Consciousness Live! with Miguel Ángel Sebastián (S1 E9)

0:01 okay we are live joining me today a very special guest Miguel Sebastian so Miguel for those who don't know you can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do yeah thank you very much Ritter for having me here so I will I'm an associate professor at the research philosophy Research Institute at unum in Mexico and I work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science mostly focus on understanding subjectivity and as

0:34 something that individuate conscious states and differentiate from all kind of states attempting to explain that difference in representational terms in terms of first-person representations and then what is required for those kinds of representations and I also have interest in metaphysics and other cognitive the relation between consciousness and other cognitive processes like tension or reportability and other issues also related to conscious like take Nisour quantum

1:06 mechanics well that's quite a that's quite a mouthful there's a lot of stuff that you got going on I'm a really big fan of your work I have been for a long time I think that you're a really good really good papers and really challenging and interesting arguments so I'm very excited to have this discussion with you today you just mentioned that you're interested in first-person representations and trying to use that to explain phenomenal consciousness and I want to I want to make sure that we have some time to talk about so I wonder if we could just start by asking you what do you mean by a first-person representation and what role do you

1:40 think that it plays and theorizing about consciousness so here's here's one starting starting point in relation to consciousness so you start by what is conveyed by the experience what the experience dictate or saves or mandate about the world and then you figure out what it's required for a state to do something like that through a couple of years ago there was like thirty years ago now there was a freshman of the relation between representations and

2:13 consciousness and then some people say what it takes to have fun experience that's a Fred you know representing red but then you come and say oh but those are things that also allegedly at least and confuse me represented then some people started to figure out from different traditions so that something over and above this we focus on perception this primary object of perception is required to characterize so for example as you very well-known defenders of higher order theories focus on the fact that it has also to represent a relation that the subject

2:45 bears to its state or in the phenomenological tradition people started to call attention to the fact that well it also conveys something about the very subject of experience and in particular we say that those are subjective experience that something that somehow reflected in the experience so now try to characterize this element in representational terms require that if we had to use a sentence in order to express what is conveyed by the experience or what is the content of experience that's something like the

3:18 first person problem would be required as it has been stress in higher theories for example our one problem with that is that we have intentionality or representational relation are one of the most interesting and difficult issues in the mind for the problem and we have theories that attempt to characterize what is required for a state to be a representation of a state and have the content that it has but we do not have those theories for personal

3:52 representation so we know that those are particularly interesting for things that people in philosophy land which mainly like Perry or or Lewis mention and with black those theories so I'm trying to figure out how can we understand this subjectivity in those representational terms right so so it's so in terms of critiquing standard representational theories of consciousness you think that merely representing red representing that something red is in the environment

4:25 enough because it has to bring in somehow that this is the state of the subject you think that's missing from standard representation or theories yeah exactly so I think that when so if we if we articulate what is the content of experience the experience no no do not merely convey the presence of this object but also the relation that ideal to it at the very least so one is in a position and that's it's difficult to articulate it may be sufficiently imprecise when it's in a position to determine that not only the world is such-and-such was also the relation that

4:59 oneself drinks to the to the world so do you think that this is the sort of thing that occurs an unconscious perception as well or is there it's just a representation of the objects is enough so at the unconscious so one thing that I would be willing to say and without our human is that those first personal representations do not happen at the unconscious level at least this is this is my my shot it's like if I trying to articulate what this thing with conscious from

5:30 unconscious state and I want to focus on these first person first personal aspect I have to deny that so one of the reasons to think so is that first-person representations at least unconscious off of some kind have not been related at the unconscious level of course we have things like thoughts or unconscious belief so I might be Freud well right I might be believed that my father or think that my father wanted to kill my father so this would be a first-person

6:04 sight but the kind of non conceptual first personal representation that I would have in mind they do not appear to have not been punched late they have been postulated in perception having possibility to play a role in personal processes but not at the unconscious level so of course we would need to theory that explains what it take what what is it you require in order to have one of those representations so two ways and then if those process happen at an unconscious level then what I'm saying would be wrong or an argument that shows why those representations are requires

6:38 at the unconscious so what kind of motive so I know from some of your earlier work that you think that there's something like a proto self maybe involved at some level it would that occur at the unconscious level I'm just trying to get a wet weather you think states of the unconscious level well why are they perceptual states if they don't involve some sort of I'm singing this or this is happening from my perspective so this is okay for now so one of the things that I'm working on

7:10 I do know there is an ongoing discussion on unconscious perception yeah well I'm going or adhere oh you can't I'm going let at least by people like Ned block and Ian Phillips on the possibility of unconscious perception if you buy the idea that unconscious so perception has to be personal level then the next question that arises is okay what is required for a representation to be a

7:43 personal representation or report those they focus so within the discussion they focus on action and I think that the problem with action is that there are many notions of action and depending on the notion of actions that you use you cannot want result or other so in articulating this debate one problem in this in this discussion is that they intend to be neutral at least with regard to whether cognitive access is required for consciousness and then

8:17 there seems to be no room to claim that you need intentional action that is what people and at the same time maintaining the claim that cognitive factors might not be so at least at the very least remaining neutral that cognitive Isis might not be so my take required so my take on that would be okay then here's one go one way to understand what does it mean for a representation to be personal abort so it's like oh if it has

8:52 first person so if it's a des a of first personal representation in which case there wouldn't be unconscious perception I'm fine with that so I'm worried about consciousness that's what I find and not on what do we decide that this perception so if you want to send it tell me that I've representation in the early visual cortex is not perception because perception is this personal process blah blah blah then okay fine so that makes sense

9:25 yeah yeah right so it's a lot of that debate I think I think part of what you're saying at least is that a lot of that debates terminological whether we want to call those states perception or not someone like I mean I don't know the debate within Philips I feel like a lot of times that's almost entirely terminological do we want to call those things on perceptions as opposed to whatever else we call them I don't know content fixations or something I guess the way Dennett might phrase it but but whatever way you call them your view is

9:58 that there are no representations that involve the self at that level there are no representations adding both yourself at that level yes okay so that's art no no no so keep going and then if I might I might be willing to make some precipitation but okay well no I would just what so what trying to get clear on what your your theory where is so that there are these um you have a representation of something in the environment it's a red apple let's say it's not conscious yet so at some point

10:32 it gets connected to or processed by or accessed or I don't know what the right terminology in your review would be so that's one of the questions I have but somehow it connected up with a self representation at which point then you have a phenomenal conscious state so what is actually relationship there I guess it went so so here's so here's the way of putting so I think that this previous work one of the things that were not very helpful but I was borrowing some notions of Damacio so the fact that the proto self was involved was not very helpful

11:05 because seems to be like as you mentioned like you have a representation of yourself and that's that's that's not so I'm not claiming that the self or something like their self has to be represented or is an object of the experience as they read Apple is oh all that I'm saying is that the content of experience concerning the subject so in other words yeah if we make use of a possible world center world semantics what I'm saying is that they determine a

11:40 function from worlds and individuals to truth value showed the correctness conditions of the state depends on the subject a couple of things would be interesting so I do think that there are consciously hink representation so namely representations that concern the location so they here for example in the dorsal cortex there are visual representations that carry information about my location so how the objects are located relative to my location so in order to determine its correctness

12:14 conditions I need to appeal to today today here what I don't think that is required at that level is that they have to be evaluated with regard to a subject so this is the semantics now on top of that what is required is what is required in order to make these kind of partitions – to determine from center worlds to truth value so what is demanded from a system here's one possibility oh maybe it's the ployment of something like the AI concept that would be on theory and I don't think that is conceptual so I think that that

12:47 the content of experience is not articulated there is no symbol that plays this role and then so and it's not non conceptual in this sense and then what is required is a theory oh so well then explain me what is required in order to have this content in a previous work so if we consider a sender receiver structure in this previous work I was focusing on the sender what do we need to track so it's not only tracking information about the primary object of experience but

13:22 also about my the processes that determine the kind of entity that I'm fundamentally are something like self-maintaining system according to biology now I'm working on developing this ideas just to prepare separated from from consciousness where I'm focused in on the what the consumer is required so that the fact that a complexity of systems consume these representations which is a system that

13:55 is dedicated and that depends on the on the right function so this is something that I owe you something that I'm working on and something that I'm trying to develop so they're like two steps first trying to argue that the important brought the relevance that first-person representations play in consciousness and then a theory that explains ok what is required to do so ok that's very interesting so it's not so this is part of your disagreement with the higher order theories because on those theories like they agree that the self is

14:27 involved in some level but they usually posit an explicit kind of representation using the mental analog of the term I so you know I am seeing red or I'm feeling pain either you know the form lamb with a higher thought or some kind of higher order state that represents that the self is having these first-order sorts of representations that's you want to deny that there's no concept involved in these I would I want to claim that there is no so I don't think that at the at the simplest level in which I want to

