So, as it turns out, the very "hardness" of the Hard Problem is in fact nothing more than the apparently rather prevalent hardness of accepting that there can simply be no reason why it is like something to be a self-propelled organism.
Searle's last sentence: "If we knew in detail exactly how the brain does it [i.e. how it causes consciousness]..." But here's the point: any such "knowing in detail" would constitute a category mistake. That trivial difference between 3rd-person and 1st-person ontologies (to use their terms for it in the talk) blocks all possible detailed explanations of this sort. No interaction between material entities, described from the 3rd-person perspective, can conceivably yield anything other than other phenomena described from a 3rd-person perspective. Our understanding of causality is closed within the 3rd-person realm. You can study how physical events cause conscious experiences (or correlate with them) at any level of detail you like, but that assumes there already exists a consciousness to experience them, and cannot account for how that consciousness emerged in the first place. You can study how neurons in the brain interact all you like, but that would yield, well, descriptions of neurons interacting, and physical changes in the brain that are caused by those interactions. Any leap from the latter to the former is a non-sequitur. What most philosophers then do is either hide behind the number of neurons in the brain (as if a couple trillion interactions can bridge a logical divide that a smaller number cannot), or try to tacitly substitute the real problem (which Searle succinctly states in the quoted sentence above) by some other, more tractable, problem, and then pretend that they have a path toward a solution (the interview with Minsky, in this series, is a master class in such intellectual trickery: he keeps being asked about one thing, and answering about any number of others).
yeah descriptions of how neurons fire to consciousness is a non-sequitur and still assumes a reductionist view of the self. the truth is materialism can't account for consciousness it makes more sense under a theistic worldview and we need special revelation to escape the epistemic quagmire of circularity that we keep running up against in autonomous epistemology. the Trinity is the best option because there is a bunch of fulfilled prophecy from the Old Testament that point to Christ and the Trinity solves the problem of the one and the many. all the talk of the Bible being corrupted is BS.
This is the comment I really didn't want to have to try to write, so thank you. In just the same way, we can, presumably, stimulate the brain in such a way that neurons fire, and, correspondingly, we have intense, vivid dreams that present us (subjects) with qualitative experiences just (or nearly) like during waking day. That is, there will be some irreducibly experiential phenomenology presented to our awareness, or conscious (while "sleeping!") mind. Are we supposed to believe we are walking in a publicly accessible, physical, "material" world all the while? Are dreams just another part of the physical? Even if they are, and the world in dreams is no less real than the "waking" or "external" world, and the experiences can be triggered by (or, as you note, correlated with) certain events in the brain, that does not explain how there can be something it is like to have those experiences. There is something special to consciousness, and I don't see how Searle purports to explain it. Saying that consciousness arises from brain states does not make consciousness anymore physical (or explainable by the physical) than, well, I'm not sure I have a good analogy, since almost any comparison will miss the point entirely!
What important in this program is the knowledge that Robert has about the subject matter and also asking the right questions and most importantly following up with answers which is extremely important.
It's great. Some videos are turned to 11. Proof randomness is in our universe as the TH-cam observer collapses the volume wave function. Seriously I'd like to chat with the sound eng on these videos.
Based on the comments here, here is my proposed first test for artificial consciousness: Accuse the artificial consciousness of being materialistic, and see if it reacts indignantly. If it does, its conscious.
nope, it'd just mean its training data made it react that way. maybe that'd be a good argument if its training data doesn't contain anything mentioning consciousness or subjective experience, and even then it may be purely logically derived from the dataset it's trained on.
He claims that if we knew exactly in detail how the brain does it, we'll be able to do it artificially. My question is is it even in principle possible for us to know precisely exactly how the brain does it? After all it's a first-person experience. Can he ever be sure that *I* am conscious?
@Haridi 20 Well said! Theories to explain consciousness from a purely materialistic paradigm are literally “self” refuting as you’ve just undermined your subjective “self” including all knowledge and science by claiming its just an illusion created by “matter” and brain chemicals etc. There’s no real knowledge and science without a real observer, that is consciousness. Equally, you would still have to explain the mystery of why “matter” the laws of physics acts the way it does and even exists in the first place, including the comprehensibility of the universe, a priori logic and mathematics etc. It’s just meaningless under a materialistic paradigm/dogma and is “faith” based as no one knows what “matter” and “energy” actually is. Equally, what do we even gain by adopting a philosophy that reduces our, children, families and community to biological/chemical robots except a good excuse for those in power to treat us cruelly.... “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” (Albert Einstein).
If we built a machine that functioned identically to a human brain then we would infer that it had consciousnesses. Now if we ever did build such a machine we cannot ever be sure that it really was conscious, but the same problem already applies regarding the problem of other minds. I do not know for sure that other people are conscious but I infer that they are because they have brains. We believe brains to be sufficient for causing consciousness because of the way neurological activity correlates with conscious experiences e.g., when parts of our brains get damaged or affected in some way it also affects our conscious experiences. So to answer your question, while we will never be absolutely certain that any machine we ever build is conscious, if we built something that functioned identically to a human brain then we would have no more reason to suppose that other people are any more conscious than it is too.
Why does he say that you don't get an immortal soul of out of Physics? And he makes a huge assumption: "we know that consciousness is caused by brain processes". I don't see it. That's like saying that we know music is created by processes in a radio. We know that movies are created by television processes. Sadly people can't see the huge assumptions they are making.
Music is created by processes in a radio from a digital or analogue input. If you are arguing that radios don't compose the music, then it is already possible for software to compose music that you couldn't determine was not written by some person.
@@roqsteady5290 What exactly necessitated or caused the brain processes that caused consciousness that causes music or software(that creates music)? And music isn't necessarily created by only human beings or software. It is any noise that has some coherence/organization as perceived by consciousness. So radios or minds are only mediums/sources/transmitters of the essential raw digital/analog/brain/psychic signals that compose consciousness. We don't exactly know the beginning or qualities of consciousness, it could be anything these signals could just be its manifestations or tools. To denote these as causes of consciousness itself is a huge assumption
Basically what he’s saying is that you do get a soul out of physics, but not an immortal soul. That consciousness is a physical process, not a substance. Extremely big assumption on your part that just because you’re conscious and currently aware of that, that consciousness must be eternal/immortal. Sadly perhaps, but the persistence of memory in no way proves the eternal persistence of consciousness.
Antonio Stanziola I don’t think so. The way I interpret what he says there is him just pointing out that every conscious experience is unified, and is a unit in and of itself. You never find half a conscious state, only a whole, unified conscious field.
@@dzarren Never half conscious? What about semiconscious? I don't know if there will every be reliable verifiable evidence for a "conscious field" but "semi consciousness" is term which is reliably applied.
We sort of do (sort of being the keyword). There is evidence that suggests we don't experience 'continuous' consciousness. But we tend to fill in the blanks. The subconscious plays a big role too, but we are not consciously aware of it.
