Consciousness Q&A with Nicholas Humphrey

How do you define consciousness? How can it be an illusion when an illusion requires a conscious observer? And when/how does consciousness develop in humans?

Nicholas Humphrey answers questions from YouTube comments on his theory that consciousness could be an illusion generated in the theatre of our minds. He suggests that the sensations we experience could be just a facade generated by a trick of our brains.

The first element to be clarified is the definition of consciousness. From here, Professor Humphrey explores qualia and tackles the questions of how consciousness can be an illusion when an illusion requires a conscious audience, how and when consciousness emerges in human development, and whether we could create artificial consciousness.

[john_hunter_]

Can he do a series on consciousness? There is so much you could talk about that you could make an episode for each topic. 

[Kneedragon]

What is consciousness? Good question. It is directing and controlling attention. Between our physical senses and our various mental tricks, like memory and anticipation, we have many more things competing for our attention, than it can attend to. So we focus on some and tune others out. But the process of doing this, and how we do it, seems to have a variety of side effects, such as the sense of 'self' and identity. The bit that is 'me' is not housed in my heart, or some piece of my brain, it arises out of the interplay of lower brain functions, that combine to create a working brain with a mind, and a working 'model' of myself, and the world, and my place in it.

[ScottLahteine]

When I look at conscious states, particularly immediate perception-conception, the word "gestalt" keeps coming to mind. We seem to experience continuous "gestalts" - what you might also call conceptual "loops" - the idea is similar to feedback loops, but forms the background of immediate experience. Positing experiences as synesthetic gestalts blurs the line between perception, conception, implication, meaning-making, etc.

And when I think about what is conscious vs what isn't, memory-formation seems to be at the crux in many ways.

[Kreadus]

I didn't find Prof. Humphrey's explanation at 3:00 onwards very satisfying. To paraphrase, "Qualia, say pleasure or pain, are not objective things. They are illusions in the mental state. They are the product of interpretation of mental states by the lens of consciousness"

Defining consciousness as the sum of qualia then becomes a circular definition. He could be trying to say that consciousness is more base and primal than the contents of it. Consciousness is the projector screen's dancing light, whereas the qualia would be the silver nitrate having been put into position through the recording process. But then one must ask, yet again, who is watching the theatre screen?

Perhaps observation is independant of the content.  Maybe then free will isn't compatible with determinism, and we're all just observation points looking at our own assigned robots. We never see the inside of another robot, so we only experience the choices of that robot? Who knows.

I just don't like it being called an illusion. It is a bad analogy. Stop using bad analogies.

[tigno]

Someone should do a full documentary ft this guy as well as other scientist

[KRT]

When we sleep, consciousness does not go away, nor is consciousness placed on hold until we awaken. We would not dream if it were. I am conscious of the world around me. What distinctly separates me from all other non human creatures is comprehensible intellect combined with the attributes of being able to intellectually reason and create with infinite purpose of design. No other non human creature is capable of such things save for consciousness. Ever see a dog or cat dream??? I have.

[modvs]

I never understood the "illusion" trump card. There has to be something "veridical" (non-illusory) by which to make a contrast. Or are there just degrees of illusion? The impossible triangle presupposes veridical, possible triangles- otherwise your run of the mill right angle, with an adjacent of 25 degrees, is also an illusion from which you could never distinguish from the impossible one. Illusion turtles all the way down?

[zboltable]

Regarding the final question on how can we test this idea scientifically. Can't you use Occum's Razor to say that assuming a consciousness not tied to physical processes is unnecessary since we have physical processes that could lead to it?  I feel like first we have to rule out the physical processes that are the most likely candidates before we start imaging some entirely new thing.

I understand people feel that their consciousness is special and set apart from the world, but we shouldn't let this feeling give us a premise that is assumed truth.

[RainbowWorrior]

I found this to be lacking in responses and although great questions had been highlighted, thanks to the authors, the responses were nothing less than weak, I also found far more interesting comments on the original video before main authors input, or misrepresentation of the subject matter, to show illusion is easy if you are prepared to actually consider this as opposed to there being no way to achieve this.

[Sam-wezj]

so my causal power is also an illusion?