15:02 locate consciousness I don't think that they're those kind of symbols are required so you don't need an instructor that's like they wave as you main as you claim the analog of the I concept so that this is one point of disagreement so I think shirt so let me bring something because I also want to know what do you think about it if you don't mind with the way in which theories have been taxonomy is representational theory so we have like first-order representation

15:37 of theories higher the representation of theories same order which might or might not be versions of higher theories I think that piece taxonomy is not very fruitful and not very useful for the following reason so I think that the only reason sorry the the the main difference among these theories is a discussion on what is the content of experience so what is the content of the state you are in when you're having the experience so the first order

16:10 representation would say red apple a higher order theory theories would say no it conveys also something about the experience and also about oneself well I mean David Rosen toast theory at least but for example Richard Browns theory would claim no it conveys something about the subject and vyas and some others state so I'm more in line with a horror theory in that same so it's the same as me also and I think that the

16:48 experience convey something with regard to the state the subject is so something I'm working on is what is the motivation to say that the experience itself has to be represented I think that there one comes from short-chain traditions you find also those elements in Buddhist traditions yes I don't find them compelling and the other reason comes from the transitivity principle which is the David Ross centers idea that the conscious state is a state when it's aware of oneself has been so the problem is that this if we call conscious States

17:22 to the state when it so there is some state that I have to satisfy in order to have the experience I'm gonna call that conscious if we call that a conscious state and then we apply these transitivity principle one is tempted to think that conscious state in both appearances of the world conscious state have to be the same I I completely disagree so and that's the problem that appear a couple of years ago with the [Music] misrepresentation so definitely and

17:56 along with that so but once so one thing is the kind what is the kind of state that you have to be in and if I call that conscious state and then there is a conscious state to which is the state I am aware of myself as being so what for you to say to claim that those uses are the same so for the chiral thought the state you are in when you're having the experience is not the state you are aware of your self esteem but what's the problem so you figure out the idea so then at some point so I think that whether the

18:30 subject or the estate so what is that discussions in terms of what is the content of experience or what is conveyed by the experience or how the hell we're going to get clear about that if we're on the background if we're interested in representational theories of concepts are the main interest rather than levels because they I think the main describe distinction between a higher theories and a first-order theories is what is required from the estate you were in when you're having the experience what does it have to

19:02 represent the higher order theories would say a thought of these four and so if there's a lot there to unpack let me let me see if I'm getting the gist of it so you you don't think that the distinctions between first-order same order higher-order is a very good way of dividing up the landscape because that's I mean what level were act isn't really what's at debate or what the main point of the debate is it sounds like what

19:35 you're saying is that you take the main debate to be how is the experience phenomenologically from my point of view does it indicate something about me or not or does it so this is more of an issue about transparency is that or is that miss reading what you're saying and that's so so I don't like the use of transparency very much because about what is what the experience conveys what one is in a position to come to all that I'm saying is that so in line with you with what you were saying is that the main difference between say higher order thought and so higher

20:08 theories in general and first order theories is a difference in what that's the estate one is in when having the experience represent so one say it represents with Apple the other says no it is a sense that I am in a room having the experience or in such-and-such state right so whether so for example you and I I guess would disagree so you are not very convincing you you intended it at least in your paper as a phrase as a price to be paid

20:42 III disagree with you I mean you know you have to give some point when you work writing I think that is it required for for the XP experience itself to be represented so that motivates some selfhood so mental state what I call mental state involved into representations like so state it's required that the experience represent itself as for example Riya Krieger has defended Island think so I think that what is relevant is that they subject herself is somehow represented not as an

21:16 object but rather as an element with respect to which the spins has to be but weighted right so and that's I mean you referring to my my paper I'm not sure what part of it you're disagreeing with not that I'm really um you know we don't have to get all distracted by this but I you said you've disagreed so I'm not exactly sure what part you're disagreeing with because I agree with you that well I mean it's a bit tricky so if you take someone just has a segue here if you take someone like Ned block who says that look there's some kind of

21:50 awareness of the of your conscious states involved but it's not a separate state it's not a cognitive kind of awareness it's you know if it guess if he press them hard enough he would say it's very deflationary sense of awareness that you know just like I smile my own smile so I'm aware of my own contra States but and that's only if you press really hard out other times though he seems to want some kind of notion of awareness which is just not cognitive it doesn't involve a thought or cognitive access or something like that so it at that point it becomes very hard to to make a

22:26 distinction between first-order and higher-order types of theories because here's a person who's championed what most people think of as a first-order theory saying no I want some kind of awareness involved but just not not a higher-order kind but really what it means a cognitive kind so it seems like really what's that issue is what's that likey what you're trying to say I think it's what's the representational content of these conscious experiences that's more of what the part of the debate is about so I think that you you take it completely right so there is one debate with regard to what is the content so

22:59 and then I think that someone can be a higher-order ease theories and give up that this form of awareness has to be something cognitive so as you know I tend to think that this form of awareness is not something it's not something cognate if it's not noticing like realizing or or cognitive axis well this is one discussion but this is neutral on the motivation of the of the yoga of the other cuts they might so so

23:34 champions of this debate like that it wasn't that they are willing to have them together and then maybe the right these dos are separate so one discussion is on what is the architecture that underlies the experience so we have to notice that or not or be in positions of something like the global workspace or or working memory if this is the kind of architecture that we have best do those mechanism underlies the mechanism responsible consciousness and I think if they don't hire theories or those that

24:12 thinks that some awareness of our the kind of states were in or the kind of relation that we wear to the world are perfectly alive so but you're completely right this is the way the debate has been going right so it's like still I'm not clear about what so I mean I know what you don't agree with about my particular view which is I think it's a cognitive kind of awareness and I'm not a true believer of this stuff you know I'm not someone who really thinks I know this is true or I think you know it's a view that should be taken seriously that's

24:45 about as far as I'm willing to go I think there's some evidence for it some empirical evidence which I take most seriously so you know that's interesting I think maybe there's some evidence against it you've presented some interesting evidence we can talk about the stuff for about dreams if you're interested in doing that so I take that kind of stuff seriously so I don't you know I'm not trying to push my own view here but I am curious what part of so on the view that I defended there's not this two-level kind of structure phenomenal consciousness simply is having the right kind of a representational state I'm aware of

25:16 myself as seen read the explanatory power comes from the content of the higher order state a lot of that sounds like what you want to say – all the cognitive stuff and the explicit analog of AI or something like that and that's what you're saying is where you want to make a distinction between the kinds of debates hire two theories want versus the stuff that you think is more interesting so you so here's the only point of three exactly what you say is what I think so the only point of disagreement that I mentioned before so cognitive process a spite and concept or

25:50 processes aside so those those are the main the main difference is just that when you were writing when you were presenting your view you claimed that giving up to the idea that the experience itself has to be represented is a price worth paying and then what I was saying is that it's not a price worth but there are no good reason so I was trying to argue that the experience itself does not have to be represented so as you might perfectly

26:25 agree with that there's no for the point of disagreement oh it was just a rhetorical way in which you presented the idea right that was a caucus yeah yeah you presented it what's just for authority probably in the wait so it's it's fine yeah I mean I do get a lot of pushback on that because people I mean there's a very strong intuition that people have that you know it's the first order states that should be somehow doing all this work and I think that's an empirical question it's open and open for debate we shouldn't decide it sort of based on intuitions

26:59 but people do have suggested that that's that's a worry so that's what I was responding to rhetorically you're right about that so that's very interesting so it's so one thing that came up is that it sounds like you think that phenomenologically sort of from what it's like there's the self involved is that correct on your view that that part of the evidence is phenomenology of self involving so so here's yes and that might be a father point of thought a point of disagreement so I think that if we get to the idea pseudo quoting ideas from Mariah again

27:36 in this case it's like the motivation of something like the transitivity principle even it's a folk psychological principle has to have some ground and I think so that something my best bet to motivate it is as follows so the experience does not merely compare something about the way the world is but also about my relationship own is immediately in a position to relate herself to the world and this is something that is phenomenological manifest and not claiming that the I

28:08 also the self is something like an object it's rather like an an articulated constitu it in various terms or an implicit representation in in reckon a systems I don't want to appeal to implicit representation but the idea would be at the same they don't what I don't want reckon are these implicit representations that he offers a theory of what it takes to have an implicit representation of oneself which is grounded in consciousness and then the project is dead so I wanted to go the other way around I want to ground consciousness on this form of implicit representation but if he's famous and he

28:42 take the world implicit representation I'm gonna use the different world it's like this constituent so something first personal is there so put you position as to these some indexical element there and this is some this is something that is problematic for hire I don't think so because if the if the hire of thought it's an unconscious one then what this state conveys it's not something that can be phenomenologically manifest but