What I take it to mean (and what makes sense to me) is that, while consciousness can increase or decrease *in magnitude,* that it is always a relationship between a sensory experience, and a single experiencer. There is no such thing as "half" or "1.34" an experiencer. While the magnitude of sensation can indeed be "half" (perhaps: while between waking and asleep,) or "1.34" (while highly stimulated,) or perhaps even if you could somehow see out of two people's eyes at the same time etc., the conscious experience of it is experienced in a single unity. Now if you could copy an experience of being two people, into two discrete consciousnesses, (or like being in a movie theater, where 100+ people experience the same phenomenal display on the screen,) is this a refutation? No, because you have in the premise that 100+ discrete experiencers are having 100+ discrete experiences. It's still discrete. It's not a question of magnitude (which can indeed scale, discrete or continuously,) it's a question of boundary and the experiencer.
We can say that we can have a thought or an idea, but not parts or fractions of thoughts and ideas (if we had them, they would be thoughts or ideas themselves). In this sense, they are discrete.
At 3:40 Searle asserts that the existence of immortal souls implies an anti-materialistic view. I strongly disagree, God and souls are not immaterial, it's just that there are two kinds of material: temporal, and eternal. I don't fault Searle for this, as it is a fallacy often promoted by those who have a religious background. But if you notice these words of Jesus, "do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, but store up treasures in heaven where things will not be corrupted". The paradigm is temporal verses eternal - material. Both worlds are material.
I thought Searle’s whole argument with the Chinese room was that computers couldn’t be conscious and here he seems to be saying they totally could if we only knew how.
Don't think he. Claims that. I think he claims conciousness is a biological process which is quite distinct from what a computer does. It's much more complex and produces phenomena that ppl use to argueare impossible without a God. How can non living matter become animated concious matter bit evolution sure seems to point directly towards the notion of an evolutionary development of conciousness
As I see it, here is the problem with the rain simulation argument. Rain simulation puts units into the simulating computer which may be water molecules or other molecules. Critical, the simulating elements are not the real elements. But, with a computer simulating consciousness, we don't know what the units are. Many believe that the units are units of information. One might argue that the simulating computer is simulating units of information with units of information. Therefore, in contrasts to the computer that simulates rain, the computer that simulates consciousness may cause consciousness.
I never tire of these discussions. Some thoughts: Panpsychism solutions do seem to break down for obvious reasons, similar to conjectures about discovering the "resolved" mechanism of a consciousness process per se. These schemes likely fail in constituting partial-materialist descriptions, wheels-within-wheels perplexities. The real problem, ask me, turns at last on the inability to "report" any experience of presumed consciousness that satisfies what is by definition the first person (qualified) experience of a particular self-conscious existence -- this latter "particular" being the ultimately opaque, interior awareness of the individual. Awareness is not conscious; it is, metaphorically, "light", a clarity of perception, the mediation of an entire plenum that we call a cosmos. To doubt, as with the Cartesian Cogito, is an artifice of quantifying, not the reflective circularity of an unavoidable "qualifying" as such e.g. the dichotomy of mind/body. The relation is "indubitable" -- a first prescription for mechanizing what we call "cognition". We can rarely comprehend what it is about our own conscious state (awareness) that is unique, than to "otherwise" simply presume to encounter, to make inquiry, of another conscious being; it is true that the "other" mind is not a solution to perplexity, but when "I" know very little about my own conscious state, when I cannot describe it accurately enough, it is probably a safer bet to trust almost any new insight, to accept the report of another "mind" -- until such time as I am satisfied either that something pertinent has been added to my self-awareness, or that something pertinent is not peculiar or absent in the "mindful" appearance of the other. The truth, a better approximation to resolving the issue, probably consists in a more intimate picture or model for understanding such things as quantum entanglement, a deeper insight into temporality itself. At any rate, we do not exist as if the "results" of a robust or successful brain-mind correlation presented themselves in a sanitary laboratory outcome; and consciousness, if it is not just an epiphenomenal delusion of nature, is the speculation, the prerogative, of at least one other instance of an empirical, aware entity.
It would take dualism to defeat materialism. I would not say dualism is wrong but would say it`s simplistic. If consciousness is the awareness of the system in which an entity operates eg a bird has a small amount of consciousness that recognizes danger, potential mates or competition, nest building etc and that`s it. That`s enough for a bird to operate and it takes a certain amount of neurons to achieve this. We have more neurons that allow a recognition of the planetary system and beyond, and the system complexity can seem mysterious and mystical and beautiful, but it surely isn`t as simplistic as dualism would imply; no black and white, right or wrong as for a bird: no clear lines of division but instead a circumstance made up of three or four or a dozen possible components, with each component having a range, and a reality that moves fluidly on the field until it finds an equilibrium.
Four Monisms: Materialism Mentalism Neutral monism Consciousness monism (or awareness ie panspychisn) (Arguably a fifth, all is spirit. And arguably a sixth, emptyism I’ll call it. There is (only) impersonal phenomenal happening but it is not made of anything. Then again that might be a zeroism not a monism). I think neutral monism is the single most intellectually honest take. Ask a materialist to define this material they claim everything is made of. They cant.)
@@ibperson7765 I guess the fifth option is the will to power, and emptyism the will to allow, and this allowance doesn't need to describe what's there. Indeed, describing what's there tends to exclude for gain, but a little is necessary. This gain if taken too far subverts the neutral monism stance perhaps?
@@projectmalus I commentsd a link to an image. At first your comment made little sense and seemed irrelevant. Then thought I saw a connection. Finally I realize the monisms and models I listed are all stuck in the upper circle. I have no idea how to think of will to power as a real ontology. But I can dimly see there is value and reality there to that
@@ibperson7765 There's a recent video on the Footnotes2Plato channel with John Torday and his Cellular Theory of Evolution, I think it describes an initial condition for consciousness or the will to power to emerge. Something about needing a membrane like the cell wall which allows differences, and the lipids being aligned due to their polarity, like magnets. I need to watch it again :) There was also a paper I looked at on emergence, there's three basic movement reactions, say a particle is moving in relation to another which is fixed. The moving particle can either be parallel, in which the interaction increases then reaches a peak then subsides when moving away, or move away (least interaction) or hit the other particle (most interaction). I think this means information can move between different levels of intensity, like the information can have space which can be crunched down or inflated to match the intensity of the context. Perhaps a trinity of context, efficiency and identity with the first two being the main drivers and identity like a pressure tank in a plumbing system, able to change and allow. The first two seeming like a duality, but then that third thing emerges and takes (or has the potential to take) awareness to a higher level. The awareness itself could be a sort of static from movement, something cohesive like lipids being aligned. If you really want a mind blow watch Sapolsky's lecture 21 where the "information" is described in chaos theory and this same element like the lipids aligning happens, something emerges from the periodic and aperiodic combo, when that combo is just right.
"We will find that philosopher's stone, by golly!" I am sorry, but Searle presents a mere promissory note that's not worth the paper it's written on, with no argument or even a rough sketch of an argument of why we should think we will ever bridge the explanatory gap between brain and mind.
