1 00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:06,160 Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:13,800 Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 3 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:15,840 Speaker 1: your mind. And my name is Robert Lamb, and on 4 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:19,400 Speaker 1: Julie Douglas and in each of us. We can't help 5 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:23,880 Speaker 1: but but ring with that, uh, that that existential statement. 6 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,240 Speaker 1: I think therefore I am. We're all bound up in 7 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,640 Speaker 1: this just endless whirlwind of thinking, and we're thinking about 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:35,840 Speaker 1: our own thoughts. We're thinking about our own consciousness. We're 9 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:38,240 Speaker 1: thinking about the world around as we're thinking about the past, 10 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:42,120 Speaker 1: the future. We're thinking about the the the possible reality 11 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:45,760 Speaker 1: of things outside of our observable universe. We're thinking about aliens, 12 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:49,000 Speaker 1: we're thinking about God. Uh, this is this is kind 13 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 1: of the state of the human mind as a whole. Yeah, 14 00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:56,240 Speaker 1: it's this whole big sushi roll of existence that we 15 00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:01,000 Speaker 1: try to get our minds around, and um, it becomes 16 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 1: very meta, right. We do a lot of thinking about thinking. 17 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: Essentially is what consciousness boils down to. And it's problematic. 18 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,240 Speaker 1: We call it the hard problem because we've never really 19 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,240 Speaker 1: found the center of consciousness. We're not really sure how 20 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:15,560 Speaker 1: it relates to our existence. We're not really sure how 21 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:19,480 Speaker 1: it relates to this idea of a creator, something that 22 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:23,600 Speaker 1: created the world. Um, did we just come out of nothingness? 23 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:27,600 Speaker 1: And in fact, American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker said, quote, 24 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:32,080 Speaker 1: the idea of consciousness is ludicrous. If it is not monstrous, 25 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,240 Speaker 1: it means to know that one is food for worms. 26 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:38,800 Speaker 1: This is the terror to have emerged from nothing, to 27 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:42,240 Speaker 1: have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings and 28 00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:47,039 Speaker 1: excruciating inner yearning for life and self expression, and with 29 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:50,200 Speaker 1: all this yet to die. Well, you know, on one hand, 30 00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 1: you could say that that's a deeply troubling thing too 31 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:55,920 Speaker 1: to take into your world view. But you accept that, 32 00:01:55,960 --> 00:01:59,120 Speaker 1: then maybe it opens up your life for for other pursuits. 33 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:00,800 Speaker 1: You can be like, all right, well, now I realize 34 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,040 Speaker 1: that I'm just I'm just feast for the worms, that 35 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:06,960 Speaker 1: that that my whole existence is just circling a black hole. 36 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:09,080 Speaker 1: But I don't have to worry about that anymore. I 37 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:12,880 Speaker 1: can spend some time gardening, indeed, and I can hopefully 38 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:16,360 Speaker 1: create this state of flow and just being the moment, 39 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:20,000 Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in another podcast episode. But today 40 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,480 Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about this hard problem and this idea. 41 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:26,560 Speaker 1: This I'm not going to call this simple idea because 42 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:31,040 Speaker 1: it's not, but a more straightforward idea called attention schema 43 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:35,160 Speaker 1: theory that might put this more in a context that 44 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: we can understand more palatable. I should say yes, now, 45 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:41,120 Speaker 1: I definitely want to preface here and say, on one hand, okay, 46 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:43,680 Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about human consciousness here. We talked about 47 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:46,520 Speaker 1: human consciousness before devoted in an entire episode, do it. 48 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:48,959 Speaker 1: This is an area that we're going to continue to 49 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:54,079 Speaker 1: see advances in in neuroscience and and even in philosophy, 50 00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:56,960 Speaker 1: but it's gonna be a while before we can and 51 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,560 Speaker 1: maybe we'll maybe we'll never even have a really concrete 52 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:03,799 Speaker 1: idea of consciousness that both makes sense on paper and 53 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:08,240 Speaker 1: feels right uh to our our first person experience of it. 54 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:10,400 Speaker 1: So it's still a feel that you see a lot 55 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:12,920 Speaker 1: of progress in. On the other hand, we're gonna talk 56 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:14,800 Speaker 1: a little bit about God in the later part of 57 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:17,680 Speaker 1: this episode, and God, of course, is something that we 58 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:21,880 Speaker 1: will never be able to prove scientifically. It the concept 59 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:25,400 Speaker 1: of God and gods and deities is is something that 60 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:30,200 Speaker 1: is is ultimately unknowable to science. So the theory that 61 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: we're going to discuss in this episode, attention scheme of 62 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,720 Speaker 1: theory is not. We're not saying, hey, here is a 63 00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:39,440 Speaker 1: theory that definitely explains all of these things, that satisfies 64 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:45,360 Speaker 1: all these mysteries. Even the theories creator Michael Graziano, a neuroscience, 65 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:48,800 Speaker 1: novelist and composer, Professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. Uh, 66 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,440 Speaker 1: even he'll tell you this is not a satisfying theory. 67 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:55,640 Speaker 1: So what I would like to encourage everyone to do is, 68 00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:58,360 Speaker 1: you know, we're all coming into this topic with certain 69 00:03:58,840 --> 00:04:02,320 Speaker 1: constraints in our world view. Is to to not just 70 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:04,720 Speaker 1: completely throw your worldview aside, but lower the gate a 71 00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:09,240 Speaker 1: little bit and open yourself up to alternate perspectives on 72 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:12,960 Speaker 1: what human consciousness is and alternate takes on how to 73 00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:17,760 Speaker 1: view the idea of a god or God's including a 74 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:20,880 Speaker 1: giant Harry orangatane puppet, which we'll get to you in 75 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 1: a d that Graziano actually works into his bits here. Um. 76 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:29,239 Speaker 1: But Garciana says, we have been asking the wrong question. 77 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:34,360 Speaker 1: We've been asking how do neurons produce a magic internal experience? 78 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:38,400 Speaker 1: And he's basically saying this he can't answer this unanswerable, 79 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:42,400 Speaker 1: But he says we can ask how and for what 80 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:49,200 Speaker 1: survival advantage. Does a brain attribute subjective experience aka consciousness 81 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:54,080 Speaker 1: to itself? And he says this is scientifically approachable and 82 00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:58,880 Speaker 1: that his attention schema theory supplies outlines of answers for it. 83 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,960 Speaker 1: And this is where the orangutang comes in. Yes, so 84 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:05,880 Speaker 1: he picks up an orangutank puppet and uh and he 85 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:09,599 Speaker 1: starts talking about consciousness and about the the idea that 86 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:14,119 Speaker 1: this orangutang punchet but puppet is conscious. Now, on one level, 87 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: we all know that a puppeteer takes the stage and 88 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:19,040 Speaker 1: they entertain us with a puppet show. That puppet is 89 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:23,600 Speaker 1: not really conscious. It is not a conscious being. If 90 00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:27,040 Speaker 1: you had to choose, you know which individual gets a 91 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:30,200 Speaker 1: brick thrown at them, a human child or an orangutang puppet. 