WEBVTT - Does consciousness come from quantum processes in the brain? 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:12.680 What is more mysterious than consciousness? Where does our subjective 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.040 experience come from? It's certainly a puzzle that has baffled 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:21.120 philosophers for eons. But wait, what about quantum mechanics. That's 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.560 a big puzzle too. Why can quantum objects maintain a 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.240 superposition but classical objects, which are made from quantum objects, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.239 somehow cannot? And what's the difference between a quantum and 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:38.120 classical object? Also a major source of philosophical confusion. But 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.760 hold on a second, what about the conflicts between quantum 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.000 mechanics and gravity? How can we have two beautiful theories, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.520 both of which have been stress tested to an extraordinary level, 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.159 but which clash in their basic description of the universe? 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.360 Can they ever be harmonized? These three questions battle for 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.160 supremacy in the world of philosophy and physics. Each one 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.400 has been attacked from many sides, the greatest minds in 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:08.080 history struggling to make concrete progress. But what if we 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.759 could solve not just one, not just two, but all 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:18.200 three with one theory, one idea that explains consciousness, quantum measurements, 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:23.320 and harmonizes quantum mechanics with gravity. Today we'll explore a 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.560 controversial theory that claims to do just that and a 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:31.960 little more. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily ambitious universe. 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.600 Hello. I'm Kelly Winer Smith. I study parasites and space, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.600 and today we are talking about all of the topics 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.720 that make Kelly's brain go ouch. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.600 Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I like 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.160 to insert all of those topics into your brain. Not 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.240 to make your brain go ouch, but to make your 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.000 brain go oh. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.760 Do you have a topic that makes your brain just 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.480 like when you hear about it you immediately go ouch? 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:14.800 Chemistry? 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:16.200 Oh? 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.960 Yeah, of course, but that's a whole field. Is there 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.720 like a particular topic in chemistry that makes you go ouch? 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.840 There's a topic in chemistry which overlaps with physics a 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.080 little bit, which is statistical physics and thermodynamics, and it 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.560 has the same issues for me as chemistry that there 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.679 are lots of different scenarios with different assumptions which on 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.880 need different formulas and it's hard to sort out when 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.000 you do what. And it's the one class in grad 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.120 school which I was terrified I was not going to pass. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.360 Well, does that mean you got an yeah? 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:48.000 Something? 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:50.160 Oh? 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.280 Daniel, and the instructor for that was like a real 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.960 old school Berkeley dude. He used to smoke cigars in 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.200 his office at Berkeley, and like there's a strict no 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.560 smoking policy, but he had strict ignored that no smoking 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:04.639 policy policy. 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:06.040 Good to have tenure. 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:09.840 He was like a thousand years old when I got 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.480 to Berkeley, And yeah, he taught like it. 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.280 Does he still persist. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.880 I don't know. And actually I was supposed to meet him. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:19.880 I took my final and I turned it in and 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.639 I was terrified about how it went, and he sent 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.160 me a message saying, please come meet me, and I 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:32.880 just didn't go because I was so terrified. But I 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:34.840 ended up getting an AUS in the class, and so 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.600 whatever happened happened. And I don't believe that he's any 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:39.560 longer with us. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.080 Oh all right, well you turned out pretty okay, So 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:43.880 that's awesome. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:45.800 As long as I focus on the particles and the 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.960 tiny stuff and not like millions of buzzing things interacting, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:50.960 then yeah, it all makes sense to me. And my 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.080 goal on this podcast is to make it all make 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.680 sense to you, which is why we dig into complicated 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.440 topics and we answer questions from listeners who want to 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.240 understand and crazy theories about the universe. 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.520 Well, and one of the things that I love about 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.760 being your co host is that the topics that usually 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.000 make my brain go ouch definitely make my brain hurt 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.440 less when you're explaining them to me, and so I 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.919 have the best chance of understanding them on today's show. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.000 So let's go ahead. Today we're going to talk about 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.960 does consciousness come from quantum processes in the brain. 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.880 That's right, it's a smoothie if all the heart is 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.480 problems in the universe blended together with quantum gravity. And 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.080 this is not a random topic that we have chosen. