It wasn't really "banned", since it's still available on the TED site and on their TEDConversations Vimeo account. For a rundown on the entire situation, see:...
I really dislike this part: If the TV signal paradigm is possible, why don't we have any observable evidence for it? Honest scientists will admit that we're working on understanding consciousness,...
I really dislike this part:
What is death? Our materialist science reduces everything to matter. Materialist science in the West says we're just meat, we're just our bodies. So when the brain is dead that's the end of consciousness. There is no life after death. There is no soul. We just rot and are gone. But, actually, many honest scientists should admit that consciousness is the greatest mystery of science. And that we don't know exactly how it works. The brain's involved in it in some way, but we're not sure how. Could it be that the brain generates consciousness in the way a generator makes electricity? If you hold to that paradigm then of course you can't believe in life after death. When the generator's broken the consciousness is gone. But it's equally possible—and nothing in neuroscience rules it out—that the relationship is more like the relationship of the TV signal and the TV set. And, in that case, when the TV set is broken of course the TV signal continues. And this is the paradigm of all spiritual traditions.
If the TV signal paradigm is possible, why don't we have any observable evidence for it? Honest scientists will admit that we're working on understanding consciousness, but that it is not productive to offer up untestable hypotheses about unobservable phenomena. You can deride materialism and reductionism all you want, but at the end of the day, no one's got anything more explanatory.
Then there's this part:
What all these approved states of consciousness have in common is that none of them contradict or conflict with the basic state of consciouness valued by our society, which I would call the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, which is good for the more mundane aspects of science. It's good for the prosecution of warfare, it's good for commerce, it's good for politics. I think everbody realizes that the promise of a society overmonopolistically based on this state of consciousness has proved hollow, and that is model is no longer working. That it's broken in every possible sense that a model can be broken. And, urgently, we need to find something to replace it. The vast problems of global pollution that have resulted from the signle-minded pursuit of profit. The horrors of nuclear proliferation. The spectre of hunger. That millions go to bed every night starving. That we can't even solve this problem, despite our alert, problem-solvings state of consciousness.
I'm not going to say that human societies are problem-free, but a great deal of progress has been made by problem-solvers over human history. Fundamentally, I believe that the capacity for problem-solving and tool-making, as a species, is one of the best aspects of humanity. Science is the best process for solving problems that we've come up with. If you're going to bother to critique alert, problem-solving states of consciousness as lacking, I think it's a little hypocritical to describe these consciousness altering substances like DMT and psilocybin, and their neurochemistry, which we only know about because of materialist neurochemists. Personally, I don't think the world would be a better place if everyone went on DMT trips. I don't think that drugs make life experiences any less hollow, they just alter our subjective perception of events.
I'm absolutely confident that the humans who will continue to make progress on these issues are going to be in the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, not ones being reprimanded by Mother Ayahuasca in a Hieronymus Boschesque fever-dream for smoking too much pot.
With all due respect to Roger Penrose, that's quantum woo-woo at the highest level. It doesn't solve the problem of consciousness, merely shifts it one step down from "classical physics in the...
With all due respect to Roger Penrose, that's quantum woo-woo at the highest level. It doesn't solve the problem of consciousness, merely shifts it one step down from "classical physics in the brain" to "quantum physics in the brain." It doesn't resolve P-Zombies or any of the other philosophical conundrums of a materialist view of consciousness. From a physics standpoint, it's also highly tenuous. Penrose isn't merely applying standard quantum physics, but appealing to highly speculative quantum physics. It's highly unlikely that the brain could support the quantum states Penrose requires without extremely rapid decoherence. And even if it did, now we have the problem "quantum states cause consciousness, but we don't understand how or why" rather than "classical interactions between neurons cause consciousness, but we don't understand how or why." Sticking quantum in front of something may impress some people, but it's not actually an explanation in and of itself.
It's a sort of "God in the gaps" argument. We have something we don't understand, so we give it a name, be it "God" or "quantum collapse", and then we pretend that by assigning a name to it, we thereby understand it. But instead, we have only pushed the problem ahead of us. How did God create the world? How does God cause consciousness? How does quantum collapse constitute an elementary act of consciousness? We're no closer to answering those questions. In the end, it's still magic. Now it's just magic that has a name.
Quantum as a basis for consciousness has the added layman appeal that most pop science hopelessly confuses observer effects with acts of consciousness. But mainstream quantum physics has nothing whatsoever to do with consciousness.
As for the tv set analogy, it's been thoroughly debunked. Any physical antenna, being made of matter and energy, will have observable interactions with external signals that it receives. This is true of a tv set, and it's true of the brain. We can observe the brain interact with "signals" like light and sound waves via their respective sensory organs and the neural connections between them and the brain. We can't observe the brain interacting with some mysterious outside force that is the root cause of consciousness. If the brain is a transceiver for mysterious mind-energy, then we ought to see evidence of that interaction. But we do not see the physical effects of mind-energy on the brain, and mind-energy itself is unobservable so any effect the brain might have on it are unfalsifiable. Thus we're left with a two-stage hypothesis where one part has been falsified and the other is utterly unfalsifiable.
