Consciousness Live! with Philip Goff (S1 E3)

0:01 and we're live okay hello so Oh welcome and joining me today is Philip goth so Philip for those who don't know you can you say something about who you are and what you do yeah I'm well I've been teaching philosophy at Central European University in Budapest for the last four years and I'm just about in a week to start doing the same thing at the University of Durham though I'm in the throes of moving which is a bloody nightmare at the moment but

0:36 yeah so I guess philosophy my main interest is consciousness trying I guess just trying to fit consciousness into our general theory of reality so I guess my starting point is that we know that consciousness is real nothing is more evident than the reality of our feelings and experiences there has to fit in somehow but it's you know notoriously difficult to find a place for consciousness in our theory of the world and the two standard views on this materialism on the one hand and dualism

1:09 on the other I find both quite implausible and instead I defend their view that's become known as resilient monism which seems to me the perfect middle way between these two extremes I think it has all the benefits of materialism on the one hand and Judaism on the other without any of the problems so it's the perfect noob so so I published a book last year consciousness and fundamental reality the half of that is attacking materialism or physicalism and then half of it is exploring and

1:45 defending resilient moniz and trying to bring together a lot of the new debt rich on that and then since then I've been doing a lot of trying to do a lot of popular a lot of stuff aimed at a general audience a lot of articles aimed at German audience that I'm currently working on a book aimed at general audience which is currently called Galileo's era a manifesto for a new science of consciousness and that should be coming out in August 2019 call for Galileo yeah I want to ask you about a lot of that stuff but I want to start I would

2:18 like I think it's interesting to start with in an area that we agree where you fundamentally agree although I think we diverged pretty quickly but even so not not maybe as much as you might expect but anyway to start with a point of agreement the the fundamental reality of consciousness did I tweak the link before we go yeah go ahead and tweet it yeah it's there I even added you in the if I did it right if you're at philip underscore golf you should get a

2:51 notification I can't see that actually it's not in my notifications oh really oh did I misspelled your name no we I've just got we will share the link before going live okay well let me just respond to that then and try to show where that is okay well I see it on mine you know that's interesting that

3:30 you don't see it okay so philosophers stymied by go to you – you couldn't I could just go to you yeah I think it's Philip with one L that's the O's that the problem yeah I'll just that's wrong why suck I can never tell how many ELLs there are or peas to be honest okay that's fine I got you now okay so that's retweeted okay and I'll fix that misspelling your name yeah I know I'm noticing there are

4:02 two me right okay I thought we can I'm prepared to be wrong all day today so this is the first my apologies so so I wanted to get back to sort of talking about a place where we fundamentally agree which is the reality of consciousness so um you know my own history if in case anyone cares is I started out when coming to this as kind of a duelist a substance duelist actually because of considerations about consciousness and

4:35 the Cartesian kinds of arguments I'm having to do with conceivability of mine without body and I gradually came to reject that although not a hundred percent but become my credence in it was gradually lowered because of you know causal considerations which i think is pretty standard dichotomy between those that the standard economy between dualism materialism on the one hand there's people who take consciousness very seriously in any others people who think well it's gotta be fitting the causal structure of the world somehow because it does something so I kind of became more in that camp and and I don't

5:10 want to defend physicalism in the sense that I want to claim that it's true rather what I want to argue is that we don't have any good reason to think it isn't true so that's a slightly lower claim than trying to say why don't we know physicalism is truly not all the other views are wrong but anyway so we're we fundamentally agree is is this die-hard commitment to the realism of consciousness great yeah and so and that seems to me to be an area where like for instance illusionism and these other kinds of views they give up the game right off the bat by by by saying oh look we're not talking about the same

5:45 sort of thing that you guys are talking about like me and you for instance they want they're not talking about consciousness as given to us in our experience but something else think and that sounds like they're changing the topic are redefining the the terms of the battle so so that I want to be very clear that I think that they're they're just not really good reason for denying consciousness so so I wonder if you could tell us what your reasons for commitment to the reality of conscious is it just introspection or is it something more yeah it's good good well just on illusionism

6:18 I mean I think I completely agree with everything you just said but I'm probably more open to illusionism than many of my D physicalist colleagues in the sense of taking it seriously and not thinking it's just obviously incoherent so illusionism being it's roughly the V that consciousness doesn't exist that it's and the brain creates an illusion that it exists when it doesn't really get Frankish for example defend this view Daniel Dennett seems to at times but um so a lot of

6:51 people a very common reaction to it is for people to just say well this comp you because you know who is subject to the illusion you know you need consciousness to have an illusion in the first place so it's just straightforwardly contradictory Galen Strawson says this for example but I think that depends and I wrote this in ER there's a special issue of Journal of consciousness studies I'm on Keith Frankish Asst illusion is the manizer papers it depends what you think about thought or mental representation I guess still the dominant view in analytic

7:24 philosophy is that thought and mental representation or at least thought are sort of a distinct from consciousness you know you can see that the mains that the dominant theories of consciousness in the 20th century like buy food or or David's and didn't mention consciousness at all so if we can make sense of mental representation of thought independently of consciousness then it seems to me illusionism is perfectly coherent because you can say or it's not obviously income here and you can say you know we think this consciousness but there isn't and that makes sense if

7:58 thought is independent good I mean as it happens I I am one of the growing minority who thinks thought and mental representation is a kind of consciousness so I do think ultimately that it sinking but you know that's a that's a contentious view and so so I'm kind of open to take it seriously and David Chalmers got very interesting new paper on on this stuff taking exclusion ISM seriously and we had an interesting conference on it but but in terms of came back to a question well it's just a question of starting points really I

8:32 mean a lot a lot of analytic philosophers think you know our only source of data about reality is empirical in the sense of third-person observation and experiments that's and everything else has to be justified in terms of that or accounted for in terms of that but you know I mean we all know that even that data is not certain you know it's there's all sorts of skeptical arguments and this seems to me you know

9:08 what it's not obvious that that's the only starting point for knowledge and it seems to me the evident reality of you know I think Descartes got one thing completely right the evident reality of my own feeling I mean to take the obvious example I'm in pain and I think attend to my pain and I think it and I think I'm feeling like this it seems to me that that is known with a greater certainty that I really aren't feeling like this than anything else so that seems to me much more evident than that there's a table in front of me it seems

9:43 to be more evident I wouldn't say hundred percent certainty about any of this but I think Descartes was right that the mind is better known in the body the reality of conscious experience is more evident than the reality of the external world so why would I why would I start with the external world and so in a way you know that at least they should be on a par you know the third-person observation experiments on the one hand in a way I do want to take my point of mine how do we do metaphysics sorry I'm thinking about the nature reality a lot of

10:18 analytic philosophers think what just take third-person observations parents what I want to do is take third-person observation experiments absolutely crucial you know to respect what the empirical data is telling us but there's another source of data the evident reality of consciousness and I see the project of metaphysics is trying to find you know the simplest most parsimonious theory that it accommodates both so even if you know if you had a theory people talk about the grand unified theory that physics is hoping if you had a theory that accounted for all the data of

10:51 third-person observation experiments that still wouldn't be enough because this is another piece of data we need accomodating be evident reality consciousness so they both seem to me at least on a par and so we need to accommodate unless until we get overwhelming reason to think consciousness is an illusion but I don't buy any of the arguments yeah I guess that's my starting point I talked about this actually the only think tap through my book and most interested it best is the final chapter it took a sort of methodology and talk

11:23 about this kind of thing and how the datum of consciousness is hugely neglected in metaphysics more generally you know people just and you know how do we do metaphysics it seems to me they've got this thing we know exists and and I would argue that you know we sort of know its nature so using that as a source of data and metaphysics more generally and but yeah that's my starting point we've got two sources of data we need to put them together right and I can agree with that that I guess my question would be what it means to

11:55 accommodate the data yo of course I want a theory of consciousness that accommodates first-person data the question I guess I would ask is does it in order for that to be successful is it beholden to our common sense some kind of apprehension of consciousness alright so there's gonna have to be some level of revision at some point it seems to me no matter which way you go and that opens the door to at least some kind of weak version of illusionism not the

12:28 strong version which says that consciousness doesn't exist in the sense that we think that it does but the weaker version which I think Chalmers actually distinguishes in his kind of new paper the meta problem yeah where he talks about look you know there's got to be some elements which we attribute to our conscious experience which might fall away in the final theory of it yeah and so in that sense we're all every theory is committed to some version of illusionism because there's no way to accommodate it just ads I mean I think for instance even Roselia monism is going to end up saying something like

13:00 this with respect to well it depends on the version I know we'll get to this later but with respect to whether or not the microparticles and their elementary forms of consciousness or whatever those things aren't available to us in introspection so there's got some sense of illusion there possibly are you open to that or would you back in a week yeah it's a really good question how exactly characterized the date the datum and I would do it like this I would say yeah I'm very much open that I don't think we're infallible about all aspects of consciousness and

13:32 we make mistakes and especially when we starts terrorizing you know might be a bit like is it Gustin said about time yeah we know what it is until we think about it or like that you know I think we you know we sort of even when we do get it right pre theoretically then we start thinking so so what the datum is I would say think about and what philosophers tend to call phenomenal concepts I prefer to call them experiential concepts maybe a bit more

14:05 of a sort of accessible term people always think it means phenomenal like extraordinary when you turn on philosophers they you know phenomenal anyway so these are the kind of concepts you form when you tend to your experience and you just think about it in terms of how it how it what it's like I how it feels and in pain I just attend to my pain and I form this concept you know feeling like this not even those where you know just just you form a concept it's wholly based are attending to the state I would say consciousness realism is the view that those concepts

14:38 are satisfied that they genuinely mirror reality so that's that that's what I take to be the datum and not any as I wouldn't want to revise or I'd want overwhelming reason to revise them so maybe making all sorts of mistakes and you know but that's that's the bedrock to me that those experience all or phenomenal concepts are you know satisfied spot-on well what's the spot on part what does that add to it just like you know a concept is satisfied

15:15 when it's mirror is reality or it correctly represents reality I'd like to comment the classical concept of God as an all-knowing all-powerful perfectly good being that's satisfied when there really is an all-knowing all-powerful perfectly good being and or you know to contrast with it with our concept of time you know I'm opal well you know I think maybe we have a pre theoretical concept of free will or time and maybe that can be revised a bit so it's you know the original notion of maybe maybe the original notion of free will and you know is sort of libertarian

