universe? Is consciousness only an accident of biology? Or does consciousness have deeper meaning? We best be careful not to come to final conclusions based on early science.

Roger N. Walsh is an Australian professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy, and Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, within UCI’s College of Medicine.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, 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.

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

*Purposeless things do not exist, * ... so consciousness definitely has a purpose. The purpose of lungs is to infuse blood with oxygen; the purpose of the heart is to pump the blood, and the purpose of blood is to carry oxygen to the brain, and the purpose of the brain is to orchestrate this entire process. Now, all of this can take place without a self-aware consciousness being present, ... _so why is it present?_

Since the brain can handle everything necessary for the survival of the organism, then a self-aware consciousness must be handling _some other duty._ I propose this duty is to organize everything that exists into categories (spectrums) and rank from highest to lowest based on *"value judgments."*

Not only can my self-aware consciousness categorize all of my own body's organs and rank them in order of importance (value), it can also categorize "myself" as an individual within my own species and assess my overall value within this spectrum.

At the highest existential level, consciousness can even render a value judgement for "Existence, " itself! ... In other words, my self-aware consciousness can even judge the value of that which facilitated my own existence!

[EdwardAmesCastellano]

This discussion opened my consciousness as to what the meaning of RLK and the Production Co. behind Closer To Truth are about. And that is getting closer to the truth. RLK owns this concept and continues to deliver on that quest.

[tolbaszy]

Consciousness is not solely a human possession. The next time you try to swat a fly, you see consciousness in another being when it tries to escape your attack. Consciousness is as simple as hunger, yet it is the power that keeps the Universe from collapse. It is "Dark Matter." Hubris makes human consciousness something special.

[catherinemoore]

👏Honesty, humility and passion: the make up of a true seeker.

[FM-lovv]

Best channel on Youtube. Thank you Robert.

[browngreen]

It would interesting to hear how children answer this question. Sometimes their truth is profound.😅

[Maxwell-mvrx]

Guys it isnt correct. Disciplines never keep going conscience definitions . Neuroscience figure out consciente out so far. Guys shows varieties experiences his conscience are ant neuroscience proceedings. Rambling gibberich.

[geeksgreyson]

The purpose of consciousness is exactly the same as the purpose of every other attribute of living things:
SURVIVAL

[aamirilyas]

I just found out a few moments ago that to be happy and let the whole humanity be same is the purpose of consciousness.

[oioi]

If you want to explain consciousness, you ought to explain what makes an agent pick a rather than b, what individuate a single agent as a protagonist of its mental life, what's behind properties of mental qualities, how does an agent decide to go to a walk etc.
Most of philosophers try to pick out the agent, while what constitutes agent is deeper and overlooked.

[thepilgrim]

We, as humans, find ourselves positioned in a balanced commonly fathomable interpretation of “time.” This allows us, due to our mortality, to partition or endow the passage of time with lengths in general proportion to that lifespan by using thought, thus allowing many pretenses that allow a painful and short existence palatable. Thought allows us to endow the universe with meaning and move into an abstraction wherein we may even pretend that the reverse is true were we to so choose. Belief allows us, through this abstraction of thought, to endow the universe with truths of our choosing regardless of veracity. However the discipline of science requires that, to the best of our collective endeavors, proof must be produced to back up any thesis and that proof must be presented for peer review. I think therefore I have the ability to endow meaning where I choose. In a purely evidentiary sense there is, so far at least, absolutely no evidence of the universe operating with intent and thus generating meaning. There is a great deal of evidence that we do both.
As an aside it seems to me that, fascinatingly, this ability to operate in the abstract is bizarre proof that we function outside the laws of physics - or even the universe itself and are in possession of the rarest substance in that universe. Take, for example, “love.” It cannot be seen, measured, weighed or quantified in any way yet we all know that it exists. Compared to the unfathomable mass of the universe neurons are surely an uncommonly rare substance, now take the massless abstractions generated by those neurons and we… humble, tiny, shivering us… are in possession of the most precious stuff in existence. We truly are, as is said in Hindu philosophy, beggars whose bedroll is lined with diamonds yet are unaware of it.
What’s it all mean…?

[arnelwilson]

Science can attempt to tell us "how" but it cannot ever tell us Fun to ponder "why" but that quest can drive you

[bparcej]

The intellect is distinctly human and serves us well in our adaptive/survival needs... not a bad thing. Intellect and conceptual thought are subject to bio psycho socio conditioning and thus constricting. Knowing this, I venture into an intuitive unknowing that surpasses my personal limitations.

[stephenzhao]

1:05 ... what's for why? ... 2:05 ... now the question what is it for though we're left as individuals with a pressing question what is in our lives since we've been given this extraordinary gift of being conscious beings 2:16 ... maybe one of consciousness task is to understand itself ... now that's one extreme answer that still leaves us as individuals with a very interesting question that is what do we do with this consciousness and there of course we're getting into a question of what's the purpose of life, what is most valuable, we're back to one of the great questions of human existence 3:28 but do we see the meditative traditions offering a means to an end or an end in themselves, 👍RW: 6:35 ... as a scientis how do you look upon the purpose of human consciousness that the spiritual tradition would espouse not the process which I understand has its values but the ultimate purpose that is given to us supposedly. 6:53 RW

[stoneysdead]

This is a mute conversation- we have all known what life was about since the second grade- remember? "You put your left foot in, you take your left foot out, you put your left foot in, and you shake it all about" the Hokey Pokey- that's what it's all about.

[michaelsinard]

Is Consciousness reminding us of our own personal morals and principles? Amongst other purposes.

[michaelbartlett]

Yes consciousness has a purpose, but each one determines its own purpose via Free Will.

[johnayres]

One day we will build machines that we can converse with intelligently. They will have senses and memory and they will say they are conscious. How would we prove they were not conscious.

[chayanbosu]

We are souls, that's why we have conciousness emarges from soul and mind is the interface between outer world and soul. In Bhagbat Gita Lord Krishna explains this nicely.

[r.hughes]

I'm an "evolutionist" and he's WRONG! CONSCIOUSNESS serves one purpose for life and that's to defend itself from threats. Humans main defense is cooperation therefore we talk and write living out that cooperation. Any conscious being on another planet would also have cooperation as their number one mode of defense. The first thing us humans think about when the idea of meeting an alien from another world is HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE? That's conscienceness in the human defensiveness in evolution.