Full transcript
Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that can't be an illusion
0:00Consciousness [music]
0:01is the one thing in this universe that
0:03actually can't be an illusion, right? I
0:05mean, even if we're in the matrix, if
0:07this is just a simulation, if we're
0:08confused about everything, if our
0:10physics is fake physics cuz we're not in
0:13touch with the base layer of reality,
0:15[music] if this is all a dream, you
0:16know, if you're the only person who
0:17exists and we're all in your dream, no
0:19matter how confused you could be about
0:21the nature of reality, [music] one thing
0:24you can't be confused about is that
0:25something seems to be happening. And
0:28that seeming is the fact of
0:30consciousness.
Sam Harris on the illusion of the Self
0:37Should we give up the idea of distinct
0:39selves as simply incoherence?
0:44>> Well, first let me say it's a pleasure
0:46to almost be there with you. Sounds like
0:48I'm escaping the sweltering heat, but um
0:50it's an honor to be invited. Thank you.
0:53Um
0:54well there there's one sense of the term
0:57self and it's I believe it's the most
0:59common one and it's it's the sense that
1:01we feel subjectively most of us most of
1:04the time which I think is genuinely an
1:07illusion and leads to other illusions
1:10cognitive and and and moral. It's the
1:13it's the other side of the coin of the
1:15sense of free will that that uh puzzles
1:18so many people. Um so you know I would
1:21ask you to just notice this feeling in
1:24yourself if you have it and if you're
1:26like 99% of people you will you'll get
1:29this sense that you feel that there is a
1:32subject
1:34a kind of unchanging point from which
1:36you notice experience which is which
1:39doesn't leave you merely identical to
1:42experience rather you feel like you're
1:43appropriating
1:45your experience. You're having an
1:46experience. There's a there's there's a
1:49place from which you can aim your
1:51attention at the various objects of
1:54experience and and most of if not all of
1:57your experience has this subject object
2:00character where you're you're the
2:02subject noticing sights and sounds and
2:05sensations and thoughts and moods. Um
2:09and that subject is an illusion and we
2:12we can know that really from two sides.
2:14First of all, from from the third person
2:17side, neurologically it makes no sense.
2:19There's no there's no place in the brain
2:21for your ego to be hiding. Um, but more
2:25importantly, I think from the first
2:26person side, subjectively as a matter of
2:29direct experience, you can look for this
2:32sense of self, you can look for the eye
2:34in the middle of experience and fail to
2:37find it in a way that is conclusive. And
2:39and this this effort goes by, you know,
2:42many modes and many names. I mean this
2:44is something that meditation in various
2:47practices directly targets people using
2:51psychedelics have had this experience
2:53but there's there's a vast testimony
2:56to the um the perturbability of and and
3:00the transency of this sense of self and
3:03I would actually say that most people
3:04even if they're not meditating or or
3:05taking psychedelics they're continually
3:08losing this sense of self without
3:10noticing it which is to say you you can
3:12lose yourself in your work you lose
3:14yourself in a in athletic performance.