Agree. Searle grants himself the argument without providing any rationale. One the last statements in the video is his assertion that we know (a priori) that consciousness is caused by brain function. We don't know that at all. His answer begs the question.
@@bozo5632 The difference is huge. Take a look at the book Irreducible Mind which is a scientific overview of consciousness and mind. The amount of data that demonstrates that mind is not reducible to brain (which is the title of the book) is staggering. www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Z4H8Y2MKEMZP&dchild=1&keywords=irreducible+mind&qid=1600819733&sprefix=irreducible+mind%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-1
Well said! Totally agree with you. The fact is that most of our physical theories and metaphors to describe the world of “matter” have been progressively falsified and replaced by what appears to be (immaterial) probability waves that are invisible, bi locational, timeless, unmeasurable and collapse at the wave function during the observer effect, hence the name (immaterial), suggesting that consciousness not “matter” is fundamental to reality. Materialism has crumbled under the weight of evidence from quantum mechanics. Similarly, evolution and selection are just metaphors to describe what the “physical” world does from the observer perspective/philosophical naturalists perspective. “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (Werner Heisenberg). There’s no empirical science without (observers), that is consciousness. Equally, science is littered with misleading language and metaphors as unconscious “matter” does not literally select for anything as this suggests intention and choice. Only sentient beings do this hence the metaphor as only conscious beings choose to behave in certain ways and choose to attempt to describe reality, that is subjective experience. In this case Searle is using incomplete theories such as materialism and “matter” in the “hope” of defining the irreducible, and unassailable nature of qualitative experience. It’s a contradiction in terms. From a philosophical/deductive perspective there is absolutely no evidence that the world of “matter” is the only world that matters. The fact is that “evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.” (Thomas Nagel). Materialism as beautiful and useful a theory as it is, especially in areas such as medicine, is clearly incoherent as a complete theory of reality. The fact is that “matter” is a theoretical abstraction of the human mind. So when materialists insist that all of reality including love, altruism, bravery, self sacrifice, meaning, purpose and experience, that is mind and consciousness can be reduced to “matter” and “just brain chemicals” or “just survival,” they are unwittingly trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s own conceptual creations. Its hardly surprising that the brilliant physicist Werner Heisenberg said... “the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” “There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomised.” (Werner Heisenberg). Materialism has parallels with the emperors new clothes in that people believed anything because it was hidden behind the cloak of the emperors authority, in this case its “scientific” authority. It’s similar to a painter who, having painted a self-portrait of himself outside his own home, points at it and proclaims the world, reality, his home and himself to be the portrait. The misguided painter then has to continually explain his internal subjective experience and inner life, even love, family, bravery, self sacrifice and purpose in terms of patterns, brush strokes and colour distribution on the canvas of the painting. This may come across as an absurd and irrational hypothesis to adopt regarding existence and reality and many will claim but surely this is a straw man. However, it is actually analogous to the problem many materialists have put themselves in. “Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions. This quote by Werner Heisenberg speaks volumes regarding the hubris of materialists who try to reduce all of existence, reality love subjective experience and consciousness to “matter”... “Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables” (Werner Heisenberg). Horrific problems arise when people take their parables and holy books of science literally hence the Nazis, Stalin, Mau and Pol Pot. The fact is that there is no foundation for empirical science without metaphysics not to mention a conscious observer lol. Equally, science is useless to humanity with out human rights “values” and a “philosophy of care” which is clearly beyond the reach and description of the natural sciences including materialistic hypothesis regarding “matter” We cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived. Interestingly, according to the expert on consciousness Professor David Chalmers who is the Director of The Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, and does not come from a religious perspective ..... “Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.” (David Chalmers) Fascinating subject! All the best to you and your family and keep safe during this Corona virus crisis ❤️
Are John Searle and Brian Greene related? Can't help but notice the resemblance 😂 On a serious note though, the discovery of alien consciousness would also allow us to derive conclusions that developing it artificially presumably would, suggesting an evolutionary convergence regardless of how consciousness arises.
Perhaps there are many dreams with consistent rules we call physics. One dreamer, many worlds. Put consciousness at the centre and some of the puzzle is resolved. You can do away with panpsychism and simulation (being functionally equivalent). Doorknobs don't need to be conscious nor supercomputers, they can be completely 'illusory' despite us all having a common experience of them. But we're still left with the question of if we can manipulate this dream to make another consciousness/vantage point. And we don't have to make the argument for or against materialism, because we've already taken care of this by stating the dream has rules.
The audio appears to be "raw", calibrated to -20 dB with enough headroom to record a speaker shouting. This is better than other interviews where the sound has been processed with noise gate (besides amplification), and words appear unnaturally separate.
When/if we completely understand thoughts/consciousness, he’s saying we will describe how they arise out of material agency. Maintaining that materialism consists of only objects is a straw man argument that allows people to dismiss his points without considering what he’s saying. Because his materialistic view does include consciousness. It also seems likely to me that consciousness arises out of a growing of awareness. At first very simple, here is food, there is danger, and more complex from there like life has for a billion years. At what point does awareness become conscious we don’t know, but I agree with him that we will someday.
What would it take for consciousness to defeat materialism or physicalism? *Mental causation*. Here's how: mind-body interaction implies monism, causal events are restricted to closed domains, and there is genuine mental causation. Therefore all non-mental causal events are excluded. This fits perfectly with Monistic Idealism.
materialists cant find a place for free will/consciousness so they deny it even exists, and still claim their materialism religion is the high horse on the mind body problem. materialists are fucking hilarious.
Monistic Idealism How would you respond to a Russellian Monist? Or a Process Philosopher? Both positions avoid your problem while not being committed to an idealism.
I agree with Chalmers in that Russell's version of neutral monism raises the “threat of panpsychism” and “might best be seen as a version of idealism” (Chalmers 1996, 154-155). Consciousness is not reducible to a process. Check out the hard problem of consciousness.
Dr. Searle, materialism also does not give us an account of how consciousness comes to us. Materialistic physicalism implies panpsychism in very few steps: 1) There is one type of extent stuff and that stuff is physical. 2) Consciousness exists (is not epiphenomenal). 3) Therefore, consciousness is/must be/supervenes on physical stuff. 4) The difference between conscious and non-conscious physical stuff consists in the differing configurations of the physical stuff. 5) Since all physical stuff is interchangeable, any token or tokens of physical stuff properly configured must be conscious. 6) Therefore, all physical stuff is potentially or proto-conscious. 7) Therefore, panpsychism is true. If you deny 1, you're not a physicalist. Denying 2 makes you an epiphenomenalist at best, or an idiot at worst. 3 logically follows from 1 and 2. Denying 4 while accepting 1-3 gets you to panpsychism by default. Denying 5 contradicts monism, since consciousness would then require something extra that is non-physical. And accepting 1-5 forces you into 6, which is the definition of panpsychism. Now, if you're uncomfortable with panpsychism, but unwilling to give up physicalism, you're forced into some kind of dualistic physicalism on account of your denial of monism (which may or may not make you not a physicalist, but I concede that I just don't know the answer to that one). In any case, Searle, while obviously a bright guy, is just full of crap on this one.
