A great lecture given by Susan Greenfield, who is a researcher focused on brain physiology, particularly on the brain mechanisms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
What she argues in this lecture is an inspiring idea on modelling any scientific concept on a continuous scale rather than being discrete. When we mention consciousness, we automatically think of it as it exists or not, analogous to thinking of a light bulb being only on or off, or a bit being equal to 1 or 0. What about thinking of a degree of consciousness, modeling it as a variable which can take values between 0 and 1, rather than being only 0 or 1? This perspective also provides answers to the questions about when a foetus becomes consciouses, or how much consciouses are you under the influence of drugs or alcohol? I hope you enjoy listening the neuroscientific point of view of such a concept discussed among philosophers and biologist for centuries, and yet cannot be defined nor explained completely.
What she argues in this lecture is an inspiring idea on modelling any scientific concept on a continuous scale rather than being discrete. When we mention consciousness, we automatically think of it as it exists or not, analogous to thinking of a light bulb being only on or off, or a bit being equal to 1 or 0. What about thinking of a degree of consciousness, modeling it as a variable which can take values between 0 and 1, rather than being only 0 or 1? This perspective also provides answers to the questions about when a foetus becomes consciouses, or how much consciouses are you under the influence of drugs or alcohol? I hope you enjoy listening the neuroscientific point of view of such a concept discussed among philosophers and biologist for centuries, and yet cannot be defined nor explained completely.
