Leonard Mlodinow - Can Consciousness be Non-Biological?

If consciousness is 100% physical, we would have to conclude that the same kind of consciousness that we experience as humans can be generated by non-biological entities (eventually). Conversely, if non-biological consciousness would somehow, someday, prove impossible, then consciousness would have to embed some nonphysical aspect. But how would we ever know?



Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist and author, recognized for groundbreaking discoveries in physics, and as the author of five best-selling books.


Closer to Truth 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.

[Dion_Mustard]

I LOVE the following quote..."Trying to find consciousness in the brain is like trying to find music in the radio"....think about it.

[theaviary]

I love that he actually challenges what those he interviews say. 👍

[TableTennisLover]

And that’s as closer to truth as you’ll ever get about consciousness for a while.

[amiralozse]

One of the most important things to learn in science (and life in general I might add) is to be able to say "I dont know!"
I wish more people would be able to realise the important insight expressed through these 3 simple words!

[abdulkaderalsalhi]

One of the great words from Prof Mlodinow was: To be able to say I don't know? (near the end of the video). At the moment science cannot explain love or hate, and so it cannot explain consciousness. Truth is nice, and CTT (closer to truth) is great in bringing in the great questions into light with some great minds.

[Funnygalsproductions]

I wish I had friends smart enough I could get into this stuff with

[torbjrnsivertstl]

We benefit from being social, but in this corona-time people are more lonely and for many it is not so good. For some people it results in poor finances and financial depression can also contribute to mental depression. There is certainly a lot we can do to avoid becoming depressed, for example exercising, going for walks and keep ourselves in good physical shape.
There is a lot of memory in the body, even though we are not conscious of it. In the immune system, it can host memory cells that make us resistant to disease. If we are well trained, the muscle cells remember it, so it will be easier to become well trained again. They have found out a lot of what function different areas of the brain have, we have different kinds of memory in different parts of the brain. But it is still a mystery what consciousness is and how memory is coded.
What we choose to be concerned about and choice of friends is important. It affects the state of mind. We know that hormones are important for the state of mind and this is how many drugs work, but my point is that the state of mind also affects the hormones. And to a certain extent you can choose your state of mind.
If someone believes in something, is trained in it, hopes for it and invests in it and then it fails, then it is obvious that they become sad and it can turn into long-term depression. On a Good Friday, it may be appropriate to recall that when Jesus and his disciples were in Gethsemane, they were all sad. Jesus knew he was going to be executed. But God raised him up from the dead and that changes everything. The cross of Jesus tells of a death, but is still a life-giving and joyful message, because he rose from the dead. It gives us hope of eternal life and the glory of God and that hope does not disappoint us, because he gives us the water of life for free, by mere grace, without the requirement of any work. The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rom.5, 5).

[cemerson]

Points I don’t see considered in these types of (interesting) interviews:
1) one part of a system (brain) is “aware” of (reacts to) another part of the brain
2) the “reaction” (awareness) is at least in part pictorial (obviously drawing on more parts of the system / brain)
3) this “process” leads to “proactive” “actions” vis a vis stored “values” (parameters, variables)
4) can all that be duplicated in a non-mammalian environment?


[Added: consciousness as that “inner feeling of qualia” (at ~ 10:15 min) would presumably be some additional information loops or bifurcated feedbacks of 2) awareness ... but it certainly “feels” like a separate “thing” that is separately feeling, or experiencing, the more typical mammalian “awareness” process that is used to sustain life ... but it may only be additional information processing]

[coudry]

Personal Conclusions from various sources "We Are All One Consciousness" for the following reasons:

1. In this world everything must have a cause, so that something exists because of something else, as well as ourselves.

2. It will be very saturating / boring if we have only one physical form in this world.

3. It will be very saturating / boring if all human beings have the exact same physical form / behavior.

4. Try to imagine emptying all the physical things around us only the remnants of humanity, then eliminating all human beings leaving only their memories, then removing all their memories leaving only their consciousness, then connecting that consciousness, feel who we are ??.

5. Body, mind, feelings, emotions and everything in this world is always changing, so what never changes ??, that is our true self, which is true consciousness. If everything changes2 / moves who observes, there must be something fixed to be able to observe.

