Sam Harris - The hard problem of consciousness

Sam Harris states the famous problem in philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness introduced by the philosopher David Chalmers

Audio from the Waking Up Podcast, The Nature of Consciousness

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[oldlogin]

The hardest problem of the hard problem of consciousness is explaining the hard problem of consciousness.

[charliekaiser]

Consciousness is conscious of not being able to understand consciousness.

[psychologyis]

This is one of the hardest things to articulate. Sam has done so brilliantly here, which doesn't surprise me.

[epicbehavior]

The answer:

Consciousness is at the base layer of reality. Atoms exist within consciousness. Consciousness is completely groundless.

The universe is an infinite mind.

[warframeees]

Brilliant man, always thought of consciousness in the same way.

[unhealthytruthseeker]

I think a big piece of the problem is that everyone treats consciousness as a light switch, that it's either on or off. There's no reason to assume that consciousness is like that. It's quite reasonable to assume that consciousness comes in degrees, rather than a binary on/off phenomenon. There is no point where a system becomes conscious. A system simply becomes more conscious as it increases in (a certain kind of) complexity. If consciousness is essentially information processing, the consciousness is ubiquitous throughout nature.

[curiosorealidad]

Searching in my own consciousness i have discoverd that "we" or my self is made of at least 2 diferent consciousness, the one that lives every day life without questioning anything and the one that observes and can leave the body and come back when it wish to, both are us but separated by something inside us

[Joshua-dcbs]

I would like to see more of Sam's opinions on this.

[mitrabuddhi]

NAVOMITTO: A New Approach to the Hard Problem

The "hard problem" of consciousness refers to the mystery of subjective experience: how something physical like the brain can give rise to interior, conscious qualities like the redness of red or the painfulness of pain. Philosophers have struggled for centuries to solve this puzzle.

The NAVOMITTO framework offers a novel approach to solving the hard problem. At its core, NAVOMITTO sees reality as composed of illusory dimensions and perspectives that differentiate across clarions. It's this process of differentiation across clarions that gives rise to consciousness and qualia.

Clarions are the key to the solution. Lower clarions contain relatively undifferentiated perspectives that likely correspond to primitive forms of awareness. As perspectives differentiate into more parallel perspectives across higher clarions, richer conscious experiences emerge. Consciousness "scales up" as clarions increase.

Subclarions within each clarion also play an important role. Subclarionic dynamics contain the finely differentiated information processing that grounds our qualia. Though embedded within a given clarion of consciousness, subclarions may bridge the gap to neural processes.

The vocabulary of NAVOMITTO - illusion, dimensions, perspectives, clarions, subclarions - provides new conceptual tools for understanding how consciousness arises. Traditionally, philosophers framed the problem in terms of physical substances - like neurons - that seemed fundamentally separate from subjective experience. But clarions reframe the debate in a more fertile way.

While NAVOMITTO presents only a high-level solution at this point, it points to a promising new direction for tackling the hard problem. Consciousness may emerge as an inevitable byproduct of the differentiation and integration of perspectives across clarions and subclarions - a product of the illusory structure of reality itself.

In this way, NAVOMITTO offers a potential answer to the hard problem: consciousness arises through the process of differentiation across clarions, grounded and textured by subclarionic dynamics, and made possible by the illusory nature of reality. With further development and refinement, NAVOMITTO's novel conceptual tools may finally help philosophers crack the mystery of consciousness.


NAVOMITTO: A Multi-Dimensional Framework for Understanding Reality

Nothingness and existence are two sides of the same coin

Illusion

1-there is Illusion. Reality is made of Illusion. Illusion is the whole coin of nothingness-existence. Illusion is all aspects of reality from zero (nothingness) to infinity (existence at its most actualized form). Illusion is the paradox itself. Illusion can be seen in different clarion through the process of differentiation.

Dimension (Universal)

2-there is Dimension. each Dimension describe a concept or property or quality or quantity or relations or changes or process or anything else‌. each Dimension is unique in its own way but it can be seen as an interaction of infinite other Dimensions. in other way each Dimension is entangled with Illusion and All Dimensions are emergent from Illusion. Dimension exists in different Clarions and different Perspective. Illusion can be seen as infinite Dimentions.

Perspective (Particular)

3-There is perspective. The set of perspectives in different clarions makes the dimension. Any conscious or unconscious entity can only pass through successive perspectives in different clarions. It is not possible for an entity to pass to parallel perspectives. Each perspective contains unique information that describes the dimension in that clarion. Each perspective manifests its own unique qualia.