You assume too much and it flaws your argument (point 2, point 6). Non-sequiturs (point 3, point 7). The important thing here isn't the stuff itself, but rather its configuration, therefore, not "all physical stuff is potentially conscious" - that's a category mistake.
Configuration is only one part of consciousness, it is also a process unfolding over time, taking impressions from the external world and representing those impressions within the neural substrate. We also have to consider the different brain structures which are required for consciousness to exist.- Sensory input, sensory organs, perceptual mechanisms, a vast conceptual array contained in the cortex, a self model, an executive function (prefrontal cortex). There are so many interacting pieces required for consciousness to exist that we can't necessarily talk about a simple arrangement of matter as the necessary requirement for consciousness. It is a very complex process, unfolding over time. You can't pause time and have an arrangement of matter represent a conscious moment. Consciousness must have time to unfold within our neurological structures.
I have respect for advaita, a little bit. But it is such a folly of advaita followers to be adamant to base their philosophy on a gap in scientific research. Eventually science will understand bio-chemistry of consciousness. And conscious algorithms will be created. You are basing your whole ideology on a knowledge gap. And by the way, if consciousness is related to some activity of brain, and all parts of our brain are material, then isn't consciousness maya too?
@@christdhasjoseph6997 Lol no evidence that brain generates consiusness but there is evidence that it doesn't generate in brain rather it generates in mind
If I simulate a chess player, and play chess with it, there is no doubt that what is going on is a game of chess. I don't think the theory of simulation is Searle's area of expertise.
Yes but that is not what is being addressed. The question is if you simulated a chess player on say a computer using a computer program, does the computer understand that its playing chess? And the answer is no. Searle was the first person to point this out 25 yrs ago using his now (in)famous Chinese room argument. Simulation is not duplication. You can simulate a rainstorm however accurately as you want but nobody will get wet.
Remember, no one can prove that they are conscious, and many people say consciousness itself is a myth. My point still holds. In Searle's Chinese room, what is being simulated, is a behavior that only those we call conscious can perform. In my example, what is being simulated, is a chess player. The system that includes the man following instructions, does in fact speak Chinese, and the computer does play chess. I would say both of those activities require some kind of awareness of the system's internal state, and that's consciousness, to some degree.
@@ernststravoblofeld "I would say both of those activities require some kind of awareness of the system's internal state, and that's consciousness, to some degree. " You can say that, but you can't prove it . I suspect you are redefining the term "conscious" in a way that suits the argument.
@@LuxPerp I think I am using the word in it's intended way, and not heaping a bunch of mystical nonsense on it. As to proof, is that what goes on in a TH-cam comment section? Are you here writing scholarly articles in the comments? What are your standards of proof. How do you define proof? Do you often demand detailed footnotes of sources in common conversion? Either take part in good faith, or go away.
The brain isn't a machine though. It appears to function as such but by definition it isn't mechanical. It's organic. Searle does make that distinction but still calls it a machine.
I agree and I thought he was being a bit dishonest with his digestive system analogy. Machine metaphors are useful in areas such as medicine and surgery. However, It’s an unhelpful metaphor when it comes to human ethics and “values”, that is the qualitative experience of consciousness because history demonstrates that reducing our children, our families and our community to nothing more than biological/chemical robots clearly has the potential to lead to harmful ideologies. “Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights.” (Rabbi Johnathan Sacks).
Love John Searle but i can't agree with his ontological argument as its assuming there is a subject there, but surely this is just ghost in the machine stuff. I don't agree with terms like human subject and 1st person perspective becuse i don't see that there is any person there. We have the feeling of personhood but its physically caused by the brain, and because we have the feeling of personhood we have feelings of roles for that subject we feel to exist eg observer. But I only see a physical system which produces causally a product consciousness aswell as the feeling of subjectivity, and this two products come together as the conciousness thats experienced by a subject. Because we as physical systems speak a noun based language we have trouble viewing things as processes, which is improtant because theres a subtle but profound diference between observation as an activity produced by a physical system, and the physical world as a thing which another thing, the observer, is aware of. Seems to be John Searle is actually back in bed with descartes aswell - dualism runs deep.
qubitz it's hard to deny inner experience when we experience them. Just because we are a biological system doesn't deny we experience a inner world that's intimately linked to the brain. The hard problem can't be conveniently ignored. It's why Dualism won't go away, because of consciousness. . .
Consciousness doesn't refute materialism. The brain is a machine made out of organic substances. Consciousness is a higher level feature of the brain caused by lower level brain processes. But it a has an irreducible subjective ontology that can't be explained by third person observations. Simulation is not equivalent to duplication. A computer simulation of a brain would no more result in consciousness than a computer simulation of the weather would leave us all wet. But if we could duplicate a brain artificially it would have consciousness.
I take a somewhat different approach to consciousness. Biologist Michael Levin points out that every cell engages in problem solving... which alludes to cells being intelligent, having mindedness. Humans obviously are made up of massive amounts of cells, each one of which has a fraction of mind, so lumping them altogether makes for a large mental mass (not literally) which could be how consciousness derives. Of course, when we say someone is conscious, we mean they're awake. But we also subdivide consciousness into the subconscious below, and the super-conscious above, along with unconsciousness (collective or otherwise), where people in a coma do hear what someone is saying, but can't respond. All are states of mind. It's not that mind "defeats" materialism, it simply has mastery over it...
Consciousness to me would seem to be material because the thought processes involved in consciousness require material particles at the atomic level, electron flow etc? The brain uses electricity in some form for processing.
conciousness and digestion are same..... philosopher of the century.... he must also mention the region of brain where conciousness resides because digestion is a process which involves multiple organs........... Brain is also a machine made up of molecules and protiens that's true. Similar brain is also present in other mammals but without conciousness. Similar heart is present in other mammals but it is still pumping blood. So this is a lame argument that conciousness is because of brain.
there was a neuroscience experiment idk all of it but it basically says that a surgeon split the brain into parts, and consciousness will get destroyed if it was generated from the brain, however people were still conscious and able to think also another study showed that no matter how much they try to mess up with the brain, they can never control ur mind nor can they know what u think, therefore consciousness is immaterial so yes i agree with u 100%
The only thing we can be sure of is awareness. And all that is constructed thereof. Materialists cannot even define material. They have a bunch of equations about how “it” behaves (descriptions of phenomenal patterns), but cannot define it. (Not to dis that I was a research engineer myself, but this vague “material” no one has ever seen or touched, only awareness of phenomena- be it conception or perception. You dont experience material you experience awareness of phenomena and add a material model to it). Only one thing is self-evident, awareness; so let that be our monism. Until I hear a definition of physical or material, and find it in my most bare and raw experience, I dont take seriously a metaphysics built upon IT as the fundamental ontology. The only reason modern westerners think physicalism is true or even self-evident is the same reason religious fundamentalists think their religion is true or even self-evident: they were indoctrinated from an early age to believe it. Any honest take of what you actually know and rigorously defining and following truth will take you to awareness as the monism (and maybe neutral monsim, and maybe mentalism along the way under you explore deeper). I use “awareness” not consciousness because consciousness has two meanings. One is the totality of a conscious entity (as searle describes) and the other is by the consciousness monists and is totally different. This causes confusion. Better to call it awareness, and your individual consciousness is made of awareness (as is everything), as are other consciousnesses - not made of “matter”, which no one has even seen or experienced and is just a place holder in physics models. To end up with “matter” as the fundamental ontology is sillier and sillier the longer you think about it objectively. It’s just hard to escape early brainwashing, which I too received.
