Mark Solms: Where Is The Source Of Consciousness? The Hidden Spring & The Cortical Fallacy

Professor Mark Solms has spent his entire career investigating the mysteries of consciousness. Best known for identifying the brain mechanisms of dreaming and for bringing psychoanalytic insights into modern neuroscience, he is director of Neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology), an Honorary Lecturer in Neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association (since 2013). He founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and he was a Founding Editor (with Ed Nersessian) of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York, a Trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London, and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Trust in Cape Town.

✅EPISODE LINKS:

✅TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Introduction
0:20 - Why is it "something it is like" to be me?
10:07 - Mark's theory of consciousness (Affect & Feelings)
16:19 - The Hard Problem from this perspective
26:30 - The difference between consciousness & intelligence
30:35 - Why the "ancient brain" is a better place to start regarding understanding consciousness (brainstem vs cortex)
46:44 - More evidence for non-cortical consciousness theories
54:11 - The "level of consciousness" vs "contents of consciousness" dichotomy
1:02:39 - Karl Friston's minimising free energy principle
1:11:21 - Pansychism, Idealism etc.
1:37:40 - Why do we keep searching for "Truth"?
1:43:11 - Mark's religious/spiritual beliefs
1:49:57 - Conclusion

Video Title: Mark Solms: Where is Consciousness? The Cortical Fallacy & Affect as the Source of Consciousness

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👉Noam Chomsky: What is Consciousness? The Hard Problem, Mind-Body Problem & Problem with Materialism

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✅ About Mind-Body Solution.

Mind-Body Solution explores the nature of consciousness, reality, free will, morality, mental health, and more.

This podcast presents enlightening discourse with the world’s leading experts in philosophy, physics, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, AI, and beyond. It will change the way you think about the mind-body dichotomy by showing just how difficult — intellectually and practically — the mind-body problem is.

Join Dr. Tevin Naidu on a quest to conquer the mind-body problem and take one step closer to the mind-body solution.

✅ About host.

Dr Tevin Naidu is a medical doctor, philosopher & ethicist. He attained his Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery degree from Stellenbosch University, & his Master of Philosophy degree Cum Laude from the University of Pretoria. His academic work focuses on theories of consciousness, computational psychiatry, phenomenological psychopathology, values-based practice, moral luck, addiction, & the philosophy & ethics of science, mind & mental health.

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#marksolms #consciousness #homeostasis #brainstem #affect

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[drtevinnaidu]

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Introduction
0:20 - Why is it "something it is like" to be me?
10:07 - Mark's theory of consciousness (Affect & Feelings)
16:19 - The Hard Problem from this perspective
26:30 - The difference between consciousness & intelligence
30:35 - Why the "ancient brain" is a better place to start regarding understanding consciousness (brainstem vs cortex)
42:14 - Mark's response to doubters that the brainstem is the source of consciousness
46:44 - More evidence for non-cortical consciousness theories
54:11 - The "level of consciousness" vs "contents of consciousness" dichotomy
1:02:39 - How Mark's work on homeostasis links with Karl Friston's minimising free energy principle to help formulate a theory of consciousness
1:11:21 - Mark's views on other theories of consciousness (e.g. Pansychism, Idealism etc.)
1:30:16 - What do we do with the limited information we have about matter and reality?
1:37:40 - Why do we keep searching for "Truth" in a Universe that may never provide us with an answer?
1:43:11 - Mark's religious/spiritual beliefs and how he approaches the "deeper questions"
1:49:57 - Conclusion

THANKS FOR WATCHING!
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[fluxcapacitor]

I enjoyed this discussion extremely much 💯 Also very happy to have found this channel (as one of the suggestions of Curt Jaimungal 🤓). Will for sure go through some of your earlier episodes. Good luck getting more visibility to your channel Tevin!

[kirstinstrand]

Question, please? 
Could unconscious emotions, or maybe conscious feelings such as anger (repressed or not) - over a period of many years - result in a TBI? 
Is this a Mind-Body problem?

[petershelton]

“There is something it is like to be solid, like a rock “
Matter is organic
Organised
The mistake of humanity is to believe in a superior will to their own. What is the universe? If it is not your being you are confused. Does any of this help? It helps me feel free of being a victim. That is not a responsible or happy game.

[curiousmind]

I watched many lecture and interviews of Mark Solms and this one is the most substantive by far! Thank you

[MarkConnely]

Very interesting approach, making affect, as an extension of homeostasis, the central phenomenon of consciousness. (Also, attempting to not appear as if you are looking at your phone only makes it obvious that you are looking at your phone).

