Hi Philip. Hi Keith. I think I’ve secretly been very interested in philosophy for years, but just hadn’t ‘come-out’. I’ve searched for online learning resources for novices for a while to enrich my understanding as someone just starting out. I feel a little like a child that’s experiencing things for the first time; it’s very exciting. Thank you for this channel. I think it’s the first time that I’ve got through a philosophy talk without having to pause repeatedly and refer to the web for explanation of terms. Really enjoyed this first Mind Chat and looking forward to the next. Only a suggestion...whatever sound system Tim was using was great; the audio was very clear. Cheers!
Thanks for this podcast! Not seeing an animosity between two completely different minded philosophers is actually a very refreshing and a relaxing scene! I hope the future panpsychism wars on Twitter will have your chillness some day.
I'm skeptical that even a whole brain (disembodied) could be conscious. Without sensory organs, it can't take in any information. And without locomotive organs, it can't send any commands for action. So...what can it even do? What is there to be conscious about? At best, it can just sit there ruminating about memories and abstract ideas. But, based on what we know from research on embodied cognition, even abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor experience. Thus, I would say that brains aren't conscious in the same sense as organisms are conscious.
Very interesting conversation! I guess one of the core questions could be put like this: Is there a fundamental "basic-level" at the bottom of reality, which can in principle be fully described by physics? And if there is, then can all reality be reduced to this "basic-level" without a remainder? If the answer is yes, then it seems this would rule out 'strong emergence' implied by O'Connor's view. On the other hand, it does not seem obvious to me that such reductionist picture is necessarily the whole story of reality. For instance, philosopher and cognitive scientist Steven Horst has suggested that all our models, including those of physics and neuroscience, necessarily reflect our cognitive limitations. They might work incredibly well in the particular domain they're describing, but nevertheless never fully capture reality as a whole. If something like this is true, then perhaps we cannot easily rule out O'Connor's view that complex organisms like human beings could have properties that resist reductive explanation.
Tim's line of argument seems to echo the "god of the gaps" approach common in theology. Of course, those gaps just keep getting smaller. The motivation seems to be that conscious experience "feels" special and weird and distinct - so let's hope there's something almost magical in the gaps in our scientific understanding where it might reside. So far, beyond this "feeling", I see no good evidence contradicting the hypothesis that consciousness just is the information processing we (and all other sentient beings) happen to be running.
@@jonc3214 Thanks Jon. I disagree. Seems quite a bit of progress in philo of mind, neuroscience, info proc / computation, psychology, animal studies, AI.... But even if it was true, that would still be no reason for making things up to fill the gaps in. Better to just keep working on it?
The argument for the explanatory gap is not an argument of "we don't have an explanation yet, and we cannot have one", the problem is more in the sense of "this is unknowable". For example, let's consider the hypothesis you proposed, "consciousness is just the information processing we happen to be running" , well even if we exclude the question of what do we actually mean by information processing, there is still the question of how are we going to know if that's the case, also another important, and for many people the "more important", question is why is information processing results in (or "is") conscious experience? The problem with consciousness is not that we cannot or may not find the mechanisms that generate conscious experience. We may discover all of them: What brain state/process results in red, what brain state/process results in hearing C# or me seeing this screen right now, etc. The problem is that, at least for the argument of the explanatory gap (or the Hard Problem), we would still not know why those exact systems/processes/or something else result in/are/emerge into a conscious experience.
@@Mrekanietrie Thank you. If my hypothesis is correct (it may not be of course!) and our conscious experiences are "just" the information processing - there may never be an explanation that satisfies those who intuitively feel their experience is something separate. As you say - maybe it's unknowable. But maybe that's because there's nothing more to know. For me, the evolutionary rationale for the development of consciousness/sentience (e.g. the "usefulness" of valence) and our developing understanding of neuroscience and information processing are likely to be sufficient. For others - it will always feel like there's still a gap. That "gap" for me is similar to asking "but what really is a photon?" We should keep working to find out more - but we may never have any ultimate answers. We accept that potential limitation for most phenomena - but it's hard with consciousness because it's so central to our sense of ourselves - understandably.
@@Sentientism Thanks for your response! You may really like Integrated Information Theory, I highly suggest reading about it(Scholarpedia page and the 2004 paper by Giulio Tononi are very nice, but the theory has changed a bit since then (the basics are almost the same), so the newer papers would be a better guide). And there will be a podcast episode about it in 3 days here
Keith is right, the so called "immediate awareness" is not some infallible inner eye witnessing facts. All introspective conclusions (awareness) that we have about our mental functioning are the results of evaluative processes (call it information processing or cognition etc). When Phillip engages in introspection that tells him that the experience of seeing the color is not "quantitative" in nature that conclusion must have been the result of testing if the concept "quantitative" applies to the experience of color. And that is obviously a cognitive process not some otherworldly intrapsychic revelation. Like any other introspection, it may or may not be correct but it definitely is not "ground truth" about the nature of consciousness.
Brilliant conversation! I am quite attracted to O'Connor's view.
I just love you guys, please please continue! Philip and Keith are the best hosts and make a one of a kind team. Thank you!