15:50 that there's no how do we define it no net no causes of your decision no prior cause of the decision but we can sort of move it on to you know a little bit of more of a compatibilist or maybe our notion of time can change but but so we have the idea that there's the concept the idea and whether it genuinely corresponds to reality whereas I mean that's not necessarily my beyond three well I'm just saying that's the kind of closable view where isn't in in consciousness I think the these set of

16:22 concepts that we know accurately represent and then it's difficult philosophical question well what do they represent what do they tell us and we can argue about that and we can get it wrong but the starting point would be those concepts do get it right yeah so so in this I mean I just kind of want to explore this a little bit more but so suppose that I'm in pain and I form the phenomenal concept of that this pain is sucks or whatever it's algae and then in

16:57 order to be a conscious realist in your sense you're saying that there must be at least one occasion where that gets it right about what's what it's like to be me is that the claim yeah maybe put it a little bit more precisely because there are all sorts of rough-and-ready phenomenal or experiential concepts like you know we just sell the pain I had yesterday or or pain is a kind of very generic vague concept and maybe if you think in this pain sucks that's the kind of that's the kind of very generic but what I'm talking about I guess to put the point more precisely is what

17:28 charmers cause direct phenomenal concepts so they're the the subclass maybe they're kind of proud of it well you just you don't kind of bring any templates and you just attend to the experience and you think that so I'm talking about those kind of concepts those concepts I'd say yeah when you film those kind of concepts you get it right yeah get it right with respect to what it's like for you that's I'm trying to figure out what the getting it right part is because but those kind of concepts as far as I understand it

18:00 somehow it's supposed to be that the experience itself is the the the target I mean it constitutes part of the thought that's what the directness is is that what you're also saying or is this something different than the trama way to put it that sounds a plausible plausible view I tend to agree what you went on to give a kind of theoretical characterization but what would just time I know is something a kind of starting point to theory and it's just that those concepts get it right and what it you know those concept as you say they characterize the state in terms

18:33 of what it's like so they so when I had when I like that maybe think of a thought probably so I think the thought it's like this to be me and I you know I'm I'm I'm attending to my pain it's like this to be me I say that thought is true and I know that that thought is true you know it is like this to be me and or you know there is something that it's like to be me you know the that's an engine question remember that fits in I'm not sure take that back but anyway in in the in the

19:07 specific case you know it's like this to be me and it really is like this to be me yeah okay so and this is so this is the what you call in the book the consciousness constraint that's what that's what we're talking about here that this is a constraint on theorizing so I wonder I mean there's a lot of stuff I wanna ask but I wonder how you might respond to a kind of I guess bacon Steinem inspired arguments against private languages and that sort of thing so so some people and I'm not one of them necessarily but I

19:39 wonder what you might say so some people might say look when we talk to each other and I say I'm in pain and I have a throbbing headache and you say oh man that's terrible I know what that's like you have to be able to communicate so if we are talking about the same thing right my pain in a sense and these kind of direct concepts that we're talking about seeing essentially private like they're only there only concepts that I can have but in order for us to be talking about the same thing it seems like you have to

20:12 have the same concept as I so this some people would take this as an argument that these kinds of things have to be public language concepts in order for us to be talking about the same thing at all there has to be some common concept between us and so I just wonder what your response to that kind of that supposed to presents a kind of foothold for skepticism about the turning point it's not one I'm especially sympathetic to but I do think it's serious so I wonder what you absolutely way I thought about this a lot when I debated a head

20:46 of department at CU in Budapest whose biggest very good because Johnny and Hannah Ben Yami and there's an audio recording of that on the website somewhere but what I think to the audio and then maybe I'll remember I mean I guess I guess I sort of say I think I think that David Papa knows got a very a very good article at which I kind of broadly agree with I guess I think that an we are hard-wired to sort of assume we're both talking about the same thing

21:22 when we you know hardwired just to assume someone's in pain when they exhibit various behavior I lied I don't see why that couldn't go so think of Charlie I'll give you so so that these it's supposed to show that they're in communicable but also on the base out that they're just empty in the B's incoherent and that I've always done the main move question begging what does thicken and says something like what's the key line I know I'm right or something and so which means that there is no right

21:55 I saw something no no that's just that's just a question Bank anyway but I don't see why the communicability problem can't be just answered by just you know that we're just hardwired to to make certain phenomenal attributions when we see certain behavior and to assume and then when society gets getting away assume that we both and what it's like for me to see Tomatoes is the same as what if like Ramon l see tomatoes and we just make these assumptions and we get on with it and yeah but so just a process a bit further I think that kind

22:29 of crux of the argument here is is whether or not we have the same concept so you're you're comfortable denying that like when you say you're in pain when I say I'm in pain you say wow you really are in pain you're employing a different concept than I am because you're employing a concept that's based on my behavior and making assumptions related to your personal concept about it's like this to be in pain or something like that but so we're strictly speaking talking past each other if we're not applying the same concept

23:00 it doesn't that right I don't want to say that so what's gone wrong it's it so I mean this is as I said we're gonna distinguish experiential concepts in general from these paradigmatic direct experience real concepts where you just attend your own pain and thing but they're just you know one kind we can you know I can think of pain in all sorts of ways I can think of pain experientially when I'm not feeling it and I think what I do I'm sort of I see you exhibiting behavior and I think you're in pain and I employ an

23:34 experienced real concept when I do that you know it's difficult for the sufferer question how do I know you really are given that I know about pain from my own case how do I know you'll really are in pain how do I know what it's like the you to see colors is the same you know this is an interesting skeptical difficulties arise here but there are skeptical difficulties all over the place you know how do we know this external world so I assume it's you know rationally legitimate to assume other people up minds and that these

24:07 assumptions are somehow rational yeah that's not the real worry that I'm trying to get at I agree with all the things you just said but it doesn't it seem so suppose I say I'm in pain and I'm on the basis of my utterance that with the justification of the utterances a direct phenomenal concept and then you say no you're not because I'm not limping or howling and I don't seem distracted and I can do math and all those sorts of things you know as easy as I'd normally cut anything so it doesn't it seem like we should be should be contradicting me but you're not contradicting me because we've

24:42 employed we've said different things I have expressed the direct no I mean I'm expressing a thought that has as a part of its concept a direct phenomenal concept and you're using a different concept of public language concept of pain so it just seems like a kind of common sense datum should be that we're disagree thinking when I say I'm in pain on this basis and you say no you're not and it doesn't seem like this kind of starting point gets that right you're not really disagreeing with me in other words well I don't think when I ascribe

25:14 pain to you it is a behavioral concept I don't think I'm a part of like language concept I mean one that's ordinary third-person and not it's I think it's an experience or concept it's I think we both employ an experiential concept and the question is how do experiential concepts get into public language and the thought would be that well we just partly hardwired partly socialized who to take certain forms of behavior as evidence someone having certain experiences but that doesn't mean it's a

25:49 it's it's a baby or concept or so I would say it's an experiential concept and there's a bit of trickiness here and they've partly an empirical question out of these experience concepts become enter into public language and clearly that the direct ones can't but the more general ones Oh or at least that the other ones can and it's something to do with just yeah but these hardwired or socialized assumptions we make about taking certain forms of behavior as evidence for having

26:22 certain experiences okay so I still are kind of getting the sense in which we're disagreeing because we're both employing the same concept it's an experiential concept but mine's directing yours is not so it's not the same concept when you're employing a direct concept I mean I thought that was the move you were making earlier was that on the one hand there's two different concepts one's an experiential one which somehow involves you thinking about the thing when you're not having it the other one's direct when you kind of just take

26:55 it up and say this is my pain experience this is the painfulness of it or something what about that they're not sort of two different cut I mean they're they're different classes of the same concepts though they're it's just in the direct ones of the kind of hiding matter there's a relationship so we know we have these peridot Matic forms and then on the basis of that we form a gem so I have you know I'm feeling pain and I attend to my sustain but then we form you know more general concepts it's the general concept of pain and ya know you

27:32 make me think I just pose that maybe there are some details I need to sort of think think about but I mean I suppose when you ascribe pain to yourself maybe you maybe you're at you're employing the direct one but you're also generally employing a general notion of pain which is very intimately related to the direct one and that's the one that enters into public language do I want to say that I like to think about that where were the direct ones are in public language we certainly I can I can yeah I'm not sure

28:04 okay this is that tricky issues here I suppose I'm not as there's any kind of insuperable difficulties or reasons to think that the concepts or not I'm not gonna here in law oh yeah okay and so can I go ahead then in segue to why so if we both want to admit that there are that this is a good starting point which I agree that we need the two sources of data on the one hand that the datum that consciousness is real I don't think we

28:37 always get it right but I do think that it's I mean you know once when I was an undergraduate just as an anecdote I was in my Descartes class that professor assigned us a homework assignment said can you think of anything Descartes didn't doubt and I was yeah he didn't doubt that he had consciousness you know I just reading Dennett Dennis I should doubt that so I was like okay there's something that he did I mean he didn't go as far as some of these contemporary people who want to community that we're just totally wrong about the nature of conscious experience so I think that the starting point for

29:09 us has to be well there's third person data in there's first person data and we don't want to neglect either one of them so I think that's good and we both agree on that but then the question is well why so my view is that that's not incompatible with a very austere form of physicalism your view is that it is so we start from the same place end up on other sides of the fence so I just wonder what is it about admitting that the reality of consciousness is non-negotiable oh has this kind of problem good exit ok so well it's a huge complicated debate and I'm sure but I

29:46 guess my starting point and what I'm trying to express in in a lot of the the popular level or I don't mean to demean it by saying popular level it's also sort of interdisciplinary isn't it and level discussions it I mean so I think actually the improv David Chalmers was hugely influential in the 1990s if I can just digress that I mean with this you know getting people to take seriously the problem of consciousness and come from that head-on and people do now take it easy but a very common reaction is to say okay there's a problem but we just need to do more neuroscience and it'll