Philosophers have come up with various clever ways to potentially salvage dualism, but in so doing, they completely invalidate the naive "tv signal paradigm". That idea is completely dead.
Well, that just supports my point: it's speculative. But that's not even the only speculative part of Penrose's proposal. He's also built it on top of his unorthodox interpretation of QM....
Well, that just supports my point: it's speculative. But that's not even the only speculative part of Penrose's proposal. He's also built it on top of his unorthodox interpretation of QM. Resolving that issue will likely require a working theory of quantum gravity, which doesn't appear likely to happen in many years.
And then, if you somehow resolve all the physics, the hard problem of consciousness remains. Even if we grant Penrose all of his speculative physics for the sake of argument, all he's done is push the magic one level down.
You got a good point there. I've been reading as much as I could find on fundamentals like these but even Pinker kind of fizzles out when it's conclusion time. I mean no hypotheses or anything...
You got a good point there. I've been reading as much as I could find on fundamentals like these but even Pinker kind of fizzles out when it's conclusion time. I mean no hypotheses or anything that could cause a stir. I don't know many others besides him and Penrose, would welcome book tips.
If you want a completely contrary perspective, read Daniel Dennett. I personally don't particularly agree with all his conclusions, but he's the most prominent proponent of a view that completely...
Exemplary
If you want a completely contrary perspective, read Daniel Dennett. I personally don't particularly agree with all his conclusions, but he's the most prominent proponent of a view that completely rejects the idea that there's a fundamental mystery to consciousness. He acknowledges that we don't know all the details, but thinks that if we just carry on as we have been doing, learning a little here and there, we will eventually know all there is to know. Meanwhile, most people feel that we're not going to incrementally make our way to an understanding by gradually learning more about the brain. That, they call "the easy problem"; the "hard problem" isn't understanding the brain, but understanding how something like a brain could generate consciousness in the first place. Dennett denies that this problem most other thinkers are trying to solve is real. He believes that question when properly examined is actually meaningless, resting on incoherent assumptions.
Like I said, I don't particularly agree with all his conclusions, but he can be an interesting counterweight. And his treatment of the subject of free will is excellent.
I have a degree in neuroscience and the field is pretty solidly in the camp that consciousness comes from the material brain. It's also not at a preschool level, it's limited yes but quite...
I have a degree in neuroscience and the field is pretty solidly in the camp that consciousness comes from the material brain. It's also not at a preschool level, it's limited yes but quite advanced in some areas. While quantum effects might exist in the brain they would be at the level of neuronal function which we already understand at a higher level. We understand how neurons lead to behavior to an extent that the open worm project will realistically simulate a simple organism. This works without the need to appeal to quantum woo and you can simply move up in complexity without adding it.
The brain and human behavior is almost completely accounted for by the classical neuron doctrine. The experience of consciousness is an interesting phenomenon but it's unlikely to involve a fundamental change in lower level brain functioning. In fact it would make a lot of sense for it to be a higher order organizational processes instead.
We don’t understand fully the mechanisms in the brain and the phenomenon we recognize as consciousness, but we can make solid claims about causality. There is a great paper that makes the case for...
We don't have any evidence for where consciousness comes from at all.
We don’t understand fully the mechanisms in the brain and the phenomenon we recognize as consciousness, but we can make solid claims about causality. There is a great paper that makes the case for a notion of epistemic causality as a tool for medical science, and by this notion of causality, I think it’s very safe to believe that the physical processes we observe in the brain are the cause of what we call consciousness.
The more traditional senses of causality mentioned in that paper of mechanistic and difference-making causalities, I agree, do seem inadequate in satisfactorily explaining how we get from the brain to the phenomenon. But, I think that may just be a semantic issue. I can also entertain the idea that the term consciousness itself is maybe misleading or overloaded or possibly not even valid in itself. But, for the layman, which I certainly am, I’m comfortable believing that I am conscious (when I’m not sleeping), and that that state has an epistemically causal connection to my brain, and that if my brain were altered, physically or neurochemically, say via drugs, that there will be a predictable effect on my conscious state. So, I am also somewhat comfortable with the mechanistic and difference-making claims about causality as well, but I do admit that those claims are somewhat weaker.
Isn't it interesting how it seems to be that it's often in terms of turmoil or discontent that the hankering after supra-rational theories about why homo sapiens sapiens became/is sapiens sapiens...
Isn't it interesting how it seems to be that it's often in terms of turmoil or discontent that the hankering after supra-rational theories about why homo sapiens sapiens became/is sapiens sapiens increases?
It may very well be that current level human intelligence is an evolutionary maladaptation and that we’ll pass ourselves through the great filter yet. If we manage to squeak through, I really...
It may very well be that current level human intelligence is an evolutionary maladaptation and that we’ll pass ourselves through the great filter yet. If we manage to squeak through, I really doubt it will be attributable to shamanism.