29:15 again I think this is going to depend on the different uses of the word conscious so I think that this element is some somehow phenomenological manifest it's given in the experience right so the and I know you have a paper that's coming out in philosophical studies on specifically this point in higher order theories so I wonder if I'd only get too bogged down spending time talking about harder theories but I mean your views are the way you present them are sounds similar although you have a lot of disagreements there's that's part of

29:48 what the taxonomy I think the way people divide up the literature or the debate is sort of what you're pressing on is that you want to make room for some self involvement but not the kind of involvement that is at the higher level at least in this turn of a cognitive sense but so one of you I mean so I wonder if you could clarify your argument that at least on david Rosenthal's version of it there's a problem with securing the reference of the I term in it so what is exactly the problem that you see there so here's so as I was mentioning so first point of

30:22 agreement is like oh you need something like first personal representation there's a representation and then the second step and this is something that everybody that thinks that this is required need to provide we need what I call a metasomatic TV namely a theory that explains what is required from a stake to have this kind of content and this is something that is not so either you have theories that explain that in terms of consciousness like reckon ality or decock or the one that david offered so david says you know it's a

30:57 disposition it's a disposition to identify the subject of the the reference of the with the subject that appears then but in order so what I do in this paper is that if these disposition has to be manifested there has to be circumstances if we have the disposition there has to be four cognitive system like as circumstances under which we are able to do this identification we definitely can do it in a in the case of the higher thought the higher thought has to be conscious so that I can make the

31:30 edification show what does the subject of the higher level is and the higher thought has to be conscious and that's perfect okay the brain is that if the second order thought has to be conscious under some circumstances it has to be possible for our kid sector like this one in order to secure the reference of this higher thought that you need to deploy a third order thought which also deploys the first person pronoun okay what fixes the referent of this first person pronoun that is position two blah blah blah blah and then it has there has to be circumstances under which for

32:04 architecture like ask we have this disposition the third order thought becomes conscious so you have regression model finito at this is one because systems like us cannot satisfy the whole family of this petition that is required to warranty the first first so addresses this is the argument in basically in this paper right so and in Davis view about this is a bit slippery and it's good I mean what I don't necessarily

32:38 agree with the argument but I think it's good that you make the argument because it highlights this kind of issue in the theory I mean David what Rosenthal wants is to secure something like the essential indexical because he he believes that in these kinds of thoughts there has to be direct reference some kind of immediate reference to the subject but then how do you reconcile that with the claim that these thoughts are mostly unconscious and as you say his solution is well there's a disposition the disposition is simply that if someone pressed you you would

33:11 say who is thinking this father who is having this pain you would say it's me now your your point is that in order to do that you the higher the thought itself has to be conscious so I'm wondering why it has to be circumstances under which no it doesn't have to be conscious okay it so if you want to make the identification if you want to actualize their disposition then you can do only that I mean I don't know what would mean to do so but if you ask me and they I don't know what you're talking about if I'm

33:43 not conscious of the of the higher state so I don't claim that the higher thought has to be conscious but there has to be circumstances in order to have where I can so whether this position can be manifested right so more so let me say one thing for from the intellectual perspective I think that the argument might be I think that is a very nice one and you might disagree but the most important point is that thinking about those issues so if something like is let

34:20 me call you something the first person is required serious thinking of what is required for this kind of representation is important yeah so that's that's so a meta semantics of first-person represent or necessary presentation is required so they bit over one I think it doesn't work for this is one reason so I mentioned without argument that I don't like the fact that you need something like a simple derp this is the most so calling the attention to the need of something along these lines is intellectually more important than the argument which i

34:54 think is cool and i think it works but hateful as my argument it's my paper in it i mean there might be ways of resistance so you know for us or for some pretty smart people and they find out ways of you know or something on this line or maybe something different maybe this doesn't work that so you know and say for Frederica vision this is the fitting for higher theories give me a different theory right no I agree I think the most important point is like they point out the need for this kind of discussion I think that's exactly right so the details of how the resisted from this point of view of David's theory

35:27 aren't gonna be nearly as interesting as just highlighting the fact that this is a deficiency there are a lot of theories of consciousness that require something like this that don't have it David's offered one so he's ahead of the game a little bit I think now I think the disposition manifests itself in in various ways I mean part of the problem is that we aren't hardly ever have to do this I mean the conditions under which it would manifests are very rare no one ever really stops to ask the question how do I know who's having this thoughts or who is it that's really having the

35:59 thoughts that's that's fine but but but it's important so here's why I don't like in we always do that but here's something that it I don't like are you gonna probably read in the future many times that I do this thing talks explanation in terms of these positions yeah so because those are perfectly fine at the very beginning but well then we need to require exactly what is required from a system so what I was trying to develop is this idea so if you claim that the system has this disposition then of course that never ever we never ever do that but there has to be if we

36:32 have this disposition there has to be circumstances under which the disposition can be manifested if this disposition cannot be manifested then I don't know in which sense we have this disposition so we are characterizes the kind of cognitive architecture that we have I appeal to this position that's fine but then what I try to show in the paper is that oh then you would be committed to all these kind of things that of course we never do it but we there have to be an infinite so we we should be able to entertain an infinitely long higher thought and for finite of course we never we very rarely

37:08 have more like a third or four order that's the parry and only philosophy properly yeah but it but I but I'm trying to argue that it is required that the architecture that we are describing is able to this to do this if we want to claim the histories that we have the exposition that's more like like the point right no and I agree with that I just wonder why you think that it has to have the I in it so you know if I say ouch and then you say who's in pain then I say well you know I am you say well

37:43 who's that I say I don't know the guy who teaches at LaGuardia and sitting right in front of you I mean it doesn't seem like I have to say hi again in order to secure the reference to me I just give you a bunch of descriptions but you need you need okay so you need to identify the reason that I gave I see the point so the reason that I gave in the paper is that you need to identify the subject in the higher thought know who is in pain but they they so somebody thinks oh I'm in pain and then it has to be the subject of this particular thought so

38:16 you need to know which thought I'm talking about not only who is in pain so at least this is my understanding so in this position to identify the subject in the higher thought so you would need to be able to refer to this particular higher thought which is the one of which we want to secure the reference yes that's the idea yeah I see what you're saying I think maybe you're getting or I don't know but you know who knows I every time I think I got David view right he tells me no that's not my view and I say fine I'll write a paper setting it's my view then but so I don't know how he would respond to that but it

38:49 seems to me that when he says you have to assume the thinker of this very thought he's it doesn't require that you so you express the thought by saying I'm in pain and then someone says well who's in pain not who's thinking the thought I'm in pain but even if you did do that you wouldn't have to identify the thought you just say it's this guy it's this one I'm the one taking the thought that's what you must but you don't think that would work though as you as you move in this direction my impression is that as you try to move in this

39:22 direction then it is less clear to me what does it have to do with the meta semantics of the element using the higher thought so that might be a promising way of going but then it's like really does that keeps us meta semantics of the symbol that is deployed in this oh that's so yeah I mean and so in the I think it's important to keep in mind too that there are two just two things going on here one is that so if we want to appeal to because I agree with you about the phenomenology that the self is involved phenomenologically

39:57 that you that it's present or presented to me in some sense and I think that's explained by the fact that there's this thing in the higher to thought that says I am in this state so that if that determines what the fun that if if you accept as I tend to sometimes accept that phenomenology is determined by the content of these kinds of higher-order awarenesses then what it'll be like is me having the stage because that's what the contest was represented so that's the way I think the phenomenon Z gets in and it's because it's in the content of the relevant thought but then there's a

40:29 separate question how does that thought refer to the self and that's what the disposition stuff it's not supposed to explain the the phenomenology but explain how it's referring to me and not you so those are two different tasks I think so you're you're completely right so I agree with every every word you have said so just leave it leave it open so whether thought or what representations and that's accepted so I might say something I want you to know because I'm writing on that and that might be helpful and given that we're here discussing I think I would be fun

41:01 so it's important to clarify the sense in which the subject is involved in the representation so some people when you say oh you know I don't fight anything self is like it just Supremes for example appealing to Hume so some people with whom I say oh I don't find myself so it's important to characterize the way in which the self is present in the millions and my best bet is and I want to know when you think about that is that it's similar to the here so um it is not controversial that my visual

41:37 experience is the hink by that I mean that this thing presents objects from here so this is to write into them now if I ask you to introspect the hereness yeah I say yeah you know is there better but what I'm so I think that the I the self is like they should be here nurses introspect the IMS it's like hey you know it's there but it's not like like the the Apple or the half cups here so this is I think that before that system

42:11 as it plays the row of the indexical this is the way in which is present in the experience the hereness is part of the correctness conditions of the estate but when you attempt to interstate it like how do I introspect the humans I don't know so it's like it's there so I think that the i-ness or the the selfness is something like these kind of structural element and this is what some people is like oh you know I don't want to or are more willing to accept first-order theories I think this is

