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Inside the Mind of a Newborn Baby | Claudia Passos Ferreira | TED

What if newborn babies are more aware than we ever imagined? Philosopher and psychologist Claudia Passos Ferreira shares groundbreaking neuroscience showing that newborn babies — and possibly even late-term fetuses — may consciously experience their world, transforming how we understand the very beginning of life. (Recorded at TED2025 on April 10, 2025) Join us in…

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What if newborn babies are more aware than we ever imagined? Philosopher and psychologist Claudia Passos Ferreira shares groundbreaking neuroscience showing that newborn babies — and possibly even late-term fetuses — may consciously experience their world, transforming how we understand the very beginning of life. (Recorded at TED2025 on April 10, 2025)

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60 Comments

60 Comments

  1. @ArtemisFjackson

    November 7, 2025 at 11:01 am

    1

  2. @getreal8

    November 7, 2025 at 11:04 am

    2

  3. @Phoenixbeats89

    November 7, 2025 at 11:05 am

    They think about everything.

    • @vishalzuluk8634

      November 7, 2025 at 11:08 am

      What makes you certain?

  4. @tripurarisuryadeep4707

    November 7, 2025 at 11:09 am

    They think about sleeping 😊 awake

  5. @katherinemoore52

    November 7, 2025 at 11:13 am

    For years I was involved in the midwifery community. I have birthed three children and been at many births. If you are spiritually present in a room as a baby arrives you can feel their energy. I truly believe they have consciousness that we have forgotten because we use our brains to think separate label all the stuff… Babies are so sacredly beautiful… Be fully present with them and you will learn so very much.

  6. @mrtienphysics666

    November 7, 2025 at 11:14 am

    esp those born in Gaza hospitals

  7. @-Alicia-

    November 7, 2025 at 11:14 am

    they should be thinking about buying a house!

  8. @EpicBreadWinner

    November 7, 2025 at 11:16 am

    I’ll save you years of meditation and psychedelics. Humans are consciousness.

  9. @peterdollins3610

    November 7, 2025 at 11:17 am

    I recall being in the womb & have early memories I think are related to early traumas. Babies, toddlers & the young understand far more than adults realise. I cover such things in my book I revise now ‘Stalin Murderd my Mother, a Fictional Autobiography.’

    • @svendtang5432

      November 7, 2025 at 11:56 am

      I respectful challenge that

  10. @KramerRed84

    November 7, 2025 at 11:25 am

    Ok 👍

  11. @hb-d92h

    November 7, 2025 at 11:44 am

    i love this topic its so interesting. i believe we still dont know so many things and as the speaker said our knowledge on this matter will grow too. so i feel its quite hasty to say that abortion before certain point should be fine because the brain structure is not formed.

  12. @traveler91

    November 7, 2025 at 12:18 pm

    6: 30………..This relates to the concept of how Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna, is believed to have acquired knowledge of the Chakravyuha formation while still in his mother’s womb.

  13. @darinherrick9224

    November 7, 2025 at 12:30 pm

    I remember being with God, then being in the womb, then everything after. I don’t know if that’s real that’s just what I remember.

  14. @csgabriella5658

    November 7, 2025 at 1:30 pm

    Thank you! Besided, I experienced consciousness as a never ending One, personally too! When I entered God, like ín prayer, the final Consciousness. We were One, just as He planned. Everyone can enter Hím, who wishes it. God bless you all ❤️🙏🔥🙌

  15. @althyk

    November 7, 2025 at 1:44 pm

    so cringe!

  16. @RiumEqua

    November 7, 2025 at 3:49 pm

    For that talk to make any sense, consciousness must first be understood deeply. And I have a strong feeling it wasn’t.

    If consciousness is only defined as the ability to perceive sensory input, then I don’t know why science even wonders if babies are conscious. They react to stimulation, so they must perceive this stimulation to react, thus they must be conscious. The same goes then for anything there is.

    If consciousness is defined as the ability to react to stimulation, the same logic holds.

    Defining consciousness as the ability to make conscious decisions, as some people do, is a self referencing definition so it can’t be true.

    • @jhunt5578

      November 9, 2025 at 6:30 am

      Thomas Nagals definition is the best IMO. Something is conscious when there’s something that it is to be that thing.

    • @RiumEqua

      November 9, 2025 at 6:55 am

      @jhunt5578 But wouldn’t that definition also make a rock conscious?
      A rock is a thing, just that it can not tell us that it thinks it is a rock, because it can’t communicate.

      And for Humans i understand this definition as:
      Humans are conscious, because we experience what it means to be Human.

      That definition again is circular as one first needs to define what it means to be a Human. In my head that leads again to the question What consciousness even means, as that’s an integral part of being human.

