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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Gods I View podcast. I am your host, Trevor.

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What did you guys think about that last episode? Huh?

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Not bad? Not bad. I hope you're proud of your

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guy here. I feel like I'm at a fork in

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the road, you know, like I could we could do

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shows like that all the time. You know, we have

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free will maybe topic for another show. But you know,

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there's there's a million geniuses out there now. Not all

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of them are great at speaking. I like to believe

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I'm probably one of them that would imply that I'm

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a genius. I'm not sure, but I I feel much

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smarter and written form than verbal form. But anyway, there

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are lots of folks out there who we could probably

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get on the show. But it's the double edged sword.

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I'm gonna have to change. I would have to change

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the show a bit. I'd have to get a little

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bit more serious. You know, I say crazy stuff on here,

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and people don't want to, you know, necessarily. I don't

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think people really mind going on shows, you know. I

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think people people know that things the host says does

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not reflect on the guests. I think that's pretty well established. However,

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I mean, you know, if I start interviewing scientists and

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things like, it's kind of like my two worlds would collide.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: It makes me nervous. You know. Even on that last

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episode I did, our guest seem to know who I was,

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so I, I mean, it wouldn't be that hard to

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figure out. You just google, you know, I'm sure you

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could figure it out. But he was familiar with the

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type of research I did and stuff. So it's like, oh,

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I don't know, I better shape up now. Not that

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we say anything too crazy, but science is such a

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reputation game. It's such a reputation game. If you're applying

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for grants, your names on them, your peers know who

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you are, and you're totally at the mercy of peer review,

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in publication, in grant application. So you're totally like, there's

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nowhere where reputation matters more professionally than in the sciences,

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in the professional sciences. Unfortunately, I think it should all

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be anonymous personally, but that's not a popular viewpoint anyway.

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So I don't know. I wrestle. I need advice, email

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me odds, I view book at gmail dot com. I

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need advice because on the other hand, the counter argument

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you know. The one argument would be like, Trevor, you're crazy,

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stop podcasting, Just focus on your career. Got to feed

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your family, you know what I mean, That's like the

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responsible thing to do. But then also it's like, man,

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life's too short. Why why modulate the things you say? Like,

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just say what you believe and be will and even

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say things you're not sure if you believe, be willing

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to speculate. I wish that's how the world worked. But anyway,

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so I hope you guys like that episode. My plan

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is to get back into some kind of I think,

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weird but valid things about you know, I guess what

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you might call the simulation hypothesis. I think that is

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not a good word for it. I think it probably

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does more harm than good. But get back into some

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Thomas Campbell, my big theory of everything, my big toe

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guy stuff talk about take just take the video game

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metaphor to it's a logical extreme. But I'm just it's

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a four hour clip and I don't have I don't

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have clips yet. So we'll do that next time or

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in the next few episodes. We'll get to that. Now,

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what we're gonna do today, your friend, everybody's favorite Alex

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O'Connor and everybody's least favorite Sean Carroll. No, Sean Carroll's

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very cool. He is like beloved by the hyper reductionist,

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hyper materialistic folks. And this interview exchange, Alex is in

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the position I'm normally in, which is like, you can

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acknowledge there's something about subjective experience that just can't be explained,

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And of course Sean Carroll completely disagrees, and so I

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feel like I'm always in this position everywhere I go.

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Even I even brought up the microtubule stuff at work

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that I regret it because everyone's like, what are you

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talking about? And I'm trying to say, there's these studies,

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these studies, and they're like, yeah, whatever, dude, so and frankly,

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the microtubule thing doesn't do anything in my opinion. Now

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you go back and listen to the last episode, you know,

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Mike disagrees, and I think he makes a really good point,

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and it might just be that his point and his

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solution is beyond my comprehension. But I just still can't.

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I still can't get there, you know, maybe that's my issue. Anyway,

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I thought this episode was a pretty good reflection you

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just two people talking past each other to the nth degree.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen the clip of Richard Feynman being asked

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about magnets. I've mentioned this before on the show.

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Speaker 3: A long time ago.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember it.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, well, it's just it's quite it's quite entertaining

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because it's somebody some interviewers sort of saying like, so,

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you know, Magnet's like, what what's going on there? Like

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why do they do that? And Firemond's like, oh, you know,

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something about a magnetic field and whatnot. And the guy's

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like but like but why, but why does that happen?

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Why is there that field? Why does it do that?

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And Firemond's like that that's it, man, Like that's that's

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all there is. And it's really funny because I like

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I kind of I kind of associate myself with both sides.

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I totally understand that the physicists saying like, look, man,

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you've reached rock bottom, like that's it, that's the that's

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the ground, ground floor. But I'm also kind of still

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like there's got to be something that it is. So

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it's it's a I do feel a little bit in

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limbo in these conversations, but I think that's quite an

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interesting example of the same kind of phenomenon. Of course,

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that self same Philip Goff that I've just mentioned, uses

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this as a route to say that, well, the isness

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of the universe is consciousness, because there's only one thing

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that we sort of know for what it is in itself.

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There's one thing that we experience like directly, and that

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is experience itself. We know what experience is, and we've

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got this big gap in the bottom of physics that

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we don't know what it is. We only know what

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it does. So maybe we can just plug up that

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gap with consciousness. I know you're not a panpsychist, but

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presumably you believe in consciousness. I know some people people don't.

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I've heard you talk about consciousness in a way that

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I'd be surprised if you took the sort of illusion

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root or the or something that says that it literally

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doesn't exist. And yet you're a physicalist. You think that

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there is this sort of field of stuff, the physical matter,

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even if we don't quite know what that is, that somehow.

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Speaker 1: Can we just briefly pause here pan psychism. Pan psychism

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is in a it star is rising, you know, I

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think it's been generally just mocked, you know, like, oh,

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you think everything's conscious, Like what about this coffee cup?

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You know, But I mean, I think that's probably a

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little unfair, you know. I think it's reasonable to think

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that consciousness, whatever it is, you know, the ability, I

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won't go there for now, but whatever it is, it

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probably exists on some type of spectrum like most things.

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You know, most things are continuous variables. It's not yes, no,

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you know, there's shades of gray, and so yeah, I'm

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willing to sort of entertain the idea that maybe humans

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are one of the most conscious things, like we're the

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most embodied first person subjective experiencers. But I would assume

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that dogs probably aren't far behind. You know. I think

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we probably just have more the ability for more self

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referential things. I'm not sure if that's relate. I mean,

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maybe that isn't what consciousness is, right, So it's very complicated,

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I guess, is what I'm saying. And there is a spectrum,

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and so I think we could theoretically extend that spectrum

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all the way down to like protozoa in single cells,

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and maybe I guess beneath that, I mean, but the

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thing is I just wouldn't even know what that would mean,

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Like I wouldn't know what a poink conscious is, you know,

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like the minimum unit of consciousness. I would just I can't.

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That is just such an abstract thing that I can't

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even begin to comprehend what that might be. The question is,

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I guess, how do we how do we think about

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panpsychism in the context of like religious thinking, spiritual thinking.

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Does that violate anything about what it means to be human?

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I don't think so, because I think the spiritual conception

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of what a soul is is that humans have a

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particular soul that has a particular nature, and just like consciousness,

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the quality of the soul sort of exists on a spectrum.

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Like we have a we have a rational soul, we

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have the knowledge of good and evil. And dogs are

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also in soul, but in a different way. You know,

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they're they're they don't have the knowledge of good and evil,

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they don't maybe have the degree of self referential thinking

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that we have. They're not made in God's image, you know,

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there isn't an afterlife for them. They're just a distinct thing.

