Giulio Tononi - Is There Anything Non-physical About the Mind?

What is consciousness, our inner experience of private awareness? Can consciousness be explained by only physical activities of the physical world? Because if not, if there is anything else required to explain consciousness in addition to the physical brain, then consciousness would defeat a materialistic or physicalistic worldview.

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.

[stephanem]

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[banmate]

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[donaldhoover]

Sounds to me like he said, Consciousness was not local to the brain but the mechanism that makes the experience of consciousness seem to be local exists in some particular place called a cerebral cortex at some particular time. Sounds more like the cerebral cortex works as an interface with non-local consciousness to create the experience of a local consciousness. Great interview Bob.

[zenzen]

Fascinating but I wish I understood even half of that concept !

[Minion-khtq]

You should get Philomena Cunk on here to explain how she gets sound out of dinner plates!

[vrocs]

Appreciate Viggo Mortensen's intellectual arc.

[ogent]

I think we’re very close to truth right now. Thank you Dr.

[LeadSalad]

I love the internet for making this available to dumdums like me who need to listen to this multiple times to grasp the enormity of these concepts

[tykjenffs]

During an aneurysm I could feel my brain implode because of an unimaginable weight. Strongest memory I'll ever have. And the heaviest weight I have ever felt. It was pure torture. Unlike any dream. Its a physical memory from a place where I was not really awake or asleep.

[hakiza-technologyltd.]

measure what ! stop being delusional.

Consciousness evolves in a nonstop way according to morality... so it can’t just be an intrinsic shape of one’s experiences (for a morality to exist, there must be more than one individual).

[IVANHOECHAPUT]

"Is there anything non-physical about the mind"? I thought the mind WAS non-physical and the brain the ONLY part of thought that IS physical?

[peterjeffery]

Occam's Razor=Detective Columbo's Rational, Riddle-Me-This approach to complex subjects. Question: Without a universal consciousness of some sort, how do trees (among all living things) adapt to changes in climate OR to the emergence of new pests that threaten their survival? Does bark grow thicker to neutralize the threat which in return causes the pest to develop a more robust and efficient proboscis to penetrate the thicker shield? What of the Rattlesnake and its telltale rattling tail that scientists say, (like the human pinkie?) is destined to disappear at some point in time owing to its (for the snake) counterproductive nature? All living things shapeshift as if on some kind of ultra slow moving auto pilot program, is this a form of universal consciousness or not? I'd be delighted to hear a purely mathematical explanation to the above. Good luck.

[andymelendez]

This person would speculate a translational system of internalization using a type of frequency construct floating on modulated standing waves within the network (brain). This assumes a small scale quantum genesis that builds through resonance into the phenomenology/ phenomena of neural network globalization.

[DeanHorak]

Interesting philosophy, but hardly rooted in science.

[julenrojo]

More materialism nonsense. We need something better. Idealism?

[Robinson]

Excellent explanation of his theory in a vivid way

[Krod]

Counciousness is not special. It's completely physical. Language is the problem. Language allows conceptualization and that is a problem.

[mtshasta]

I like his arguments but disagree with his conclusions..

[hidaven]

How much qualia space does Oprah Winfrey take up? Was this topic covered?

[TheTroofSayer]

1:14 - "An experience in essence is a shape." I didn't really connect with Giulio Tononi's metaphor at all, left me cold. Here's my take of IIT, for what it's worth.
Computers never occur in nature. For a compelling IIT, we must do away with computer metaphors. We regard agents as making choices from their ecosystems, where choices are associations (CS Peirce). *Association* is the fundamental principle on which a mind-body relies to infer the meanings conditioned by its mind-body predispositions. Mind-bodies in brains (neurons) & mind-bodies in culture (humans) all rely on association to integrate their experiences of the information (events) of the ecosystem in which they are immersed.