WSU: The Biology of Consciousness with Christof Koch

How can we experimentally probe consciousness? Neuroscientist Christof Koch guides you through the research he conducts at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. #WorldSciU

This lecture was recorded on May 30, 2015 at the World Science Festival in New York City.

0:00 - Start
The Puzzle of Consciousness - 00:00:05

Modern Understanding of Consciousness - 00:14:15

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness - 00:27:32

Integrated Information Theory - 00:41:21

[CaptainFrantic]

Consciousness is an endlessly fascinating phenomenon. I cannot think of anything nearly as interesting.

And so here is my "random guy" take. It seems to me that consciousness, at it's most distilled, is merely "that which observes", nothing more nothing less. I posit that consciousness has no agency whatsoever and that it merely observes that which the meat machine of our brains presents to it. I further posit that consciousness is indeed a fundamental aspect of matter (or a necessary response to events which occur) and that the brain evolved to make use of it. Maybe it turns out that there is evolutionary advantage for the brain to identify as the observer and the instigator, building an internal model of itself and then reflecting it off consciousness.

I apologise for the word salad but I hope whoever reads this can make sense out of what I am trying to convey.

[esmeraldaherrera]

I love WSF with all my brain! Thank you Christoff for a great talk.

[ryanroberts]

This was easily one of the best lectures I’ve seen in a while. Great job everybody

[expatexpat]

Excellent talk. Regarding missing brain areas: I hear a lot about the plasticity of the brain, i.e. the brain rewiring itself to enable functions that were previously handled by a part of the brain that has become damaged. Is there any evidence that plasticity can re-enable consciousness or even generate consciousness that has gone AWOL? Example: Stroke patients often take time to recover and get back to a state where we recognize the personality of the individual as having been restored. Their brain is repairing itself during that time. Putting the overall question in crude terms: Can consciousness "move house" within the brain?

[Apostata]

Here is a question: If in our whole universe, there was not a single thing that gave rise to consciousness, therefore consciousness does not exist, does the universe exist? Can a universe exist, without being consciously observed by something? No matter how I look at this, I come to the conclusion that consciousness is the most fundamental thing in the universe. That matter does not give rise to consciousness, but consciousness gives rise to matter. Everything else, makes no sense. In my humble opinion, the materialist world view is wrong.

[JimGriffOne]

I don't think it's possible to probe consciousness directly. You can probe cognitive processes at the neural level, but you're still not probing the bit that's observing those cognitive processes that are occurring.

[dismalthoughts]

"Your dog doesn't sit there and think to itself, 'I'm a dog'"... that's a rather bold, *assured* statement from someone who, in the very same lecture, discussed the solipsistic idea that the only thing you can ever know is that you exist

[petroniaskho]

Amazing lecture. Even more amazing fashion sense. Mao meets Idaho. Also, I love his mustard trousers with all my brain.

[richardvernon]

I Know one my wife wouldn't be conscious if I left the house dressed like Christof....excellent I'll always look at my Newfoundland dog as a Buddhist,

[greglawrencemusic]

If you were born without the ability to sense taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing, temperature, or pressures of any type, would there even be a state of consciousness?

[trajklogik]

Regarding the 1st and 3rd person views is why do I experience "physical" brains/neurons in the 3rd person but the 1st person is not a pattern of neurons. It is experience composed of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, feelings and memories, not neurons. How do neurons create the visual experience of visual depth and empty space? It seems to me that if the one thing I can be sure of is my mind, then maybe brains are just models of other minds and the world is not "physical" at all rather the "physical" nature of the world we see is really the mental model of external processes, like other minds. In a way, the 1st and 3rd person views are one and the same as the the 3rd person is really just confusing the model with reality, or the map with the territory. We only ever have a 1st person view as the 3rd person is just how the 1st person view models the world. To say that you have a 1st person view is to say you have a 3rd person view of the world, or what else what does it mean to have a 1st person view of something?

[abhishekshah]

I've always wondered, what is the significance of memory in structuring human consciousness. I know that as a baby, I probably didn't know "red" is called "red", and soon a neural correlate of red developed in my head that would go on to be identified with every "red" I see. But the fact that there is something like "red", the ineffable characteristics of redness that are incident upon my state of being when I see a "red" object, has no analog to it, other than "redness" itself. Where did this "original red" come from? From genetics? I don't think that is the answer because genetics are molecules, and every combination of molecules can only result in a combination, nothing more. This is just one experience. The same can be said about sound, touch, and even the sense of self. Without being conscious yourself, you are unable to understand what the word even means. Is it a mathematical object? A state of matter? The very quantum of reality? Nonetheless, very mysterious indeed.

[patriciatorrestorresakakua]

I was very intrigued by the name of this conversation... I have to say that this was a big waste of time. It started good but very soon seemed that the point of the conversation was too much for the time that he had it... would I watch another conversation from this source... perhaps.

[desoan]

"[The enteric nervous system] doesn't seem to give rise to consciousness."