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Yet we kind of both have this, uh something that's

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of the same substance. You know, I'm using a lot

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of hand waving in quotes right now, but they have

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something like a soul personally. I don't see any reason

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why these two things we're talking about can't sort of

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just be different words for the same thing. Of course,

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if you know a lot of people would disagree with that.

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Let's see what Sean thinks.

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Speaker 2: Bumps together in the right kind of way and then

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gives rise to something that isn't just like you know,

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a rock crumbling off a cliff or something, but is

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experience famously, the redness of red, the taste of coca cola,

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the sound of children's laughter, whatever it is. What is

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going on there in your view? What is giving rise

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to this? Sui generis to use the same term that

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you did, I quit my job at Legal Zoom.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you quit your job at legal Zoom. Okay,

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thank you. Skip in the inn.

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Speaker 2: That's called experience.

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Speaker 3: I don't think it's any different than tables and chairs.

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I think that experiences and conscious awareness of things is

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a set of vocabulary words that we use to describe

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collective behavior of particles and forces in the universe under

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the right circumstances. I can say that the table has

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a certain height, that it has a certain tensile strength,

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things like that. In the same way I can say

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that this particular person is having an experience of seeing

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the redness of red?

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Speaker 1: Do we How do we feel about the statement? It's

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a To me, it just it just it feels like

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we're talking past each other. It feels like a category error,

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like I think we I'll say we, maybe not, but certainly,

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I too think that consciousness is a property of a

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physical thing that's happening. But that doesn't mean it doesn't

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exist or it is merely like it is just merely

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a like emergent property of a physical system. To me,

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it is like this distinct thing that I am ex experiencing,

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and I think it demands an explanation. I think all

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of this is just an attempt to not explain the

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phenomenon of experience, you know, because you could sort of

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interpret what Sean's saying here as a type of panpsychism,

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which I know I would assume he is not a

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pan psychist. But you know, but to say, like, hey,

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it's no different than a table or a chair, it

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almost kind of implies that that a table in a

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chair could also be having a conscious experience. I don't

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think that's what he's saying, but that is one way

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you could sort of interpret it, like, yeah, you know,

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when your neurons come together in a certain not your neurons, sorry,

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when your atoms come together in a certain way, Like

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you have a subjective experience. That's just a property of

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the physical arrangement of atoms. So you have a particular

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conscious experience. Well, a chair has a different configuration of atoms, therefore,

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does it have a different conscious experience or as a

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neuron required for consciousness? Well, I think we kind of

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know that's that's not true. If you look at some

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of the things that even very simple life is capable of,

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you know, it's capable of of certain behaviors that sort

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of seem their behaviors that conscious agents do. I guess,

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I guess we don't know for sure that they need

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consciousness to do them, but you know, they can seek nutrients,

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they can act with this self preservation instinct avoid danger,

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retain memories. And these are like unicellular organisms with no neurons.

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So we're kind of conflating a lot of different ideas.

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But I just I don't know, it's something about his face.

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I'm sorry, Sean will never hear this because we have

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only two hundred listeners, But it's just something about his face.

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It's like this this need to like strip subjectivity, like

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if we were doing an experiment like I'm all for

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I'm all for it, like strip the subjective experience. But

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we're literally talking about the phenomenon of subjective experience. We're

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talking about consciousness. So why why do we feel the

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need to act like it doesn't exist. I'm so confused

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by his position because he's he says he's not an illusionist.

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I mean, he thinks consciousness is an illusion. I haven't

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heard him use the word emergent property, but I think

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maybe that would be his claim. Let's keep listening bitterly.

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See no gap there at all. This is just one

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of the sets of vocabulary words to describe what happens

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in the world at a higher level. Yeah, do you

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feel like your subjective experience like do you feel like

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that's just a vocabulary word? Like, don't get me wrong,

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I understand subjective experience is a vocabulary word, but it's

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a symbol that rep resents something like all words, right,

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and so the thing it represents you're feeling that you have,

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that you're in a body looking out. Is that just

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a vocabulary word.

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Speaker 4: I don't think so, because it it doesn't need to exist,

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and therefore the fact that it does exist, I think

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proves that it is a real thing.

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Speaker 1: Right. You can't just describe it as an epiphenomenon or

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an emergent property. You don't need to be conscious to

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look conscious, to act the way you act, to do

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the things you do. It's not strictly necessary to have

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a first person perspective. You could build a robot that

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does the exact thing, that has eyes and reacts to

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a scary image. You know, you could program all of

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this in. You could program in like an aesthetic. You

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can make it drawn to certain beautiful things, like if

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you were a skilled enough programmer, and I don't think

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it's intuitive to think that it would just spontaneously a

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first person perspective would emerge. I agree with our last

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guest Mike, that that's actually magical thinking, not what I'm doing,

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what these people are doing, the physicalists. That is magical thinking,

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because you're saying yay, yeah, yeah, when you put things

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together in a certain configuration. These interesting properties just e merge.

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It's like, Okay, that's magical thinking, that's superstition, this is

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this is it's a silly thing to say. It's even

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sillier to pretend like that is the reductionist physicalist approach

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to consciousness.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you'll be familiar, of course, with the reasons

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why people are suspicious of this, but perhaps we can

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try to be specific and make it interest I mean,

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for a start, it seems as though I could give

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a complete description of the activities of a brain. I

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could describe the sort of electrochemical processes and the way

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that neurons fire and connect with each other, and the

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brain regions and all that kind of stuff. And were

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it not that we already knew there was this thing

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called experience that sort of came along with that, I

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wouldn't expect or predict that there would be this thing

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that the philosophers called qualia, you know, the redness of red.

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I would just predict that there would be some atoms

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and neurons moving around and bumping into each other in

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various ways. It seems, in other words, that like a

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physicalist description of the brain would not predict, at least

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on its own that there is this thing called experience

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that goes along with the neurons moving around in physical space.

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What do you think of that?

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Speaker 3: I don't see why not. I think that's just because

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you're not very good at predicting things, but neither am I.

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Because it's very, very complicated. I mean, we're literally.

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Speaker 1: Do you do you agree with this? I just I

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really struggle with this. No, you're wrong. You're wrong, Sean.

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There is no way you would ever predict a first

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person's subjective experience from what it basically amounts to computation.

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I mean, the sort of the classical idea of what

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the brain is. You know, it's a very advanced processing

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unit with little binary switches, little neurons that oscillate. And

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so I don't, I don't. I think I get what

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he's saying. He's saying, like, well, if you really knew everything,

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you could predict it. I don't think you can get

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away with just saying that, you know. I said this

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years ago on the Brothers of the Serpent podcast, and

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I was really happy to hear Mike say it. On

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the last episode he sort of called this, I don't

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remember if you was referring to this exact idea. So

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I don't want to say that he said something he didn't,

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but he used the phrase category air, and I agree

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because I don't it's a distinct category. Subjective experience is

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a completely distinct category, and you would never make the

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prediction that a complex enough network would lead to a

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first person subjective experience. So I kind of disagree. I mean,

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he says, you're just not good at predicting things. Well, fair,

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you know, fair, but you I think I think like

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if we didn't know consciousness existed, and you proposed that

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it would exist if you could just build a complex

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enough circuit, like processing circuit, I think people would laugh

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at you. They'd be like, what what are you talking?

321
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It's ridiculous. And so I don't know if this is

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a great argument, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

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Speaker 3: Trying to compare two things. One is a physicalist understanding

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of nature at its most fundamental, which, as we said,

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currently takes the form of some quantum mechanical theory of

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fields and particles and stuff like that, which is literally

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the best understood feature of all of science. Because we

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can absolutely make precision measurements, we can set things up

329
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we can simplify things, we can get rid of all

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the complications. We can test things to twelve decimal places

331
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and we have We can push our experiments well beyond

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our everyday realm of experience, and we still get the

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right answer. And it's all beautiful, pristine. It makes perfect sense.