30:21 start you know if you look to the great success of physical science and explaining more and more of our universe that ought to give us confidence that we just keep doing your Oh science fear and so what you know what I want to kind of make get more into the public and interdisciplinary mind is the sort of you know the philosophical reasons why physical science might not be up to this task which was you know barren charmers in the conscious mind but you know it's pretty it's a pretty hard book the

30:52 conscious mind in a way you know it's accessible for an academic philosophy book but it's so I think it was more just this sort of the hard problem that was the thing that so the way I put it without trying to get it know so when people try to get to the arguments they get quickly very complicated the way I try to put it just the popular level starting point is that consciousness involved is an essentially qualitative phenomenon just in the sense that it involves qualities it's like the redness of a red experience the sweet

31:27 taste of honey the smell of coffee whereas physical science works with a purely quantitative vocabulary and you Julie I just think you can't capture those kind of qualities in the purely quantitative vocabulary of physical science so this is and this you know the nicest are at the point heads them that the top that the name for my my new book Galileo from the very start appreciated this right he only intended physical

32:01 science to be a partial description of reality why he hoped it could cope with the mathematical features but he never doubt that it could you could capture in that kind of conjugated language the qualities of conscious experience right so you know he set things off by narrowing the scope of inquiry of physical science and that went really well right and but you know so but in my view the reason it's gone so well is because Galileo narrowed the scope of

32:35 inquiry so when people say oh look the success of physical science has gone so well it's one day gonna explain consciousness you know my response is no it's gone so well because it wasn't designed to deal with consciousness and it got you know Galileo into time travel to the present day in here about this hard problem of explaining consciousness in physical science terms he'd say yeah of course there is you know that consciousness involves qualities and physical science is designed to do with quantities so I think now so I think we're going through a period of history where was so blown away by the success of physical science that we think this

33:08 really works you know like philosophy didn't work for thousand years and this works but I think sooner or later go realize well it works because it's aimed at something quite narrow roughly the mathematical models of kind of behavior at least in the case of physics slightly more and there's something else going on here that you know the qualitative reality of consciousness and so sooner or later we've got to sort of try and put the two together I mean it's not it's not that anyone many people

33:40 deny the reality of consciousness but at the same time I think they don't explicitly take it on as a datum in its own right when they're sort of thinking about their big theory of the world they think I you know we just do physics or we just do science they're not thinking of it as a datum in its own right so that's the kind of thing I can that's the kind of I mean I like the point about Galileo I don't know if that's an error I kind of get where you're coming from there though that never was dismissing consciousness and not having

34:13 it part of science somehow so I understand the point and of course you know that the assayer what published in 1620 summer another may be a big car Apollo student afterwards you know I don't know exactly when his discourse on the method was written but not long after that and of course Descartes does the same thing right so to to to focus on the mathematical explanations and then he just sees no hope of doing anything with specta consciousness it is interesting I think that there some some of de cartes pessimism has been

34:48 unwarranted so you know we'll get back to Galileo in a second boats focusing on Descartes first I get you know he famously claimed that no machine could generate natural language in a way that a person would accept and that we know it's demonstrably false because there I mean the interesting thing about the Turing test that they do nowadays is that not only do some people judge the machines are people but they judge that the people aren't very interesting but anyway so we know that you know artificial intelligence has the least got to the point where an in limited

35:22 circumstances that can generate strings of sentences which seem to be produced by an intelligent being and Descartes curse taught that was flatly not possible now of course that's you know you might say well that's because they're not dealing with consciousness and in their language production or something but so I just wonder why we should be so pessimistic so I understand the point that yes they removed the the qualities and science click clicks on clocks on but that's the way science often

35:54 precedes right they artificially limit so I mean you know on mechanics one electron the equation for one electron moving a vacuum okay but you limit everything else and then you work up to that other stuff know successively so why isn't this just the normal way science doesn't if we don't understand something we put it to the side we're come things we do understand but eventually the same methodology would be extended to the things which are sidelined no okay yeah so I think what I just said about Galileo in the history I

36:30 don't take that to be an argument that consciousness will never be explained in the terms of physical science I take it to be rather a response to an argument that it will so I think a lot of people I mean you talk about cause of closure and I think that that's motivates philosophers or that certainly or philosophers say motivates them but I think more broadly and I suspect with it philosophers as well it's this idea look how well physical science has gone it's obviously it's got to explain consciousness so it's a response to that

37:03 I think well no here's a different way of thinking about the history of physical science and there's a purpose of physical science of why it's been successful that it doesn't draw that conclusion so that's what that's doing but no it's not it's not in itself reason to think that we need an argument so why is it the physical science so well again it's the point about the identity of qualities and quantities that are it's hard to see how you can capture qualities in a purely quantitative vocabulary okay now you

37:37 might say okay well we haven't done it yet but you know one day we'll do it um and I suppose I suppose at that point I would bring in the knowledge argument or I don't think the knowledge argument you don't really need to get into the far fetched details of marry and stuff you just here's this is essential point a neuroscientist uptight a congenitally blind neuroscientist will never know what it's like to see colors through reading euro science now seems to me an incredibly strong premise and it's so can I just ask a quick question about

38:13 that because that's a kind of unusual way of putting the knowledge argument I say more at least it's a central point so first for someone like me my view on the knowledge argument is that Mary could make the relevant deductions inside her room as long as she had the relevant concept so I think it's kind of cheating to say that she needs to be able to know what red is without having the phenomenal concept of red I mean no one would do that with the other stuff so if she didn't know what water was I'd never had the concept of water then of

38:46 course she couldn't deduce that water was h2o you need the other concept so in the case of consciousness we need the relevant phenomenal concept to know what we're talking about how to make the deductions and that requires that she has seen red but it doesn't but it still is compatible with the claim that there's these all priority deductions because acquiring the concepts allows her to connect the two but doesn't play any justifying the deduction that's being made so it just seems to be kind of unfair to say well the blind

39:18 neuroscientist who has no concept about the phenomenal qualities that's in the phenomenal sense at least of course that person couldn't know because that's just asking them to make to know something that they don't have the concept of so I just wonder why why that's not an overly austere way of thinking about what the knowledge argument is trying to do yeah that's a good point so we'd have to talk about Mariana you know Mariana who's Manito Rulon's is in the in the black and white room oh she gets color chips

39:53 right so she gets she gets the experiences and so she gets the concept of experiences but then the thought is she still wouldn't know which of those color chips is the color of the sky or which is the color of tomatoes well that I denied that there's I don't think there's any way that that would be what happened I mean their largest of intuition loggerheads maybe but certainly she'd be able to tell that the red color chip is more like the orange one than it is like the blue one and then I think the relevant brain states are gonna line up in something like this is by the works

40:27 um some of the work that's come out of Adam pouches work recently that there's you know the the neural responses to these things form a kind of family or in a way that tracks what the properties are more than the external properties like the reflectance properties and so so I just think that yeah the brain state that is what the redness is gonna be more similar to the brain stay for another seven years the blueness and that's gonna be a kind of bridging thing that's gonna allow her to connect I mean I just don't see why that wouldn't work in principle I mean I suppose I think but in a way why why wouldn't the neural

41:02 could Nica gently by neuroscientist be able to get it because so look I mean I think physical science work and neuroscience works with a purely quantitative vocabulary and I could say though a lot of what I mean by that it but um and you know I suppose if consciousness can be explained in those sort of terms then it must essentially be a kind of purely quantitative phenomenon and the neuroscientist has all the blind neuroscientist agenda pioneers has all the relevant kind of

41:35 quantitative concepts so I mean what are they lacking why can't we give them the that concept in those terms or well because they're lacking the direct phenomenal concept which would be required to know what they're talking about I think that's that's where you and I agree that that's the datum is that yeah to get a fool to get the data you have to have these kinds of concepts so you don't have the data without that so she's missing the data and without the data she can't connect the other data to this data actually I

42:11 I'm saying no I'm putting my neck out more than I need to I mean yeah I I actually think silica to digress slightly I'm not gonna dodge the point but I mean I think there's something like spending 30 percent of our time on a sort of popular level debate or into the spirit I'm the academic debate and I think you know there's kind of very different things going on in in these in these debates so I think you know in the in the in the poppy level debate this there's a sort of general assumption that we need an explanation of

42:45 consciousness you know we need to give an intelligible account of how consciousness comes to be and there I would sort of press the knowledge are given and so on a lot of the academic argue academic debate is because so I think still that the dominant position materialist position the so-called phenomenal concept strategy opponents of that tend to hold that actually you don't need an explanation of consciousness in a certain sense it all you need are these sort of Brut

43:16 identities things they conscious states are identical with brain states and that's the end of it and it's sort of a philosophical confusion to sort of think we need this explanation of consciousness so so that these two very different debates that so I guess CERN and the popular I'd kind of push the Vella drawings but actually as I say in my book I was sort of defending I've sort of realized I don't need to defend that the knowledge I mean I assume a book I don't think the knowledge argument in itself does demonstrate the falsity physicalism what it does

43:48 demonstrate is that there are concepts that cut these experiential concepts are not physical functional quantitative concepts so it's a kind of conceptual dualism okay and then and then we've got a further step okay well why why does that why can't I just be conceptual dualism so that's the dominant materialist position in academic class we know there's a conceptual dualism these two radically different kinds of

44:22 concept you know experiential concepts and physical functional concept but actually they refer to the same things that the level of reference brain states just experiential phenomena just are physical functional phenomena or whatever so I think the knowledge argument proves the conceptual Judaism but then we have to take a further step to prove the metaphysical yeah but so so I guess I'm trying to I wasn't trying to invoke the phenomenal concept strategy in that way although I'm not you know my

44:55 money I'm open to it and the brute identity you know of David Papineau and Ned block I think that that's a respectable way to go and depending on your philosophy of science a lot of them a lot of this depends on your background views about philosophy of science but I'm also open to the other kind of Conibear way of looking at things where you need these off priori entailments in order to be respectable and so that's what I was trying to depress on was that it seems to me that there is a an OP reorient element in the vicinity but it requires having the irrelevant concept just like every other I'll pre agree and tell me requires having this the

