Name: Consciousness is a mystery
Uploaded: 2026-03-16T16:47:17.000Z
Duration: 39 min 3 s
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So the fact that we have this three pound, spongy thing in our skulls that produces the experience of being a subjective self, is that maybe the greatest remaining mystery in science for you or.

I list it as one of three great mysteries.

The other two are how do you get from dead matter to life?

And then the third is why is there anything and not nothing?

Consciousness is probably the second most tractable.

I was thinking about what I loved so much about this book of yours, this new book, and

I think it's kind of what I love about all of your work, Michael.

You know, it really seems to be defined and driven by the questions.

Not that you're not interested in the answers, but

it's the curiosity and the openness to the many possible answers that really seems to be the anchor of the thing.

And that is what I feel like makes great science writing, which is why you are, if not our best, certainly one of our best science writers.

I am more interested in questions than answers.

They're usually more interesting, and they also can drive a narrative in a way that answers can't.

And so, you know, I teach my students, you know, if you can frame a couple really good questions at the top of a piece, you're in, you're.

You're really in good shape because that's what's going to drive people forward.

Well, speaking of questions, I'm not going to ask you to define consciousness.

Well, I think instead I'll just start out by asking you why consciousness has proven so impossibly hard to define.

One is we can't get outside it, so we can't attain that kind of view from nowhere perspective that allows us to formulate really tight definitions of things.

Every tool we have to understand consciousness and define consciousness is a product of consciousness.

So we're sort of lost in this labyrinth that I think makes it makes it difficult.

You know, people don't think of it this way, but

even the scientific enterprise is a product of consciousness.

Every choice of problems to solve, every measurement device, every perspective we take, all these are products of consciousness.

And so we are in this loop and it's not easy to get out of.

Defining consciousness is hard in one way, and then not at all Hard in another.

I mean, there's nothing we know with more certainty than the fact that we're conscious.

I think subjective experience is a pretty good definition, does a lot of work, and

I, I also like Thomas Nagel's, you know, what is it like to be a bat?

If it is like something, if it feels like something to be whatever creature you want to think about, then it's conscious.

And you can't say that about, you know, your home appliances.

So the fact that we have this three pound spongy thing in our skulls that produces the experience of being a subjective self, is that maybe the greatest remaining mystery in science for you or.

I listed as one of three great mysteries.

It is worth saying that there is no reason that it should feel like something to be me.

I mean, feeling like a self is not a condition of life.

I mean, don't you think we could just survive perfectly fine as highly sophisticated zombies?

And it's one way to phrase the hard problem as, you know, so much of what your brain does, it does outside of the space of our awareness, right?

It's monitoring your body 24 7, it's adjusting your temperature, your blood glucose.

I mean, it's doing an incredible amount of work to keep you, keep you alive, maintaining homeostasis.

the best reasons for that I've heard from the scientists I've interviewed, is that you can automate things in a fairly predictable world, but

in realms that are fundamentally unpredictable, like human social life, you can't.

You need a space in which to imagine counterfactuals.

The fact that we live in a very intricate social environment as humans requires consciousness, or put another way, has made people who had consciousness thrive and survive.

I thought that was a pretty good explanation.

this comes from Mark Soames, who's one of the consciousness researchers I interviewed several times.

Sometimes we have incommensurate needs and they're maybe in conflict.

You're hungry and you're tired, which should you privilege.

But they're more complicated ones where we feel two needs or have two desires that are at odds.

And that is when you need a space of deliberation, a space of creativity where you can navigate it.

So that's another, you know, situation that might have turned zombies into conscious human beings.

I was going to ask, I mean, is there some obvious evolutionary purpose for consciousness?

You know, it's hard to say what came first.

We have this long period of total dependence as.

As children, much longer than any other animal.

And if we don't understand the other people in our world, and

if we don't, if we fail to anticipate what they're likely to do or say, we're not going to do.

And the people who have that space of imagination, you know, we call it philosophy of mind, right?

The ability to imagine the points of view of other people.

This is fundamental to our success as social beings, our survival as social beings.

So, you know, like all evolutionary stories, there's a just so element here.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Consciousness is a mystery

perspective

weird

conscious

phenomenon