Roy Baumeister - What Is Consciousness?

Consciousness is what we can know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness has intrigued and baffled philosophers. To begin, we must define and describe consciousness. What to include in a complete definition and description of consciousness?

Roy F. Baumeister is a social psychologist who is known for his work on the self, social rejection, belongingness, sexuality, self-control, self-esteem, self-defeating behaviors, motivation, aggression, consciousness, and free will.

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.

[offtheradarsomewhere.]

All that illuminates the visual perception of our reality is because of the ectromagnetic radiation information we process, all taste and smell and hearing is through vibrations, is it not all energy, where is the matter in an atom.

[offtheradarsomewhere.]

Infinite information infinite possibilities everybody processes information uniquely, even ourselves can have a different experience with the same situation on a different day, perceptions change moment by moment, consciousness will guide you to what to think about. All great scholars, philosophers, mathematicians, and everyone in-between followed their thoughts and intuitions. All great minds past and present didn't create their discoveries they only understood the data that was already there.

[duytdl]

So dogs aren't conscious? Or less social animals like owls who just sit there without having a conscious thought as to what they are? I find that hard to believe. Just because you can't talk doesn't mean you can't feel consciousness. And ants & bees must be hella conscious since they're so social. Also his point about a kid being more conscious/linguistic doesn't translate to mating success either, sexual attraction rarely is about how well versed you are in a language. Who was more successful with women - Edward Witten or David Beckham?

[josephhruby]

Wonderful, Consciousness - our time machine.

[GM-oi]

I think we should distinguish between "consciousness" and "self-consciousness" when considering the general issue of consciousness. It could be helpful to compare consciousness with a mirror, and self-consciousness with the union of the two mirrors watching to each other (i.e., "seeing" each other in each other).

[LokomotiF]

Great video however, there is so much unnecessary background noise in the video.

[jipjap]

6:40 i have a dog what grow up in a bench 4 years at a breeder. I got a pretty good idea of what developing or not its pure instinct. After a while she started developing social skills but she was and is still pure love and very curious. My first guess humans would be to and to refer to the statement language makes you get things more easy … yea but at the same time it can make things lots harder and everyone knows what im talking about 😜

[dwilson]

The question is, did all these derive because we are conscious or are we conscious because we talk and teach?

[avi]

Don't animals teach their young ones? Geese/birds communicate why flying, don't they? Dogs are empathetic with other dogs...?

[stephenzhao]

0:45 ... what I think is crucial and that is missing is that consciousness probably evolved for social reasons to enable us to relate to each other um there are many very creative behavioral studies debating what we need consciousness for showing that well you can get some behavior this or that behavior when people are not coscious we used to think you needed to be conscious for everything that's clearly not true anymore but nobody's been able to have a conversation without being conscious you needed to talke to others and so this line going back to William James this view taht htinking is essentially for doing but conscious thinking a big part of it is maybe for talking um what really set our species off on its unique path the trait that defines us as human was not intelligence it was not all the other candidates said the first thing looks like it was communication and communication started with gesture rather than speech 1:38

[BLSFL_HAZE]

Conceptually, the state of consciousness can be described as being "ontologically inextricable" from active mobility.

Non-conceptually, the state of consciousness is functionally indistinguishable from active mobility.

[bretnetherton]

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

[CarlosElio]

Heidegger's Dasein was the self and its surroundings, the discourse. The electron is surrounded by a cloud of photons. The self is surrounded by the impact of other people and events in our lives.

[adamtabl]

eventually he will find he has to talk to artists and musicians....to understand dimensions of conciousness. Yes communication, ....but not only language....not only "information" but WHO we are...

[Corteum]

It's the wrong way to think about it. Consciousness is primarily subjective awareness.... i.e. the capacity to be aware of, and experience, information. It's the subject of all the objects that you can perceive - those objects being thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, or intentions.

[stellarwind]

Why did human evolution diverge so significantly from all other species?

[christopherwall]

School Cafeteria hallway? Better the big wall of books No one reads as a backdrop. Sorry I know..off track

[vulcanus]

This channel just reuploads stuff over and over again. And they don't mention that the interview was done years ago.

[realcygnus]

At least distinguishing between phenomenal consciousness & meta-consciousness is a good 1st move. Phenomenal consciousness just means that there is something(anything whatsoever) that it is "like to be" alive, or just raw experience, without even memories necessarily. Whereas meta-consciousness requires higher level mental functions(brains) like self reflection, which is the ability to introspect by thinking symbolically & objectifying the contents of one's own subjectivity, or recursively knowing that you know. Such abilities took much longer to evolve. Hell even bees clearly communicate by dancing & ants with chemicals etc. Its a safe bet that there is indeed something that it is like to be ANY organism, brains & nervous systems or not, as this is what nature seems to be showing us. The so called hard problem begins & ends with phenomenal consciousness. Its laughable to try to go from dead inert matter directly to human meta-consciousness. & going from phenomenal to meta is trivial.

[williamburts]

Take away awareness and nothing could be known, so we can say consciousness is knowledge itself.