Why do we have consciousness at all? Neuroscientist Chris Frith discusses this question with Nigel Warburton in this episode of Mind Bites which is part of a series made in association with Philosophy Bites for Nick Shea's AHRC-funded Meaning for the Brain and Meaning for the Person project.
This is mind Bytes, a series for philosophy.
Bytes with me, David Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
Philosophers have long tried to make sense of consciousness.
How can our subjective experience be accounted for in an objective physical world?
But there's another puzzle about consciousness.
Why do we have it?
What purpose does it serve?
A question for the neuroscientist, Chris Frith.
Chris Frith, welcome to mind Bytes.
Hi.
The topic we're going to focus on is, what's the point of consciousness?
Let's just begin by getting clear what you mean by consciousness.
I mean our subjective experience, what we're aware of from moment to moment.
So I'm not talking about whether we're awake or asleep.
I'm talking about what we're aware of when we're awake.
And I think the critical thing to bear in mind from lots of recent research is how much influences our behavior, which we never become aware of, both in terms of the things in front of us and what we're actually doing.
So I can see the trees outside the window.
I'm aware of seeing the trees.
I'm somehow representing those trees, I guess, to myself.
And I can talk to you about that.