Consciousness Live! with Cevin Soling (S4 E15)

0:00 oh how long after the interview does it go on your podcast how long does that take oh well we just went live right right when you said that i guess i'm sorry about that but just to answer your question really quickly usually the next day i put the audio on itunes it's uh just a matter of youtube processing the video but uh having said that we are now live and joining me today is a very extra special guest i'm very excited to talk to you and that is kevin um so kevin thank you very much for joining me and i wonder if you could

0:32 just say a little bit about who you are and what you do for those who might not know you sure so um my background is in uh film and music and uh then i took a sort of break and and went uh went off to school and i've spent uh 12 years uh collecting degrees at harvard right now um yeah my uh i got uh yeah still still be there for another year uh i think before i finish this last one um

1:04 but uh oh sorry you just cut out for a second on my end i apologize for that but my audio just went funny so i missed the last thing you said after collecting degrees at harvard oh i was just saying that yeah that looks like i still have another year there um before i finish up unless i decide to continue but i think i think i'm done uh but um my first film project uh you know so so the interest in consciousness has always been there um as far as as far as the subject is

1:37 concerned and my first film project was a documentary i did on on treponation um which is uh along with amputation the oldest form of surgery that dates back to the neolithic europe and uh it's actually been this archaeological riddle as to why why neolithic man was boring holes in their skulls but they could tell by the ossification of the hole that that the people survived having that they were alive when the holes were cut and that they they lived many years or at least

2:09 a certain percentage and over time the survival rate uh grew uh but but as far as why they were doing this it's a mystery but they found these skulls not just in one region but but all over all over the planet in cultures that that you know it would have been hard to believe could ever have communicated with one another uh and then in the 1960s there was this this doctor dutch doctor named bart hughes who um came up with this theory that if one were to bore a hole in the skull it would lead to an expanded state of consciousness at least that was

2:40 that was how it was uh it was worded um but uh basically he meant that there would be uh improved brain metabolism um and uh the theory was uh or is i guess that that boring a hole in your skull would allow for the cerebral spinal fluid to to expand a bit allowing the brain to expand that the the the uh the contractions and expansions of the brain are suppressed to a certain degree there is there are pulsations in the brain that

3:12 one can see on an mri from watches but that they're suppressed to a certain degree and that boring a hole would allow some of the cerebro spinal fluid to have more room the brain would expand more there'd be greater uh blood flow greater brain blood volume and more oxygen and glucose feeding the brain and the systolic heartbeat and so he tested his theory and drilled a hole in his own skull and believed it had the desire to packs wrote about his findings attracted the

3:45 interests of a number of students from oxford who came over and visited and they thought well this is this is interesting and then uh they drove holes in their heads and there was this whole this whole culture that that had that had poured holes in their heads and believed that it had you know that it was beneficial and well i had no idea about that wow that's i gotta watch this documentary i did not know yeah yeah it's called hole in the head okay um yeah i i heard about the practice and the procedure because john lennon had heard about it in in the 60s and he uh he really wanted it

4:19 done and he tried to convince paul mccartney you know the two of them uh wow i had no idea yeah i mean i knew about trepidation and that it was the oldest one of the oldest surgical procedures and that we don't know really why they did it there's some speculation that ancient societies maybe were trying to release spirits or maybe you know people are possessed or i don't know yeah that was sort of a medieval thing and i think that was sort of a tr i mean well well medicine was obviously much more primitive i i tend to be a little more gracious and

4:52 think that their use of evil spirits is the way we use the word toxins and that that maybe you know 400 years from now they'll talk about toxins as if we believed in evil spirits too so yeah i mean just like the bad stuff in your body like let the bad stuff out not necessarily yeah yeah i i think that but yeah that was more of a later thing initially i mean certainly some of the reasons was that you know warfare included being clubbed over the head and they were using uh using it for to relieve cerebral hematomas

5:24 but um but there are many pristine skulls and they just they just don't know why so i mean this is sort of a distraction but i wonder if they so the person you were mentioning that wrote about the experience after they did it to themselves did what where did they do you know what they said like was there any of the uh yeah so so bart was the first who who did it and wrote about it and and you know believed that there was greater sense of clarity um uh a change in an emotional state um yeah i i think you know they equate it to that you know there's

5:56 a yoga practice of of standing on one's head and you know you have a flush of blood to the head and you become more alert and uh um you know and and able to concentrate better uh whether whether it actually produces the effect that they describe the jury is sort about they did they they did um the people that were involved in it certainly the ones in in the uk uh were quite they were part of british nobility and aristocracy and they funded a study that

6:30 was done by a russian archaeologist um i mean you hear about phrenology but this is sort of not talked about as much yeah yeah yeah and and new scientists reviewed the um the study and and they they they gave it their blessing they seemed to you know affirm that yeah this this study looks legitimate in terms of but i i'm not saying that people should do it i don't think that's very personal on whether it is but but there are there is um so the skull you know so it's all

7:02 supposed to be like the restoration of of the state of consciousness that that children and teenagers have um which is distinctly you know it is different and uh uh although it's hard to describe exactly uh the nature but the skull consists of floating fontanelle and the sutures seal at around 18 for most people you know give or take uh and it's at that moment where the skull becomes solid that'll allegedly uh the the uh the pulsations are are are suppressed not completely suppressed but diminished

7:35 and yeah and that's what they describe or you know ascribe to to this this change in conscious state but there is a small percentage of people and this is this is a medical fact that have what's called a myotopic skull where the sutures don't perfectly seal and they have a natural hole in their head so so dark bart hughes that the doctor told lenin not to drill a hole in his head it wouldn't be beneficial because he must already have a hole in his head in order for him to have accomplished all the amazing things he did there you go yeah talk him out of it i'm surprised i don't know about this i

8:11 mean i teach it like an intro to neuroscience class and i mean in the last chapter on sort of the pseudo-psychiatry chapter which is really like the dirty secret of the whole history of the science of the mind um they mentioned trepidation but they don't go into these sorts of details which are very interesting yeah yeah i mean this isn't you know this is you know more of the underground history than kind of things that you'll find in you know yeah that's so interesting i mean uh uh yeah i mean i have to watch the documentary then maybe

8:43 the next time i talk to you i'll have more questions about it but the reason i wanted to talk to you today and sort of transitioning to the topic of our discussion today was your work on solipsism um which is very exciting and interesting to me not because i'm a solipsist but because i am a fan of taking positions seriously instead of just dismissing them out of hand and i feel like solipsism is often dismissed out of hand and if it's ever brought up it's only to say look at these silly solipsists no one really believes that let's move on but actually it's really hard to say what's wrong with it and so i one thing i want to ask is like how are

9:16 you how is your work should it be framed are you do you think it's true are you defending it as a possibility or how would you situate yourself personally with respect to solves before we get into the details so you know so i i i mean so you know as far as you know the talk is concerned i i sort of saw it as an opportunity to introduce some of the unconsidered consequences and the unasked questions um you know if we go about accepting the premise and seeing you know where the premise leads um in in my heart of hearts um i i do believe it

9:49 i i i believe that it is um so yeah i i would say i i i um you would say something or accept solace yeah i know i i believe that it must be that that is true i don't i don't live necessarily as if i believe that it's true but i you know so there is a distance between um you know how i go about my life and what i intellectually believe to be true and intellectually i believe i do believe themselves you know that yeah and that's a tradition that

10:22 goes back you know to hume you made much the same points like when you out in the street be a person but in the study a philosopher i don't think there's cause and effect but of course i jump out of the way the bus when it's coming like that okay so so that's interesting so so can you tell us this is a word that's been used in a thousand ways so how do you understand the thesis of solipsism what is it that you mean by it so so um i i go you know so you know one thing i guess you're bringing up before was uh you know which i just thought as an introduction to be kind of uh interesting to consider is that you you would you know bernard