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On the other hand, we have consciousness and the brain,

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which is literally the least well understood thing in all

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of science. It's incredibly complex. We don't know exactly what's

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going on even at the physical level in the brain,

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much less the emergent level of psychology and experience it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so he is saying, at the emergent level, yeah,

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I just I think this is magical thinking. This is

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my new favorite thing to say, to call something an

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emergent property, specifically in this way, because there are emergent

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properties that very clearly are not magical thinking. We talk

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about a school of fish, or a flock of birds,

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or an ant colony. You know, you get these very

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complex phenomena that occur without any of the ants having

347
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any knowledge of the phenomena or any of the birds.

348
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Right that the cool, spiraling, geometric shapes of a school

349
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of fish. You know, no single fish has any concept

350
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of that, yet it emerges from some smaller foundational property

351
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that here's the difference. There's no category air there. We're

352
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talking about a spatial like a discreet spatial principle like, Okay,

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I'm going to stay equidistant between all of my neighbors.

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If I'm a fish, right, I'm going to stay right

355
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in the middle of all of them. Okay, this is

356
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sort of a geometric or a spatial feature or principle.

357
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And then the bigger thing, the ball of spinning fish

358
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that sort of oscillates in response, like maybe one fish

359
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is triggered to move because whatever, you know, it sees something,

360
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it gets confused, there's a predator, it's it's adjusting itself,

361
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it's an accent, whatever, and that triggers the sort of cascade,

362
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and the whole school sort of starts bawling up and changing.

363
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Like this is also a spatial phenomenon, right, So it's

364
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a it's a macrocosm of the microcosm, right, It's it's

365
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you have a space something spatial that's fundamental, which is

366
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a fish wanting to remain equidistant from all his neighbors.

367
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And then you zoom out and you have a different

368
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emergent spatial property. No magical thinking there, that's totally straightforward. Okay,

369
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let's apply this to to the brain into neurons. Okay, Hey,

370
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so we have this spatial principle or you know, temporo spatial.

371
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It's it's it's things happen in space and time. Neurons

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are stimulated by inputs, and there's some sort of decision

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making process that you know, not with agency. It's it's

374
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all autonomous, right. If a certain voltage threshold is reached,

375
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the next neuron in the chain activates and that serves

376
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as an input on the next neuron in the chain,

377
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and so on and so forth. So you have all

378
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these interacting switches that transmit electrical signals and chemical signals,

379
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and you have this amazing, really classical computer. You know,

380
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there's there's sensory inputs, there's output, there's stimulus integration. It's

381
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just this really phenomenally fascinating computer. But this is all

382
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temporo spatial, right, So then to call consciousness an emergent

383
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,680
property of that, to me is there's no other word

384
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for it than a category err, because it's it's just

385
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a completely different thing. Like if you wanted to say,

386
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like the EEG, Like I put a cap of electrodes

387
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on your head and measure sort of the cumulative electrical

388
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signal of the brain. I would call that an emergent property, right,

389
00:25:36,319 --> 00:25:40,039
because no single neuron is generating that signal. Their signals

390
00:25:40,039 --> 00:25:45,799
are very unique. But out of this complex interaction of

391
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millions and millions and millions of neurons, you get this

392
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,720
sort of emergent phenomenon, which is you know, gamma and

393
00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:55,160
theta and beta and alpha waves that can be measured

394
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,720
at your scalp with electrodes. Okay, that's an emergent property.

395
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:07,119
Subjective experience what the feeling, the feeling of being embodied,

396
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:14,200
the feeling of having will, being able to witness your emotions,

397
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to replay archived subjective experience in your mind in a

398
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,680
way that's like sort of visual. But not, this is

399
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,480
not an emergent property. I'm not denying that it has

400
00:26:26,519 --> 00:26:29,759
a physical basis. I want to be clear, like, yeah,

401
00:26:29,759 --> 00:26:32,720
if you poke the right neurons in your brain, you

402
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:38,119
can get a subjective experience, but they aren't the same thing.

403
00:26:39,039 --> 00:26:41,039
One is not an emergent property or the other. I

404
00:26:41,559 --> 00:26:44,200
just feel like this is lost on people and maybe,

405
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,400
I mean, maybe it's just a difference of opinion, but

406
00:26:48,519 --> 00:26:50,440
ultimately this is gonna be Sean's argument.

407
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Speaker 3: So let's listen and things like that, and you're saying, well,

408
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,480
I am a little bit unsure how to connect one

409
00:26:57,519 --> 00:27:00,519
to the other. And I'm gonna say that is the

410
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,440
completely unsurprising result of this, Like, why in the world

411
00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:09,079
would you expect to, with our current state of the art,

412
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,559
to be able to make explicit that connection, And the

413
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,160
fact that you don't is certainly not any reason to

414
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:21,160
change our fundamental notion of how reality works. It's obviously

415
00:27:21,279 --> 00:27:23,920
to admit that we don't understand how the brain works.

416
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with this, and maybe that maybe

417
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,079
this is why people like Sean kind of get on

418
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:37,200
the defense, because they're feeling like people who acknowledge the

419
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:41,279
mystery of consciousness and sort of deny that it could

420
00:27:41,319 --> 00:27:46,039
be a product or it could be an emergent product

421
00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:50,160
of complexity in the brain. I think they think we

422
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:55,200
are insisting that we need to throw away everything we

423
00:27:55,359 --> 00:28:00,200
know about reality, and I don't. I think I think

424
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,680
that's crazy. I think I think, like when it comes

425
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:09,319
to airplanes and space travel, like Newtonian physics all day.

426
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,599
You know, I don't I don't want a philosopher designing

427
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,880
my aircraft, you know what I mean, Like like, hey,

428
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,079
if we're if we're trying to get in a translunar

429
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:22,599
injection to something's weird with my microphone to rendezvous with

430
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,240
the moon because we're trying to land on the moon. Like, yeah,

431
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:32,480
let's keep the philosophers at bay, right. I think science people,

432
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,200
people like Sean, they'll say, like the bit and I've

433
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,920
heard docins say this, like the ability to make predictions

434
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:45,480
proves all of the all of the scientific worldview. I

435
00:28:45,599 --> 00:28:50,400
just think that's totally absurd. I think it's totally absurd.

436
00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:54,920
I mean, even if even if my sort of idea

437
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,000
of what reality is we're right, and of course we

438
00:28:57,039 --> 00:29:00,240
don't know what it is, but that basically this is

439
00:29:00,279 --> 00:29:05,880
sort of like a you know, it's a created universe

440
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,960
and there are there is a rule set, call those

441
00:29:10,039 --> 00:29:13,160
what you want, the constants, the laws of physics, whatever

442
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:18,400
you want. Even if that were true, the only way

443
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,480
to fly an airplane would be conventional physics, right, you

444
00:29:21,519 --> 00:29:25,119
know what I mean? We can change the way we

445
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,160
view the nature of reality without changing the way we

446
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:32,720
interact with reality. Does that make sense? Does that make sense?

447
00:29:32,799 --> 00:29:34,359
I mean, And the reason we know that's true is

448
00:29:35,039 --> 00:29:39,839
we still use Newtonian physics to do space travel, even

449
00:29:39,839 --> 00:29:43,519
though we now have Einsteinian physics. We have new physics

450
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,160
that explains gravity and the bending of space and time.

