Peter Tse - How Brain Scientists Think About Consciousness

Is consciousness a scientific problem to be solved? Or a philosophical problem that will remain a mystery? What do scientists who study the brain think?

[nishparadox]

Discovered about Closer To Truth a month back. And I'd say one of the few best things that has happened. These interviews have become a form of ritual. Awesome!

[gfally]

I will add one thing to my previous comment:

Interestingly, while we do not know how our minds cause our thoughts about things (intentionality), Dr. Tse does theorize that when do have intentional thoughts (which he avoids explaining), we could be drawing from higher-order categories of reality created by our minds.

This mapping of empirical reality onto categories of reality formed by consciousness is really similar to the way medieval logicians categorized objects of sense experience based on primary or essential qualities and secondary or accidental qualities.

To use the beautiful woman example:
- When I intend to think about a beautiful woman, I create the category « beautiful woman »
- When including women in this category, I must have an implicit definition in mind of what a beautiful woman is, or what makes a woman essentially beautiful (primary qualities)
- Then, from my working memory, I select instances of women I’ve seen based on the primary qualities of the above category, abstracting from secondary qualities in these woman that are not relevant to their being considered in the category « beautiful woman » (ex. whether they are right or left handed)

From this, it might be interesting to ask ourselves what other categories of the mind are created by the conscious mind, and how they might relate to one another.

This might bring us back to a rediscovery of Aristotle’s categories.

[jeanqnguyen]

Substantial and insightful ... mind blown
Makes me wonder where have I been all these years, why I never heard of these guys until now 😑

[morphixnm]

Peter Tse is aware of not just the complexities in discussing consciousness, but the depth of the question. For those who really care about examining the many questions related to the brain and consciousness, I recommend a book titled "Irreducible Mind."

[kahlread]

I couldn't help but notice similarities in Peter's description of his hallway approach to consciousness and determinism and the Bohemian idea of pilot-waves. It professes that the quantum particle in its wave state searches out all possibilities than manifests as the particle at the best place that has been determined. This is like the idea of mutation and then selection of the best result.

[unclebirdman]

This sounds like a very promising way of thinking.

[jimbo]

One of the most provacative videos existing today.

[reenaranjan]

Donot go after the name this is the best possible explanation on this matter.

[Jamie-Russell-CME]

I feel the titles are proper and to the point with this channels clips. But I am shocked you dont get more views on them.
If the channel found a way to add some more inticing titles on the vidwos it might help. But I would hate to see the titles lose any of the professional, informative information contained in them as is.

[davidwright]

Very interesting discussion (not just because I agree with Peter Tse!) - but little to do with the nominal subject 'How brain scientists think about consciousness.' Nothing about consciousness, lots about in/determinism!

Clearly part of a longer discussion. Is there a video of the complete session?

[cubefox]

He mostly talked about determinism/indeterminism and not about the initial topic of mental causation.

[abelwarres]

I think at the end of the day, information is what gives rise to consciousness(being aware of your own existence and the world around you). Imagine if you were able to wipe out all of the memory in your brain, you would not be conscious. you would look around and not know what they are, or what you are. The brain is simply the medium that the information resides in and is processed which enables the person to experience consciousness. I'm not sure about one thing though: what would happen if you were able to clone a person, then copy all of his memories and transfer it to the cloned individual. The sense of self that we have, would that be present in the cloned individual or would that cloned individual be another individual with no connection of the self awareness of the original person.

[hrishi_cache]

2:12 neurons can reset the criteria that will make the subsequent neurons fire. But does the resetting happen deterministically or randomly? I don't understand how can something be in between deterministic and random..

[kahlread]

Has anyone considered that consciousness might be the same as extracting a three-dimensional projection from a two dimensional holographic negative? Can an interference pattern of quantum fields be interpreted by brain components and configured as three dimensional thoughts?

[JAYDUBYAH]

The universe (and the brain) are deterministic, but the lines of causality are not only infinitely complex in their intersections, they also influence and evolve one another’s...

[infovy]

Yep, in the mechanics of it at the neuronal level, something like this I suspect.

[langtran]

So what's the middleway going to be named?🤗 I think determinism is like waves and all stuff you can see the surface and the other well can be the bottom.need both.i enjoyed

[mcnairfan]

Ugh it's just absolutely brutal to hear that such an otherwise intelligent person thinks that Wittgenstein was the first philosopher to talk about criteria...

[scienceexplains]

Of the mental is a subset of the physical, then your problem with determinism disappears. Memes, for example, spread thru optics, sound waves, etc - all physical. Our physical neurons fire. Consciousness is a subset of these processes.

[charlesbrightman]

How exactly does our brain think thoughts before it consciously thinks those thoughts? What exactly is the 'higher intelligence' behind our very thoughts? And if our thoughts are thought before we consciously think them, then do we truly have complete conscious 'freewill'? How could we if we don't truly consciously think the thoughts we think in totality?