10:54 bars is one of your guests and he was talking about consciousness being this this taboo subject solipsism is you know if consciousness is taboo you know solipsism just is a whole is a whole other level i think it's easier to discuss you know lowering the age of consent and philosophical circles than it is to bring up you know uh yeah exactly i would have said it's easier to discuss the free energy principle and here's the discussion so there there are multiple um as you you know introduced there are multiple approaches

11:28 and definitions of of solipsism um there's methodological solipsism which i i you know all the contemptuous things that are said about solipsism i feel towards methodological and methodological is is is you know where uh is the brain in a vat or the matrix you know kind of approach and and it's um you know all you know so and it's it's it it's self defeating in that that that you know solipsism argues that all you can trust is your senses but you know methodological says you can't

12:00 trust your senses you know you if you're if you're a brain in a vat you know you then you know the ultimate that there is an ultimate reality that that is inaccessible to you and can never be accessible to you and and i i don't really know where you go with that and i i don't you know and and that's something i i really you know don't have have much tolerance for it's just the one that i can i just the movie matrix it's true they're making a new version of that too by the way there's a reboot of it i heard oh it's a great movie

12:32 don't get me wrong i'm just saying in terms of you know how it applies it no i completely understand that uh yeah there's a there's because of that movie there's no stereotype of the philosophy student who's like the guy obsessed with the matrix brings all the matrix in every conversation but uh so i guess i'm not sure let me see if i can because i maybe this just terminological point but i guess i would have used the word mythological solipsism in a slightly different way since i would that word as i would understand traces back to like the work of jerry

13:03 fodor and how you do cognitive science and the idea was that you treat each individual as a separate entity and that we don't need to do sociology or social psychology to understand how the mind works and maybe that's false but it but it doesn't really sound like the brain in the vat sort of thing it sort of sounds like i could understand the nature of the mind by just treating you as the only mind and studying you um that's how i would under so is that significantly different than what you meant or uh or not i i guess one could you know one can uh yeah i'd say because there could be

13:36 multiple subsets then but i i would put brain in a bat as as under that header maybe maybe you wouldn't maybe maybe not i guess so by by methodological software so it's a semantic you know yeah so so you mean someone like kant i think is like the person who holds that sort of view is that the is that the kind of idea yeah i want one could yeah but then then there's epistemological which is that one that that things you know are um the only thing you can be sure of is is you know is your own mind

14:07 um i i take it one step further and subscribe to metaphysical solipsism which is which isn't just that the only thing you can be sure of it's it's the only thing that is the only thing that that that we have direct access to our mind and no other minds exist and that is you know i guess hard solipsism or or orthodox um solipsism and and that is that is the approach you know that that i you know um because right because i would have seen that if i were and again this is in my area so i'm you know you thought a lot about

14:39 this than more than that but if uh so i would have said there's like four kinds of solipsism in the traditional philosophical discussion there's the mythological kind where you that's more contemporary you study the mind by studying a mind um then there's i guess the kind that says look all the meanings of our terms come from our sensory experience so all i could ever mean is like based on my own experience that and it so i can't even really understand the concept of other minds i can't even formulate like the

15:13 sentence there are other minds meaningfully because all i know about is my own mind and all the words have to refer to experiences in that realm so i can't even entertain the idea so that's a kind of skepticism or you know it's not like incoherent versus the thing you said which is metaphysically in reality there is only one mind whereas i think the other thing is compatible with maybe there are other minds but how the heck could i know but it sounds like so out of those who you're you're want to defend the the there's only one mind and it's mine not like a cosmic universe mind or

15:46 something yeah i i i think you know i think you know the the skepticism i think is or the skeptical approaches is um you know it claims that you know we do not uh we do not know the propositions that we think we know right whereas solipsism i would say claims that we know all there is to know but perhaps we convince ourselves otherwise okay interesting and then i thought i would have said there was also like this other kind which is you know this sometimes called

16:18 analytic uh solipsism which is in philosophy famous because the only book ever written no sense on this topic but then that view what he what the idea is that that sentences about the world like there's a table in my room ultimately reducing meaning to senses about my experience and so i don't need to i don't need a world outside of my experience to make the things i say true like that there are tables or that there are other people even because when i say that there are other people i'm saying something about my experience namely that i'd like to see

16:50 you hear you etc um so but that's not far enough for you is it right that's not the view either you want to defend yeah no i i go all the way you know okay once you're diving in you know okay no yeah i'm just trying to get clear because i've heard so many different ways of saying solvencies i just want to you know not talk past each other um okay so interesting now so you want to defend the view there's only one mind and i i guess you think it's yours but i think it's mine so i one question i might have is like how so what's going on there so so i mean so one of the the

17:26 the um the approaches that that is relied heavily on for for that kind of uh you know uh argument you know is is dream states and um and and i i don't think there's any problem with with using that it's a wonderful analogy um there's no question you know no one or in general largely for by and large uh materialists do not question that a dream is a manifestation a creation of of

18:00 of one's mind and that the experiences that one has within a dream are are also you know fall fall within that uh so so so in the things about uh that take place in a dream uh is one is that there's there's unpredictability uh you your expectations and dreams uh can can be defied and often are defined um which i think is is something that's fascinating that doesn't really get much attention i don't really see that discuss much that if you think something is going to happen

18:32 it does not necessarily happen even though you've created the dream you're you're the observer in the dream uh i have discussions with with people in my dreams all the time uh who certainly have the appearance of of having their own independent uh minds and i interact with them if they do uh i've had lucid dreams where i've uh tried to proselytize or i've tried to convince one of the person in my dream that i'm you know i was

19:05 aware that i was dreaming i tried to convince them they refused to believe that i was dreaming and um wow and you know and that that was actually my very first lucid dream i had that experience um you know i mean it feels you know it is it is a you know it's a perfect analogy and one of the the features then that one has to understand when one adopts uh the solid cystic perspective is is that there is no hierarchy to

19:38 states of consciousness um so so there is no preferential you know that the waking state does not have any preferential um status features to to to a dream state you know all experiences are are just that um but that's uh you know that's only you know one of one of many i was gonna you know sort of um you know touch upon the the the anti-solipsistic you know arguments and uh why why people have have such issues

20:13 okay and solipsism yeah i want to get to that um but but first i want to sort of talk about what you were just saying which i think is an interesting point because the way i was hearing what you were saying is that you're basically addressing heading off some objections which are like hand waving dismissing objections like oh gee i know that solves this false because i you know you disagree with me all the time you never agree with me by what if i was arguing with myself you would and your response is well but you know in dreams sometimes you have the experience of people disagreeing so that's not all by self evidence that's the kind of move right there um

20:47 and and also with voluntary control of reality like a lot of people would say well you know if this is all a product of your mind then you should be able to change anything you want you're saying no sometimes in dreams you're the observer you can't change it um even i talk to people have lucid dreams and even in those states people's often say you can't control everything you have some kind of you can you know some suggestibility in in some areas but you're still you know can just like explore anywhere you want anyway so there's a sense of loss of control the question itself about limitations because i i do have

21:18 there are a handful of questions that are worthy of of further exploration that i you know haven't necessarily worked out might never be able to work out but but but i think it is a a worthy question to to um you know to examine why why there are you know you know why there are limitations and uh you know why why you know we can't go beyond you know why there are certain boundaries right why we can't hack the uh psychology psychological world or whatever

21:51 yeah i mean we can and and when i say we everything you know so a lot of the language that i'll be using this discussion is is is uh is is not within the solipsistic terminology i won't be saying i all the time i'll be you know i'll be it's the royal week we get it yeah i'll be i'll be engaging and and i'm doing that and i'm consciously aware that i'm that even though i'm you know in involving you in the discussion as a separate entity that it's uh you know that up that i'm doing so for

22:23 for colloquial um don't worry kevin so am i [Laughter] but anyway um so because one one thing that i think is interesting is obviously this dreaming argument's old and philosophy right so it goes back to descartes descartes introduces it and then he denies solipsism at the end but of course there's a big question about why he gets to do that he invokes god it's a whole complicated argument it's not very convincing to many people myself included um so so i think you're right that if you start from