    • @jhunt5578

      November 9, 2025 at 7:48 am

      @RiumEqua Do you think there is something that it’s like to be a rock? I don’t think a rock is having an experience unless you’re a hardcore fundamental consciousness believer, you don’t either.

    • @RiumEqua

      November 9, 2025 at 4:04 pm

      @jhunt5578 I don’t think a rock is conscious. As my definition of consciousness is simply the ability to perceive external stimulation.

      But I do think for a rock to be a rock, there are some very specific properties that can be used to describe a particular rock. For me, those properties are “that something that it is to be a rock”. Hence my confusion about Thomas Nagals definition.

    • @jhunt5578

      November 9, 2025 at 4:25 pm

      ​@RiumEqua Perceiving external stimuli isn’t the only thing that makes you consious. We can have internal stimuli. You’re confusing the “is” as existing and instead it’s a reference to phenomenonal states. Theres something that it is like to be you, theres nothing thatb it is like to be a rock.

  17. @garryrc

    November 7, 2025 at 4:56 pm

    They’re wondering if it’s tea(t) time yet.

  18. @doctor_smaug

    November 7, 2025 at 5:30 pm

    I still remember the moment I did. A voice popped in my head and told me it was here and that we’re in this together. I never realized there was a “me” until the voice appeared. Gradually the voice became my own, along with my own voice.

  19. @alistairbascom6933

    November 7, 2025 at 6:35 pm

    Like when we think we usually do in a languages our concious. How would a baby do that?

    • @lisajusis4040

      November 7, 2025 at 9:34 pm

      Recent discoveries say that some of us do not experience an inner monologue.

    • @alistairbascom6933

      November 7, 2025 at 9:58 pm

      ​@lisajusis4040 really. I learn a few languages at least try. And I often try to imagine having that inner dialogue in Spanish but but my conscience is in English I have realised. 😅 if babies have a conscience without the monologue then in a dogs mind it might hear barking when it thinks. Or smells when it dreams.

  20. @CaliberDawn

    November 7, 2025 at 9:17 pm

    Not loving the ai thumbnail

  21. @wq722

    November 7, 2025 at 9:21 pm

    I’m Crazy talking here 😂. I have this prominent memory under 2 years of age of tiny humans figures dancing in a line really close to each-other on a plat form in the dark like thousands of them bound to a path enjoying themselves.

    Now that I’m grown up and hitting my 30s I came to a conclusion that they were ants on my mother’s dresser while I was sleeping in her bed looking around in the dark 😅

  22. @HoopsKevinski.

    November 7, 2025 at 9:47 pm

    I joke that I’ve never gotten my 56yo bro to watch a subtitled flik, while my nephs sat thru Crouching Tiger at 7 & 3yo… But younger neph didn’t remember; surprised me.

  23. @TimeWeWokeUp

    November 7, 2025 at 10:20 pm

    And this is how I learn that fetuses are operated on without anesthetics!?! Shouldn’t it be obvious that a near newborn would be conscious and especially feel pain? I understand that scientists always try to frame their findings as groundbreaking, but they often fail to realize that acting surprised when they discover evidence of consciousness, emotions, pain or intelligence in animals, babies or unborn babies reflects poorly on the quality of their own intuitions. What do they think a brain is for?

    • @emolaus

      November 8, 2025 at 6:18 am

      100%. And what’s worse, working from the assumption that they don’t have a conscious experience. After a hundred years of progress, why are we still doubting that those different from us might have an inner life similar to ours?

    • @Schultzgamez

      November 8, 2025 at 2:37 pm

      Yeah, I remember reading an artical about new born opperations without anesthetics, I couldnt finish the artical it made me so sick. However, 1 point which stands out in that prior debate, is: Didnt anyone stop to think, what if my theory is wrong? what if they can feel pain in an opperation.

    • @kristinmeyer489

      November 8, 2025 at 3:19 pm

      This is just my experience: The more power some have, the more arrogant and callous they are. A lot of doctors seem to like playing God.

  24. @lisa2034

    November 7, 2025 at 10:35 pm

    I was near death when I was born. I couldn’t breathe for a few minutes. I clearly remember what happened at that time. I felt pain, uncomfortable, and I was wondering why I was here , who woke me up, what’s going on, and is there someone blocking me, also clearly remember the light on the wall, some parts of the room but the visions were blurry , and the voice people were yelling. Of course I don’t understood them, but after years, I suddenly knew what they were talking: this baby is going to die.
    I didn’t feel fear at that moment, I thought I was just going back to dark when I really felt uncomfortable.
    Babies have consciousness, they just don’t remember.

    • @jhunt5578

      November 9, 2025 at 6:28 am

      False memories happen. You have one.

    • @lisa2034

      November 9, 2025 at 12:34 pm

      ​@jhunt5578it might be true for some cases. But no one told me the details of that night, but when I described those details with my parents and relatives who were at scene, all the details match their memories.