That's occurred to me a few times, that it's a fluke and not enough time has passed for evolution to "decide" whether it's an advantage or not. But people may have been messing up at far too great...
That's occurred to me a few times, that it's a fluke and not enough time has passed for evolution to "decide" whether it's an advantage or not. But people may have been messing up at far too great a speed for it to react. In the meantime, I wouldn't say no to a nice man in the clouds opening his arms with a friendly "come here child". Oh well.
Huh? I think you have the meaning of that phrase completely backwards if you think onyxleopard needs to provide proof against Graham Hancock's wild speculations. Graham Hancock is the one that was...
Do we have any evidence against it? The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.
Huh? I think you have the meaning of that phrase completely backwards if you think onyxleopard needs to provide proof against Graham Hancock's wild speculations. Graham Hancock is the one that was making the unfalsifiable claims, therefor the burden of proof lies on him, not on people skeptical of said claims. See Russell's Teapot as to why that is the case.
You’re reversing the philosophical notion of the 'burden of proof'. Materialists have made the positive claim that human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that arises from physical processes...
The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.
You’re reversing the philosophical notion of the 'burden of proof'. Materialists have made the positive claim that human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that arises from physical processes that occur in living human brain matter, neurotransmitters, and physiological action potentials. The evidence for this is borne out by the repeated experiments done in the field of neuroscience of measuring brain waves, neurotransmission, etc. As neuroscientists' theories predict, no one has ever made observations of human consciousness originating anywhere else than the brain—not in human legs, or human hair, or parrot brains, or lumps of coal.
Hancock is making the claim that "nothing in neuroscience rules it out", which is a negative claim and basically untestable. Philosophically, the best argument I can give you against such negative claims is the argument of rational skepticism. An example of this is Russell’s teapot. If I claim that there is a teapot orbiting mars, how can you refute it? What observation could you make that demonstrates there isn't a teapot in Mars’ orbit? If you can’t demonstrate the lack of a teapot, is that grounds to believe my claim that there is one?
In contrast, a positive claim, such as ones that neuroscientists will make about consciousness being an observable phenomenon that we can repeatedly and predictable measure in the form of action potentials and neurotransmitters, which happen to not be observable in dead brains, is something you can believe in comfortably based on the evidence of such observations. These theories also explain brain disorders and the phenomena associated with neurotransmitter imbalances.
Now, you can choose to believe in the TV signal story about consciousness, but without any evidence of such a signal generator, and without any testable hypotheses to determine where such a signal might come from or what generates it, the belief wouldn’t be justified. (Just like believing in the existence of the teapot would not be justified.)
Do we have any evidence against it?
If you can come up with a testable hypothesis that proves human consciousness doesn’t originate in living human brains, you could probably win a Nobel Prize.
As religious man this looks like a soul metaphor. I believe in the soul as a concrete reality that will eventually become observable. But there’s no evidence that the aforementioned drugs are the...
As religious man this looks like a soul metaphor. I believe in the soul as a concrete reality that will eventually become observable. But there’s no evidence that the aforementioned drugs are the path to this insight. And I suppose that’s why this talk was “censored” while the equally nonsensical one by Deepak Chopra wasn’t. Drug use entails very specific risks, after all.
Well, that was NOT what I expected! Based on the title and the sections quoted by @onyxleopard, I was expecting a philosophical - if controversial - exploration of the nature of consciousness....
Well, that was NOT what I expected!
Based on the title and the sections quoted by @onyxleopard, I was expecting a philosophical - if controversial - exploration of the nature of consciousness. And, I'll be honest: based on that expectation, I skipped through the early, seemingly irrelevant, introductory remarks about the use of psychoactive drugs by ancient Egyptians and modern Amazonians. Then, around the 10-minute mark, the speaker seemed to reach what I assumed would be the main point of his speech: the nature of consciousness. So I settled in for some interesting philosophical insights.
Nope.
The whole point of this speech was that the speaker wants the right to take drugs.
I agree that people should have the right to take drugs; I am pro-legalisation. It's your body and you can do whatever you want to it. We'll legalise it - and then tax it to pay for the healthcare you'll need later. It will reduce harm all around, personal and social.
But I won't pretend that the current laws against drug use are some high-falutin’ “war on consciousness”. That gives drug use and the war on drugs a level of intellectual prestige which isn't warranted. Telling someone not to take drugs is as philosophical as telling them not to run with scissors - it's not a war on consciousness, it's just trying to stop people hurting themselves.
I was disappointed that a speech which seemed to be about philosophy turned out to be just saying “Take more drugs!”
That's not true at all. I'm not sure where to start, since it's an insane history, but basically, the legalization of psychedelic drugs (they were the first) started with a combination of racism...
Telling someone not to take drugs is as philosophical as telling them not to run with scissors - it's not a war on consciousness, it's just trying to stop people hurting themselves.
