Have in common so the placebo effect for example where you can take a drug thats completely in or it completely has nothing active in it but you think its going to make you better and it does the socalled perceive perfect that has to work in conjunction the Central Nervous system has to work in conjunction with the immune system and the endocrine system hormones because otherwise youd have biological amoco if they were separate so there has to be a system for the brain in the body to be really integrated in the brain after all is just another organ of the body very important organ a very greedy organ in terms of energy but nonetheless it is an integral part of your body its not as if its a separate or machine thats perched on top of the body directing like a little rover and of course not you have these chemicals are iterating throughout your body from the great control systems of blood in the streets the Central Nervous system the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system which over controlling the heart talk a bit of a conscious. Since there because thats a huge topic for you and like for all of us what is a consciousness from a neuroscientist point of view is that what makes us human i mean do animals harshness work ok so thats 2 separate questions were so 1st of all. I think if we say all scientists like to do is say lets take the null hypothesis lets assume its not the case so lets assume an animal is not conscious right. When and where and how the suddenly you cross this magic line that suddenly gives you consciousness is a fetus conscious in the womb if it is not the null hypothesis when does it become conscious is it screeching down the birth canal well thats a bit tough if youre born bices aaron section is exactly at 40 weeks well thats a bit tough if youre born the baby is born prematurely is it not conscious so the null hypothesis isnt really very robust to say to say that things are not conscious is a bit of a risk because you then say when you look at animals or look at the fetus how how is the difference because the human brain although obviously the parts may be bits are exaggerated in different sizes compared to other animals theres no magic brain region thats different in humans from other other animals so where do you cross this anatomical rubicon because you cant yet so i would reject the idea and say let us assume all animals are conscious right lets assume there for a fetus is conscious but then thats a bit odd because he really saying a rat is conscious like you or me know of us in the long so you say well lets think about consciousness a little bit and for me my great thinker insight once when i was on holiday i suddenly thought this or thinking about unconsciousness and with an a c. Easier and with sleep both forms of unconsciousness its gradual you can have stages of sleep and stages of an a c z or you can have a different depth of being unconscious and so it reasons what if consciousness also could be very like a dimmer switch you could vary in degree and if that was the case then a rat could be conscious but not as conscious as a cattle dog and a cattle dog could be conscious but not as conscious as a primate and a fetus could be conscious but not as conscious as a full term baby in turn not as conscious as an adult so if you think about that that kind of makes sense because im sure you in russian i dont have the same things about. Broadening your consciousness of. Or deepening your consciousness here which you go to mountains or lakes. To dive the deeper nor raise doesnt matter which way you go your consciousness yet you feel like you can sort of switch it off the knowledge to gradually and its gradual so for example when youre sleeping i feel unconscious because i dont think my childhood over anyway is known as are the movies that ive seen before is what your stuff is is conscious of course is conscious and dreaming is a form of consciousness its one however that isnt driven by inputs through your senses so thats why its rather flimsy and why you have this strange fragmented sequences that at the time seem perfectly acceptable but of course in the cold light of reality seem really strange when someone turns into someone else while something happens but yes of course thats a form of consciousness i think if one accepts that consciousness is quantitative it can be there it changes thats brilliant also for science because you can then measure it of course you know you can say lets try and measure it rather than regard it as something magical but consciousness the way we understand it something totally intangible ok so in the brain we know some how some functions of the brain and im sure we theres a lot we dont know blake you know where the memories are stored and how things are go and singles and theyre in there but where do the physical a conscious appear in the brain at so this is why many scientists have a problem with consciousness someone called it a career limiting move if you want to stroke which you cant get grants are so not the problem with studying consciousness is that it is quintessentially the core feature is subjective what you are experiencing now i have no idea i cant hack into you and experience what you personally are feeling the color red i dont know what you are experiencing when you look at the color red and go this is something called quality of their account it is not that you can look at magic brain regions of the brain isnt composed of little mini brain so when you said. Where members are stored in a sense thats not quite right because you dont have magic brain regions or special brain compartments but what you can do is try and find something have a Shopping List and go to the brain is the ok brain ive got the Shopping List now i want something that varies in degree i want something that changes from subsecond to subsecond time scale that can vary and i want something that can be driven by the senses or generated internally and what we have done is suggestive that it is collections of brain cells that Work Together for a very brief period of time a bit like ripples so imagine a puddle and throwing a stone and then you have the reporter and what we have done is to try and identify Something Like that happening in the brain where the excursion of the ripples corresponds to the depth of your consciousness ok so if you like i can say the stone is like the long clock waking you up or its like any strong sensory input coming in and then the size of the stone is how many connections and associations that that object of that event triggers and the force with which is thrown