  25. @simossosias3727

    November 7, 2025 at 11:52 pm

    She contradicts herself. If a baby senses an “unfamiliar” world around it, then that baby is comparing it and contrasting it with a “familiar” world it already has.

    • @typezero705

      November 8, 2025 at 1:12 pm

      Not necessarily; unfamiliar just meaning everything is new. Let’s be careful not to overthink the word choice and miss the message.

    • @vannahhall915

      November 9, 2025 at 8:16 pm

      Isn’t their in utero works the one that is familiar?

  26. @ScottLahteine

    November 8, 2025 at 12:11 am

    I do remember the day I realized that I really should learn that language stuff my mother was emitting so I could be more specific about what I needed, because she clearly wasn’t getting it from my random vocalizations. I think it is interesting that I recognized language as such, but it must occur to almost everyone at some point!

  27. @mohdnorzaihar2632

    November 8, 2025 at 12:47 am

    We humans inherited our parents-ancestors “language and its way back to the early Adam and Eave. Peace be upon ya’ll

  28. @boomstick900

    November 8, 2025 at 1:23 am

    Same things dead babies think about

  29. @manuelb1255

    November 8, 2025 at 2:15 am

    I don’t know where are the people who believed that babies are not conscious? I don’t know what she believed was the audience for this talk?

  30. @kitty-chanx3

    November 8, 2025 at 5:41 am

    Why are so many people here claiming to remember things from such an early age like when they were still in the womb or right after their birth?? That sounds highly sus to me. My earliest memories are from kindergarten when I was four and I am the exception within my friend group as no one has memories that early.

    I don’t know if I should believe the people here…

    • @humnhumnhumn

      November 9, 2025 at 5:40 am

      I once had convincing experience on psychedelics that was like memory of being in the womb. But I’ve also had many weird convincing experiences on them. It is just so weird that why that detailed hallucination occurs. I’ve never thought about being in the womb as something meaningful. But it could be that such states like in psychedelics, because they in-fact induce baby-like states, mind draws associations to that state, resulting in complex hallucination that I had.

  31. @vahid6789

    November 8, 2025 at 7:20 am

    Is this British or American accent?

    • @Kylekillamart

      November 8, 2025 at 5:17 pm

      Is that a real question? lol

  32. @TonyZoulias

    November 8, 2025 at 7:34 am

    Ich habe meinen Full-HD 50-Zöller seit 2015 und werde ihn vermutlich erst ersetzen, wenn er defekt ist.

    Das schöne ist: wenn er dann mal kaputt geht, bereitet mir das null Probleme oder Geldsorgen. Dann wird er halt ersetzt und ich suche mir einen aus, der mir gefällt und hoffentlich wieder 10 Jahre und mehr hält. Das gleiche gilt für Handy, Tablet, Waschmaschine usw.

    Und das alleine ist schon viel wert und bedeutet ein Stück finanzielle Sorgenfreiheit.

  33. @jimliu2560

    November 8, 2025 at 10:40 am

    Like an adult… most time babies don’t think of anything…

  34. @dabbudas4494

    November 8, 2025 at 12:42 pm

    Bhagavat Gita says the same.

  35. @Onlywayis_up

    November 8, 2025 at 1:08 pm

    0:25 this is also the reality of me on shrooms

    • @lisajusis4040

      November 8, 2025 at 1:17 pm

      I am interested in the therapeutic effect of psychedelics on mental health. Maybe they give the opportunity to rewire damaged or faulty neural connections.

  36. @robertgore9092

    November 8, 2025 at 2:52 pm

    I was premature. I remember some of the birth process like my mum’s seemingly huge pink thighs moving together and apart. I knew I was separate from her but also intimately connected and was puzzled how I could be two people at once. I thought that we could only survive as a duel entity and was worrying about the future outcomes.
    As soon as my head was out I could see the bright window and the arm of a nurse holding a petrie dish. All the new external movement distracted me from more inner speculations.

    • @andria3a

      November 8, 2025 at 11:13 pm

      Wow!

  37. @ToddSmith23

    November 8, 2025 at 8:29 pm

    Listening to this made me wish I didn’t have consciousness

  38. @jhunt5578

    November 9, 2025 at 6:25 am

    This goes to show that the people who want abortion at late stage have always been insane.

  39. @ridingboy

    November 9, 2025 at 6:28 am

    On what scientific evidence does she just presume that babies feel unfamiliar with their surroundings when they are born? How does she define consciousness? On Bi Bi Bi Boop? Too many shortcuts in her reasoning. After 4 Minutes I was out.

  40. @abacus749

    November 9, 2025 at 6:43 pm

    So poor babies as well as adult victims are being used to help in the development of Agi Neural control weapons for the WAR MACHINE INDUSTRY.

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