45:28 concepts and that connect the two so in this case it's a phenomenal concept but I wasn't trying to say we don't need an explanation of consciousness I actually sort of tend to think maybe we do I don't know maybe we don't but that's a different question it's just the the question of so if you're physically so why isn't it enough that there's a kind of our priority element from the brain stuff to the phenomenology and if that's all if that's what's required then it seems to me that Mary could have it as long as she had the right concept so that was kind of the point but I was trying to miss area so I suppose I've been thinking of I've been thinking that one

46:01 is either somebody thinks mental concepts are sort of functional concepts in which I know in there's an a priori entailment all you you have the phenomenal concept idea where you think no mental concepts of experience cause it's a really different to functional concepts but there's a sort of they Co refer so there's no a priori entailment know I'm a fan of the middle way thing so you think there are these distinctive kind of

46:33 very adroit concept but there could be an a priori tournament okay maybe I need to think more about that but I said I suppose I think if there if you do agree with the phenomenal concept soda to the extent that you think there are these distinctive kind of introspective concepts then surely they would be completely isolated from you know I mean if I were just a demonstrative concept that thing then it is it's gonna be kind of it's gonna go not gonna have any kind of information in it it's gonna be sort of conceptually isolated from other things going on so there isn't gonna be

47:11 a priority element well that's a demonstrative concept these are I mean maybe that's your view about what phenomenal concepts are certainly doesn't seem to me that that's what they are because of the reason you're giving I mean demonstrative concepts if they're just a monster dibs they don't tell you what it is you're pointing so the phenomenal concepts are more direct than that they I mean somehow we're I want to use the dreaded a word but somehow acquainted or it's more than merely pointing at it blindly so I take that points well maybe this but endeared

47:49 but you're not but just so I mean back up and find the common ground again I mean you're not denying are you that the entailments in any sense required the relevant concepts are you I mean to make any conflict to get in our career income which with water nice chill you need both the concepts of h2o and the concept of water I mean you're not doing that right no no right good so you've made me realize something that I hadn't appreciated before but the knowledge argument doesn't entail there's no a priority ailment I might take this back I'm thinking Mario's but it does it just

48:25 entails that there's there's a you know a distinctive kind of concept yeah that's what I take it to show yeah okay thank so I'm I hadn't really been appreciating that that combination obsessions but maybe okay so maybe this is a good moment to introduce this distinction be transparent and opaque concepts should I know maybe I admit maybe I can find respondent your position in those terms or think about it at least in those turn okay so this is a distinction it's very important in my academic work this distinction

48:57 transparent and opaque concepts don't contrasting it with charmers so charmers in his academic work set things up in terms of what he could is framework of two-dimensional semantics and I've actually you know disagree a lot with that way I think that is sort of too contentious in lots of respects and so you know although I probably on side with charmers in big picture terms and you know influence one part of what I do but book is thing is I disagree with

49:30 that whole two dimensional semantics approach anyway we don't need to go back but so my framework is has the benefit of being much simpler as well but I think it's also better anyway so neo a transparent concepts are defined as concepts that reveal the essence of their reference so an example might be concept of trying of a triangle you know if you know if you know cons of triangle you know what at least you can work out what a triangle essentially is it's a three-sided figure you know you can just

50:02 thinking about it know that whereas an opaque concept does not really essence of its reference so so an example might be water merely having the concept of water does not reveal to you what water essentially is water is essentially h2o but you need to do some science to work that out you can't know just through reflecting that water is essentially h2o okay so these are the transparent ones reveal the essence they're paid ones don't so I think the key question in consciousness is coming to our again to

50:40 our experience or concepts are they transparent or opaque are they more like are they more like water concepts they don't reveal what consciousness is or are they more like triangle geometrical concepts they reveal what consciousness essentially is I and I think that's the whole debate it might be kind of hangs and falls let's say if you think if you think that they're opaque then I think conscious physical it so materialism or physicalism makes perfect sense but if

51:12 you think the transparent materialism is screwed right so that's fine so I want to hear what the I mean I probably do think they're somewhat opaque but even if they aren't I don't really see the force of it and but before we even get to that can ask about the triangularity stuff because certainly you're right about the essence of it but it doesn't tell you whether triangles can be instantiated and physical objects I mean

51:45 so the Aristotelian versus Plato debate about Plato claiming there are no triangles and natured plate Aristotle claiming yeah sure there are so having the concept doesn't of triangle I mean I assume they both have the concept of trying triangularity but yet even though it's essence what might not be revealed it's not a lot of these metaphysical questions are still open right yeah I'm just I'll just get some water yeah the joys of live broadcasting yeah I mean there are important differences I

52:33 mean gee I would say geometric concepts are not only transparent they're merely transplant sorry experiencial concepts are not only transparent but in certain cases we know that they're satisfied that's the kind of point we started off talking about whereas that's not the case of geometrical concepts like you don't know you don't know to certain that there are any instances of triangularity physical instances certainly Plato would have thought there are instances of trying regularity it's just they're not instantiated physically there's somehow farms or something and not so the debate

53:06 between Platonism versus you know nominalism about this stuff is is not answered by knowing the essence of trying you triangularity so what's this suppose it's this supposed to show about the consciousness case or well I'm just trying to sell suppose that you thought the essence of pain was this painful quality it still seems to me an open question whether or not that's something to do with brain states are somehow not right well it could be but it might not

53:45 be but so you know we just have to take the case in point right I mean it's I mean again to explore this Aristotle case maybe let's just come back to the consciousness case and then if it you know if it if you think it's it has a bearing I suppose I think so let's take the view you you're considering the view where it's a transplant concept it reveals the essential nature well now suppose that physicalism is true and our

54:26 conscious states have a physical nature well then it would follow that that physical nature is apparent to us through just through introspection or reflecting and thinking about our consciousness and so you know to take the AK need an empirically implausible example philosophers always geared let's suppose you know pain is C fibers firing in the brain that's that's what it is well then you'd be able to know just by attending to your pain that it's C fibers firing you know it's in your assigned to be really easy you could

54:58 just introspect and discover the physical nature but that seems clearly false so there were we up to here so I suppose that will be the rough-and-ready route from transparent concepts to the falsity of physicalism right so why I think that that movie made is a good one so I think that if I have fire if I know the essence of pain experience experiential essence I guess I would want to call it I that that means that I would also know its physical nature I'm not sure why so

55:33 that's what I was trying to get out with the essence of triangularity there I can understand its geometric essence what it is what's nature is but that doesn't answer the question whether it's whether there are physical triangles whether they're instantiated physically or even whether this triangle is identical to that physical structure that that tells you something gives you a framework for it I mean that's a maybe a wedge you could use to debate that you know Plato saying well these things are somehow having properties that physical objects don't have so they cannot be and in Aristotle saying no no you got them on

56:05 or something but they both understood the nature of the thing they're talking about I mean maybe they're maybe maybe what I'm so maybe this is more what the translucent stuff is supposed to do in your work so that there there's an aspect of its nature which is revealed which I would say it's experiential nature which were acquainted with so to know directly but then it's a further step to say and that's all there is to it I mean isn't that right so maybe I don't know they knew their number different things going on you know what so one thing is if it's completely

56:40 transparent why does it follow that we'd know if it's physical I mean just on the Plato and Aristotle example I suppose maybe I want to make the Augustan point again that you know just because you know in some sense we know the nature we know that you know the essence we can still make mistakes when we start theorizing so I guess I think you know in the moment of having an experience or direct exposure concept we sort of know exactly what consciousness is but then when we theorize and start making mistakes but um but there's two different issues here right so – as I

57:12 said one is suppose you agree that it's transparent does it follow that that physicalism is false but the other view is we'll but the other thing is wiping is transparent I'm not translucent so maybe well maybe I should say that that middle way just since we've introduced it so it's like you know I start off with these two extremes transparent reveals the complete essence opaque reveals the non of the essence and then obviously in between you've got you could have translucent concepts that are real part of the essence so the

57:47 example I sometimes give just silly example is you know being a sphere the same mass as the earth so being a sphere we know a priori what a sphere is but you need to do some science to work out the mass of the Earth anyway so I I mean I what I try to show is that none of these middle-way translucency options work out and you know maybe we could go on to talk about that and so we really have to choose between the extremes of transparent opaque and I think a cake is really implausible because we do know

58:20 things about the nature central nature consciousness through experience like for example red experiences resemble orange experiences so we have to go for the transparent but um if you just if you think if you if you what do we want to talk about you want to say if you think it is transparent well then if if if pain just is essentially see five aspiring then and you you know you know for introspection what it is then you then you ought to know that it's he

58:53 thought is fine I mean so there is a position a few philosophers but I think the majority of phenomenal concept strategists would say they're basically opaque or maybe a bit translucent number of physicalists have explicitly committed to that and a lot of the time it looks like that you know just looking at a theory of concept but a few physicalists have said okay they're both transparent but I call this in the book dual carving I don't know why I call it that now a tree but anyway so in dual carving right you've got an the idea would be the pain concept completely

59:27 reveals the nature of pain see fibres firing concept completely reveals agency fat's firing but you just still don't there's such different kinds of concepts you still don't know they refer to the same thing it's not the kind of view you think you know well that could be it but I mean I wonder if you would object to the qualification that it reveals the experiential nature oh right okay good so in terms of what it's like for you I think that that could that's the trance part but that's not that might not be the entire I mean so if it's identical to a brain state that's not part of what

59:59 it's like for you so that wouldn't be part of its experiential nature which is revealed so so that's why I'm wondering so that was kind of what the analogy with the triangularity was supposed to be getting at you know what's really revealed is its geometrical nature but then there's a separate question about whether that's all there is so I was good I would say a lot of people say they like translucency and then say exactly what you just said I don't think that is translated because I mean I would say what I mean by consciousness is just the experiential

1:00:34 aspect and you know what I'm open to and what I kind of endorsed my book is what I call the consciousness plus hypothesis that the consciousness the phenomenology is an aspect of a more expansive property so I'm completely open to that when I say transparency all I mean is it's that the experiential aspect of what it's like nurses sometimes said the experiential character is transparently understood that's all I mean but isn't that what we're talking about we're

1:01:07 talking about whether that is physical or not yeah why would that be revealed in the experiential part why would that be okay so if the if the revelation claim is just about or the transparency claim is just about the experience or aspect of the thing then that's you know I I can go along for the sake of argument that's completely revealed to us and I'm someone skeptical but at that but anyway so I can go along with it that it's completely revealed to us in these direct kind of phenomenal concepts