is how strong the sensory stimulus is and then the way it spreads out is limited by the we say the scar city which is the glue penis who like the thickness of the paddle and competing stones coming in on what i have done is to write a book of the book here a day in the life of the brain which was written 26th in which. Goes through with this and talks about this i think what scientists can do we can start to study consciousness with great humility and assuming that were not going to establish a causal relationship i cant tell you how the water is turned into wine i cant tell you how electrical blips and brain cells and chemicals traffic can hold up i cant say you have that translates into a feeling of happiness but what i can do is say look when youre happy this is happening and when these blips and electrical signals are firing away then you might be feeling this the how the one turns into the other is the big question and what i find interesting to say to people ill say here do you feel a trying to explain what consciousness is for scientists is like a french topic as in why not ok because theres logic to whats important to realize for science is the thing that they need more than anything before they can do and i think its money because unlike something right there was a fee if you are a scientist by definition you want to work in a lab and that caused by now how do you get money right you get money either by starting a Little Company as i have incidentally for outsiders disease to the private sector and thats or you apply if youre in a university you apply for grants not if you apply for a grant saying you want to study consciousness i can assure you dont certainly its a kingdom you dont have much luck which is why its not popular with scientists because its very hard to get funding its very hard to get people to there theyll say well what were going to do is this how you going to study it whereas if youre studying some much more clear problem then people will feel tax payers money can pay for a human chain to philosophy in their lives their way about tom stoppard theyre literally called the hard problem it is us about what were speaking of structure isnt it its about a researcher how does you know by not the whole problem is so true to research we dont just gives up and then he ends up in philosophy here do you feel a loss if you could somehow get out the scientific. Part well i actually started doing philosophy myself so initially at school unlike probably all the other scientists with the exception of henry much so if interviewed for my specialized subjects after 16 so could a levels i did latin greek ancient history math pm us so. I was very into reason i didnt do greek i was really interested in philosophy when i 1st went up to oxford for my 1st year Oxford University i actually started philosophy and it was only when i got frustrated with doing formal logic having done math but i changed psychology and then to neuroscience so i actually have i would like to think a grounding in philosophy or i see things as a philosopher might and i think thats actually very helpful if youre doing science does that help advance. Because you asked Big Questions and i think if someone has a conventional upbringing in science you are so constrained by the dogma you are so constrained by very being very precise and very specific to actually step back and ask these Big Questions like the ancient greeks asked i found that was a great privilege to do that yeah. Ok lets talk about sort ok. We are once again somehow know how the body in the brain interact and rate and correct me if im wrong so heres my thought i want to bend my finger right. Signal to my brain then the muscles do the hard. Where is the thought in all of this i think were going where is the free world. Or that or what i mean where it is born before like it was and where is it thats a really interesting subject if you were later especially to free will and its an endless debate of what is free will and this is some song called benjamin that that thought he had this idea and i myself of a copy of this experiment have been the subject where you have electrodes in your head which are called your brain waves and all you have to do in this experiment is press a button but if you want to whenever you think you want to and whats really interesting is just press about randomly is just before you actually physically press the button already your brain waves have changed showing that there so its a really fascinating thing that you think. If you have free will and youve decided but already your brain has changed before he has decided before now this is the interesting thing you are your brain such as well what it has decided for you is implying a certain journalism which is not right that is yes actually it is accurate so this is why its an interesting question so my own views on 2 sides of the same coin. In quantum theory which im not an expert in i gather you can express things either in terms of momentum or position but never both is not speaking russian or english you dont speak the 2 together you have one all the other a but you might express the same idea i mean its clear how is it over. But far less less fortunate people you are the Say Something in one language or another but youre saying the same thing but youre just accept your. So its 2 sides of the same coin that either you can express things in brain terms. Or you can express it in subjective what we say phenomenological thats to say in terms of your subjective experiences and both are valid and how the one will itself is like position momentum you cant do simple tennis lee even you can speak russian english exactly at the same time you have to spit all switch very fast so thats i think what it is like and thats why its interesting because its not so much about the thought itself the subjective experience of a thought in the illusion of free will or the physical occurrences in the brain its more if there are 2 sides of the same coin what is the coin thats interesting i think ill take a short break right now when were back well continue talking to the nearest scientists are now susan greenfield about how human brain functions and what consciousness is stay with us. The nato military alliance is a relic from the cold war back then it was relevant in even necessary today it is an alliance in search of a mission that church has almost completely impale eastern expansion towards russia but the lingering question remains is the average american and western european interested in a war over the sovereign the disco in montenegro. Or