3:16You can lose yourself just in in this in
3:19an outgoing act of attention where you
3:21you actually
3:23the clear sense of self becomes kind of
3:25retrospective when you when you when you
3:28take stock of yourself you you then
3:30notice it. But it I it is it is um
3:33continually interrupted I would say. Uh
3:35but to interrupt it consciously as an
3:38act of contemplation is very different
3:40because then you can then you can
3:41actually be free of it more or less
3:44whenever you whenever you remember to
3:47pay attention and that's a that's a very
3:49different movement through life. Let's
Roger Penrose on the corpus callosotomy procedure and dual consciousness
3:52bring Roger in here. Roger, does this
3:54idea of distinct selves make sense or is
3:57it an incoherent notion? And just to
4:00bring in Sam's point from the get-go
4:02there as well, does it make sense to
4:04have an illusory self or is that
4:08illusion of every instance of the thing
4:09which uh which which we typically take
4:12to be the
4:13>> I mean I regard the question of self as
4:16all tied up intimately with the issue of
4:19consciousness
4:20>> and if you weren't conscious there
4:23concept would even wouldn't even be
4:25discussed. But um there are I remember
4:28reading long time ago now um examples of
4:32a patient who had um serious epilepsy or
4:35something and the opera they performed
4:38an operation which seemed to me pretty
4:40extreme of dividing the brain into two
4:43separate halves. I don't know how
4:44separate it was too. There's no doubt it
4:46was the cerebrum and not the cerebellum
4:49but still and this person almost
4:52considered herself or maybe people
4:55considered that that that they became
4:58two separate people in a sense so that
5:00it did seem to be tied up with the very
5:03way the brain is organized and that with
5:06this split brain person they could do
5:08one thing with one hand and the other
5:09side wouldn't know what was going on. It
5:13struck me as rather well the whole thing
5:14is rather awful. But apart from that um
5:19in does the presumably single self that
5:22this person had previously
5:25what does happen to that when it becomes
5:27does it become two selves later on? I
5:30have no idea. So I'm just filled with
5:32lots of question marks when I think
5:34about this problem. The question of
5:36consciousness is bad enough. Um
5:39it seems that if these person with a
5:42split brain in this experiment or this I
5:45don't think it was an experiment. I'm
5:46not sure. It's supposed to be a
5:47treatment.
5:48>> Um if this person was considered to have
5:50two selves at that stage
5:53um well raises a difficult question as
5:56to what you mean by the the self and
5:58consciousness and presumably the
6:00memories of the past were shared by the
6:04people if I can use that term. I'm not
6:06sure. I don't know that the descriptions
6:08I read of this situation was were
6:10detailed enough for me to form a real
6:12view about it. But it did seem to me
6:14that has bearing on this question and uh
6:17it's one of the few experiments which I
6:19know of. I don't as I say not even an
6:21experiment as far as I know treatment I
6:23guess it was that I know of which uh
6:26have some bearing on the question. Of
6:28course you could imagine somebody to be
6:30unconscious. Could one side of the brain
6:32be unconscious as the Well, then you
6:34have to ask a dolphin I suppose because
6:36the dolphins go to sleep one side and
6:39the other side separately and to a
6:42dolphin that must be strange effect. I
6:44mean are they still awake all the time
6:47but yet being in sense having a
6:48different self? I have no idea. I'm just
6:51raising these points. Uh sort of
6:53scientific issues which might have
6:55relevance to the general question.
Dreams and memories in the labyrinth of consciousness
6:58Can I can I ask you this just before we
7:00bring in Sophie? So you raised the split
7:02brain case as a problem of split
7:04someone's brain either both sides are
7:06them, neither side of the brain is them
7:08or one or the other is them. And that
7:09seems like a a big philosophical problem
7:11if your view is that ourselves are
7:14identical to our consciousness. But I
7:17just want to ask you this before we
7:18bring Sophie in. Is do you take the self
7:21to be identical to our stream of
7:23consciousness or is it more of our
7:25capacity to be conscious which were
7:28identical to?
7:28>> I see what you mean. Does one sew all
7:31the conscious experiences up together
7:33>> and make one
7:36thing out of it all?
7:37>> I think one does. But to what extent is
7:40this a feature of memory? because the
7:42memory transcends this and you remember
7:45events which took place when before you
7:48went to sleep or something but then when
7:49you are asleep you're still to some
7:51degree conscious if you're dreaming
7:54>> and I suddenly experience I'm not
7:56somebody who has a what they call vivid
7:58what's the there's a term people use to
8:00dream
8:00>> a lucid dreaming
8:01>> lucid that's right now the only one
8:03experience of that nature which I
8:05remember is in my dream I was walking
8:07around in New York and I was getting
8:10turning the wrong way and turning around
8:11get completely and utterly lost and I
8:14didn't know what to do. So I went into
8:16this store. It's a store cuz it was
8:19America into the store and I decided
8:21well look if this is a dream I can walk
8:24on the ceiling. So what I did is walk on
8:26the ceiling. So I said yeah it's a
8:28dream. Could I wake up? No. I had a lot
8:31of trouble. [laughter]
8:33I don't know the releance of relevance
8:35of this.