1:01:39 but then if that thing is identical to a brain state that's not part of its experiential quality that's just it's metaphysical nature and no one I mean I so it sounds to me like really what you're claiming is that revelation is the claim that it's metaphysical nature is revealed in these kinds of concepts and that's so much more I think harder claim to defense I don't know I don't know the difference between nature and message like on understand know what you're just very until nature versus metaphysical

1:02:12 nature but what we're talking about but the experiential nature is real so that's a metaphysical I mean that's what we're talking about we're talking what what you just said sounds to me like the consciousness plus view that I'm happy with that that you know we transparently understand the experience or nature but it's part of a more expansive property and we don't understand all all aspects of the more expansive property but I mean I don't see the contrast between the experiential nature and the metaphysical nature given that the experiencial nature is part of reality so it's metaphysical and that's that's what we're talking about we're asking is

1:02:45 the experiential nature physical or not that's just I'm not a metaphysical part is supposed to get at how these things come apart or don't across possible worlds well so if there's metaphysics so if it's metaphysically identical to the brain state then it's necessary or at least I would you know I'm sympathetic to this view oh there are other versions that I may be sympathetic to in different days but you know right now soon to this so metaphysically it's necessary which means that in every

1:03:17 possible scenario that experiential thing is a brain state that doesn't mean that the way it's revealed to the the subject is as a brain state well I guess it sounds like you're given a kind of modal definition of essence though in terms of what's what's Nestle's in all possible worlds but I guess I didn't that what physicalism it's well I would miss the claim that you know these things that it's necessary that that consciousness is physical that's at

1:03:51 least the way I would interpret it yes I'm sympathetic to this the trend and grounding talk and kick fine notion of essence particularly thinking that no actually the modal stuff follows from essence it's not we don't define essence in medical terms rather so I just so I've kept finds as one we should have a definitional notion of essence so what do I mean by the essence that pain I just mean what it is to feel pain you know what it is to feel that way and I think when I have a direct phenomena zit I know what it is to feel that way right but

1:04:24 that doesn't tell you people have pain I know it and and if what it is to feel that way was just how do you see if I was firing then you'd know that and so modal stuff follows from essence but it's but I wouldn't define yeah yeah I guess this is an area where there really is a disagreement because I heard you you first say you know what it's like and then you concluded by saying I know what it is no no no nothing different yes they are different they are different and that's that's an incomplete ly right that that's an important source of confusion you could

1:04:57 think that that they sound the same but they're very different things so yeah I would say like David papa know for example thinks he knows what it's like to feel pain but he doesn't think you know from instruction what it is to feel pain because what it is to feel pain is that is what pain essentially is whereas what it's like to feel pain is it's the kind of neutral way of putting you know I don't know whatever this starting datum is that we started off talking about these kind of concepts whatever you whatever's going on when you think

1:05:30 about your consciousness in these terms the B I mean right exactly so you could have the view that you know these phenomenal concepts are satisfied yes they're picking something out it's experiencial but what they're picking out is a brain state but they don't pick it out as that don't pick it out as an experience sure that sounds like the phenomena concepts show that you well I mean everyone has a phone I mean everyone who is who endorses the realism of consciousness has to have some kind of phenomenal concept strategy ultimately the details are where it

1:06:02 where the differences are and I'm not endorsing what is typically called a phenomenal concept strategy in the literature but I think you know it's obviously you and I believe there are these things called phenomenal concepts they're kind of unique or special they pick out something which is private and only known by you and we have to you know by inference attributed to other people so I mean I don't think it's it's cheating in any way for me to and invoke something I thought we had in common which is that these things pick out the expert

1:06:34 intial nature's of these things but then there's this what I'm just pressing you on is why I think that's all there is to its nature that doesn't tell you what it is if what you're if what you're worried about is you know zombie world's or you know weird transitions between digital persons and biological persons and from all sorts of counterfactual claims that really some people would argue are really kind of getting at the essence of the thing in a sense of metaphysical sense what what it is as opposed to how

1:07:10 it appears yeah so I just said there's two things into white I would say by definition all there is to a conscious state is its experiential aspect because that's just what I mean by talking of consciousness I mean the experiential aspect and they need the experiential aspect that's just what I mean but that doesn't that's that doesn't follow from that simple stipulation that it's transparent because I think again they've got nothing would agree that

1:07:47 yeah that's just agree with what I've just said but he still thinks the concept is completely opaque it's yeah that's all there is the experiential aspect but you don't know what the hell the experiential aspect is through introspection or attending to experience so so that's fine it's fine to think that but what I don't understand is the idea that you could completely understand the experience aspect and it's purely physical but you don't know it's physical I just that doesn't

1:08:19 because the physicality is not part of its experiential aspect I'm just tired of it it's more fundamental nature or something like that but okay so so I mean part of so let's kanae sure I don't want to cut you off so you can go ahead and finish with your thoughts but I'll go ahead a little very quick but another possibility is I was arguing with with Andrew Lee having a very seasoned PhD student my you yeah similar argument where he has that deep structure idea that there but what he meant by nature

1:08:54 was like what grounds it so said you think you could know all all about the experiential nature without knowing what grounds it but but that's not what I mean by knowing the essence that just mean you know knowing what it is to feel pain but anyway sorry we don't meet you carry on you can you know that's fine this I think that's a good conversation it's interesting and useful for me at least so I wonder what you would say then about so transitioning to conceivability claims so you like what I'm not hearing you invoke is zombies

1:09:27 which is nice I guess the standard view is that zombies are conceivable but not possible my view is that they're not conceivable but not because of something to do with analytic function like functionalism which i think is the normal way to trial caps i clean mouth but rather because well more cautiously what i would say is that there seems to also be conceivable what I call what I have called zombies which are physical duplicates of me which have consciousness just like mine but are

1:09:59 just physical so it doesn't so it seems to me and and I want to distinguish that from so I know that Keith Frankish has a similar kind of view called anti zombies but I think that Keith and I really disagree because he's an illusionist and I find that view very puzzling to put it to put it mildly so we can't be talking about the same thing because when he's talking about anti zombies he means to be indicating creatures that he would consider illusionists and they don't

1:10:32 have consciousness and in the sense of I'm talking about so those aren't those aren't what I want to invoke I want to know about real consciousness in the sense that we've been talking about and say look it's conceivable that that's physical so that to me and and by conceivable what I mean is not imaginable in if that's a shorter term but I mean logically coherent and you know so in the standard kind of taunt Chalmers to send that there's no there's no obvious contradiction entailed by this claim or else someone would have pointed it out

1:11:08 someone would have published this paper and that paper doesn't exist and people have been looking for the same is true with zombies I guess it's it's really hard and I've tried hard to try to find the contradiction in zombies and every time I find something people say you know oh well you could you could conceive of this missing and that they're so I don't know so it's really hard to actually say what the contradiction and these thing in these things are but certainly one of them has to be contradictory it seems to me that there has to be a contradiction entailed by either zombies or Sean B's

1:11:41 that can't both be ideally conceivable you know maybe that's to behold into 2d semantics I don't know but it's certainly that's what I'm sympathetic to so what is what and what is your response to the claim that I'm conceiving of a purely physical creature or a minimally physical creature just physical but it's conscious just like me you would have to say that's not that's not conceivable it seems to me no just before I answer that do so why do you think zombies are inconceivable because you think one of them must be yes I see I see

1:12:14 yeah do you think concede bilities a bad word I always think it should be rational coherence yeah I agree people just always thinking it means just imagining or something yeah I always I'm stunned to right now come here anyway no I know and there are people who say you know oh you know you guys are too obsessed with science fiction and watch too many sci-fi channels shoot shows and so just because it's imaginable but that's what's imagined was actually constrained by what's logically coherent yeah so that's the view they two people know what we're interested in is coherence and you know

1:12:49 so sort of you know if I am just Churchland saying oh who cares what's imaginable you know why should but if you think if we talk about coherence and how else he's supposed to work out what's going n't other than sit and think you can't do an experiment to show what's going on sand so yeah I think we should change the word but yeah I think we agree on that Oh come buy jammies I must confess I am it's been on the periphery of my consciousness for a long time to think about zombies and I'll never go round

1:13:23 here so then the last week no no go talk I've been thinking I think about this and and yeah and it's really hot and I've got a red work charm isn't it doesn't seem very satisfactory so I think I'm mad at you I think I'm gonna change my mind a little bit on something but well I don't know I mean I might I need to think about this some more but yeah we're just just to interject I mean I guess I don't hang it all on the conceivability argument it's more the

1:13:58 sort of transparency stuff we're talking about but I do want to say that I do I do actually run in Moraga a transparent s area conceivability argument a zombie style argument in terms of the transparency stuff rather than the two-dimensional stuff and I think that goes through but I just think it's sort of sort of surplus to requirements the kind of core of what's going on is the transparency stuff and I think you know the two-dimensional stuff and consume it is a bit of a distraction that but anyway I digress to answer your point so it seems to me it relates to

1:14:31 this jewel carving stuff so I was thinking of think I'm I think I think maybe in a sense Sean bees are conceivable but I think it different I think of it slightly different oh you do so I was thinking in terms of this jewel carving stuff so so the dual carving stuff would be that you know pain and C fibers firing they're both transparent they give you a complete grasp of the of the nature of the property but you can't know that it's the same property right so I it seems to me suppose suppose jewel carving was all fine then it seems

1:15:07 to me zombies would be conceivable at least because you could think of them as kind of a cases of jewel carving right you could think of them as a zombie world where that's true whether they're just really different concepts but they're identical and now I argue against your carving in the book I think I have no I can sort of we lose all kind of constraint in metaphysics if we go down the road Bernie way but so that many might think the problem goes away but then I thought well although I reject your carving I don't think it's incoherent right right

1:15:42 it's like contradictory so then I ought to think John B's am i pronouncing that right Shami conceivable because dual carving is conceivable right even if it's false it's still conceivable so so these dual carving zombies are conceivable right so then that's a problem so they know States I think I have to think about it some more but I think one thing now is I think you know when one embraces which I do a kind of connection between

