Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - The Deepest Theories of Consciousness | The Consciousness Iceberg [Layer 3]

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

As a listener of TOE, you can now enjoy full digital access to The Economist and all it has to offer. Get a 20% off discount by visiting: https://www.economist.com/toe Today, we dive deeper into the ...theories of consciousness in Layer 3 of The Consciousness Iceberg, exploring Heidegger's concept of Dasein, the Attention Schema Theory, EM Field Topology, Joscha Bach's Conductor Theory, and Donald Hoffman's Conscious Realism. IMPORTANT LINKS: - Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal (early access to ad-free audio episodes!) - Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Become a YouTube Member Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join - Join TOEmail at https://www.curtjaimungal.org Layer 1: https://youtu.be/GDjnEiys98o Layer 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR4cpn8m9i0 Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 01:32 - Heidegger's Concept of Dasein 04:19 - Attention Schema Theory 7:06 - EM Field Topology and the Boundary Problem 11:07 - Joscha Bach's Conductor Theory 18:18 - Donald Hoffman's Conscious Realism 22:42 - Nir Lahav's Relativistic Consciousness 30:30 - Outro / Support TOE Links Mentioned: - John Vervaeke's Relevance Realization (Layer 2) - https://youtu.be/TR4cpn8m9i0?si=3oVj7BMf46Rn3HOx - Rupert Spira: Non-Dualism, God, & Death - https://youtu.be/dWLd9y1MG4c?si=AOW_lueDcK-xB8HX\ - Andres Gomex Emilsson (Qualia Research Institute) - https://qri.org/team - Fitness Beats Truth by Donald Hoffman - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33231784/ - Exposing the Matrix | Donald Hoffman Λ John Vervaeke - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTpdCVsttI - Heidegger Portrait - https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-essay/2023/04/philosopher-martin-heidegger-nazi-legacy-influence-right-wing-ideology - Attention Scheme Theory Michael Graziano - https://youtu.be/Tp5yqBEknUI?si=T9uXSHMG8de70peu - Joscha Bach Λ Karl Friston: Ai, Death, Self, God, Consciousness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcQMYNi9a2w - The Biggest Insight From Joscha Bach and Michael Levin's Work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_5AmPK2q4 - Michael Levin Λ Joscha Bach: Collective Intelligence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgMFnfB5E_A - Donald Hoffman Λ Joscha Bach: Consciousness, Gödel, Reality - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhSlYfVtgww - Joscha Bach Λ Ben Goertzel: Conscious Ai, LLMs, AGI - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7omaQ8SgA - A Relativistic Theory of Consciousness - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35801192/ - Roger Penrose | Gravity, Hawking Points and Twistor Theory - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gl8pwY2kW8 - Lahav Nir About Me: https://www.lahavnir.com/about-me - Do We See Icons or Reality? A Review of Donald Hoffman’s The Case Against Reality, Brian Martin - https://social-epistemology.com/2019/12/05/do-we-see-icons-or-reality-a-review-of-donald-hoffmans-the-case-against-reality-brian-martin/ - Escaping the Illusion: Bernardo Kastrup Exposes Reality - https://youtu.be/lAB21FAXCDE?si=qmrsi-yDxXwtxwhD #science #consciousness #donaldhoffman #joschabach Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:37 It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. Welcome to the Consciousness Iceberg, Layer 3, where this time we'll delve into the even deeper kaleidoscopic world of explaining every theory of consciousness in a straightforward manner, connecting philosophical ideas to modern theories of cognitive science. In Layer 1, we laid the groundwork by defining consciousness, addressing the mind-body problem, and exploring
Starting point is 00:01:16 the nature of sleep, dreams, altered states. We also touched on the debate between free will and determinism, questioned the nature of the self and identity, there's a link in the description if you'd like to see that, and in Layer 2 we ventured into the more challenging aspects such as the hard problem of consciousness, phalia, what is it, non-dualism, what is it, what does Indian philosophy have to say about it, and other theories such as global workspace as well as Carl Jung's ideas on consciousness. With all of that groundwork laid we're now ready to plunge into layer three exploring Heidegger's notion of Dasein. What is the attention schema theory? What are the latest theories from thinkers such as Donald Hoffman and Joschka Bach? We also tackle
Starting point is 00:01:57 the boundary problem in consciousness as articulated by Andreas Gomez Emelson as well as addressing the relativistic view of consciousness by Nir Lehov. This is a radically new theory proposed in the 2020s. We'll see how all of these frameworks interact, complement, and contradict one another. My name's Kurt Jaimungal, and I use my background in mathematical physics to analyze theories of everything. So, let's begin. Heidegger's concept of Dasein. The concept of Dasein is prevalent in Heidegger's philosophy, particularly in his seminal existential