industry is based on greed greed is based on this. Rush to the latest much paper wealth as possible even though its genuine wealth actual money its not gold like a warren buffet just hoards of money like an old granny would hoard phone books and that doesnt credible damage because of inculcates into the population this notion of holy. And im back with neera scientists bonus susan greenfield susan i just want to bring you back into the you know. The the raw stuff like saying with a consciousness you know until you game with the removals explanation because if we know that brain in this part answers like the frontal lobe for this and this hemisphere for that and that him through that why cant we physically observe this art because the brain doesnt work record load of mini brains yes you do have specialisation in different parts of the brain but its more analogous to instruments in an orchestra or ingredients in a dish of food they have to synergize they have to Work Together its not as if theyre just functioning independently of each other so for example vision is divided up among about 30 different brain regions and any one brain region can participate in different functions rather like a violin might be to many of us so you cant you have to think of the brain holistically and holistically i would argue in a body you cant try and reduce it as sometimes people like to do to a single gene or a single brain region or single transmitter by that youre losing something if you do that so there is no way a star could ever be observed even if we have built way incredible machines what can be observed is the brain working and of course thats done with brain scans and people can do that but the mistake they often make is how they match up what they see in the brain scan with what is happening and some people think that its much more specific than it actually is and they think that if they see something lighting up in a certain region its the center for this or that and thats not really true moreover up with brain scans in humans the time resolution that says is a bit like remember those old cameras in the 19th century where you could see physical things but not movement so you could see houses. A car but you couldnt see animals or people because they were moving and exposure was to. So little bit like that with brain scans you can see long lasting things but you cant see fast things. You know for many people who want to be happy with the scientific explanation because there is no way we can physically actually. Observe this or see the conscious where and how its moving or born there would say you know thats about the soul and youll never be able to see because that part is called soul ok so i thought you make ok i think we need to be really clear about terms so lets start with the most obvious one brain will know what the brain is its a physical thing and i remember during deception im wondering if i got bit under my fingernails with that b. The bit of theres a physical tangible thing then you have the mind now why do we use a different word for mind mind implies something highly personal thats different nor mind is different from mine was if you and i took our brains out of the gross level they would look pretty similar so the mind is something that already is slightly removed from the physical of the brain and to cut a long story short my suggestion is that its the personalization of your brain that something called plasticity which is how the brain adapts to things and when it adapts to things at the very micro level youre having changes in connections between your brain cells so no 2 people have the same pattern of connections thats what i would call the mind that we have consciousness so when you go to sleep you dont say youre losing your mind you lose consciousness or theres certain sonar is that you have the same say in russian where you blow your mind or lose your mind or youre out of your mind your conscious but youre not accessing your personal or you take i was scarce and war of the many ways in which you can and what wine women and song drugs as sex and rocknroll always and the book that i found very interesting there is mindless youre still conscious and this incidentally even the ancient greeks thought about this a play called the baccy by europe it is in him all about this poor king who gets torn apart by these women who are crazed worship in the wind god doesnt isis and he says no theres 2 forces the one force and the brothel and they were digressing just as a wonderful the greeks were so then that was the mind and consciousness which is separate again because you can be separate art you can. The mind less and have consciousness and you can have no consciousness but you still get the money so you can see they are not become then finally and then you have within consciousness you have the sub conscious and have the self conscious and the self conscious comes when you are about 2 or 3 years old so a baby is conscious but not selfconscious because on the continuum its pairing up the subconscious as anyone whos read fraud will be aware of then you have the soul and that again is something that i would regard as separate because the mind and consciousness all parts of a living brain there are more than just the living brain but they are rooted in the living bring up conscious even the subconscious so when you die that brain will die but as far as i understand im not deeply religious myself by Research People who are the whole point of the soul is its immortal is it not us all point the point of a soul is it survives and goes to heaven so i mean if you look at the religious yes exactly so thats how youre defining so if the brain is perishable and its mortal and the soul is immortal that must be Something Else again so i think one has to be very careful about ones terms and distinguish very carefully brain mind consciousness soul or are just some are interesting topics but one shouldnt equate them they are separate things. So once a going to the scientific mill the lot of scientists try to explain different phenomena as biology clearly for instance i dont know love or feelings were saying its all hormones its dopamine or serotonin we need to be happy. But when you explain that on a biological level it stands ground do you really explain what love what again thats not an explanation its a description theres like say a chair will be somebody will love it i say that would just the chemical yes in your blood i dont know if youre familiar with the series yes oh yeah ok so thats where the people who are not lets say you have imagine a Straight