That's not true at all. I'm not sure where to start, since it's an insane history, but basically, the legalization of psychedelic drugs (they were the first) started with a combination of racism (against Chinese (opium), African-Americans (crack) and Mexicans (cannabis)) and politics (against dissent towards the Vietnam war). Nowhere did they cite actual harms. And in the current US scheduling, which is reflected everywhere else, the rankings do not reflect any actual ranking of harm to society or self.
Even if I were to concede your point that the war on drugs is based in racism... ... that still doesn't seem like a "war on consciousness". And I don't think my local police are enforcing our...
Even if I were to concede your point that the war on drugs is based in racism...
... that still doesn't seem like a "war on consciousness".
And I don't think my local police are enforcing our local anti-drug laws because of racism. They're just as likely to prosecute white drug dealers as other ethnicities.
And drugs do cause harm. They don't have to kill people by the billions in order to be considered harmful. Harm is harm.
I'm not saying the past and present are the same, just that institutional memory is poor and its much harder to admit mistakes and change than to just keep going with the status quo. Drugs can...
I'm not saying the past and present are the same, just that institutional memory is poor and its much harder to admit mistakes and change than to just keep going with the status quo.
Drugs can cause harm - not do. My friends I like to have a beer once in a while, nobody gets harmed. But then there are people who literally drink themselves to death or do activities with fatal consequences. Likewise, MDMA and psilocybin have been saving lives (and with recent FDA breakthrough status). There is no such thing as pharmacological determinism.
Not at all? Not in any way? There's no damage to anyone's liver? No increased risk of cancer? Not one single brain cell killed? No harm at all? Somehow, I doubt that. There is some low level of...
Drugs can cause harm - not do. My friends I like to have a beer once in a while, nobody gets harmed.
Not at all? Not in any way? There's no damage to anyone's liver? No increased risk of cancer? Not one single brain cell killed? No harm at all?
Somehow, I doubt that. There is some low level of harm being inflicted. It's just harm you don't notice.
Likewise, MDMA and psilocybin have been saving lives (and with recent FDA breakthrough status). There is no such thing as pharmacological determinism.
I don't think this TEDx speaker is advocating for medicinal use of psychoactive drugs. He wants to reach a "visionary state". He wants to fuck up his mind. He wants everyone to have the right to take whatever drugs they want, in whatever amounts they want.
I did not say "not at all". I said they can. Moderate drug use does not cause liver or brain damage. Again, these are the baseless assumptions that the drug war was based on. A great example of...
Not at all? Not in any way? There's no damage to anyone's liver? No increased risk of cancer? Not one single brain cell killed? No harm at all?
I did not say "not at all". I said they can. Moderate drug use does not cause liver or brain damage. Again, these are the baseless assumptions that the drug war was based on. A great example of this was the "holes" in your brain caused by MDMA use, that was science-laymen misinterpreting a heatmap of brain activity.
Again, I'm not saying drugs are without risks, it's a matter of magnitude and context. Driving a motor vehicle and riding a horse are more dangerous than most drugs, especially when used responsibly.
He wants to reach a "visionary state". He wants to fuck up his mind. He wants everyone to have the right to take whatever drugs they want, in whatever amounts they want.
I'm not so sure about the latter. I won't argue with you too much about this point because I feel that you are inexperienced with psychedelics and I don't want to get to a point where I come off as patronizing and disrespectful to you - all I'll say is that it's something that one must experience before you can begin to understand, it's not just "getting fucked up". But consider that there is a very good reason why psilocybin and LSD are extremely effective against end-of-life anxiety caused by terminal illnesses, and why many cultures (on every continent) has revered these psychedelic experiences.
You said "nobody gets harmed" when you and your friends drink beer. I say there is harm occurring, even if you don't notice it. The speaker in this video is not arguing for carefully measured...
I did not say "not at all".
You said "nobody gets harmed" when you and your friends drink beer. I say there is harm occurring, even if you don't notice it.
consider that there is a very good reason why psilocybin and LSD are extremely effective against end-of-life anxiety caused by terminal illnesses,
The speaker in this video is not arguing for carefully measured doses of medicinal drugs to be used for medical purposes in palliative care. I don't know why you keep bringing that up.
He's arguing for taking enough drugs to hallucinate, or "alteration of consciousness" as he calls it. He wants to hallucinate. He wants to see visions. He says he saw the bloody afterlife! He wants to alter his consciousness. He basically wants to "get high, man ✌️".
why many cultures (on every continent) has revered these psychedelic experiences.
Cultures also used to revere tree spirits and lightning deities.
My bad, I was confusing that with your first comment. But yea, there is no harm caused by a single drink. If anything, sitting all day staying up late at night causes more harm. It doesn't have to...
You said "nobody gets harmed" when you and your friends drink beer. I say there is harm occurring, even if you don't notice it.
My bad, I was confusing that with your first comment. But yea, there is no harm caused by a single drink. If anything, sitting all day staying up late at night causes more harm.
speaker in this video is not arguing for carefully measured doses of medicinal drugs to be used for medical purposes ... He's arguing for taking enough drugs to hallucinate, or "alteration of consciousness" as he calls it.