42:48 wrong you know I tend to agree you don't find it as an object sitting out there in your visual field that's not the way that it presents itself which is what you're saying I think yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah no I agree so how long your view then is this secured so the in these in the theory that I have what we need to do in general did you don't have a problem so you need state which

43:24 correctness conditions correspond to these differentiate ways the word are for accept so this is like you know don't paucity of language but what the heck is required from a neural system or her brain in order to do so and then what is required so in British word what I claim is that developing on vision ideas so what is required is that you don't need to identify the object so the core so what you need from the estate is

44:00 that is adequate or incorrect depending on the subject what I do in past work so I appeal to what the kind of entities that can be like organisms so what are organism self-maintaining system and I was appealing to the mechanisms responsible for self maintenance and the role the interaction between representation so in the case of perception their interest the interaction between representations of the world and the systems that are

44:34 responsible for this from your dynamic processes now I try to do so I'm more interested in what other ways could be to do it and I think that this is a combination so in this case I've made use in this past work of the work by the master who calls this a structure that I was responsible for the AMIA dynamic the powder self drugs off is a bad word because like oh then it wasn't something that itself and then it's like cheap so you're just cheated you just bringing something that's selfish and put it and put it there so what I think is that it

45:08 has to do in a paper that I'm work in if I if we manage to agree and what I want to say on the fact that is you have a dedicated and a dedicated system a system which is dedicated to the subject and we tested the relative function depending on the system and that it is this way you get the indexicality and the immunity to ever so in the case of allocation so for a process relative to

45:41 a location how the hink country would be so if the cyst if this sensor is just x function is not only to track red object but it's the object that are in front of it in front of teeth so it's function depends on the system on the locket on the system they are integrated then you have something like this can get something like this toast the hing content I don't think that the hint or this relative nice to hear news is sufficient for the IMS and then what we're trying to do is like to appeal to given the app that this

46:17 representation is consumed by a variety of processes for some of the any good wait to characterize it to characterize it in terms of the hint representation but for others something like more first person and would be required so by combining these Center so what save the dance on the one hand and what the receiver does on the other I'm attempting to do shop so something on this is still an ongoing project so that at the end what you get is a

46:52 representation of the object belonging to the self because of the dynamics between the senders and the receivers so you always get so for the theories for the kind of theories that I'm more familiar with you get content from something like sender receiver structure so this informational informational theories until automatic theories they appeal to send a receiver structures and then the content of of the message is determined by the sender receiver so that's what we that with those theories

47:26 to determine what it takes to represent read or to represent hey I'm here and this thing is not something which is articulated at least the most basic form so it's something like the resupply around in the unfamous frog case of Millikan now how what I'm trying to do it how this structure has to be complicated or articulated in order to get this indexical is essential in vesicle component that's what I'm trying to that I'm trying to play at this level rather than laying at the level of the concepts because I think that concept is

48:01 something more demanding than those simple representation and I tend to think that consciousness arrives at those more simple level one problem is that oh if that's too simple then maybe we have unconscious one and then we read wrong that's so that be a way to empirically test it at least so that's interesting because I know that you've I mean recently in a paper that yours you've been critical of Helio semantics theories because of your random man or Rando man now

48:34 so that's interesting that you want to still invoke something like at elio semantic theory so can you tell us like what part what part of the theory are you criticizing and what color are you trying to save so you know that those are one of those things you learn aloud about one theory it's interesting and then you're criticized what doesn't work that's what happened with your lesson Manticore with higher order theories that as we have seen there are many things that I endorse and like here is so there are like two components a theory of men talk of mental contents requires to impact the apparent

49:08 normativity of the representations maybe a fact that something is right or wrong the left semantic theories have to learn and so on the one hand you have this sender receiver component the informational component in order to unpack this normativity we appeal to an ideological notion of Millikan so typically is this a theological notion of function that the one that is doing the job of saying when it's right and when it's when it's wrong when it's adequate or when it's inadequate so what I did in this paper is like the bell log

49:42 on SWAT man ID it's classical but has totally she manifests have tried to resist this and still maintain that we need an ideological notion of virtue by a theological I mean one that depends on the evolutionary history now I have four consciousness I cannot believe so I don't think that the evolutionary history is relevant to the kind of experience so just fix the system and you get the phenomenology so of course in order to unpack this idea

50:19 I wouldn't appeal to an ideological notion of function then we have something like so organizational theories attempt to do that by means of omneya dynamic processes which we would be more in line with people's work at this point of criticize is it's like playing there so I think that those naturalistic theories of mental content are the most promising or the ones are like them they have some handicaps maybe in order to unpack more complex representations

50:53 we need to appeal to something like in a theological function that the very least something the mental a little item better not be sorry so one of the questions I have about this is for instance for Milliken she's not interested in talking about consciousness I know because I've tried to get her to talk about this and she's it's it's interesting to her but she's not that's not what her it's not the theory is about the theories about mental content and and intentionality so you know and what's interesting is you

51:28 know Davidson came up with swampman got famous from him but Milliken talked about so long man before Davidson in her language tie another bio category she says some people I think this is an objection to my theory or the person you know just shows up with no history they have no mental content she says well you know before judging that and I know you know this but before judging intuition wise your feelings about it we should have a theory of intentionality first that's her move is that we do the theorizing first and then we check the

51:59 case so her she bites the bullet and says yes one man has no intentional States in fact I talked to her recently about this and I asked her about CRISPR technology and in particular about this particular scientist who's trying to bring back the woolly mammoth by taking DNA that they have from some bones and splicing it with modern elephants and so you know I after this woolly mammoth if they ever build one does it have intentional States or not her answer was she doesn't care it's not a hurt deer he's not meant to address it and she she thinks it sort of depends on what kind

52:34 of generalizations we can make about the behavior the animal and these other things but ultimately and this is sort of what you call the real nature a case I think in your paper ultimately what she's interested in explaining is not these possible kinds of cases but actual animals in our world that we actually live in and how they get to have content to their mental states so I'm wondering what how you might respond to that given that the I mean I know you want an actual case but the random man is not really an actual case and she might respond in the same way that that's just not what the

53:06 theories built to do so – yeah so that's what I try to do in the in the papers that you cannot ignore those cases so it's it's I don't care whether it's so the reason why I brought random man which is simply you know DNA chain that comes from random combinations of numbers is that get one of those things or in your example take this artificial system so altered whatever so the question is okay we need to explain

53:40 their linguistic abilities so those bags they're gonna have linguistic abilities are gonna have cognitive capacities how are those explained my point is if you can explain those without appealing to representations then so can ours be explained so why does the weekend go to fine now ah why why so repeat I didn't hear the question I'm just asking why do we need to explain those kinds of card the capacity is a random manner of these other soldiers so and that the following

54:14 situation if if I were to produce one of those beings it can be produce we would be willing to explain their behavior so it's only best because if if they don't have two representations then how do you explain sick snake air about explaining that and say well I'm trying to understand what is the nature of representation I take the representations to be not mere theoretical postulates but some kind and I want to move in that because I'm not sure about what a natural kind is yes some kind something like a natural kind

54:47 so when in neuroscience or psychology we talk about representations we mean something the way in which is used might differ but it's something that has these correctness conditions about all things or carries information or whatever you want it to be intact and those are the tools we have to explain how these cognitive architecture works and how this behavior works now if these depends on an evolutionary history the Mike Lee cases with like this but behave as I do

55:20 so if possible are different it's a different explanation possible then let's look for it so I would be like it's it I don't think we will to understand the nature of those things that we are postulated so I don't think that this move at least for someone like me would be available maybe Milliken is destined to religious you know I want to do that but we want to understand what is the nature of those things we're talking about right so I mean I agree but I think that some of the debate here might be on what it means to be the nature of something so for her the nature of it is given by the by the

55:54 etiological historical selection process in the past that is its nature I mean as far as so insofar as – bug you on nature's these other things you know whether they have natures at all that seems like I mean seems like an open question and if you already have a theory which suggests that they don't then it seems like you shouldn't go this thing that they do okay how about these so imagine the weather which I emulate I copy mine or just by copying you get there no I couldn't do that so you had some random process the exact enough

56:28 fair enough yeah I mean I don't agree I'm not saying I agree I'm just saying that I think that this is the way that they that she would respond I mean you know I mean I remember being in the class with her and she was talking about swamp man saying you know he just doesn't have any thoughts he's not thinking about anything to swamp Davidson goes and teaches a class he has no thoughts he's not me he doesn't mean anything by what he says I was like flabbergasted that's so that's what you said then but then explain so okay fair enough but then explained their cognitive capacities yeah you say oh I don't care I don't