6. All human beings communicate with each other is the beginning of the beginning / the future of human beings unite, only electronic devices today can unite all human beings, one day the device is implanted in the human mind and eventually man will open all access to his mind.

7. Our body is a group / accumulation of memory accumulated brought from the beginning of the birth of the first human in the world through continuous DNA binding.

8. Twins are born at the same time, what if all human beings are born at the same time ??. What happens if the birth of all human beings is not influenced by the dimensions of space and time ??

9. The twins are identical to A and B, if the whole memory of A is copied to B, what is the difference ??

10. The law of attraction (law of attraction) that our minds will attract whatever we think, because we are all like one part of the body.

11. Like some of the video recordings of ourselves there is a video as a vocalist, a video as a violinist, as a pianist, as a drummer, etc. The video2 is made into one in one video then it will produce a more interesting orchestra, something new and more productive. our world.

12. Man's greatest enemy is himself, at this time man is fighting against himself. By believing that we are all one, then the ego will fade because there is no difference between us.

13. That is why the teachings of religion command us to be grateful and beneficial to many,
If you are hurting others you are actually hurting yourself, just as if you are doing good to others you are actually doing good to yourself.

14. Could it be that we are all dreaming and our dreams meet each other at the same frequency in parallel. Have you ever, when sleeping dreamed of moving roles as someone else, it is because we are all one.

15. We are not immortal as human beings so that we have time for us to scroll through all of life.

16. "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience" ~ Stephen Covey, Have you ever felt that our age is too short, could our consciousness be immortal ?.

17. We are one, only the role is different, the memory block between life is what makes people feel different / separate. Just by brainwashing / erasing his memory then someone will be a different person but his consciousness actually remains the same.

18. The lucky thing for us is ... awareness is always towards / seeking / having intentions / desires towards good / positive / happiness despite experiencing various mistakes.

19. When we die the body and memory are destroyed, how can we remember ever being dead.

20. Why do we have to die? ", When we are told to die, later this eternal question will be asked again and we will always be there." The world is a sustainable life "~ Bruce Lipton

21. In the beginning we were one, but split through a big explosion or bigbang to become different and separate as it is now, but we are provided with a sense of love for us to be able to be reunited later.

22. There is only us and the mirror of ourselves in this world, yet there is another world out there.

23. We will always smile happily seeing each other as ourselves "How beautiful I am" seeing a different self.

24. If all consciousness is told now that they are all one if the experience gained is enough, the consciousness designed from the beginning is so different that there is so much intrigue, consciousness is created differently so that when it comes together it has an incredible consciousness experience.

25. We are indeed alone in this universe, but there are still many other universes with their own laws of nature.

26. Have you ever felt to come to a place that has never been visited but feel familiar with that place, as if we have lived in that place sometime.

27. The world is like a script of a story that is being written by the author, sometimes changed at the beginning, sometimes changed in the middle, sometimes changed at the end it all depends on us as writers, and every story has wisdom that can be taken as a lesson.

28. Hair grows on its own, heart beats on its own, blood flows on its own, ideas emerge on its own, etc., are we involved ??.

29. Imagine today there was an event that caused only you to live in this world, then who are all the people yesterday ??.

30. "If Quantum Mechanism cannot surprise you, then you do not yet understand Quantum Physics. Everything we have considered real all this time, turns out to be unreal." ~ Niels Bohr.

31. In the scale of quantum physics we are all connected to each other, even in double gap experiments proving that particles change when observed or in other words awareness is able to change reality, this has been repeatedly proven by Nobel laureate in Physics.

32. Everything we experience by our senses will eventually only be an electrical impulse in the brain, is it all real ??. We are beings who realize that we are conscious.

33. We are closer than the veins of his neck.
He breathes some of His spirit on you.
Knowing oneself means knowing one's God.
Indeed, we will return to HIM. You are far I am far, you are near I am near.
I am everywhere.
Before the existence of this world there was no material other than Him.
The True Spirit is only One, the Creator.
I agree with your prejudice.

34. Whether the Creator is only tasked with creating, is it possible that the creator does not want to try the results of his creation through another perspective.