This is a thoughtful post, which helped me to clarify my thoughts on the subject. Read on if you care to. Philosophers of science (good ones at least -- in my opinion), do not require a definition of material other than 'it's the stuff that gives rise to our observations'. The only thing particle physics, for example, observes is interactions between particles. The properties of matter (which is all we know of matter) only arise as interactions between what we take to be discrete material things (including interactions between those 'things' and 'things' in our instruments for observing interactions). Furthermore, many physicists and philosophers of science think that it's not even clear that individual particles exist discretely in the way that we use that word in ordinary language. Even so, and without any ontology at all, this does not risk toppling the foundations on which particle physics is built. It's a mistake to take an inability to define ‘material’ as some kind of fatal flaw for scientism and materialism. We can simply rework the basic project of science without a definition of ‘material’ as follows: “The structure of hte world that is revealed by math and scientific investigation is nothing more than the relations between things in the world, whatever those things are, and the laws that science produces are regularities in this structure that are mathematically formalized.” I share in your suspicion of ontology, but a materialist does not need an ontology to get to work showing e.g., that consciousness is material in origin. Your need for an ontology is where you go wrong, in my opinion (along with the epistemological priority given to awareness, which can be fundamentally mistaken without 3rd person review and reproducibility - notable hallmarks of the scientific method). These errors make you posit something (awareness) as fundamental, which has no scientific basis. If you are not very attached to the methods of science, that is fine. I understand. Personally, I don't think there is any more reliable path to truth than science. I should add that I like other stories too - many types of stories that are unscientific. I just don’t think that they get to reproducible truths about the physical world. Those stories are useful/good for other reasons and in other ways.
@@johnhausmann2391 interesting thoughts. Thanks for both reading and commenting. I disagree that “awareness can be fundamentally mistaken without third person review and reproducibility.” If you’re aware of something that no one else is aware of, then you are still aware of it, and know that you are. Even if you conclude it was a mirage, the awareness of it was palpably *real*, and you need no confirmation. The other relevant thought is that “the methods of science” all, always, run through awareness. No one ever did any science any other way. If awareness did not exist, science wouldnt. If science didnt exist, awareness still would. Perhaps rather than attacking conclusions that are downstream of awareness - about the existence of matter, I should instead limit myself to emphasizing that such conclusions ARE downstream and derivative but not necessarily invalid, in their place. If one looks at his own experience, I would guess he’d eventually admit the only thing he knows exists, with *absolute* certainty, is awareness of phenomena (including of thoughts). Immediately following awareness of phenomena (or mainfold to it rather than following it) is consciousness, ie knowing “I am”. If someone took all memories, what would one still know? He would still know “I am here.”
So using this logic, if you knew exactly how life works, you could do it artificially. Which means that you no more know how life works than consciousness, or cognition or feeling or any other mental phenomena.
Nonsense. No combination of atoms and molecules will ever create consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing. It uses matter to perceive matter with the 5 physical senses. But those sensations can also be experienced in the absence of physical stimulus when dreaming or imagining with consciousness alone. Consciousness is the awareness of those 5 senses.
+onetruekeeper consciousness is defined usually by the fact of sentience, of there being 'something that it is like' the question is why should it be the case that it 'feels' like something? this seems to invoke our brain, since it is at the heart of experience and everything, moreover everything is within our consciousness. in ur own words, how are we aware of those 5 senses or even aware of the lack of them, if not by the brain?
+Stan Alpha Because from a philosophical standpoint the true nature of what it is that we are perceiving can never be known with any certainty. Matter for instance might only exists in our minds and perhaps there is nothing "out there". Going with this idea the fact that other minds can see the same objects might be a form of telepathy.
+onetruekeeper that doesn't affect what i'm saying at all. i'm not contesting all things we see are really there - what's the quote? 'we are made of things we cannot regard as real' But i don't think it means anything to say matter is not 'out there' it's a semantic contradiction in the first place. you might restate it as we have no reason to be certain that there are, but i don't think this stops from us constructing a reality. u seem to be invoking cartesian sceptic ideas but the consciousness issue is not of the same kind since the seeming illusion of consciousness itself may be cited as the evidence for consciousness, because if it seems like anything it is a part of conscious experience (u might say dreams seem like things but we are unconscious, but in that instance we are only physically conscious - there are still processes that we perceive.
+Stan Alpha There is no evidence that an unconsciousness exists other than when someone tells us we were unconscious. The experiencer is always conscious and cannot account for those gaps between worldly events, thoughts or dreams where nothing is perceived. Try it for yourself. Can you ever recall being unconscious? It is impossible.
+onetruekeeper the unconscious most certainly exists. It's what allows you to run and walk without falling over, it is what 'makes up your mind' measurably one third to one half a second before 'you' (the conscious monitor level) realise you have, it is what lets you play tennis without thinking "exactly how do I return this ball with the required spin to get it to bounce _there_, and go off in _that_ direction". You'd be lost without it.
"You don't get an immortal soul out of physics," he says. So, the people to ask about whether or not the near-death experience is objectively real is not a neurologist like Peter Fenwick or a cardiologist like Pim van Lommel - both NDE researchers - but a physicist. Or a philosopher who thinks he knows physics. Excuse me? I think knowledge of physiology is relevant to the question.
John Searle was born before his time. When we finally are able to build a brain with consciousness, then he would explain why it works as opposed to the other computers that do not have consciousness.
+David Roberts You cannot build a brain with consciousness. It will be a zombie that only mimics a conscious being if it is sophisticated enough. If it did possesed consciousness then it will be the same as trying to explain how consciousness in humans emerge and seems to interface with the brain. We are back to square one with no clear answers. I doubt we would ever know.
+WoundrousMindTrick You are being pragmatic by insisting that mind come from the arrangement of matter although that idea has never been proven nor would ever likely to be. But you will not like where your "truth" will take you. If mind is nothing more than the complex arrangement of atoms then in the future entropy and chaos will destroy all consciousness because order emerges from chaos but chaos will always win in the end. Just like a ship of consciousness floating momentarily on the ocean, it will eventually sink into the depths of chaos and perhaps will never rise again. Why materialists seem to accept and defend this horrific possibility is hilarious. They would tell you truth is truth and there is nothing one can do about it since we don't make the rules...blah blah blah. Oh well, to each his own I suppose...lol.