Starting point is 00:02:30 work, Being and Time. The term Dasein is often translated as being there or presence. Essentially, it's human consciousness as a form of being that's aware of and questions its own existence. In the context of consciousness studies, Dasein is significant because it places an emphasis on consciousness having an active engagement with the world. Heidegger posits that our consciousness, or Dasein, is always thrown in the world. This means that we find ourselves in a context that we didn't choose, however,
Starting point is 00:03:05 we still must navigate it. And this navigation involves both perceiving objects and understanding them as part of a meaningful whole, or a quote-unquote world in Heideggerian terms. You can think of this as a fusion of reductionism and holism. Dossine is always already involved in a world of significance where things show up as relevant or irrelevant, useful or useless based on our intentions and concerns. This relates to John Vervaeke's relevance realization that we talked about in the previous layer. Many views on consciousness emphasize the passive observer aspect, such as some forms
Starting point is 00:03:42 of mindfulness meditation, where you watch your thoughts rather than become the author of your thoughts. Heidegger says this is a mistake. Consciousness doesn't mirror a reality that exists, it's a co-creator, a negotiator of meaning. One aspect of Dasein is its temporal nature. Heidegger argues that Dasein is always ahead of itself, projecting into the future while being grounded in its past, what he calls being toward death.
Starting point is 00:04:13 In this way, it's common to the predictive approaches of Karl Friston, which will come up in Layer 4. So subscribe to get notified. This temporal structure means that consciousness is inherently future oriented. It's your orientation to the future that shapes your present. This stands in contrast to the more present oriented views, such as those of some meditative practices. Heidegger suggests that the notion that consciousness can be fully understood by breaking it down into its components or correlating it with neural processes is a foolish one.
Starting point is 00:04:45 Instead, Dasein suggests that consciousness is an irreducible phenomenon, intertwined with our being in the world. This resonates with modern theories that emphasize the embodied and embedded nature of consciousness, such as inactivism and the extended mind hypothesis, while it rejects approaches that attempt to explain consciousness solely in terms of brain activity. Attention Schema Theory Attention Schema Theory is a relatively recent theory in the study of consciousness proposed by neuroscientist Michael Graziano. It offers a compelling explanation for how consciousness
Starting point is 00:05:22 arises from the brain's mechanisms for attention. The core idea of AST is that the brain constructs models or schemas of various processes to determine and control them. For instance, to control the movement of the body, the brain creates a model of the body's position in space, known as a body schema. Similarly, Graziano proposes that the brain constructs an attention schema, a model of where attention is directed And what it's focusing on according to AST Consciousness arises when the brain creates a model of its own attention this self modeling of attention is what gives us the experience of being aware in other words
Starting point is 00:05:59 Consciousness is the brain's method of Representing to itself that it's attending to something is the brain's method of representing to itself that it's attending to something. AST doesn't claim that attention itself is consciousness, but rather that the brain's internal model of attention is what we experience as consciousness. This theory suggests that consciousness isn't a fundamental property of the brain, rather it's a useful construct, a model, or a representation if you will. One that helps the brain manage complex tasks and social interactions. One of the intriguing aspects or implications of AST is its potential to explain the quote-unquote
Starting point is 00:06:33 explanatory gap. That is, the question of why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience. Graziano suggests that this gap may be a result of the brain's attention schema being inherently incomplete. The brain models attention as an intangible, ineffable process, leading us to experience it as something fundamentally mysterious, even though it's just a model constructed by the brain. But Kurt, what does that even mean? Well, AST aligns with some elements of predictive processing theories where the brain is seen as a prediction machine, constantly generating models of the world to guide behavior. In the case of consciousness, AST posits that the brain generates a model of itself paying
Starting point is 00:07:17 attention, and this self-model is what we experience as being conscious. To better understand this concept, imagine it like the following. When you're watching a movie, you're aware of the characters and the plot. However, you're not necessarily aware of the projector that's casting the images on the screen. Your brain's attention schema is like the projector. It's responsible for creating the experience, but it remains obscured. It remains hidden from your conscious awareness.
