There's a lot of hard problems in science but only one of them is called
the hard problem and that's consciousness. How does the big pink
squishy thing inside my noggin interpret my entire experience of life? To find
that out I have trapped a neuroscientist in an elevator so I'm gonna go get her
to explain. We better go she's been in there a while.
Hello!
So one of my favorite things is that I just get to come in and ask a
bunch of really difficult questions and somebody else has to answer them and I
hear that what I'm asking today is actually sometimes called the hard
problem. Yeah it's a really hard problem this one. People have been trying to work
this problem out for thousands of years. Yeah. Great well, you have an elevator
ride to try and explain it to me. I'll do my best. Okay ready? What is
consciousness? Well from a neurobiological perspective
consciousness is our kind of brains' awareness, being aware of our inner self ,
our inner world and the world around us. Okay that sounds pretty simple. What
makes it hard? Well we don't exactly know how the brain creates that experience. It
doesn't really seem to exist in any specific part of the brain. Instead it's
something to do with different regions and different networks in the brain
having conversations and sending messages back and forward. One
really nice analogy is to think about it as being like a theater. So we have a
stage with a spotlight and... (I'll get the next one.) Sorry! ... Whatever is on the stage in the light is what's
in our conscious awareness. What we kind of noticing at that point of time and
then you've got what's in the wings and what's backstage and the orchestra
pit and all that's kind of going on. So we might even have thoughts happening
backstage we're not aware of. So backstage is subconsciousness? That's one
way to think about it but you know when you have an aha moment or an insight? That
maybe when a thought that's been backstage kind of comes into our
conscious awareness. Okay yep. What's unconsciousness then? Yeah that is a really
good question and it's really hard from a neuroscience perspective to measure
that because... Oh we're at the top. We're halfway through. Yeah seems totally easy.
It's fine. We all experience being unconscious everyday when we like in
deep sleep or when someone's had a general anesthetic or if you know
someone's in a coma. I think it's important to define consciousness and understand
unconsciousness because that is going to inform end-of-life decision making. Is
this stuff going on in their subconscious that we just can't measure?
So is it possible for us to create consciousness through like AI or
anything like that? If that fits a lot of the definitions of consciousness... Oh my
gosh!
Oh my god!
What happened? Did...? I was very conscious of that experience. That sensation... Mmm?
Hi. Hello? We're stuck in the elevator. It's not moving.
Please come back.
I'd like to see our faces when that happened.
I think I think it's working again. Okay let's try. Oh yep it's moving. I think.
We're good. It's not going really fast like it did. Okay - consciousness...Tell me. Where were we?
So what's happening in the brain
when you're conscious versus unconscious? What does that actually look like? Well
we can use fMRI or brain imaging to get a look at what neural signatures look
like. In someone who's unconscious signals are coming into the brain but they're
not moving around. They're decoupled. The conversations are sort of stopped. So
what does that mean? So there's still messages being transmitted but then
they're not going anywhere else? The different parts of the brain aren't in
communication with each other and that's why we think it's that communication,
those networks talking, that's where consciousness is somehow emerging. Is
there a difference between unconscious in say a medically induced coma versuses
sleep? That's a really good question. If someone's in deep deep deep sleep we
don't see the same neural signatures that we do in someone who is anesthetized but
someone who is anesthetized does have a similar neural signature to
someone who is perhaps in a vegetative state or a coma. Are humans the only
things that are conscious because I would instinctively say "no" but... Probably
not because we think that our neurobiology creates consciousness but
whether or not other animals like my dog for example has the ability to reflect
on his own thoughts? One of the problems with consciousness is we rely on people
being able to explain their experience of it to us and dogs don't have language to
be able to do that. And everyone experiences stuff differently? I guess
that's why it is such a hard problem because it comes back so much to our own
personal experiences and sense of who we are. We now have the shared experience of
getting stuck in this elevator for a short time together. Yeah with that whole drop and
that sudden stop and that whole life death thing. That was scary and unexpected.
Thank you so much
Can you open the door?
When I walked out of the lift on that one it seemed pretty simple and on
further reflection I think that's because humans all have a pretty
innate idea of what consciousness is. We all experience it? But if you were to
think about someone in a vegetative state, in a coma, that you know doesn't
seem to have much brain activity you would not necessarily feel a whole lot
of moral qualms about giving them a quiet end to life. You would often I
guess think of it as being quite kind. But is that right if we can't measure it?
If we can't measure if someone's conscious we just know that they're
unresponsive and they don't have a lot of brain activity and we choose to end
their life, is that the right thing to do? Could they still be conscious and we
just don't know it? So I think consciousness is a really big tricky one.
A lot trickier than I thought it was when we started and I think we're gonna
need a taller building for this one.
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