451
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,039
We don't use that, No, I mean, maybe there are

452
00:29:50,039 --> 00:29:53,000
some unique situations where we do, but no, when we're

453
00:29:53,039 --> 00:29:55,000
when we're trying to get somewhere, we use you know,

454
00:29:55,359 --> 00:29:58,160
for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction,

455
00:29:58,279 --> 00:30:03,200
and delta V and you know, pro grade retrograde, Like

456
00:30:03,279 --> 00:30:10,279
we're using simpler Newtonian physics because it works so clear

457
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:16,400
So clearly that's true. Clearly you can have different understandings

458
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,039
of the nature of reality and still acknowledge that there

459
00:30:19,079 --> 00:30:25,480
are simpler tools, better tools, perhaps for the job. Knowing

460
00:30:25,519 --> 00:30:28,599
that this is a simulated world would change nothing about

461
00:30:28,599 --> 00:30:31,880
the way you do things, about the way you build

462
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:33,640
a car, about the way you build a plan, like,

463
00:30:34,759 --> 00:30:37,759
because these are the rules, these are the rules of

464
00:30:37,799 --> 00:30:40,440
the system we're in. We don't need new rules for

465
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,640
the system. So maybe that's why Sean kind of feels threatened.

466
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,359
And if you listen to him and I'll try to

467
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,960
shut up. If you listen to him, he seems like

468
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,839
he's always speaking from that perspective or he's like, well, yeah,

469
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:57,079
but it doesn't change the fact that you know, when

470
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,640
you when you see a sunset, certain neurons light up.

471
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:07,200
So clearly those neurons are related to seeing a sense

472
00:31:07,319 --> 00:31:10,319
and it's like, oh yeah, no, doy dude, you know,

473
00:31:10,839 --> 00:31:13,319
no doi. I don't think anyone's denying that. I mean,

474
00:31:13,359 --> 00:31:16,039
maybe some people are that I don't know about, But

475
00:31:16,039 --> 00:31:17,640
but what does it have to do with what we're

476
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:24,480
talking about, Like, it's not it's not intuitive that certain

477
00:31:25,119 --> 00:31:30,799
electrical signals occurring in your brain in a region that

478
00:31:30,839 --> 00:31:34,440
we know is associated with a visual you know, processing

479
00:31:34,519 --> 00:31:38,799
and visual associated associative memory and things, would result in

480
00:31:38,799 --> 00:31:42,319
a subjective experience. There's just no way to think that's true.

481
00:31:42,319 --> 00:31:44,599
I mean, do you think that about your your Tesla

482
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,880
with self driving? I mean you have a camera and

483
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,960
the camera has been trained to stop the car if

484
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,559
you get close to the car in front of you.

485
00:31:52,599 --> 00:31:57,440
So there's a visual there's a visual intelligence. But do

486
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,640
we think that tesla has a subjective experience? Are you going?

487
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,920
And then you can imagine Sean Carroll arguing like, well, well, clearly,

488
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,319
I mean, look at the computer software. When you get

489
00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:10,240
close to a car in front of you, this code activates,

490
00:32:10,759 --> 00:32:14,799
so clearly that code is responsible for the subjective experience.

491
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,559
You know what I mean, This is what I would mean.

492
00:32:16,599 --> 00:32:22,240
You would never predict a subjective experience from these things,

493
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,440
but yet it is here, and so to just call

494
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,839
it an emergent property is absurd. Okay, I'm gonna shut.

495
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 3: Up very well. I use the analogy. It's like saying

496
00:32:31,119 --> 00:32:33,880
I can't find my car keys, I should buy a

497
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,440
new car. That's not the right strategy to use in

498
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,440
this situation. You have to be a little bit more

499
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:40,200
patient than that.

500
00:32:41,039 --> 00:32:43,839
Speaker 1: People don't just walk up and say, Hi, I'm sexually

501
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:48,799
interested in you. Speak for yourself, lady. That was a funny.

502
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,880
That was a funny commercial above. Here we go, We're back.

503
00:32:52,039 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 3: Yeah.

504
00:32:52,359 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 2: I suppose for the person who thinks that consciousness is

505
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,799
inexplicable on physicalism, it's more like, yeah, I I don't

506
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:05,000
understand how a car could even possibly exist in the

507
00:33:05,119 --> 00:33:07,640
universe as I understand it, and people sort of view

508
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,480
consciousness that way. And I think commonly people will say

509
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,000
and there are more and less sophisticated versions of this.

510
00:33:14,079 --> 00:33:16,039
But they'll say, look, you know, consciousness is just something

511
00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:20,160
science will explain, like it's no surprise, it's super complicated

512
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,519
and we haven't gotten there yet. Yeah, but there are

513
00:33:22,559 --> 00:33:26,200
philosophers of mind who don't just want to say science

514
00:33:26,319 --> 00:33:28,240
hasn't explained consciousness.

515
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:32,559
Speaker 1: This is just fundamentally not true. It's just again, it's

516
00:33:32,599 --> 00:33:36,960
the same category over and over. It's like, no, I mean,

517
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,880
I for our last show, I mean, this is what

518
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,599
you would call the hard problem. But in our last show,

519
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:47,279
I think Mike gave an incredibly compelling explanation, a scientific

520
00:33:47,359 --> 00:33:54,519
explanation for what consciousness is. But I don't actually think

521
00:33:56,759 --> 00:33:58,640
maybe I just need to give up on this. But

522
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,119
I don't actually think it a us is the hard problem,

523
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,440
if you know what I mean. Like, like I accept

524
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,359
that it could be the physical explanation for consciousness. I

525
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:15,880
accept that, but it's like there were so clearly missing something,

526
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,199
and it might be that there is no way to

527
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:25,800
articulate an explanation because there is just something fundamental about this,

528
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,599
like like the way video game characters could never scientifically

529
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:35,159
articulate what their reality is from the inside. Now from

530
00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:38,079
the outside it's easy. You know, it's very easy to

531
00:34:38,079 --> 00:34:40,840
do from the outside, but from the inside it is

532
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:46,559
it is, it's not even within the realm of possibility

533
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,400
unless they did they come came up with some experience

534
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,280
like we came up with with, you know, the double slit,

535
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,480
and they have these sort of abstract ideas about me.

536
00:34:56,679 --> 00:35:01,000
You know, maybe maybe like when we when we interact

537
00:35:01,079 --> 00:35:03,039
with something, we sort of pull it out of like

538
00:35:03,079 --> 00:35:08,519
an information state into a subjective experiential state. And that's

539
00:35:08,559 --> 00:35:11,079
sort of where we live. We live in this subjective

540
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:20,039
experiential state of binary data that's stored somewhere, and it's like, Okay,

541
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,400
you know, that's pretty that'd be pretty cool if we

542
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,119
could do that. Oh wait, that we kind of have

543
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:30,719
done that, you know, And yet we're still denying that

544
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,280
there is any I don't know what is Sean actually denying.

545
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,360
I don't know, I'm not sure I understand what he's denying.

546
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 2: Must say yeah, but that in principle cannot do. So

547
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,280
it seems to occupy a different kind of space. Thomas

548
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,599
Nagel is the sort of famous name here that I

549
00:35:46,639 --> 00:35:49,719
think most succinctly puts this case. In what is it

550
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,440
like to be a bat. And one useful way of

551
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,400
getting at this is with the famous thought experiment that

552
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,000
I've heard you speak about before. But I had a

553
00:35:57,079 --> 00:36:01,559
question about your interpretation or response to this. Mary's Room.