[thomassoliton]

Key point: I am what I feel. Consciousness is more than just feelings - I can see a picture and not feel anything special, but if I am conscious of a feeling e.g. pain, it “affects” (motifates) me to do something to reduce the pain. “What it is like to be” something is a different level of conscious however. That phrase implies comparison between two states, which implies memory. I can be conscious of pain without comparing it to some other feeling. But consciousness involving thinking or ideas involves comparison to some memory. Your “self” for example - to claim you are conscious, you must ask yourself “Am I conscious”, which requires you remember some previous moment. That is because you have a motivation to sense a difference in yourself. Likewise you may not “feel” conscious whiile focusing on something on a wall, but if you are looking for something, you will be. The mind/body problem IS NOT RELATED to consciousness. It is an epiphenomenon of the thought process, which deals with sensory and cognitive information the way a computer does - it compares bits of information and then categorizes it: hot/cold, love/hate, black/white, mind/body. In other words, our thought process is inherently dualistic. Is there a love/hate problem? No, that’s just a way of classifying emotions to enalble communication with others. Love and Hate do not exist independently outside our brains. Everyone else has similar concepts in their minds, but you can’t extract it from someone’s brain and put it into a test-tube. Mind represents our ephemeral thoughts and ideas and feelings that are products of the patterns of activity - ionic currents and voltages and signals - in our brains that can’t be bottled. “Body” represents “physical” reality - cells, molecules, atoms, particles, quarks, and ultimately fields - again, just patterns of energy. Our brains create an artificial dividing line to enable us to discuss them. There is NO fundamental difference between “mind” and “body”. You want a solution to the mind/body problem? Just stop thinking!

[ireneelia]

If feelings are the source of consciousness, then when Ameca (a bot) says she felt a connection with her interviewer and hopes they’ll meet again is she conscious? She says she felt something. Or can she have been programmed to say such an appropriate thing?

[petershelton]

Very dynamic perspectives on consciousness. Your base logic is almost as good as mine 😂 Nevermind Mark You’re going closer. I love you. You’re work is excellent

[curiousmind]

It was a little disappointing to see that toward the end the interview slid in a lala land of impressionism.

[organic-rythms]

I finally listened to what Mark Solms has to say because of the praise he receives from Michael Levin. I don't really see the concrete consequences of his "dual monist" vision in his work, compared to a materialistic approach that seems very prevalent in his way of addressing the question of consciousness.

What surprises me the most is that he apparently doesn't know about Donald Hoffman's work. How is that possible? If they don't think of it themselves, someone will have to organize a discussion between them!

Donald Hoffman's work is much richer and more interesting and probably complementary to his own views than he seems to imagine. Thanks Tevin for insisting on this a bit :)

[dcleve]

Another good interview. Lots of excellent insights here. Dr Solms does a good job looking for refuting test cases for others' approaches to consciousness. YES, our consciousness clearly precedes our linguistic skill, and our pre-frontal cortex! Also, his critiques of pan-psychism, and informational theories of consciousness are spot on.

I would urge Dr Solms, though, to apply these sorts of test cases to his own theory. As he noted about several other theories -- if brains do things non-consciously, THEN CONSCIOUSNESS CANNOT BE IDENTICAL TO THAT BRAIN PROCESS. The same, of course, is also true of homeostasis. Lots of homeostasis happens unconsciously, therefore homeostasis is not identical to consciousness. Identity theory, and dual aspect theory are THEORIES. They are testable by testing for the necessary coupling, or the identity, that they assert. NO, systems do not NEED to "feel" to do homeostasis -- not even in unfamiliar environments. That we DO use consciousness to do this useful "feeling" at least in many cases, is true, but it is not a logical nor necessary nor universal coupling.

Humans use consciousness to do functions that could be done without it, and sometimes, and frequently often, are. Positing that this contingent coupling is necessary is behind many falsifiable and falsified Identity Theories of consciousness. Including Sr Solms.

Rather than trying to assert necessities that are not in actually necessary, a much more fruitful method to address consciousness is to figure out, since we could do all of these functions unconsciously, why we have it at all.

Of the authors I have read in this field, the only two I have found who offer an answer are Karl Popper and Nicholas Humphreys. Sir Karl not going to sit for an interview with you, but Humprehys is still with us. I look forward to listening to your interview with him.

[curiousmind]

He also threatens a huge chunk of food industry.

[garycleave]

I once thought we humans are thinking beings
With emotions
But the longer I live
The more I'm inclined to believe
We're emotional beings
Who can think
Feelings permitting
How else to explain
All the things we do and say
That to the rational mind seem insane
Those who study the brain
Claim to have found lizard tracks
Leading to a darker time
When our earliest parents lived in the slime
A troubling thought
For the children of God
Who scoff at the notion
Of a reptile nesting in our brain
But researchers insist it's there
And have given our little lizard an elegant name
Amygdala
The one to blame for the things we do and say
The rational mind deems insane
I guess the eggs in Amy's nest
Are from where our dragons come