It doesn't have to be just palliative care. That is an example of the profound effects it can have on "healthy" people. I use quotes there because everyone has some kind of physical or mental health issue, whether they accept it or not - even (and especially) they had the perfect sheltered life. Alteration of consciousness i.e. change of perspective has many benefits on its own. Again, this is something that can be understood only from the experience - it is not mere hallucinations for entertainment purposes as in watching cinema or playing a video game.
Cultures also used to revere tree spirits and lightning deities.
So what? It's not like we're all of a sudden enlightened with modern reductionist science (coming from a career scientist), we weren't idiots up until now.
Did you know that the first real study into what kind of damage MDMA does in the brain was a study which was later retracted because the drug the scientists were provided with ended up actually...
A great example of this was the "holes" in your brain caused by MDMA use, that was science-laymen misinterpreting a heatmap of brain activity.
Did you know that the first real study into what kind of damage MDMA does in the brain was a study which was later retracted because the drug the scientists were provided with ended up actually being meth. It took so long for it to be retracted, however, that people accepted the study as 'fact' and it has colored our perception of the drug ever since.
That being said, MDMA absolutely does cause long term brain damage if it is used with enough frequency or in large enough doses.
I did! Such a shame... I would recommend this podcast with the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Rick Doblin, for a very sober analysis of past research....
Did you know that...
I did! Such a shame... I would recommend this podcast with the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Rick Doblin, for a very sober analysis of past research.
That being said, MDMA absolutely does cause long term brain damage if it is used with enough frequency or in large enough doses.
Sure, but that goes without saying for literally anything in excess - sugar, food, water, salt, sitting... Responsible use is key.
Come on A_A.. 1 beer now and then is nothing to a healthy liver. It's there specifically to deal with that and worse. We start dying at 25 at the latest and all the garbage in food and the...
Come on A_A.. 1 beer now and then is nothing to a healthy liver. It's there specifically to deal with that and worse. We start dying at 25 at the latest and all the garbage in food and the environment is lowering that age rapidly. I mean let's live a little.
While this thread is still active, I wanted to say as an aside: Sorry for misleading you with my selective quotes! Those were the parts that I thought worthy of discussion, even if I strongly...
While this thread is still active, I wanted to say as an aside: Sorry for misleading you with my selective quotes! Those were the parts that I thought worthy of discussion, even if I strongly disagree with Hancock. The justification for drug-use, which as you point out was really the main thrust of this talk, IMO, was not a discussion I wanted to get involved in.
But why are hallucinogenic drugs, which are by and large relatively harmless, illegal whereas other much more harmful activities such as riding a bike, cooking, or drinking alcohol are not? I...
Telling someone not to take drugs is as philosophical as telling them not to run with scissors - it's not a war on consciousness, it's just trying to stop people hurting themselves.
But why are hallucinogenic drugs, which are by and large relatively harmless, illegal whereas other much more harmful activities such as riding a bike, cooking, or drinking alcohol are not?
I think it's unfair to make the argument that the reason hallucinogens are illegal is because they are harmful to people as this ignores or downplays the history of the war on drugs and overemphasizes the harm. For the record, true hallucinogens (academically speaking) have no proven addiction and do not cause long term damage to the brain (cell apoptosis, receptor down-regulation, etc.).
It wasn't really "banned", since it's still available on the TED site and on their TEDConversations Vimeo account. For a rundown on the entire situation, see:
https://blog.ted.com/graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake-a-fresh-take/
For the reasoning behind it's removal from YouTube:
https://blog.ted.com/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/
https://blog.ted.com/the-debate-about-graham-hancocks-talk/
And where it is still accessible:
https://vimeo.com/tedconversations
And technically it's not even really a TED talk, it's a TEDx talk (which are independently organized, and vary tremendously in quality as a result).
I really dislike this part:
If the TV signal paradigm is possible, why don't we have any observable evidence for it? Honest scientists will admit that we're working on understanding consciousness, but that it is not productive to offer up untestable hypotheses about unobservable phenomena. You can deride materialism and reductionism all you want, but at the end of the day, no one's got anything more explanatory.
Then there's this part:
I'm not going to say that human societies are problem-free, but a great deal of progress has been made by problem-solvers over human history. Fundamentally, I believe that the capacity for problem-solving and tool-making, as a species, is one of the best aspects of humanity. Science is the best process for solving problems that we've come up with. If you're going to bother to critique alert, problem-solving states of consciousness as lacking, I think it's a little hypocritical to describe these consciousness altering substances like DMT and psilocybin, and their neurochemistry, which we only know about because of materialist neurochemists. Personally, I don't think the world would be a better place if everyone went on DMT trips. I don't think that drugs make life experiences any less hollow, they just alter our subjective perception of events.
I'm absolutely confident that the humans who will continue to make progress on these issues are going to be in the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, not ones being reprimanded by Mother Ayahuasca in a Hieronymus Boschesque fever-dream for smoking too much pot.
