Christof Koch - Is Consciousness Entirely Physical?

Here’s the big question about consciousness, our inner experience of what things feel like. Is consciousness a product of the physical world alone? Because if consciousness is the output of the physical brain by itself, however complex, then consciousness as physicalism would defeat those who believe, or hope for, the existence of nonphysical realities.

Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute of Brain Science in Seattle.

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.

[domini]

Can conciousness exist without a brain or once the brain is physically dead? That is the question seeking answer, not whether consciousness is the brain?

[EduardoRodriguez-duvd]

The question is poorly posed.
The mind is the functioning of the brain.
It is analogous to the relationship between running and the legs that allow that activity.
Is running entirely physical? A cell in that leg does not run.
Running is not physical. The leg is physical. Running is the functioning of that physical object.

[NotNecessarily-ipvc]

The 3 spatial dimensions (1D, 2D, 3D) are physical.

Shouldn't consciousness be 0D, geometrically speaking?

[Ekam-Sat]

Many great minds have come before us and figured it all out ages ago. Too many teachers nowadays focus on the fact that "all is one". Yes, we already know that. Nothing new under the sun. The question is not if all is one; the question is why is there differentiation within oneness. Jesus figured it out alright. Louis Armstrong too and I quote: "love baby love, that's the secret".

[helendycha]

Consciousness has been an enigma for centuries. It has always seemed evident to me that it is not physical.

[seangilmore]

Consciousness itself does not require experience to make decisions. Experience allows for a more subjective state of consciousness. Once subjective experience is accrued, the 'Mind' emerges to form a 'Conscious-Mind'.

[palashmatt]

Sir, your research not just good, it's incredible without doubt.

[silvomuller]

Now that's a video I can show my mom to tell her what I want to investigate.

[harrisonwestphall]

He had a NDE that really shook his views up.

[sjoerd]

If consciousness is to be explicable, then it is deterministic and it is physical.

Consciousness is sensory. It is an interpretation of mental activity, not all mental activity. It does not do the interpreting but is a part of the process. It is a physical property of mental activity. There must be activity, there is no consciousness derived from a static state. In addition to light, sound, touch etc we sense thoughts (as differentiated from light, sound, touch, etc). The brain does the processing and consciousness can be a part of the process. Consciousness itself can be analysed by the brain and the conclusion be added to consciousness or used to modify/correct consciousness (and we are aware that we are aware). Consciousness is useful in making and correcting a model of the world that is experienced.

[deek]

They keep asking the same question over and over again and expecting a different answer, truth is nobody knows, and we probably never will.

[longcastle]

Way back in the Cambrian, some of the very first creatures with light sensitive patches of skin on their bodies (representing the first kind of proto eyes) attached by a thin line of neurons to a slightly larger clump of neurons inside their bodies (representing the first kind of proto brain), were able, by means of this early sensory perceptual system, to translate changes in the steady stream of light waves in their watery environments into images of light and shadow, alerting them of dangers and/or potential sources of food, etc… So the question seems to be, how was such an early sensory perceptual system able to translate such concrete things as light waves into such seemingly non concrete things as visual experience. A very interesting question, imo, but maybe not with all spiritual implications some want to impose on it, when you consider it from the perspective of such early life forms. Or from the perspective of any life form much further down on the phylogenetic tree.

[James-lljb]

Poor Robert. Desperately scouring faculty lounges in search of someone who'll agreecwith him that "consciousness must be physical"!😅😅😅😅

[donaldhoover]

Thank God, a brain scientist who isn't afraid to step outside the dead end corner brain science has painted it's self into. I don't see this question being resolved until we are willing to at least consider that consciousness may just be a function of the field itself. Capable of being experienced as differentiated after the collapse of the wave function but unified and ubiquitous in it's undifferentiated state. Prove it isn't without using baseless assumptions that have generated little to no evidence after countless attempts to explain them.

[dbirch]

As always, a thought-provoking video and lots of really interesting Comments.

[squeakeththewheel]

When he said we don't need quantum mechanics to explain why the table is solid, he is simply wrong. He said we can do that using "conventional physics." That statement was proved wrong 100 years ago when scientists started understanding what atoms are and how they create solidity. You cannot explain it properly without quantum mechanics. So judge for yourself how much to trust his other claims.

[TheWayofFairness]

Physical is much more than we thought.

[williamburts]

The way I see it is that nothing could be perceived to underlie consciousness since such an existence would have to flow along the stream of awareness or consciousness for it to be known thus making it content within consciousness therefore realizing some existence as being the substratum of consciousness to me would be impossible.

[treeyoda]

basically life is sensation computing, programmed to replicate and update. the output is adaptive response and it is not local, as it happens in a larger scale. life is an active and perpetual computing mechanism, it generates its own subjective calculations known as experiences. We are here for the ride and nothing more. one important thing to ponder upon is how this computing evolved over time, by then we will understand the rest of the mystery.

[sandman]

Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. Richard Lewontin