Roger Walsh - Why is Consciousness So Baffling?

How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness—appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery—what it ‘feels like’ inside—will likely remain. This is the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness. What could even count as a theory of consciousness, even in principle?

Roger N. Walsh is an Australian professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, within UCI’s College of Medicine.

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.

[browngreen]

Baffling? No more so than any other manifestation of Nature or Existence itself. 😮

[fireside]

I listen to binaural beats every night with my noise cancelling headphones - all different frequencies. I fall asleep to them and they play in my ears all night. I really think looking inward holds lots of information. Meditation is hard tho. Constantly having to clear our thoughts when all we are is thoughts. I’m working on it.

[frankjspencejr]

Physicalism is a closed system of objective "particles" and the forces that move the particles around. So physicalism, by definition, is not a system that can explain or accommodate 1st person subjective experience. Subjective experience has properties categorically different from particles and forces. The kicker is that consciousness (thoughts, sensations, and feelings) is self-verifying, that is, I have no doubt, zero, that consciousness exists. On the other hand, physical reality is suggested only CONTINGENTLY by conscious experiences. So if we can only have one or the other, consciousness is the reality and the physical world is an illusion. The opposite is flatly illogical. NOTE: I can only speak to "my" first-person subjective experience. I have no access to or direct proof of consciousness beyond the first-person.

[KenChan-dk]

Consciousness is so baffling because no one has artificially produced one - even ChatGPT 4 and AlphaGo are not conscious. What are the system states of pain/pleasure, intention, or satisfaction? No theory from Physicalism can define it specifically. Because the variety of behaviors can be produced, the flexibility of system states can be evolved, and the non-definitive of system parameters for trying to classify the basic emotions, you will find that the basic emotions are impossible to be classified from conventional system perspective. If functionalities of consciousness are all only from conventional information processing, how can consciousness do such classification on brain system states almost instantly (report the brain states are in pain or pleasure state almost instantly)? It is impossible! Therefore, consciousness probably requires factors more than conventional information processing.

[ivanbeshkov]

Which is more real, sleep or being awake? I am not sure.

[ansleyrubarb]

...Just thinking, wanting to continue to grow, learn, reorganize old fact creating new information. Both of you show how through conscience important & special your experiencing all things around each of have a special corporate information. We rely & help one another. It seems to me that with consciences is essential to everyone's creativeness as everyone has different gifts & talents. If I may be allowed, it is GOD'S Breath in our lungs that provides the wonderful/beautiful gift of life. Each with different fingerprints. It is up to us how we use those gifts & talents to mature, and continue to help other, respectfully, Chuck...captivus brevis...you tube...Blessings...we have learned so much in a very short time as Time/Space we must continue to live, learn, and grow, as there is so very much to interact and experience...

[bobcabot]

...and again where does it go afterwards?! according to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics energy cant be destroyed - so where?

[EROSNERdesign]

How can we be sure that "awake state" is any different from "dream state". What's the first thing you say when waking from a vivid dream? "it felt so real...."

[ansleyrubarb]

...Thank you for your marvelous explanation. My mind, experiences, & reality has been enlarged, respectfully, Chuck...captivus brevis...you tube...Blessings...

[markstipulkoski]

He cites how we create worlds while we are asleep, in the form of dreams. The same circuits are creating the world around us when we're conscious, the deference being that when we are asleep, those circuits are mostly cut off from our senses, so they are not constrained to create a world that is consistent with our senses. No magic there. And today, AI neural networks are able to construct worlds out of short language descriptions. Anyone researching the theory of mind who is not keeping up with the advances of AI is not doing the topic justice.

[micheldisclafani]

Consciousness is the connection between life and reality.

[artwatch-yj]

This guy is a waste of time, he says nothing

[medusaskull]

We all experienced illusion. The question is, if there is no consciousness, would there still be illusion? Can you experience illusion without consciousness? Is there an example of that in nature? What can experience illusion without being conscious?

[BLSFL_HAZE]

Self-evidently, it is naturally "like something" to be an engaged entity (i.e. an animal), but it is apparently NOT "like something" to be either a responsive entity (i.e. a plant) or a reactive entity (i.e. any non-living thing).

There is no evidence for there being any deeper reason for why all of this is the case.

The concept of "consciousness" (or, interchangeably, "awareness", "subjectivity", "sentience", "mind", etc) is nothing more than a reification of this "like something-ness", with no non-conceptual distinction to be found between it and the engaged entities it is self-evidently associated with.

In other words, what we call "consciousness" can be more accurately regarded as "engagement".

[Corteum]

_"Why is Consciousness So Baffling?"_

Because you're not conscious enough 😂😂

[Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

We experience life moment by moment because the future is coming into existence quanta by quanta, photon by photon.

In such a theory, consciousness is the most advanced part of a universal process of energy exchange that forms our ever-changing world.

At low temperature, we measure this process as a ‘period of time’ relative to the atoms or the Periodic Table. At higher temperature the same process is relative to plasma with charge be able to cover a large area of interstellar space.

[dntfrthreapr]

This well spoken gentleman is more of a rock star than Joe Walsh and Roger Waters combined.

[philosophyofvalue]

Because phenomenal entities can't be properly understood with the criteria of science and logic.

[apparentbeing]

How can any being do anything without consciousness? Can you do something yourself in an unconscious state?

[declup]

Reading the comments here worries me.

This channel attracts a lot of dotty philosophastering. Commenters are convinced that their opinions are revelations to be shared with the world, and they don't seem to recognize the wooliness of their own thinking.

I'm a commenter here, too, though. What should I make of that? It scares me that grounded reason and self-awareness may elude me as well.