With all due respect to Roger Penrose, that's quantum woo-woo at the highest level. It doesn't solve the problem of consciousness, merely shifts it one step down from "classical physics in the brain" to "quantum physics in the brain." It doesn't resolve P-Zombies or any of the other philosophical conundrums of a materialist view of consciousness. From a physics standpoint, it's also highly tenuous. Penrose isn't merely applying standard quantum physics, but appealing to highly speculative quantum physics. It's highly unlikely that the brain could support the quantum states Penrose requires without extremely rapid decoherence. And even if it did, now we have the problem "quantum states cause consciousness, but we don't understand how or why" rather than "classical interactions between neurons cause consciousness, but we don't understand how or why." Sticking quantum in front of something may impress some people, but it's not actually an explanation in and of itself.
It's a sort of "God in the gaps" argument. We have something we don't understand, so we give it a name, be it "God" or "quantum collapse", and then we pretend that by assigning a name to it, we thereby understand it. But instead, we have only pushed the problem ahead of us. How did God create the world? How does God cause consciousness? How does quantum collapse constitute an elementary act of consciousness? We're no closer to answering those questions. In the end, it's still magic. Now it's just magic that has a name.
Quantum as a basis for consciousness has the added layman appeal that most pop science hopelessly confuses observer effects with acts of consciousness. But mainstream quantum physics has nothing whatsoever to do with consciousness.
As for the tv set analogy, it's been thoroughly debunked. Any physical antenna, being made of matter and energy, will have observable interactions with external signals that it receives. This is true of a tv set, and it's true of the brain. We can observe the brain interact with "signals" like light and sound waves via their respective sensory organs and the neural connections between them and the brain. We can't observe the brain interacting with some mysterious outside force that is the root cause of consciousness. If the brain is a transceiver for mysterious mind-energy, then we ought to see evidence of that interaction. But we do not see the physical effects of mind-energy on the brain, and mind-energy itself is unobservable so any effect the brain might have on it are unfalsifiable. Thus we're left with a two-stage hypothesis where one part has been falsified and the other is utterly unfalsifiable.
Philosophers have come up with various clever ways to potentially salvage dualism, but in so doing, they completely invalidate the naive "tv signal paradigm". That idea is completely dead.
Well, that just supports my point: it's speculative. But that's not even the only speculative part of Penrose's proposal. He's also built it on top of his unorthodox interpretation of QM. Resolving that issue will likely require a working theory of quantum gravity, which doesn't appear likely to happen in many years.
And then, if you somehow resolve all the physics, the hard problem of consciousness remains. Even if we grant Penrose all of his speculative physics for the sake of argument, all he's done is push the magic one level down.
You got a good point there. I've been reading as much as I could find on fundamentals like these but even Pinker kind of fizzles out when it's conclusion time. I mean no hypotheses or anything that could cause a stir. I don't know many others besides him and Penrose, would welcome book tips.
If you want a completely contrary perspective, read Daniel Dennett. I personally don't particularly agree with all his conclusions, but he's the most prominent proponent of a view that completely rejects the idea that there's a fundamental mystery to consciousness. He acknowledges that we don't know all the details, but thinks that if we just carry on as we have been doing, learning a little here and there, we will eventually know all there is to know. Meanwhile, most people feel that we're not going to incrementally make our way to an understanding by gradually learning more about the brain. That, they call "the easy problem"; the "hard problem" isn't understanding the brain, but understanding how something like a brain could generate consciousness in the first place. Dennett denies that this problem most other thinkers are trying to solve is real. He believes that question when properly examined is actually meaningless, resting on incoherent assumptions.
Like I said, I don't particularly agree with all his conclusions, but he can be an interesting counterweight. And his treatment of the subject of free will is excellent.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also an excellent free resource. Although it's primarily about philosophy, some of the articles dealing with more technical, scientific subjects can also be quite detailed on the science.
A great answer, much appreciated. I'll go check those out s.p. Thanks indeed.
I have a degree in neuroscience and the field is pretty solidly in the camp that consciousness comes from the material brain. It's also not at a preschool level, it's limited yes but quite advanced in some areas. While quantum effects might exist in the brain they would be at the level of neuronal function which we already understand at a higher level. We understand how neurons lead to behavior to an extent that the open worm project will realistically simulate a simple organism. This works without the need to appeal to quantum woo and you can simply move up in complexity without adding it.
The brain and human behavior is almost completely accounted for by the classical neuron doctrine. The experience of consciousness is an interesting phenomenon but it's unlikely to involve a fundamental change in lower level brain functioning. In fact it would make a lot of sense for it to be a higher order organizational processes instead.
We don’t understand fully the mechanisms in the brain and the phenomenon we recognize as consciousness, but we can make solid claims about causality. There is a great paper that makes the case for a notion of epistemic causality as a tool for medical science, and by this notion of causality, I think it’s very safe to believe that the physical processes we observe in the brain are the cause of what we call consciousness.