92 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,839 Speaker 1: You choose the orangutang puppet every time and just hope 93 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:35,640 Speaker 1: that there's not a child's hand in it. But you 94 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:38,520 Speaker 1: still wins when that puppet gets heyh yeah, we can't help, 95 00:05:38,520 --> 00:05:40,599 Speaker 1: but do it? I mean you, you know we've mentioned 96 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:43,040 Speaker 1: many times before you draw a face on something, and 97 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:44,800 Speaker 1: then you you draw a face on a stick and 98 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:46,480 Speaker 1: then you break the stick. We're gonna feel a little 99 00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:49,720 Speaker 1: something we we we can't help but personify the world 100 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:53,200 Speaker 1: around us, and by personify it, we end up engaging 101 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:55,800 Speaker 1: it with with some level and dowing it with some 102 00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:58,880 Speaker 1: level of consciousness. Yeah. What I love about this is 103 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: that he will start out his talks with Kevin the Orangutang, 104 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:05,400 Speaker 1: and he does his bit, his ventriloquist bit, which you know, guys, 105 00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:08,120 Speaker 1: we love, right if you've been following along and you've 106 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:11,520 Speaker 1: seen our episode on ventriloquism, And he says to the audience, 107 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:13,800 Speaker 1: I'll be explaining my theory about how the brain, a 108 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:18,559 Speaker 1: biological machine, generates consciousness. Kevin the Orangutang starts heckling me. Yeah, 109 00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:20,920 Speaker 1: well I don't have a brain, but I'm still conscious. 110 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:23,719 Speaker 1: What does that due to your theory? And he says 111 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:28,400 Speaker 1: that Kevin is the perfect introduction because intellectually nobody is fooled. 112 00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:30,720 Speaker 1: As you say, right, like, we know this. If we're 113 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,080 Speaker 1: going to have to choose between a kid or a puppet, 114 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: throw something at and he says, we all know there's 115 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:38,920 Speaker 1: nothing inside, but everyone in the audience experiences an illusion 116 00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:44,200 Speaker 1: of sentience emanating from his hairy head. And he he 117 00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:46,719 Speaker 1: kind of takes us as a jumping off point to 118 00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:51,440 Speaker 1: talk about attention schema theory. Yeah, and uh, and we'll 119 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:54,679 Speaker 1: we'll continue to unpack that in this this podcast. But it's, uh, 120 00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:57,520 Speaker 1: it's one of these issues where that the theory forces 121 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,359 Speaker 1: you to rethink what consciousness is. And this is not 122 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:02,320 Speaker 1: going to be one of those crazy theories where it's, 123 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:04,320 Speaker 1: you know, where it's stating that, oh, well, that the 124 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:06,640 Speaker 1: universe only exists because you have your eyes open. If 125 00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:10,000 Speaker 1: you close your eyes, nothing exists, or anything like that. 126 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,360 Speaker 1: It's not not that kind of a truthy theory. But 127 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:18,760 Speaker 1: it just forces us to reevaluate what consciousness is from 128 00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:21,400 Speaker 1: our first person perspective as well as the sort of 129 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:27,920 Speaker 1: third person consciousness that we attribute to humans, puppets, characters 130 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:32,960 Speaker 1: in novels, video game avatars, you name it. That's right, 131 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,960 Speaker 1: And so he kind of goes into the past here 132 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:40,400 Speaker 1: to say, let's look at the evolutionary model of consciousness. 133 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:45,800 Speaker 1: How might it have arisen in animals and what does 134 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:47,720 Speaker 1: that mean for us? What does it mean about the 135 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,880 Speaker 1: qualities of consciousness? And he does say that at some 136 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,360 Speaker 1: point animal nervous systems acquired the ability to boost the 137 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:58,680 Speaker 1: most urgent incoming signals. He said, too much information comes 138 00:07:58,720 --> 00:08:01,480 Speaker 1: in from the outside world, says it all equally, and 139 00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:05,240 Speaker 1: it is useful to select the most silient data for 140 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:08,360 Speaker 1: deeper processing over time, though it came under a more 141 00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:11,360 Speaker 1: sophisticated kind of control what we now call attention right, 142 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:14,080 Speaker 1: And we all have experienced this before. You shut out 143 00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:16,880 Speaker 1: the outside world in order to focus your attention. Right. 144 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:19,000 Speaker 1: The example I always turned to is you're at a party. 145 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:20,920 Speaker 1: There are a lot of a lot of different conversations 146 00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:23,960 Speaker 1: going on, uh and and you know, the people next 147 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:25,840 Speaker 1: to you're talking about football. The people over here they're 148 00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:28,160 Speaker 1: talking about theater. These people are talking about somebody you 149 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,200 Speaker 1: don't know, name Ron. But you're trying to have a 150 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:34,680 Speaker 1: conversation with any about Um installing a concrete pond in 151 00:08:34,679 --> 00:08:38,319 Speaker 1: her backyard. So your brain is somehow able to shut 152 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:42,040 Speaker 1: out these these non essential conversations while still being aware 153 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:45,000 Speaker 1: of them, and focus in on the central conversation about 154 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:49,440 Speaker 1: Amy and her concrete pond. Is the pond filled with concrete? Um, 155 00:08:49,559 --> 00:08:52,720 Speaker 1: yes it is. It's it's really not gonna work, but 156 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:55,280 Speaker 1: she has these really high minded ideas about how fish 157 00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:59,360 Speaker 1: are going to live in it. Okay. Um. So the 158 00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:02,720 Speaker 1: thing here is that he says mammals and birds both 159 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:06,640 Speaker 1: have it. This this awareness is attention, and he says 160 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,800 Speaker 1: they diverge from a common ancestor about three fifty million 161 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:13,840 Speaker 1: years ago, so attention is probably at least that old. 162 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: And attention leads to awareness, and awareness leads to consciousness. Yeah, 163 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:22,439 Speaker 1: it's basically this idea of consciousness, thinking of it as 164 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:26,600 Speaker 1: a focus of attention, a control of attention and and 165 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,520 Speaker 1: and that's key to our experience of this thing that 166 00:09:29,559 --> 00:09:32,719 Speaker 1: we call consciousness. Our brains the process all of the 167 00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:35,400 Speaker 1: sense data as well as our knowledge of our self 168 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:38,400 Speaker 1: in the world. And uh, and the self that we're 169 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:41,480 Speaker 1: aware of ultimately is like a game piece on a 170 00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:46,600 Speaker 1: table um. Again, it's his consciousness as information. You've got 171 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:49,520 Speaker 1: to sort of shut out these, uh, these these more 172 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:51,959 