John Searle: Our shared condition -- consciousness

Summary

El script explora la conciencia como un fenómeno biológico crucial y a menudo descuidado en la cultura científica y filosófica. El orador argumenta que la conciencia es esencial para cualquier cosa que tenga importancia en nuestras vidas, y critica las opiniones extremas y la lentitud del progreso en el estudio de la conciencia. Desafía las tradiciones dualistas religiosas y el materialismo científico, que ven la conciencia como una ilusión o algo ajeno al mundo físico. Propone que la conciencia es una realidad biológica, subrayando que todos los estados de conciencia son causados y se realizan en el cerebro a través de procesos neurobiológicos. El orador también aborda la naturaleza subjetiva de la conciencia y su capacidad causal en el comportamiento, argumentando que la ciencia puede y debe analizar la conciencia objetivamente, al igual que lo hace con otros fenómenos biológicos.

Takeaways

• 🧐 **Conciencia como fenómeno biológico**: La conciencia es un fenómeno biológico genuino, sujeto a análisis científico como cualquier otro en biología.
• 🤔 **La negligencia de la conciencia**: La conciencia es un tema descuidado tanto en la cultura científica como filosófica, a pesar de ser esencial para la importancia de todo en nuestras vidas.
• 📈 **Progresión lenta en la investigación**: El progreso en el estudio de la conciencia ha sido lento, y aunque recientemente se ha ganado más aceptación académica, sigue siendo un campo de estudio desafiante.
• 🏛️ **Dualismo religioso y materialismo científico**: Ambas tradiciones, a pesar de parecer opuestas, comparten la creencia de que la conciencia no es parte del mundo físico.
• 🚫 **Objeciones a la conciencia**: Algunas teorías argumentan que la conciencia es una ilusión, una computación en el cerebro o que no influye en el mundo, pero estas son refutadas por la experiencia directa.
• 🤲 **Conciencia y el cuerpo**: La conciencia tiene una dimensión causal en el comportamiento, como se demuestra con acciones intencionales como levantar el brazo.
• 🧬 **Procesos neurobiológicos**: Los estados de conciencia están causados por procesos neurobiológicos en el cerebro y se realizan como características del sistema.
• 🌈 **Características de la conciencia**: La conciencia es real e irreducible, tiene un carácter cualitativo, es subjetiva y forma parte de un campo de conciencia unificado.
• 💻 **Conciencia no es un programa de computadora**: La conciencia no es simplemente un programa que se ejecuta en el cerebro; tiene contenido semántico además de la sintaxis.
• 🌌 **Realidad creada por la conciencia**: La conciencia es capaz de crear una realidad observador-independiente, como el dinero, la propiedad o las instituciones.
• 🔍 **Ciencia objetiva de la conciencia**: Es posible tener una ciencia objetiva que hable sobre un dominio cuya existencia es subjetiva, como lo son los estados de conciencia.

Q & A

¿Por qué la conciencia es un tema descuidado tanto en la cultura científica como filosófica?

La conciencia es un tema descuidado porque, a pesar de ser el aspecto más importante de nuestras vidas, ha sido relegado por tradiciones culturales y filosóficas que la ven como una parte del mundo espiritual en lugar de una parte del mundo físico.

¿Por qué la conciencia es considerada como el número uno en términos de importancia?

La conciencia es considerada de首要重要性 porque es una condición necesaria para que cualquier cosa tenga importancia en nuestras vidas. Sin conciencia, las actividades como la ciencia, la filosofía, la música o el arte carecerían de valor.

¿Cuál fue la actitud de los neurobiólogos cuando se le preguntó sobre la conciencia?

La actitud de los neurobiólogos fue de impaciencia, y uno de ellos incluso sugirió que era mejor obtener la tenura antes de interesarse por la conciencia.

¿Por qué la dualidad religiosa y el materialismo científico podrían estar paralizando el avance en el estudio de la conciencia?

Ambas tradiciones comparten un conjunto común de suposiciones que excluyen la conciencia del mundo físico. La dualidad religiosa la sitúa en el mundo espiritual, mientras que el materialismo la niega o la reduce a un programa de ordenador, impidiendo así un enfoque integrado desde la ciencia.

¿Cómo se define la conciencia según el orador?

La conciencia se define como una colección de estados de sentimiento, sensibilidad o conciencia, que comienza cuando uno despierta de un sueño sin夢 (sueño sin contenido) y continúa hasta que uno se vuelve inconsciente por cualquier motivo.