Line imagine a dog imagine officer call imagine another of the random things if you put them in a certain shape if you put the 2 dots at the top of your page and between these are all the Straight Line and underneath them you put the half circle then you have a face so the components are in and of themselves not change but its the relationship of the want of the other that has given you this concept of a face a pattern of a face so to say someone is its not saying this is nothing but adopt its nothing but a Straight Line depending on how it relates the one to the other will give it an emergent property socalled a different property to just the reduction of the components because i was thinking if you can explain or you make this distinction explanation and description if you can describe anything biologically then you can just as well describe consciousness as well so you can get a cover of ations so when you fall in love you have a rush of dope them in our rush of endorphins or thats fine and that is a corelate but that doesnt explain why you have the subjective feeling of love so i explain. Ok lets forget about love because thats really why we show you are always about love just like happiness the psycho state of happiness when you have several. Levels reacting or order of dopamine and for scientists its all hormones and its all chemically sort of manageable does this mean that if i take a happy drug and my serotonin levels go up and i feel happy then happiness in itself is an illusion because you can control it chemically by confirms what you mean by happy. And so of course we all know that drugs was her and then the most obvious one of the opiates give people a feeling of euphoria a feeling of euphoria is not necessarily happiness if you can pass an exam you can achieve something youve been striving for you can have a sense of wellbeing all these are different types of positive feeling they have that people might put under the label happiness and if we had a society just where people wanted to be euphoric all the time i dont think we would find that a very satisfying lifestyle you wouldnt you wouldnt really admire or want to be someone who is just all the time euphoric i dont think i think the question is were like chicken in there what happens 1st i mean is it the dopamine and then i get happy or im happy and they are there well thats right its an interesting question especially in relation to depression which is the opposite of course because we know that if someones depressed they can take prozac which enhances the levels of this chemical messenger youve talked about serotonin then that alleviates their their feelings but if theyre on happy for a particular reason it doesnt make the reason their way if theyve just lost someone they love it doesnt bring that person back to life again it just is a distraction for them a bit like when people drink heavily you know its a distraction thats not exactly to say that its making you happy its distracting you its giving you a strong sense of being aroused or sedated its manipulating your arousal level of more than actually giving you what one might want to acquire in life in terms of what one would call true happiness i think i want to take now on how your take on this because the general idea is this big professionals in different fields would say well you know science takes care of the biological processes because we can describe them or some would even say you are playing them and then psychologists or or psychiatric whatever take care of the psychological side emotions in the way we sort of interact with the world on an intangible level. But. Should we really just be starting it all together because this is torture and one big mechanism is steadily dividing our belts and piss of the further while having done all to myself they havent done philosophy i think its insane to distinguish philosophy from there or science from or even from law political people are done but free will so the more we can be interdisciplinary i think the richer it is and i would go further in that people that are just neuroscientist mountains im just a neuroscientist i wish i knew more immunology for example id like to know the interface between the Central Nervous system and the endocrine system and the immune system because its by understanding that that you will understand in your understand the placebo effect will understand how your gut feelings literally chemicals released in your gut are affecting your sense of intuition so i think that we are the poorer if we put ourselves into silos of just being this or just being there and how much do you think we know about a human brain if you do get certain to using from my great again you know there was an animal called the hydra and every time you talked of one head 7 head screw in its place and its like that the more you think you learn the more you realize you dont you and i were both finding we had french in common when i 1st went and started speaking french i thought i could speak it and the more i tried the more i realized i didnt know there so the more you learn the more you realize how ignorant you are so i thought that with the brain yes of course we can explain how brain cells fire little electrical blips and of course we can explain how chemicals go up and down and the manipulated by drugs of course we can explain this things and we now we can of course with brain imaging see bits lighting up but i think its extreme arrogance if we think that means that we know everything because what we should be doing is really asking the Big Questions like what is consciousness why do people fall in love why the war stop if it breaks up as a half hour as a joke as the big mystery a lot of people you know we want to go over the biggest mystery of our. Entire. When i go to times it is going to anyways thank you so im glad when i get an interview i hope well meet again. Liz lets see. If. So. Its still. Just. A very warm welcome to you youre watching argentina. U. K. Police named the man who stabbed 2 people to death on London Bridge on friday he was a convicted terrorist released from prison less than a year ago. 3 people are injured in the netherlands in a stabbing attack the suspect is currently at large. And the mayor of april libyan town returns to work on she was beaten and publicly humiliated by opponents of the ousted president ever morales she speaks to all tea about her ordeal. That they also cut off my hair they beat me up but they can change my views and i want people to take a step back and think the believe and people cannot live like this. The head law