- Does consciousness have an on off switch?
(techno music)
I wanted to get philosophical this week
and talk about what is consciousness.
Now this is something that deep thinkers
have been puzzling over for generations.
Some people go so far as to say,
the best way to define it is to say what it isn't
and take that away, and what ever's left over
is your answer.
But how do you know when you're finished?
Personally, I think consciousness is all about awareness,
not just of your environment, but of yourself.
For example, I'm thinking, and I know that I'm thinking,
and I know that I'm talking about knowing
that I'm thinking.
Actually I do that a lot.
But what I also know is that we don't know that much
about the brain.
It's like we have a general map, but all the fine details
are missing.
One of those details is the gateway to consciousness.
But a team of doctors may have discovered it.
These guys work with George Washington University
and they're studying a patient who has epilepsy.
Now, epilepsy is caused by abnormal neuronal activity
in your brain.
It's when neurons just start to spark uncontrollably,
and one potential symptom is that you lose consciousness.
Well these doctors were stimulating parts
of this patient's brain to try and find out
where her seizures were coming from.
And when they stimulated a part called the claustrum,
the patient stopped what she was doing and just
stared off into space.
(slow jazz music)
When they stopped stimulating that part of her brain,
she recovered and she had no recollection
of what had just happened.
So it's possible that this team has found the on off switch
for human consciousness.
Now I say possible because we have to consider
there are a lot of factors here.
One, we've got a sample size of one person.
That's not enough to draw any kind of scientific
conclusion.
Two, this patient had had a previous surgery
where part of her hippocampus had been removed,
that's part of the brain that's associated with memory.
Well, that means that she's outside the norm.
So it may not be that her experience is representative
of anyone else's.
But let's assume for a moment that the team actually found
that on off switch.
What does that mean for the future?
Well for one thing it means that we have part of our brains
that, if stimulated, will lose consciousness
and not remember anything, which is a little freaky,
but it also means that we could learn more about
the mechanisms of consciousness and potentially
help people who lack awareness of their surroundings,
like people who are in a comatose state, or people
who suffer from amnesia.
It also means we might be able to determine what other
organisms also possess consciousness.
We might have to reclassify animals as those who have it
and those who don't.
And here's the kicker.
The science fiction jackpot.
If we understand enough about the mechanisms
of consciousness, we might be able to give that
to an artificial being, machine consciousness.
Now granted, any use of this information
is years, if not decades into the future,
but I love the idea that we're making baby steps
into a real scientific understanding of
what consciousness is and we did it by accident.
I've got a question for all of you this week.
How do you define consciousness?
I really wanna know in the comments below.
And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you hit
like and join our growing hive consciousness
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And if you haven't had enough, you have got to
check out this video about memory, the hippocampus,
and erasing and restoring thoughts with light!
They also surgically implanted optical fibers
into the rat's brain, so they could shine light
directly on neurons.
Now this stimulated the rat's brains as if they
had heard a sound, even though no sound was playing.
(electronic music)