¿Por qué la conciencia no puede ser considerada una ilusión?

La conciencia no puede ser una ilusión porque su existencia es subjetiva y auto-experimentada. Si algo parece conscientemente que existe, entonces existe para la conciencia.

¿Cómo se relaciona la conciencia con el comportamiento?

La conciencia funciona causalmente en el comportamiento. Un estado consciente, como la decisión de levantar el brazo, desencadena una secuencia de eventos biológicos que resultan en un movimiento físico.

¿Por qué la idea de que la conciencia es un programa de computadora es incorrecta?

La conciencia es más que la manipulación de símbolos; tiene un contenido semántico además de la sintaxis. La computación es una actividad definida por el manejo de símbolos y solo existe en relación con la conciencia.

¿Cómo la conciencia puede ser una realidad independiente del observador?

La conciencia crea una realidad independiente del observador en el sentido de que da existencia a conceptos como el dinero, la propiedad, el gobierno, etc., cuya existencia es relativa a los agentes conscientes.

¿Por qué la objetividad y la subjetividad no son mutually exclusive en el estudio de la conciencia?

Pueden hacerse afirmaciones objetivas sobre un dominio cuyo modo de existencia es subjetivo. La ciencia puede analizar la conciencia de manera objetiva, a pesar de que la conciencia sea una experiencia subjetiva.

¿Por qué el behaviorismo no puede ser una explicación satisfactoria de la conciencia?

El behaviorismo falla porque no puede explicar los estados mentales internos que no tienen una correlación directa con el comportamiento, como el dolor interno que no se manifiesta en comportamiento.

¿Cuál es el mensaje final que el orador quiere dejar con el público?

El mensaje final es que la conciencia debe ser aceptada como un fenómeno biológico genuino, sujeto a análisis científico, al igual que cualquier otro fenómeno en biología o en la ciencia en general.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 La conciencia: un tema descuidado

El primer párrafo aborda la importancia de la conciencia como el aspecto más crucial de nuestras vidas, tanto en la cultura científica como filosófica. Se destaca que la conciencia es un tema poco explorado y se cuestiona por qué, considerando su relevancia fundamental. Además, se menciona la tendencia a decir cosas alarmantes sobre la conciencia y la lentitud en el progreso de su estudio. Se discute la actitud de algunos neurocientíficos y cómo la conciencia ha sido relegada en la jerarquía de intereses académicos. Finalmente, se sugiere que la conciencia debería ser vista como un fenómeno biológico más que como una cuestión de dualismo religioso o materialismo científico.

05:03

🧠 La conciencia como fenómeno biológico

El segundo párrafo profundiza en la naturaleza de la conciencia como un fenómeno biológico, similar a procesos como la fotosíntesis o la digestión. Se argumenta que la conciencia es real y no puede ser eliminada como una ilusión. Se proporciona una definición de sentido común de la conciencia, que incluye estados de sentimiento, sensibilidad y conciencia desde la despertar hasta el sueño o la muerte. Se discute la famosa cuestión del problema mente-cuerpo y se ofrece una solución sencilla: todos los estados de conciencia son causados por procesos neurobiológicos en el cerebro y se realizan como características del sistema en el cerebro. Además, se describen características adicionales de la conciencia, como su carácter subjetivo y su capacidad de funcionar causalmente en el comportamiento.

10:04

💡 Refutando objeciones y el futuro de la conciencia

El tercer párrafo se enfoca en responder a objeciones comunes sobre la conciencia, como la idea de que es una ilusión o una programación de ordenador en el cerebro. Se refuta la idea de que la conciencia pueda ser reducida a un programa informático, argumentando que la conciencia tiene contenido semántico además de la sintaxis. Además, se discute cómo la conciencia crea una realidad independiente del observador, como el dinero, la propiedad o las instituciones. Se concluye que la conciencia debe ser aceptada como un fenómeno biológico genuino, sujeto a análisis científico, y que la ciencia objetiva puede tratar sobre un dominio cuyo modo de existencia es subjetivo.

Keywords

💡Conciencia

La conciencia es el tema central del video y se refiere a los estados de sentimiento, percepción o ser consciente. Se define como un fenómeno biológico real e irreducible, que es necesariamente una condición para cualquier cosa ser importante en nuestras vidas. En el video, se discute cómo la conciencia es subestimada en la cultura científica y filosófica y cómo su comprensión es crucial para entender nuestra existencia y nuestras acciones.

