Nature & Nurture #42: Dr. Mark Solms - The Neuropsychology of Dreams, Feeling, & Consciousness

Dr. Mark Solms is a neuropsychologist, Professor at the University of Cape Town, and author of The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. In this episode we discuss Dr. Solms' background in neuropsychology, the overlap between modern neuropsychology and psychoanalysis, and Dr. Solms' early research on dreaming. We then discuss the illusive nature of consciousness, Dr. Solms' central arguments in The Hidden Spring that consciousness is evolutionarily ancient and grounded in feeling, and modern attempts of using quantitative methods to tackle the mystery of consciousness.
0:00:04 Introduction to Dr. Mark Solms and his interest in consciousness
0:03:22 Dr. Solms' background in psychoanalysis and its influence on his research
0:06:56 The importance of studying subjective states in neuroscience
0:10:48 The shift towards appreciating subjectivity in the field of neuroscience
0:15:20 The study of dreams and their connection to emotion and memory
0:18:58 The transition from studying dreams to studying consciousness
0:22:48 The relationship between feeling and consciousness
0:30:56 Collaboration with Karl Friston and the exploration of consciousness
0:39:27 The emergence of feeling from non-feeling and the study of artificial consciousness
0:46:33 The discussion on panpsychism and the limits of consciousness
1:00:14 The connection between free will, feeling, and probabilistic choices

[williamjmccartan]

Thank you both very much for sharing your time and work, Mark, and Adam, watching from 2024, and still very relevant for today's conversations, peace

[darkandstarrysky]

Love that Dr. Solms is mentioning he doesn't see 'information theory' as some kind of a stand-alone phenomena that has 'a presence' in the universe, but, instead, as something that is subjective ; experiential; and derives it's value from how it is utilized, or shared and developed within a larger community. (Seems this might also be said about math and color theory. ) Also, , appreciate his alluding to the projection of our 'personal consciousness' onto the cosmos surrounding us and referring to it as pantheism.

[bobleclair]

You would think if your conscious is in control an not just along for the ride as an observer, it could train your subconscious to better control your dreams and show your memory how to remember your dreams more clearly, it could come in handy when you’re time traveling

[FormsInSpace]

an evolutionary "purpose" for consciousness could be a mix of self preservation and abstract thought about oneself. a reason could be to store food, and categorize (memory) of food sources, foods to avoid, water sources. to remember them and categorize them using abstract thought, and to consider storing them for future use (like a squirrel). all these basic "thoughts" help with survival and are based on an abstract (future) concept of "the self". if you couple that with basic "awareness" of ones' sensory inputs (pain, pleasure, warmth, sight, sound ect) you have all the ingredients of what we call "consciousness" . also the buddhist "5 aggregates" shows there is no consciousness, just impermanent/temporal sense stimulus and mental activity.

[bobleclair]

34:27 you haven’t mentioned imagination yet, to create the future by past experiences is good but not as much fun as manifesting from your dreams or imagination, the memory is key

[bobleclair]

40:39, different forms of consciousness, a human, an animal, plant, atoms, the gravity of one planet to another,

[bobleclair]

47:45, if you think of god, not as a noun but as a verb, as in the act, creation, consciousness

[margrietoregan]

so i think it it behooves us uh to try to engineer a conscious system
1:15:33
but i wouldn't say you know therefore software i i would start saying okay well then what does that what are the
1:15:38
minimal conditions and in addition to what i've just said i need to clarify that it has to be a self-organizing
1:15:45
system uh which has survival um values
1:15:50
self-preservative values uh because selfhood uh in other words the things i was saying about the markov blanket
1:15:57
and the and the the control center uh being about um all these perturbations going to
1:16:04
annihilate me the whole mechanism of homeostasis is predicated upon the assumption that i want to carry
1:16:10
on existing so i think that the the kinds of machines that we would need to make
1:16:17
would have to start from those first principles about self-organization going back to ashby

[haroonaverroes]

Dr. thief can not stop his bad habits !