8:36>> Maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe you're in
8:37New York [laughter] and there's some
8:39pretty crazy CCTV footage out there of
8:41you
8:42>> walk on the ceiling.
8:43>> You can speculate about these things. I
8:45think I was dreaming to be walking on
8:47the ceiling. [laughter]
8:48>> I wouldn't put it past you, Roger. You
8:50We have laws against that in America.
8:53[laughter]
Sophie Scott on neuroscience, cell renewal, and being social primates
8:56>> Uh Sophie, is this idea of multiple
8:58self, distinct selves within one body an
9:02incoherent notion? I mean, I think it's
9:05something that definitely requires as as
9:06both Sam and Professor Penrose have
9:09already said that you you've got to have
9:10some definition of exactly what you mean
9:12by that. So, do we mean conscious
9:13awareness, a sense of being the subject
9:16of your experiences or do we mean
9:18something that's like a a sense of
9:19yourself [snorts] as a coherent person
9:23with sense of identity around that? You
9:24know, these we need to define that. And
9:26in the introduction, we were going
9:28across several different levels of
9:30analysis. So I think it is worth trying
9:31to get into that in more detail. I think
9:34it's also worth bearing in mind that
9:35you've got that 86 billion brain cells
9:39and you were born with almost all of
9:41them. So over the course of every 10
9:43years or so, you get a completely new
9:45body except for the hair cells in your
9:48ears, the lens cells in your crystalline
9:51lens in your eyes, your um egg cells if
9:54you're female, and your neurons.
9:57Everything else is renewed. everything
9:59else is changing. So if you look at a
10:00photograph of yourself as a baby, none
10:02of that person is there anymore except
10:04for primarily your eyes, your ears, and
10:06your brain. And of course, that's one of
10:09the reasons why you would have, you
10:11know, if you lose your bra aspects of
10:13brain function, it will have tremendous
10:15impact on how you're able to actually
10:17function. But of course, it's also there
10:19because that is where your your memories
10:21are stored. They're not being renewed.
10:22They are stored within that system,
10:24stored in a very clever way. And your
10:27the purpose I suppose of us many ideas
10:30of what we mean by a sense of self or
10:32kind of a subjective experience of the
10:34world is arising from the function of
10:37that network. And anything that changes
10:39in your brain, anything you learn,
10:41anything that you remember from today is
10:43going to be because that network has
10:44remodeled and changed. The brain cells
10:46are talking to each other slightly
10:47differently. And that's how we encode
10:49information. There isn't anything else.
10:52That is the sum total. is an enormous
10:54structure, but that's that is that's
10:56what you've got to learn with and to be
10:58you. I think the only other thing I'd be
11:00interested in thinking about is selves
11:04or a self sense of self in terms of your
11:06interactions with other people because
11:08we're social primates. Our lives have
11:10meaning largely in the interactions we
11:12have with others. And that requires you
11:15not only to have a sense of the idea of
11:17other people's sense of selves and how
11:18they could be thinking and could be
11:20thinking differently from you about
11:22things but also arguably you need to
11:24have a model of how they're seeing you.
11:26What is their model of you as a self? So
11:29the kind of the social elements of this
11:30and of and the big changes I'm a very
11:33different person if I've been talking on
11:34the phone to my mom than I am if I've
11:37interacting with the police. You know,
11:38there's many different aspects of my
11:40behavior in place. And I got run over by
11:43somebody on a um a lime bike a couple of
11:47weeks ago.
11:47>> I ran over somebody on a line bike.
11:50>> I don't think it was you. I think you'd
11:51remember cuz I discovered that in my
11:53fight orflight response leans heavily on
11:55fight. I was very very cross and I
11:59couldn't understand. I could not
12:01understand why the woman kept asking if
12:03I was okay.