💡Dualismo religioso

El dualismo religioso es una tradición que separa la conciencia del mundo físico, considerándola parte del mundo espiritual y de la 'alma'. En el video, se argumenta que esta visión ha influido negativamente en la investigación de la conciencia, al rechazar la posibilidad de que la conciencia sea un fenómeno físico o biológico.

💡Materialismo científico

El materialismo científico es la postura opuesta al dualismo religioso que, a pesar de su aparente oposición, comparte la creencia de que la conciencia no es parte del mundo físico. Según esta perspectiva, la conciencia no existe o es algo secundario, como un programa de computadora, lo que la excluye del ámbito de la ciencia. El video refuta esta idea argumentando que la conciencia es un fenómeno biológico real.

💡Ilusión

En el video, se menciona la teoría de que la conciencia es una ilusión, similar a los atardeceres o los arcoíris, que son fenómenos naturales que给我们一种感觉 de realidad pero no corresponden a una realidad física objetiva. Sin embargo, el orador refuta esta idea argumentando que la conciencia es una experiencia real y no puede ser negada simplemente porque parece ser una ilusión.

💡Programa de computadora

Algunos argumentan que la conciencia es como un programa de computadora que se ejecuta en el cerebro. El video desafía esta idea, señalando que la conciencia tiene contenido semántico además de la sintaxis que caracteriza a los programas de computadora. Además, la conciencia es un fenómeno subjetivo y no puede ser reducida a un conjunto de símbolos o algoritmos.

💡Comportamentalismo

El comportamentalismo es una teoría que sostiene que los estados mentales son idénticos a los comportamientos observables. El video lo considera un error y lo refuta mediante la distinción entre el sentimiento de un dolor y el comportamiento asociado al dolor. El comportamentalismo es presentado como un malentendido basado en la creencia de que aceptar la existencia de la conciencia implica renunciar a la ciencia.

💡Causalidad

La causalidad en el contexto de la conciencia se refiere a cómo los estados mentales pueden influir en el comportamiento físico, como en el ejemplo del orador que decide conscientemente levantar su brazo. El video argumenta que hay una secuencia de disparos neuronales que culmina en la acción física, mostrando cómo la conciencia puede tener un efecto causal en el mundo físico.

💡Unidad de la conciencia

La unidad de la conciencia hace referencia a cómo diferentes sensaciones y percepciones se integran en una sola experiencia consciente. Esto se contrasta con la idea de que la conciencia es una simple agregación de estímulos sensoriales. El video sugiere que esta unidad es clave para entender el poder de la conciencia y su capacidad para influir en el comportamiento.

💡Neurobiología

La neurobiología es la rama de la biología que estudia el cerebro y el sistema nervioso. En el video, la neurobiología es relevante para entender los procesos biológicos subyacentes de la conciencia. Aunque se menciona la frustración de algunos neurobiólogos al abordar el tema de la conciencia, el video insiste en la importancia de su estudio para comprender la naturaleza de la conciencia.

💡Problema mente-cuerpo

El problema mente-cuerpo es una cuestión filosófica que trata sobre la relación entre la mente (conciencia) y el cuerpo (físico). El video ofrece una solución sencilla: todos los estados de conciencia son causados por procesos neurobiológicos y se realizan en el cerebro como características del sistema. Esto reduce la misteriosa apariencia del problema al compararlo con la condición de líquido del agua.

💡Realidad observador-independiente

La realidad observador-independiente es la idea de que ciertos aspectos de la realidad, como el dinero o la propiedad, son creados y existen independientemente de la percepción de un observador. En el video, se argumenta que la conciencia es capaz de crear una realidad que, aunque es relativa a los agentes conscientes, tiene una existencia objetiva en el mundo.

Highlights

Consciousness is a curiously neglected subject in both scientific and philosophical culture, despite being the most important aspect of our lives.

Interest in consciousness often leads to people saying the most appalling things, reflecting a slow progress in research.

The reluctance and hostility towards consciousness stem from a combination of religious dualism and scientific materialism, both of which deny its physical existence.

The speaker argues that consciousness is a biological phenomenon like photosynthesis or digestion, which can resolve many of the hard problems about consciousness.