1:16:14 conceivability possibility what you're embracing is that modality is intelligible right that if something is impossible you can understand why it's impossible if something's necessary you can understand why it's necessary and I think when you to embrace that involves rejecting dual carving because if you've got your carving you have these kind of identities that would surprise God you know so God creates see if I'm aspiring Osama I didn't know that would be pain you know like you've got a necessity that's just completely unintelligible

1:16:48 only on the dot that didn't cut you off too soon but that's really tidy physicalism kind of results yeah whereas if you take my views from earlier that you know there's a soft priority ailment but it requires having both the concepts then God's not surprised he hasn't a concept or she has the right concepts and so would make the entailments and maybe the Shan bees couldn't or something like that but what matters is the in principle nature of the opry or entailment not whether you can do it or I can do it by whether it's some principle I guess I guess I think I guess I think there is no a prior

1:17:25 entailment maybe we could go back to argue about that we've got a disagreement there there is no a priori entailment dual car is sort of false and I think it follows from that that zombies are impossible because well impossible by not inconceivable yeah so I think maybe what I want to say but this is as you say you're not talking about this kind of bill carving thing but I think what I want to say is in maybe in a sense

1:18:00 strictly speaking their conceivable because dual carving is conceivable it's not contradictory but to embrace a connection exhibit a possibility is to sort of reject your carving so so in an embracing that you sort of reject the possibility so maybe in a sense strictly speaking that they're an exception to the conceivability possibility thing but the anti dual carving is just a sort of constitutive principle I don't know once we once we accept that but if they're

1:18:36 impossibility follows does that make sense yeah no it does but so that's I just I just would think that there should be more attention to these kinds of issues because the ability argument against materialism is well-known but you know there's an equally good concealer on the hoodie argument against dualism of any kind no and I think this is the beginning of it and they both can't be right unless you really reject conceivability and link between an impossibility which you were sort of hinting that maybe this is an exception just pretty steep price to pay I would

1:19:10 say although I'm sympathetic to rejecting you know I'm sympathetic to lots of stuff so because I don't really know what the hell's going on I think this stuff is fun I'm not a true believer really I mean I guess my firm is commitment is just that we don't have a good reason for rejecting a lot of these periods but that's you know something completely different yeah I guess so go ahead the white gun for I guess your question I agree why go for zombies rather than zombies and I guess because I think there is no a prior interment they are radically isolated concepts and to get under

1:19:44 transparent and together with dual kaarvok that kind of rules out zombies so guess maybe strictly speaking they are conceivable and are you completely right that would be a big thing and I have to think more about that because then it would look like your view and the kind of more traditional Brut identity be Orana on all fours so to speak with each other that because you're you're admitting some you know that there's more to the rel most consumed ability than what's possible but on the other hand these guys are claiming that these identities are not intelligible in a sense and those are both big admissions yeah I

1:20:21 guess I want to say it's a it's a very constrained exemption it's a very it's allowed because this auntie jewel carving principle is just is part of what it is to embrace a connection between conceivability impossibility I don't know whether that works out but so it still wouldn't allow you know across the board you know gaps between conceivability possibility but it yeah yeah so I mean I think we could go on talking about this forever I think there's a lot more to say but let's transition from the negative case to the positive case so

1:20:55 you know the argument against physicalism it's complicated I think is the take-home message from our discussion so far but I want to talk more about what your your positive view the defense of Brazilian monism because um honestly I don't really understand it especially in light of some of the things that you've said and I don't mean that as a criticism I mean I there's some things that I don't especially the Cosmo psychism part that's that's a which I think you're most sympathetic to there are some issues that I'm really just don't understand so so okay I I

1:21:30 guess even before I mean I'm going to digress back first again but going back to Galileo I wonder what you might think that to someone who said the following thing so Galileo says take consciousness out of the physical warp clutter in the mind there go the qualities but one kind of traditional complaint is that the qualities he put into the mind are the qualities as we consciously perceive them and that lends itself to this idea that they're kind of simple and can be explained and in terms of physical theory but so do so I think you're gonna have to say

1:22:03 yes to this but is it the case that you reject unconscious qualities so can I have that can I have an unconscious pain by which I mean something that's painful but not like being a pain for me do you reject that but I don't I think it's I don't think it's entail by resilient monism I mean so receding monism is is the view I you know I it's most important to me and and that as a general solution to the problem of consciousness or so on and it's and it's more a family of views and some of them

1:22:36 like some Coleman's view that there the world is trinsic nature physical realities involves unconscious qualities and and there III think there could even be naive realist I think I peer-reviewed a paper on this naive realist views we're actually qualities are out there and we perceive them so I think they would all count as as forms of should I explain receiving – MA or should we just assume I mean you can I I think it's people know what it is if they don't

1:23:10 they should so I think they all they all come I personally do I'm inclined to think there are no unconscious experiences I don't think I'm any particular documents to be honest but it just seems to me that you know what we're thinking about when we when we think about experiential qualities are you know what it's like to have the experience that icons sort of separate that in my mind from experience and I mean if you do have experiential

1:23:43 qualities like Sam Coleman does it's hard to see how you can get experience I'm sorry own experience qualities how you get experience out of them so but I'd want to you know embrace them as part of the family of the sealian bonus views yeah so that I guess that that's one of the issues in this debate because you know and the one handlers their pen quality Asst that you know what your that's time Coleman's view and I think also Chalmers ends up with something like this and his synthesis paper you know his hip Gillian synthesis of all this stuff is some pankot and you know he doesn't endorse

1:24:16 it wholeheartedly but he thinks something like this could be but I was more asking about you know unconscious psychological states oh yes so could there be a psychological state which is a pain but not felt as painful you know pain that you didn't know you had or weren't aware of having so the nothing it's like for you to have the pain still pain maybe this is like a terminological thing I'd say I don't know it depends

1:24:48 what you can clearly it can clearly have a concept of pain that allows for non experiencial states to count as pain it's more related to something functional or psychological so you're you're okay with that that doesn't ring any alarm bells uh I think I'm okay with it okay yeah well I mean I just because of the Galileo thing I think that my take on that is that it's a mistake to relocate the qualities as consciously experience and then say look you know we

1:25:21 can't explain them scientifically because really that sort of builds in already their simplicity and I think this is part of that going back to revelation part of what I think you want that to do is that I mean the way you put in your book at least is that what's revealed is that these things are not functional they have an intrinsic nature or intrinsic nature who knows what that is but it means something like that these are not characterized in terms of what they do they're not in terms of their relations to other things are there causal effects or something like that and that seems to be a byproduct of

1:25:56 the Galileo move rather than accurately capturing what it is we're trying to think about soar the works about do you say mother what's the alternative you think you know what's the old sentence if you want to replicate though well I don't want to really advocate my own view too much but it's so if you think of the redness of red as just consciously experienced red and then you import that into the mind and say now try to explain it it seems hard to do because well all the only thing you have to work with

1:26:30 is the experiential nature of it the redness but if you think well no so there's a property out there physical red and then there's our conscious experience of physical red but in between that there might be this other thing the disposition the functional unconscious awareness of red right and so if what we're trying to do is explain how conscious red shows up it might be because of the two things we were just talking about namely the functional concept that was tracking some physical property in the world and then our

1:27:04 awareness of that so and I think that's what Sam Coleman wants to do to in a different way so there's the quality and then the awareness of the quality yeah it's generally our versions of higher order theories of the same trinsic nature I mean it is defined that it's not causal I say that it's not nearly causal so the states that come that cannot be completely captured in causal dispositional terms but that doesn't mean they're not but I mean you're saying it's I'm not it's not sure

1:27:36 it's clear to me that when we return to our consciousness it's revealed as simple I don't think I don't think that's I don't I don't think that doesn't seem to be completely obvious and introspectively I mean part of I do have I'm part of this form is it I think it doesn't seem that an it doesn't seem that conscious subjectivity can be analyzed in more fundamental terms and that's what what one the more complicated bits of a book I don't know inside you it was going to die so to say

1:28:10 you know you can't analyze what it is to be a subject in more fundamental terms and that leads into the cosmos psyche is in sort of an alternative mode well maybe that's that's the combination problem yeah so there all sorts of problems here there are all sorts of problems before we get to that can I just ask so I mean one of the questions I'm trying to restore jizz how committed you are to Revelation because if your app and psychist then revelation can't be the full story sends the the conscious experience has to be

1:28:45 broken well broken down are broken up something either way depending on your version of big as small is amor Cosmo isn't or whatever but it's it's real nature is these other things the quiddity z– now well that's I'd say it's they're the things that ground my conscious experience so my if you if you're a bottom bottom up upon psychist it's the part of my consciousness is grounded in facts about particles and then the particles are conscious so

1:29:17 those facts about micro particles ground facts about my experience right but it doesn't follow that that they're part of their essential nature because I mean things can be multiple realized so it could be that it could be that the heart you can know what a heart is essentially without learning its underlying what grounds it okay right but so but why is that move allowed for the pants a kiss but not for the identity theorists like because similar to kind of move I was trying to make earlier that you're objecting to and now you're appealing to the sack same move so I just wonder what

1:29:52 so why is that legitimate in this instance it's what are you talking about our identity or grounding so if you talk about identity it's just one in the same property so the essence of X the essence of y must be the same so just the same property but if you're talking about grounding you could have the high level property and the property they could be distinct they could have different essences I mean I know it's not the same as no problems in this area you know sympathetic got a lot of the grounding literature that there must be some kind of constitutive connection and that the high level stuff is kind of play a role

1:30:25 and but I don't think yeah but that's interesting then you wouldn't object to a grounding version of physicalism which I take it a lot of non reductive physics that's what they want right that what they what they're claiming is that the consciousness is grounded in the physical and and then revelation doesn't get at that view I think there wouldn't be a priority on them for one thing in the physical case so I don't think I don't think purely quantitative stuff can entail qualitative stuff so there wouldn't be an a prior entailment but it

1:30:59 could be that there's an API or entailment in the pan psyches case from micro level qualitative stuff to macro level qualitative stuff it's hard to make sense of that entailment hence the combination problem but that doesn't didn't seem to me that the problems there seem to be more tractable that doesn't seem to be a sort of in principle problem like there is I think in the case of physical is in the making sense of a priority um yeah I mean I think that's interesting I wonder if that's more of a theoretical bias no Dana because it seems to me they're just as intractable I mean well the fact that