554
00:36:01,599 --> 00:36:03,079
I talk about this all the time on the show,

555
00:36:04,599 --> 00:36:06,920
and most people are familiar. You know. Mary is in

556
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:09,159
a room. It's totally black and white. She experiences no

557
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,880
color for all of her life. But she has given

558
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,840
every single piece of information that could possibly be written

559
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,599
down onto a piece of paper and understood and like

560
00:36:18,639 --> 00:36:22,840
comprehended by her. She's given that, and she becomes an expert.

561
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,960
She learns about the wavelengths of light, she learns about

562
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,800
the biology of the eye and the brain chemistry and

563
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,000
all of that kind of stuff. But she's never seen blue.

564
00:36:33,039 --> 00:36:36,239
And then at the end of her life, she steps outside,

565
00:36:36,559 --> 00:36:39,639
she looks up, she sees the blue sky. And the

566
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,679
question is does she learn something new? And the implicit

567
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,320
answer is yes, she learns something new. She learns what

568
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,119
it's like to see blue, and whatever that extra thing

569
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:51,079
is that she's learned is what consciousness is. I've heard

570
00:36:51,079 --> 00:36:53,880
you talk about this before, and I just want to

571
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:55,800
give you a space to respond to that. And then

572
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,199
I've got a follow up question if your answer remains

573
00:36:58,199 --> 00:36:59,920
the same as it did when I last heard you

574
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,960
speak about that, So what do you think about about that?

575
00:37:02,199 --> 00:37:04,079
Speaker 3: I'm a little bit thrown off my game because it's

576
00:37:04,119 --> 00:37:06,440
always red that she's never seen, and you're making it

577
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,119
blue and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be sure

578
00:37:08,119 --> 00:37:12,239
how to change gears so quickly, Alex. So let me

579
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:14,239
give it a try. And I think there's different I

580
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,079
have one opinion, but there's different ways of stadiums. Let

581
00:37:17,119 --> 00:37:20,559
me state it this way, Mary's Room. Even though Frank Jackson,

582
00:37:20,639 --> 00:37:24,440
who popularized the thought experiment, has repudiated the conclusion that

583
00:37:24,519 --> 00:37:27,719
it has used to draw, many other people still stick

584
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:28,559
with it. I get that.

585
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 2: I did not know that.

586
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:31,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh no, he's totally a physicalist.

587
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 2: Now, wow, do you know why like with that?

588
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,039
Speaker 3: Like a it's a bad argument. I can explain why

589
00:37:38,079 --> 00:37:39,719
I think it's a bad argument. I cannot promise I

590
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:43,280
can explain why he changed his mind about it. But look,

591
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,880
it's supposed to be a refuge, a refuge, refutation or repudiation.

592
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,639
I was mixing up those two words together of physicalism.

593
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,079
It's supposed it's.

594
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: Funny because I never really It's tough. Words are tough.

595
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:02,519
Sometimes I question if I even really understand what I think.

596
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:05,800
But I don't know if I ever If I interpret

597
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:11,679
it as a refutation of physicalism, that's a pretty big claim,

598
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:16,599
right to say that consciousness has no physical basis. You know,

599
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:23,400
I'm not I struggle with that. I would struggle with that.

600
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,039
I think my view on the argument is very clearly

601
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,679
something is gained when you first see blue for the

602
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:40,639
first time. Now, I think what you could argue is like, well, yeah,

603
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,400
and I think this is what he'll argue. That's because

604
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,559
neurons that have never activated are now activating. It's like, okay,

605
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,599
you know, fair enough, But yeah, I would never deny

606
00:38:55,000 --> 00:39:00,159
that neu You know, cone cells in your retina that

607
00:39:00,199 --> 00:39:04,199
correspond to blue, we need to activate and send a

608
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:06,199
signal to your eccipital lobe in order for you to

609
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,679
have these subjective experience of blue. That's that's, of course clear.

610
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,800
Just like the camera that sees blue and your tesla

611
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,280
if you cut that cord, yeah, of course, of course

612
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,719
the data would never reach the computer to make a decision.

613
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,760
But again, I mean, I don't think we believe that

614
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,840
the tesla has a subjective, conscious experience of the phenomenon

615
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:40,039
of experiencing the color blue. Do we So? I don't

616
00:39:40,039 --> 00:39:42,440
know if it refutes physically. I don't. I've never seen

617
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:47,039
this as refuting physicalism. I've seen it as a way

618
00:39:47,039 --> 00:39:57,800
of distinguishing between like, you know, the hardware that allows

619
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:03,039
you to see blue and the experience of blue. You know,

620
00:40:03,039 --> 00:40:08,199
it's funny, random, not funny, it's tragic. But a tesla

621
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,400
not too long ago, on a freeway used to travel

622
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,440
all the time. There was a semi truck that was

623
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:15,840
highly reflective. You know, some of those trucks are like

624
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:22,039
highly reflective, And because the sky was bright and blue,

625
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,159
and because it was so reflective, the camera of the

626
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:30,559
tesla interpreted it as just being open road in front

627
00:40:30,599 --> 00:40:32,840
of it, and it slammed against the back of this truck.

628
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:39,400
The guy died. So those anyway, my point I'm telling

629
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:44,000
that horrible story is like the tesla, it has a

630
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:48,199
type of intelligence in regards to color. It is not

631
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:55,119
using radars, using cameras, so color binocular depth perception like it.

632
00:40:55,119 --> 00:40:58,000
It has a sort of intelligence about all these things.

633
00:40:58,039 --> 00:41:00,159
But you know what, if you're going to try to

634
00:41:00,159 --> 00:41:04,199
tell me that the Tesla has an experience of vision

635
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,079
the way I do. I just we're not We're on

636
00:41:06,159 --> 00:41:11,079
a different planet. We're on two different planets, and we

637
00:41:11,159 --> 00:41:12,679
need to be on two different planet. We need to

638
00:41:12,679 --> 00:41:14,840
build a ship and send it to Mars. You know

639
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:19,760
it's time because that is to me so absurd. But

640
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,400
every every year we get closer to this conclusion. My coworker,

641
00:41:23,599 --> 00:41:28,280
who we jive on everything so much, he said something

642
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,719
like that to me, like heart, he started talking about

643
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:35,840
AI is becoming conscious. I'm like, oh, good lord, good lord.

644
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,119
Speaker 3: To be You're supposed to reach the conclusion that physicalism

645
00:41:39,159 --> 00:41:42,920
can't be true. Okay, well, what is the physical list

646
00:41:43,079 --> 00:41:46,039
saying about what's happening to marry the color scientist in

647
00:41:46,079 --> 00:41:48,559
her room. He's saying that when she's in her room

648
00:41:48,559 --> 00:41:50,760
and everything is black and white and she's reading all

649
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,159
the books on color theory and getting all of these

650
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:57,440
pieces of information, she's learning things. And what that means

651
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:00,800
to the physical list is there are certain connections between

652
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,039
certain neurons in her brain that are firing and strengthening

653
00:42:04,079 --> 00:42:06,280
so that when you ask her questions, she can answer them,

654
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,480
et cetera, et cetera. A usual physicalist reductionist account of

655
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,719
what it means to be learning those things. Then she

656
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:18,400
steps outside blue light wavelength photons and pinge on her

657
00:42:18,599 --> 00:42:21,280
retina for the first time, and she sees the color blue.

658
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:27,480
What happens to the physicalist? Different neurons fire in her

659
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:32,400
brain and different synapses are strengthened. No one disagrees with that,

660
00:42:32,599 --> 00:42:34,599
And now she says, Oh, now I know what it's

661
00:42:34,679 --> 00:42:38,559
like to see and experience the color blue. Where in

662
00:42:38,639 --> 00:42:41,599
the world is there any problem with that?

