The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Donald Hoffman

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What is the hard problem of consciousness?

Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman describes what exactly the hard problem of consciousness is and why it remains a problem today.

Donald Hoffman: Donald Hoffman is an American cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. His forthcoming book, 'The Case Against Reality', argues that perception doesn’t present things as they are but instead acts like a desktop interface enabling us to interact with the world.

#reality #evolution #perception

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[dimaniak]

A question for materialists: What is the evolutionary purpose of subjective experience if p-zombies are just as good at survival as conscious humans?

[iansmith]

So what he's talking about is why do certain brain states correlate with certain experiences. I guess that's tangentially related to the hard problem but he doesn't actually talk about the hard problem in this video. the hard problem is concerned with finding out what experience itself actually is and how it's possible.

[abhishekshah]

What if free will was really a quantum process but to culminate into an actionable circuitry that is measurable by EEG to action taking, 7 seconds needed to elapse. Maybe the person did make a choice but she couldn't vocalize it before 7 seconds because the biology was busy during that time figuring out how to fire the neurons that will allow speech of report to be generated. We know this is true because action always has a measurable delay. We take action after sometime that we've thought of it.

[bpotter]

Wonderful ❤ the missing components in this wonderful interview is - the story - (in the beginning there was the word and the word created all, incl the so called consciousness)

This story, constant narrations, we call consciousness, that is being created by words through the five senses the Language Speech Center in the left hemisphere

The above is the glue that creates a so called Experience

this glue is invisible and that is why it is never noticed

It is simply the story the narrative by the narrator Center in the left hemisphere that is creating the so-called all encompassing experience and simply by neglecting overlooking the storytelling component in which everybody including scientists believe, thus they have created the hard problem of consciousness ... In actuality and in reality there is no problem at all

the imagenairy problem is that they the scientists are too much identified with the story they are too close upon it and therefore they cannot see it nor study it properly ever ...

[richardarcher]

The way I see it, everyone is separating consciousness from data. I say don't! Don't separate conscious from data. The moment you do that you have the hard problem and problems with free will. I reckon the two are one and the same. Think about what you are experiencing as consciousness. Analyse it. What is it you are experiencing? Can any of it *not* be broken down to be data?

When I analyse my consciousness the answer always comes down to data. Absolutely everything I am experiencing as what I define as consciousness *IS* data. Therefore consciousness *IS* data. You ARE that data. You are not something else that experiences that data, you ARE that data. THIS is what it is like to BE data.

An inevitable consequence of that theory is that all data processing machines, natural *and* artificial, are conscious. Even a calculator.

Of course a calculator is not *AS* conscious as we are, but that is the only difference. It is such a simple form of consciousness, so astronomically different and limited compared to our *level* of consciousness that we even think it ridiculous to consider it conscious, but .... if I am right that consciousness *IS* data, then it follows that a calculator is indeed conscious. Remember we used to think other animals were not conscious. They just worked by instinct, in other words by cause and effect, but then does not everything work by cause and effect? Even us? They have to, if something does not work by the process of cause and effect then you are saying that some effects do not have causes.

We must stop comparing our *level* of consciousness with other levels of consciousness and deciding that because a certain brain cannot do this or that therefore it is not conscious. What a brain can or cannot do is totally irrelevant when it comes to consciousness. Such things only decide *HOW* conscious it is. The fact that a calculator knows nothing at all of its surroundings or of itself, only calculates (thinks) when we make it do so, always gives the same answer to a given question, I cannot see has any relevance whatsoever to consciousness. We say 'Oh a calculator is just following a series of cause and effect processes' ... well ... so are we are we not? We say a calculator or laptop is not thinking, it is just following a set of rules. Well, is not our brain also following a set of rules, those rules developed over millions of years via the process of evolution?

Our brain is a mass of billions of causes and effects, but the thing is, we ARE those causes and effects. Therefore free will is *not* an illusion. Those causes and effects decide our 'wants' - we ARE those causes and effects - therefore we are doing what we want to do, we do have free will, it is not an illusion.

Edit:- I think there is a great tendency to confuse consciousness with awareness of our surroundings and ourselves. The latter two things I do not see as a definition of consciousness. They are just extra data to increase the *level* of consciousness, that's all. Because a laptop is not aware of itself and its surroundings I do not see as deciding it is therefore not conscious. All it decides is that it is not conscious of those things. They are just extra data. Nothing to do with whether something is conscious or not.

[abhishekshah]

David, if you posit consciousness as fundamental, then the black hole or explanatory gap that materialism entails goes away in a jiffy and now you have the hard problem of matter.

[nyworker]

Its very solvable. Just takes an electronics systems engineer because they have the proper training and experience which leads to the proper intuitions. I listen to these guys and its no different to ask the average person the details of how a computer or tv works. They are all over the map and stuck in causation and correlation.