It could, but it doesn't have its own motor or speech apparatus to convey this (assume that an apparatus like that could report on its conscious state). It sounds like he assumes that any instance of consciousness from one body has to be experienced by his current instance (ie. the one claiming the ENS doesn't have consciousness), which seems like a random unsupported premise.

In general, making claims about consciousness from our experienced narrative doesn't seem very fruitful.

[UnleashTheGreen]

i appreciate the lectures a lot, i'm not a fan of the production values though. the needless drifting and switching angles and shots are distracting.

[georgegrubbs]

A point of confusion in consciousness research and discussions is the term "consciousness." There is no accepted rigorous scientific definition of "consciousness." I see "consciousness" as a collective noun, much like, flock, crowd, team, automobile, and so on. The collective term takes on an identity and has characteristics, "the team was aggressive today, " "the car is acting up, " "the flock was beautiful winging its way overhead."

Consciousness is not something separate from the brain activity; consciousness does not emerge from brain activity - consciousness is the collective noun that describe brain activity having certain characteristics.

It seems to me that consciousness must start in the brainstem (the "first brain") where the sleep-awake cycle is managed. The key structure is the RAS (reticular activating system). When we wake up, the RAS sends signals to the thalamus and other structures in the deep brain (hypothalamus, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, ... ) that "boot up" from their sleep state. Signals are broadcast to all areas of the cortex that also "boot up" and then the brain is fully functional and "conscious."

[jopmens]

About 25:00 there is a fascinating book: thinking fast and slow, by Daniel Kahneman.
I think it is pointless to look for where consciousness resides, because if you look at various extreme neurological patient cases and other evidence... It seems our body is way too adaptive, makes do with the hardware it gets. Cf Mark Solms.

[sohraballahyari]

As a brief explanation of brain functions , When we hear human brain has the capability to sense and process a multiplex of frequencies, according to the so called five vibration secrets, hypothesis, and also as about the pulsating mechanisms of the action of neurons, and senopsises, they add up and confirm the digital function of the brain as part of its operational proceedure, usualy by definition of digital and logics mathematics
, having the capabilities of making comparison and matching operations, on two or more variables or sets of datas, frequencies and/or informations, with the eventual output of either an exact firm conclusion to chose one or a more as preferred options, once the brain function can deduct and conclude a firm undeniable result after the processing of the data inputs, can come up with an exact and output to chose one or the other or one the many as the result of its comparison mechanisms and operations.
Or the best option according to the highest consistent results of evaluations, according to probability rules of quantum mechanics, and the said above mechanism as an indication to provide some form of a clue
about how can the brain act in a similar way to a digital micro processor of somekind And also what comes to mind is, that the spectaculated pulses could also be specifying analogue informations by the levels of their pulses amplitudes at the same time, which can also explain a simultaneous operation of analogue and digital taking place practicaly at the same time which may also involve an analogue comparison function as well, and all the above again can be considered as best explanation to the complex multi functions of brain .May be the obvious explanation for why the complication of input datas seemingly not being able to handled by brain frequency analysing mechanisms could be that of the brain doesnt necessarily work with one single or groups of frequencies detection and analysing mechanisms, but rather hypotheticaly handling the proceedure through analysing may be a multiple number /groups of different frequencies as encoded for that certain event or experience in its memory database, or if the arriving infos being not previously experienced then a new database file should be created for that new particular experience, through which after the event or experience are coded and portraited or embeded, there will be a reference database created and inplaced in the memory cells of the brain, and this is the mechanism which could well illustrate the analogy in between brain function, as compared to computer memory and database, operations.
To summerise, to explain the complicated function of brain in connection with processing complex input datas and infos, the best hypothesis could be that again brain working in just the same way as of a frequency analyser/generator, but only processing several different individual /groups of frequencies by different parts of brain left and right sides each responsible for handeling certain ranges of frequencies, and to go even further down the pathway, if we should tend to assign any kind of consciousness operation interfering with the process, again that consciousness of creating some form of illusion or hollograme should and does have its own brain function mechanism creating that phenomena, meaning somekind of resonated energy most probably created by microtubules mechanisms are to be projected on a hypothetical visionary plane somewhere within the structure of the brain, and hence having said all the above the whole concept of data and information processing and decoding/generation could be explained via an almost simple multilayer frequency processing function of the brain, right freinds?

[pmatti]

A mistake Christof makes is his assertion that it is a fact that the brain causes consciousness rather than just a popular mainstream theory. He largely dismisses the hard problem of consciousness, which is still unsolved within the physicalist paradigm, that is no one has been able to show how consciousness arises out of matter. In this regard he makes an obvious mistake in his interpretation of Neural correlates of consciousness, by describing these lit up areas of the brain as being causal rather than correlations (as in the name). I would suggest that anyone with a genuine interest in gaining a deeper understanding of consciousness should look up Bernard Kastrup.

[tstecksuan]

Why did you day we are not conscious when we are in deep sleep? It that is true, we will never wake up once in deep sleep.