Starting point is 00:07:45 Another way to think of it is like a spotlight that illuminates certain aspects of your experience while leaving others in the dark. So critics of AST argue that it doesn't fully account for the qualitative aspects of consciousness, what philosophers call qualia. However, proponents of AST suggest that it does offer a robust framework for integrating attention and awareness, which are the key components of conscious experience. EM Field Topology and the Boundary Problem The boundary problem in consciousness research is an under-explored area closely related
Starting point is 00:08:22 to the better-known binding problem. while the binding problem deals with how disparate neuronal activities coalesce into a unified conscious experience, see layer 2, the boundary problem asks why and how these experiences have distinct limits. Why does our sense of self and experience have clear edges? Now note that some like Rupert Spira argue that not only does consciousness not have so-called limits, but counterintuitively, neither does our experience of consciousness have limits. You can see this podcast with Rupert Spira here, but for today, I want to talk about
Starting point is 00:08:57 a theory created by Andreas Gomez-Emmelson. Electromagnetic field topology is an approach to tackling this delineation issue. This theory suggests that the topology of EM fields in the brain could create hard boundaries for conscious experiences. These boundaries are defined by the physical and topological properties of EM fields. This theory rests on the principle of topological segmentation, where different segments of the brain's electromagnetic field are enclosed within distinct topological boundaries. This segmentation could theoretically account for why our consciousness feels segmented
Starting point is 00:09:34 into specific bounded experiences. Now let's talk about some key features of EM field topology. So number one, you have a holistic enclosure. EM fields create these enclosures around areas of high neuronal activity, segmenting these from the rest of the brain activity. Number two, frame invariance. These boundaries are not static across different states of consciousness.
Starting point is 00:09:58 Instead, the very nature of various states of consciousness stems from how these boundaries dynamically shift, morph and change. There are both global boundaries of various states of consciousness stems from how these boundaries dynamically shift, morph, and change. There are both global boundaries that segment out larger conscious experiences and local boundaries that affect immediate experiential content. This dynamic interaction allows for a multitude of pathways within our conscious landscape, similar to how altering the shape of a balloon creates different paths within it. Now number three, there's downward causality.
Starting point is 00:10:28 The segmented fields can influence neuronal activity within their boundaries, suggesting a two-way interaction between consciousness and brain activity. And lastly, number four, there's no need for strong emergence. EM field topology and its holistic top-down effects are all implied by the laws of physics, aligning more with the form of weak emergence. This perspective shifts from a classical atomistic view to one that appreciates continuous field dynamics and topological changes as natural phenomena. This approach addresses not only how consciousness is bounded, but simultaneously enhances our understanding of how different conscious states, such as waking and various altered states, could be maintained or shifted through changes in the EM field topology.
Starting point is 00:11:15 Now, topology, by the way, in this sense, is a fancy term for quote unquote mapping the connectivity. Or you can just think of it as what parts are connected to what. Testing this theory involves simulations and empirical research, focusing on how EM fields maintain consistent Lorentz invariance despite topological deformations. This showcases that the EM fields are independent of observational frame of reference. Now solving the boundary problem could tell us why our experiences are framed the way they are, potentially leading to new ways to manipulate or enhance consciousness through technological means. Yoshi Box Theory
Starting point is 00:11:55 Yoshi Box Theory suggests that cortical structures result from reward-driven learning, based on signals from the motivational system and the structure of the data being learned. A cortical structure, by the way, is just a dressed up manner of referring to any part of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain. Now at the heart of this theory is the conductor, the so-called conductor, which is a computational structure trained to regulate the activity of other cortical functionality. This conductor directs attention and provides executive function by altering the activity and parameterization of other cortical structures. It integrates aspects of the processes it
Starting point is 00:12:37 attends to into a protocol, which is then used for reflection and learning. But what are the elementary agents in this theory? Bach describes them as columns in the cerebral cortex. These columns self-organize into larger organizational units of brain areas through developmental reinforcement learning. The activity of this cortical orchestra is highly distributed and paralyzed. It can't be experienced as a whole. The conductor, located in the prefrontal cortex, coordinates the performance. It's not a homunculus, instead it's a set
Starting point is 00:13:13 of dynamic function approximators. While most cortical instruments regulate the dynamics and interactions of this organism with the environment, the conductor regulates the dynamics of the orchestra itself. Now, you might be wondering, where does experience get integrated? Bach states that the conductor is the only place where this happens. Information not integrated into the protocol can't become functionally relevant to the system's reflection, the production of its utterances, or the generation of its cohesive self-model. So, what happens without the conductor? Bach asserts that our brain can still perform most of its functions. We'd be sleepwalkers, capable of coordinated perceptual and motor action, yet lacking central coherence and reflection.