57:02 care about that that's fine but I do care yeah exactly take that point that's interesting so I don't want to see I want to sort of keep us on track here there's a lot of interesting things that are coming up one of the things you mentioned earlier was the distinction between access and phenomenal consciousness and I've seen that you put this too in I mean I this is a vexed question I don't want to you know we get too bogged down and talking about overflowing that stuff although I you know have a that's it interested in talking about it but one

57:34 of the things I like about your did you put this to some really new kind of interesting work so I read a paper of yours where you were trying to say well the the conceive of the possibility of zombies kind of depends on people overlooking this distinction so I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how you think this is how this plays out so here the idea in this paper was the following so assume that we that there is a distinction between acts and phenomenology now in the by dimension of a delayed two-dimensional framework and

58:12 the argument one of the ideas is that the primary intention and the secondary intention so what things are and what things seems are in the case of consciousness are identical so what I was trying to do is like okay we form our concepts of how things seem to us on the basis of the access we have to be experienced now the access that we have so there is room for a distinction between the primary and secondary intention of consciousness if they so if

58:55 the primary intention depends on the cognitive access and the secondary the real nature depends on some of the process so there is room for difference there and then you cannot make the inference that is required by the argument so what would be happening at the case of bizarre like the alleged zombie world so you can see it over worlds microphysical duplicate of you running around saying unconscious self representation but it's not conscious so you respond by saying that they are have different access properties than we do

59:28 they have the same access properties that we that we do and they lack they so it's like so you have the access property and then you don't have the phenomenology so you form so there might be a cave it's like it might be useful to think of access as a higher order just for the sake of illustration higher order thought they form the thought that they do if the phenomenology do not correspond to what they a higher or the state says but something else and just then you have this so the zombie would have the access

1:00:03 property I wouldn't like the the mana logical one but it can't be a family code duplicated in that case it's not a physical duplicate yeah definitely it's not a physical right so you have to object to the setup of the zombie argument still like by some way when they say it's a micro physical duplicate with different people yeah what they were figuring out is something but it happened in the same in the case so all the cases in which the primary in the secondary and in tension do not coincide would be very sure you cannot imagine so can you imagine were area staff that is not h2o

1:00:38 yes you can but I wouldn't be a duplicate a physical duplicate of the actor world but you're imagining so it's the same year of yours you're completely right so in this case what I'm imagining is not a duplicate a real duplicate yeah but if I say so why do you need so I mean why do you not that I want to disagree with you but I'm just curious why you think you the distinction between cognitive between access and phenomenology plays any role here because it sounds like what you're just saying is well no you're just not imagining what you think you are which

1:01:11 is a move that can be made in lots of different ways because the because the way in which the argument is resisted so I receive is this Kripke an idea that something seems pain is pain and how do I mean you can say no I mean that would you say no but but here there is a reason an empirical there might be an inferior coefficient on many assumption which might not be the case or whatever but we are using if there is conceptual room for that that's enough for resisting the argument so it's it doesn't matter

1:01:44 whether is there are two different senses of the word seeming going on here so on the one hand it's a cognitive seeming on the other hand is phenomenological so I I took that creepies I mean you could put it a different way but one way of putting Creek Keys point is that if it seems you you're in pain then you are where he means like if you feel something painful then you're in pain it doesn't get thanks if you believe you're in pain or something although that that's that's fine but how do we know how to come to know which state we are so it depend so if it's like the first one is like

1:02:17 saying oh if it's pain if it's pain its pain that's such sure I mean I have no doubts with that the question is whether it's pain if one so the the problem there is that when you move from the primary intention to the secondary intention is granted by those kind of claims of course if something feels like pain the phenomenological sent and it is pain but the the primary intention is not fixed or it's it's conceivable or coherent that the primary intention is not fixed

1:02:51 by the phenomenology but it's fixed by the access we have to different knowledge and this is what would justify breaking this that would be that that was the the idea that I intended to develop there right okay yeah I think that's I mean that's really interesting idea I think that's not the standard way that zombie argument is presented the thing of primary intention is supposed to be exactly fixed by the phenomenology yeah but there but the quickest so in order to so we first a primary intention by a we need access I mean we wouldn't have any concept if we like access to

1:03:24 our should come like I need to know if I need to notice that and I need to form the relative cause that seems to be something that depends on access on the of the cognitive factors we have that's something a capacity that we have on the basis of and now if it's an open question on the assumption that it's at least an empirical question whether the acts and cognitive access is considered if of not or not of the phenomenology that leaves open the possibility that the primary intention which clearly depends for I clearly putting that's that was like Tomas and I argue

1:03:58 that depends on the access could be taken apart from the yeah so I mean I I like this idea but so I don't want to defend zombies either you know I'm no friend whose office I take the stronger view they're not even conceivable so I'm not trying to push a zombie argument against you but I'm just it seems that well I think a lot of these people who want to defend this view are not gonna say it's not cognitive access it's like direct its acquaintances that you know that's that's a different kind of thing than

1:04:31 the cognitive access that there's some kind of access there but it's not causal it's not cognitive it's this other you know mysterious thing which I you know don't can make sense of but what is not thinking well fine if they're right that's fine so and postulate in any political architecture that we have so if this is one architecture that we have and this is so some people think that access is the cognitive access constitutive of the phenomenology so it has to be it has to be this one and my impression is that those we want to say

1:05:05 that that there if you are begging the question against AB you like mine I mean just one strategy to try to resist might or might not work but it seems that having so really being willing to say that you need to have these these words these access these direct access this acquaintance might be back in the one what what it's justify these claims like I have this is mediate well maybe you're just you know you're preparing the argument and then you win definitely you

1:05:37 definitely win it's like it's like why do I need it's like oh but I have this yeah fine so it if it may be in architectures like as phenomenology and acts is all it go hand by hand you know it's like if that but not that that you know they're all like it seems to be the simple this empirical debate people get to accept the dissent in filter compact if it's an empirical claim we're talking about an a priori argument so right then it's like oh here do you have an architecture you have the

1:06:11 estate with the magic and you have the estate allows you to form the concepts that you are deploying so the one that listen to them sorry go ahead no no it's fine well I was just gonna say seems like the argument is it really depends on a certain conception of consciousness it sort of seems like it depends more on that on just the distinction between access and phenomenal consciousness it depends also on denying acquaintance yeah probably

1:06:52 and I'm thought about that this way so I was hearing the other day I was like oh what's in some of the of your videos and you were discussing with a filled cup of golf about concepts and yes interesting thing that you brought about was you know some so everybody's gonna say that the concepts that phenomena concept are somehow different without endorsing something like a phenomenal concept right you there have to be like you know

1:07:25 that they're different they have to be something special about them because you know it's conceptually when I think about that the consciousness is weird so that's something that we all will I mean yeah I mean well at least we uh we accept so I think that's something like you want to somebody want to say oh and they're like that because of acquaintances then fine argue about them so some people think that I don't think that we are completely infallible with regard to our experience like we're

1:07:59 better than anyone I think that we are in five all with regard to the first place on deployment that a fact that is me the one that is having the experience maybe and I mean I'm not completely sure but you that's that's also something that you did in the past maybe we were wrong those are cases that might be right or might be wrong but I might think that I'm in pain when you know it's pressure rather than that's doesn't so strange to me and I'm not forced to say I don't think that everybody would

1:08:33 agree let know if I say that I mean thing I'm really pain I don't know so it's like yeah we all right so the for those type of cases I tend to think you really are in pain because it feels like pain to you but you're not in pain in the first order state of pain so I tend to take those as in a slightly different way I think then maybe some other people would you know there's debate but at least the other position is not completely incoherent all that I'm saying is that

1:09:06 then we might be wrong and if you think of an architecture in which you have phenomenology and you have access what you think depends off the access and you have to make any sense whenever that you have to make any sense they can things can get wrong if you think that this thing can go be taken apart then what you think about your experience can be even if always or in most of the cases it gets get it right so yeah and in the general strategies one I'm very very fond of I've argued for a long time that

1:09:40 the best response for physicalists to zombies and stuff is to argue that what's really being what's because I I mean I guess the backup I do kind of feel the pull sometimes of the zombie world that it does seem conceivable in some sense but it's not clear that you're really conceiving what you think you are that this is a micro physical duplicate and I think the analogy with water is really good because no one claims that you could conceive of a duplicate of our world without water because water is h2o but that was something that was empirically

1:10:12 discovered and we might not be at the point where we can with conscious with respect consciously a particular will not not be at that point where we have the theory like what we needed you know the theory of chemistry in order to get water and h2o together we don't have that yet so I like exploring the option that what people are conceiving of is is it not quite a physical duplicate of the physical world and I think that's what's interesting about the way that you present the argument although I'm you know I'm skeptical about the distinction between cognitive and phenomenology I don't really buy that but even so I