22:56 those sorts of assumptions about the way perception works and that there's continuity between dream experience and waking experience that you sort of get led to that but but i wonder how much of this depends on that theory of perception um so do you think it does uh and if you updated it to what some people might think of as a more contemporary view of perception which is you know debated but some people might say look the old view was like perception was like a veil it was you know stood between us in reality it was like a picture or a painting

23:27 that we viewed and then by viewing indirectly viewed external reality and then you get all these weird puzzling questions about the relation of external reality to the picture etc but in the modern view people tend to reject that veil image this picture in front of me in the external world and they tend to say well no there's a representation there there's like a state of the brain um carrying information about the environment representing it as being a certain way and that's what we call experience maybe maybe it generates experience maybe that is experience

24:00 who knows but there's no picture there there's just the representation of the environment and so i'm directly interacting with the world right now i'm representing it yeah sure mentally but but there's no like mental thing like the dream experience sort of thing that you seem to so so i just wonder like maybe you haven't don't have a view about this fine grained of a question but i wonder do you how much depends on i'm really agreeing with the descartes the older you know traditional view of perception that's kind of a picture of reality a painting or something well there is no

24:32 uh you know so this sort of ties into you know kind of another um argument and that is that um that that materialists are are soft solipsists exactly and and you know so uh so so first there is no material world i i would argue um and and that and and those that that you know that believe that there is it's sort of an occam's razor thing so um if you're a materialist you believe

25:06 that qualia is is is uh is manufactured you know just just as i do that qualia is manufactured by one's mind the question is whether it's triggered by an external stimuli you know by external stimuli um and we know that that it doesn't have to even even materialists know that well you can hallucinate you can dream and and there is no external i mean maybe there's a chemical i guess that you could say but but it's still it's independent of of an external force you don't have to look at something physical in order to to engage in in some kind of uh experience um and uh but but then

25:42 even even if if you are triggered by something that that is material um it's it's it's phenomenally tenuous so um in multiple ways i don't want to interrupt you but can i just interrupt you real fast just to ask i don't want you to lose your thought but so as you understand solipsism is it compatible with the existence of a material world like could i be a solitus and also be like this indirect like there's a physical world but i'm just the only mind you don't think so there's no physical world but but why is

26:16 that incompatible with solid system because it it it isn't directly accessible it's not directly um it's not directly experienced but so it couldn't be couldn't you make a comment with god yeah yeah but you couldn't so couldn't you make the claim that uh so so maybe i'll i'll let me ask this later because it's a whole different line of thought do you want to finish what you were saying if you can remember yeah yeah so so you know in in you know and and because the material is intangible it doesn't

26:47 mean the material doesn't even you're just you're adding things that just that don't that don't necessarily make sense so when you uh if you've experienced uh mozart's rondo and d major yeah what do you what has triggered that which triggered that is is fluctuations in the air and suddenly you're having this this majestic experience because of fluctuate so did the fluctuations in the air really trigger this or is this something that that you have have manufactured and obviously you know or if

27:20 if you even break that down further you know as far as you know particles you know what is matter and energy that is you know that consists of of any of the things and the more you you you dive into these you know these these components uh the the the more um the less substance you know that they actually have and you know so so ultimately where where is this picture of reality of your experience coming from and you don't you don't need you don't need materials you don't need any of

27:53 that we and even materialists will acknowledge that there are experiences that do that do not require that and and and it's soft salts and like i said they'll still say okay there's you know there's still chemical processes going on or things of that nature but it's it's right you know so soft solid system yeah so it's soft solidism the view that you're a solid cyst but don't admit it yeah i would say okay um so interest so i think there are two questions here that i'm interested in i mean i'm interested in all this

28:25 stuff but two that stand out one is it like why i think there's not a material world so that's the thing you're just talking about but secondly is like why couldn't you be a solipsist and have a material world um and i see how you related the two answers but uh i think they're interesting so anyway let's start with the first one i mean one critique that you get of idealism a lot is just this thing that we're talking about here it's like idealists and they're they're out there i've talked to them i know them they're they're nice smart people and they they say the world is um ideal it's experience and you say yes i agree

28:57 and they say yeah but there are other minds and but there's this objective ideal reality out there for maybe like the cosmic mind or something so there's bernardo castro up and views like that that say there's this one universal consciousness and then we our consciousness is kind of like a disassociated alter ego of that universal consciousness so now is that solipsism or not because i mean at the cosmic level ultimately there's only one mind on that view and there's a bunch of these like disassociated personalities of that mind

29:29 who all think they're distinct from each other but really aren't so part of my con so that's he calls that idealism but to me that sort of sounds like like one mind that's deluded about the existence of all these other minds and so really that's a kind of solipsism but it's a an objective solidism i don't know so what do you think about that i i'd say it's a semantic question and one can explore it and see where where it leads it's not it's not the discussion that we're focused on having right now it's it's it's fine and whether one wants to

30:02 call it solipsism one can it's not the solipsism in in you know that that we're engaging in right now one cannot call it solipsism if it's distinctly different i i think it you know i think that there are you know potentially different implications for such an approach and that's that's fine it's just uh well then let me rephrase the question what why what's wrong with why aren't you an idealist and like of that nature who agrees with you about your fundamental claim that you know what we call the physical world is really

30:34 experienced i i it's um i i guess this this is the approach that that i have um you know again like i said it has to do with with direct access and it's it's sort of the the elegance uh uh and and simplicity of of um verifying you know of of affirming of affirmation it's of of my experience as being valid as opposed to

31:07 the conditioning that says yeah you know you think this but it's it's it's something else and and i think it's it's like a a child and again i'm you know i'm i'm going back to non-solidistic terms uh when i invoke you know some of the the examples uh we think you know most children think the world is flat you know they they understand how they have an intuitive understanding of gravity um and uh and and how things work and if if you walk on a curved surface

31:41 you're gonna feel you know you're gonna feel the the the effects of that and and and to be on a sphere it does does not does not comport with with the reality that they experience and i i would say that that is a valid uh um and correct um approach and uh and it's it's it takes a certain degree of conditioning to uh and reprogramming to to see the world as as

32:12 as round um and but but what do you mean by correct you're not so you're not a flat earther right uh that's not the implication of autism it's not about being a flat earther it's it's you know so so the interesting thing about solipsism is that there are um you know so some of the implications of solipsism you know you know there's a whole list about epistemic um uh one is that uh completeness is is is not a necessary requirement

32:45 so one of the things that's usually challenged is well how can you have composed all you know how what is your knowledge of einstein's you know uh you know you know einstein you know physics it's like well you know i know this much and it's like well that much is actually the totality of einsteinium physics yeah i i is so what you know your knowledge is the totality of you know epistemology is bounded by by what you actually know and and there is nothing more than that

33:16 and it's it might be it might seem incomplete and you know to you know in in our discussion and logical consistency is also not a necessary requirement you know of of of the universe and these are the some of the implications yeah it's hard to get your mind around i know yeah the universe functions fine but if you think about it and and you know does you you know does is that you don't know how a car maybe you do but i don't know your your degree your knowledge of auto mechanics um you you probably some knowledge of auto mechanics but it's you

33:49 know your hume example if you walk out in front of that car you don't have to know how that car operates to know that if that car that hits you it's going to you know do grave damage to to to you so your limited knowledge did not affect or impact the fact that that you would get hurt if you stepped in front of that car and that's that's limited knowledge and yet that there's still the consequence of that well now just extrapolate that to to the universe and you already you already acknowledge that and accept that it's like things function even though your

34:20 your knowledge is limited you just have this faith that okay my knowledge is limited but it goes beyond what i'm saying is no it doesn't go beyond because right because the the universe that that is that is the universe and so the other consequence of this you know it deals with things like like first cause you know it's like well that isn't a valid question you know because everything knowable is known so asking for for an origin is to wanting to know more than is there you know it's it's like you know spherical earth you know where's the edge you know there is there is no edge