The more traditional senses of causality mentioned in that paper of mechanistic and difference-making causalities, I agree, do seem inadequate in satisfactorily explaining how we get from the brain to the phenomenon. But, I think that may just be a semantic issue. I can also entertain the idea that the term consciousness itself is maybe misleading or overloaded or possibly not even valid in itself. But, for the layman, which I certainly am, I’m comfortable believing that I am conscious (when I’m not sleeping), and that that state has an epistemically causal connection to my brain, and that if my brain were altered, physically or neurochemically, say via drugs, that there will be a predictable effect on my conscious state. So, I am also somewhat comfortable with the mechanistic and difference-making claims about causality as well, but I do admit that those claims are somewhat weaker.
Isn't it interesting how it seems to be that it's often in terms of turmoil or discontent that the hankering after supra-rational theories about why homo sapiens sapiens became/is sapiens sapiens increases?
It may very well be that current level human intelligence is an evolutionary maladaptation and that we’ll pass ourselves through the great filter yet. If we manage to squeak through, I really doubt it will be attributable to shamanism.
That's occurred to me a few times, that it's a fluke and not enough time has passed for evolution to "decide" whether it's an advantage or not. But people may have been messing up at far too great a speed for it to react. In the meantime, I wouldn't say no to a nice man in the clouds opening his arms with a friendly "come here child". Oh well.
Drug use too..!
Huh? I think you have the meaning of that phrase completely backwards if you think onyxleopard needs to provide proof against Graham Hancock's wild speculations. Graham Hancock is the one that was making the unfalsifiable claims, therefor the burden of proof lies on him, not on people skeptical of said claims. See Russell's Teapot as to why that is the case.
You’re reversing the philosophical notion of the 'burden of proof'. Materialists have made the positive claim that human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that arises from physical processes that occur in living human brain matter, neurotransmitters, and physiological action potentials. The evidence for this is borne out by the repeated experiments done in the field of neuroscience of measuring brain waves, neurotransmission, etc. As neuroscientists' theories predict, no one has ever made observations of human consciousness originating anywhere else than the brain—not in human legs, or human hair, or parrot brains, or lumps of coal.
Hancock is making the claim that "nothing in neuroscience rules it out", which is a negative claim and basically untestable. Philosophically, the best argument I can give you against such negative claims is the argument of rational skepticism. An example of this is Russell’s teapot. If I claim that there is a teapot orbiting mars, how can you refute it? What observation could you make that demonstrates there isn't a teapot in Mars’ orbit? If you can’t demonstrate the lack of a teapot, is that grounds to believe my claim that there is one?
In contrast, a positive claim, such as ones that neuroscientists will make about consciousness being an observable phenomenon that we can repeatedly and predictable measure in the form of action potentials and neurotransmitters, which happen to not be observable in dead brains, is something you can believe in comfortably based on the evidence of such observations. These theories also explain brain disorders and the phenomena associated with neurotransmitter imbalances.
Now, you can choose to believe in the TV signal story about consciousness, but without any evidence of such a signal generator, and without any testable hypotheses to determine where such a signal might come from or what generates it, the belief wouldn’t be justified. (Just like believing in the existence of the teapot would not be justified.)
If you can come up with a testable hypothesis that proves human consciousness doesn’t originate in living human brains, you could probably win a Nobel Prize.
As religious man this looks like a soul metaphor. I believe in the soul as a concrete reality that will eventually become observable. But there’s no evidence that the aforementioned drugs are the path to this insight. And I suppose that’s why this talk was “censored” while the equally nonsensical one by Deepak Chopra wasn’t. Drug use entails very specific risks, after all.
Well, that was NOT what I expected!
Based on the title and the sections quoted by @onyxleopard, I was expecting a philosophical - if controversial - exploration of the nature of consciousness. And, I'll be honest: based on that expectation, I skipped through the early, seemingly irrelevant, introductory remarks about the use of psychoactive drugs by ancient Egyptians and modern Amazonians. Then, around the 10-minute mark, the speaker seemed to reach what I assumed would be the main point of his speech: the nature of consciousness. So I settled in for some interesting philosophical insights.
Nope.
The whole point of this speech was that the speaker wants the right to take drugs.
I agree that people should have the right to take drugs; I am pro-legalisation. It's your body and you can do whatever you want to it. We'll legalise it - and then tax it to pay for the healthcare you'll need later. It will reduce harm all around, personal and social.
But I won't pretend that the current laws against drug use are some high-falutin’ “war on consciousness”. That gives drug use and the war on drugs a level of intellectual prestige which isn't warranted. Telling someone not to take drugs is as philosophical as telling them not to run with scissors - it's not a war on consciousness, it's just trying to stop people hurting themselves.
I was disappointed that a speech which seemed to be about philosophy turned out to be just saying “Take more drugs!”
That's not true at all. I'm not sure where to start, since it's an insane history, but basically, the legalization of psychedelic drugs (they were the first) started with a combination of racism (against Chinese (opium), African-Americans (crack) and Mexicans (cannabis)) and politics (against dissent towards the Vietnam war). Nowhere did they cite actual harms. And in the current US scheduling, which is reflected everywhere else, the rankings do not reflect any actual ranking of harm to society or self.