1:10:46 think the argument for you for fair enough so I don't think that it has to be I mean I say I really like the conservator leti the conceivability argument at some point I gets a bit bored but it's a nice way of articulating what would be the relation and thinking about the metaphysics and what typical and I think it's a great and interesting arguments and there are different ways to think about it I mean it's committed to something like rational rationalist be rationalized about modality and I tend to not to be

1:11:21 one of those but nonetheless I like it let me articulate it let articulate different metaphysical positions very easily so that's and then I don't even know I'm not super convinced that this is the best reply but you know okay it helps to think of different architectures different possibilities and why we find it mysterious or what not yeah right okay so I don't want to keep you around forever but I do want to

1:11:58 make sure we have time to talk about quantum mechanics which got a really there's a couple things I really like about that paper one is that you try to be trying to do it from the point of view of a physicalist which i think is really cool and something that i wish more people would explore and to just how you take quantum mechanics seriously it's kind of frustrating you know almost 100 years after it's being fairly well empirically established I mean in my personal view we're not going to have a theory that surpasses quantum mechanics

1:12:31 well the theory may be that encompasses it but it's not gonna go away and we're not gonna find out that it was wrong in any of its maybe he said expand whatever but it so anyway my I'm rambling but the point is that I think it needs to be taken seriously and we need to think about it as telling us some important about the world and taking that seriously might have something to do with consciousness so I know there's a lot of mathematics in the paper and we don't have the space to go over that but can you tell us something about what is it that you think the relationship there that you're trying to develop so so here's the the main idea of the origins so let me

1:13:04 take a little historical talk briefly historically about the paper so I always read so in one of the most important so a time ago a long time ago it used to be a very good conference in consciousness now I have a more skeptic about that in the science of content to where Italians of conscious how many people working on interesting in quantum mechanics and I always thought oh you know it's like it seems that it's easily to empirically find out and I've read a paper in nature coconut cannot remember a fish's

1:13:38 physicists and it didn't work so stop has a good reply and it's it's incorrect despite of the fact that is and I was I was lucky enough that one of my colleagues here is works on foundations of quantum mechanic we were discussing and we come to write a paper on how this could be done because it's not that easy and you know thanks good and then I came to a paper so when I was interested in this relation between quantum mechanics by called McQueen and they take Chalmers and on the relation between consciousness and in quantum mechanics

1:14:11 but the problem there was like it's it wasn't clear what the dynamic was so here's how it's supposed to go from the very beginning of quantum mechanic people have postulated that the collapse of the wavefunction so in quantum mechanics you have these possible whenever they you have this possible state so like a particle being here and a particle beam Theory mathematically is in the hilbert space it's possible another state which is the superposition with neither one nor the other nor two it's this kind of weird States however we never upset over that

1:14:45 so whenever that we make a measurement we obstacle over here or there or spin up and spin down and this is something that has to be explained here's one explanation so we don't consciousness make these things collapse or we don't have third it's not possible to be conscious of a superposition all right or in the paper we also distinguish we distinguish two things to be conscious

1:15:18 of a super position that something is going to happen we never happen expedient on the spin-up and spin-down and the super position of two mental states so being in a super position of receiving this and perceiving that and we try to figure out how this could be done so how one thing that has been proposed since the early days of quantum mechanics is that consciousness is the thing that makes the wavefunction collapse so what is requires what

1:15:51 happens so how is this relation mathematically possible and then what we make use is use of theory that score CSL in which you have a parameter that allows you that whenever something happens you get very quickly out of the superposition show this is the simplest way to explain it so you have this parameter and you make it to depend on consciousness for the sake of the spatial not that I'm not that I find them very promising we make use of

1:16:27 integrated information theory because it offers the Phi a parameter which can be introduced in the function now what you do is that whenever that you have a certain value of these you get very quickly so you you have a superposition of these two experience but very very very quickly you get out of these states and this is something that you can do with CSL there is some mathematical is not very complicated the basic idea for those that do not know quantum mechanics

1:16:59 not that I know a lot about it's just this whenever that you get into the conscious state you very quickly so the dynamic is so that you very quickly get out so you really get into a superposition but very quickly get out of these states and this is what we do in the paper it's a variation of a theory that already a state exists with this CSL our own with the parameter rather depending on locations fans on consciousness so CSL I'm not very familiar with that but is that a it's a kind of objective collapse theories exactly exactly it's an

1:17:34 objective collapse theories it's what it so basically as far as I know as CSL in baby you objected collapse theory and this is what it looks here aha so now how is this different from the Calvin McQueen the McQueen and Chalmers M property I mean I guess one big difference is that they don't allow superposition as ever so one of the one of the so you cannot you need to allow today today so here is the fair way to

1:18:11 put it it's just one way of doing what they want they intended to do so you need to mechanic so if if consciousness do not enter into a superposition you have the things like the quantum so you have problems like quantum Zeno effect and you have so and and you need to explain what it takes to not enter into into superposition how is the interaction between M properties and so what is the dynamic what happened so what it means mathematically so give me a give me a formula of how it's how it

1:18:45 above so just by saying that M does not enter into a superposition but then okay fine and and then how do you you need to explain what is the what is the dynamics and this is something that we do so it's it's definitely inspired so we started to think about it after waiting the previous paper M by seeing Calvin and Dave proposal and start to think about how it works so what does it mean to have an improper T that do not enter into a superposition so here you enter

1:19:20 into a superposition what happened is that you quickly get out of state something that they also show chest and we don't have the problems that they the theory might have I mean they are they were worried by the quantum Zeno effect that for those that are not familiar with that it's just the problem that derives that you get freeze whenever that you make a mess and measurement you cannot evolve and then right so any measurements over and over and over again the system stays in the same stay exactly like right and then

1:19:53 you got or at least in principle you don't not straightforwardly you do not have this kind of problem and you have a made you have a dynamic so you offer so there are like many so one famous paper which is the many mind paper very interesting about what is the independently well is do at least or not a in this famous paper you have like theory that relates quantum mechanics

1:20:29 and consciousness but then you don't really get what is the interaction so how do you do that or in proposal likely and stops proposal very complicated or I'm not gonna talk about even more complicated and here you have a model of how the things are both so in that that's what I think that is the nice part of the paper so the nice part of the paper is like oh if you think that consciousness might play a role in in quantum mechanics here you have a way in which you can make sense of this idea which is understandable and which is

1:21:02 have mathematical predictions and not seriously I mean mathematical predictions clock luck because there's no way to to calculate five good luck but I mean just take a parameter so if you have consciousness is if a parameter on which that you may correlate with consciousness here you have mathematical models that allows you to make to offer a dynamics and you just play with the parameters and then you get to something coherent that's that's what I think that is the nice part of the paper so we are very

1:21:37 much indebted to the ideas that Kelvin and and they've developed it's just ok then let's do it and that's what we did I see so and the way in which you think that this is compatible with physicalism is that whatever the parameter depends on so in this case it's Phi Phi is a physical system property of the brain so then that makes it physical a physical istic quantum approach I mean so here's so that the point is that you don't need to postulate so Judith you can be a physical list and so it is compatible

1:22:15 with consciousness playing a role in the collapse of the wavefunction that you don't need to be dualist so you just need a parameter as it is location enormous yourself or Phi in this case and if this if a big if IIT were true an IIT were compatible with the truth of physicalism that many people think that it is then there you have a model so you don't need something

1:22:48 extra in order to make the collapse because it would be very weird and very weird and I don't have even a clue how it works how it's supposed to work if you have something which is not physical that plays a role in the collapse of the wavefunction how is this interaction so how is the interface between those things and if it's something physical how it plays so this is the nice part of the of the proposal so of course it might be that as one of the referees will claiming that you know IIT might not be a physical his theories right that's what I was it so and that's why this is completely right so nothing in

1:23:23 the proposal commits as to physicalism but it allows understand how physicalism might be the case and you can have a theory of in which the collapse of the wavefunction depends on consciousness I say okay so it's not exactly arguing for physicalism it's just saying it's possible yeah so here's how you can here's how you can do it so some people so thank you so Viktor is like what the heck so how how is how is it possible that something which is something weird

1:23:55 and this is one problem that we often see when you see people mixing quantum mechanics and consciousness one get the impression that's what people are doing is getting one weird thing so we here we have to we're thanks let's put them together I mean you know interesting thing might appear is not that I am confident that this is so that the collapse of the wavefunction depends on consciousness it's just rather that here you have a model here's a way to understand how this relation might be

1:24:27 and so and you're not worried by the pen psychist implications of IIT yet that's not something that really matters from your point for for this paper no so I know I don't even think that not at all I mean it's like if IIT where the case and punch like kissing win a case and it's basically spew but but the nice part is that IIT is there to illustrate the proposal it's popular more I guess more popular in in unfortunately in neuroscience that in philosophy because