+WoundrousMindTrick Consciousness is a fact since we experience it but to ask what is "responsible" for it implies a prime cause but how does one apply cause to something that cannot be measured with scientific instruments or even be certain as to how far it goes back in time? I believe to ask that kind of question in regards to consciousness is futile. A description of what it feels to be conscious and it's interactions in the material world is all that could be asked of consciousness and that should suffice.
Absolutely outstanding! This is top-notch content. I read something similar, and it was mind-blowing. "The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Living Guide" by Matthew Cove
I really, really wanted to listen to this in a charitable way but cmon... This guy is confused. First, the amount of begging the question on the origin of consciousness is unbearable. Second, he managed to contradict himself in 5 minutes... He said that he can reconciliate his version of materialism with an _irreducible_, first person consciousness, and then proceeded to claim that consciousness is a product of the brain... Pick one!
@@hellavadeal No specific chemical, but the mixture of chemicals which is me. Any evidence for consciousness not being chemical? Or is it just feelings and intuitions?
Newton abolished the concept of physical by his law of gravity, abandoning the mechanical philosophy as a criterion of intelligibility of the Universe. There is no mind-body dualism any longer, since Newton got rid of the machine, leaving the ghost intact.
So how does he explain nonlocal consciousness if he thinks our consciousness is dependent on the brain? There are thousands of personal testimonies of people who have had their consciousness leave their bodies and operate independently of their brains. They maintain sight, hearing and logical thought process.
@@Vinuken07 There are literally thousands of personal accounts from people who have experienced their consciousness separating from their brain. They maintain sight, hearing and logical thought process while while they are separated.
What does it feel like to be a silicone chip? Thats the problem with belief in AI. Would it be immoral to turn it off? Such silliness, and they call it science.
Here's a good question for hardcore materialists. What benefit would it be for raw matter to organize itself in such a way as to have consciousness emerge in order to have subjective experience? Furthermore, how would it go about organizing itself and what survival benefit would subjective experience have? It seems pretty obvious that it would priori require consciousness to organize matter. Inanimate objects tend towards entropy/chaos.
Subjective experience and self-awareness is useful for survival, especially in social groups where you want to predict what the consequences will be of certain actions, like cooperation or cheating.
@@user232349Ah - but we only have humans who have this level of consciousness. If this were such an advantage, then why do we not see it elsewhere? Why us? You boil it down to the assumption - not fact - that it is a survival mechanism, whereas many animals do perfectly fine surviving, adapting, and reproducing without our level of reasoning.
It is also a filter to see who's rational and who jumps to conclusions. If it was true, then higher brain activity should correspond to expanded consciousness, while it is experimentally evident to be the exact opposite...
A photon going thru a double slit experiment KNOWS IF a measurement device is PRESENT to record it's wave function and CHOOSES (conscious)to CHANGE it's behavior as a wave or particle on the projected interference pattern. Consciousness can be reducible to even subatomic nuclei,electrons, protons.
A photon doesn't know anything. It has no conciousness. It doesn't know, it simply reacts to something because if something interacts with anything the other thing reacts in some way.
The jam comment is a simplistic misrepresentation of Panpsychism. There can be proto-consciousness at the base level of matter, of the 'boiler' and the 'screw' without either being conscious subjects. Panpsychism claims no such thing. A straw man.
petegoestubular Except that that assumption is the default one. In other words, it is *your* burden of proof to coherently define and then demonstrate protoconsciousness, since it is your claim that such a thing is possible/exists. Conversely , it is absolutely not in any way my responsibility to demonstrate such a thing *doesn't* exist.
petegoestubular In other words, I think the claim being examined is panpsychism (specifically that matter is experiential); if i were making a claim to some other position, I would absolutely have to defend that. Here though, my claim is basically "not panpsychism", and I discharge my burden of proof by simply saying it is "not demonstrated and incoherent". Boom. The fact is, panpsychism makes too many unfounded, unnecessary assumptions and in most cases resorts to a category error (though obv. this depends on the specific argument). This is all especially evident after even a cursory glance at the things we actually *do* know about consciousness and conscious beings.
Corey Herrick Sorry. I have to disagree. Because why should the burden of proof be mine. Experiencing is the one thing that I can be certain of. I can be certain that my matter is experiencial.. The burden of proof is if anything therefore slightly more for the 'matter is fundamentally non experiencial' camp's view. I can prove some matter is experiencing... Can you prove that the rest is not? Your bit is.. Over to you my excellent fellow
Consciousness created matter ,,matter can not create consciousness ..consciousness is not part of the physical body ..if it was possible to create consciousness from matter . then you would be able to create spirits ..and that would be like bringing someone back from the dead
So , it seems that John Searle is a materialist... He thinks that consciousness is created by the brain... that consciousness can be created.... Hmm... I think not...
NuggetOfBlueGold ok thanx to clarify this. the majority of people is still really thinking like you claimed in your sarcasm. We indeed do not know how things work at its core, but its becoming pretty appearant that science doesn't even dare to begin to investigate the approach on consciousness from the other way around (the brain receiving and conditioning consciousness, but not generating it). Consciousness can explain how a human brain works. But a human brain is incapable of comprehending the nature of consciousness. This should wake some people up.
A few points: 1. Consciousness is a by_product, 2. Materialism is the truth of this universe, and 3. Idealism is an absolute nonsense. What materialists and idealists do not know: the soul. A few things to understand; The soul is NOT of a mental domain, this is what Plato couldn't discover. It was discovered in ancient India, and within some native American cultures. The soul is that which clings to consciousness and material sensation. It is the thing that makes you breathe, and suffer. For that matter, a computer can possess consciousness, it can think, and decide (algorithmically), but, unless possessed by a wandering soul (non_liberated), it cannot breathe, suffer, or desire. Trees have souls, all plants, planet earth, many stellar organisms, where_ever you see growth and consumption, there is a soul. The soul is a like a law, a reality in and of itself. Like matter. There is matter, and there is the soul. Two eternal qualities that make the sum total of reality. The yin, and the yang. What is matter? = The universe as a whole, a principle in and of itself, physical, and it is feminine in nature. What is the soul? = The principle that is able to get attached to matter, suffer, desire, or, become boundless, and it is masculine in nature, nonphysical. Kind regards..
@@serenity748Then make a consciousness. With our technology, we would have been well on our way to making one right now. Yet we cannot and we cannot pinpoint our first-person self awareness anywhere in the brain. Why am I conscious from my body? Was it random? Why was I placed in this body? Why not yours? Why not a bird? Materialism answers none of this.
At 1:42 this goes off the rails, the interviewee wants to have materialism and consciousness too. These are mutually exclusive because consciousness is not material, nor is self. A materialist is a self trying to convince other selves that neither of them exist. John Searle "So let's get rid of the terminology and just discuss the facts." What??? How are you going to discuss the facts... with grunts and hand waving?