Even if I were to concede your point that the war on drugs is based in racism...
... that still doesn't seem like a "war on consciousness".
And I don't think my local police are enforcing our local anti-drug laws because of racism. They're just as likely to prosecute white drug dealers as other ethnicities.
And drugs do cause harm. They don't have to kill people by the billions in order to be considered harmful. Harm is harm.
I'm not saying the past and present are the same, just that institutional memory is poor and its much harder to admit mistakes and change than to just keep going with the status quo.
Drugs can cause harm - not do. My friends I like to have a beer once in a while, nobody gets harmed. But then there are people who literally drink themselves to death or do activities with fatal consequences. Likewise, MDMA and psilocybin have been saving lives (and with recent FDA breakthrough status). There is no such thing as pharmacological determinism.
Not at all? Not in any way? There's no damage to anyone's liver? No increased risk of cancer? Not one single brain cell killed? No harm at all?
Somehow, I doubt that. There is some low level of harm being inflicted. It's just harm you don't notice.
I don't think this TEDx speaker is advocating for medicinal use of psychoactive drugs. He wants to reach a "visionary state". He wants to fuck up his mind. He wants everyone to have the right to take whatever drugs they want, in whatever amounts they want.
I did not say "not at all". I said they can. Moderate drug use does not cause liver or brain damage. Again, these are the baseless assumptions that the drug war was based on. A great example of this was the "holes" in your brain caused by MDMA use, that was science-laymen misinterpreting a heatmap of brain activity.
Again, I'm not saying drugs are without risks, it's a matter of magnitude and context. Driving a motor vehicle and riding a horse are more dangerous than most drugs, especially when used responsibly.
I'm not so sure about the latter. I won't argue with you too much about this point because I feel that you are inexperienced with psychedelics and I don't want to get to a point where I come off as patronizing and disrespectful to you - all I'll say is that it's something that one must experience before you can begin to understand, it's not just "getting fucked up". But consider that there is a very good reason why psilocybin and LSD are extremely effective against end-of-life anxiety caused by terminal illnesses, and why many cultures (on every continent) has revered these psychedelic experiences.
You said "nobody gets harmed" when you and your friends drink beer. I say there is harm occurring, even if you don't notice it.
The speaker in this video is not arguing for carefully measured doses of medicinal drugs to be used for medical purposes in palliative care. I don't know why you keep bringing that up.
He's arguing for taking enough drugs to hallucinate, or "alteration of consciousness" as he calls it. He wants to hallucinate. He wants to see visions. He says he saw the bloody afterlife! He wants to alter his consciousness. He basically wants to "get high, man ✌️".
Cultures also used to revere tree spirits and lightning deities.
My bad, I was confusing that with your first comment. But yea, there is no harm caused by a single drink. If anything, sitting all day staying up late at night causes more harm.
It doesn't have to be just palliative care. That is an example of the profound effects it can have on "healthy" people. I use quotes there because everyone has some kind of physical or mental health issue, whether they accept it or not - even (and especially) they had the perfect sheltered life. Alteration of consciousness i.e. change of perspective has many benefits on its own. Again, this is something that can be understood only from the experience - it is not mere hallucinations for entertainment purposes as in watching cinema or playing a video game.
So what? It's not like we're all of a sudden enlightened with modern reductionist science (coming from a career scientist), we weren't idiots up until now.
Did you know that the first real study into what kind of damage MDMA does in the brain was a study which was later retracted because the drug the scientists were provided with ended up actually being meth. It took so long for it to be retracted, however, that people accepted the study as 'fact' and it has colored our perception of the drug ever since.
That being said, MDMA absolutely does cause long term brain damage if it is used with enough frequency or in large enough doses.
I did! Such a shame... I would recommend this podcast with the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Rick Doblin, for a very sober analysis of past research.
Sure, but that goes without saying for literally anything in excess - sugar, food, water, salt, sitting... Responsible use is key.
Come on A_A.. 1 beer now and then is nothing to a healthy liver. It's there specifically to deal with that and worse. We start dying at 25 at the latest and all the garbage in food and the environment is lowering that age rapidly. I mean let's live a little.
While this thread is still active, I wanted to say as an aside: Sorry for misleading you with my selective quotes! Those were the parts that I thought worthy of discussion, even if I strongly disagree with Hancock. The justification for drug-use, which as you point out was really the main thrust of this talk, IMO, was not a discussion I wanted to get involved in.
No worries, you made good points.
I worked that out after I finished watching the video. It's not your fault.
But why are hallucinogenic drugs, which are by and large relatively harmless, illegal whereas other much more harmful activities such as riding a bike, cooking, or drinking alcohol are not?
I think it's unfair to make the argument that the reason hallucinogens are illegal is because they are harmful to people as this ignores or downplays the history of the war on drugs and overemphasizes the harm. For the record, true hallucinogens (academically speaking) have no proven addiction and do not cause long term damage to the brain (cell apoptosis, receptor down-regulation, etc.).