Giulio Tononi - Is Consciousness Irreducible?

Why is consciousness so contentious? Neuroscience can increasingly explain many facets of consciousness, but what about conscious awareness itself? Some philosophers claim that although facets of consciousness—such as how we see edges or colors—can be explained, we have no possibility of explaining, in purely physical terms, the experience of consciousness.

Giulio Tononi is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who holds the David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, as well as a Distinguished Chair in Consciousness Science, at the University of Wisconsin.

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.

[Kruziik]

More tononi please🙏 I've watched all his videos he deserves a follow up interview

[psicologiajoseh]

I hope they do a series of videos about the Assembly Theory next. This one about the IIT was fascinating.

[chargersina]

Way too short for me to understand what he is really talking about. Integrated information from the inside. Hm?

[joelupinacci]

It's been my understanding that information must have a physical component to be stored upon. No physical component for information storage, no information retained therefore no consciousness after physical life.

[marshallwright]

Sometimes we deceive ourselves unknowingly. I am aware of who I am. Inwardly, I look at myself. You can not be in two places at the same time. Studying a subject distant from my geographical location is not affected by my person. The universe is not emotional and does not interact with our inner thoughts. Saturn or a Worm Hole is viewed by ourselves however, Saturn and a Worm Hole are not self-aware. It is easy to fall into the trap of mixing our emotions and nature. As far as consciousness is concerned, the mind can do whatever it wants. The mind does not touch anything, it analyses its environment and explores with its body. Sometimes the body goes where its imagination takes it and all of a sudden the physical body discovers itself falling off a cliff. The universe is extremely huge and the effects of our voices muted by gravity has no effect on the Moon. I always go with empirical evidence first and then speculation. Finally I form a theory. The very fact that we discuss self-consciousness tells me that it is true. The difficulty arises as a result of people who ask not the question of Self-Awareness. Nikola Tesla said; Most people are Small-Minded. Marshall Wright

[anxious_robot]

This poor guy doesn’t realize we live in a computer simulation.

[tunahelpa]

The thing that intrigues me about consciousness is that it encompasses some sort of ever-changing combination of multiple neurons.

[willmosse]

This strikes me as complete guesswork. Just like every other theory of consciousness.

[Bill..N]

Giulio has a very compelling idea there, no doubt. A pleasure to listen to. Still, his theory is incomplete, and none of its predictions can be measured or tested. Nonetheless it's certainly worthy of debate.. In my opinion, The materialst arguments of Michael Graziano are more convincing.. The fundamental proposal being that awareness has its genesis in the biological mandate to pay attention to the environment or perish...Peace..

[KevinGeneFeldman]

Consciousness is the ultimate proof God exists and we are not from this universe. When you realize you can't be anyone because theres an infinite potential consciousness that could be the consciousness of any body ever born. Ask yourself WHO is the one observing your thoughts? When your body came to be, why wasn't it just like every other person who has been or ever will be born that AREN'T you? Why isn't your body just another stranger out there that isn't you, what are you ultimately that binds you to a body to observe and experience it? There's nothing to account for how you are yourself or how you have the body you have. Consciousness can't be a biological illusion because it has to by definition fool an observer which would mean a consciousness already exists to observe the illusion of consciousness. The soul is the most obvious thing to see.

[ptgms]

I can only ponder mostly about the physical laws as someone with a normative view may at this time, more or less. However, it seems to me that when these smallest known particles are divided or split it releases a tremendous amount of energy with life damaging radiations? And from this outlook it would not seem that life begins here as it corresponds more to destruction when divided? I wouldn't be surprised if 'relay particles' are discovered one day solely for the transferring of information, and in 'both directions' of spatial and temporal processes for events *below (*below = a higher level in reality) the known quantum levels …, as opposed to a particle function of what it has for life to exist temporally? I guess that could mean that the universe we live in could be older than 13 billion years if it is continually evolving and what is being measured today is from the last uninterrupted continuous evolution which could be much older? Also, considering this narrative, it may develop personally into different types of consciousness with a more pristine energy level of the consciousness without the need for density or matter? Howsoever, then occurs here in this space and time as well in its *lowest form?(*lowest form = beginning form levels to evolve to higher forms of reality over incomprehensible time-anons) as our universe does not seem to be creating other universes, but was 'created' by other energy of an earlier time?

[dimaniak]

Consciousness is unnecessary for survival.

[joshkeeling]

IMO, life and consciousness are on a totally different level of profoundness than the universe itself. IMO, the abiogenesis of life on earth is the first life to exist and when all life on earth goes extinct, life may never exist again anywhere in the universe for the rest of eternity. You're getting to experience something that is profoundly rare

[Self-Duality]

Insofar as conscious states (emotions, etc.) are experienced purely in terms of themselves (a human who experiences anger need not even know that atoms, molecules, and cells exist, and the experience of anger cannot be described *purely* in terms of lower-order biochemical processes), consciousness is (to some extent) irreducible.

[TheTroofSayer]

Excellent interview with Giulio Tononi, inspiring me to do an online search. I came across the Wikipedia page for Integrated Information Theory, which lists a statement of axioms (always a good sign, because an axiomatic framework of assumptions indicates strategy, planning, and paying attention). I'd like to add a further axiom that ties in with the third and fourth *Information* and *Integration* axioms, and that is that information is associative (semiotic). Factoring in *Association* provides for a more robust interpretation that explicates meaning, context and what it's like to be a conscious, sentient being.

[adamsawyer]

I don't like integrated integration theory because it doesnt really address the combination problem or causality (non-causality) of consciousness.

Why am i conscious of only precisely the specific small proportion of my brain's information processing that I am?

Why not all of it? Why not a different bit of it? Are other consciousnesses present for the bits I'm not conscious of?

If each fundamental particle is a bit conscious and my consciousness is the sum total of some select portion of rhe fundamental particles in my nervous system: what happens to the tiny but real first person perspective of all those particles? Does it continue in addition to my consciousness? Get subsumed in my consciousness then come back when i die? How do you resolve the huge speed/frequency difference between the consciousness of an individual particle and my consciousness? What about the difference between their consciousness when they're in a state of quantum superposition or entanglement etc and mine which (presumably)never enters quantum states?

Does this integration of information bring some new emergent causality or is it epiphenomenal?

Honestly i can't help feeling that integrated information theory is just an incoherent and old fashioned Identity theory. It's garbage.

[gwilwilliams]

Simply put, any consciousness that exists within me must be a part of the consciousness in universe.

[italogiardina]

Integrated information appears interdependent like a colour wheel existing as intrinsic perception and probabilistic quantum states which entails my perception is probable at an instance, so no intrinsic self exists.

[oskarngo]

Look at a Human vs Chimp vs Elephant vs Dolphin vs Dog....etc...

...Yes...Consciousness IS Reducible...!

[JeffDoerr]

Wow. A heaping helping of an enormous word salad. And guess what, we're still no further in understanding how millions of neurological connections and neurochemical interactions comprise what we describe as consciousness. I'm going to ponder this. But i dont know how.😮