34:53 it's yeah this is this is it and right but so how do on this view uh given the way you're elaborating it how do you explain that you could go to the library look up einstein's seminal papers read a bunch of stuff you don't understand i assume non-euclidean geometry all sorts of thought experiments good duncan that's great written in german even maybe you don't even speak it so what's the idea now you don't speak german so you're reading the paper in german you don't understand it so you're saying it doesn't have any meaning um the the it's it does it not have any meaning yes it

35:28 does it does not have any meaning it can have meaning it can it can be imbued with meaning um i i you know so so my my participation so first the only thing that exists is is being is is the the moment you know i only there there's memories are not actually things that took place in the past they're a different quality of of experience so like like a dream like a hallucination like the waking state a memory just is a is an experience of of of the now imbued with certain qualities that are

36:03 different from from other kinds of of states right um i as the um observer of of this as as the participant so so so it's i'm not a passive observer one of the things uh that i uh that i do is i evaluate and um knowledge and uh give it a a um a a you know a a a sort of you know hierarchy of of some things being like

36:37 so so as far as your flat earth question no uh was there a time uh and again time is sort of of of of a tricky thing to say but yes there was you know there was a point where where i have a memory which is equality in the present where where there was a valuation of flat earth over other types of understandings of earth my understanding of earth in this moment is it is spherical and and uh and that is that is my my knowledge but i i do i do reassess uh different um yeah you know

37:12 different different things but but i mean here's how you do that because i mean if because what you're expecting so part of what you're saying is that you endorse the so-called version of the so-called solipsism of the present moment right so you're saying all that really i that is real is the present moment because because to back up one step ultimately i mean sounds from listening to you're just like a hard hard hard core empiricist it sounds like that's what you're saying it's just like you're an empiricist you take experience at face value like knowledge is based on experience

37:44 the only thing that you experience is the present moment so that's all that you have evidence for is that basically in the background the line of argument or is am i missing a strand of it no i i i um i i'd have to walk through that a bit more as far as some of the other implications but okay um but on the surface that that doesn't that doesn't uh offend me right i mean no right because i mean i think that if you sort of look at the history of philosophy which you know some people do i guess um you can see

38:18 kant's reacting to humans sort of this way so hume comes along he says oh gee then you know we're empiricists we want to make philosophy like science because science makes progress and philosophers are just spinning their wheels constantly you know answering the same non-answering the same non questions over and over so what do we do aha experience let's be like them let's only talk about experience uh oh when we do that like we're nothing we can't know that you know there's a past a presence is all we got we can't know there's an external world or just impressions we can't say anything that cause effect etcetera

38:49 so comes along and says ah yep that's what you get when you're an empiricist the problem is you should be a rationalist right that there's some knowledge that you could have by reason um and so in particular what he called the uh well no one any no one really cares but you know the uh the kind of knowledge that you could have on priori based not on um experience but that told you something interesting it wasn't really true by definition the famed synthetic a priority so you must think there's some problem with that setup because well a lot of

39:21 people who take your position would say look the way you get out of this is you do this like transcendental argument how do i get to this position how could experience be like this well only if there were something that got structured blah blah blah and you're off to a racist with an external reality um but anyway so you reject that that line of argument that always want to undermine solipsism and it's always the consequences of the presuppositions of rationalism that lead to solipsism so it's sort of funny seeing you you know which is why i'm you know trying to

39:55 process uh you know your your assertions like okay but i'm like but it it well so let me start by having you say why why you think that rationalist leads to uh rationalism leads to a solipsism because it's dependent on um this this claim that internal processes you know are are necessary you know for um yeah where do those where do those internal processes you know derive from where

40:26 they you know in terms of coming up with with with knowledge as far as the introduction of knowledge comes from you know uh well but i i so that the general likes like yeah i mean i see what you're saying and i'm not trying to be like dismissive of it but the line i was trying to no i'll be serious it's okay i'm sure you take enough grief for for taking these ideas seriously in the first place i'm not trying to give you this i don't get to discuss them with people okay well good i'm glad to hear that but um so because i think like the traditional kantian

40:59 line is that look all we have is experience we start from that but then we ask questions about how it got to be that way how it could be that way and the answer is well there's got to be something external to it to account for how it got to be the way that it is so even if all you have is experience which i think can't granted then you still can have some reason to think that there's other minds that there's an external world a universe etc oh i must say they don't come you know they don't you know try that

41:30 rationalists don't invoke that i'm just saying is that if one you know that one can go down the rabbit hole and you know i i think you know um uh yeah where did they go wrong consequences the logical consequences of a lot of uh you know preconceptions um of you know that that uh involve um you know the the the the basic of

42:08 uh you know it be the inferences if once they're they're coming from you know internal processes you know are thereby dependent on um you know this this um direct access to to one's experiences in order to you know uh you know come forth with the conclusions that they that they yeah right so you're saying you always have to go beyond experience and you just don't see any good reason to to go beyond your own experience but

42:42 um but so like one of the like the thing that kant appeals to famously is the regularity of experience which directly contrasts with the regularity of dream experiences and i know you tried to address that at the beginning but there's a way in which the point still holds because you know it's common in dreams for some unexpected thing to happen and you not to find it very surprising like i dreamt i was in an airplane and i tried to get into the cockpit and i opened the door and walked into my childhood bedroom and didn't think anything of it and just

43:15 went to look for something under the bed in my dream and but surprised and if that happened to me when i was awake i'd be like what the i wait i was in an airplane i walked into my bedroom so so what explains the the regularity and continuity of the allegedly waking experience which is violated in the dream experience so so they're just the the phenomena just there's different you know qualities to the different you know phenomena one things we take for granted is is you know in in our our waking state we accept that we lose consciousness and

43:49 suddenly find ourselves you know in in in a different place you know i one moment the sun is is is is is out and then the next you know moment i'm conscious and and suddenly that the sun is there and we oh yeah when we were asleep or something you know happened we just right you take for granted you know the lack of continuity in our in our in our waking world another thing we take for granted is is how we experience you know which i would say is illusory but how we experience the passage of time uh there are some times you know where where time just drags and time

44:23 and we just oh yeah well i'm bored and time goes slowly other times you know if something really you know wonderful has happened it's like you know what the hell yeah why couldn't time go slow um so so there's a lot of there's a lot of experience it's just just they're just different experiences that that we you know don't you know that we just take for granted that we don't think about that are you know that are kind of unusual or if he subscribes to like some kind of perfect you know consistency to to um you know a logical consistency

44:58 but and i like that point i think that's a nice point but i still think there's an issue here in the sense that um like for example one notorious thing about dreams is that it you can't it's hard to read in dreams um so if you try to read texts and dreams obvious oftentimes people report the experience is not clear the words are jumbled if you look away and look back the words have changed so like people say oh i saw a stop sign you look away and suddenly the words on the stop sign are different in waking experience things like that don't typically occur or if they do you're right we're

45:32 going to say sometimes they do and we explain them away i guess but we have some kind of explanation for them but uh what we want is why why there's that what i was asking is why would we expect on your view what would explain on the solipsistic worldview that there even is this difference it sounds like what you're saying is just there are these differences and we shouldn't expect an explanation for them it's just how our experience is but what i was asking is like what on the theory would predict that you would have these different kind of experiences oh so because there's differences i was going to say like if if you were on a treadmill and you're running and someone hands you and someone tries to

46:04 you know throw us out tells you to to add you know two different four digit numbers you're going to have a real hard time and here you are awaking and you know you have all your kind allegedly rational and everything yeah you know and and it's not a complicated math problem but it's one that requires some thinking but here you are you know jogging at you know eight miles an hour and it's just like you know so you know i i think that even you know that there are different there are different things that that will influence your your capacity to process information um i i realize it's separate from from from

