[2022 Neural basis of consciousness] Wk1-1

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]welcome everybody um so this is uh it's like uh three two eight zero your base of Consciousness and this is uh week one introduction to Consciousness and the structure of unit my name is uh um my Twitter and the email address is here and I have some Facebook okay um so today uh uh this is uh just you know uh overview and introduction uh of the class so there's not so much content in terms of the questions and research Percy uh I'll talk a bit about organization of this class and the global learning objectives and uh explain assessments and then uh lecture contents that was there uh if do you have any question uh during the lecture please uh raise it as a um either chat or uh uh just you know speak up by raising a hand or whatever you like okay and uh before I go further on uh do you want to introduce yourself she's uh kitchen is one of our uh two-thirds for tutorial 4 on Tuesday in the morning right yes yes um hello everyone um as now said I'm the tutor for um the Tuesday 10 a.m to 12. p.m tutorial um and my name is uh Liang and I'm currently a PhD student at Niles lab okay thank you and I as you will see against China has already uploaded her exemplary uh uh assessment uh two presentations so you'll see how how it goes okay so uh today's uh learning objective uh is uh uh the photos um this is a uh kind of aspirational goal and I don't think uh we can get there during this you know first week uh lecture because of several issues but um roughly speaking we want to address the sort of that uh big question about Consciousness why is the problem Consciousness interesting and uh I'm going to talk mainly about Korea our contents of Consciousness throughout the talk uh throughout the lectures and I'll explain what they are what they uh this term means and then what does it mean to study Consciousness and its impacts uh onto you know everyday life and the difficulty of our study and then um if I have time we also want to discuss a little bit about the animals plants and Robotics and AI have um consciousness and then for the this week's reading material I uh already uploaded this uh first of all Consciousness that's a book by Christopher uh my previous agent supervisor uh on chapter one which is uh introduction to Consciousness and the 20 which is a very readable kind of a dialogue between the fictitious uh interviewer and crystals and Then followed by glossary that contains a bit of the difficult words to explain and then uh finally I also uh started to write a kind of draft of the book uh our translated a book that I published in Japanese last year uh and uh this chapter one um for this where water coming from is also available as a reading material I think the uh based on the last year's student uh feedback probably my chapter is uh easier than a quest for Consciousness in general so I recommend you guys to if you have time to you know go through the reading material prioritize my chapters first and then go to the uh suggested request for Consciousness that's the recommendation okay and then um so the go going over the organization of that site oh three two eight zero so um we'll uh update and also put all the information uh on this course on the Moodle so there the information is the most authoritative okay and then a communication lecture tutorials is the uh next topic first up throughout this course uh the chief examiner is me and then our units coordinator with Dr Chris Shiva and then uh tutor uh is today we don't have uh them but Nico and Adam are also uh tutors aniko will be doing tutors for Wednesday and the other are doing is doing a lot for our Friday okay and then uh uh most of the uh message from me will come from uh this news Forum or general discussion forum and you should also ask questions or um comment on there as well in terms of lecture uh so each lecture will be splitting to 25 minutes followed by five minute break so I actually started to count uh 25 minutes on my watch and then uh when it comes to 25 minutes I'll stop the recording uh on them give an explicit five minute break and then uh this hopefully uh will um encourage you to ask any question during the lecture uh maybe you can also prepare the question by looking at the slides beforehand but that's not necessary uh please do ask questions uh during the lecture and part of the reason why I decided to do a zoom version of this live lecture this year is um but by the way I've been doing uh pre-decoded lecture last year and two years ago and because of that I couldn't really hear any of your you know live uh you know uh reaction and also uh questions from you guys so I if you if you don't feel uncomfortable please uh show your face actually during the lecture and then uh give some kind of a reaction to uh me and that's actually much better for me to either throw down or you know Skip the contents as you go as we go um and then uh during the five minute break um you know you can Muse yourself about electrical contents or walk around or you know take a break and I encourage you not to do that uh SNS or you uh you know um emails or something like that uh because that that would disrupt this uh purpose of this five minutes break it's called the Pomodoro Technique uh I'm going to talk probably a bit about it uh in the later lectures anyway and that that's actually related to uh how the mind works in terms of Mind wandering and focus attention and so on okay then uh in terms of the lecture contents uh tutorial we'll uh uh will be given uh bi-weekly and there um there may be some time to go over the sample questions uh but this year we also start to do a bit more interactive contents of the within the tutorial uh which I'll explain later so there may not be too much time uh left for this uh question answer a review time um so yeah that that also you know uh gives you another motivation to ask questions during the lectures okay and then uh roughly speaking in the beginning of the lecture I'll try to start from a recap of the previous lecture and also brought that overview of the next lecture as well um so that would hold I hope uh will facilitate your understanding and as I mentioned uh right now I want to