1:25:01 I think that is a philosophical I feel so fickle I mean a theoretical proposal but just dragged in whatever a variable so make consciousness depend on a parameter and plug that in so I don't know if consciousness were a matter of how many atoms you have plug in the number of atom I mean I'm saying just stupid example but we use IIT it is I I think if you'd this parameter on which you can parameters as the CSL so you make a

1:25:36 version we make a version of CSL and which rather than locations the collapse depends on conscious so I'm not interested at this point in defending IIT I don't think that I don't I tend to think that IIT is not related to consciousness I fail to fundamentally understand understand it from the trophical perspective there are some so more development is required if the theory is to make sense but here it's useful because it's something that's it

1:26:11 third reasons for thinking that integration of information is likely to consciousness gives you a parameter and it's helped to illustrate the it's more for illustrative foot post purposes than for a commitment with with IIT but just as an aside to I'd say I don't I'm not sure that it's popular in neuroscience I think has a couple of high-profile endorsers and that's kind of inflated the sense in which neuroscientists are allegedly infatuated with it I don't know but so that's a different that's another here enough but

1:26:43 I understand I take your point that you're saying is that what it's a proof of principle type of thing IIT just a nice handy kind of example it does make me wonder though I mean so it has to be something that's magnetizable like for instance it's hard to figure out what kind of parameter you could fit in if you thought higher order theories were true or if you thought some other kind of theory of consciousness where were the case like even your own theory of consciousness but parameter could you put in so at least it's restricting there those sorts of things which could be mathematize abour there definitely so

1:27:17 one of the things so one of the things that I would be willing to think about it's like what theories in the market can offer a parameter so maybe yeah so definitely so you need a parameter there so in the theory you need you need a parameter it's not obvious that Theory like my my own where first-person representations play a role you have something which you can so what is this property but it has so one interesting

1:27:49 thing is that from the mathematical perspective there are things in the world that have that and things in the world that do not have them so there has to be a mathematical function right III need to think more about that so and I'm now intro so it's like you know those system has to satisfy some constraints and one those constraints so build up and mathematical I don't know I'm not sure about it but you basically you're right so one of the things that one of the I want to think more about it's like

1:28:22 what theories are compatible and which theories are not so what is required what can be memorized or not or whether in principle any theory you there is there has to be something in the world ofcourse you see something like again cluck cluck real not broken sorry if it's something like a natural kind has to be whatever not were kind means namely something that exists is

1:28:58 there in the world I have there has to be some way of mathematics in over the fundamental particles for example so if your metaphysics that you have fundamental particles like atoms strings or your favorite then it has to be a function of the relations that those things beard to each other in which case I'm not sure about what I mean what I'm saying but did that would that's my inclination now thinking about that if if reality is as we think it is we've

1:29:34 got to some mathematical relation yeah I don't characterize it well I I so for my own view I I think that this exploring this area in the way that you have is important because of things I said earlier about the fundamental the way I think quantum mechanics is not going away and won't be superseded but but also I think that what the theory has has suggested very strongly is that information acquisition is really the fundamental thing here that once once you come to have information about the state then it's not reversible it's not in the superposition anymore I think I

1:30:07 would quibble a little bit with the way you guys characterize superpositions not mathematically obviously but in terms of it being some weird state of the system is definitely not a classical state but and so consciousness seems like one way of getting information it's not clear to me that you could I mean so one of the things that would be interesting to find out is whether you could get these kinds of things from unconscious representations or this is sort of a similar to the debate maybe you find about whether measurements themselves counts as observation so because really

1:30:42 the fundamental thing is observation but a lot of people want to say well no measurements them's just measuring the thing itself is a kind of way of gaining information so wherever there's a measurement there's there's a non super position now III don't really know what to think about that that's something so here's so here's so this is the data so it might happen at an unconscious level so the important thing is that you don't have super position at the conscious level right so this is what we have served so whether it happens at an unconscious level maybe so they the

1:31:17 explained handle is that we don't find it as at a conscious level which is the level from which we can to think so at the very least we need to work warranty is the fact that we do not observe them by consciously observe them and this is something so it would depend on the so let me play again with a file so there would be different values there would be certain values of five that make you get quicker and if the file is lower then you will stay there longer but the

1:31:50 important part is that the time that you spend in a super init superposition of fire is very very very very very very very low such that you don't notice or you don't come to I mean doesn't seem to you and you are in those things and if this is so up at the very least if you make a distinction between noticing and we state itself you can explain that probably some other people I mean you need that might be you don't need you might not need to take access and phenomenology apart to do this trick is

1:32:24 just it is too short you don't even come to follow think about it yeah I mean that doesn't present a whole different set of challenges I mean I do you think about like Dave's argument Chalmers from dancing and fading qualia one one of the reasons that he thinks and this is some I know you've worked on but and I want to drag us into a whole discussion of it unless we want to but anyway if you think about that one of the one of the claims that he made was that it's just weird that that you know that we wouldn't we wouldn't notice that these giant changes would be going on you know

1:32:56 I a pelear to a and it does seem like this possibility of brief superpositions opens up that question again like why wouldn't we note I mean it seems like I would notice no matter how quickly it seems like this it would be very odd if I didn't notice that if I was in a super super position on classical state of somehow seeing the apple red and green or something like that or red or green or what even the right way to characterize that is so

1:33:29 those kinds of Queen that gives me a little bit of pause what would what does it even mean for there to be a superposition of conscious qualities if you're the wit for instance the way I mean not to cut you up but the way I would interpret the superposition is is not by saying that the that the state is both spin up and spin down that clearly to me doesn't that's nonsensical that's quantum mechanics doesn't dictate that at all it says well it's in one or the other and so that the the plus sign there the minus sign in the equation

1:34:03 should be interpreted as or not as and no it's it's important that the superposition is not an ordered state it's not an out state that is not an Auror state it's a different state so it's not being in this state or being in this state it's a different state why is that important that's that's what a superposition is a superposition is not a matter of being in this state or being in this state it's a matter of being in a different state which is a superposition of both as far as I understand quantum mechanics no better

1:34:37 protection of quorum I mean so the Copenhagen and I think what I'm sort of espousing isn't going to say that it's gonna say yeah there's a non classical state there but what it tells you is that when you check you're gonna find one or the other and that's always what we find but that's an epistemic okay fine that's that's so those are not the theories we are dealing with in which is just this an epistemic question so we're being realistic about the about those states so it's not an epistemic problem just as the one that you were mentioned

1:35:10 so right that's that's what I was saying hands on a real interpretation of course okay you're absolutely right now coming back to the to the fading and dancing qualia which is an argument that I like a lot and that's one of reasons I've always be willing to enter some form of functionalism is so there is a difference so in advance in qualia you can go as long as you will launch the red green red green now things happen in the world so imagine think of an experience when a photogram so we

1:35:45 imagine that you think that subliminal by saying subliminal and making it unconscious now here is here is one view of what is going on when you put a frame within the twenty-four so two explanations I mean for the times I'm not worried about the particular time and just building up an analogy right so here's one thing that one might think that what's going on if that frame were able to reach consciousness which probably does not the blah blah blah

1:36:17 it's not interesting so one thing that may happen is that the frame does not reach consciousness and so you have an equal experience the whole time here is an alternative so that contributions really quickly changed you'd fail to notice them so this is not as weird as the case of the dancing quality because those are like you can be there for one minute it doesn't matter so I can just play it's not that critical in which you don't even come to notice I don't find it so problematic it's like you know insofar as you don't come to note you can come

1:36:55 to notice I mean it's weird if we don't notice a stable if we fail to notice stable states of consciousness you know I have the gorilla I'm I'm not so interested in to do discussing I mean it's very interested in the gorilla particle illa you call me look at the gorilla and then look at the gorilla and look for the gorilla and I don't fail to see that would be very weird right like but so far but but on this I guess the weirdness I was getting on is that on this view it seems like every time you open your eyes there's a brief

1:37:27 superposition every time you change your you look a different position there's there's a collapse of a superposition and you're I guess what you're saying is if it happens really quickly then you just it's not that surprising that you don't notice it but it seems to me that's still surprising okay yes cute no matter how quick unless it was like like you said subliminal in which case the theory is not talking about it let me let me then develop your war really before I let me father to see whether I get it so here is your idea it's like

1:38:01 okay I grant you that with one you convinced me that one might work when I open my eyes and look at the deesis table I mean perhaps no problem but there happens the whole time so whenever I'm looking so it has to be a continuous not noticing things right which is problematic that's that's interesting and I need to think about it that's that's that's that way of putting I need to think more about it okay good enough

1:38:37 response I'm noticing we're getting on in time so I can't keep you forever you've been very generous with your time but before we go I wonder thank you I wonder if there's anything that hasn't come up yet that you would like to bring up and the answer can be no that's fine and I'm very happy to keep discussing for ages so that has been most of the things that have been working on that's you know did some work on the relation with cognitive access with dreams but