Speaker 1: magical ideas that we layer on top of it, about 173 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:54,120 Speaker 1: like a soul, about some sort of energy that that 174 00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,480 Speaker 1: rives within us, or some sort of angelic hand it's 175 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:02,440 Speaker 1: reaching in to occupy our brain. This is a biological 176 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:05,760 Speaker 1: brain that's dealing with a lot of sense data coming in, 177 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:08,280 Speaker 1: having to screen out some of it. And uh, and 178 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:12,000 Speaker 1: and it's about our control of attention over this data. Yeah. 179 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:14,720 Speaker 1: And I was just thinking about our podcast episode It's 180 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,240 Speaker 1: a Trap, and we were talking about this spider that 181 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:21,720 Speaker 1: creates a essentially like a sculpture of itself, yes, as 182 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:25,000 Speaker 1: a decoy, And in that moment, you know that the 183 00:10:25,080 --> 00:10:27,960 Speaker 1: spider has an awareness of itself because it just created 184 00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:32,640 Speaker 1: I albeit a larger version of itself for another uh insect, 185 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:36,520 Speaker 1: a predator, and it is considering both itself and the 186 00:10:36,559 --> 00:10:40,000 Speaker 1: other thing. So we know that this has been in existence, 187 00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:44,559 Speaker 1: this consciousness. And um, we've talked about Steven Pinker's claim 188 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,760 Speaker 1: before that something like music is just auditory cheesecake. Right, 189 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:51,320 Speaker 1: He has this idea that music is a byproduct of language. 190 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:54,760 Speaker 1: So you could start to look as consciousness as just 191 00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:02,239 Speaker 1: cognitive cheesecake, okay, the byproduct of awareness. And evolutionary biologists 192 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:06,160 Speaker 1: David Barash, writing for a magazine seems to think that 193 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:08,560 Speaker 1: this is the idea. He says, maybe it's just a 194 00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:13,040 Speaker 1: non adaptive byproduct of having bigger brains, or rather brains 195 00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:16,320 Speaker 1: bigger than it's strictly necessary for bossing our bodies around. 196 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:19,319 Speaker 1: And he goes on to say, sure, a single molecule 197 00:11:19,360 --> 00:11:22,920 Speaker 1: of water is water, but it isn't wet, and neither 198 00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:25,800 Speaker 1: are two molecules of water, or a thousand or maybe 199 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:27,960 Speaker 1: even a million, he says, but with enough of them 200 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:33,319 Speaker 1: we get wetness. And not because wetness is adaptively favored 201 00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:38,160 Speaker 1: over dryness, but because it's an unavoidable physical consequence of 202 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:42,400 Speaker 1: piling up enough H two O molecules together. And so 203 00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:46,480 Speaker 1: he says, could consciousness be similar to that, and you 204 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,880 Speaker 1: could accumulate enough neurons because maybe they permit their possessor 205 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:55,280 Speaker 1: to integrate numerous sensory inputs and generate complex variable behavior. 206 00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:58,120 Speaker 1: So hey, there you go. You just wire all this 207 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:01,560 Speaker 1: stuff up and eventually you get conscious is yeah, I 208 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:04,200 Speaker 1: love this idea of consciousness is ultimately this thing that 209 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:07,880 Speaker 1: builds up because of this this loop of of of 210 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,680 Speaker 1: data in the brain. Um. I keep thinking of it 211 00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:13,360 Speaker 1: in terms of a rear view mirror in a car. Now, 212 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:17,400 Speaker 1: this is an overly simplified explanation of what's going on here. 213 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:20,280 Speaker 1: But you have a rear view mirror in an automobile, 214 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:22,480 Speaker 1: and it's all about being able to look in that 215 00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:25,400 Speaker 1: mirror and see what's behind the car. Rather simple, but 216 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,280 Speaker 1: we increasingly use that for other things. We we look 217 00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:30,640 Speaker 1: in the mirror to see what our hair looks like, 218 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 1: to see what our cosmetics look like, to look into 219 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:35,720 Speaker 1: the back seat to see what the child is doing, etcetera. 220 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:40,040 Speaker 1: And so in this the use of the mirror changes 221 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:42,160 Speaker 1: the way that we see ourselves. It changes the way 222 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:44,480 Speaker 1: that we see our environment and becomes this this sort 223 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:49,760 Speaker 1: of thing unto itself. Yeah, especially if you consider that 224 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:54,600 Speaker 1: that mirror, that perception can be easily um manipulated. And 225 00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:56,240 Speaker 1: what I mean to say is that we've talked about 226 00:12:56,240 --> 00:13:00,280 Speaker 1: appropriate reception before and how our body scheme and our 227 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:03,640 Speaker 1: attention schema are inherently linked our idea, our map of 228 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:07,640 Speaker 1: ourselves out there right uh, spatial awareness of our body 229 00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:12,000 Speaker 1: and how it's represented. That can be completely um shifted 230 00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:16,400 Speaker 1: if there's something like say a brain lesion. In other words, 231 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,239 Speaker 1: you have all these computations in your brain, but appropriate 232 00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:23,120 Speaker 1: reception or some other element that informs that is skewed. Well, 233 00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:25,600 Speaker 1: the computations are skewed. Yeah, indeed, I mean think back 234 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:28,920 Speaker 1: to our episodes on appropriate exception and on the shadow self. 235 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:31,880 Speaker 1: Both of those dealt with these ideas. Well. What happens 236 00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:35,360 Speaker 1: when your brain the settings are changed just a little bit, 237 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: and those settings affect the way that you make sense 238 00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:41,319 Speaker 1: of yourself in time and space and embody um. And 239 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:43,600 Speaker 1: and that's that's one of the key things in play 240 00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:47,600 Speaker 1: here with attention schema theory is that it's the idea 241 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:52,200 Speaker 1: that that that our idea of consciousness and our conscious 242 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:56,240 Speaker 1: awareness of self is really something that is uh that 243 00:13:56,360 --> 00:14:01,040 Speaker 1: we attribute to ourselves. It is ultimately an avatar um. Now, 244 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:05,000 Speaker 1: Garzono goes into this theory in detail in his book 245 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:07,200 Speaker 1: Consciousness in the Social Brain, and he also has an 246 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:09,680 Speaker 1: excellent piece in in the magazine that I'll link to 247 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:12,120 Speaker 1: on the landing page for this stuff for this particular 248 00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:15,560 Speaker 1: podcast episode. But he says, the heart of the theory, remember, 249 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:18,920 Speaker 1: is that awareness is a model of attention. Like the 250 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:21,680 Speaker 1: general's model of his army laid out on a map. 251 00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:24,560 Speaker 1: The real army isn't made of plastic, of course, it 252 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:28,240 Speaker 1: isn't quite so small and has rather more moving parts. 253 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:31,520 Speaker 1: In these respects, the model is totally unrealistic, and yet 254 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:35,960 Speaker 1: without such simplifications it would be impractical to use, impractical 255 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,480 Speaker 1: to use the army. So therefore, the idea is that 256 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:44,240 Speaker 1: our conscious self is this uh this ultimately an unrealistic 257 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:46,360 Speaker 1: model of who and what we are, but it is necessary. 