Alva Noë - How do Human Brains Think and Feel?

Nothing means anything without our brains. Not science, not theology, not politics, not love. Everything we know and do—all the sense of human thought, all the feelings of human emotion, all the fullness of human achievement—all are the product of the brains in our heads. By what processes do human brains work? How much can science discover?

Alva Noë is a writer and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Center for New Media and the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. His work is centered around the nature of mind and human experience.

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.

[jimslade]

I really like the dance analogy. There is a lot of truth in that...

[Anarchy]

Noe's book Action in Perception changed my life.

[woodywu]

Very good 🙏🏻 food for thought, as from many guests and of course the host of the show, great stuff 👍

[lauralemieux]

I had cataract surgury. The cataract that was in/on my left eye was so large that my vision was so completely blurree that i couldnt tell you how many fingers someone was hokding up even neat inches away... forbyears i was afraid to have the operation bcuz i knew that id be awake for it. It turned out to be a lot easier than i inagined it. I was catatonic bcuz they do give some anethesia just not enough to knock you out... i still dont remember only them telling me i was done... Anyways my viaion was restored by next day when they removed the eye patch. The only thing was that i had double vision - it took my brain a couple of weeks before my two eyes put everything together... alot of times i still read with one eye closed tho.

[Jm-wtfs]

Awesome. Perception is a simplified and very personal 3 dimensional model a person builds in their brain over time, and it’s constantly changing and evolving. Definitely disagree w his ultimate point though that we are not our brains. While there is definitely an aspect of gestalt/emergent synergism when looking at the final product, we are quite literally our brains

[Jacob-Vivimord]

This was phenomenal and I think it gave me an Idealist epiphany.

[readyfireaim]

Hamilton's 4D quaternion algebra and consciousness:

Quaternions are a type of mathematical object that extend the idea of complex numbers to four dimensions. They are often used in computer graphics and other applications where rotations in three-dimensional space are important. Some scientists and philosophers have proposed that quaternions might provide a mathematical framework for understanding aspects of consciousness that go beyond what can be explained by classical physics.

One such theory is called the Orch-OR theory, which proposes that consciousness arises from quantum vibrations in microtubules inside neurons. This theory suggests that the vibrations can be modeled mathematically using 4D quaternions, which may provide a way to understand how the brain generates conscious experience.

[sheyennejohnson]

Indeed perception is factored highly by understanding, knowledge, awareness of your surroundings, and how yous and others actions affect it! Most times, groups of ppl perceive a situation all very different differently. . Even just asking who is the threat here? And how u come to that conclusion. We also being unaware of others intentions, makes our perception off. . So all based discernment... no 2 ppl will perceive a situation exactly the same.. and it's frustrating! So we have to be understanding of this and accept others perception rather then argue it!

[nyworker]

6:50: "that the fibers are more going the other way"...maybe thats what we call human thought. A characteristic of the more advanced brain.
Robert needs to follow up with Earl Miller's work on how feed forward into the PFC feeds back as waves to the other modules of the brain.

[Nicoladen]

Finally someone who can think outside the box

[jamesruscheinski]

where is the top down structure in brain? what does top down structure do that might lead to understanding? how does the top down structure interact with bottom up processing of information?

[jamesruscheinski]

energy impulses are transmitted through movement, both physical and neuronal?

[tunahelpa]

Some comments I hadn't heard before

[whitefiddle]

I think he's on to something; my appreciation of this conversation was greatly enhanced when I turned the audio off! 🤣

[patientson]

You are the placeholder of consciousness residing in you. The consciousness outside of you is used to enrich the one in you. How this is done depend on what you want cleared and replenished.

[jamesruscheinski]

as information is processed bottom up in brain, what happens to energy impulses in neuron?

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

*Brains are information processors.* They are the organic byproducts of inanimate information that can assimilate, process, and evaluate all other forms of information and produce _new information_ in the form of "value judgments." Existence is an ongoing exchange of information, and humans help keep the information stream constantly pushing forward.

[brothermine]

Sure, we enrich our mental models of the world by interacting with the world. That's an obvious point that the guest wants us to think about. But thinking about it is unlikely to help solve the "hard problem" of explaining how conscious experience emerges from brain activity, and also unlikely to help show that consciousness does not emerge from brain activity.

[christopherpankhurst]

The point about more neural fibres going from the brain down, rather than from the eye up; I'm really interested in this but I can't find any information online about it. Could anyone help me with this?

[jamesruscheinski]

for conscious perception and thought, something more than energy impulses are needed?