Consciousness does not exist according to some, being an illusion like a sunset. However, the speaker refutes this by emphasizing its undeniable reality.

Some believe consciousness is a computer program running in the brain, but the speaker argues that computation is observer-relative, not absolute like consciousness.

Behaviorism, which equates mental states with behavior, is criticized as being refuted by the simple act of distinguishing between feeling pain and exhibiting pain behavior.

The speaker defines consciousness as consisting of all states of feeling, sentience, or awareness, from waking to sleeping or death.

Conscious states are caused by lower-level neurobiological processes and realized in the brain as higher-level features, akin to the liquidity of water.

Consciousness is real, irreducible, and cannot be dismissed as an illusion in the way other phenomena can.

All conscious states have a qualitative character, feeling a certain way that is inherently subjective and unique to the individual.

Consciousness exists as a unified field, integrating different sensory experiences into a single conscious experience.

Consciousness functions causally in behavior, demonstrated by the speaker's ability to raise his arm consciously.

The same event can be described at different levels - neurobiological and mental - showing that consciousness is part of the natural world.

The existence of phenomena like money, property, and government are observer-relative, created by consciousness.

The speaker emphasizes the need to accept consciousness as a genuine biological phenomenon subject to scientific analysis, like any other in biology or science.

Transcripts

I'm going to talk about consciousness.

Why consciousness?

Well, it's a curiously neglected subject,

both in our scientific and our philosophical culture.

Now why is that curious?

Well, it is the most important aspect of our lives

for a very simple, logical reason,

namely, it's a necessary condition on anything

being important in our lives that we're conscious.

You care about science, philosophy, music, art, whatever --

it's no good if you're a zombie or in a coma, right?

So consciousness is number one.

The second reason is that when people do

get interested in it, as I think they should,

they tend to say the most appalling things.

And then, even when they're not saying appalling things

and they're really trying to do serious research,

well, it's been slow. Progress has been slow.

When I first got interested in this, I thought, well,

it's a straightforward problem in biology.

Let's get these brain stabbers to get busy and figure out

how it works in the brain.

So I went over to UCSF and I talked to all

the heavy-duty neurobiologists there,

and they showed some impatience,

as scientists often do when you ask them embarrassing questions.

But the thing that struck me is, one guy said in exasperation,

a very famous neurobiologist, he said, "Look,

in my discipline it's okay to be interested in consciousness,

but get tenure first. Get tenure first."

Now I've been working on this for a long time.

I think now you might actually get tenure

by working on consciousness.

If so, that's a real step forward.

Okay, now why then is this curious reluctance

and curious hostility to consciousness?

Well, I think it's a combination of two features

of our intellectual culture

that like to think they're opposing each other

but in fact they share a common set of assumptions.

One feature is the tradition of religious dualism:

Consciousness is not a part of the physical world.

It's a part of the spiritual world.

It belongs to the soul,

and the soul is not a part of the physical world.

That's the tradition of God, the soul and immortality.

There's another tradition that thinks it's opposed to this

but accepts the worst assumption.

That tradition thinks that we are heavy-duty scientific materialists:

Consciousness is not a part of the physical world.

Either it doesn't exist at all, or it's something else,

a computer program or some damn fool thing,

but in any case it's not part of science.

And I used to get in an argument that really gave me a stomachache.

Here's how it went.

Science is objective, consciousness is subjective,

therefore there cannot be a science of consciousness.

Okay, so these twin traditions are paralyzing us.

It's very hard to get out of these twin traditions.

And I have only one real message in this lecture,

and that is, consciousness is a biological phenomenon

like photosynthesis, digestion, mitosis --

you know all the biological phenomena -- and once you accept that,

most, though not all, of the hard problems

about consciousness simply evaporate.

And I'm going to go through some of them.

Okay, now I promised you to tell you some

of the outrageous things said about consciousness.

One: Consciousness does not exist.

It's an illusion, like sunsets.

Science has shown sunsets and rainbows are illusions.

So consciousness is an illusion.

Two: Well, maybe it exists, but it's really something else.

It's a computer program running in the brain.

Three: No, the only thing that exists is really behavior.

It's embarrassing how influential behaviorism was,

but I'll get back to that.

And four: Maybe consciousness exists,

but it can't make any difference to the world.

How could spirituality move anything?

Now, whenever somebody tells me that, I think,

you want to see spirituality move something?