promote a more active learning components of this uh lecture Series so um uh you know for those who are attending a live lecture uh it's great and uh you know please utilize your uh you know attendance uh as uh by asking questions through chats or you know speaking up uh by raising a hand or whatever uh please do that um I'm looking forward to it otherwise you know it may end up in doing the same thing as the so uh and then um if there is no uh questions or you know significant amount of the conversation during the lecture uh we may just upload the videos on YouTube uh later um as we have been doing uh in uh in my class but uh I'll also edit out your questions um uh or you know any kind of the contents that are you know not super scientific like you know this type of the administrative components but if you feel uncomfortable wow I well you know uh let me know and then now we can include our questions and the answers uh uh in the video and if you ask any question on chat or um anonymously um by just you know speaking up then uh I wouldn't probably uh any doubt it okay and I'm also probably not to speak about individual names um or unless you want me to speak up and speak of your name all right and then uh another you know format of you know our question is about General discussion forum and so on and this is probably useful uh when you have any questions about the tutorial uh assessment and also uh uh the the tests just before the test uh during midterm and the end of the term now uh the tutorials tutorials uh will be given a bi-weekly and uh roughly speaking around 20 students are assigned for each tutorials and then uh as I mentioned the tutorials towards the end if you have time then um they might have some multiple choice questions samples uh about uh wow uh the lecture content but may not be and then uh week two four and then uh eight most likely uh not six uh we will have a paper a research paper presentations that I'm going to explain quite a bit out today and then uh week six will contain instructions on how to write a good research proposal which usually uh takes roughly 10 of 10 to 15 30 minutes to uh of the lecture or instruction from tutor and then that helps you to write a research proposal which is assessment four and then we extended uh 12 uh you'll come back uh to This research proposal issue where you uh review and give comments uh on other people's research proposal okay so I'll give another more detail about each component later but uh just before going for that I'll go to uh the global learning objectives of the psyche r3280.

[00:11:43]so upon successful completion of this unit you'll be able to characterize the theoretical issues of the Consciousness research and then experimental methods of the research and also uh more importantly uh you'll be able to examine your own conscious experience and then also I'll also try to give you a various opportunity to create career evaluate your own you know uh thinking style and so on through this uh uh conscious research format and then uh through several assessments uh you'll also try to write out several of the you know writings and that helps you to describe and apply the range of the research tools uh blah blah blah and then uh this uh assessment for our research proposal will help you to think about uh new experiment okay that's a design of our creative uh experiment and this will be useful especially for those who are thinking about you know going into the research in the future but not only that um it will be also critical uh for many of you who are going to do you know are going to be uh uh clinician or industry or whatever because it's been known that this type of the creative thinking is really likely to be a critical part of your mental skills in the future of the job market um for those who have this we'll probably promote uh you know clear uh you know faster and also a more significant um you know a position but for those who are just you know good at doing whatever you are asked will be likely to be replaced by AI uh we can discuss it later on um probably we will discuss that in the future lecture as well and then a PR review of the work of other students is also another important aspect of this in a project uh there you will be able to you know kind of uh I have an opportunity to how to construct everything of other people's work and that in turn uh helps you to evaluate your own work in an objective way and um that's going to be uh useful skills okay so so having said that um so that's a sort of the official version of the uh like three to eight zeros uh you know uh Global goal but uh to be honest I I think there will be a lot more interesting and a more significant thing that I want to deliver basically to you guys and that's to you know in a sense I um I want to leave some kind of a positive long-lasting impacts on you you know uh throughout your life otherwise there's no point for me to doing this kind of lecture you know um if you just want to get knowledge then you can just read the book but through this interaction in tutorials on the assessment I want you to get some kind of a deeper understanding about uh you know yourself as a as an entity to be consisting of a conscious parts and also non-conscious parts and this kind of you know understanding is a quite important actually and many people might have heard of this type of that statement but uh through understanding the neural basis of this claim and also how empirical science has established this claim is going to be very useful to understand also uh utilize this knowledge into your future and uh as a sort of example I think if you understand this claim that you know you are consisting of your conscious you and non-conscious you then you can harness uh this fact into your daily practice and then um provide you know better uh creativity or improve creativity or you know improve your habits of life and things like that and so how to copy your uh you know very significant and so our life-threatening or life you know significant events such as you know death of your significant person or you know uh birth of your child or you know choice of the partner whatever you know these kind of things are quite important um issue and um understanding