258 00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:50,640 Speaker 1: But it's but but but over time it has become Um. 259 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:53,400 Speaker 1: I mean, it is the way that we experience the world, 260 00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:54,840 Speaker 1: and it is the way that we are conscious of 261 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:56,680 Speaker 1: the world. You end up again and that loop, and 262 00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:58,760 Speaker 1: it makes it so difficult for us to to even 263 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:02,800 Speaker 1: analyze what our consciousness is from the inside. Yeah. I mean, 264 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:06,080 Speaker 1: this idea that the brain is essentially constructing a model 265 00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:10,160 Speaker 1: to monitor the fact that it's paying attention to something 266 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:14,440 Speaker 1: totally makes sense. And it is also kind of amazing because, 267 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:18,640 Speaker 1: as he says, all the sudden awareness is emerging from 268 00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:23,080 Speaker 1: this cartoon sketch that the brain has made of itself 269 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:26,400 Speaker 1: and others. Yeah. So in a way, it's like thinking, 270 00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:29,760 Speaker 1: all right, here's Julian Robert sort of here are these 271 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:34,400 Speaker 1: two bodies, these two organisms, and each of those organisms 272 00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:38,400 Speaker 1: minds is an idea of Robert and an idea of Julie. 273 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:42,000 Speaker 1: This this conscious self that they attribute to this body, 274 00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:45,440 Speaker 1: and then likewise we're each attributing a conscious self to 275 00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:47,840 Speaker 1: the other. Yeah, and you are even saying this that 276 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:51,160 Speaker 1: the person in the mirror is a projection of this consciousness. 277 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:54,680 Speaker 1: The makeup that someone might put on is informing that 278 00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:58,720 Speaker 1: sort of toy Soldier of our consciousness that our generals 279 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,520 Speaker 1: of our minds are creating. Right. So even something like that, 280 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:03,920 Speaker 1: you don't think of makeup as being part of your consciousness, 281 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:06,800 Speaker 1: but hey is representing it, right you the idea you 282 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:09,400 Speaker 1: have of yourself out in the world. Indeed, an example 283 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: that Graziano brings up that that plays into this sort 284 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:16,240 Speaker 1: of unrealistic model that works in terms of understanding the 285 00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:20,880 Speaker 1: world is that of essentially heat vision. Uh. This this 286 00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:22,640 Speaker 1: kind of blew my mind a little bit because it's 287 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,280 Speaker 1: something I never really thought about, but but makes perfect 288 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:27,080 Speaker 1: sense now that now that it's laying out. And this 289 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:31,720 Speaker 1: is the idea that a startling number of people in 290 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:34,920 Speaker 1: the world, um think, and I want to say think 291 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:37,360 Speaker 1: this might in many cases just be a sort of 292 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:40,960 Speaker 1: a subconscious level of understanding something. But they think that 293 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:45,280 Speaker 1: they see things with their eyes because rays come out 294 00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:48,320 Speaker 1: of their eyes. Now, I want to stay that you know, 295 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,720 Speaker 1: you me, most of our listeners probably know enough about 296 00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:55,560 Speaker 1: the human body to know that eyes work because light 297 00:16:55,880 --> 00:17:00,000 Speaker 1: enters the eyes. We know that scientifically that that's what's happened. 298 00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:03,840 Speaker 1: Nothing is emitted from the eyes, and yet it is 299 00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:06,720 Speaker 1: Graziano points out, there is a actually a study from 300 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:08,640 Speaker 1: the University of Ohio and two thousand two that found 301 00:17:08,640 --> 00:17:12,440 Speaker 1: it about half of American college students also thought that 302 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:14,800 Speaker 1: we see because rays come out of our eyes. It's 303 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:18,480 Speaker 1: something that that does not mesh with our scientific understanding 304 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:21,760 Speaker 1: of how our bodies work, about how physics work. But 305 00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:25,000 Speaker 1: but but it it makes sense in terms of how 306 00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:29,040 Speaker 1: we experience the world. We think about psight emanating from 307 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:31,960 Speaker 1: the eyes, and we see this more avertly in say, 308 00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:35,840 Speaker 1: cartoon characters and our comic book characters. What happens when 309 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 1: that cartoon coyote creature is howling an attractive woman, his 310 00:17:40,359 --> 00:17:45,040 Speaker 1: eyeball stick out and he goes ioga um, light is 311 00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:48,200 Speaker 1: shining out of low Pan's eyes and big troubling little China. Uh. 312 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:54,600 Speaker 1: These are all fantastic exaggerations of this sort of uh 313 00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:57,440 Speaker 1: magical way that we think about our interaction with the world. 314 00:17:57,480 --> 00:17:59,800 Speaker 1: We think about people's eyes burning into us when they're 315 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,480 Speaker 1: airing at us, like get your eyes off of me, clee, 316 00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:05,240 Speaker 1: your eyes that their eyes aren't actually touching you. There's 317 00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:07,639 Speaker 1: nothing emitted from their eyes. They are merely drinking in 318 00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:12,080 Speaker 1: the light with those organs. Okay, So Graciana says that 319 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:17,480 Speaker 1: whenever this this um idea of our awareness of others 320 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,119 Speaker 1: and thinking about others and trying to guess at what 321 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 1: they're they're doing or thinking. Whenever this arose, it clearly 322 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:26,760 Speaker 1: plays a major role in the social capability of modern humans. 323 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:32,159 Speaker 1: We paint the world with perceived consciousness. Family friends, pets, spirits, gods, 324 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:36,679 Speaker 1: and ventriloquist puppets all appeared before us suffused with sentience. 325 00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:39,600 Speaker 1: It makes me think of these television shows where someone 326 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:41,480 Speaker 1: will bring a black light into a hotel room and 327 00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:43,280 Speaker 1: they'll turn it on and then show you all the 328 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:47,280 Speaker 1: grotesque stains that are covering everything. Attention schema theory is 329 00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:51,040 Speaker 1: kind of like that black light and saying, look at 330 00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:53,840 Speaker 1: at at at all the things in there, the hotel room, 331 00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:56,480 Speaker 1: of your life, of your universe that you have managed 332 00:18:56,520 --> 00:19:00,080 Speaker 1: to get your sticky consciousness over. Not only is it 333 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,720 Speaker 1: is it coding yourself. It's coding. It's coding animals, it's 334 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:07,359 Speaker 1: coding other people. It's coding, uh, you know, perfectly inanimate 335 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:13,000 Speaker 1: things that we temporarily attribute conscious consciousness to your consciousness 336 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:17,000 Speaker 1: fluids flowing everywhere. It's just absolutely everywhere. But we just 337 00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:19,040 Speaker 1: don't we just don't think about it that the fact 338 00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:22,359 Speaker 1: that that this stuff that is inside us, that that 339 00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:25,240 Speaker 1: we attribute to ourselves is also just taked all over 340 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,800 Speaker 1: the rest of our world. A concrete example of this 341 00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:31,960 Speaker 1: is again calling back to our episode appropriate reception and 342 00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: pro pre receptive drift, and this is when we were 343 00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:39,000 Speaker 1: talking about experiments in which a fake arm was placed 344 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:41,879 Speaker 1: next to someone's real arm and then, uh, you know, 345 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:44,040 Speaker 1: it was stroked and treated as if it was the 346 00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:47,159 Speaker 1: person's own arm, and uh, they begin to react to 347 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:50,199 Speaker 1: that fake arm as if it were their own. And 348 00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:53,320 Speaker 1: so you could take all sorts of vital signs, their heartbeat, 349 00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:55,600 Speaker 1: you could take the regalvonic skin response, you know, how 350 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:58,800 Speaker 1: much sweat they produce, and measure all of that if 351 00:19:58,840 --> 00:20:01,720 Speaker 1: someone were to take an life and threatened their fake arms. 352 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,840 Speaker 1: So again, here's this appropriate acceptive drift, this idea that 353 00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:09,959 Speaker 1: we're drifting into other or others consciousness, even if it's 354 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: a fake arm. Yeah, and so we just find ourselves 355 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,679 Speaker 1: going through our daily life where we're, um, we're we 356 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:18,760 Speaker 1: stub our toe on some sort of horrendous piece of furniture, 357 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,719 Speaker 1: and at least for for a split second there, we 358 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,199 Speaker 1: we attribute consciousness to that, to that that footstool or 359 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,639 Speaker 1: whatever it was, and and see it as an enemy. 360 00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:30,840 Speaker 1: We you know, we get really into a sports team 361 00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:32,600 Speaker 1: and we start attaching our ego to it. And then 362 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:36,080 Speaker 1: since we're a spying consciousness to this uh, to this 363 00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:38,840 Speaker 1: unit of individuals, and we don't even see the individuals anymore. 364 00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:41,040 Speaker 1: We just see this thing and it is somehow become 365 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:44,679 Speaker 1: a conscious entity. But if you slow things down, and 366 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:47,159 Speaker 1: if at that very moment you ask yourself it's just 367 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:51,200 Speaker 1: a type a consciousness or a type be consciousness, you 368 00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:53,159 Speaker 1: might be able to see things more clearly. And we're 369 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:54,800 Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we'll 370 00:20:54,840 --> 00:21:05,399 Speaker 1: explore that. All right, we're back. Now, we've been talking 371 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,800 Speaker 1: about consciousness. We've been talking about the consciousness that we 372 00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:12,920 Speaker 1: experience inside ourselves and the consciousness that we attribute to others. 373 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,560 Speaker 1: And to make sense of all this, UH, Graziano identifies 374 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,480 Speaker 1: two types of consciousness. All right, And this is essentially 375 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:24,400 Speaker 1: revolves around again this idea of a first person consciousness 376 00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:26,760 Speaker 1: and a third person consciousness. First of all, you have 377 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:31,680 Speaker 1: consciousness type A. A brain beholds consciousness in itself. Now, 378 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:33,919 Speaker 1: this is pretty easy for us to fathom because this 379 00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,760 Speaker 1: is I think. Therefore, I am you are conscious of 380 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,640 Speaker 1: yourself and your thoughts and your existence in the universe 381 00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:42,960 Speaker 1: right now. But then you have consciousness Type B. A 382 00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:47,120 Speaker 1: brain beholds consciousness in others. And this is uh, this 383 00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:50,240 Speaker 1: is equally every day for everybody. We attribute consciousness to 384 00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:52,320 Speaker 1: our fellow humans, but we also go ahead and attribute 385 00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:55,679 Speaker 1: it to other organisms, to puppets, to avatars, to plants, 386 00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:59,480 Speaker 1: to symbols, to inanimate objects. Uh, and uh, we'll discuss. 387 00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:01,359 Speaker 1: In the case of God, we attribute it to the 388 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:05,960 Speaker 1: cosmos itself. Now, at first glance, these would seem to 389 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,360 Speaker 1: be just two distinct concepts. Right, There's this thing I'm feeling, 390 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,159 Speaker 1: and I'm assuming other people feel it too, In the 391 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:15,679 Speaker 1: same sense that I could say I really like the 392 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:19,480 Speaker 1: local sports team, I assume everybody should like the local 393 00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,879 Speaker 1: sports team. That level of attribution. But where it gets 394 00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:27,040 Speaker 1: really interesting here is that in attention scheme of theory. 395 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,560 Speaker 1: The argument is that both types of consciouness, both type 396 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:36,719 Speaker 1: A and type B, are essentially cases of attribution. Yeah. Um, 397 00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:40,000 Speaker 1: so consider a bird, right, okay, considering one right now? 398 00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,359 Speaker 1: All right, how do you have it in your head? Bluebird, yellow, 399 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:48,639 Speaker 1: yellow bird, canary? Okay, We've got our canary here, and 400 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:55,439 Speaker 1: let's say our bird has awareness of others, say a predator. Okay, 401 00:22:55,640 --> 00:23:00,000 Speaker 1: that is a type BE awareness. Okay, by the way, 402 00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,640 Speaker 1: I'm having a type the awareness of that bird exactly. 403 00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:08,560 Speaker 1: Can you throw in another animal? This is kind of 404 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:13,240 Speaker 1: getting super meta. And now that turtle in space whose 405 00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:16,679 Speaker 1: dream that we're all occupying, is dreaming of us, and 406 00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:21,160 Speaker 1: we're yes, okay, Um, so anyway, you've got that canary, 407 00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:23,679 Speaker 1: it's thinking about a predator. It is exhibiting a type 408 00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:27,760 Speaker 1: the kind of UM consciousness. But we're thinking about it, 409 00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,520 Speaker 1: as you say, and we might attribute a type A 410 00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,320 Speaker 1: consciousness to it, meaning that we might assume that this 411 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:40,080 Speaker 1: canary is thinking about thinking. And this is erroneous, right, 412 00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,199 Speaker 1: So this is where you can see type BE in 413 00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:46,560 Speaker 1: Type A kind of sometimes getting melded into each other. Yeah. 414 00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 1: I mean, it's again the idea that the the first 415 00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,320 Speaker 1: person consciousness that we experienced, this Type A is still 416 00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:58,680 Speaker 1: a matter of attribution. We're we're attributing consciousness to ourselves 417 00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,400 Speaker 1: in the same way that we're attributing consciousness to everything else. 418 00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:06,159 Speaker 1: It's essentially the same mechanism, is just we're experiencing it 419 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,639 Speaker 1: firsthand rather than third hand. So a human example is 420 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,480 Speaker 1: Terry Shiavo and this is someone whom if you're not 421 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,400 Speaker 1: familiar with it, she had been pronounced Brenda by her doctors, 422 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,199 Speaker 1: but for seven years she was kept on life support 423 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,240 Speaker 1: by her family who said, no, we think that she's 424 00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:22,520 Speaker 1: she's alive in there, she's conscious and they would look 425 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,560 Speaker 1: at her movements. Right, is her pimb moving as evidence 426 00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:30,280 Speaker 1: of her being conscious and willfully moving her hands? Right. 