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.520 This is the subject of a theory by one of 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.240 the smartest guys out there, Roger Penrose. He who won 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.240 the Nobel Prize in physics for understanding black holes. So 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.839 definitely a very smart dude. And he has this crazy 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.080 theory about consciousness. And we got a question from a 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.640 listener who asked us to explain it. Here's Scott's question. 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.680 Helloja, Daniel and Kelly. Roger Penrose and Stuart hammer Off 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.159 have hypothesized that the rise of consciousness, the hard question 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:10.160 in neuroscience, comes from the collapse of quantum superpositions inside 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:15.200 microtubules in neurons. To me, this sounds like a perfect 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.960 crossover of quantum physics and biology. So I'd love to 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.600 hear your explanation of and take on the orchestrated objective 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:24.800 reduction theory. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.560 Thank you, all right, So my question to you, Daniel 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.240 is this is this another case of a physicist jumping 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.120 into like biology and thinking, oh, this is lesser because 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.080 it's biology. So I'm just going to assume that I 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.040 can do it without really doing any research. 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.440 It's not quite so bad, Okay. He started out just 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.240 thinking about the physics, the quantum mechanics of it, and 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.719 then was thinking a little bit about the philosophy of it. 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.480 And there's a terrible track record there of physicists doing 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.440 philosophy without really knowing what they're doing with panos He's 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.680 a smart guy. He's thought a lot about quantum foundations, 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.680 so what he says on that topic is not just nonsense. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.600 And then he paired up with a biologist, an anesthesiologist actually, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.040 who helped him connected to the brain. And so not 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.440 only are we going to be talking about consciousness and 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.640 quantum mechanics and quantum gravity and quantum computing. We're also 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.599 going to touch on anesthesiology. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.920 Oh, we don't understand any of those things. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.520 Amazing, so maybe they're all the same thing, right, This 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.040 is the wonderful temptation. I see this from listeners all 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.800 the time. They're like, you don't understand dark matter. You 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.880 also don't understand antimatter. What if dot dot dark matter 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.200 is antimatter? And I totally get that temptation, because there 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.440 are times in the history of science when two things 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.440 we didn't understand click together perfectly to make one beautiful 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.080 thing we do understand. And so what a great moment 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.719 that would be. Dark matter is not anti matter, unfortunately, 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.360 and the jury is still out on whether Penrose's theory 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:58.039 of consciousness makes any sense. 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.240 All right, well, speaking of making any sense, let's see 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.400 if this question makes any sense to our extraordinaries. Because 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.880 you went ahead and ask them, does consciousness come from 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.640 quantum processes in the brain. Let's hear what they had 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:13.080 to say. 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.880 The choices I make are not deterministic. Therefore, I'm in 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.160 favor of a quantum explanation of consciousness. 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.560 Jeez, I believe so I'm speaking for ignorance here, but 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:30.560 consciousness I believe doesn't come from the quantum processes that 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.680 embedded in the brain. Perhaps it has something to do 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.720 with the virtual particle popping in that I resistance. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.320 My first reaction is no, we can't even agree on 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.400 what consciousness is. But since it's biology, I'd have to say, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:47.520 we don't really know. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.720 Everything comes from quantum processes, but consciousness. Who knows how. 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.200 I think that quantum processes are at a different scale 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.120 neurological processes. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.960 Perhaps that's how we achieve official general intelligence through the 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:02.280 use of quantum computing. 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.400 Well, I think at the end of the day, everything 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:09.600 comes from quantum processes, but I'd still say yes. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.560 And neurons definitely rely on quantum processes. I will say 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.360 yes because of the electricity in our brain, which I 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.520 believe comes from the Sun, which gave rise to life 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:17.960 on Earth. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:18.880 I don't think so. 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.320 The amount of entanglement juice needed to power the flux 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.360 capacitor and the brain would be too much for this task. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.480 I don't think so. I think consciousness comes from feedback loops. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.280 I suspect that Daniel's answer is no because the brain 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.560 is too wet of an environment. The mush insider our 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.160 skulls is quantum, and quantum consciousness comes from that. Quantum 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.040 mechanics is inherently tied to chemistry, and the way that 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:48.600 the brain works is all based on chemistry. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.200 So I'd say, yeah, definitely, I do not know, but 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:52.400 that's a great theory. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.320 Now, no one respects the extraordinaries more than me. But 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.120 I'm going to go ahead and say that a lot 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.640 of these answers made no sense it all. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.400 I mean, the question is kind of bonkers, ye, but 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.080 I do love the flux capacitor answer like nice reference. 