David Chalmers - What is Consciousness?

Consciousness is what we can know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness has intrigued and baffled philosophers. To begin, we must define and describe consciousness. What to include in a complete definition and description of consciousness?



David Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University.


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.

[altortugas]

Nobody else was shocked by David’s shave and haircut?

[zahiduchiha]

Robert you should ask scientists to tell you that there’s no such thing as consciousness without them saying the word consciousness.

[kirasussane]

Love this guy he was my first introduction to philosophy of mind and he has a wonderful way to make very complicated ideas accesible for the lay person that is not a philosopher but is interested in philosophy.

And now I'm taking some courses online about philosophy of mind and analytical philosophy.

[Sharperthanu]

No matter how you talk about consciousness you're always talking about something that's transcendent.

[kevinsayes]

In the early years of humans, it was useful to survival to operate in groups. To keep the groups coherent, we needed to remember who was in our group, and if we ‘felt’ we could trust person X or if they were a threat (potentially related is the fact that after a few hundred of anything, quantities lose meaning to our brains, correlating to the size of social groups). At the same time, it seems that romantic feelings toward another person would motivate those people to work harder to keep their offspring alive. It would make sense that consciousness was selected for. And as life got easier for humans, that mechanism in our mind that is constantly scanning social structure and forming memories kept running full speed, even if doing so wasn’t as necessary for survival anymore, so we had time on our hands so to speak to develop negative things live overthinking/anxiety/regret, almost as a way to give our conscious minds something to do.

At least that’s my shower thought theory. Something like that. Consciousness as just an information gathering and disseminating structure/program that was selected for.

[sessaly]

Robert should interview Bernardo Kastrup on Metaphysical Idealism. He has some interesting points to make on that.

[solidsneakie]

David Chalmers and David Deutsch are Davids that I could listen to all day :)

[julianmann]

CONSCIOUSNESS is non physical and non local. See NDE accounts, many by Doctors, surgeons, nurses and end of life practitioners. Also Bob Olson.

[videosbymathew]

People really need to stop saying consciousness is imbedded in the universe. It's not. What you CAN say is something like "consciousness's foundation or base functional property underlies the universe." We're being sloppy with our words here when we say consciousness that humans inhabits is somehow the universe or a base non-brain part of the universe itself. That's impossible and simply makes no sense.

It's almost as bad as saying a plant or even a rock is conscious. They are not. In order to BE conscious and what it means, you need a mind (a processing center) that can retain memory, feel AND understand pain on a fundamental level. A plant wilting or dying due to damage does not feel pain. It has a physical process that responds to outside stimuli, but that's all it is at that level is a response to stimuli and the environment in a unidirectional mode.

Are animals conscious? Many almost certainly are. Obviously you don't need intelligence to be conscious and have conscious experience, but you DO need again the memory and general processing of the environment into a collective 'conscious experience' in order to BE conscious. And that requires a mind of some sort.

[ChrisStewart]

It is not possible to completely discount any theory of spiritualism. That is why most scientists would accept it as a valid theory even though there is zero evidence which suggests it is so. Scientists at least make an effort to not be bias. Why it has become more prevalent amoungst "philosophers" probably has more to do with flavor of the month.

Not unlike a trend for cosmologists to get further and further out there.

[znariznotsj]

I miss in these discussions the role of energy in consciousness. We aren't conscious by default but we have to work hard for it. So the hunt for energy is the most definable feature of conscious beings. What can this tell us about fundamental reality?

[GUPTAYOGENDRA]

1. Consciousness is holding the same place in the universe what it holds in a dream.
2. A dream, Including every body living in the dream is observed by consciousness which is not a part of the dream.
3. The universe, including every body living in the universe is also observed by consciousness which is not a part of the universe.

[sandeep]

Every discoveries, every innovations, Science, development, emotion, everything we knew, we learned since our birth on earth are part of consciousness.I think no one will be able to understand or explain consciousness .It is beyond human imagination.We are conscious when we are alive, who knows we human may be conscious even after death.

[jameswilliams-eydq]

Marc Solms has described a model of consciousness that is based on research that looks at what parts of the brain are associated with unique aspects of consciousness. He calls back to Nagel’s thoughts that consciousness is that awareness that is what it feels like to be a bat, a fish, or a human. In essence hinting at the possible inner observer who’s job is to modify behavior in response to unpredictable and novel experience by its quality of feeling. This is the aspect of consciousness called affect. His book "The Hidden Spring” is the most complete and logical explanation moving towards solving the hard question.

[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.

ins:

[WallyOtt]

Stanislaw Lem (the author of "Solaris") once said that he would not be surprised if every single electron contained enough information to reproduce the entire Universe

[nazarenoorefice]

Robert should interview Federico Faggin too, inventor of the microchip and the touch screen who is now fully working on consciousness as a physician since many years.the Faggin consciousness foundation has very interesting Ideas.

[morphixnm]

There really needs to be an interview here of Berardo Kastrup.

[Metaldetectiontubeworldwide]

is that David's machine room, awesome setting to interview a very charsimatic soul
grtzz @geertsjohny

[TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

Right off the bat Chalmers straw-mans strong idealism by claiming “it puts humans at the center.” That’s not the monistic idealism of Kastrup, who has provided probably the strongest defense of idealism ever made. I’m not persuaded, but at least state the position fairly.