1:39:11 there is no far more that I think that's what is counseling that the arguments there some stuff on some things on vagueness and how whether we come to distinguish qualities in the world and I'm also working on that but it's like most of the things that I'm doing have a pure I'm happy to present and discuss my ideas and contrast it with sufficiently close ideas and sufficiently deep an idealist us as they

1:39:46 wander that you have has been a real pleasure so I don't know whether you well I do know that you so you just mentioned the vagueness I know you have a paper on the phenomenological Sariah T's yeah is that what you were talking about yeah so that was just because it came recently and I have been working on that and now I'm working on something similar precisely related to the quality space theory so for writing a paper with a friend of mine with James Tucker

1:40:23 related against the idea that consciousness can be awareness of qualities like changes work and so what you can tell me a little bit about that I'm not fluent so they it's it's still we're still working on the on the final version and submitting that but did basically the ideas that so as you know most defenders of higher theorists think that you can think of qualities know the redness of the experience that I exist

1:41:02 unconsciously and then you have some sort of awareness of those qualities and this is the difference with consciousness so where we try to argue is that what justifies to call those states qualities mainly that they can individuate the state of consciousness so there has to be things that how can appear conscious what we try to argue is that there has to be states of the rules that do not fully characterize the state of consciousness then the there is no reason for them to postulate that there is anything like a quality so I remember

1:41:36 when I started when I went for the first time to New York and I hang out with those plans of hiring theories which I learned a lot at the very beginning it was very tough for me to understand this notion of quality and then it was really really easy and whenever I explained I teach consciousness that's what I did most of the time I don't you know whether you want to like it you have to understand what is the nature of these states and and here's what the theory postulates and I then I always tend it

1:42:09 to be that more like a kind of terminological discussion so when we then try to do is like whether it deserve to be called conscious to be called qualitative and this is relevant because one way of thinking of consciousness is as an awareness of qualities and I prefer I try to we try to attack this way of thinking so the subjective aspect or the awareness and the qualitative aspect have to go hand by hand and there seemed to be something

1:42:42 more than just a mean illogical and basically what we try to argues that those things that we are well to notice have they named qualitative insofar as they can't they have to be circumstance under which they characterize the state of consciousness as soon as I have it I will share it with you but I would like to see an actually but see if I understand what you're saying because I'm not sure if I'm I'm getting the argument entirely which I'm not saying is your fault so so on the I mean by the way first of all it's not just higher it

1:43:18 of theories that take this view no but something I know I know but I know but but but since I'm learning different so some people almost yeah but go go so it insofar as I understand the the view for someone like Rosenthal the idea is that well look we have these states huh they're in our behavior they control our behavior they're manifesting the behavior in a sense and the particular

1:43:49 behavior is the noticing the differences between stimuli is especially the just noticeable differences yes animal you present to stimuli they saying and you do that for like every possible imagine a–let's that you can find and you map out the quality space of the organism so that he thinks can be done unconsciously you could do that subliminally present something subliminally and say same difference they say how the hell oh I know you say guess they say I don't know maybe

1:44:22 different and so you could map out the the entire space of their discriminatory abilities and then so I don't I I think you're not objecting to that you're objecting to that the further step that those things that are mapped out are qualitative in some sense exactly by qualitative here's one one thing that the qualitative that the word qualitative is worth is that it can characterize a state of consciousness it can individuate a state of conscious of what we try to do is like of course you have this map that's that that

1:44:55 that's fine but if something is qualitative if it can for a system like a cognitive system like ours come to characterize a state of consciousness we try to argue that it they cannot so is it in that sense that they are not if I qualitative I guess that this is something that David stressed so people before that David took people like Hume that he services in the end in his book and not so much in recent papers is that something is qualitative the motivation

1:45:30 for calling this thing qualitative it's because these things that is there in this map is the kind of thing that is rebuilt in in consciousness so yeah that's the part of not I'm not tracking so you show an animals an organism something red and they say it's red and then you show them that thing subliminally so that they say they don't see anything but they're able to press a button you ask them press this button if it's red that button if it's green and

1:46:02 they press the right button so I thought the motivation for calling it qualitative was simply that it's the same stimulus it's in the behavior and it's the sort of thing which you could be aware of it's some cases you are in some cases you aren't so why would you me why wouldn't we call it qualitative if it's functioning the same and behavior it is the sort of thing that could be you could be aware of by what you have to play some kind of concept describing it but so in that sense it is something that characterizes

1:46:35 the state of consciousness but it need not return so I'm wondering what the connection is supposed to be so the question is that you cannot be aware of all of these so you say you could be aware so what we try to argue is that for systems like s you're accepting that when you are aware that what make it consciousness conscious sorry and that's what I meant by saying that it characterize or individuate the particular conscious states so you are right so this is a definition that we take to be of what is qualitative and

1:47:08 the question is that there are more at the basic level than the ones that you can be aware of therefore they do not deserve precisely because of them so that's that's like they I thought yeah but so I guess the response then would be is that we're aware of these not by having an individual concept of them but by comparative means you know this one is not like that one or this one is different than that one and so they configure in conscious France at least in that way so this this is where were some principle like the principle of transporting differences so

1:47:46 here's one principle and it seems was trust in a form of transparency that seems to be undeniable it's that if a subject is subject is aware that there are mental qualities if we're only if the the properties outside appear to differ and that's so with this minimal requirement requirement we try to argue that it cannot be aware of those you are not aware of of those points and if you cannot be aware of those then they do

1:48:22 not have the that end quality so it is it is in this sense precisely the one that you mentioned so you make these discriminations and on top of that you can be aware of that that's what we mean we say that they can for an architecture like us characterized the state of consciousness even if in comparative terms I mean you don't get so you don't deny or do you deny that we often use comparative concepts like you know the I mean the classic of the reason why this always

1:48:54 comes up is the the memory color experiment so you present the memory you present one color serially one after another people are very bad at saying whether or not they're the same or different you present them at the same time people are very good at saying whether they're different or not so the inference from this is typically been that well we don't have individual concepts for those colors but that we can employ comparative concepts this one's blue or that one's darker so in that way they can show up at characterize conscious that's great so the question is that you need to postulate so even in those case when they are presented at the same time

1:49:26 here's one thing that happens so you have like three colors this one you cannot discriminate from that one you cannot discriminate this one for this one but you can miss these two you need three qualities right but they do not show up in in your experience so it's not one something that they do not phenomenologically individuate certain states so at least we try to argue for those reasons that it's better not to

1:50:00 think of conscious awareness of qualities if something as you mentioned deserve the name qualitative it if it tries to learn the kind of in DB behavior and individuation that you make and is something that can individuate be a state of Consular need to read read the paper now to see whether what can you do comparatively and what not just to check this objection and when i have the draft i would be happy to share it with you if you don't mind to have a

1:50:31 look to that yes wait i would like to have a look for that i think also some of it depends on waiting me by aware of so you know the way I interpret this sort of stuff is that if you're aware of it by describing something so that is I am seeing red meat or I'm saying something darker than this you're describing the states that are driving your behavior [Music] whether I don't really care if they're

1:51:05 called qualities or not there's some kind of state which represents or tracks or is importantly involved in keeping track of properties out there in the world if you wanted to call them something else I'm not sure what would really hang on that I think a lot of what David's resisting is just that people think that well those days have to be intrinsically associated with consciousness anyone say you know you know but what reason do we have for not saying that it's red because you showed this to the person who read stimulus and they're pressing a button saying I see

1:51:38 red so it just it seems folk psychologically it's the same sort of thing as when you are conscious so look so but and I'm just using their being aware of because you mention it what I the way in which we intend to present it in the paper is by states that individuate the kind of experience you are so a qualifing something is a quality if it's the kind of things that make this state the kind of state that phenomenologically is that is different from that one and similar to this other

1:52:11 one so that's that's and then if you think that is an awareness of this thing that's something open about but in principle qualities are the kind of stuff that can I mean it's not always so it's open it's of course has to be into discussion whether it has to but under certain conditions it can individuate a phenomenological state yes I see so I guess yeah I would want to say that those that would these you're talking about something in the higher order state itself at that point but that's my

1:52:43 own distinct way of thinking about these things so that's very interesting yeah we I look forward to skidding that paper from you um I'm kind of hearing baby sounds from the other rooms I'm thinking after oh it's just what's going on before we have another interruption [Laughter] terrific Miguel thank you very much for joining me it's been great conversation thank you I appreciate it thank you very much for your time thank you very much for having me here and thanks for the discussion looking forward to some more

1:53:15 discussions on those things related here whenever you want and congratulations for this project it's straight I'm having fun hearing other people and your interviews and thanks for having me cool awesome alright so stay on for just I gotta talk to you for just second afterwards