Neuroscience of Conciousness | Full Podcast | Raymond Tallis, Susana Martinez-Conde, Markus Gabriel

E154 | The Neuroscience of Conciousness | Raymond Tallis, Susana Martinez-Conde, Markus Gabriel

Neuroscientists believe that our minds and conciousness are no more than matter and mechanism. But if they are right, is all meaning, purpose and feeling illusory? Must we accept that we are just machines? Or do the secrets of experience lie beyond neuroscience's grasp, requiring an alternative account of who we are? Neurophilosopher Susanna Martinez-Conde, author of Aping Manckind Raymond Tallis and German philosopher and author of I am Not a Brain Markus Gabriel seek answers to the mystery of conciousness.

#neuroscience #conciousness #mind #self #matter #illusion #philosophy

Philosophy for our Times is a weekly podcast bringing you the world’s leading thinkers on today’s biggest ideas. Listen to Nobel prize-winning scientists and philosophers put their heads together with best-selling authors and emerging thinkers to confront the burning issues and debate the best ways forward.

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[tythedev]

What I find very important is stepping away from dualism. In a neuron, is the weight of an binary classifier a non-physical entity? No! It must be established.

It must be that other animals have their own unique "movie" in their minds, as foreign as it would be to us. We began as simple creatures, stumbling through the dark for sustenance; Our driving factor being survival. Now, as we dominate the planet we look back on the large collections of "is it good? Go towards. Is it bad? Stay away" encapsulated in our skull. I think truly we continue to ponder consciousness because we now are faced with a situation where survival is no longer a primary task.

We can say that conscienceness is unique to humans in the same way our feet are. Some animals have hooves, some have paws, but the goal is the same: to traverse the environment. Our consciousness drive us towards what will ensure our survival. The ability to abstractly think and plan for the future is what gained us an evolutionary advantage.