46:40 your question but it does but it does it does tie in in a way that that there isn't uh there isn't one state of consciousness that that's that's even inconsistent even in the even in your awakened consciousness you know you can be groggy and tired you can be well i guess that's sort of different but like what is peak you know waking consciousness and right um you know and then there are so many you know you can't break down all the things but um but as to your question it does it does tie into one of the the biggest challenges

47:14 uh that i imagine that no one has that i haven't really come across anyone um and therefore no one has you know raised this issue and and it has to uh do with the issue of being wrong you know how and why should should one ever be wrong um you know and and descartes talked about this he gave like a uh free will defense basically that that's yeah so okay that's that's where where i i would go with it too is is that that

47:47 um uh but but it's yeah that that you could not have you know that if you're always right you you cannot have free will that that always being you know right is is incompatible that that that if you know everything oh interesting yeah because he went a different way he he argued that uh the reason we're wrong is because we use free will to assent to things that we shouldn't have sent to hastily and sloppily and that if we were careful and paid attention we would see they were actually false yeah no i i i i'd say different that that that

48:21 that existence would simply validate um your knowledge and and that um that if you know everything then consciousness would cease because consciousness is dependent on decision making and there'd be uh no decisions to be made because they've already been made you you know everything everything with you know interesting yeah i mean i like that that's an interesting way of thinking about it that uh if you if you knew everything there would be no point in doing

48:52 anything because doing stuff is about finding out what you don't know in a way or something like that um but then you know he looks like what i said wasn't wasn't accurate at calculating no no no no yeah that's that's certainly you know that that's certainly part of it but it's it's sort of you know it's also an argument that i i presented against you know a god you know that there can't be that god can't be conscious you know it's it's sort of you know i i say that's the um yeah have written it down as as the sort of uh james bond paradox james bond i i

49:26 think this the super heroic feature of james bond is is is his savoir fair you know is that he knows how he always knows how to behave in every in every situation he always behaves correctly right so if one thinks of of consciousness as uh you know as an evaluation after the fact that you're always adjusting you that you observe you see what you've done and then you make adjustments after the fact of what you've done if you have you know the apoptosis of savoir

49:58 fair then you've already considered every possible you know scenario every stimuli everything that could possibly happen to you and you've evaluated and you know how to behave so you don't have to think you can turn off your your brain and you don't have to because because every everything that can happen to you has already been considered and the response to that has already been determined there's there's no point in in in thinking because you have the perfect you know interesting sorry i got something caught in my throat sorry

50:31 um why wouldn't you go the other way and say you free your consciousness up to like engage in whistling dixie or something or you know why would it cease on on the view as opposed to be otherwise engaged oh it chases because once once you've done something right why would you why would you you know that is you know why would you want to do something otherwise yeah okay yeah interesting um okay so let me because you said a lot right there there's a there's a lot going on i'm

51:02 also got a thousand questions that i want to keep track of but uh um let me ask let me so well there's let me first ask this okay so i wanted to ask about the descartes argument the kogito ergosome stuff and i hate to bring up descartes a lot but i think he's the source of a lot of these problems in these issues in the west at least so you know you know the traditional descartes argument i think therefore i am i could be a dream i could be in a dream right now a brain in the back but i still exist i know i exist without some certainty blah blah blah it sounds like if you're

51:36 on your view there's got that's got to be wrong um at least or or are you going to say that i'm right but really i'm you or something like that so so i'm wondering like how do you what do you say in response to this i know i exist because of the descartes argument cogito that you know you exist or that i know i exist because of the digits that we each know we exist that any that every conscious agent knows that they exist with necessity because you know how could i fail to exist then who would be wondering who they exist

52:08 who who doesn't exist et cetera um you know you know that i think that that went back to the the question we had of of dreams and my expectation that others would you know that we see in dreams you know that the people you know that i experience in my dreams all believe that they are independent conscious agents who would subscribe to you know they think therefore they are really is that what you're going to say really i mean do you really think i mean this just curiosity i don't mean this in a negative way but do you really think that in dreams the non-player characters

52:41 the dream agents the dream things that are there that are that you're that are not you or the other people that they have points of view that they have beliefs and that it's correct to say that they have thoughts and desires you think that's accurate oh no no no they will express that they do they will explain they will they will say to me that they have it you know if prompted but they you know but they don't it's hard to say that they don't actually i mean they don't but but it's um but i would say it's more complicated than that in in that

53:14 and this takes us to the to one of the the most or one of many misunderstood uh notions of solipsism and that's the ethical uh component of solipsism right i wasn't gonna ask if everyone and everything is self-created um then you are are an extension of myself and there is an obligation i would say on myself as as that just demands responsibility as caretaker uh to to this universe that i that i've that i've created so there is an ethical

53:46 component and and there is a question which i'm still working out that's through the metaphysical component which is um the that a rationale then could be you know it's certainly consistent with many of the religious traditions of of this of unification of of the sense that that um you are part of me um you are a projection of me but we could do but but i know through tran so through a transcendent state that all the things that i've created including you

54:18 you know are you know can become unified where i will feel and you know i will feel the eunice as myself even though you are a projection of me um interesting and i i think that that that validates otherness in in a certain way um you know it should be less threatening to a certain degree because i think because i always feel like people feel threatened uh by you know having their their existence disregarded and feel that you know um it's you know uh

54:51 yeah that that and because it's it it demands like i said there's there are ethical demands and there is a medical metaphysical purpose right so i mean you can i i see what you're saying a lot of people might associate solipsism with like a kind of extreme immorality or something or immorality even like you could do whatever you want because you're the only one that exists so if you slaughter a bunch of people who cares it's just you know figments of your imagination like killing running over people in a dream but but really what you're saying is that what people misunderstand when they say something like that is that there are

55:23 duties to oneself um and so by doing that sort of stuff you're actually violating some you shouldn't do that to yourself kind of moral duty that's the basic idea yeah okay absolutely so but but and i want to get to that because i have things i want to ask about but i still want to go back to the descartes thing because i still don't see how you've addressed the argument because what i've heard what i've heard you say is that look i've had so what you you say to me is look richard i've had experiences in dreams where people say to me or seem to say to me

55:55 i exist i'm real or whatever right that this isn't a dream even you aren't dreaming all that stuff right you've had those experiences so then now here you are having a similar experience and i'm saying i exist i'm real this isn't a dream and you're saying the experiences in that sense are the same so i don't have any real reason to say this one yes and that one no two they seem the same to me but i'm saying that i'm saying is that different different states of being you know different you

56:28 know have have different qualities to them even the waking state has a whole spectrum of of different qualities to that experience that's that for there to be a state a dream state that just happens to have you know lack of of persistence you know in terms of yes you can see something in the german and it looks like something else or or have you or the illusion of persistence because i i would say that that that my only knowledge of something that i've had in front of me in a waking state is a memory and that memory has a different quality than the experience of directly looking

57:01 so is there really persistence of of that object no there isn't there's just my my memory which is you know a certain quality and and and then the actual looking so it's it's not it's not really and and my knowledge of dreams is only my memory of a dream and so now i've got this memory of of of a waking state and a memory of a dream that are competing and what is what is the difference between those two memories you know well they're tagged differently there's some

57:32 there's some component of it like well this memory is a dream memory this is awake you know jeremy of a making state you know that's that's that's kind of split in hairs it's it's they're they're all it's still a a different type of experience you know but but but of a memory not even of a of a direct experience right and we know how bad memories are i mean i just had elizabeth lock this on and talk to her but i mean i i take that work seriously uh as someone interested in cognitive science and and so memory is horrible and the more you learn about the less you trust it is it and the more you

58:05 remember the same thing the more distorted the thing that you've remembered you know the more you know it's more change so your fondest most cherished cherished memories are often the ones that are the most unreliable and mess with but but i still don't so i i love all that stuff i i see where you're going but i don't think you've addressed the descartes point um because descartes doesn't say uh oh i see other people saying these things and wonder you know what reason do i have to trust it in fact he does say that um about other people right that they