1:31:34 you start with something experiential which i guess is supposed to alleviate the intractability doesn't seem to me to get you much foothold in the problem so I know your view about this I mean I think I know it anyway your view is that maybe it's spatial relationships that are the thing that we don't know about and their fundamental nature is something that you know is inscrutable to us or some word of that nature that we don't know it and if we did know that that nature then we would be able to do

1:32:06 these operate elements that's that's that's one view of explored so yeah so that's so I don't agree with I don't like game installs and things you just can't possibly get consciousness from non consciousness I don't do that I think I think there are pretty good arguments and that's what we've been told my mouse eater that you couldn't get an a priori entailment from just purely quantitative stuff I don't think there are comparable arguments that you couldn't go from like her experiencial to macro expansion it's especially because yeah there could be stuff we don't know about which is

1:32:42 you know how could you rule out that there's you know they've because we stuff we don't know but I mean another thing actually there are more and more sympathetic to it is the possibility of some kind of emergentist form of resilient monism so it could be this just genuine layers in the brain and as a causal relationship I'm more I'm less and less and more and more thinking that nothing we know from neuroscience rules that out and then you might say well why

1:33:16 not just be a duelist but I sort of think still do you different ways of understanding calls of closure I sort of still think dualism is empirically implores but if there was something outside of the brain impacting on it on a really regular basis that would really show up but if there were levels in the brain oh if do we really know from neuroscience that you know the cerebellum is credibly complicated thing is completely determined by the cause of properties if it's particles you know do we really know that do we so it's not

1:33:48 obvious to me that there aren't layers in the brain so you could be a kind of resilient monist where you've got you know my consciousness is the intrinsic nature of macro level bits of the brain and as the consciousness of the micro level bits of the brain and as a causal relationship so that that would avoid this problem altogether that's so that's one of time open to both that kind of reductive and non reductive approach but even in the reductive case I think that the problems that don't seem that the principal arguments that you get it and also we've just spent less time on it

1:34:21 right I think that's a good point yeah you know we could do both you know let's do let's do both in defense of that though Penn psychism is not a new view I mean it's interesting to look back at the history of psychology and how many of the early founders actually had pens like hist views and you know not to mention William James but there's a whole host of the early members of the alleged science of consciousness which psychology began as who end up with something and even physiologists and you

1:34:54 know so it's interesting this views been explored for you know a while maybe not but I take your point ultimately not as long as some of these other views have been like about 400 years of mathematically based science or something like that and there's certainly nothing like that serious has gone on so I I mean okay can I just I want to ask I mean there's tons of stuff I want to ask we're running out of time I can't keep you here forever though you're being very generous with your time and your answers but I mean so one part of me wonders why I think that there's intrinsic nature's at all so you

1:35:29 know that this may so on take structural realism is something that guess getting some attention from my own take on this I think that if you think about string theory enough then structural some kind of structuralism is kind of forced on you yeah you know Richard DeWitt has this really interesting paper kind of echoing us some things that were in Clayton my ideas by saying it really nicely he is very clear and he's thinking an extra expert on screen theory but there's something in string theory called dualities which really are just an empirical way of confirming coins under determination kinds of

1:36:03 things that there are theories which are very different in terms of their ontological commitments but which are equivalent to each other you can transform one and to the other by a series of mathematics and so I think one of the more famous ones that you know there's t-duality su up so there's technical stuff in string theory but there's a the more famous result that's getting all the attention nowadays it's the so-called holographic hypothesis which shows that you know under certain considerations a theory which is in you know three dimensions four dimensions

1:36:36 like ours of space-time with gravity is equivalent to a three dimensional or lower dimensional theory without gravity you know and they're different ways of fleshing that out of course this is a nancy sitter space and that's very different from our actual the universe but the in principle people think well so so anyway so those are kind of bread and butter for string theory these kinds of dualities that one wasn't there that looks very different really the same in all of its empirical predictions and etc with very different ontology I think that's one thing that makes shirring

1:37:07 theory very very different than any other theory of physics we've had is these dualities and i think that one of the lessons of that is that ontology is gotta go so that the the idea that there are individuals is really called in the question by this kind of duality thing so that some of what's preserved as a structure some kind of something that's not individuals so and of course other people would appeal to quantum considerations and I'm okay with that as

1:37:40 well I think string theory is a bit a bit more solid on this because it's just part of the nature of the theory but anyway I want yeah I know you have things to say about structuralism but I wonder if you would you know what is it that is wrong with this idea that there aren't any intrinsic nature's at all that's all really interesting and I'd like to read more and more you just said oh I hadn't thought of that particular point and just you just know anything I mean just connecting to the last couldn't last discussion booklet and you know I think no receive humanism hasn't

1:38:17 been it's getting more known in academic philosophy but it's still completely unknown out you know in neuroscience and in physical sight in physics and no part of I'm trying to do popular book is you know to try and get the other because if see me you've got to fill in the details and it would be really cool to sort of just try and you know think about neuroscience do neuroscience think about physics in these terms and it sounds like a really cool challenge that I like to think about more what that you've just raised allowed it I don't want to distinguish between I mean as different

1:38:50 kinds of structuralism one thing that you know James ladyman focuses on individuals but that's different to you know what how I think of structuralism is more that there's just quantitative vocabulary which I define as just involving mathematical logical that would be the more extreme just mathematical logical slightly milder version is mathematical logical or causal or nomic like law of nature or something slightly so that's what I mean so you could have forms of anti structuralism in my sense that don't

1:39:24 have individuals and I guess some some resilient – is sympathetic to that you know that some kind of it's a bundle theory in this sense or I don't know just that the dropping individuals but in terms of okay so just coming to the crucial question now why not be a why not just think the structuralism I like there I think there are two reasons so so so one I do buy these kind of a priori arguments although they're kind of it's really sort of a notoriously hard to

1:39:58 persuade people and it just sort of sometimes I change a mine on it but I do buy these arguments that when you just have causal structure you get in a kind of regress so Russell press this my colleague Howard Robinson in the 80s press this and you know I do try to press the version that so we can argue about that but but also I just want to say that you know even if that our argument doesn't work so even if there are possible worlds where there is just causal structure I'd say we still have a good reason to go for receding modem

1:40:34 because of accounting for consciousness I'd still say you can't account for consciousness in those terms which is exactly the argument we've been having obviously you disagree but that's exactly the argue we haven't so even if even if you could say even if I conceded that causal structure is coherent I still want to say fine but it's not sure in our world cuz it's consciousness but isn't it still would you'd have to make conceivable that there could be consciousness in a world like that or now you'd want to say that's just not conceivable I managed don't see the incoherence of that view um well I mean I tentatively conceded just from what

1:41:10 I've been thinking this week about zombies that yeah yes oh maybe maybe what is conceivable is this kind of dual carving scenario where the purely quantitative properties are actually identical with qualitative properties but in this really in this way where there's just no intelligible connection so I think that's maybe that's in a sense conceivable but I still think we've got good reason to think it's false that kind of you I mean but this gets back to I think again what you were saying we're talking about so it sounds to me like what revelation is doing for

1:41:43 you is is making a datum that there's something with an intrinsic nature that that's that's part of the what's got to be accounted for if you take consciousness seriously I mean I've heard you say this before in your talks and stuff that's the the only thing that we know about matter is that part of it involves an intrinsic nature namely the brain has conscious experience and that's but but I I just don't see that revelation gets you that I mean I don't want to rehash everything we already talked about but so is that what you're I mean that's what's in the

1:42:16 background of your thinking here is that there's got to be something that has an intrinsic nature there can I just I wouldn't want to load that into the Dupre the data starting point I want to you know I want to agree with you on that starting point that yeah you know we both have these experience or concepts and you know we want to say that or me I don't know if you want to be but a lot of people a lot of people can accept these experiential concepts are satisfied but maybe they maybe they can be satisfied by purely quantitative facts or and so on that starting point on what everyone but it but I but then I

1:42:51 would want to argue that those experience or concepts that we know is satisfied can't be accounted for in purely causal structural terms and that's just you know the argument we've been having that it's I don't think as an a priori entailment I think revelation is true I think your carving is false all those elements have to come in it's a very complicated argument you know so when I say oh you know in the hand-wavy way qualities and quantities that's just the starting point all these elements need to come in but I think all

1:43:25 those elements together get you that you you do you can't account for consciousness so can I try to reverse this and the other ways quickly so suppose I mean I know string theory is very controversial and the things that I was saying or even more controversial may be although I think there are good arguments there but you know string theory empirically is not confirmed and people there's the string Wars going on blah blah I think they're non empirical reasons for taking it seriously or none phenomenological reasons anyway so I'm recognized that that's a whole hairy

1:43:58 brain I can't importance but let me ask you so supposing that we had good reason for thinking that's something like string theory was true of our world like a lot of physicists working on Street area at least think that I think that so suppose we had good reason for thinking that and suppose that the argument that if string theory were true then some kind of some version of structuralism would be true then would you convert to illusion would you then say ah well then we don't really have consciousness in

1:44:32 the way that would think that we do I'm open to anything you know I'm open to I'm you know I'm not a dye huh I am I'm open to be persuading that's an interesting argument that I suppose I'd want to me a lot more about the move from I mean my if I was what I would generally if I was to think what I'd like to see is can strip a Brazilian Mona's version of string theory be made to work that's what I'd look we had this conference in Budapest last year ro Selia Mona's in time for the details but it was mainly just

1:45:05 philosophers talk and you know but I'd like to see where it's genuinely you know can we make sense of string theory and it's I haven't thought of this before the argument you're giving but actually it in take what you're saying it's that argument works then it the answer's no because but I don't know is this structures in the sense if there are no individuals or instructors in the sense that it's purely quantitative causal structure I I'm still not crystal clear and I think I just probably need to read more on the point yeah share a link to the doctorate paper which i think is it really clearly in the

1:45:39 strongest way that I mean there's a way to me yet that that it leads to the string theory entails the kind of the kind of structuralism that it's inconsistent preceding monism but that's the very thing argument you know that was to prove I don't know I'd probably be I'd probably become an illusionist before it became any other kind of I think Chama says that I think you know but interesting yeah and so I mean we're really running out of time