12:04>> Why you this stupid question, you
12:06absolute idiot. you haven't realized how
12:07stupid you've been. And I just hang on,
12:09hang on. Okay, she's just run me over
12:11with her bike. She's probably worried
12:12that she's hurt me physically. And I
12:15just, it took me minutes to get to that.
12:17So, you know, within milliseconds, you
12:19can be pro prompted into a place. I'm
12:21not normally that unpleasant. um
12:23[laughter]
12:24the normally running into me on a bike
12:26to will take you there but it's um that
12:29was a very you know I was just propelled
12:31into a completely different state of
12:33awareness fully driven by emotion which
12:36is of course a huge element of what we
12:38have seen which affects everything that
12:39everyone's talked about so far
Where is the theatre of experience located?
12:41>> well it's interesting the main question
12:42we've asked there is whether it's
12:43coherence to our distinct selves but
12:45you've all seem to set out your stall in
12:47regards to what it is to be a self to
12:49begin with and if I'm getting this right
12:51Sam thinks that selves are losery. Roger
12:54thinks that selves are constituted by
12:57consciousness and you seem to be saying
12:59that it's your brain, the contents of
13:00your brain and what other people see you
13:02as as well. So Sam, if the self's
13:07illusory, how do you make sense of
13:09conscious experiences and the contents
13:11of those experiences? Like where where
13:14is that conscious experience happening
13:16if not mine and myself now and yours and
13:19and yourself now? Where is this this
13:21theater of experience on your view?
13:24>> Well, we should distinguish
13:26consciousness from the self.
13:29In my view, consciousness is the one
13:32thing in this universe that actually
13:33can't be an illusion, right? Right? I
13:35mean, even if we're in the matrix, if
13:37this is just a simulation, if we're
13:38confused about everything, if our
13:40physics is fake physics cuz we're not in
13:43touch with the base layer of reality, if
13:45this is all a dream, you know, if you're
13:46the only person who exists and we're all
13:48in your dream, no matter how confused
13:50you could be about the nature of
13:52reality,
13:53one thing you can't be confused about is
13:55that something seems to be happening.
13:57And that seeming is the fact of
14:00consciousness. So I I'm I'm quite um
14:03convinced that consciousness as a
14:05concept and as a as a starting point
14:08just epistemologically to know anything
14:10is foundational. But that doesn't answer
14:13the question how to how it relates to
14:15the physics of things. Right? So I think
14:16the the jury is still out on just how to
14:20how to solve the the so-called mind body
14:22problem. uh which is to relate the the
14:25the fact that there's something that
14:26it's like to be us with the fact that
14:29that much of what's going on in the
14:31universe at least from the outside
14:32appears not to be conscious or not to be
14:35a basis for consciousness and and there
14:37are many different views that that
14:39people I'm sure have heard about uh you
14:41know idealism
14:43physicalism pansychism etc. Um I think
14:47you can table all of that all the
14:49metaphysics there and talk about the
14:51nature of experience however and come to
14:54realize that this uh notion of a center
14:59in the middle of consciousness that is
15:01unchanging this feeling of eye this
15:03feeling that it's that I'm behind my
15:05face that I'm a subject up in the head
15:08uh in some sense riding around in my
15:11body as a kind of passenger that that
15:13really is the default sense that I most
15:16people are referring to when they're
15:18talking about a self. They they don't
15:20feel identical to their bodies. They
15:22feel like they have bodies. They feel
15:24like they feel like they're in their in
15:26relationship to their body. If you have
15:27a terrible pain in your knee, you very
15:30likely feel like you're up in your head
15:31in some basic sense now resisting this
15:34pain, right? And this the pain is down
15:36there and you wish you wish it would go
15:38away. You know, everyone starts there.