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:12.360 Yeah, yep. 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:14.800 And the person who sent back their file with the 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.480 title quonsciousness, I can't believe that's not a word, Like, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.680 that's an awesome word, counsciousness. 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.640 It should be a word. Yes, now it is. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.360 And let me clarify something which was brought up by 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.440 a few of the listeners, like what does it mean 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:29.760 to be quantum? 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:30.080 Right? 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.160 Quantum processes? In a sense, everything is quantum because we're 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.480 all made from quantum objects. Right, I'm made out of particles. 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.359 Those particles are quantum, So in that sense, I'm quantum, 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.079 and my whole process relies on being quantum. All of 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.640 biology is quantum because biology is just big chemistry, and 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.880 chemistry is just big physics. So in that sense, it's 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.119 a silly question because the answer is always yes, it's quantum, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.319 but that's not really what we mean. Sometimes when you 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.520 zoom out from quantum processes, the quantumness of it all 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.360 average out, like when you have a baseball and you 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.840 throw it across the field. Yes, it's made out of 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.640 ten to the twenty nine quantum objects, obeying the Shrotiner equation. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.720 But you don't need to know quantum mechanics to describe 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.560 it because all of the interesting quantumness averages out, and 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.360 you can just use classical physics. And so what we're 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.199 asking here today is not are we made out of 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.360 quantum objects? The answer to that is obviously yes. The 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.439 question is is it crucial that we're made out of 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.520 quantum objects? Is the quantumness of those objects somehow propagate 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.800 up to our consciousness and our experience and our free 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:34.439 will in an important way? 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.280 Okay, so we've set that groundwork. But now all right, 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.480 I'm going to read our question one more time. Yes, 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.120 here is our question. Our question is does consciousness come 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.640 from quantum processes in the brain? 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:50.040 Right? 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.560 Okay, So first let's unpack the word consciousness. And we 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.720 actually have a whole episode with doctor Megan Peters where 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.559 we talked about consciousness, what it means, what we understand 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.480 about it. You can go check that out, but we're 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:06.360 gonna summarize it here a little bit. So, Daniel, for starters, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.120 what is the hard problem of consciousness? 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.400 Yeah, exactly. So in order to understand Penrose's theory, we 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.319 have to figure out first what it's solving. And there's 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.400 multiple problems it's solving. The first one is consciousness, and 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.120 so the hard problem of consciousness is essentially saying, why 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.760 do I have an experience? Why is it something there's 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.360 like to be me right? Like, I feel like I'm 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.000 in my body and it's not just that photons hit 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.600 my eyeball and send a message to my brain. I 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:42.520 experience red, and red is like there's something reddish about 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.880 red in a way that like I can't describe to 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.520 you completely. This is famous thought experiment about a woman 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.240 who lives only in a room filled with black and 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.960 white objects. Could you describe read to her in a 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.600 way that when she leaves the room she could identify 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.679 red from blue in any way other than showing her 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.360 something red right. It tries to probe why there is 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.920 an experience of being you, Why a complex series of 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.520 things in your brain emerges somehow to you having a 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.319 first person experience, Because as far as I know, a 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.280 rock doesn't have a first person experience, a car doesn't 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.240 have a first person experience, an ant probably doesn't, you know, 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.760 my AI probably doesn't. But where does that happen? How 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.640 does that happen? That's the question of consciousness. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.320 And I remember we had an interesting discussion with Megan 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.439 about you know, should we be worried about whether or 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.720 not AI does some octopus have a first person experience? 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.400 And how would we even try to measure that exactly? 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.040 And measuring it is crucial because so many times in 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.719 science we begin by measuring something and then trying to 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.800 explain it. We want to understand why electron goes left 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:52.559 and right. Well, we make some measurements, and then the 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.920 nature those measurements are what we're trying to predict. And 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.559 the fact that in quantum mechanics those measurements are fuzzy 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.040 is a whole issue. In mechanics we'll talk about in 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.240 a minute, But in consciousness, like can I measure that. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.320 All I know is that I'm conscious. You tell me 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.720 that you're conscious, but I can't measure your consciousness at all. 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.240 And in philosophy they have this famous thought experiment called 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.800 philosophical zombie that says, for example, is it possible to 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.880 have another version of Kelly who acts exactly the same way, 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:28.959 claims to be conscious, acts as if she. 