58:37 walk by how do i know they're not automatons with hats on or whatever but the argument is each person reading these words or hearing these words can for them own selves perform the following process say i could be dreaming right now blah blah blah evil genius experience so that that starts from my experience and ends up with the conclusion that i exist and then you do it and you start from your experience and that ends up with the conclusion that you

59:08 exist so if descartes strategy works then we end up you know i really exist and i know it and i'm not just saying it to you i actually know it and that's the difference between the dream character is that there is no person there that knows something other than you whereas here i have something which you don't have and that's my experience and it's more than just words i know you don't have it but uh and so maybe you don't have any good reason to accept it and that's why that's one version of solipsism i think where you say look i don't have any

59:39 reason to believe you but that's not what you're saying you're saying i just don't think you know that's true so i'm wondering how you'd refute that argument that says look it's not just that there's behavior that needs to be explained i start with experience and i know i have it yeah but the only experience that you have is the experience of talking to me through through zoom at this at this very moment and having having this discussion everything that you're introducing is is just you know is is part of this this this moment there's there's absolutely

1:00:12 but [Music] but that's why the traditional question that gets passed down from descartes is the problem of other minds not solipsism and i don't think those are the same things so the problem or maybe you do so i'm not sure but the problem of other minds is like how do i know that there are other minds um it's a skeptical problem about knowledge it's not the metaphysical claim that i know there are no other minds which i think is what solipsism is um so yeah so it's no problem right exactly but but my point was that

1:00:48 if you start from descartes position you get the problem of other minds very clearly i think but i don't see why you get the solipsism you so you get the problem of other minds and therefore a reason to be suspicious that you could understand what it means for there to be another mind or that you have evidence that there are other minds but it seems like it's too much too far to go to say based on my experience that is enough to conclude that there aren't any other minds and so i'm not sure how you get to that

1:01:21 to cross that gap so i see how you could get to i don't know why i should believe there are other minds i could explain everything only by appeal to my mind but that's a separate claim from in reality there is only one mind um it's it's an exploration of the hypothesis and um as far as you know the uh you know a firm affirmation of the logical basis for um for for drawing that conclusion

1:01:56 which i think is what you're you're you're you're questioning um well i mean no i i i i'll certainly concede that yeah that it's it's um uh you know that that yeah it's it's it's an open question and it's and this is you know the character guardian leap of faith that uh okay yeah yeah but but so here let me try one more time and if i'll be laboring the point i'll move on after this so i don't wanna i'm not trying to beat a dead horse no i i i i thought i i thought i i thought i'd acknowledge and address that you're taught you're saying that

1:02:29 where where is you know what is the logical you know conclusion that i can say that okay there is only there is only my mind and and you know and i i get that i'm acknowledging that you know that there isn't a uh there isn't an affirmation that i can put forth that will you know that that would be satisfactory i see oh i misunderstood what you're saying okay so you're saying yeah you grant that you can't there's no logical no argument here but you're saying i won't explore this position it feels right to me and i want to see

1:03:00 how far i can take it right and that's for yeah okay because i mean the reason why i was believing that point was because i feel like this is where the knee-jerk response to solipsism comes from because if you come around and say i'm the only mind well people have this i think sense of cartesian certainty like i feel like i have a mind and that's the thing that i know like if you come and say i don't have a mind then i'm saying well but that seems to deny something obvious to me and that's not and you're gonna say yeah but all that behavior are you saying that and blah blah but there seems to be something left out of that which is

1:03:33 you know that i know i have experience and that you know you have experience and she knows she has experience but it seems like you have to that the solid cysts of your variety has to say no actually what you said is false you don't have experience you don't know you have experience it's merely you're saying that or seeming to say it but it's really me that's saying it or an extension of me that's saying it and that seems to be like in conflict with something that uh feels obviously true but it does it doesn't i mean to me it's an inference and it's

1:04:04 inference that comes from uh something that is largely incontrovertible and that is that that no one uh argues that that the dream people you know the the people from dreams have a a uh have an independent have independent experiences and lives beyond you know beyond the dream or even within the dream and if if that experience what what is it what is it that makes waking state so special you know

1:04:36 why why is this this experience of my reality any different from a dream state why would you diminish dream state i know in in other cultures in in you know the uh the most revered person in in is is the shaman and the shaman you know goes on these psychedelic journeys and experiences these states that that make the waking state commonplace you know this this is you know this is a journey among the gods and and one would say well whatever whatever characters that the shaman you know comes to and gets wisdom from and communicates with you

1:05:10 know most would say well you know that's that's a psychedelic you know hallucination that's that's that's there's there's no tangible you know feature to that person whoever whoever whoever that you know when i say personally you know the entity that that being communicated with is a projection of the shaman's mind there's there's that doesn't have independent reality so now we've got all these different types of realities that we can experience where where people generally come to accept and acknowledge that yeah they don't have independent existences but this state of consciousness this waking state

1:05:41 is different and special well well why why is this state special over over other states when when when certainly other cultures and other cultures reviewed dream states too the dream states have have all sorts of special view i mean john lilly wrote a book about his or several books about his experiences on ketamine and and and the cosmic consciousness of these these alien creatures that were controlling you know the earth and and here's the steam scientists talking about this and and he believes that those those entities had had rich internal lives that that he um you know

1:06:14 that he communicated with while on on ketamine so you know maybe that's true maybe they do but then you have to dispute that why why doesn't the ketamine you know you know and it's and for me then it all gets kind of messy and it's like well you know how do you how do you take different different experiences and and and grant them you know this different hierarchical you know state why is one state you know more well i mean and i think that's the right question and so that's why i was trying to ask about the regularities and waking experiences versus

1:06:48 dream experiences because one one thought that i had was that they the the person who believes there's in non-solipsism has an explanation for why those regularities exist in one place but not the other and therefore a reason to elevate one to uh kind of conscious experience above the other because you know their science we things reveal these systematic patterns that don't seem to vary but you do that in dreams you don't get the same results so there's something there's got to be something that explains that fundamental difference right and we have an easier time than you do i

1:07:20 think on that or at least full threads that you know at you know the the so-called you know which i've been referring to as waking state i mean there was a uh experiment in 2019 uh that that uh utilized you know eugene bigner's you know notion of of of different individuals having different subjective experiences and and this this you know where they you know tested and showed that there's no objective reality um yeah wait are you talking about the quantum eraser or the delayed choice quantum eraser or

1:07:52 whatever that is yeah yeah yeah yeah so and and yes i i'm not putting too much weight into it but it's it is you know but but i'm not negating it either i'm just saying well i guess just to be careful there i would say you could interpret that as showing there's no objective reality but what i would say is that what it shows is that reality objectively isn't classical but doesn't show there's no objective reality it just shows that what is objective isn't classically the way we thought it is you know anyway so i think that's an interesting other debate but yes certainly i'm open i i think the evidence it could be interpreted that

1:08:24 way but i don't usually interpret it that way i could but anyways fair enough and like yes i wasn't i wasn't trying to wait too heavily on that but i i i'm more just saying that there there's lots of things one can can pick apart i mean you know just even the notion of of you know the the you know the hard problem of consciousness i mean that cannot i mean when you know and and first cause you know there's just there's just lots of logical problems within materialism that to to give that you know a a privileged position um is required it's interesting because

1:08:59 even like you know the david chalmers is of the world they're not he's not a solipsist so he doesn't think the heart problem leads you that way but i sort of see why and so you don't have to be a materialist to think that the hard problem is you know not solvable by materials but i see what you mean um the materials are probably the ones who give you the most grief but it seems like you would get grief also from the idealist right because uh if you get it from everybody or from from yourself a lot i guess in here but and that's fine and and a lot of it is is is exploration of of you know that solipsism is is just routinely dismissed it's it's in in