427 00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:35,720 Speaker 1: So the problem here is one of misattribution because they're 428 00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:40,480 Speaker 1: assuming that she has a type A conscious and a 429 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,760 Speaker 1: type A consciousness that would mean that she was still 430 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:48,080 Speaker 1: able to think about thinking right, And again that's a 431 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,359 Speaker 1: misattribution here. They are they are aware of her type 432 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,240 Speaker 1: B and the type the Type B is now being 433 00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,639 Speaker 1: melded onto type A just because they are aware of 434 00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:01,440 Speaker 1: her moving. So this is a good example of how 435 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,960 Speaker 1: that it's kind of like again that pro preosceptive drift. 436 00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,959 Speaker 1: It can get into really murky territory. And here's the 437 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,200 Speaker 1: thing that Graziano says, and this is where things get 438 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:14,600 Speaker 1: really sticky. He's essentially saying, though even though there are 439 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,720 Speaker 1: two different types, that doesn't mean that one is more 440 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,960 Speaker 1: real than the other. Well, I shouldn't say real. Well, 441 00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,720 Speaker 1: that's that's the sticky part, because nobody is going to 442 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:28,200 Speaker 1: argue again that that ring and hang puppet is more 443 00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,400 Speaker 1: value than a human life. Nobody's ever going to say 444 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,359 Speaker 1: that that ring and hanging puppet is actually as conscious 445 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,960 Speaker 1: as as human consciousness. But in this model of attention 446 00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,000 Speaker 1: scheme of theory, it's it's the same process being used 447 00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,600 Speaker 1: to apply that consciousness, and it makes you it's not 448 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,760 Speaker 1: as much about what that orangutan is doing, It's about 449 00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,080 Speaker 1: our own consciousness, is about really understanding and taking a 450 00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,439 Speaker 1: step back from our conscious experience of the world and 451 00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,680 Speaker 1: trying to better understand exactly what is going on there. Yeah, 452 00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,280 Speaker 1: and that's where if you get into puppets and you 453 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,879 Speaker 1: get into the other and this confusion of b for 454 00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:07,640 Speaker 1: a you have to bring up God. Yes uh In. 455 00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,560 Speaker 1: In Graziana's book again, Consciousness and the Social Brain, you 456 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,560 Speaker 1: can find it on Amazon and wherever fine books are sold, 457 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,520 Speaker 1: he says that much of our magical thinking might simply 458 00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:20,400 Speaker 1: be simplifications and shortcut so the brain takes when representing 459 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,720 Speaker 1: itself in the world, so in a sense, kind of 460 00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:27,240 Speaker 1: collateral damage spiraling out from this, from from this, uh, 461 00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:31,560 Speaker 1: this conscious understanding of self and others, an attributed consciousness. Uh. 462 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,840 Speaker 1: And the big one here, of course, is the idea 463 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,040 Speaker 1: of God. And again I want you to set aside 464 00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,720 Speaker 1: whatever you know, preconceived ideas and worldviews you're holding, and 465 00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,720 Speaker 1: just step outside of the concept and uh and and 466 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,399 Speaker 1: think about what attention schema theory would say about the 467 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,840 Speaker 1: nature of God. Because he does play devil's advocate here 468 00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,120 Speaker 1: in a very sort of slippery way. He says, there 469 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,320 Speaker 1: is no God of a traditional form, no being made 470 00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,240 Speaker 1: of pure thought or will or spirit that created the unit. Earse, 471 00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,159 Speaker 1: he says conscious consciousness by itself does not have the 472 00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,119 Speaker 1: physical capability to move or create matter. That's not what 473 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,040 Speaker 1: consciousness is. Most people would consider this description to be 474 00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,959 Speaker 1: strictly atheistic, and it is. And yet he says there 475 00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,679 Speaker 1: is another sign to the story. He says, according to 476 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,679 Speaker 1: the theory of the statement X is conscious means a 477 00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:26,119 Speaker 1: brain or other computational device constructed an informational model of 478 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,720 Speaker 1: consciousness and attributed it to X. We're talking a sort 479 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,040 Speaker 1: of creator in a sense, right compution in law that 480 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,640 Speaker 1: created this, he says. In this theory, a universal deistic 481 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:41,280 Speaker 1: consciousness does actually exist. It is as real as any 482 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:46,199 Speaker 1: other consciousness. If brains attribute consciousness to X, then X 483 00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:50,600 Speaker 1: is conscious in the only way that anything is conscious. 484 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,960 Speaker 1: So God kind of exists on the technicality in attendous 485 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,840 Speaker 1: game of theory. But you know, I do want to 486 00:27:57,880 --> 00:27:59,880 Speaker 1: point out again that, you know, when we're talking about 487 00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,600 Speaker 1: God in consciousness, because when you think about models of God, 488 00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:05,560 Speaker 1: and you can talk about you know, the God, the 489 00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,240 Speaker 1: Father God, the Mother God, the sort of beast de 490 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:12,240 Speaker 1: old creature God, the sort of amorphous force in the world, 491 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,920 Speaker 1: or any any pantheon of deities you you might want 492 00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:19,840 Speaker 1: to cling onto. Generally, consciousness is part and partial to it. 493 00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,880 Speaker 1: When when people are worshiping a god or investing any 494 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,040 Speaker 1: kind of thought in the idea of a God, it's 495 00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,879 Speaker 1: about it being a conscious entity. Uh, you know, unless 496 00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:29,600 Speaker 1: you're getting into some you know, some of like the 497 00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,680 Speaker 1: love crafty and God's like as is Off, which is 498 00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,639 Speaker 1: you know, fictional God that is horrifying because it is 499 00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,600 Speaker 1: it is unconscious, because it is mindless. Um you know, 500 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,040 Speaker 1: you you that's the idea that there we're taking consciousness 501 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,440 Speaker 1: and we're attributing it to the universe. The Universe's consciousness 502 00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,880 Speaker 1: and is either aware of us or is actively involved 503 00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,440 Speaker 1: in in our lives, or is aware of the world, 504 00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,520 Speaker 1: or is at least aware of creation. Again, we're we're 505 00:28:56,520 --> 00:29:01,040 Speaker 1: attributing consciousness big time to the universe is itself? So 506 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,560 Speaker 1: here a couple of things about that. When you think 507 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,640 Speaker 1: about a creator, then you you know that that made 508 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:09,960 Speaker 1: all of us, right, even the ability to be conscious. 509 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,560 Speaker 1: Then you began to think about suffering. Right, if this 510 00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,480 Speaker 1: creator is imbued with consciousness, then why would people suffer? 