663
00:42:41,679 --> 00:42:41,760
Speaker 1: Like?

664
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 3: Where is the refutation of physicalism? The physicalist explains this

665
00:42:46,039 --> 00:42:46,880
with one hundred percent.

666
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean again, I don't know if we're refeating physicalism.

667
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:58,280
I think it's basically refuted by the explanation I just gave.

668
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,239
I mean, you plug a camera into your computer, and

669
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,800
you take a picture of yourself and you ask chat GPT,

670
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,599
you know, how do I look? Are there people out

671
00:43:08,599 --> 00:43:11,239
there who really think like there is a subjective the

672
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:15,079
computer the server in San Mateo, California is like having

673
00:43:15,079 --> 00:43:18,599
a subjective experience of what you look like. Is that's insane?

674
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:24,679
You know, that's absolutely insane. And I tend when people say, like, oh,

675
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,760
you're just crazy. I my instinct is to like think

676
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,679
that's a bad argument, because like, oh, contend contend with

677
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,039
the argument directly, don't just call me crazy. But I don't.

678
00:43:35,119 --> 00:43:38,880
I don't know how as to approach this. Someone a

679
00:43:39,119 --> 00:43:42,519
real philosopher explained to me, like, how do we contend

680
00:43:42,519 --> 00:43:48,039
with people who who their instinct is to think like, well, yeah, yeah,

681
00:43:48,119 --> 00:43:50,199
Like if I upload a photo to AI, it is

682
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:54,519
having a subjective experience. It's it's not doing statistical you know,

683
00:43:55,119 --> 00:43:57,960
weighing of pixel position and color position, you know, and

684
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,480
and when there's a lot of black pixels clustered in

685
00:44:01,519 --> 00:44:03,519
a tight circle, you know it's a pupil. And then

686
00:44:03,519 --> 00:44:07,119
when it's surrounded by like blues or browns and a

687
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:12,320
sort of radial spoke configuration that this is probably an IRIS,

688
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,559
you know what I mean, Like, like, it's not doing

689
00:44:14,599 --> 00:44:17,320
any of that. It's not making calculations even though we

690
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,119
know it is, even though we know it's making statistical calculations,

691
00:44:21,119 --> 00:44:24,280
Like that's not in dispute. It's not doing that, or

692
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:29,280
it's not doing just that. It is having a subjective

693
00:44:30,199 --> 00:44:36,880
experience of the photo I just uploaded. If the people

694
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:40,719
who think that, dude, I mean, it's fine. I don't

695
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,360
harbor any ill will, but I'm just never I'm never

696
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:49,480
gonna be able to have these types of conversations with them,

697
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:55,679
Like we're just we're literally living in different universes. And

698
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,280
it's so sad when I see like brilliant people feel

699
00:44:58,280 --> 00:44:59,960
this way, but they probably feel the same way about me.

700
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,280
Speaker 3: Cent fidelity, there's nothing missing.

701
00:45:03,599 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 2: I think the issue is quite specific. At least the

702
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:10,840
issue that I think is interesting, which is that.

703
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 3: Nobody told you this, not your teacher, that's your scentist,

704
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:16,039
not even the tooth.

705
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:17,039
Speaker 1: But it's true.

706
00:45:17,199 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 2: Once your teeth are gone, everyone says they're gone forever.

707
00:45:21,679 --> 00:45:24,719
We're indebted to Galileo for telling us that maths is

708
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,679
the language of the universe, and the scientist wants to it,

709
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,760
sort of wants to say that everything which it's possible

710
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:36,480
to scientifically explain is something that you could in principle

711
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,800
formulate in the language of mathematics. I don't know if

712
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,079
you if you agree with that, but that's sort of

713
00:45:42,119 --> 00:45:44,199
the tradition that we inherit from Galileo, Right, is this

714
00:45:45,079 --> 00:45:47,920
idea that anything which is scientifically true can be mathematized.

715
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,679
And if something can be mathematized and explained or described

716
00:45:51,199 --> 00:45:54,800
in a mathematical formula with letters and numbers, then in principle,

717
00:45:55,519 --> 00:45:59,519
everything that there is to know could be written down

718
00:45:59,559 --> 00:46:01,800
onto a piece of paper. Now I understand that, like

719
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,519
when Mary exits the room and there are like different

720
00:46:05,639 --> 00:46:07,440
neurons that fire in her brain and that gives rise

721
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:11,559
to the experience, that's that's fine. But if there is

722
00:46:11,599 --> 00:46:14,639
any kind of knowledge that she gains, anything that you

723
00:46:14,639 --> 00:46:17,800
could class as knowledge, and if the scientific that the

724
00:46:18,119 --> 00:46:22,280
scientist to use the sort of religious buzzword, believes that

725
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:25,679
anything which can be known can be described in the

726
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:30,920
language of mathematics, it would imply that the very knowledge

727
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,480
that she has of that experience of blue could in

728
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,400
principle have been written down onto a piece of paper,

729
00:46:35,559 --> 00:46:37,880
such that when she read and understood that thing on

730
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,559
that piece of paper, she got that knowledge that she

731
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:43,840
gets when she walks out. She could get that just

732
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,199
from reading something that's written down. So like, the problem

733
00:46:46,199 --> 00:46:50,559
for me is specifically the fact that it's not so

734
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:55,360
much about physicalism but more about scientific description. The idea

735
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,280
that one day science will be able to explain or

736
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,719
describe consciousness implies to me, and maybe I'm wrong about this,

737
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,280
that science will one day be able to take that

738
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,079
knowledge that Mary gains when she steps outside of the

739
00:47:06,159 --> 00:47:09,159
room and write it down onto a piece of paper,

740
00:47:09,639 --> 00:47:12,000
such that just by reading that thing on the piece

741
00:47:12,039 --> 00:47:14,800
of paper you would get the same knowledge. I don't

742
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:16,719
think that's possible, and so my question to you is

743
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:20,599
do you think that's possible? And if it's not, then

744
00:47:21,599 --> 00:47:25,679
what is like a scientific description that cannot be written

745
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:26,360
down in that way.

746
00:47:27,119 --> 00:47:30,559
Speaker 3: I think this is just very clearly a problem with

747
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:32,519
getting mixed up linguistically.

748
00:47:32,679 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: Not It's funny because I totally agree that this is

749
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:40,360
a problem of getting mixed up linguistically, but I come

750
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:43,360
to the exact opposite conclusion of Sean. So I don't

751
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,920
know this is an intractable disagreement.

752
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:50,639
Speaker 3: I think scientifically or philosophically, as I said, when Mary

753
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:55,360
reads about the science of color or the artistic descriptions

754
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:57,840
of color, certain neurons do certain things.

755
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: Okay, this I totally agree with. I just don't think

756
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:02,119
he's addressing Alex's question.

757
00:48:02,159 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 3: But in her brain when she sees the color blue,

758
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:09,679
different things do different neurons. Different neurons do different things

759
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:13,400
in her brain. I could write down what the neurons

760
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,559
are doing with no problem at all. But me writing

761
00:48:16,639 --> 00:48:20,039
down what the neurons are doing doesn't make the neurons

762
00:48:20,079 --> 00:48:23,000
do that. What makes the neurons do that is seeing

763
00:48:23,039 --> 00:48:23,920
the color blue.

764
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: I just I just feel like he's missing the entire

765
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,320
point now, and Alex kind of loses the pod a

766
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,719
little bit here, unfortunately. But yeah, like, yeah, you can.