Hi Philip. Hi Keith. I think I’ve secretly been very interested in philosophy for years, but just hadn’t ‘come-out’. I’ve searched for online learning resources for novices for a while to enrich my understanding as someone just starting out. I feel a little like a child that’s experiencing things for the first time; it’s very exciting. Thank you for this channel. I think it’s the first time that I’ve got through a philosophy talk without having to pause repeatedly and refer to the web for explanation of terms. Really enjoyed this first Mind Chat and looking forward to the next. Only a suggestion...whatever sound system Tim was using was great; the audio was very clear. Cheers!
thanks! Great to hear :)
Thanks for this podcast! Not seeing an animosity between two completely different minded philosophers is actually a very refreshing and a relaxing scene! I hope the future panpsychism wars on Twitter will have your chillness some day.
So interesting to hear the conversations. Great video!
I'm skeptical that even a whole brain (disembodied) could be conscious. Without sensory organs, it can't take in any information. And without locomotive organs, it can't send any commands for action. So...what can it even do? What is there to be conscious about? At best, it can just sit there ruminating about memories and abstract ideas. But, based on what we know from research on embodied cognition, even abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor experience.
Thus, I would say that brains aren't conscious in the same sense as organisms are conscious.
Wow, that was great! Not near like the simple arguments I assumed a dualist would make!
This is great!!
Very interesting conversation!
I guess one of the core questions could be put like this: Is there a fundamental "basic-level" at the bottom of reality, which can in principle be fully described by physics? And if there is, then can all reality be reduced to this "basic-level" without a remainder? If the answer is yes, then it seems this would rule out 'strong emergence' implied by O'Connor's view.
On the other hand, it does not seem obvious to me that such reductionist picture is necessarily the whole story of reality. For instance, philosopher and cognitive scientist Steven Horst has suggested that all our models, including those of physics and neuroscience, necessarily reflect our cognitive limitations. They might work incredibly well in the particular domain they're describing, but nevertheless never fully capture reality as a whole. If something like this is true, then perhaps we cannot easily rule out O'Connor's view that complex organisms like human beings could have properties that resist reductive explanation.
Hi, Philip!
What's the name you mentioned at 1:26:14? And what's the title of his book?
Derk Pereboom
Tim's line of argument seems to echo the "god of the gaps" approach common in theology. Of course, those gaps just keep getting smaller. The motivation seems to be that conscious experience "feels" special and weird and distinct - so let's hope there's something almost magical in the gaps in our scientific understanding where it might reside. So far, beyond this "feeling", I see no good evidence contradicting the hypothesis that consciousness just is the information processing we (and all other sentient beings) happen to be running.
@@jonc3214 Thanks Jon. I disagree. Seems quite a bit of progress in philo of mind, neuroscience, info proc / computation, psychology, animal studies, AI.... But even if it was true, that would still be no reason for making things up to fill the gaps in. Better to just keep working on it?
The argument for the explanatory gap is not an argument of "we don't have an explanation yet, and we cannot have one", the problem is more in the sense of "this is unknowable". For example, let's consider the hypothesis you proposed, "consciousness is just the information processing we happen to be running" , well even if we exclude the question of what do we actually mean by information processing, there is still the question of how are we going to know if that's the case, also another important, and for many people the "more important", question is why is information processing results in (or "is") conscious experience? The problem with consciousness is not that we cannot or may not find the mechanisms that generate conscious experience. We may discover all of them: What brain state/process results in red, what brain state/process results in hearing C# or me seeing this screen right now, etc. The problem is that, at least for the argument of the explanatory gap (or the Hard Problem), we would still not know why those exact systems/processes/or something else result in/are/emerge into a conscious experience.
@@Mrekanietrie Thank you. If my hypothesis is correct (it may not be of course!) and our conscious experiences are "just" the information processing - there may never be an explanation that satisfies those who intuitively feel their experience is something separate. As you say - maybe it's unknowable. But maybe that's because there's nothing more to know.
For me, the evolutionary rationale for the development of consciousness/sentience (e.g. the "usefulness" of valence) and our developing understanding of neuroscience and information processing are likely to be sufficient. For others - it will always feel like there's still a gap. That "gap" for me is similar to asking "but what really is a photon?" We should keep working to find out more - but we may never have any ultimate answers. We accept that potential limitation for most phenomena - but it's hard with consciousness because it's so central to our sense of ourselves - understandably.
@@Sentientism Thanks for your response! You may really like Integrated Information Theory, I highly suggest reading about it(Scholarpedia page and the 2004 paper by Giulio Tononi are very nice, but the theory has changed a bit since then (the basics are almost the same), so the newer papers would be a better guide). And there will be a podcast episode about it in 3 days here
@@ogulcancingiler568 Thanks! Yes, it's a fascinating line of work. I'm looking forward to that episode.
Keith is right, the so called "immediate awareness" is not some infallible inner eye witnessing facts. All introspective conclusions (awareness) that we have about our mental functioning are the results of evaluative processes (call it information processing or cognition etc). When Phillip engages in introspection that tells him that the experience of seeing the color is not "quantitative" in nature that conclusion must have been the result of testing if the concept "quantitative" applies to the experience of color. And that is obviously a cognitive process not some otherworldly intrapsychic revelation. Like any other introspection, it may or may not be correct but it definitely is not "ground truth" about the nature of consciousness.
29:00
does dualism withstand history
Can you please invite Robert Sapolsky, he will soon release a book about free will.