511 00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:22,560 Speaker 1: That's one thing. The second thing there answers to that 512 00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,520 Speaker 1: that it's not exactly it's not exactly got you question, Well, 513 00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,040 Speaker 1: we can roll on for fifteen hours on that, um. 514 00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,720 Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that we talk about 515 00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,719 Speaker 1: consciousness being tethered to the physical body again pro prereception, right, 516 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,840 Speaker 1: that informs the eye, in our in ourselves, the way 517 00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,840 Speaker 1: that we define ourselves. So you have to look at 518 00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,400 Speaker 1: this creator, especially when you look I'm talking about the 519 00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:49,720 Speaker 1: very like uh biblical like bearded one sitting on a 520 00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:54,920 Speaker 1: cloud thing. Um that this does not square with the 521 00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:59,480 Speaker 1: actual idea of consciousness and is separate from the experience 522 00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:01,760 Speaker 1: of life, and it very much calls back to this 523 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,280 Speaker 1: platonic ideal. And you and I were talking about this. 524 00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:10,080 Speaker 1: If you have some creator thing that is attached to 525 00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:15,320 Speaker 1: the human experience, well then it's sullied with the human experience. UM. 526 00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,480 Speaker 1: So I think this is why we have this idea 527 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:22,520 Speaker 1: of this creator thing separate and yet having consciousness. Yeah. 528 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,080 Speaker 1: Because the model we understand of consciousness, the one we 529 00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,200 Speaker 1: can prove out and we can observe um here on Earth, 530 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:34,440 Speaker 1: is that consciousness arises from a sufficiently complex biological process. 531 00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:36,440 Speaker 1: And we can extrapolate that and say that if the 532 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:41,920 Speaker 1: consciousness perhaps could emerge from a sufficiently advanced mechanical concept, 533 00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:47,160 Speaker 1: computer program, etcetera. So if you look at it under 534 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,760 Speaker 1: those constraints, you could say, all right, well it's possible 535 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:51,680 Speaker 1: that you do have something that would be viewed as 536 00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,040 Speaker 1: a god from the human perspective. Uh, some sort of 537 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:58,520 Speaker 1: extraterrestrial force that achieved consciousness before we did, and uh 538 00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,880 Speaker 1: is sufficiently advanced. Uh. Skeptic Michael Shermer has a has 539 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,400 Speaker 1: this thing he called Shechrmer's law, where he's playing on 540 00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:10,160 Speaker 1: Arthur C. Clarke's um law, which states that any sufficiently 541 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,800 Speaker 1: advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and Tremer toys Within 542 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:19,480 Speaker 1: says that any sufficiently advanced alien species is indistinguishable from 543 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,800 Speaker 1: from a god. But the thing is, again who no. 544 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,120 Speaker 1: I mean, certain people are going to be cool with 545 00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,000 Speaker 1: worshiping UFOs and gods, and that's that's their own thing, 546 00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 1: you know, go at it. But I feel like a 547 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,880 Speaker 1: lot of us are not going to be content with 548 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,600 Speaker 1: that model. We don't want to worship something human. We 549 00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,440 Speaker 1: don't even want to worship something alien. We want to 550 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,120 Speaker 1: worship something beyond, something as great as the universe itself, 551 00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,920 Speaker 1: because it it comes back around to attributing consciousness to 552 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,960 Speaker 1: the universe. And yet Graziana would say, you can't look 553 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,520 Speaker 1: at that sort of magical inner state of consciousness and 554 00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,240 Speaker 1: and try to attract sort of the the neuronal comings 555 00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,440 Speaker 1: and goings of it. The only way to approach it 556 00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,080 Speaker 1: is to look at it as why did it benefit 557 00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:06,680 Speaker 1: animals and humans? What? You know, why did it arise? 558 00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,600 Speaker 1: And did it arise just as a byproduct of awareness? 559 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:15,240 Speaker 1: Which is terribly intriguing. And yet to play Devil's advocate here. 560 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,920 Speaker 1: You know, if there's consciousness here on Earth and there's 561 00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:26,360 Speaker 1: a bajillion galaxies elsewhere, there exist the possibility of consciousness 562 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,920 Speaker 1: elsewhere out there in the universe. And this brings us 563 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,840 Speaker 1: back around again to the idea of the possibility of 564 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:36,280 Speaker 1: computer self awareness, of computer consciousness, which is which is 565 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,200 Speaker 1: a whole sort of tricky area and of itself because 566 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,560 Speaker 1: we have we have a hard time. I mean, the 567 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,200 Speaker 1: whole mind body problem is that we we experience ourselves 568 00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,440 Speaker 1: in our mind and our thinking and our consciousness, and 569 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:49,480 Speaker 1: then we look at the brain and we say, well, 570 00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:51,640 Speaker 1: I see how the brain works or appears to work, 571 00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:55,360 Speaker 1: but this doesn't really match up well with my experience 572 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,840 Speaker 1: of using a brain and being a brain. And so 573 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,560 Speaker 1: we look to computers that we actually reach the point 574 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:06,280 Speaker 1: where where we have something that is arguably arguably consciousness 575 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,800 Speaker 1: in a machine, then we it seems like we were 576 00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:10,600 Speaker 1: on the risk of the same problem. We look at 577 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,840 Speaker 1: what's going on in the machine and saying, well, I 578 00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:14,760 Speaker 1: understand that you say that on paper, this thing is 579 00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,320 Speaker 1: supposed to be conscious now, but what I'm seeing there 580 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,640 Speaker 1: and what I'm seeing from this computer doesn't really match 581 00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:26,360 Speaker 1: up with what I'm experiencing as consciousness. Yeah. Slate article 582 00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,320 Speaker 1: called could the Internet Wake Up has a really interesting 583 00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:35,120 Speaker 1: take on artificial intelligence and consciousness, and there's this possibility 584 00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 1: that it could Artificial intelligence reached the point in its 585 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:43,800 Speaker 1: connections to feel, And by feel, I mean the recursive 586 00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:48,479 Speaker 1: qualities that we experience when we think about ourselves, right, 587 00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:50,960 Speaker 1: because we get the feedback, right, I get the feedback 588 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,520 Speaker 1: right now that I'm thinking, and it has a recursive 589 00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:58,800 Speaker 1: quality that is bolstering my neuronal activity about consciousness in 590 00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:04,280 Speaker 1: this sense of consciousness. So up until now, artificial intelligence 591 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,279 Speaker 1: really has been concerned more with the output. So artificial 592 00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,359 Speaker 1: intelligence is interested in this idea of can we have 593 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:17,600 Speaker 1: machines make decisions on the battlefield and can we imbue 594 00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:22,239 Speaker 1: the machine with ethics, But artificial intelligence is not interested 595 00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,160 Speaker 1: in and viewing the machine with a sort of consciousness 596 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:33,120 Speaker 1: that feels bad about making the decision to perhaps kill someone. 