Why the Brain Does Not Cause Conscious Experience

Cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman discusses why neural correlates of consciousness do not cause consciousness.

[codyhenrichs]

Having out of body experiences all my life has shown me my brain is not where my consciousness comes from.

[claytonthomas]

Can't wait for the Aware study 2 to finally settle the debate of Mind= brain or Mind > Brain. If it is successful then it will be the end of materialism and be one of the biggest scientific discoveries yet

[krisc]

You can make an apple pie if you combine the right ingredients, but as Carl Sagan once said: "if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe". Some scientists believe that one day we will be able to create consciousness artificially. If that day comes, I will be the first to say: "look what you have proven: it takes an intelligent agent to create consciousness", but this will never happen, because consciousness is indeed prior and fundamental.

[themindfuldj]

“The old adage ‘correlation doesn’t imply causation’”- something I’ve been saying for a long time in regard to scientists will use the argument that what happens to the brain impacts consciousness and therefore consciousness is caused by the brain. just because damage to a radio affects the sound and signal doesn’t mean that signal or sound is actually produced or originates from the radio.

Very few agree with him I suspect because he challenges the fundamental assumptions that other scientists are unwilling to let go of, namely that space, time and particles, or matter comes first. But our immediate experience before we assume any of this is the experience of consciousness. Why don’t we start there. This is what Rupert Spira in his consciousness only model has been saying for a long time which is the position of non dual philosophy. Let’s start without any conceptual assumptions, let’s start with what we directly experience. But I suspect that scientists letting go of materialism as the foundation is akin to the religious person letting go of their belief in God. 🙏🏻

[joshc]

What makes more sense, matter creates mind, or mind creates matter?

[tlafleur]

The universe itself is conscious. He's correct to state that conciousness is fundamental. It's the ground for all things.

[AndrewUnruh]

After thinking about it for the better part of a year, my *GUESS* is that the brain presents information to what we call our consciousness. In other words, the brain totally controls what we are conscious of but that the brain itself is not conscious itself. I think a lot of people conflate what one is conscious of with the property of being conscious. I also think that consciousness is not necessary for evolution. In fact, I would say that consciousness itself has no agency - it cannot affect anything. A human being with a properly functional brain but no consciousness would be indistinguishable from one with consciousness. That consciousness has no agency but it so utterly pervasive would totally explain why we have failed to directly measure it. Think of consciousness as a particle that has no interactions with any other particle. From the outside, you would have no way of measuring it. In fact, for all we know, such particles exist. I think that when it comes down to it, the ONLY reason we know that consciousness exists is because we experience it.
So, if the brain is not responsible for consciousness, why do we seem to lose consciousness during deep sleep or anesthesia? I would argue it is because the brain is no longer presenting anything to the consciousness to be conscious of. Think of it as an old film video camera. If you develop unexposed film, you get black. So to if you shoot the film in a totally dark room. The fact that the film is black does not imply, in this case, that the camera wasn't recording only that there was nothing to record.

[StephJseph]

I don't understand how blind people can be?
If you just took a moment to observe everything around you-- you would find the common link between everything-- which is variations of consciousness.

The only thing I'm not sure of is what that even means...

[yourcommander]

Would be interesting that we *as a species* are actually in pods sending a a message to brains / receivers, antennas. Interacting like characters in a video game.

Death would be the way to disconnect from this character. But if this is the case - do we get purged / removed from the "gamer seat" and why are we being put back
in the game ?

Now, ignoring how insane this sounds to mainline "realism" assertions. Removal of the *knowledge* that we are being simulated it can only mean we are in some sort of
"alien" prison being simulated either for something we done or the alien force wants our collective simulation power to learn something ? Of course that would
make us very easy to hurt / basically a person sleeping. Could you imagine *seeing* for the first time ? Of course not :)

Honestly it just leads to more questions.

[yourkingdomcomeyourwillbedone]

Who are you?
What if you aren't even the mind, brain or body at the deepest level?

[willbrink]

Non local consciousness is not beholden to Spacetime and its own dimension.

[anebeejohn]

Conscius=feelings-love, forgivness etc, conscius produce light, conscius=soul.

[moesypittounikos]

Imagine how genius Kurt Godel sounded! Hoffman is indeed a genius but rationality will never grasp😮

[rogerjohnson]

I understand that there is more neural activity in the brain than sensory input, and that is what comprises conscious experience, but why then say the brain doesn't cause it.

[vincedgarvlogs]

The brain only sends the processed stimulus to the consciousness.

[bonniedavis]

God says he gives us what we want. So all our experiences are a collective. Makes sense man can do anything he can imagine. We have higher energies that influence us. Are our true selves somewhere else protected from this physicality? 🤔😅

[lovelightawakening]

What a shame that people of stature cause there ideologies and theories to influence the precipice of intelligent thinking based on righteousness of cause, however not right ot wrong until the truth presents itself truthfully knowing you maybe right or wrong is the journey of humanity, conciousness is the atomic essence that animates and ellaborates the material being as a density of compatibility to intelligently exist with a soul allowing the separation of the mind body and soul to co exist as a single entity, thought is the mind however its energetic therefore influenced by conciousness which is our higher self the parts of the unawakened mind and spirit or physical and metaphysical presence that has not yet been accessed by the current being. This is short but the fundamental aspect of our being is that conciousness is created internally and externally as our electromagnetic fields protrude intelligent knowledge growing and developing or evolving simultaneously continuously. I could explain technically more in depth however the journey to this knowledge is therefore not yet a destined manifest of the thought therefore until they stop searching outside of themselves for an answer and look within which is not easy the enlightened knowledge will present itself accordingly to the level of which it could be understood. However interesting thought processes, i hope this helps in the understanding of your journey. Peace...

[BillJoslin]

not a different type of approach - its the presumption of teleology which demands consciousness to be fundamental. this sets up a circular argument that can't be falsified i.e. pseudoscience

[tedbishop]

The brain is the only part of the human body that is conscious

[georgegrubbs]

He is correct about “reality” and wrong about consciousness. Consciousness is not fundamental. He said he is probably wrong. He is wrong.