767
00:48:32,039 --> 00:48:35,519
We already do this. We already use fMRI to show

768
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:41,320
correlates of experience. You know, when this happens, these parts

769
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,599
of the brains light up. Yeah, we can totally describe

770
00:48:43,599 --> 00:48:47,719
that what But that doesn't it's completely again the category

771
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:51,800
air that what. That doesn't explain anything. That doesn't explain

772
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:56,159
subjective experience at all. We know that it must happen

773
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:59,800
to get the subjective experience. But where does this subjective

774
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:05,840
experience go from? This needs this demands an explanation. I mean, like, yeah,

775
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,840
because neurons can fire in all sorts of ways in

776
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:11,280
your brain that you have no conscious experience of. So

777
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:16,679
it's clearly not just neuronal firing that causes consciousness. So

778
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:18,559
what is it? I mean, I think you know, I

779
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,599
do agree. I was. I've been listening to some videos

780
00:49:21,599 --> 00:49:25,239
on I it's the first time I've heard an attempt

781
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:30,519
like a like a tacit acknowledgment, like, Okay, yeah, we

782
00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:34,920
don't really have a physical explanation for consciousness. So I

783
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,920
think even Seanch needs to like own up to this,

784
00:49:38,079 --> 00:49:41,280
that the field has moved on, like that no one

785
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:43,599
is arguing this way anymore. Like this is almost like

786
00:49:43,639 --> 00:49:48,840
an outdated position that Sean is defending, Like the hard

787
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:52,360
problem is a actual hard problem. You know, he's basically

788
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:56,679
just denying that it exists. So that's the first attent.

789
00:49:56,719 --> 00:49:58,920
And the idea is like you need a certain degree

790
00:49:59,199 --> 00:50:01,800
and I always get it wrong, but like a certain

791
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:05,480
number of nodes need to be integrated at once to

792
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:09,239
have a conscious experience. So it's not just neuronal firing.

793
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:14,320
It's like this mass orchestration of neuronal firing in these

794
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:19,559
certain patterns to a certain degree that results in conscious experience. Now,

795
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,920
I still think category air doesn't address the heart problem.

796
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:26,079
I don't think the heart problem can be addressed, like

797
00:50:26,199 --> 00:50:29,599
Alex is saying, I don't think you can write a

798
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,840
scientific description of subjective experience. I think it is just

799
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:38,199
fundamentally distinct. But alas, let's listen to the last minute.

800
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,199
Speaker 3: And again, I don't think the physicalist has any problem

801
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:41,039
capturing any of this.

802
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:47,039
Speaker 2: So but okay, so in agreement with that, you could

803
00:50:47,039 --> 00:50:48,880
write down what the neurons do, but that's not going

804
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:49,880
to make the neurons fire.

805
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly when, like, has.

806
00:50:53,039 --> 00:50:55,599
Speaker 1: Anyone actually made it to level four before? If you're

807
00:50:55,639 --> 00:50:59,199
slightly congested commercial level one, I'm not.

808
00:50:59,159 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 2: Even getting pent those neurons fire, And I can just

809
00:51:02,199 --> 00:51:06,119
I could. I could describe to Mary what neurons will

810
00:51:06,159 --> 00:51:08,840
fire in which way when she does step outside, such

811
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:13,079
that she has a complete understanding of the neurons that

812
00:51:13,119 --> 00:51:17,840
are firing. Yet when the neurons actually do fire, she

813
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:23,360
will discover that it's not just that, oh wow, neurons

814
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:23,719
are firing.

815
00:51:24,119 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: I think Alex is kind of missing the point here,

816
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,239
but it's okay, I'm still honest.

817
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,559
Speaker 2: In my brain, it's like, oh, and I'm having this experience.

818
00:51:31,679 --> 00:51:35,679
In other words, yeah, like, those neurons don't fire until

819
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:38,119
she steps outside. But you could, you could describe what

820
00:51:38,199 --> 00:51:43,360
those neurons are doing, and it seems like she would

821
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,239
still not expect or know what it's like to see

822
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,039
that blue even if she had a full understanding of

823
00:51:48,079 --> 00:51:50,679
those neurons, implying that the whole totality of what you

824
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,079
could scientifically write down on a piece of paper would

825
00:51:54,119 --> 00:51:59,280
still not include that experiential aspect of blue. And I

826
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,320
know if it do seem like we're kind of going

827
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:02,800
around in circles here, but I want to make sure

828
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,840
I'm being very specific here, because I understand what you're saying.

829
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,239
Those neurons won't fire until she steps outside. But the

830
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:11,599
point of a scientific explanation is that you should be

831
00:52:11,679 --> 00:52:15,599
able to take that new thing that happens when those

832
00:52:15,639 --> 00:52:19,159
neurons fire, that experience that comes with it, and sort

833
00:52:19,199 --> 00:52:21,159
of reduce it onto the piece of paper, which I

834
00:52:21,199 --> 00:52:22,519
just don't think is possible.

835
00:52:22,639 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 3: But it doesn't give you the experience. Telling Mary about

836
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:30,039
what neurons fire when she sees the color blue doesn't

837
00:52:30,079 --> 00:52:34,159
make those neurons fire. That's purely my only My point

838
00:52:34,199 --> 00:52:36,360
is not to disagree that there's something new.

839
00:52:37,079 --> 00:52:37,280
Speaker 2: Point.

840
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:39,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Alex kind of made a mistake there.

841
00:52:39,519 --> 00:52:43,719
I think there is a distinction between whether those neurons

842
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,800
are firing or not. Of course, of course there is, right,

843
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,159
So I don't really know where he was going with that.

844
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:54,519
The point is we have physical systems that essentially mimic.

845
00:52:54,599 --> 00:52:59,440
This a point I brought up many times. We have optics,

846
00:53:00,119 --> 00:53:03,679
we have transmission lines, you know, we have little USB

847
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:06,559
cables that we can plug into optics, and we have

848
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:13,800
data processing units that can process the optical information and

849
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:19,960
with some degree of autonomy or maybe total autonomy, make

850
00:53:20,039 --> 00:53:23,400
decisions in sort of like a reflexive way, in the

851
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:28,480
way like a human reflex works. And I think it

852
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:33,760
would be absolutely absurd to think that those systems have

853
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,360
like a conscious awareness and a subjective experience. So the

854
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:42,079
question is where does that subjective experience come from. That's

855
00:53:42,119 --> 00:53:45,280
why I really like theories that at least contend with

856
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:50,079
this issue, like orchestrated objective reduction and integrated information theory.

857
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,039
I still think they all sort of fall short of

858
00:53:54,079 --> 00:53:57,639
the ultimate mystery of what consciousness is. But I think

859
00:53:57,639 --> 00:53:59,239
that's just always going to be the case. I think

860
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:03,440
at some point we're going to reach the limit, you know,

861
00:54:03,639 --> 00:54:05,719
just like those video game characters are going to reach

862
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,159
a limit of how describing what the nature of the

863
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,079
reality is from the inside.

864
00:54:12,199 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 3: Why does it disagree that physicalism has any difficulty describing

865
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:16,119
it whatsoever?

866
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,679
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Because the neurs have to fire to get

867
00:54:19,679 --> 00:54:21,599
the experience. Okay, yeah, let me put it this way.

868
00:54:21,599 --> 00:54:26,519
Then do you think that if you did explain to

869
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,920
Mary in her room exactly which neurons were going to

870
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,039
fire in what way when she stepped outside and she

871
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:35,760
understood the totality of everything that could be known about

872
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,119
the brain, that she would predict that she would have

873
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:43,519
this thing called like qualia and blueness would arise.