Starting point is 00:14:02 Memories play a significant role, by the way, in box theory. Memories can be generated by reactivating a cortical configuration via the links and parameters stored at the corresponding point in the protocol. Reflective access to the protocol is itself a process that can be stored in the protocol. By accessing this, a system may remember having had experiential access. So let's make this extremely simple. For phenomenal consciousness, Bach claims it's necessary and sufficient that a system can access the memory of having had an experience. What about the actuality of the experience itself? This is irrelevant.
Starting point is 00:14:42 An example illustrating this relationship between the conductor, the protocol, and the conscious experience can be visualized through a graph. So let's imagine a place with nodes and edges representing your brain's cortical regions. Each node possesses specific information such as visual data or auditory signals, or emotional responses, etc. The conductor, which is the prefrontal cortex, selectively samples their outputs, compressing them into some compact, serialized protocol. Firstly, note how much you're not aware of.
Starting point is 00:15:19 Even right now, there's the air around you, there's perhaps your shoes or your socks, or if you're on the ground, maybe some dirt underneath your soles, there's the air around you, there's perhaps your shoes or your socks or if you're on the ground maybe some dirt underneath your soles, there's some background hum that you're ignoring, there's maybe the scent of wood or there's maybe the scent of coffee or of orange juice or someone else coughing in the background. You're not consciously aware of all of this processing. The conductor samples these outputs creating a compressed representation which is just you sitting down listening to a podcast. When you recall this experience you're not
Starting point is 00:15:53 accessing the raw sensory data but you're accessing instead this compressed protocol. Your subjective experience of remembering the podcast is the conductor reactivating and slightly reinterpreting this protocol. The qualia of the pixels on the screen or the curiosity that you have isn't a stored property. Instead, it's an emergent interpretation as your brain reconstructs the memory. This, according to Bach, explains why our memory often feels less vivid than the original experience. We are working from a compressed protocol, not raw sensory data. Okay, but how does this have anything to do with the hard problem? Consider the classical philosophical zombie thought experiment that you've heard of,
Starting point is 00:16:46 where we imagine a being physically identical to a human, however this being will lack conscious experience. In Bach's framework, this concept becomes incoherent. Imagine two identical neural networks, one conscious and one a zombie. Both have the same conductor mechanism, sampling and compressing information into a protocol. Both can report on their experiences by accessing and interpreting this protocol. For Bach, the conscious system doesn't have some extra ineffable property. Its experience of consciousness is precisely its ability to access and report on its protocol.
Starting point is 00:17:26 It's equivalent to that. So the zombie system, being identical to this, would necessarily have the same ability. The seemingly hard problem of what it feels like to be conscious dissolves when we recognize that this feeling itself is a construct, a so-called story the brain tells itself by interpreting its own protocol. There's no separate experience happening alongside the information processing. The experience is the processing. So what is phenomenal consciousness according to Bach? What is qualia according to Bach, what are feelings, what is blueness to Bach, the phenomenal consciousness is understood as the most recent memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to.
Starting point is 00:18:15 Conscious experience isn't an experience of being in the world or an inner space, it's a memory. It's the recognition of a dream generated by more than 50 brain areas reflected in the protocol of a single region. By directing attention to its own protocol, the conductor can store and recreate memories of its own experience being conscious. This perspective resolves much of the difficulty in specifying an AI implementation of consciousness. It's necessary and sufficient to realize a system that remembers having had experienced something and can report on that memory. Bach suggests that our conscious experience isn't a direct perception of some physical reality.
Starting point is 00:19:06 No. Instead, it's a dream, a model constructed by our brain to represent and interact with the world around us. Donald Hoffman's Theory Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, argues that our visual perceptions, in general, aren't veridical representations of ultimate reality. Why?
Starting point is 00:19:29 Because evolution selects for fitness to reproduce, and not for access to ontological truth. This is outlined in his Fitness Beats Truth paper linked in the description. Consider this. A caveman who sees a rabbit as tasty food is more likely to survive than one who perceives it as a complex molecular structure. This of course presumes that the molecular structure is what's more real. Hoffman likens our perceptions to computer interfaces, such as a folder that's on your desktop.