I think consciousness and materialism are inseparable ,that is mind and body ,without body you cant sense mind ,in that way consciousness and materialism are united .The consciousness of the universe and the consciousness of homo sapiens are the same,but only one difference that without materialism you cant sense the consciousness in the case of homo sapiens .
Lol no need for materialists in the world consiusness interacts the environment thorough material bodies and also consiusness doesn't require Brain ever heard of astral projection and OBE? Huh? They literally see the reality
So, as it turns out, the very "hardness" of the Hard Problem is in fact nothing more than the apparently rather prevalent hardness of accepting that there can simply be no reason why it is like something to be a self-propelled organism.
Searle's last sentence: "If we knew in detail exactly how the brain does it [i.e. how it causes consciousness]..."
But here's the point: any such "knowing in detail" would constitute a category mistake. That trivial difference between 3rd-person and 1st-person ontologies (to use their terms for it in the talk) blocks all possible detailed explanations of this sort. No interaction between material entities, described from the 3rd-person perspective, can conceivably yield anything other than other phenomena described from a 3rd-person perspective. Our understanding of causality is closed within the 3rd-person realm. You can study how physical events cause conscious experiences (or correlate with them) at any level of detail you like, but that assumes there already exists a consciousness to experience them, and cannot account for how that consciousness emerged in the first place. You can study how neurons in the brain interact all you like, but that would yield, well, descriptions of neurons interacting, and physical changes in the brain that are caused by those interactions. Any leap from the latter to the former is a non-sequitur. What most philosophers then do is either hide behind the number of neurons in the brain (as if a couple trillion interactions can bridge a logical divide that a smaller number cannot), or try to tacitly substitute the real problem (which Searle succinctly states in the quoted sentence above) by some other, more tractable, problem, and then pretend that they have a path toward a solution (the interview with Minsky, in this series, is a master class in such intellectual trickery: he keeps being asked about one thing, and answering about any number of others).
Yeah. Solid comment in several ways. Thanks
that is what makes lots of inquirers mad when it comes to Consciousness phenomena. thank u for articulating it in a good way.
yeah descriptions of how neurons fire to consciousness is a non-sequitur and still assumes a reductionist view of the self. the truth is materialism can't account for consciousness it makes more sense under a theistic worldview and we need special revelation to escape the epistemic quagmire of circularity that we keep running up against in autonomous epistemology. the Trinity is the best option because there is a bunch of fulfilled prophecy from the Old Testament that point to Christ and the Trinity solves the problem of the one and the many. all the talk of the Bible being corrupted is BS.
You are exactly right, and it amazes me how many professional scientists and philosophers simply don't get it
This is the comment I really didn't want to have to try to write, so thank you.
In just the same way, we can, presumably, stimulate the brain in such a way that neurons fire, and, correspondingly, we have intense, vivid dreams that present us (subjects) with qualitative experiences just (or nearly) like during waking day. That is, there will be some irreducibly experiential phenomenology presented to our awareness, or conscious (while "sleeping!") mind. Are we supposed to believe we are walking in a publicly accessible, physical, "material" world all the while? Are dreams just another part of the physical?
Even if they are, and the world in dreams is no less real than the "waking" or "external" world, and the experiences can be triggered by (or, as you note, correlated with) certain events in the brain, that does not explain how there can be something it is like to have those experiences.
There is something special to consciousness, and I don't see how Searle purports to explain it. Saying that consciousness arises from brain states does not make consciousness anymore physical (or explainable by the physical) than, well, I'm not sure I have a good analogy, since almost any comparison will miss the point entirely!
What important in this program is the knowledge that Robert has about the subject matter and also asking the right questions and most importantly following up with answers which is extremely important.
Seems to be a good conversation. If only they could turn the volume up to 2.
It's great. Some videos are turned to 11. Proof randomness is in our universe as the TH-cam observer collapses the volume wave function. Seriously I'd like to chat with the sound eng on these videos.
Hahahaha I was trying to fix the volume on my phone.
Based on the comments here, here is my proposed first test for artificial consciousness:
Accuse the artificial consciousness of being materialistic, and see if it reacts indignantly. If it does, its conscious.
nope, it'd just mean its training data made it react that way.
maybe that'd be a good argument if its training data doesn't contain anything mentioning consciousness or subjective experience, and even then it may be purely logically derived from the dataset it's trained on.
Sure we can create a consciousness. It's called having sex.
LMFAO
This is legit a great point
This is way too quiet!
"irreducible subjective ontology" well-stated
the audio guy needs to be fired.
it happens a lot on these talks, you would think they would *Sound Check
He claims that if we knew exactly in detail how the brain does it, we'll be able to do it artificially. My question is is it even in principle possible for us to know precisely exactly how the brain does it? After all it's a first-person experience. Can he ever be sure that *I* am conscious?
@Haridi 20
Well said! Theories to explain consciousness from a purely materialistic paradigm are literally “self” refuting as you’ve just undermined your subjective “self” including all knowledge and science by claiming its just an illusion created by “matter” and brain chemicals etc. There’s no real knowledge and science without a real observer, that is consciousness. Equally, you would still have to explain the mystery of why “matter” the laws of physics acts the way it does and even exists in the first place, including the comprehensibility of the universe, a priori logic and mathematics etc. It’s just meaningless under a materialistic paradigm/dogma and is “faith” based as no one knows what “matter” and “energy” actually is. Equally, what do we even gain by adopting a philosophy that reduces our, children, families and community to biological/chemical robots except a good excuse for those in power to treat us cruelly....
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
(Albert Einstein).
If we built a machine that functioned identically to a human brain then we would infer that it had consciousnesses. Now if we ever did build such a machine we cannot ever be sure that it really was conscious, but the same problem already applies regarding the problem of other minds. I do not know for sure that other people are conscious but I infer that they are because they have brains. We believe brains to be sufficient for causing consciousness because of the way neurological activity correlates with conscious experiences e.g., when parts of our brains get damaged or affected in some way it also affects our conscious experiences.
So to answer your question, while we will never be absolutely certain that any machine we ever build is conscious, if we built something that functioned identically to a human brain then we would have no more reason to suppose that other people are any more conscious than it is too.
@Say When... Lol.
Why does he say that you don't get an immortal soul of out of Physics? And he makes a huge assumption: "we know that consciousness is caused by brain processes". I don't see it. That's like saying that we know music is created by processes in a radio. We know that movies are created by television processes. Sadly people can't see the huge assumptions they are making.
Music is created by processes in a radio from a digital or analogue input. If you are arguing that radios don't compose the music, then it is already possible for software to compose music that you couldn't determine was not written by some person.
@@roqsteady5290 What exactly necessitated or caused the brain processes that caused consciousness that causes music or software(that creates music)? And music isn't necessarily created by only human beings or software. It is any noise that has some coherence/organization as perceived by consciousness. So radios or minds are only mediums/sources/transmitters of the essential raw digital/analog/brain/psychic signals that compose consciousness. We don't exactly know the beginning or qualities of consciousness, it could be anything these signals could just be its manifestations or tools. To denote these as causes of consciousness itself is a huge assumption
Well said!