Watch. I decide consciously to raise my arm,

and the damn thing goes up. (Laughter)

Furthermore, notice this:

We do not say, "Well, it's a bit like the weather in Geneva.

Some days it goes up and some days it doesn't go up."

No. It goes up whenever I damn well want it to.

Okay. I'm going to tell you how that's possible.

Now, I haven't yet given you a definition.

You can't do this if you don't give a definition.

People always say consciousness is very hard to define.

I think it's rather easy to define

if you're not trying to give a scientific definition.

We're not ready for a scientific definition,

but here's a common-sense definition.

Consciousness consists of all those states of feeling

or sentience or awareness.

It begins in the morning when you wake up from a dreamless sleep,

and it goes on all day until you fall asleep

or die or otherwise become unconscious.

Dreams are a form of consciousness on this definition.

Now, that's the common-sense definition. That's our target.

If you're not talking about that, you're not talking about consciousness.

But they think, "Well, if that's it, that's an awful problem.

How can such a thing exist as part of the real world?"

And this, if you've ever had a philosophy course,

this is known as the famous mind-body problem.

I think that has a simple solution too. I'm going to give it to you.

And here it is: All of our conscious states, without exception,

are caused by lower-level neurobiological processes in the brain,

and they are realized in the brain

as higher-level or system features.

It's about as mysterious as the liquidity of water.

Right? The liquidity is not an extra juice squirted out

by the H2O molecules.

It's a condition that the system is in.

And just as the jar full of water can go from liquid to solid

depending on the behavior of the molecules,

so your brain can go from a state of being conscious

to a state of being unconscious,

depending on the behavior of the molecules.

The famous mind-body problem is that simple.

All right? But now we get into some harder questions.

Let's specify the exact features of consciousness,

so that we can then answer those four objections

that I made to it.

Well, the first feature is, it's real and irreducible.

You can't get rid of it.

You see, the distinction between reality and illusion

is the distinction between how things

consciously seem to us and how they really are.

It consciously seems like there's --

I like the French "arc-en-ciel" —

it seems like there's an arch in the sky,

or it seems like the sun is setting over the mountains.

It consciously seems to us, but that's not really happening.

But for that distinction between

how things consciously seem and how they really are,

you can't make that distinction for the very existence of consciousness,

because where the very existence of consciousness is concerned,

if it consciously seems to you that you are conscious,

you are conscious.

I mean, if a bunch of experts come to me and say,

"We are heavy-duty neurobiologists and we've done a study

of you, Searle, and we're convinced you are not conscious,

you are a very cleverly constructed robot,"

I don't think, "Well, maybe these guys are right, you know?"

I don't think that for a moment, because, I mean,

Descartes may have made a lot of mistakes, but he was right about this.

You cannot doubt the existence of your own consciousness.

Okay, that's the first feature of consciousness.

It's real and irreducible.

You cannot get rid of it by showing that it's an illusion

in a way that you can with other standard illusions.

Okay, the second feature is this one

that has been such a source of trouble to us,

and that is, all of our conscious states

have this qualitative character to them.

There's something that it feels like to drink beer

which is not what it feels like to do your income tax

or listen to music, and this qualitative feel

automatically generates a third feature,

namely, conscious states are by definition subjective

in the sense that they only exist as experienced

by some human or animal subject,

some self that experiences them.

Maybe we'll be able to build a conscious machine.

Since we don't know how our brains do it,

we're not in a position, so far, to build a conscious machine.

Okay. Another feature of consciousness

is that it comes in unified conscious fields.

So I don't just have the sight of the people in front of me

and the sound of my voice and the weight of my shoes

against the floor, but they occur to me

as part of one single great conscious field

that stretches forward and backward.

That is the key to understanding

the enormous power of consciousness.

And we have not been able to do that in a robot.

The disappointment of robotics derives from the fact

that we don't know how to make a conscious robot,

so we don't have a machine that can do this kind of thing.

Okay, the next feature of consciousness,

after this marvelous unified conscious field,

is that it functions causally in our behavior.

I gave you a scientific demonstration by raising my hand,

but how is that possible?

How can it be that this thought in my brain

can move material objects?

Well, I'll tell you the answer.

I mean, we don't know the detailed answer,

but we know the basic part of the answer, and that is,

there is a sequence of neuron firings,

and they terminate where the acetylcholine

is secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons.