874
00:54:44,519 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: She might be able to but again, that's insane. That's

875
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:50,400
the most insane answer of the whole interview should be

876
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:55,880
I might be able to. Yeah, you never know, you know,

877
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:58,760
kind of like a Laplace's demon thing, Like, yeah, if

878
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:00,920
you knew the position of every part article in the universe,

879
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,840
you could predict the future. And you know what's funny

880
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,840
is I actually agree with that because if we're talking

881
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:11,000
about things bumping into each other again, another great thing

882
00:55:11,039 --> 00:55:13,880
Mike brought up, like, these are basically differential equations, right,

883
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:17,480
Like there are these local events things bumping into each other,

884
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,320
and if you know the totality of all those events,

885
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:26,159
you can model huge phenomenon across millions of light years,

886
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,639
right the formation of galaxies over time. Like, with enough

887
00:55:29,679 --> 00:55:33,079
computational power, you could do all of that again, what

888
00:55:33,199 --> 00:55:38,480
does that have to do with subjective experience? Like, you

889
00:55:38,559 --> 00:55:43,000
could never predict subjective experience. You never could even if

890
00:55:43,039 --> 00:55:46,119
you knew where every neurotransmitter was, you could predict exactly

891
00:55:46,119 --> 00:55:48,199
what would happen. You could predict the formation of a

892
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:52,039
membrane potential and a downstream neuron. You could predict the

893
00:55:52,079 --> 00:55:56,559
formation that the way that the action potentials would oscillate,

894
00:55:56,679 --> 00:56:00,800
and some electrical activity of the brain, the power within

895
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:04,440
different frequency bands on an eg. You would never you

896
00:56:04,559 --> 00:56:10,840
could never predict the subjective experience. Ever, how can he

897
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:12,440
be allowed to get away with this? The prob is

898
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:15,239
the problem is I would never be this confident in

899
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:17,360
real life. You know, I'd be like, oh, that's interesting,

900
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:21,519
because of course he's a famous scientist. But I just

901
00:56:21,599 --> 00:56:23,800
I don't understand this is he should not be allowed

902
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:25,119
to get away with that comma at all.

903
00:56:25,159 --> 00:56:29,039
Speaker 3: And the ability to go from a reductionist lower level

904
00:56:29,079 --> 00:56:32,079
description to the higher level emergent description is very difficult,

905
00:56:32,159 --> 00:56:37,519
and it's not like necessarily an easy step. The important

906
00:56:37,639 --> 00:56:39,840
point for the philosophy.

907
00:56:39,119 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 1: It's not very difficult. It is as of yet impossible.

908
00:56:43,599 --> 00:56:47,079
There's a distinction. There's a distinction between Oh, yeah, that's tough.

909
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,119
But you know, I'm pretty smart. I can probably figure

910
00:56:50,159 --> 00:56:52,199
it out. I don't know it is as of yet

911
00:56:53,039 --> 00:56:54,320
fundamentally impossible.

912
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:59,159
Speaker 3: Topical point of the thought experiment is that all of

913
00:56:59,199 --> 00:57:02,360
that knowledge that she gains doesn't make those neurons fire.

914
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:06,719
So you're using a linguistic construction to say she learned

915
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:10,000
something new even though she knew all the facts. But

916
00:57:10,039 --> 00:57:13,559
that's an incorrect linguistic construction to the physical.

917
00:57:13,599 --> 00:57:15,719
Speaker 1: List the physical, I do kind of agree, and or

918
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,840
the clips over, I do kind of agree that this

919
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:21,719
would certainly make me rethink the way I would talk

920
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:26,039
about this thought experiment, because it's it's true. I mean,

921
00:57:26,079 --> 00:57:31,559
there's clearly a difference between knowledge in terms of the

922
00:57:31,599 --> 00:57:34,840
physical events that happen in your brain. There's a difference

923
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:37,800
between the knowledge of something and the experience of it

924
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:41,039
in the purely physical sense, meaning like you know, action

925
00:57:41,119 --> 00:57:43,599
potential's form and your retina, they get transmitted to the

926
00:57:43,599 --> 00:57:48,960
eccipital lobe. And of course subjective experience is intrinsically tied

927
00:57:49,199 --> 00:57:52,760
to visual processing. So there's no thought experiment you could

928
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:58,920
design where you know, you activate the visual pathways and

929
00:57:59,039 --> 00:58:04,000
don't activate us directive experience again, because I do think,

930
00:58:04,079 --> 00:58:09,880
of course, these things are like they cannot be separated.

931
00:58:10,159 --> 00:58:14,840
They're fundamental to one another, you know, conscious experience and

932
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:19,880
the hardware that provides the mechanism for the sensory input

933
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:25,480
that you experience. One cannot exist without the other. Although interestingly,

934
00:58:25,519 --> 00:58:29,000
maybe conscious experience can exist without stimulus. You might have

935
00:58:29,039 --> 00:58:33,320
a dream that is somewhat visual, but even then I

936
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:37,039
think you're just sort of like reliving an archived subjective experience.

937
00:58:37,119 --> 00:58:42,480
So I don't know about that anyway, God, what's the

938
00:58:42,519 --> 00:58:45,039
point of this? What's the point of it all? You guys?

939
00:58:47,199 --> 00:58:50,239
My favorite quote, one day you're gonna die and you'll

940
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:53,679
either stop asking or you'll know everything. Something like that.

941
00:58:53,719 --> 00:58:55,760
One day you'll die and either all of your questions

942
00:58:55,800 --> 00:59:03,960
will be answered or you'll stop asking questions. Anyway, I

943
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:09,760
just think it's interesting, and I'm frustrated by like life

944
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:14,920
is short, you know, so to like just dig your

945
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:19,440
heels in so hard on this like viewpoint that this

946
00:59:19,639 --> 00:59:22,320
is just an emergent property, which first of all magical

947
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:26,440
thinking what does that mean? You know, that's insane, But

948
00:59:26,679 --> 00:59:29,280
it's said in a way where like it saying it's

949
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,320
an emergent property is almost kind of like saying it

950
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:37,360
doesn't exist, you know, It's like, oh, you know, honestly, no,

951
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,360
saying emergent property is just it's just a mistake. I don't.

952
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,760
I think it needs to be rejected. It needs to

953
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:52,440
be deeply and profoundly rejected. Anyway, hope you guys are

954
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:55,639
doing good out there. Let me know what direction you

955
00:59:55,679 --> 00:59:58,280
want the show to go in. A lot of you

956
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:00,679
guys like the theology stuff. A lot of you guys

957
01:00:00,719 --> 01:00:03,559
don't like that, and you like the science stuff. You're

958
01:00:03,599 --> 01:00:07,920
all good sports. You put up with both. We could

959
01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:11,119
try to shift into like strictly an interview show, and

960
01:00:11,199 --> 01:00:13,239
I could try to get interesting guests from sort of

961
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:17,519
both sides. That'd be cool. I would sort of need

962
01:00:17,559 --> 01:00:23,079
to change my behavior a little bit because that would

963
01:00:23,079 --> 01:00:25,760
almost i'd sort of become a more public figure. And

964
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:30,840
I wouldn't need to start a YouTube channel, because unfortunately,

965
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:35,039
audio only is a dying thing. There's just not enough people.

966
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:41,360
YouTube has discovery, you know, so if you're into weird

967
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:45,039
stuff like this, the show will get recommended to you,

968
01:00:45,039 --> 01:00:47,280
you know, And I just don't think podcasting really has that.

969
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:50,119
It could be wrong anyway, you tell me the balls

970
01:00:50,119 --> 01:00:52,920
in your court. You one hundred or two hundred listeners

971
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:55,320
out there. You let me know what you want me

972
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:57,840
to do. God's I view book at gmail dot com.

973
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:02,280
Stay safe out there, God bless