1:46:11 now but can we talk about cosmos psychism before we fully run out of time and your view I mean I I know you change your mind about fine-tuning recently but I find that stuff very interesting yeah and so I part I mean so first of all cosmos psychism is the claim I guess that the universe itself is conscious in the sense of there being something that it's like to be the universe is that the sense in which the universe is conscious or only is it in the sense in which so I know you have this interesting distinction you say look you know there's nothing that it's

1:46:43 like to be the table but there's something it's like maybe to be the basic elements of the table that's not the kind of you take towards the universe is it or so I'm just not clear what sense something is the universe yeah you do think that yeah and that what it's like to be the universe is that that fact grounds our specific versions of consciousness yeah that's that's at least the view I defend in the book I'm sort of but yeah so to the other yeah there would be this I mean

1:47:17 it's the most complicated part of the book that the actual offensive that in there but and yeah this Moniz position that facts about holes are prior to facts about paths and you might think that fits better with modern physics fits better with quantum entanglement and stuff and then you combine that upon psychism I don't know why there's any reason to think I know you invoke the Scheffer argument here about entanglement but I don't really I mean that's attending very tenacious interpretation of quantum mechanics that

1:47:51 entangled particles are act as a whole thing which grant which the two things exist because of the whole so you know that hangs a lot on an interpretation of quantum mechanics I would say certainly the Copenhagen interpretation doesn't make that move that's you know the view I mean I've as I get older and older I think that really there's only one serious interpretation it's the interpretation and I don't know if that view is actually compatible with Roselia monism to be honest with you so I think a lot of this would depend so I think

1:48:24 it's interesting that sort of what's coming out is that a lot of these metaphysical claims that you want to defend ultimately maybe beholdin to empirical theorizing I'd love to I'd love to that to be more explored was in general resilient monism to be to be more exploded list of any of these it seems to me at the moment a very very flexible view because you know all it is is essentially that there isn't there is something beyond causal structure and that and that explains consciousness and

1:48:59 so that's a very flexible view it's hard for me to see why any kind of position in theoretical physics would be inconsistent with that but you know I I'd be going to see it explored but we just saw the cosmic psychism magista as I emphasized in the book it doesn't mean it's not to be honest if necessary as a form of country it doesn't mean that the universe as thought or reason or intelligence you know I just say it's it's probably kind of max its consciousness so I have this article where you know think about if you have that position and then you think about

1:49:32 fine-tuning then maybe you know that might give you reason to think that the cosmic mind is something more like you know responsive to read responsive to value or something but you know that's that's a much that's a further move just on the on the basis of fine-tuning and none of that yeah but but as far as the cosmos psychism goes so one of the things that confuses me besides whether there are any cases of priority grounding in the way that you want to talk about them which I guess I'm sympathetic to the Daniel Stoll jar

1:50:04 playing in his review of your book that every example really is not an example now that's a different point maybe and I'll let you respond to it but I but the thing that really mystified me is why is this a version of paying psychism so it certainly seems I mean why isn't it a consistent view that the universe is conscious it's our consciousness is grounded in it but there are no micro physical consciousness particles it's just brains but that you know but they're grounded in the cosmic

1:50:37 consciousness so I just don't know what the connection the pan psychism is with you're with this cosmos psychism it depends on psychism I guess I define broad psychism is just the consciousness is sort of fundamental and ubiquitous which i think is fulfilled just by the universe being conscious but why would it be a bit with us as opposed to only in brains like ours but which is grounded in the cosmos or something like that yeah what it's sort of everywhere in in the sense that the universe is everywhere but yeah but it's

1:51:11 not everywhere in a sense or might not be everywhere in the sense that the fund the micro particles are themselves conscious but you so I thought I thought you were committed to I don't know so I'm happy numbered I mean look the precedium owners and psychics receiving medicine but even cosmos like these are sort of theoretical frameworks to develop views and ultimately it's gonna be filling in the details and working out whether they work or don't work is gonna be an empirical much but um I started that yeah so I think Kozma psychism is is consistent with only brains being

1:51:44 conscious whether we call that pan psychism or not is a terminological question it whether that would be a plausible view but you know you've just got non conscious stuff and then until you get to kind of quite sophisticated biological stuff we would still have the consciousness of the universe yeah it's consistent with that it's consistent yeah it's just it's it's an open and I don't say I don't make a definite stance on on what on whether in the I don't mean to make a definite

1:52:20 stance and the cosmos acres of them whether particles conscious it's consistent with that and it's just an empirical question you know what's the best in terms of what's the best theory of consciousness what's the you know how much consciousness is tip on psychism says it's at the fundamental level which for the cosmos I kissed is the cosmic level and how much and it's definitely at the human and animal level how much more there is is just I would leave as an empirical question sorry to know what empirical results would would a question yeah it's notorious but that's the same

1:52:55 for everyone right I mean because I would say you know the problem is consciousness is unobservable so there's these deep difficulties in the science of consciousness but that's the same for everyone right not just pond cyclists right but it but if you're gonna say that ultimately it's an empirical question then that's where the comes in so I mean don't I think it's a mood so so what I think you know we need to take the data which is empirical and miss the reality of consciousness and form the simplest best theory consistent with that I think I'm inclined to think a resilient monist direction that's a

1:53:28 broad kind of theoretical primer is the best way forward and then you would have a result that our best theory in it but that's it's an open question the best area of where consciousness is yeah so so finally then let me ask you if I can about the multiverse because I you know a lot of people see that as a consequence of string theory and cosmic inflation and eternal inflation and all that stuff you know there multiple arguments for life anyway so multiverse some people hate as some people love it but it I wonder how it impacts cosmos psychism so you know on the on your view

1:54:03 it's not it wouldn't just be our universe which is conscious right it's in a universe it's now whether there are creatures like us and those other universes which have their consciousness grounded in the cosmos that seems to be a different that seems to be optional why or am I not understanding the view so is it that only certain universes would be or certain cosmoses would be conscious or what exactly how do we thought about this and I guess it would I guess it would be an open question I suppose I suppose it would be I mean I

1:54:37 have this kind of simplicity argument that once you're resilient monism pun psychism is the default position you know because you'd you'd need a reason you know physical science tells us nothing about the entrance in natures if you'd need a the only thing we know is that brains have a consciousness involving transit agency you need a reason to think there are two tons of intrinsic nature of them one I suppose that would apply in the context of the multiverse as well that you know you'd need a reason to think these other universes are not conscious if ours is I suppose so then why why isn't it the multiverse itself which is

1:55:13 conscious on your view as opposed to any particular cosmos yeah yeah cool maybe yeah actually that would ya you're right that would probably be the yeah I mean especially I mean omnium the inflationary multiverse I mean it's really just one big universe really the inflationary multiverse in these little I suppose them thinking those terms the more natural thing would be my son is

1:55:48 trying to get in on the key as an objection he wants to make my three-year-old I'm sorry go ahead though was it's a yeah yeah so maybe that would be the more natural more natural view on the interesting it is it on your view not so is it not conceivable to take the line with the table towards the cosmos so you just made me think cuz uh i would add sirens ringing than this rooster my

1:56:22 daughter was thinking oh maybe it's probably my daughter but she's just texting something okay so anyway sorry is it is it not conceivable on your view what we can do with the table so is it not conceivable that the universe has elements which are conscious but it it's up there's nothing that is like for the universe so like the way you want to talk about the table on a pen psych is view isn't that something which is conceivable okay and that's not any kind of evidence against or a basis for a conceivability argument

1:56:57 against kozmo psychism so what's the conceivability argument that it's possible to have a universe that has parts of it which are conscious but it's fundamental elements or conscious or something by the universe itself is not so that's kind of a zombie cosmos I get started let's conceivable and possible but and but so if that's an argument against kozmo psychism I mean the thing there is a conceivability argument against custom psychism which is like it's conceivable that the universe is

1:57:30 conscious but were not we're zombies and if that's the case how can the consciousness of the universe possibly in our consciousness so that's a kind of like a form that the well has the combination problem Japan psychism which is sometimes but as a conceivability argument and this is the equivalent for Cosmo psychism sort of I don't know there's this battles over how to what to call this the combination problem because messiah's and some people call it D combination problem or anyway but doesn't matter but then but I don't so so that's a problem but I don't think

1:58:03 the fact that the mere fact that Cosmo psychism is conceivably false means it's you know it's a contingent it's a contingent theory it's I take it to be contingent if it's true so you know just like puns like isn't is contingent right there could be even if it's true it's not necessarily true right yeah I don't know it goes from the top so it's it's the view is that the consciousness of the universe is the grounding thing so

1:58:37 so you want to be worried about failures of a prior and talents from the top to the bottom but not failure determines from the bottom to the top yeah I guess I tend to think they should go both ways in the same way be case for in terms of the brain you should be able to in deduce from the brain to the phenomenology but also from the phenomenology to the brain to the brain States it seems that's the way the arguments I mean it would be interesting to see the view defended only in the one direction I guess that we could deduce from the brain states what the

1:59:10 phenomenology was but not vice versa well I think I just said well you know I think it depends over tomorrow if you took my identity then it's gotta go both ways but if it's grounding I think I'd want to know an argument why we should think it goes both ways yeah yeah that's very interesting I mean there's a thousand other questions I want to ask you but I'm running out of time I gotta go and teach of logic now I gotta go and get on the tram I should bring my mom back as well yeah do you have any final no this has been great I've learned that there's a couple of

1:59:45 things I want to follow up on I think more about zombies and and yeah and the the string theory stuff that's yeah well I want to thank you this conversation has been very useful for me to is a lot of fun great to talk to you about these things and thanks for coming on into the Lions Den you know hopefully it wasn't too too bad but anyway I really want to thank you for making time for this yeah and I hadn't fully appreciated I should have done because I've registered I hadn't fully appreciate because visit you know that the be a fire ant ailment

2:00:18 that would distinct concepts so I should think more about that as well very cool well maybe someday after you think about it well we'll talk again yeah great thanks a lot so just hang on a sec I'll say after we stop the broadcasts okay okay