35. There is no reincarnation, it is possible that our consciousness is synchronizing, our consciousness is divided by the speed of light so that consciousness can move and divide quickly through energy, and that is why we need sleep, that is why we often do not realize something, that is why the size of the earth is reached by the speed of light so that consciousness is divided quickly and evenly, we are like some chess pawns played by a player, that is why if we move at the speed of light, then we can penetrate the dimensions of space and time, when we die we wake up and regain consciousness as long as there are human beings living in this world.

36. Have we ever had a problem and suddenly someone came to provide a solution to the problem we are experiencing, as if someone was sent by the universe to help us in solving the problem, which is actually our own awareness that sends that person to us.

37. A thousand years ago did human beings see, hear and be trapped in their hearts about current technological advances ??. If we all tend to sin (damage) then it will be the world of hell, if we all tend to do good then it will be the world of heaven.

38. Knowledge learns objects, God who created our consciousness, does not allow God to be objects of knowledge.

39. It is not possible for human creation which is only in the form of words / symbols to represent true truth.uyty

40. Is there a meaning of being without consciousness ?? then we are adventurers of this existence.
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41. The life of the world is just a game and a joke, the one who wins the game of the world is the one who finds his true self.

42. When the existence of the world ends we will know everything.

43. My consciousness undergoes a very extraordinary life experience, feeling life experience with different forms and different places even though in fact my consciousness is always the same, wow .. I was surprised !! how wide I am.

44. Consciousness in fact does not know the concept of time, consciousness can experience / undergo into another physical form because the dimension of time can be penetrated by consciousness, as when we imagine we can act as anyone without time bound, because in this universe time can in fact materialize free, time can move straight, curved, rotate, etc. Our time travel is when our consciousness moves to a new physical experience.

45. We are an awareness, a concept that is able to answer various things.

46. ​​Remember when you were going to leave, you were worried about losing me ??, calm down .. I was everywhere and we would always be able to meet again, believe me.

47. Without searching what is the difference between us in this world and us in a dream while sleeping just passing by without meaning

48. In conclusion, whatever role we play, it is all our own design, so just enjoy.

49. God created us to be Happy, so do not disappoint God.

50. Understand it and be Shining

inspiration:

[samqwerty]

The interviewer is the star here. Very good conversation!

[bvshenoy]

'Consciousness' is the oldest and most enduring philosophical riddle faced by humankind. *The questions related to consciousness are as old as the realisation of ‘self’. Both the ideas of the self and of one’s consciousness are deeply interconnected* Namaste

[helisoma]

Consciousness to me is awareness, but then the implication is if one is aware, would one necessarily be self-aware? Information flow in the brain per se isn't consciousness, because so much of that information or electrical activity is occurring without our awareness. Conscious requires more than just the activity itself, but I think it requires the activity is in relationship to knowledge of self, and therefore what is around us. (just writing from my background as a PhD in neuroscience)

[mostinho]

The interviewee is assuming that if we were to model the brain perfectly, the model will automatically be conscious. However, where is the evidence for this? Why would it be conscious rather than just doing the computations just like any computer program right now...

There’s more to us than a computation

[dennistucker]

Can Consciousness be Non-Biological? Absolutely YES. I love Leonard Mlodinow's last statement in this video. Thank you CTT.

[secreto]

But a scientist / truth-seeker doesn't rest at an "I don't know" position. That's just his starting point

[vladimir]

Since voice output is nearly ubiquitous in computers now and no one’s heard them make any unprompted announcements I’d tend to conclude that, no, computers are not conscious—at least not by any definition that I would recognize

[joseluisalcantarasanchez]

The CNS is mainly a sensorial organ. It perceives and processes the information coming from outside, from the surrounding environment. But conciousness is reflexive, and the surrounding environment is just part of the self in the way the spanish phylosopher Ortega y Gasset said: "i am me and my circumstance".

[ingebygstad]

I remember playing computer games with only 256 colors (VGA) when I was a child.
The first computer I bought was 250 MB hard drive, and I had a 3.16 Kb modem!
Still that's just about 20-25 years ago. So where is computing 20-25 years in the future?

[erasmus]

Self-preservation is the fundamental driver of consciousness.
The necessity to survive and the perception of one's environment.

[Longevity-guut]

Excellent interview, both of them did a great job