Anirban Bandyopadhyay - What Things are Conscious?

Consciousness is the great mystery of inner awareness. Where does it exist? Humans, obviously. Animals? Which animals? Chimps, elephants, dolphins, dogs? Termites, snails, amoeba, bacteria? What about non-biological intelligences like supercomputers of the future? The question probes the deep nature of consciousness.



Anirban Bandyopadhyay is a Senior Scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan.


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.

[jjay]

Very informative. Sadly, humans are so egocentric, some think the universe and the nature of reality must be reduced to materialism. These zealots run the scientific establishment. We're a type 0 civilization that hasn't fully explored our own backyard or been back to the moon in 50+ years, yet we're going to reduce what looks like an infinite cosmos to the primitive physics of a type 0 civilization. There's no scientific law that says all things must be only explained in the context of the fantasy of materialism. Anirban is talking about something that could take our technology and our understanding of the nature of reality to new heights. Sadly, our youngest and brightest minds can't work in these areas because of the materialist woo that starts with a priori that materialism is the only answer. That's not scientific exploration, it's blind belief. There was a recent article in Scientific American on this and many other things connected to vibrations, synchronization and resonance. It was called, "The Hippies Were Right: It's All about Vibrations, Man!."

[SiEmG]

it is a beautiful shot on concsiousness. Its kind of intuitive to me and i would like it to be like this. however I want to see more of that and versus other theories

[techstuff]

I'm so impressed by accuracy of youtube's auto-generated subtitles in this video

[Zerpentsa]

We have to distinguish between conscious as being aware of what is in the environment, as when an amoeba is aware or conscious of a food source and responds, or a plant is aware of being touched and responds, from being conscious as a personal being that can size up what is happening and form values and moral judgement. All living creatures have evolved to be conscious or aware of what is happening to them and respond. Otherwise, they will quickly die off.

[cvsree]

Consciousness is everywhere.

When it activates our brain, we call it living thing.

Consciousness is God but, we completely ignore it and get too involved in our thoughts.

Making the mind perfectly still leads to Nirvana

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

(7:15) *RLK: **_"But where does consciousness come into this because all of those rhythms can justify normal biological processes."_* ... Robert has spent the last seven minutes looking for a solid answer as to what differentiates consciousness from biology while Anirban has been exclusively focusing on rhythms and vibrations without drawing any connections. Anirban's theory, though novel, doesn't answer Robert's question.

*Consciousness* is *_Existence_* which, in its totality, represents *"All Information."* ... Yes, Existence and Consciousness are synonymous.

This does not mean that "dirt and rocks" are _conscious_ or that they possess a consciousness like we do. All this means is that dirt, rocks, and everything else represent *information (consciousness)* that exists solely to generate _more_ information (consciousness). Information (consciousness) will continue evolving into higher information until it discovers an unbreakable level of information that compels it to stop.

Humans represent a 13.8-billion -year-long evolution of information (consciousness) to the point that we now represent _"living, self-aware information."_ ... THAT'S why we are so different from rocks and dirt.

*Side Note:* As an artist, I create paintings that expresses abstract characteristics of "living information, " even though my paintings are not "alive." My artwork helps me to understand who I am and what my existence represents. The information produced by "rocks and dirt" serve the same purpose to Existence.

[quakers]

Vibration does not equal consciousness as far as I know. I would need a lot more info on how this is explained. I think insects have a simple form of consciousness, can take sensory input to create an idea of individuality, my cat definitely like myself has the same mental processes going on without tHings like language of course but on many levels the same.

[MrSanford]

Consciousness is anything that is aware of time and changes in this present dimension . In fact time itself might be simply a collective reservoir of consciousness

[jitrulz]

Robert's reaction at the end was epic : " I am done with your s*#t "

[TheToastGhost]

This is a great episode and definitely has some interesting things to think about.

[venkataponnaganti]

Did he answer the question? I am not sure!

[tillschuttert]

not the first time that i said this on this channel, but man! I didnt believe a single thing this guy said! 😂
interesting to see different opinions anyway!

[david.thomas.]

Interesting and lucid perspective, thanks.

[kcleach]

vibrating waves of possible electrons!!

[praveenvarma]

How does the vibration come into existence in the first place?

[itszinu]

Really appreciate Anirban efforts but still couldn't relate this to consciousness

[DistantTower]

This might be interesting if it was presented less manically and better articulated, I couldn’t get anything clear from this guy.

[TheTroofSayer]

Rhythm does not explain motivation, association and habituation, as they apply to every organism (holon). Habituation and association have been shown to apply even to neurons (refer Eric Kandel's work on Aplysia). Semiotic and biosemiotic theory provide solid foundations for the general principles that Robert is enquiring about. Insofar as we might take these loose references to rhythm or vibration seriously, we can appreciate that size relates to metabolism and perception of the passage of time (refer Geoffrey West's book Scale, 2017). For example, compared to humans, small animals like birds, rodents and insects function in "bullet time" (Max Payne reference).

[nyworker]

Two very nice gentlemen, but this is like walking into an auto dealer, picking up a car brochure, reading it and talking to the car salesman. You're not going to leave understanding the principles of automotive engineering

[aaron]

He seems to be using music language/metaphor. This is fine but he's just describing pattern... a less poetic term. His generalized 'vibration' talk is not much use if you can't follow the chain of patter down to describing specifics.