15:40If if if you really try to interrogate
15:42this contemplatively, if you if you
15:44learn to meditate or you you have some
15:47other mode of introspection, you do
15:49start as this sense of being a subject
15:51in the head that is now trying to to
15:54figure out what's real about this sense
15:56of self. Um it is that sense that is
16:00elucery and it's it's that sense to
16:02connect with what Roger said about the
16:03split brain procedure. It's that sense
Split brain patients have two distinct consciousnesses
16:05that I think very clearly can be
16:07divided. I think when you when you cut
16:09the corpus colossum which is the the the
16:11series of of white matter tracks that
16:13that connect the two hemispheres of the
16:15brain that occasionally get get severed
16:17in in a surgery to mitigate grandmal
16:20seizures. Um when you cut the cut all of
16:22those fibers you are you were certainly
16:25dividing the access that each half of
16:28the brain has to certain phenomenal
16:31states. You know the sights, sounds,
16:32sensations and also motor control. And
16:36you do almost certainly produce two
16:39separate fields of experience which are
16:42not no longer integrated. And if if um
16:45and so as a matter of consciousness
16:47those are now separate, you know,
16:48conscious access to contents. But I
16:50would say as a matter of of a felt sense
16:53that there's a subject too. I think I
16:57think the question is probably open
16:58whether or not both hemispheres of the
16:59brain would form that to precisely the
17:01same degree. But um you know there's it
17:05was clear in for from some of the that
17:06fascinating research that they're almost
17:09different people in the in the two
17:10hemispheres. I mean they they have
17:12different beliefs. They have different
17:13desires. They can fight they can get
17:16into a tug of war over objects with you
17:18know the right and left hand.
17:19>> You know one one subject was embracing
17:22his wife while the other sub while the
17:23other with with one hand and trying to
17:25strangle her with another. Uh in any
17:28case, yeah, I think uh the sense that
17:31there's nothing lost at the level of
17:32consciousness really if you lose the
17:35sense of self except you lose the sense
17:37of self. And that that should give you
17:38some indication that it is a it is
17:41itself an object of consciousness. It is
17:43a it is an appearance of some kind.
17:45Otherwise, you could never feel that it
17:47could change or be lost. Yeah, that's uh
Is the Self continuous across time or caught in a constant cycle of death and rebirth?
17:50Roger, when you set out your your stall,
17:52you sort of gave your view, but also
17:54laid your own trap and said, "Here's my
17:56position, but here's the problem with my
17:58position." Have you got any uh
18:00intuitions on how it might be solved? It
18:02seems like more of a problem in terms of
18:04the self for your view than it does for
18:06for Sam's. I guess the question as you
18:08raised it was not just the question of
18:11consciousness but why one identifies the
18:15consciousness as a continuous thing
18:17which goes from early one's early
18:20childhood and remains the same thing in
18:22a certain sense until death which is the
18:26sort of a rational sort of view or is
18:29there a sense in which it starts all
18:30over again each time you wake up or
18:33whatever it is have a start having a
18:35dream or something I suppose
18:37And to identify it with the earlier ones
18:40is is a feature of memory.
18:43>> Now is it only memory? I suppose that's
18:45your question. Or is there in sense some
18:48entity which continues right through
18:52>> and then if someone under goes one of
18:54these split brain poor poor person
18:57operations to what happens to that
19:02train of experience? Do they
19:04I don't know the I mean I'm just it's a
19:06long-winded saying don't know I think
The curious case of Clive Wearing
19:08>> but Sophie you think memor is important
19:11here John Lock's example of the maybe
19:13he's got the first uh body swap tale got
19:17lots in in Hollywood now but the cobbler
19:20and the prince is locked. So, the
19:21cobbler wakes up in the prince's body.
19:23The prince wakes up in the cobbler's
19:24body. And it's because they have the
19:26same memories and the stream of
19:28consciousness that Roger's talking about
19:30that Loach thinks they're the same
19:32person despite having a completely
19:34different physical vessel which they
19:36occupy. Would you would you see yourself
19:38in part of that tradition that Loach was
19:39defending?
19:40>> I mean, yes. In that if you had a brain
19:44transplant, you would it would be a body
19:46swap. It would be your brain is you.
19:48That's the sort of where we're fairly
19:50confident you can have a heart
19:52transplant and you're not a different
19:53person. Um there are some really
19:56interesting points around memory. I was
19:59talking to Tom Manley my partner from
20:00Cambridge University and he's um we were
20:03talking about Clive Wearing earlier who
20:06is somebody who had a really horrible
20:09case of herpes and keilitis which is
20:12very very destructive of neural tissue.
