The Evolution of Consciousness ~ PROFESSOR MICHAEL GRAZIANO

Professor Michael Graziano is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University and his scientific research focuses on the brain basis of awareness. Not only that, he is an author of several fiction novels -- as well as a composer of music.

MARK from Evolution Soup chats with Professor Graziano about the subject of consciousness – what it means to be conscious, and when and why it might have arisen in our evolutionary history.

#consciousness #science

0:00 START
01:34 Michael's background
05:23 What is consciousnss?
12:17 How did consciousness evolve?
32:52 How is consciousness studied?
37:26 Future projects
39:23 Books

LINKS FOR MICHAEL GRAZIANO

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#evolutionsoup #evolution #paleo #paleontology #paleoartist #Homosapiens #hominid #artwork #Darwin #cave #bone #fossils #Neanderthal #australopithecus #hominin #extinct #animals #science #anthropology #paleoanthropology #genus #species #africa #skull #skulls #naturalselection #lucy #paleontology #consciousness #neuroscience #brain #brainscience
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[torstrasburg]

Absolutely riveting! One of your best shows. Important insights/understandings on this huge topic.

[tikaanipippin]

I was walking out of the park with a neighbour and our dogs, and as we got nearer the gate, my dog on a leash became more excited leaping in the air, almost somersaulting. My neighbour asked why was he doing that?. I believed that he wanted to go back in her car, but she explained that she had not brought the car with her this time, and we were walking back home. At the gate, my dog turned towards where the car would have been parked, and once he was satisfied that her car was not there, he turned back towards our homes. How many times before had he had a lift from the park back home? Twice.
Consciousness? anticipation? joy?, resignation and acceptance? My dog showed all these then and does daily. I don't see consciousness as special, nor particularly human, either.

[glennpaquette]

This is the typical non-explanation given by psychologists and neuroscientists.

[ronaldjackson]

The development of the social human is a part of the research of Sarah Hrdy, who writes about how children learn to respond to different caregivers in different ways as infants, to get the attention and food they need.

[rudihoffman]

The evolutionary advantages of emergent consciousness are made clear here…this kinda makes sense as a REALLY great adaptation.

[kathiehope]

my dad had a right hemisphere stroke two years ago. his spatial neglect has definitely improved but initially it was quite severe. for whatever reason i never thought of it as a disorder of consciousness, only of perception. i’m actually a neuroscientist and find this fascinating! i’ll have to find some of your work

[Peter-riie]

This was great to listen to! Some time ago I studied philosophy of mind or consciousness and this took me right back. 😊 Would it be possible for you to make another on this subject? There are many interesting researchers out there, Susan Blackmore being one. Thank you! 🙏🏻

[Bob-dk]

Brilliant theory of evolution but it doesn’t add much to the explanatory gap. One approach I was hoping for is to explain the evolution reasoning behind consciousness and it might lead to the “how” of the gap. Moving into AI doesn’t seem to help because if we can’t explain the gap in human terms how can we really expect to do it with machines.

[tonyaidinis]

Slippery thinking, goes from talking about the subjective inner experience to talking about "models" constructed by the neuronal activity of the brain as a machine.
With this type of "slippage" instead of actually trying to grasp the essence of the subject experiencing those models, we go to talking about "models" which are qualia of consciousness but do not explain anything about the existance of a subject and its consciousness.
Again and again scientists manage to start talking about something else but not about consciousness.

[guiperion]

the "hard" problem is that we are trying to observe and explain our consciousness using our very same consciousness which gets us in a loop.

[simesaid]

I don't pretend to have any answers, but here's a few quick questions.

• If primates are more conscious than other animals, or simply if consciousness is a product of evolution, then it must logically follow that "regular" primates are _more_ conscious than "irregular" ones. In other words, you must be more conscious than a person with Down syndrome... this just doesn't make any sense to me.

• If consciousness arose in almost all, or indeed _all, _ animals of a certain complexity relatively early in the evolutionary process, then how did nature _know_ to share what must have been a pretty expensive piece of kit across such a widely diverse range of substrate-dependent creatures? And yes, of course, evolution doesn't "know" anything!

• If conscious awareness arose for us to "focus attention" on specific problems to solve them, then why is it demonstrably the case that we perform more poorly when we are conscious of a task than we undertake it auto-somatically?

• And, lastly, if primate consciousness is the epoch of some highly-refined - and so one would also assume highly complex - brain structure, then why is it the case that patients who have undergone split-brain surgery apparently suffer no loss of conscious awareness, despite the brain now having to do twice the work with half the resources at its disposal?

I'll readily admit that none of these issues are in any way proscriptive for the process that Michael has outlined here. But for those still holding out hope that their phenomenological experience may still be somehow, well... magical... it's something.

[strooom]

Amazing ❤ ty so much... "souls"... of course!... and morality/religion being 1a and 1b...

[rover-lx]

With all due respect, human intellect has its limitation. Though it is good at problem solving but using intellect to study consciousness is like measuring the depth of the ocean using a foot scale.

[ronaldjackson]

John Searle talks about the social awareness of others as intersubjectivity, using the term from Husserl and others.

[aripiispanen]

♪♫♥ - Very Interesting, thank you for sharing this - 𒀭

[Raydensheraj]

I own his rather short "Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience" - just to get a little bit into the subject. I'm more interested in the history and universal application of Evolutionary theory - but think anyone studying the subject should look into all the different fields of the life sciences. Another interesting interview...always high quality here. Thanks for what you do with this channel.

[jamyangtenzin]

There is no accurate definition available in the West?

[e-t-y]

"When do self models emerge?" sounds very promising. In psychology its critical to how self-perceptions drive behavior.

[jeremyl]

This was a fantastic interview. I love it. Does this channel have a patreon or any kind of donation or support structure? Can you get him back to go into even more detail please.

[ezioberolo]

Studying consciousness, other than the riveting reductionist scientific approach, is like trying to guess the shape of your face, the colour of your eyes without the aid of an other person or any reflecting surface...