of this conscious and non-conscious you will help you pulpring and uh so for example in terms of mental function um maybe you know many of you are probably from psychology uh background uh by the way I wanted to ask you guys about that so how many of you are you have a psychology background and how many are not so let's uh take the poll uh I'll give you the option a as an uh psychology background and option b as a neuroscience background and then uh what other is something else like uh engineering or mathematics or whatever uh can you uh type in your background optionally psychology option b is neuroscience and others are other okay okay good very good oh so oh everybody responding uh so seven of you are right now a psychology background and they're five of you are other can you type in in chat what your background in terms of other at least five of your people yeah major or a background biomedical computer science three others if you don't want to say that that's fine but uh or do you know how to use the chat box Commerce biological science okay that's probably enough uh there's probably one more person but uh maybe okay all right so um I I guess I'll assume that kind of a distribution for the rest of the um students who are not on in the live class but uh that's good yeah this is much better than uh purely online class uh until last year anyway so um if you if you are a psychology but if you have some psychology background most likely you have been learning like you know mental functions such as perception memory emotion attention thoughts and language and social interaction in various courses right probably and then uh my claim is that all of these uh you know components that has a non-conscious part of you uh meaning that you know all of these are influenced by some kind of process that you are not really aware of or you cannot be aware of and then other parts are the conscious part of you you can um change you cannot become aware you can uh so that's the sort of the claim that I wanted to make so you know understanding um this is conscious and non-conscious part of you is going to be useful okay and then um so this is a bit of that list of the book that I recommend generally to both um internal students and also out uh uh PhD student in my lab so for example if you want to be if you want to be successful in any domain um or if you become happy you know those success and happiness is not potential you know I'm usually possible to achieve at the same time but uh by the way to improve your life I think there there are many different kind of you know books that are that you can read on and then you can um you know incorporate for example Daniel Fast and Slow Thinking Fast and Slow Adam Grant Originals James Clear Atomic habits um Heidi ground halversons you know so very thin book about nine things that people do differently uh successful people do different three or eight steps to motivate you and then John Stephen Covey for the seven habits and uh Andrew Carnegie for How to Win Friends and Influence People these are some of them are extremely classic and some of them are relatively new kind of a self-improvement book and the understanding uh non-conscious part of you and also conscious part of you and how they interact to form you is going to be very useful to understand also to implement any of these you know Improvement of yourself um this is uh one of the many um potential benefits that I can uh you know suggest you in terms of the Consciousness and uh if you read any of these uh I I would imagine that uh or you know all of them and then Implement uh you know many of the sort of tips uh that you you get from all these you know books my guess is that you can do anything you want in the life especially when you are uh you know um determined to do something so I recommend you to check this and uh you know myself also have improved quite a bit through implementing these things implementation of all these you know self-improvement book is extremely difficult but uh you can probably do that all right um and then the next topic I'll focus on how you can gain core insights into how to deal with the significant problems um yeah so this is something I also mentioned uh um so I want you not to worry too much about the marks in the class and uh because it tends to be the case that they know wow short-term goal of like successful uh taking you know good marks and so on is usually you know not compatible with the longer term benefit of becoming you know better person or you know uh uh more successful person so rather uh try to think about you know more bigger picture and they think about some um big questions such as um you know is it possible to understand each other better than now more directory this is a direct you know question from Consciousness research and also how to utilize um the understanding that you gain from this course into the society these are the really large questions but uh something like that is better to think uh than focusing on just on Mars this is just a small remark okay and then coming back to the global learning objective um and how it's uh consistent with each of the assessment okay so um assessment one uh which is going to be a basically quiz and they they will uh you know cover uh your understanding of theory experiments and one's own conscious experience and from my viewpoint I would say this is literally you know wow insignificant uh compared to other assessments that uh you'll see in in the long run right and then assessment two uh which I'll explain a bit more in later is a paper presentation and this will cover uh the description and the critical evaluation of the literature aspect and then assessment three is a written initial proposal and then uh four is the written proposal final one and then these are two assessments will cover designing of a new project in Consciousness research and then uh assistant three and four will provide the opportunity to improve skills in writing and also R5 is um we'll cover this PR review skills and then uh something that I haven't mentioned uh just five percent this year uh will be the same political research so now um it became uh 25 minutes so I'll take a break for four minutes and uh we'll come back