Sorry to use philosophical terminology here,

but when it's secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons,

a whole lot of wonderful things happen in the ion channels

and the damned arm goes up.

Now, think of what I told you.

One and the same event,

my conscious decision to raise my arm

has a level of description where it has all of these

touchy-feely spiritual qualities.

It's a thought in my brain, but at the same time,

it's busy secreting acetylcholine

and doing all sorts of other things

as it makes its way from the motor cortex

down through the nerve fibers in the arm.

Now, what that tells us is that our traditional vocabularies

for discussing these issues are totally obsolete.

One and the same event has a level of description

where it's neurobiological, and another level of description

where it's mental, and that's a single event,

and that's how nature works. That's how it's possible

for consciousness to function causally.

Okay, now with that in mind,

with going through these various features of consciousness,

let's go back and answer some of those early objections.

Well, the first one I said was, consciousness doesn't exist,

it's an illusion. Well, I've already answered that.

I don't think we need to worry about that.

But the second one had an incredible influence,

and may still be around, and that is,

"Well, if consciousness exists, it's really something else.

It's really a digital computer program running in your brain

and that's what we need to do to create consciousness

is get the right program.

Yeah, forget about the hardware. Any hardware will do

provided it's rich enough and stable enough to carry the program."

Now, we know that that's wrong.

I mean, anybody who's thought about computers at all

can see that that's wrong, because computation

is defined as symbol manipulation,

usually thought of as zeros as ones, but any symbols will do.

You get an algorithm that you can program

in a binary code, and that's the defining trait

of the computer program.

But we know that that's purely syntactical. That's symbolic.

We know that actual human consciousness has something more than that.

It's got a content in addition to the syntax.

It's got a semantics.

Now that argument, I made that argument 30 --

oh my God, I don't want to think about it —

more than 30 years ago,

but there's a deeper argument implicit in what I've told you,

and I want to tell you that argument briefly, and that is,

consciousness creates an observer-independent reality.

It creates a reality of money, property, government,

marriage, CERN conferences,

cocktail parties and summer vacations,

and all of those are creations of consciousness.

Their existence is observer-relative.

It's only relative to conscious agents that a piece of paper

is money or that a bunch of buildings is a university.

Now, ask yourself about computation.

Is that absolute, like force and mass and gravitational attraction?

Or is it observer-relative?

Well, some computations are intrinsic.

I add two plus two to get four.

That's going on no matter what anybody thinks.

But when I haul out my pocket calculator

and do the calculation, the only intrinsic phenomenon

is the electronic circuit and its behavior.

That's the only absolute phenomenon.

All the rest is interpreted by us.

Computation only exists relative to consciousness.

Either a conscious agent is carrying out the computation,

or he's got a piece of machinery that admits of a computational interpretation.

Now that doesn't mean computation is arbitrary.

I spent a lot of money on this hardware.

But we have this persistent confusion

between objectivity and subjectivity as features of reality

and objectivity and subjectivity as features of claims.

And the bottom line of this part of my talk is this:

You can have a completely objective science,

a science where you make objectively true claims,

about a domain whose existence is subjective,

whose existence is in the human brain

consisting of subjective states of sentience

or feeling or awareness.

So the objection that you can't have an objective science of consciousness

because it's subjective and science is objective, that's a pun.

That's a bad pun on objectivity and subjectivity.

You can make objective claims

about a domain that is subjective in its mode of existence,

and indeed that's what neurologists do.

I mean, you have patients that actually suffer pains,

and you try to get an objective science of that.

Okay, I promised to refute all these guys,

and I don't have an awful lot of time left,

but let me refute a couple more of them.

I said that behaviorism ought to be

one of the great embarrassments of our intellectual culture,

because it's refuted the moment you think about it.

Your mental states are identical with your behavior?

Well, think about the distinction between feeling a pain

and engaging in pain behavior.

I won't demonstrate pain behavior, but I can tell you

I'm not having any pains right now.

So it's an obvious mistake. Why did they make the mistake?

The mistake was — and you can go back and read

the literature on this, you can see this over and over —

they think if you accept the irreducible existence

of consciousness, you're giving up on science.

You're giving up on 300 years of human progress

and human hope and all the rest of it.

And the message I want to leave you with is,

consciousness has to become accepted

as a genuine biological phenomenon,

as much subject to scientific analysis

as any other phenomenon in biology,

or, for that matter, the rest of science.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)