1:09:35 yeah exactly you you are you you're a unicorn among among philosophers if you bring the subject up to most people just like i don't want to hear it i don't want to hear it it's a dead end it's a no-go don't even don't even mention the word and it's just like okay you know that that's fine it might it might not be you know there there are there's always going to be problems with any with any you know proposition but let's look at you know some of these you know the the consequences that i'm throwing out are

1:10:08 are fascinating they're kind of interesting and um and and i think they're illuminating in various ways and they're unconsidered and and even in the positive of articles and books that i've looked through no one no one has gone down down this path and and considered these things because it's it's there's such a tablet it's and it's one of those things where it's like usually you could look back in history and find somebody writing on something like this somewhere but this is like one of those kids where even there you almost can't find anyone they they say things which maybe imply it or exploit with it but they end up they don't want to commit

1:10:40 themselves to it so it's interesting and i so i'm glad that you're exploring it and that smart people are exploring it and that's so thank you for that nice comment you said about me but yeah i am interested in exploring ideas and the weirder the ideas are the more serious i think we should be about them so i'm glad that we're being serious and you know i don't want to be like oh woohoo like oh what if where it's only one person that's not interesting to me but i think the arguments you're bringing up they're they're not they're not nothing they are serious i don't agree with you obviously uh but um that i don't think that i don't think i've knocked down

1:11:12 arguments against everything you're saying either so i think it's interesting discussion but and i do notice we're running out of time here sort of somewhat uh but uh i do want to ask you there's a couple things i wanted to ask about you already brought up the moral implications um and so but but and you also brought up this like limited perspective view so you don't have to you that kind of just absolves you from these fundamental worries but but doesn't it make like the fundamental question that some people think is like why

1:11:42 something rather than nothing right so some people think that's a very fundamental question um does that not be isn't that harder on your like why why is there only one mind why are the experiences this way as opposed to other ways why the world why why why have experience of a world of tables and chairs and then have experience of finding out that there's more to it like quarks and particles so on your view you just have to sort of say those aren't interesting questions it's like rounds

1:12:14 where's the edge of the round earth but they compellingly feel like they're not that way so so i just wonder what your thoughts are about that so so yeah i i did i thought i did try to tackle that a little bit when i talked about the metaphysical about unification that that that there is you know that that does lead to or that you know that is one potential function um you know that that it is the desire to to transcend and unify um this this notion that that which i experience uh is

1:12:48 separate from myself even though but but i don't buy it though because hold on i mean so but you can't really think that can you because you believe in only the present moments so how can there be a later time at which things are unified when there's only the present i mean the whole temporal thing is an illusion i thought on your view and so i thought there were like elements of your view which kind of would preclude that as an answer um but maybe you're like yeah well they could be both i don't so yeah i'm not sure how to take what you're saying given that it you know it's it's not a

1:13:21 it's you know i don't think it's a future i think it's a process and i think it is i think it is i think it defines and describes my my mental processes it's not it's not a down the road thing or a future thing it's how do i evaluate how do i make my decisions you know because i i am i am an agent you know i do have a sense of agency in terms of decisions that i make uh and the decisions are you know both the evaluation of what is true and also the uh emotional state

1:13:55 uh i you know and that's victor frankel you know that i i have control over how how i uh emotionally respond uh to to things that i experience so the processes that are taking place are ones that i and this is where the transcendence comes in i i think it's it there is the process that that um there is there is this this this will this desire that is the feeding you know this uh this sorting process of uh that is uh trying to you know desire is about

1:14:28 extinguishing desire if i if i want something it's so that i can cease wanting that thing and and eventually and that is that movement and uh you know that that is that ascension to a transcendent state so it's just a property it's not it's not an aspiration in the same way it's a property of of of uh you know you know operations how do you make sense of processes a temporary that's that's hard i mean yeah and and it's something you know it it's something that is

1:15:04 um you know of all the things that you know getting my head around everything else is pretty easy that one is is the hardest and that actually is on my list of of challenging questions as to why why do we see things uh why is there an illusion of time and there's a lot of materials a lot of people in physics who who who you know there's a lot of discussion about the nature of time and a lot of people right you know even einstein you know questioned you know the the existence of time and and the more and science is going down that rabbit hole too with atomic clocks

1:15:37 becoming so unbelievably precise it's like the just what the is time what does time mean you can say that's fine you can you can this is an adult channel but uh but but but but it's not fair to say that of einstein is it's right that he denied time what he denied is that a time passes in the way we experience it but he thought all times were objectively real the past was as real as the future presence etcetera that's called eternalism or four-dimensionalism depending on where you talk to so that's not a way of saying that fair enough but they're different they're agreed but they're they're different

1:16:09 they're different uh you know there are many different it's it's a it's a feature uh of you know reality for for you know that that many uh philosophers and physicists are grappling with yeah but so can i just clarify your view is your view that and when you say time is not real in the solipsist worldview what you mean is that we don't that the experience of time passing is illusionary or do you mean there are no past times period there are no future times there

1:16:44 are there are no past times there are no future times yeah okay and one of one of the the consequences of that also is which which is something that most people should subscribe to anyway is immortality um is that we are all immortal and even you know even if you're not a solid sister immortal uh because you only have direct access to your your existence you know so right so you don't ever access your non-existence yeah you don't ever access your non-existence so so you know so whether we die or not is irrelevant we're still immortal

1:17:17 you don't think you can experience the process of dying like it's going to dissolve i mean some people you know i talked to uh evan thompson a philosopher describes the pros he's interested in death and dying writing a book on it but he describes people describe the sense of dissolving of the self of coming apart of losing a sense of integration or whatever so uh that's not the same as being dead obviously and that you can experience so so we can seemingly like experience uh what heidegger might call being towards death right now

1:17:49 so we're not immortal and i mean we can experience like coming to the end we just don't experience the ends that's what you're saying yeah yeah but you can't experience the absence of consciousness by by definition yeah well you could still come to the awareness that it's ending and therefore know you're not immortal yeah it's not the same it's not okay yeah you can you know it's like you know it you know i guess going back to time it will be a certain time you know you can never reach you know the singularity in the black hole because time slows down so it's it's absolutely total but it's it's at least you you can't

1:18:23 you know it's not you know the same thing so now i have one other question i have one that i've been wanting to ask you so on your view okay is it possible that you could ever find out that a solipsism is true but b you aren't the mind so falsifiability is is obviously you know the the one of the big reasons that people people load uh you know solipsism and and i can understand that

1:18:55 um is it possible um yeah could you ever be convinced that solipsism was true but that joe was the one mind and you were just like the dream character in his mind or whatever i i i off the top of my head i i you know i i i i would say no but i i'd have to think about that and uh but my gut reaction is now okay and i and and i recognize that that unfalsifiability is is is just a you know just an irritating

1:19:29 you know feature okay um and then i wanted to also finally go back to this material business because so you know the concept of the philosopher's zombie the the p zombie the fit the duplicate of me with no experience so i was thinking because when i was reading you know i was getting ready to talk with you think about solipsism and stuff so i was wondering like okay so imagine a zombie world you know a philosopher's zombie world so there's a race of creatures they're duplicates of me they have no conscious experience they're running around

1:20:01 saying things doing things acting having wars battles but they have not they have no feeling no no consciousness all right so zombie world now i go there you evil scientists transport me there you drop me off there i'm conscious i have a mind i'm in a world of zombies isn't solipsism true even if there is a physical world of you know just zombies and i'm the only mind so maybe there's something beyond experience something material now maybe i don't have any reason to believe it because all i have is my experience so i don't have evidence for it but couldn't it be like

1:20:33 objectively like the case that something like that was happening and in that case when solipsism be true well i already believe salvation is true but i i would say that that is not soliciting because you didn't create that world you're you're just you know you're you're you're an agent you know in a world you didn't create so even if you're the only mind so it's more than just you're the only mind it's that all there is is mind and i'm that mind that's really the view that is correct