Starting point is 00:19:59 Now, you see that folder and you think, is there actually a tiny folder inside your computer? No, it's just a useful simplification for complex binary code. Similarly, Hoffman argues that evolution shaped our perceptions as simplistic illusions to help us navigate the world. Later in his career, Hoffman suggests that space-time itself isn't objective reality. it's just a part of our interface. To some physicists, this is quite obvious and straightforward because we don't have a method of reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics and several of the attempts to do so posit structures where space-time emerges.
Starting point is 00:20:38 Some other physicists, however, would say that space-time not being fundamental doesn't mean space-time is any more of an illusion than your car is an illusion because your car isn't fundamental. So, what is real according to Donald Hoffman and his collaborator Sheytan Prakash? Consciousness. They propose conscious realism, which states that the objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences. Instead of particles creating consciousness when they form brains, consciousness creates space-time and objects, including what we perceive as a brain. Now let's think, how does this compare to other theories?
Starting point is 00:21:19 Let's break it down. We have Joschabach's cortical conductor theory, which sees consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to. Hoffman disagrees, saying consciousness is fundamental, and so they diverge on the nature of reality itself. Bach still operates within a physicalist framework, while Hoffman politely throws physicalism down the garbage chute. Michael Graziano's attention schema theory views consciousness as the brain's model of its own attention. Hoffman would say that this gets it backward. For him, consciousness isn't created by the brain, the brain is created by consciousness.
Starting point is 00:21:54 So this is what Donald Hoffman means when he says that neurons don't exist until perceived. Bernardo Castrop's analytic idealism aligns more closely with Hoffman. They both see consciousness as fundamental. The key difference is that Castrup posits a universal consciousness that segments itself into individual minds, while Hoffman describes a network of interacting conscious agents. Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes consciousness as active engagement with the world, and Hoffman would agree, however Hoffman would add that this world that we're engaging with is itself a construct of consciousness. Heidegger asserts
Starting point is 00:22:31 that Dasein, or human existence, and the world are inseparable and co-constitutive, with neither having ontological priority. This contradicts Hoffman's conscious realism, which gives ontological priority to consciousness. André Gomes Emelson's EM field topology theory tackles the boundary problem of consciousness. Hoffman's theory side steps this issue entirely by making consciousness fundamental. There's no need to explain how physical processes create bounded conscious experiences if those physical processes are
Starting point is 00:23:05 themselves constructs of consciousness. Okay, now you might be thinking, Kurt, what the heck about all the evidence that correlates mental states with brain activity? And Hoffman does have an answer. These correlations are fomented because consciousness creates brain activity. So yes, there's quite straightforwardly a correlation, it's just that the causation goes in the other direction. Near Lahav's Relativistic Consciousness
Starting point is 00:23:36 What if consciousness isn't an absolute property, but a relative one that depends on the observer's frame of reference? This idea is at the heart of Lahav's theory, which aims to bridge the explanatory gap between functional and phenomenal consciousness. Lahav starts with two key assumptions. Consciousness, number one, has some kind of physical explanation or broad physicalism, and then number two, that the principle of relativity holds true even for consciousness. Okay, but what does this mean in practice? Nearest thinking
Starting point is 00:24:11 like Einstein. You start with postulates and then you see their consequences. The consequences suggest the concept of cognitive frames of reference, that is perspectives determined by a cognitive systems dynamics. Lahav then establishes an equivalence principle between a conscious human, Alice, let's say, and a purported zombie AI system, say Bob, with the same cognitive structure, but supposedly lacking phenomenal consciousness in the latter case. If Alice and Bob obtain the same measurements and behavioral outputs, the relativity principle dictates that they must have the same physical laws in force. This leads us to the unintuitive conclusion that Bob, despite being
Starting point is 00:24:51 assumed to be a zombie, must also have phenomenal consciousness. Okay, so let's say you're looking at a sunset. From your first-person perspective, you experience colors and emotions, a neuroscientist observing your brain would see certain patterns of neural firing. Are these two perspectives describing the same phenomenon? According to Lahab, yes, they are just different measurements from different cognitive frames of reference. These are different perspectives of the same underlying phenomenon, akin to how UNRWA radiation appears from one
Starting point is 00:25:25 perspective but not another. But wait, you ask. Kurt, doesn't consciousness feel private and inaccessible to outside observers? Lahav explains this is due to the difference in measurements possible from first-person and third-person perspectives. From within a cognitive system, representations have causal power and are experienced as qualia. However, when you're from the outside, we can only measure physical substrates. Okay, so what about free will? Nir LaHav may say that it's relative,
Starting point is 00:25:57 and that this unifies determinism and libertarian free will. But let's think about what I just said. Phenomenal consciousness isn't truly private. It just requires the right frame of reference to measure directly. Thus, Lehov's approach aims to dissolve the hard problem by showing that the physical patterns or the neural representations and the phenomenal properties or the qualia are two sides of the same coin. They're different ways the same phenomenon appears based on the observer's cognitive perspective. But, doesn't this just push the explanatory burden back a step?
