@neilbeni7744

Listening to Anil is like a form of meditation for I....
Thank You for this cast 😊

@johnjoseph9823

Thank you and another brilliant episode by Quanta Magazine.

@ObserverOne6727

There is (must be) a solution to "What is consciousness ?".  Two epistemological 'puzzle pieces' are 1) thought is physically made of forces flowing through the brain's neural structures and sub-systems that include loops, comparitors, differencing and summing, and 2) existence is always and exactly now (the duration of every Now is exactly zero).  This is why when being in states of flow, the sense of time disappears.  Feeling conscious is 'simply' experiencing those changing, merging, and opposing forces in every moment.

After experiencing this conclusion, and with practice, one can step into this knowable state by simply choosing to BE.  The causal continuum of forces (that is the entire universe) is just running; it cannot do otherwise.  Enjoy the ride.

@silent6142

Consciousness is likely an ocean of potential throughout the universe, and receptors (like the brain, but not exclusively) tune into it progressively as it develops.  It is the limitations of the brain to construct the sense of self (and believe it to be the center of the universe) and forget when the body ends and the energy transforms, the true nature of consciousness continues.

@a_bar8579

I really hope to solve the mystery of consciousness before I die

@anne-mariecote5646

I would love a podcast on humor. It baffles me. The concept of 'funny' and how that translates neurologically.

@ReginaldCarey

10:58 Aspects such as sensing emotional state or feelings, come about via a process external to consciousness - maybe. Consider mind, it provides meta processing, the ability to reflect on the state of the brain. I suppose being able to perceive one’s own thoughts counts as a part of consciousness.

@ReginaldCarey

There’s nothing metaphysical about consciousness. It is the ability to perceive the environment. Perception is a combination of sensing and recognizing the space time patterns in the sensory input. For humans it’s our subjective experience of reality. For a plant it might be the signal of a caterpillar consuming it, or sensing a source of moisture in the soil via root fibers, or the direction of a light source.

@wernerHkeller

Dependent origination explained like active inference from modelling of sensory signals. Add emergence of everchanging telos (ethics/values) based on integration of everchanging self interests with  everchanging interests of others which everchanging telos updates models of prediction and evaluation. Such interacting selves can flock (interact as society) and appear "as if" collective intelligence while each having their own everchanging experience models. That is context for a model of how everchanging neural networks can feel like "being" a continuing unchanging something (self) in the models generating experience; thus, reifying nothing into something. (Hume, Buddha) 🤟

@AmateurNeuroscientist

Professor Seth says that the brain creates and updates a model of the world, which includes a model of "the self".  This "self model" therefore becomes self-aware, and this is a pre-requisite for consciousness.  I conclude that what I call "I" or "me" (what some people might call my soul) is actually this model - I perceive the world and my self from within this model and I can only be aware of things within, or connected to, this model.  This explains why I cannot be aware of lower-level details of processing, even relating to my own brain processes, I can only be aware of a model of these things.

I do not like the description of these models as "hallucinations", because they are my only way of perceiving things, so they are very real to me, and "my self" is also very real to me.

I have documented how all this might work in a new website.  I describe how "symbol schemas" can be created from incoming sense data and how the "self symbol schema" can be created from internal data about the processing of the brain in exactly the same way.  The processing is hierarchical and recursive, and the final result is high-level models or schemas of the things being perceived.

To find my website that give more details on this, you can do a google search for "self symbol schema" or the phrase "This set of more than 40 interlinked web pages contains my proposed explanation of the workings of the human brain".

@danielpaulson8838

I’m going to go with the Buddha and process it more.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts, it is based in our thoughts.” Verse 1. Dhammapada.

We are born with a certain brain type. We will have fixed qualities that differ from each other. That is core. 
Beyond that we become the accumulation of our remembered and emotionally judged mass of life experiences.

When do we remember becoming self aware? Conscious of thinking and remembering? Not just crying infants with life, but lacking the neural connections in the world to be aware. We can’t even see. We are not yet conscious. 

Our sense of self follows. Where would it logically emerge from?
The manner in which our brain connects neural pathways. 

Then, we need to understand we are all coexisting in and of a quantum field and we share emotions at a deeper level. That can look supernatural. It’s natural. Awareness through the central nervous system not a physical sense.

@infinitygame18

Welcome🙏

@a_bar8579

If your brain was creating the world, then why, for example, if you were blessed, would people continue to see the same reality that you were watching, and nothing would change except that you lost sight!

@calebbrunson7120

It’s metaphysically impossible to reduce quality to quantity. Eventually, modern science will have to recognize the primacy of pure awareness, ideas, and meanings from which sensations are instantiations.

Of course that entails a rejection of a quantitative science which cannot explain qualities.

@daveozip4326

I can tell you what consciousness is…

It is an organisational system, it is an extension of the process that adds meaning to data layer by layer as data gets processed by the brain. Each layer adds meaning to the pixels of information until a recognisable pattern emerges. But continue this same process a few more steps and simple recognition becomes more, it becomes alive with meaning and connection. 
That is what consciousness is; a process of pattern recognition on steroids. 

…you’re welcome!

@greatestone4eva

the divide and conquer strategy will not lead to a wholistic view of consciousness. fyi, i spoke of those qualities as aspects of consciousness in whole.

@ilyas8659

At what age did we realize we exist?

@saliksayyar9793

Neither the asker, nor the answerer knows.

@theoneaboveaall

i really froze when he said what composition of elements made consciousness?

@theoneaboveaall

fuckin awesome podcast