Science of consciousness
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This episode is with Hakwan Lau, author of In Consciousness we Trust. Hakwan is a Team leader of laboratory of consciousness at Riken center for brain science, Japan. Here we talk about shortcomings in current theories about how the brain generates consciousness, neural correlates, methods to study consciousness, and Perceptual reality monitoring theory.
About the guest
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:54 Hakwan's background
00:03:08 Empirical evidence in science
00:04:03 Laboratory of consciousness
00:07:11 Are we giving too much respect to consciousness?
00:08:43 Problem of consciousness
00:12:42 Access and phenomenal consciousness
00:17:26 Local and global theories of consciousness
00:23:11 Most of the experiments for consciousness are done on vision
00:25:43 Neural correlates
00:30:21 Confounders in the experiments for perception and consciousness
00:38:45 Blindsight experiments
00:42:21 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
00:45:41 Importance of prefrontal cortex for subjective experience
00:47:11 Cognition and Metacognition
00:48:46 Importance of attention in the experiments
00:51:00 Perceptual Reality Monitoring theory
00:56:08 Unconscious experiences
00:59:39 Patients without prefrontal cortex
01:02:06 Consciousness is binary or gradient?
01:03:26 Evolution and consciousness
01:07:21 Consciousness at cellular level
01:10:29 Anesthetics and consciousness
01:13:35 Panpsychism
01:20:20 Changing science to focus on better questions
01:29:10 Major questions to understand consciousness
01:30:45 Thank you!