Christof Koch - Does Brain Make Mind?

The mind consists of sensations, thoughts, cogitations, intentions, feelings. How could these inner mental capacities, these felt experiences, be produced by the three pounds of rubbery moist meat encased in our skulls? What must the brain do to generate the mind? Is it even possible for mental experiences to be produced by physical brains alone?

Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute of Brain Science in Seattle.

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.

[henkmaritz]

it took them a lifetime of study to arrive at the logical conclusion that "Consciousness is a very complex state of a very complex neural network"...

[DS]

Integrated information theory basically tells us that there are relationships between our experiences and consciousness.

If still doesn’t solve the greatest mystery that is what produces consciousness. Sure, our experiences shape our consciousness, physical feelings etc. but why does that happen, through what physical/neurological mechanisms and how can these processes help us understand the structure and nature of the brain and consciousness? Why people with identical experiences have different effects on their consciousness? Why those with identical experiences have the same effects on their consciousness?

Some of too many questions.

[bretnetherton]

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

[simonhibbs]

I'm a big fan of integrated information theory as a project, but I think it slips into the view that consciousness is just about complexity, and Phi is just a specific way of characterising informational complexity. I think that's part of, but not all of the story.

For me consciousness is about the awareness of the self and reasoning about one's own mental processes. It's literally self awareness. So the mind has a sophisticated model of mental processes and mental content of others (thoughts, knowledge, attention, motivations, etc) so we can reason about, anticipate and even try to modify the behaviour of others. Then we also generates a model of the same form about our own mental content. This allows the mind to reason about it's own motivations, goals and experiences and even try to self-modify by seeking out new information and learning new skills including reasoning skills.

I don't think simply having a lot of integrated information necessarily achieves this, although having a sufficient level of integrated information might be required. So integrated information may be a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for consciousness.

[techteampxla]

I first was introduced to Mr. Koch from C3T thanks to Mr. Kuhn and team. I have been following Mr. Koch and he has some amazing work. Thanks 🙏 for your miraculous work both of you !

[MarkMach]

Lawrence is 78 years old? Oh my, I would have never guessed. He doesn't look a day over 60.

His enthusiasm and curiosity led exploration probably what keeps him young.

His talks and explorations for the deeper meaning of life and existence are a treasure trove indeed.

[jaystone]

I have been waiting for this one. Thank you

[psterud]

This is going to sound strange to some people, but I underwent hypnosis some years back (long story) and was able to see what an emotion was. Now, what I saw was surely just an overlay of my own experiences, but that overlay depicted an emotion as an ecosystem. Not just an ecosystem, but a world with an ecosystem, and one that could be manipulated like a modular structure. It was vast in scope, just one emotion, and totally adjustable. Take a slice out, insert another totally different slice in the same space for a different result. It was very geometrical, at least in the overlay I saw. Very hard to describe, but I can still see the vision of an emotion in my mind: A modular system as complex as an entire world, complete with an ecosystem. It made total sense at the time, and I assure you it was incredibly beautiful. And I have zero idea where that came from. (Edit: Yes, I was sober.)

[futurehistory]

If we can take IIT and then determine what exactly is going on to result in a given conscious experience then in theory we could get a snapshot of the integrated information state of the brain that gives rise to internal experience. We might then get a step closer to answering the hard problem of consciousness itself.

[tunahelpa]

Yeah, this aligns with my thoughts on the subject. Just one thing, though - nothing in what he said can be shown as a causal element. Rather, they are just a reasonable guess at correlates of consciousness, not a cause of it.

[ericjohnson]

Interestingly, Merriam-Webster has a multiplicity of definitions for "mind." Some have to do with consciousness, which is an advanced stage or state of mind. But there's one in particular worth noting: "the organized conscious and unconscious adaptive mental activity of an organism." Biologist Michael Levin points out that all cells are involved in problem solving, which qualifies as a mental activity of an organism. We see this, even in slime mold, and yet slime mold doesn't have any neurons, no brain. Thus it follows that "mind" is not contingent on a brain. In my experience, it is my mind that tells my brain what to do.

[hydrorix]

Max Planck: "matter is derivative from Consciousness."
How?
As Perception In Consciousness.

[metheplant]

Remember folks: no flame comes into being without the prior existence of light. We soon will explain consciousness not as something flickering and emergent but rather fundamental and luminous. Almost there…

[electricmanist]

The mind is not the brain. Many seem to confuse the two.The brain dies with the body, whereas the mind (or the soul) is eternal.

[ElkoJohn]

The mind is like the flame of a candle. When the flame is extinguished, Nirvana.

[Silas-lcop]

"Brain and brain....what is brain?"
Star Trek origial episode

[whitefiddle]

I love the fast-talking gibberish. As for the truth of it I cite the words of one of the local rubes: _"It's a scientific hypothesis consistent with some models."_ 🤣

[trajklogik]

This still does not answer why I experience pain and color and sound instead of my complex, integrated neural network. I only experience a complex, integrated neural network when I observe others. I cannot experience their pain. I experience only their neural network and then try to establish a correlation between my visual experience of their brain scan and their experience of pain. We talk about brains and neurons as if that is what is "out there" and attempt to attain a view from nowhere while we are forever trapped in a view from somewhere. The "physical" structure of a brain and its neurons is a visual experience from somewhere. We can't even imagine looking at a brain from all sides. It's always a side of the brain we can imagine viewing.

We need to start taking consciousness into account to even attempt to solve the relation between quantum and classical physics. Consciousness as a means of measuring reality can resolve some of these issues. In thinking that the brains/neurons are "physical" objects and that is the way the world is (naive realism) is to confuse the map with the territory, but we do need to remember that the map is also part of the territory. Reality is more mind-like than physical (bodies and brains).

[factchecker]

Why do u have to apply mathematics into everything?
Just because 2 apples + 2 apples = 4 apples that does not mean u have 4 apples.
It is just hypothetical and in thin air.
What u call conscious experience is just Processed Sensory Input.
U already have the inherited and acquired information or knowledge about the sensory input which is why u experience stuff in the first place.
U CANNOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING OF WHICH U HAVE NO IFNORMATION OR DATA OR MEMORY OR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION DATA MEMORY KNOWLEDGE IS PRIMARY TO CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

[JohnHumbert]

Contradictory? Christof says, "...it is the ultimate reality... it is fundamental to anything else." then a minute later he says it is tightly linked to the network (brain) and if the network (brain) disappears, "then this will all be gone." That seems to contradict "fundamental".