20:14Different kinds of brain damage causes
20:16different kinds of damage. You intensity
20:18of damage and herpes really does it just
20:20destroys brain tissue. Do not catch it.
20:23Um and he how don't you catch it?
20:26>> Well, unfortunately most of us have got
20:28herpes. It's g cold sor. So we're we're
20:30kind of um
20:32>> and it's he's left and he's still alive.
20:36He was a musician. He worked at the BBC
20:38and he is left densely densely amnestic.
20:42He cannot form new memories. He has
20:45barely any access to old memories to the
20:47extent to which his conscious awareness
20:49is that he is continuously just waking
20:52up from a coma. Every other person with
20:55amnesia, you can give them a diary and
20:56they can write things down in their
20:58diary and they will make some use of
20:59that. He comes to across his diary and
21:00goes, "Someone's been writing in this."
21:02Crosses it out and then writes in, "I'm
21:04awake for the first time." Few
21:07seconds pass, he'll go, "Someone's been
21:09writing in my diary." Crosses it out. So
21:11he has it's desperate. It's horrible
21:14horrible situation. The weird thing is
21:17he knows who he is.
21:20>> He knows he he knows his name. He knows
21:22his wife. He can learn procedural things
21:25like where cups go in a cupboard. The
21:27sort of you know sensory motor stuff you
21:29don't need to have a a more detailed
21:31analysis maybe to learn maybe resting on
21:32different brain systems that he and he
21:35when he engages with music he is
21:37completely
21:38totally engaged. He can bring he can
21:40conduct music without flaw knows what
21:42he's doing. Outside of those few things,
21:45he really is absolutely all at sea
21:47except he knows himself.
21:49>> So there is some interesting kind of
21:53maybe that's what you're seeing of the
21:54self when you've taken away all
21:56possibility of memory helping you is a
21:58sense of who you are but nothing else
22:00until other things like your wife
22:02turning up or someone plays music that
22:03gives you something to hold on to. So,
Memory situates the Self
22:06so memory isn't necessary for for being
22:08a self.
22:09>> It's not maybe not necessary for being a
22:11self, but it maybe is necessary for
22:12being able to re situate that self into
22:16something that's meaningful and which
22:18calms you because he also has desperate
22:20problems with emotion regulation. Terri.
22:22He's very frightened and upset by what's
22:24happened. And your memories help you do
22:26that. If I go to sleep and I wake up the
22:28next day and everything about me is
22:30familiar, then memory is helping me not
22:31panic. If I woke up somewhere new and I
22:33didn't know where I was, I would be
22:35frightened. So memory is really
22:37important in helping us understand and
22:40that's the world around us. And of
22:41course, it's really help that's really
22:42important for being able to just
22:44regulate our moods within that.
22:46>> Well, let me push you on this and get
22:47some more of your thoughts on it. You
22:49gave the example earlier of, you know,
22:52you're a different person when you speak
22:53to your mother than when you do to the
22:55police. And that seems
22:56>> I'm not always talking to the police.
22:57I'm just an example. Just an example.
23:00And the the thought there is right we
23:02have different we all know we have
23:03different aspects of our personality but
23:04we still think it's the same me the same
23:07entity which was there 10 years ago 10
23:09minutes ago 10 seconds ago it's the same
23:11me throughout time there so I wonder
23:14what you think more particularly about
23:16whether or not we could have multiple of
23:19those entities which are me throughout
23:21time in one brain. So for example, you
23:23get people with uh like schizophrenia
23:26who feel like they've got multiple inner
23:28voices in their heads. People with cot
23:30syndrome who feel as if they're dead or
23:33they're having the thoughts of someone
23:34who's passed away and they don't feel
23:37like those thoughts are their thoughts
23:39but someone who's deceased like are
23:41those
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23:48full talk and thousands more. Thank you
23:51for being part of the conversation.