David Chalmers - 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.

David Chalmers is a philosopher at New York University and the Australian National University. He is Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, and also Professor of Philosophy at ANU.

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.

[clownworld-honk]

I'm watching this guy and I'm searching for a drum kit in the background!😊

[birdstrikes]

"I love dream theater." - Chalmers

[AT-olyj]

Pretty sure his hair has a conscience.

[Josh-muqy]

This dude's eye contact makes me think he is definitely 100% human for sure.

[FrancoisMouton-iujt]

There is a principle in Alchemy called enantiodromia, if anything is taken to it's extreme it turns into it's opposite. This turning to a materialist explanation for everything will eventually flip into a spiritual understanding of everything thus doing away with duality.

[woofie]

What Chalmers is saying is that knowing what nerves are firing does not "explain" consciousness. The question is "how" those firing neurons create consciousness, if they indeed do. The current technology only shows what parts of the brain are involved. It is similar to our theories of gravity: the mathematics that "describe" gravity do not tell us how it works. There is something mysterious here that scientists cannot explain with the descriptions and mathematics they currently use. There is something deeper we may not be able to understand.

[porkylongpig]

Fun Fact: Chalmers was offered a role in the coming remake of This Is Spinal Tap.

[ervinperetz]

David Chalmers is one of the few cognitive scientists that is honest about the deep mystery of conscious experience (the 'Hard Problem' as he calls it).

[brianlaible]

I gotta believe Chalmers thinks about these things while listening to AC DC and Def Leppard 😂 🥁

[DoomSlayer-]

Love Dave’s metal look from back in the day

[lawrenceoffiong]

I like to think that consciousness exists on a spectrum. An atom and a human experience the universe in vastly different ways due to their physical makeup. Perhaps the fundamental spark of awareness, could be present to some degree in even the most basic units of matter.

[ryanbourgo]

I think we need to differentiate between consciousness and the experience within consciousness. When I’m drunk, I could argue that while my experience changes, my consciousness does not…I am just conscious of a different type of experience.

Even in death, it would be impossible to differentiate between unconscious and “conscious of nothing.”

[alandunlap]

"God sleeps in the rocks, stirs in the plants, dreams in the animals, and finally awakens in man." -- Vedic Quote

[skylark]

I dont think consciousness is physical or tangible. Observing synapses and neural networks are just obsverving the interaction between the tangible and the intangible. Its kinda like observing the parts of an internal combustion engine but not knowing that it runs a car that could travel from Tampa to Portland.

[reh]

More recent pictures show him with shorter grayer hair; but I think the exact same jacket!😊 🤟

[rockapedra]

At this point, the gap seems unbridgeable. There does not seem to be a way to squeeze consciousness out of our present scientific laws. It's not supernatural, instead, there appears to be undiscovered natural laws that account for it, perhaps. Once we find them, they will be unified into our physics and we need not talk about dualism. I view dualism in exactly that way. There's a big chunk missing in physics, that's the piece that is the dual. Once we understand it, we will probably just fold it in to the standard model.

[elenaortizsolalinde]

I share the idea of a dual, simultaneous, and/or synchronous brain function. As a radiologist, we study the brain morphologically and functionally using different methods of physics: X-rays (RX), CT scans, PET CT, ultrasound (US), MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG), among others. I understand that two different physical phenomena can coexist at the same time with distinct functions.

Personally, I study the integration of consciousness as a possible second system alternative to the well-known brain-neuronal system. The “conscious moment” formulates the theory that integrates as a type of electromagnetic field that is produced secondarily to the specific neuronal function of certain anatomical brain areas (specific areas of the hypothalamus, midbrain, and cerebral cortex). I find it very coherent to explore the possibilities posed by David Chalmers and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Roger Penrose. The latter suggests that the conscious moment is not explained by computational physics and would be better explained as a quantum-like phenomenon.

[minimal]

How many decades ago was this interview?

[tomappletree]

Till this video I only read some books from Chalmers, but I didn't know how incredibly cool, authentic and honest this guy is!

[ismann]

I envision that there is a field permeating the universe which our brains (or maybe all of matter) can interact with somehow. It could be the only way to explain some non-local phenomena pertaining to consciousness.