[chris]

The example of a train coming after people congregate at the station does not seem good. True, if one were to simply observe people and trains coming and going, one could not say that people showing up at the station causes a train to come. However, you could figure this out by sending a bunch of people to a train station and seeing if, for instance, a train appears within 10 minutes. If you repeat this over and over again, sending the people at random times, and withholding people too for prolonged periods, you could determine if there is a causal relationship.

[chris]

The idea that correlation does not imply causation does not seem right to me. If event B always precedes event C, then there are two possibilities; either B caused C, or another hidden variable A caused both.

If it is true that putting the magnet to a part of the brain did not cause the color loss, then some unseen variable caused both the color loss and the decision of the researcher, at the exact time, to apply the magnet to the subject's head. That does not sound reasonable to me.

[WeeWeeJumbo]

I would argue that the nature of software is such that, to users and creators, it seems abstract, but it is in fact a physical operation. In fact, inputs to the controller really _are_ the cause of the virtual-world results, in a less direct but in absolutely as certain a cause and effect chain as that which exists in the real world, between real steering wheels and wheels.
In my real-world automobile, the steering is electrical, which is to say it uses an electric motor modulated by a microprocessor--no hydraulics. Is the control of my real wheel in my real car a fictive one?

[md.fazlulkarim]

Why we are not conscious during sleep. Answer is there.

[terrywallace]

...and the rooster that crows at 3 AM ? This deviance may also be associated with the firing of shotguns.

[ZeroOskul]

around 6:15 +/- This guy says that operating a video game controller, such as turning the controller to the right, does not cause the reaction within the game where the controlled character turns to the right.
That's like saying pressing the 'A' key on your keyboard while a word processor or text bar is open and selected doesn't cause an 'A' to appear onscreen... which is like saying that plugging an electronic device into an electric power grid doesn't cause the electronic device to receive electric power.
Weird way of putting things into words.
This guy probably knows what he means to be talking about but is a very poor communicator; doesn't come off as understanding real world logic too well.

[Hythloday]

There is no 'hard problem of consciousness' - sure ... providing the complete domino chain of causality from stimulating V4 and loss of colour, IS VERY VERY HARD ... but (Hoffman) says this in the sense of, formulating a theory is hard because the brain is complex. Mr PHILOSOPHER on the other hand supposes the 'hard problem of consciousness' is something entirely different ... he says the problem is of a different type, not just complexity. He will never be satisfied with the fact that 'he' reports loss of colour when you muck with his neurons, he will always protest 'that he has qualia' and is now experiencing black and white. He will say 'it FEELS this away' .... he doesn't get it, so does everybody else who is experimented on, these very protests are part of the causal chain.... LOL ... That is every time I show a philosopher I can control his experiences ... he says 'but I'm so special, I'm still special aren't I, surely I'm not just a biological Turing machine' .... LOL

[holgerjrgensen]

The 'hard problem', is that it is not so easy to understand that We are Eternal, and that We always had our Consciousness.
The Nature or Structure is somehow quiet simple, when You know it, but to 'see it' is not at all so easy.
But, when man is making devices as can do mental functions, man must copy the way Life does.
We recognize some of the Eternal ablities, - Instinct/automatic, - Gravity/power, - Intelligence/logic-order, - Memory/storage,
The Life-side of Feeling, is emotions, the Stuff-side is sensing, We can also add some sensors, - Feeling - to our devices.
Intuition is also one of the six eternal abilities, but it is not commonly understood.
Memory, - Instinct, - Gravity, - Feeling, - Intelligence, - Intuition, - Memory, - (structure/circuit)

The Motor of the Eternal Life, are the Life-Desire, in direct extension We have the Will (Life-side) and Gravity (Stuff-side)
By the Will, We do balance Gravity of Earth, with our own, when We lift the cup.

Well, the Compass of the Eternal Life, are the 'Hunger-Principle' and the 'Satisfaction-Principle'.
So, 'the brain', is actually not need'ed to give this eternal perspective of the consciousness

[АльбрэтХинштейн]

And I will probably tell you what (qualia) is - feelings. This is the energy of the stars - and living from there.
And consciousness is a projection of genetic memory onto a module that receives external signals. In general, this is all briefly.
Small is big, big is small. Mass is energy, energy is mass. -;))
I would say that consciousness is always a new birth, something alive.
Maybe even revives.
Because it exists in time, and time is not static. If it is not reborn every minimal fraction of a second, then it will not be. A process that thinks differently - thinks over time will not be carried out.
Qualia is probably such a peculiar melody. The music of the soul.)) The one that calls to be born, resurrects, revives a variable IMPULSE. Well, and reprograms the gene.

[johnmartin]

Is there a Higher Consciousness?
The experience of neuroscientists at Univ. of Sussex proved that there are levels higher than human. Will there be a way to reach that limit of Sup. Con.? What would be the consequences? Certainly extraordinary, isn't it?