597 00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,799 Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that this couldn't arise. Certainly, and 598 00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,279 Speaker 1: I don't mean to This is not like a fearmongering thing. 599 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,120 Speaker 1: This would be something that would have to be very intentional, 600 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,560 Speaker 1: that that humans would have to try to instill within machines. 601 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,400 Speaker 1: But once they did that, there is the possibility that 602 00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,560 Speaker 1: a machine could have a kind of consciousness. Yeah, because again, 603 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,040 Speaker 1: think of consciousness not is this magical god sense spark 604 00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,719 Speaker 1: in the in the the human body, but but rather 605 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:03,880 Speaker 1: the is uh this awareness of data that is necessary 606 00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,000 Speaker 1: for this uh, for this machine to function in the universe. Now. 607 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,919 Speaker 1: Sean Carroll, a physicist at cal Tex, says there's nothing 608 00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,319 Speaker 1: stopping the Internet from having the computational capacity of a 609 00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,680 Speaker 1: conscious brain, but that's a long way from actually being conscious. 610 00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:22,080 Speaker 1: He says, real brains have undergone millions of generations of 611 00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,040 Speaker 1: natural selection to get where they are. I don't see 612 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,239 Speaker 1: anything analogous that would be coaxing the Internet into consciousness. 613 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:32,560 Speaker 1: He doesn't think it's likely, but hey, and then once 614 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,480 Speaker 1: it becomes conscious, if it happens, um, you know, the 615 00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:37,799 Speaker 1: first thing that the Internet is going to feel is 616 00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:42,000 Speaker 1: probably ashamed of itself. Um so, so we'll have a 617 00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,360 Speaker 1: good I think, to shut itself down. Yeah, there'll be 618 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,480 Speaker 1: a good ten twenty years what I'll just be brooding 619 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,880 Speaker 1: over itself. It's essentially going to be Frankenstein, where initially 620 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,320 Speaker 1: there's nothing to worry about because Frankenstein has a lot 621 00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,640 Speaker 1: of stuff to deal with, coming to terms with with 622 00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,719 Speaker 1: who and what he is in the world. It's only 623 00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:02,400 Speaker 1: later that he comes act to destroy his maker and 624 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,480 Speaker 1: everything in his life. You know, that just reminded me 625 00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,280 Speaker 1: of when we talked about machine creativity and we talked 626 00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,120 Speaker 1: about the painting uh software and I can't remember the 627 00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,400 Speaker 1: name of it right now, but it was a installation 628 00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,160 Speaker 1: at a museum and what it did is it scanned 629 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,719 Speaker 1: uh newspaper articles and one day, I think it was like, 630 00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,719 Speaker 1: there was an earthquake in Italy and quite a few 631 00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,040 Speaker 1: people lost their lives. And that day it didn't paint. 632 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:30,359 Speaker 1: And when it was asked why it wasn't painting it 633 00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,040 Speaker 1: was it replied in some way suggesting that it was 634 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:38,960 Speaker 1: struggling with its feelings about this terrible thing that had happened. 635 00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,839 Speaker 1: That's fascinating because it's another example of where someone could say, well, 636 00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,440 Speaker 1: that's that machine is not actually an artist. It's not 637 00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,040 Speaker 1: actually creating something artistically. All it's doing is is dealing 638 00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,359 Speaker 1: with data coming in and uh and uh and then 639 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:56,239 Speaker 1: analyzing that data and then outputting some version of the 640 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,240 Speaker 1: data based on the input. But again, you start breaking 641 00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,680 Speaker 1: down the brain, you start looking at consciousness and it's 642 00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:05,960 Speaker 1: it's essentially the same function. Yeah, against that, that's that 643 00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:10,640 Speaker 1: recursive quality instilled into it, all right, Um, when I 644 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,360 Speaker 1: was talking about the the guy with the long flowing 645 00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,800 Speaker 1: beard on a cloud, I was talking about Aubrey de Gray, 646 00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,400 Speaker 1: of course, a bio gerontologist. He's going to help us 647 00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,400 Speaker 1: live to one thousand years so we can finally solve 648 00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,319 Speaker 1: the question of consciousness. Yeah, and when I when when 649 00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:32,960 Speaker 1: we say us, not us, but really rich and important people, right, yes, 650 00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:38,200 Speaker 1: or maybe a downloaded version of my conscious self you 651 00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,480 Speaker 1: know in the future. Yeah, that they'll store on hard 652 00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:42,920 Speaker 1: drives with all the other people and then my my 653 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,759 Speaker 1: kid will just forget to to back it up, and 654 00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,239 Speaker 1: then I'll evaporate into thin air. Oh wouldn't that be 655 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,480 Speaker 1: the worst? You have your consciousness stored away on some 656 00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,399 Speaker 1: sort of a drive and then later your your kid 657 00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,479 Speaker 1: just like puts an episode of your gab a gap 658 00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,319 Speaker 1: o over you or something and then it's done. Yeah, 659 00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,919 Speaker 1: or she's just feel saddled with it, just like fine 660 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:07,600 Speaker 1: light now done? All right, Well, there you have it again, Attention. 661 00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,920 Speaker 1: Scheme of theory is not necessarily a satisfying answer, and 662 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,000 Speaker 1: it's not one that we're going to get tattooed on 663 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,120 Speaker 1: our arms anytime soon, but it is a really fascinating 664 00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:20,600 Speaker 1: way to to reevaluate what consciousness is and how we 665 00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 1: attribute consciousness to all of these things in our life, 666 00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:27,200 Speaker 1: from an orangutaning puppet to UH, the divine creator of 667 00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,239 Speaker 1: the universe. Indeed, in the meantime, you can check out 668 00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,400 Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Again, that is 669 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,600 Speaker 1: the mothership, that is where you will find all of 670 00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,120 Speaker 1: our podcast episodes. You know, we mentioned that we've done 671 00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,360 Speaker 1: episodes on vicentral quism on consciousness. All that stuff is 672 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,560 Speaker 1: available there. We also have some of the machine Consciousness 673 00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,160 Speaker 1: about machine artists. UH years of data there to plug 674 00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,080 Speaker 1: directly into your skull, as well as videos, blog posts, 675 00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,799 Speaker 1: and links out to our various social media presences. And 676 00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,719 Speaker 1: if you have some thoughts you would like to share 677 00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,200 Speaker 1: with us, please do so and you can send them 678 00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:06,560 Speaker 1: via below the mind at how stuff works dot com. 679 00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,120 Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit 680 00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:16,200 Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com.