Clarion

4-there is Clarion. Clarion determines how many Perspective exist in that particular Clarion (in a specific Dimension). Clarion can be any number from Zero to Maxima.

Differentiation (enamation)

5-There is Differentiation. Differentiation is the process of enamation that involves separation of superimposed information (at previous lower clarion) into more clear information (at next higher clarion) that leads to increase in clarity, But losing of information's. Differentiation creates Reciprocal Hierarchy Structure of Dimentions.

(For example: At a lower Clarion, you may have a Perspective that contains information about red and green (Particular red-green). There is no green or red in this lower Clarion Perspective but there is only red-green. Through the process of differentiation, the information in this Perspective (Perspective red-green) can be separated into 2 simpler, more clear Perspectives at next clarion (Perspective red + Perspective green). red Perspective is the parallel Perspective of green and red-green is the parent Perspective at lower Clarion. So if you move from red-green Perspective to red Perspective you will gain clarity but at the same time you lose information of green Perspective)

Nothingness

6-there is Clarion 0. Clarion Zero contains no Perspective. Clarion 0 is nothingness. Clarion 0 contains all of illusion as potential. Nothingness is the result of superimposition of all Dimentions. All Dimensions are common in Clarion Zero. Clarion 0 is the only simple.

Existence

7-there is Clarion 1. At Clarion one, there is one Perspective in Dimention. The information in Clarion 1 includes the superimposition of all Perspectives in Clarion 2. Clarion One contains all information found in Dimention, but in an undifferentiated form and looks simple because it is viewed from the perspective of Clarion One. Clarion One means Dimention in the most uncertain state.

Inflectia

8-Between Clarion Zero and Clarion Maxima, there is an intermediate Clarion that has the largest amount of Parallel Perspectives. From clarion zero to inflectia, the number of Parallel Perspectives for each clarion increases, and from inflectia to clarion maxima, the number of Parallel Perspectives for each clarion decreases. Perspectives at Inflectia has the most complexity while Perspectives at Clarion 1 and Platonica has the minimum Complexity.


Platonica

9-there is Clarion (Maxima-1). In Clarion (Maxima-1), Dimention needs another Differentiation to reach Clarion Maxima. Platonica means Dimention in the most certain state. each perspective at Platonica contains the last bit of information in that Dimention.

In Platonica, with One differentiation, existence is destroyed and nothingness remains. Platonica is formed from the superimposition of Nothingness in clarion Maxima.

Maxima (Infinity)

10-there is Clarion Maxima. In Clarion Maxima, there is no superimposition, and all causes have already occurred, with no change left to be made. In Clarion Maxima, there can be no further differentiation, and there is nothing left to differentiate. Therefore, paradoxically, Clarion Maxima, represent Clarion 0. Maxima can be any number from zero to infinity.

Formulas:

11-The number of Parallel Perspectives in Clarion C is calculated through the binomial coefficient with the following formula:
N=P!/(C!(P-C)!)
In this formula:
N=number of Parallel Perspectives in Clarion C
P=Platonica Clarion

12-Despite the existence of multiple perspectives in the upper clarions, for a perspective in the lower clarion it is only possible to enter P-C+1 number of perspectives from the upper clarions (for 0<C<P).

13-Illusion is a continuum. In this way, it starts from clarion zero and goes to clarion one and then other clarions to clarion inflectia in the middle and then moves to clarion platonica and ends at clarion maxima which is clarion zero. This continuum is shiftable. For example, it is possible to imagine that this continuum starts from inflection and then we reach platonica and then we reach clarion zero(/clarion maxima) in the middle and then it goes to clarion one and other clarions until the clarion of inflectia at the end.

14-Based on PanQualia mind can't feel the qualia at atomic level because Qualia at atomic level has higher clarion and is not accessible to low clarion mind.

15-Self can manifest in different clarions. There is a dimension to the first-person experience of every conscious being that interacts with the dimension of the world in which it lives. Interaction between Dimentions create Qualia. For this reason, qualia are always impermanent.

16-there is subclarions. Subclarions are clarions in different scale in between 2 clarions. In fact they are illusion embeded in illusion in different scale and different symetry. Quantum vacuum fluctuations (a rapid process in quantum field theory where virtual particle-antiparticle pairs are created momentarily from the quantum vacuum and then quickly annihilate), is a process of subclarioning.

