How did consciousness evolve? - with Nicholas Humphrey

The Royal Institution3 HN recommenders · 2023–2024
333K views · lecture · evergreen · Uploaded 2023-09-21

A Royal Institution lecture in which Nicholas Humphrey presents his theory of phenomenal consciousness and its evolution. He draws on the book Sentience and discusses evidence for animal sentience.

Recommended as a good high-level view of Humphrey's book and his argument on how consciousness evolved.

Watch on YouTube

3 comments from Hacker News

@FollowingTheDao2023 · in “Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe?”

Thank you. I keep bringing it up here and you are the first one who has perceived my point. For more on 'blue' and 'chocolatey', check out this video... How did consciousness evolve - with Nicholas Humphrey [VIDEO]

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@laxd2023 · in “What is it like to be a crab?”

A thing that always comes to mind with these kind of news is the claim that octopi have comparable effects from MDMA as humans. For anyone that have an overview of evolutionary history that should be interesting to say the least. [LINK] Another interesting source I have found lately is this talk by Nicholas Humphrey (How did consciousness evolve?). If I'm interpreting him right, being a crab is nothing. The experience of "something" evolved a couple of hundred million years ago at the earliest, in our lineage. Assuming he is right. [VIDEO]

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@tizio132024 · in “Ask HN: Best Audiobooks to Listen to in the Car?”

If you want fun narration and loosely tech based story, I'd recommend the Magic 2.0 series. Scott Myers created a fun world in that series. I'm really hoping book 7 comes out at some point. The narration is so damn funny. Luke Daniels is a master of making all the characters come alive. The Expanse series is also good if you want more of an epic. Jefferson Mays also does a great job of making the characters feel real. Even if he changes how gimbal is pronounced between certain books. There's also loads of great non fiction stuff out there. One of my personal favorites from this past year was Sentience by Nicholas Humphrey. His recent RI lecture was great and a good high level view of the book. [VIDEO]

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