Daniel C. Dennett - Toward a Science of Consciousness

How can consciousness be addressed scientifically? The Tucson conference, founded in 1994 and celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2014, exemplifies the quest. What are the range of theories? Where do participants position themselves? Meet the founders, early visionaries, new scientists and thinkers. Progress is being made, but what does this really mean?



Daniel Clement Dennett III is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist and is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Professor at Tufts University.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, 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.

[marckons]

Materialism and physicalism have a white beard and seem a little exhausted. They remind me of our old religions when materialism came up. I think it is urgent to change the scientific paradigm and not stick to old, dusty illusions: consciousness is too big.

[xNazgrel]

Science of consciousness should be about consciousness. Not about why people reject materialism.

[danzigvssartre]

If your toilet isn't conscious yet, it probably just doesn't have enough valves put in it.

[DoveSimon]

This video should be titled "The Consciousness of Meat Machines!"

[aaron]

You want me to meet a machine?
No, no. You are a meat-machine.
Oh, okay. That's better.

[Thelema]

'Science of Conscioussnes' was described and applied more than 7000 years ago by eastern 'scientifics'. ¡Just study it! ... and when you grasp the INTEGRAL UNDERSTANDING of what is the 'Nature of Reality', it is done. Don't waste your life trying to 'measure' the 'unmeasurable' and confusing more people. Just try to use the mind to 'understand' Consciousness as 'close to true' as you can... and after, let Consciousness do. Even Mind is Consciousness.

[dongshengdi]

Sir Roger Penrose:
"We need new physics to understand consciousness, something outside the physics that we know. But it's not simply invented for the purpose to explain consciousness, it is something which can explain for many other reasons."
Sir Roger Penrose determined that wave function collapse was a prime candidate for a non-computable process.

[osvaldoluizmarmo]

This gentleman is simplistic; consciousness is what defines the universe as we know it, because it is the consciousness that gives meaning and "clothing" to the universe, which without it would only be a vibrational sea of coovariant quantum fields. And, this has nothing to do with anthropocentrism, because consciousness seems to go beyond the sensorial experience of the being human. New findings as for instance the phenomeno NDE, suggest that the consciousness goes beyond the realm of neurosciences..., because it seems not be a material stuff ....

[evaadam]

Both Consciousness and Free Will exist as ONE ENTITY . One can not exist without the other. If you have no Consciousness, then your WILL to choose can not exist because you are not even conscious of what choices to pick... and if your WILL does not exist, then the will to focus and be conscious can not also exist.  This is OBSERVABLE REALITY through your own personal experience.

Many misguided science people think that "Consciousness with Free Will" is an illusion simply because it can not be identified by any means - a common error that science makes being bound  by MATERIALISM that they imposed on themselves. Just because "Consciousness with Free Will" is invisible as a non-physical  Supernatural Entity, not part of this natural world, does not mean it does not exist.

...and the proof that Consciousness is not natural but supernatural, not part of the physical world, is because it is free to make choices on its own,   even free to believe in the Holy Spirit that has nothing to do with Physics.

As science understands, in the Physical World governed by natural laws, FREEDOM can not exists which means physical matter are not free to make choices on its own because it is the physical laws that controls.... but our Consciousness is free and can make choices on its own, proving that it is not part of this physical world. I believe that our Consciousness is our immortal soul that did not come from this Universe but originated from the Supernatural Conscious SOURCE or God.

[francesco]

"i'm trying to show people..." ... is there a more arrogant phrase?

[LuigiSimoncini]

seems that a lot of people don't get Dennett's position in spite of his extensive and undogmatic explanations, not only that but most of these people get irritated by Dennett and that's when you realize that it's not that they don't get it, they DON'T WANT to get it

[ksdogg]

Dennett's Idea is contradictory as free will cannot exist if the mind is only a result of material brain processes, because all materials are constrained by the laws of physics. this doesn't allow for free will

[marcopony]

Maybe he himself is afraid of the possibility that consciousness is something that can't be reduced to a materialistic explanation. I think the possibility that there is something mysterious about the world, which is inaccessible for conservative science, might bothers him.

[Apoplectic_Spock]

Thanks for the amazing videos, Dr Kuhn!

[markstipulkoski]

There are many grades of "meat macine". Some people are Wagyu steak and others are just baloney!!!

[sillymesilly]

Without consciousness there would be no science, self awareness, he would just graze grass, and walk into trees like an automaton.

[mikel]

Daniel Dennett, excellent understanding of the reality, as usual!

[cvdb]

Why is it that Dan Dennet always puts his focus on stressing what consciousness is NOT, instead of simply explaining what he thinks consciousness actually is and how it works?

[kylebowles]

Thank you Dan, one of the four horsemen :) legend

[redmatters]

So I'm a conscious meat machine? Perhaps I'm a binary fractal self-replicating algorithm floating in a sea of awareness ie cosmic consciousness . Perhaps I'm just earth fodder ie manure for Gaia -the self regulating mother. ? Pray tell cobber PLEASE select, what am I ? IMAO CHEERS AND G'DAY FROM AUSTRALIA . :)