1:21:07 yeah okay so yeah i mean so i guess it's just terminological where you want to call those other v solipsism but anyway the one you're interested in is this more extreme version everything is mined and there's only one of those and it happens to be kevin [Laughter] congratulations uh i i don't mean to be glib i'm jo obviously you can't resist these little jokes but i'm totally i'm totally fine with that okay okay cool um well i really enjoyed this discussion

1:21:38 and i have a million more things i want to ask you but i really uh can't keep you forever and i have my as i said before uh child's coming home soon so i i do want to ask you whether you were expecting something would come up that hasn't come up or is there anything that you were wanting to talk about that hasn't so far come out um yeah i mean probably probably a bunch of things you know that i would you know i i i'm i'm much happier with how things you know went um because yeah i just sort of you know i

1:22:09 had you know was thinking it was going to go you know more methodical like you know which and that this is much more interesting and more fun and more okay yeah sorry i try to keep it informal and uh yeah my fault sorry about that um but there were some questions that i was like you know preparing you know for was thinking about there was there was one uh you know because i was looking through the objections and i don't like to spend much time on the objections because they're just like most of the objections are are uh you know are sort of you know not serious yeah or just just just not good

1:22:42 but but there was there was one there was one objection that i that i really uh like um you know because i like to be challenged but but it's when like you know if you can create a uh you know if i if the world is my creation yeah why not why not create a paradise you know or some some some variant of that and and i'm thinking about that i was like well if if if one go you know if go that route i was like you know i want to challenge the question well you don't believe that way you know why don't why don't you live in fiji

1:23:14 you know where you can you know live in paradise and and and money is you know goes much further or or you know or why don't you you know just you know get a stretcher and attach yourself to a morphine drip and yeah and that would be amazing too and yeah yeah yeah so yeah i mean i think this the the same you know uh philosophy in the philosophical world there's the robert nozick's experience machine um which is his idea of you know suppose your deepest dream

1:23:47 you want to be a singer or a rock star or soccer player whatever football whatever um so you plug yourself into this machine and it gives you exactly that experience of becoming the world champion of football or whatever i'm not a sportsman so you know whatever squadron you like you're the head of that or whatever etc and most people feel like they would not do that they would not just plug themselves into this machine which gave them the experience of their deepest desires coming true because it would be fake or not real or something um because there's no like they didn't do it themselves aspect so i think that's similar to what you're saying and so that's a kind of easy reply that solves this could make

1:24:20 it's like yeah we like challenges that's that's part of what we like and that's why it's this way yeah yeah but i thought it was it's a good question for but it got me you know yeah it's yeah i don't know if i'm satisfied with that answer but it is well i'm not you know like i mean the reply is satisfactory but but i don't think it's necessarily satisfactory to the question you don't think so it refutes the question effectively but i don't know if it's satisfactory yeah well nothing is in this area um is there any kind of like so on your

1:24:52 view would is it like the experi well there is no now and i can know passage of time and all that sort of stuff but uh certainly there's an illusion of it maybe or something so in that sense could there have been other lifetimes on this view or like experiences you had as of being a different personality or no do you think or i'm wondering about like so so there's a part of me that believes that the myth of er is is is valid [Laughter] um i i i so yeah i would say you know i would say yeah i i think i

1:25:26 think it's entirely possible that that you know that i've i've lived multiple lifetimes and created and that uh per perhaps the information here is being used or will be used in another you know epistemic bubble um for for you know for for reality with different qualities um so it's it's it's something i won't won't rule out wow okay that's interesting that brings up a whole a whole host of other things that i now want to ask about

1:25:59 uh but but i also because i was i was curious like because we brought up a lot of times we've been talking about science and so i take it that you don't think there's any conflict with science on your view right i mean you've got einstein in there already relativity physics is true according to you sort of at least what you understand of it and the world works that way anyway whether you know it or not etc but but is there something more like because science seems to suggest that or take seriously the idea well maybe that's not true i don't know

1:26:31 so anyway what do you think this is anti-science in any way the view that you're uh holding um or not anti-science sorry in conflict with science yes uh of course it's in conflict with science um it's absolutely accomplished but that doesn't mean that it's not informed and imbued and enhanced by science and but does it mean that if you wanted to like if if you wanted to have beliefs that most closely aligned with the science of the time it wouldn't be solipsism then um

1:27:05 it's complicated um you know because where it's in conflict with science is is you know the the notion that i was saying about uh episode you know the epistemology being bounded by by everything i know that all that exists is what i know that there's nothing beyond that well that's anti-science but what i know can be expanded and developed by you know by advances in my knowledge of science as i create them and experience them and develop them

1:27:39 but it doesn't it doesn't bother you that like so many scientists assert things which seem to be like denying solitism you know theory of evolution big bang they take those to be objective like oh they're solid it doesn't bother me it's like yo i mean um many people in science hold many beliefs that are you know not scientific or you know whatever you you know you cherry pick the contributions that are that are

1:28:11 um you know that are valid and and discard the things and solve them i don't think informs their work or or detract you know whether they were solve cysts or not it's not going to impact you know their their work uh well i should so this is the unfaster fossil by uh unfalsifiability thing there's no no science which is going to falsify it's all about yeah it should it shouldn't impact their their their work and like i said you know i'm putting on the solipsist for this discussion and and you know my day-to-day you know life outside is is one right you know it is something else

1:28:46 but intellectually yes i i do i do i do subscribe but i i don't live like i do and so what do you say to the person who's just going to say look you know you're psychic they're going to say this isn't serious philosophy it's just psychology like you're just a selfish person it's like all about you maybe you're got too many medals as a kid participation mills or something and so this is just kind of you know ego inflation narcissism or and i'm not saying i agree with that obviously i don't but i do think that this is something that you hear um and that's kind of self-important or something like your other consciousness

1:29:19 so but that's not a serious objection but how would you respond to it well well first i mean i i what i i hope what i've presented here are philosophical um you know points for discussion whether you know whether one subscribes them or not i i think they are rational uh extensions or consequences or implications of of of a point of view that is worthy of of being considered whether one subscribes or not and i think that is a contribution

1:29:50 you know to to to the field itself and in that sort of way uh as far as attacks on my person that's an ad hominem attack and i have you know i have thick skin and it's just like really that's that's the best you can do you know what you focus on on what i'm putting forth you know and challenge and challenge that and if you see you know uh you know uh areas like like you you've brought up where you know where you think that are worthy of being subjected to challenges

1:30:22 you know then yeah maybe if maybe you found some holes there maybe you haven't maybe you know they they are things that could be developed by by others or whatever you know they're open um and yeah i know by referencing others yeah i know yeah no one's gonna get you the guy ah he refuted himself yeah we're not playing that game here right we understand what you're saying um well well kevin i have to say i really enjoyed this conversation i actually learned a lot thinking about these issues i wish more people would pay attention this whether they agree or not so i agree with everything you've been saying at the end here that this is

1:30:55 something worth taking seriously that the arguments are worth considering that they often aren't and that that makes people look silly when they dismiss something like this out of hand and they should engage with it so i i really appreciate you coming here not knowing what to expect and whether i was gonna you know try to jump all over or get you or whatever but i really enjoy and appreciate the open engagement so i want to say thank you for that first of all and i want to thank you so much for for even you know entertaining this discussion and for engaging and uh yeah thank you but we're both very

1:31:27 thankful so that's wonderful um uh and you know if you'll if you're willing um i would like to have you back someday because i know you have all sorts of other interesting things you do and even to continue this discussion but as i mentioned before i i knew you from before from the uh from your work on you know about schooling and unschooling saw you on the stephen colbert show so i those are issues i think are very important obviously i'm an educator we all are in some sense but i'm a professional one in some sense and so i think that discussion is very important interesting worth having too so i would love for you to come back someday and to continue these discussions

1:31:59 i i'd be honored and i'd really enjoy it cool uh thank you and that then i don't be careful because i will bother you and to ask you to come back um but with on that note let me say thank you and i'll end the stream just hang out for a second i'll say bye off the air but but thanks again