[ktx]

While I appreciate the videos on such a thought provoking topic...I must agree with all the others who are a bit disappointed with the vague & often circular arguments given in his follow up response. At this point, I feel like its pretty safe to say his "illusion" theory of consciousness is nothing more than a clever repackaging of the Hard Problem into a shiny new box....without providing any new insights/answers and making no real scientific progress. His illusion explanation is akin to spiritual types invoking a soul & is nothing more than a sort of shell game for the Explanatory Gap.

[Hermes]

In *Seeing Red* Humphrey gets the problem solved.
In *Soul Dust* he sees the world in Santayanian terms.
Glorious travel since *Consciousness Regained*.

[FlyingRhenquest]

I play with neural networks every couple of years, and it sounds like the illusion of sensation you talk about happen in the middle layers that aren't so visible to the computer scientist. The input and output layers are well defined and visible but the most anyone says about the middle layers is "Stuff happens here."

Having pondered this question while considering my own mind, it seems that my mind is a federation of processing usually has the illusion of being a single, united entity. But whatever the mechanism is that provides that illusion of unity can be somewhat disrupted if I focus on one specific task. When I talk to myself, who am I talking to, really? I don't think talking to myself would be possible if my mind were truly as united as it has the illusion of being. This goes along with what I know of the brain, that specific regions are tasked with processing incoming sense data. There is something there providing a kind of timing signal that provides the illusion that I am aware of many things simultaneously, despite the fact that the part of my mind that is aware of these things may not have been aware of the sensations for quite a long time (in relative terms.)

Having considered this most carefully, I think programming a machine to be conscious might be a "simple" matter of programming it to think it is. If the machine and an observer are unable to prove otherwise, who's to say? If that doesn't work, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, we could just program it to say "What?" and ask about tea and no one is likely to notice the difference. And if no one notices the difference, is anyone going to dispute that it's conscious?

[vaidybala]

To me, it seems there is a vast difference between physiological consciousness ( biological necessity to survive) and what Buddha declared as I am aware consciousness which is not-physical and not stimulated by any external stimulus. The non-physical consciousness it is said accesses information about anything spontaneously as per Zen and India's monastic tradition. Only a few (ppb) seem to have reached this level! The elucidation by neural analyzes may be one approach!

[leighedwards]

He seems not to distinguish between creatures being conscious of and responding to external stimulus and going about their daily activities, which many simpler animals do, and the very different experience in higher animals of being self aware and distinct individuality, even our own mortality in humans.

[vincentd]

It's not an all or nothing phenomena (wake/sleep), because there is awareness/ observancd of your dreamstate and even of the state of 'not having dreamed'.

[charlesbrightman]

As everything in this universe can supposedly be explained utilizing the four basic laws of nature, so too, as I believe pure energy is the singularity of even the laws of nature which allows them to exist, everything in existence in this universe can be explained utilizing pure energy.  Energy is input into the body via the senses and directed to the brain.  As energy (quanta) harmonizes, going over quantum thresholds and under quantum ceilings, going through various levels, consciousness emerges.

If there is not at least one truly eternally consciously existent entity that truly exists in actual reality, then all things cease to matter one day as there wouldn't be a conscious entity left for anything and/or anyone to matter to.  "Life", while it matters while we exist, would all cease to matter one day of which then our very existence ultimately and eternally matter in the first place?  Who's left to care?

If such an entity truly exists, (ie: "God"), the one very thing they could never ever do is to personally experience a total cessation of conscious existence, and yet, that is the one very thing we can apparently never ever escape.  Coincidence? I don't believe so.  It appears we exist, at least in part, so we can cease to exist.  It's the only way how "God" could experience "death" is by how "God" is apparently doing it.

The study of consciousness appears to indicate that it is attached to our physical brain.  When it dies, we die.  And sad to say some even lose their consciousness before they even physically die.  I keep my mind open, and maybe we do have an eternal conscious existence somehow, someway, somewhere, in some state of existence, it's just that the current analysis doesn't say it's that way though.  We die, we're dead, for eternity.  Our true destiny appears to be: "To cease to exist and be forgotten, even by 'God' into 'God's' eternity".  But, I could be wrong too.

[samsaurus]

10 mins on consciousness and not a touch on Sartre? Interesting video anyhow.

[qorilla]

These *pop* sounds make me go crazy. It's exactly the same as my email notification sound. Aaah.

[modvs]

There's no reason to suppose that experience is representational (Gibson (eco-psychology), Searle, et al.)