Here’s a roundtable that gives an interesting high-level overview of a couple of points: First, Joseph Bogen, a neurologist, gives us possible levels at which the brain could produce consciousness: sub-cellular, cellular, circuit, systems, the whole brain, or brain interacting with larger systems (other brains). Second, we get a quick face-off at the end with Stuart Hameroff mentioning something like Continue Reading …

This video features a guy I’d not heard of before, Vilayanur S. Ramachandra, called “The Marco Polo of neuroscience,” though I prefer “the great gesticulator,” a title I just invented while watching this animated performance: Rama states the common conception of qualia (from Frank Jackson): we can know all of the neurological facts about color and yet still learn something Continue Reading …

Ned Block (or is it Bill Maher?) gives us a good statement of the fundamental problems of consciousness and talks about some of the most commonly cited neuroscientific findings and what they mean about consciousness, and specifically what he takes to be Dennett’s position that consciousness is an illusion: “The hard problem:” how is it that the neural basis of Continue Reading …

Dan Dennett, who is not Santa Claus, has many clips on youtube, both as “new atheist” and as someone who wants to “deflate consciousness,” i.e. show to us through optical illusions and things that we don’t know as much of what’s going on in our minds as we think. Here he discusses the “Cartesian theater,” his starting point for argument Continue Reading …

Here’s a guy that Wes brought up to me as being a somewhat extreme case in terms of anti-scientism. Whereas Churchland approaches the problem of consciousness from a scientific perspective, Colin McGinn (who must be in the witness protection program based on how darkly this is filmed) is a proclaimed “mysterian,” saying that consciousness just can’t be understood: There are Continue Reading …

Here’s John Searle, most famous for his Chinese room argument against the possibility of programming a mind on a computer and who reminds me most of a figure from my childhood growing up in the Chicago area, snarky Sun Times columnist Mike Royko. Here Searle gives us, in a mere minute and 20 seconds (the latter part of this clip), Continue Reading …

Here’s an eliminative materialist, Pat Churchland, from whom I get sort of a Miss Hathaway from the Beverly Hillbillies vibe. Keep a sharp eye for the key points where she is interrupted by Mr. Rogers music with pictures of traffic, and then later when she’s overlaid with blurry students on campus: Churchland here explains what “eliminative materialism” is supposed to Continue Reading …