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:34.920 Was, But isn't It's Kelly pre coffee, That's what it is. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.240 Is there something about consciousness which can be measured from 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.840 the outside or is it purely an internal, interior thing. 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.520 And if it's purely internal, an interior like I think 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.839 it is, then it's by construction not measurable, which means 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.719 it might be outside the bounds of science, it might 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.080 be purely in the realm of philosophy. And I don't 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.120 mean that in a negative way at all. It's just 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.000 that science can only answer questions about things that we 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.160 can predict and on, and so things that we can't 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.840 are philosophical questions, which doesn't mean they're less valid. Sometimes 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.800 it means they're bigger picture questions, but it does limit 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.320 us in how we probe them and understand them. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.000 Well, So now I'm particularly interested in how a physicist 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.520 is going to address this question of consciousness if it's 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.880 a thing we can't even really measure. 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.400 Yeah, and this connects also not just to consciousness, but 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.200 also to free will, right, like this feeling we have 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.240 of being inside our heads and sort of driving our bodies. 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.520 I decide to have coffee, I decide not to have coffee. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.840 I decide what to talk about on this podcast. You know, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.040 where's the room for that in our physical understanding of 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.760 the universe. Is it just part of the physical systems 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.400 that we are made out of that we sort of 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.280 draw a dotted line around and say, this is the 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.560 decision making part. This is me making a decision. Or 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.320 is there something separate, non physical, which is like driving 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.680 the system but is not made of the phys bits 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.760 and bobs. And so it's this experience not just of 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:08.560 having an experience, but having agency that's important. And so 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.800 a few years ago a philosopher named David Chalmers identified 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.280 this as the hard problem of consciousness, to separate it 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.080 from the easy problem of consciousness, which is like, you know, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.880 how does the brain work and all the mechanisms inside 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.680 it and the optic nerve and all that stuff. He says, quote, 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.160 even when we have explained the performance of all the 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:33.520 cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience perceptual discrimination, categorization, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.720 internal access, verbal report, there may still remain a further 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.640 unanswered question. Why is the performance of these functions accompanied 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.320 by experience? Essentially, why is it like anything. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:47.520 To be you? 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.800 I love that the easy problem is a problem we 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.840 like still haven't really figured out, and then the hard 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.680 problem is a problem that we aren't actually sure we'll 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.640 ever figure out. So they're both kind of hard problems, 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:01.440 but is just even harder? 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.160 I know, and I saw yesterday on Twitter somebody said, quote, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.280 the hard problem of consciousness was invented by philosophers to 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:14.680 sell more philosophy. Yeah, kind of true. True anyway, of course, 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.800 there's a bunch of different ideas about the hard problem 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.840 of consciousness, of various schools of thought, so let's survey 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.600 them quickly. One of them is called physicalism, which says 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.040 there is no hard problem, consciousness just emerges. And this 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.000 is like Daniel Dennett's theory. He says that it's a 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.720 bit of an illusion, like there is no moment when 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.400 you're aware. Your brain is just like weaving together a 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.680 story about what happened, and your sense of being aware 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.600 is actually your memory of the immediate past. That there 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.400 is no like moment of awareness. That's just you're remembering 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.320 something you didn't actually experience, and you think of that 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:55.239 as experience. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.160 Does that suggest that you don't actually have consciousness, you 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.720 just have like a thing happening in your brain. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.960 Yeah, exactly. And it's weird to read a book about 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.199 how you're not actually reading a book, you know, or like, 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.000 who is the you in this version who's not experiencing 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.680 consciousness but is having it explained to them how they're 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:17.560 not conscious. It's very confusing. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.159 It's hard to think about these problems and disconnect like 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.000 not wanting an answer to be the answer from how 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.159 you feel about these things. Like my first thought is, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.159 well I don't want it to be that, but of 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.000 course that doesn't make it wrong. But anyway, I haven't 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.520 Maybe I should read Consciousness Explained by Dennett. 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.760 Critics of that book like to call it consciousness Explained Away. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:43.680 Oh all right, what other theories do we have? 