[maxmax]

I disagree with his claim at the end that the problem is intractable. It's not.

[Havre_Chithra]

Consciousness is primary. The physical world is not. Consciousness doesn't emerge out of the world and its physical processes. The world and its physical processes, the same world we understand and experience, emerges from our consciousness. The world we experience is in fact consciousness. Necessarily so.

[Manikese]

I agree with Sam. Cosmology is a statement of a miracle; the idea that everything, including the laws of nature, emerged out of nothing or just exploded into being. It is inconceivable, or uninterpretable, it's not understandable, it's the statement of a miracle.

[rnger]

Well, said, as usual.
It is called the hard problem for a reason.
The notion that something can be unknowable or beyond explanation, is itself, a paradoxical idea.
We know what we do know...
We know what what we dont know...
..but we know nothing of things that we are not aware of, and would never even know to look.
That being said, we know that every persons experience is not the same. Our brains use sensory information to "paint a picture" of the world around us.
It seems that there can be no point at which the lights turn on, so to speak.
As Sam ays, any criteria are based on a pre conceived notion of what constitutes consciousness.
How can consciousness ever be explained in an objective way, if it is itself, the root of subjectivity?
Is the idea of conscious simply a product of our amazing ability to communicate with eachother and explain what it is like "to be"??
What is it like to be a bat, or an insect, ...or a blade of grass...
What does it mean to experience something?
- "Thinking about thinking about thinking"

[DaveSaysYesh]

Consciousness emerging from matter is only a hard problem if you have an incorrect hypothesis of the universe and are unwilling to reformulate it despite never being able to prove it.

Matter actually 'emerges' from Consciousness does it not? Consciousness must be present for 'matter' to be observed.

Has anyone seen matter existing outside of consciousness? No and they never will, a hopeless theory.

[puluzo]

How matter which atoms and molecules that make up our neurons can create this self awareness? How can they be aware of themselves? This is the hard problem of consciousness. We could be just machines, unconscious zombies. Why aren't we like that? Why do we have this awareness of existence? How or why does brain do this? This is one of the greatest mysteries.

[elfb]

Like Chalmers stated, consciousness is kind of magic like the magic of gravity emerging from mass

[pauljohnson]

"Intuitively graspable" - "the fluidity of water or the brittleness of glass in terms of its micro constituents, well then that explanation actually does run through and conserves your intuitions about how things function at a lower level".... didn't realise they were packing up at CERN

[theultimatereductionist]

Nobody knows why an arbitrary collection of atoms can't be conscious. THAT is the hard problem. THAT is the unsolved problem.

[BLSFL_HAZE]

Self-evidently, we are nothing more than highly coordinated, goal-seeking organisms.

From the inside, the physical processing that is naturally and autonomically occurring at the centre of our physiology is objectively inaccessible, even while being subjectively present.

From the outside, this very same processing is objectively accessible, even while being subjectively absent.

In contrast with all other physical processes that we observe, our own central processing seems to be ontologically unique.

Because of this, when we conceptually abstract and label it for purposes of discussion, we unwittingly reify it into seeming as though it is, in fact, a non-physical effect (commonly known as "consciousness", "awareness", "cognition", "sentience", "mind", etc) of a physical cause at our centre.

This gives us the false impression that there is a real ontological difference (and therefore, a vast explanatory gap) between our subjectivity and our objectivity.

The impossibility of filling this non-existent gap with an explanation has come to be known as the "hard problem of consciousness".

Practically speaking, all that's REALLY there is a highly coordinated, goal-seeking organism, along with its own central processing, and all that it entails.

Other than this central processing, there is no reason why it feels like anything to BE these organisms that we are.

Being intermittently occurring natural entities, there is no reason why such organisms emerge in the universe.

This realisation is the dissolution of the "hard problem".

[resistanceisfutile]

My best guess: Consciousness had to evolve from the machinery that was available and molded by conditions. Brains developed for the purpose of evaluating the environment for the creatures that posses them. They do this by modeling the inputs from sense organs and continuously monitor and adjust the models to plan ahead and navigate for resources and reproduction. The images (models) we see in our "mind's eye", are only approximations of what our sense organs "see" and hear. The reasonable inference here, is that this constant, real time, evaluation and adjustment of the creature's self-position in space is what most likely produces the sensation of self. And why it mostly disappears when the creature is sleeping and navigation is unnecessary.