What is consciousness?
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Consciousness
What is it?
Table of Contents
Presentation (45 min)
Discussion Round (30 min) (split into groups of ~5 and discuss questions)
Final get together (30 min) (discuss insights from the smaller groups in the large group)
Important definitions
Consciousness
vs
Sentience
vs
Cognition
Consciousness
Sentience
Cognition
The brain and consciousness
Nervous systems
Evolution of nervous systems
Evolution of nervous systems
Non-conscious algorithms
Non-conscious algorithms
Consciousness is the most versatile
but also the most expensive algorithm.
Disadvantages of consciousness
Disadvantages of consciousness
Disadvantages of consciousness
Why did evolution install consciousness?
There has to be a distinct advantage!
Disadvantages of consciousness
Why did evolution install consciousness?
There has to be a distinct advantage!
Increased versatility and flexibility in behaviour
→ adaptability
→ finding solutions to novel situations
Role of Feelings
Vertebrates
birds
Vertebrates
birds
Vertebrates
birds
Transition from reptiles to birds (and amniotes to mammals)
→ increase in brain sizes
Why Amniotes?
Conscious or not?
Sponge
incoming water is toxic
→ all the flagella stop beating
Mimosa pudica
touched in one spot
→ all subparts of the leaf fold
Conscious or not?
Honeybees
dance used to communicate the direction and distance of a food source
→ have dialects
C. elegans
learns how to navigate different arenas
Conscious or not?
Octopus
Learn how to navigate mazes
Babies
Smile in their sleep
Easy and Hard Problems of Consciousness
Blindsight
Caused by damage to the visual cortex, but not the eyes.
People with blindsight have no visual conscious experience.
They are better than chance in visual guessing tests.
They take no ownership of the ability to see, (lack of self-awareness).
https://www.jolyon.co.uk/illustrations/consciousness-a-very-short-introduction-2/
Decoding Thought as Language through ML
Volunteers listen to 16 hours of speech and brain is continuously scanned with MRI.
ML model for each volunteer trained to generate the respective text, based on MRI scans.
Volunteers are listening to new speech and the model generates the respective text.
ML Model
Once upon a time, ...
Non invasive MRI scan
Decoding Thought as Language through ML Results
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiGl6oF5-cE
The decoder can predict what the person is listening to.
Decoding Thought as Language through ML Results
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiGl6oF5-cE
Decoding Thought as Imagery through ML
Volunteers are shown over 20.000 pictures and brain is continuously scanned with MEG.
An ML model is trained to generate the seen images, based on the MEG scans.
Volunteers are shown new images and model generates respective image in real time.
ML Model
Non invasive MEG scan
Decoding Thought as Imagery through ML Results
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.19812.pdf
Decoding Thought as Imagery through ML Results
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.19812.pdf
A Strong Case for Science
Assuming optimistic scenario for scientific progress, in the future it’s very possible that:
We have complete understanding in the evolutionary history of consciousness.
We can identify parts of the brain required for conscious experience (neural correlates).
We can identify thoughts (language and visual) and feelings through brain scans.
We can explain human (and animal) behaviour accurately leaving no space for free will.
Anything else?
The Easy Problems of Consciousness
The easy problems relevant to consciousness concern mechanistic analysis of the neural processes that accompany behaviour.
Examples of these include how sensory systems work, how sensory data is processed in the brain, how that data influences behaviour or verbal reports, the neural basis of thought and emotion, and so on.
They are problems that can be analyzed through "structures and functions".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Everything that we discussed so far falls into this category.
Questions?
The Easy Problems of Consciousness
Scientifically we can only discover accurate and predictive relationships between:
Stimuli Brain Activity Behaviour
“I have no visual experience.”
“Oh, that’s me!”
“What are you thinking?”
“I am thinking about a red car.”
“Are lines horizontal?”
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
The hard problem, in contrast, is the problem of why and how those processes are accompanied by experience.
It may further include the question of why these processes are accompanied by this or that particular experience, rather than some other kind of experience. In other words, the hard problem is the problem of explaining why certain mechanisms are accompanied by conscious experience.
For example, why should neural processing in the brain lead to the felt sensations of, say, feelings of hunger? And why should those neural firings lead to feelings of hunger rather than some other feeling (such as, for example, feelings of thirst)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Questions?
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
“I have no visual experience.”
“Oh, that’s me!”
“What are you thinking?”
“I am thinking about a red car.”
“Are lines horizontal?”
Why and how do we have conscious experience?
Why doesn’t all this processing go on “in the dark”, without conscious experience?
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Is there a hard problem of consciousness?
According to PhilPapers, which surveyed 1000 professional philosophers in 2020:
Physicalism: Everything that exists is a physical or material thing (including consciousness). Do you subscribe to physicalism?
According to PhilPapers, which surveyed 1000 professional philosophers in 2020:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5042?
Philosophical Zombies
Philosophical Zombies are physically identical to humans and behave in the same way, but have no conscious experience, or “Film of Life”.
Can Philosophical Zombies exist?
Who believes in physicalism and philosophical zombies?
Are these Philosophical Zombies?
https://medium.com/@paul.k.pallaghy/consciousness-ins-and-outs-of-philosophical-zombies-60f1b5a4cdfc
Inverted Visible Spectra
If there is no logical contradiction in supposing that one's colour vision could be inverted, it follows that mechanistic explanations of visual processing do not determine facts about what it is like to see colours.
This argument can be applied to every possible conscious experience.
This would mean that conscious experience can’t be explained by physicalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Illusionism
Illusionism is an active program [...] to explain phenomenal consciousness as an illusion.
Illusionists generally hold that once it is explained why people believe and say they are conscious, the hard problem of consciousness will dissolve.
Is conscious experience an illusion?
Criticism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism#Illusionism
Discussion Round In Groups
Why and how do we have conscious experience?
Why is there the meta-problem of consciousness? (Why do we even think that consciousness poses a hard problem.)
In how far are the following having conscious experience? Why and why not?
Take a photo and discuss.
Some Approaches to the Hard Problem
Physicalism: Everything that exists is a physical or material thing (including consciousness).
Panpsychism: Consciousness is intrinsic to matter.
Dualism: Consciousness is non-physical, mind and matter are separate.
Idealism: Consciousness is fundamental, matter is an image of mental processes.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious.
It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject.
The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together.
But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious?
Questions?
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/