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.840 Another one is called emergentism, and that says that consciousness emerges, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.600 but it rejects the sort of reductionist approach that says, 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:54.840 you know, everything has to be explained in terms of 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.560 the microscopic that you need to like understand how this 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.119 comes out of the little bits, and Bobs says it 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.280 emerges on its own, that it's not reducible to some 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.679 lower level description. This is what philosophers called strong emergence. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.920 Says that not everything comes out of the smallest bits, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.719 that there can be fundamental laws at different scales. So like, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.639 it's not that F equals M is some average of 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.720 all the quantum processes. There's a new set of laws 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.560 at the classical level than there are at the quantum 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.520 mechanical level, and maybe there's a new set of laws 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.200 that deal with how complicated neurons interact with each other. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:34.560 And consciousness emerges from that, not from the smallest bits. Right, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.240 it can't be reduced to that it's something new and 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.720 that comes out at this scale. It's a very weird 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.360 kind of idea for those of us who are physicists 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.080 who like to think of the universe as determined by 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:47.960 what's happening on the microscopic level. 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.840 Okay, but it's still not saying that like it's spiritual 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.160 or you know, magical in any sense. It's just there's 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.240 physical okay, physics happening at the quantum level and physics 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.240 happening at the classy level, and something about what's happening 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.680 at both of those levels is giving you consciousness. 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:06.920 That's right, it's happening at its own level, and it's 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.800 not just bubbling up from below. It's its own thing. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:10.800 But it's still physical. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:11.280 Okay. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.520 Then you get to dualism, and that says, yeah, it's 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.960 not physical at all. There are two kinds of things 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.000 in the universe. There's physical stuff which can't think and 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:24.520 have an experience, and then there's non physical stuff. Consciousness 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.040 is non material. It's non physical. And you know this 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.679 isn't talking about a soul necessarily, but this is like Descartes, 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.720 you know, the spirit and the body, these things are separate, 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.119 and you know, it just says that it does not 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:39.600 have to follow the same rules. And that's why you 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.119 can't explain it using physical theories because it's not a 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:42.840 physical thing. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:50.359 Okay. Does this make pronouncements upon like do octopus have consciousness? 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.080 Or can you ask questions like that? 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.119 Under this theory you can ask questions like that, and 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.919 under variant of this theory occupy do have consciousness because 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.040 they can have this non physical stuff to them which 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:04.359 attributes them consciousness. 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.600 So yeah, okay, cool, all right, what else do we have? 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.480 And then my favorite kind of crazy theory is called 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.480 pan psychism, and this says everything is conscious. Electrons have 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.080 a little bit of consciousness, and two electrons have a 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.720 little bit more, and ten of the twenty nine electrons 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.400 have quite a bit, and all the stuff that makes 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.880 you up together makes your complicated consciousness. So the whole 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.000 universe is aware. And this is kind of cool because 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.560 it doesn't draw a dotted line between us and the universe. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.600 It says, you know, we are the part of the 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.360 universe that is maybe most aware because we have these 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.040 complicated things going on inside of us. There's arrangements of 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.240 the stuff we're made out of. It makes us more aware. 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.080 But we're all aware and that's kind of cool, I guess. 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.280 But it's also pretty out there to say that electrons 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.800 have a first person experience, that there's something it's like 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:51.960 to be an electron. 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.120 So it's not just how much mass or how many 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.880 particles you are made of. It's also about the arrangement 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.679 those particles, and somehow humans are at the best arrangement 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.880 of particles for consciousness. Is that right? 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:11.119 Yeah, exactly. So then Penrose comes in and Penrose is 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:15.960 deeply influenced by Girdle's theorem. Girdle is a mathematician about 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.760 one hundred years ago, and he was around when David 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.720 Hilbert was trying to find the axioms of mathematics, like 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.040 what are the fundamental underlying rules of all of mathematics 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.480 from which you can derive any bit of math? Which 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.639 was a cool program, but then Godel showed that it 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:35.000 is actually impossible. Godele's famous theorem, the incompleteness theorem says 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.200 that there's no consistent set of axioms that are capable 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.040 of proving all true things about arithmetic. 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.080 For example, What a downer this guy is. 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.320 I know, it's kind of mind boggling, but it means 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.199 that you can have like a system of math with 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:51.720