Starting point is 00:26:37 Instead of explaining how consciousness emerges from non-conscious matter, don't we now have to explain how it combines and evolves into complex life forms across different frames of reference? Lahav argues that his theory opens up new avenues for empirical research. Yes, so he proposes experiences to test predictions about the minimal conditions for consciousness and how these relate to sleep, or to anesthesia, or other altered states. Altered states, by the way, were explored in Layer 1, link in the description of this consciousness iceberg.
Starting point is 00:27:11 For instance, Nir LaHav may look for activation of specific cognitive spaces during cognitive states and their absence during unconscious states. Okay, but how does this theory compare to others? Well, with Donald Hoffman, since Lahav's theory posits consciousness as a relative property dependent on observers frames of reference, it contradicts sharply with Hoffman's conscious realism. While Hoffman argues consciousness is fundamental and creates our perceived reality, LahHavre suggests consciousness is a physical phenomenon that
Starting point is 00:27:45 appears different based on perspective. Consider Hoffman's desktop analogy. Hoffman may say that the computer, the desk it's on, and the room all around you are just constructs of consciousness, whereas LeHavre would argue no, these are real physical objects but our conscious experience of them depends on our cognitive frame of reference. But what about Bernardo Castrop? Castrop posits a universal consciousness that segments into individual minds.
Starting point is 00:28:15 Lahav, in contrast, grounds consciousness in physical cognitive systems. Where Castrop sees consciousness as primary, Lahav sees it as an emergent property, albeit one that looks different from various perspectives. Joschabach's cortical conductor theory views consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to and this aligns more closely with Lahav than with Hoffman or Kastrup. Both Bach and Lahav operate broadly within a physicalist framework, though Lahave would expand what physicalism is, adding the dimension of relativity, suggesting that the quote-unquote memory Bach describes might appear differently from various cognitive frames of reference.
Starting point is 00:28:57 So let's be clear, let's just think about an apple. Hoffman would say that that apple doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a construct of consciousness, an icon if you will, in our species specific interface with reality. Whereas Castrop would look at that apple and say that apple is a manifestation within universal consciousness experienced by an individual quote unquote alter, which is you, of this universal consciousness. Bach would instead describe your experience as a memory of your prefrontal cortex attending to certain sensory inputs and conceptual associations giving the impression of an apple. Now, Lahav would say that the apple is a physical object, but your conscious experience of its redness is a measurement that depends on your cognitive frame of reference from another frame, say a neuroscientist observing your brain, the same phenomenon might just appear as patterns
Starting point is 00:29:50 of neural activity. Now some questions to ponder are, how does Heidegger's idea of being toward death influence your understanding of consciousness and its relation to time? What implications might the tension schema theory have for developing artificial consciousness? How does understanding the boundary problem change our approach to studying altered states of consciousness? In what ways does Bach's theory challenge the notion of qualia as traditionally understood? How does Hoffman's theory account for shared experiences and consensus reality among different individuals?
Starting point is 00:30:26 Does LeHavre's theory of relativistic consciousness finally bridge the gap between physicalist and non-physicalist theories of mind? And that concludes layer three of the consciousness iceberg. If you found this expedition intriguing, then make sure to subscribe for Layer 4, where we'll delve into Penrose's theories, we'll also talk about Chris Langan's CTMU or the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the universe, Immanuel Kant's idea of Transcendental Unity of Aperception, Hegel's notion of Absolute Spirit, Embodiment or Semantic Practices, Harmonic Resonance Theory, and also the neutral and
Starting point is 00:31:06 double aspects of monism. If you'd like to see layer 1 about the basic definitions, the problems in consciousness, then that link is in the description as well as layer 2 about the hard problem about Buddhism and about Jung. See you in the next layer. Also, thank you to our partner, The Economist. reason whenever they like. That's just part of the terms of service. Now a direct mailing list ensures that I have an untrammeled communication with you. Plus soon I'll be releasing a one-page PDF of my top 10 toes. It's not as Quentin Tarantino as it sounds like. Secondly, if you haven't subscribed or clicked that
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