Basically what he’s saying is that you do get a soul out of physics, but not an immortal soul. That consciousness is a physical process, not a substance.
Extremely big assumption on your part that just because you’re conscious and currently aware of that, that consciousness must be eternal/immortal. Sadly perhaps, but the persistence of memory in no way proves the eternal persistence of consciousness.
@@marksulkanon The persistence of memory in no way refutes the persistence of an eternal consciousness
"We know consciousness comes in discrete units". Well, no. We don't know that: that's a massive assumption.
Antonio Stanziola
I don’t think so.
The way I interpret what he says there is him just pointing out that every conscious experience is unified, and is a unit in and of itself. You never find half a conscious state, only a whole, unified conscious field.
@@dzarren Never half conscious? What about semiconscious?
I don't know if there will every be reliable verifiable evidence for a "conscious field" but "semi consciousness" is term which is reliably applied.
We sort of do (sort of being the keyword). There is evidence that suggests we don't experience 'continuous' consciousness. But we tend to fill in the blanks. The subconscious plays a big role too, but we are not consciously aware of it.
What I take it to mean (and what makes sense to me) is that, while consciousness can increase or decrease *in magnitude,* that it is always a relationship between a sensory experience, and a single experiencer. There is no such thing as "half" or "1.34" an experiencer. While the magnitude of sensation can indeed be "half" (perhaps: while between waking and asleep,) or "1.34" (while highly stimulated,) or perhaps even if you could somehow see out of two people's eyes at the same time etc., the conscious experience of it is experienced in a single unity. Now if you could copy an experience of being two people, into two discrete consciousnesses, (or like being in a movie theater, where 100+ people experience the same phenomenal display on the screen,) is this a refutation? No, because you have in the premise that 100+ discrete experiencers are having 100+ discrete experiences. It's still discrete. It's not a question of magnitude (which can indeed scale, discrete or continuously,) it's a question of boundary and the experiencer.
We can say that we can have a thought or an idea, but not parts or fractions of thoughts and ideas (if we had them, they would be thoughts or ideas themselves). In this sense, they are discrete.
who is the interviewer...he does a great job..is he himself a philosopher?
I dont agree or disagree with him cause i cant even hear him
Idk why but I found this hilarious 😂😂😂
Hilarious
At 3:40 Searle asserts that the existence of immortal souls implies an anti-materialistic view. I strongly disagree, God and souls are not immaterial, it's just that there are two kinds of material: temporal, and eternal. I don't fault Searle for this, as it is a fallacy often promoted by those who have a religious background. But if you notice these words of Jesus, "do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, but store up treasures in heaven where things will not be corrupted". The paradigm is temporal verses eternal - material. Both worlds are material.
I thought Searle’s whole argument with the Chinese room was that computers couldn’t be conscious and here he seems to be saying they totally could if we only knew how.
Don't think he. Claims that. I think he claims conciousness is a biological process which is quite distinct from what a computer does. It's much more complex and produces phenomena that ppl use to argueare impossible without a God. How can non living matter become animated concious matter bit evolution sure seems to point directly towards the notion of an evolutionary development of conciousness
people generally misunderstand his Chinese room argument.
As I see it, here is the problem with the rain simulation argument. Rain simulation puts units into the simulating computer which may be water molecules or other molecules. Critical, the simulating elements are not the real elements. But, with a computer simulating consciousness, we don't know what the units are. Many believe that the units are units of information. One might argue that the simulating computer is simulating units of information with units of information. Therefore, in contrasts to the computer that simulates rain, the computer that simulates consciousness may cause consciousness.
Indeed. Simulating a computation is identical to the original computation.
We are definite about what we can not explain materially.
There probably is a reality, however we barely have a glimpse.
Thought my hearing required an aid...glad I could see the comments without my glasses.
I never tire of these discussions.
Some thoughts:
Panpsychism solutions do seem to break down for obvious reasons, similar to conjectures about discovering the "resolved" mechanism of a consciousness process per se. These schemes likely fail in constituting partial-materialist descriptions, wheels-within-wheels perplexities.
The real problem, ask me, turns at last on the inability to "report" any experience of presumed consciousness that satisfies what is by definition the first person (qualified) experience of a particular self-conscious existence -- this latter "particular" being the ultimately opaque, interior awareness of the individual. Awareness is not conscious; it is, metaphorically, "light", a clarity of perception, the mediation of an entire plenum that we call a cosmos.
To doubt, as with the Cartesian Cogito, is an artifice of quantifying, not the reflective circularity of an unavoidable "qualifying" as such e.g. the dichotomy of mind/body. The relation is "indubitable" -- a first prescription for mechanizing what we call "cognition".
We can rarely comprehend what it is about our own conscious state (awareness) that is unique, than to "otherwise" simply presume to encounter, to make inquiry, of another conscious being; it is true that the "other" mind is not a solution to perplexity, but when "I" know very little about my own conscious state, when I cannot describe it accurately enough, it is probably a safer bet to trust almost any new insight, to accept the report of another "mind" -- until such time as I am satisfied either that something pertinent has been added to my self-awareness, or that something pertinent is not peculiar or absent in the "mindful" appearance of the other.
The truth, a better approximation to resolving the issue, probably consists in a more intimate picture or model for understanding such things as quantum entanglement, a deeper insight into temporality itself.
At any rate, we do not exist as if the "results" of a robust or successful brain-mind correlation presented themselves in a sanitary laboratory outcome; and consciousness, if it is not just an epiphenomenal delusion of nature, is the speculation, the prerogative, of at least one other instance of an empirical, aware entity.
It would take dualism to defeat materialism. I would not say dualism is wrong but would say it`s simplistic. If consciousness is the awareness of the system in which an entity operates eg a bird has a small amount of consciousness that recognizes danger, potential mates or competition, nest building etc and that`s it. That`s enough for a bird to operate and it takes a certain amount of neurons to achieve this. We have more neurons that allow a recognition of the planetary system and beyond, and the system complexity can seem mysterious and mystical and beautiful, but it surely isn`t as simplistic as dualism would imply; no black and white, right or wrong as for a bird: no clear lines of division but instead a circumstance made up of three or four or a dozen possible components, with each component having a range, and a reality that moves fluidly on the field until it finds an equilibrium.
Four Monisms:
Materialism
Mentalism
Neutral monism
Consciousness monism (or awareness ie panspychisn)
(Arguably a fifth, all is spirit. And arguably a sixth, emptyism I’ll call it. There is (only) impersonal phenomenal happening but it is not made of anything. Then again that might be a zeroism not a monism).
I think neutral monism is the single most intellectually honest take. Ask a materialist to define this material they claim everything is made of. They cant.)
@@ibperson7765 I guess the fifth option is the will to power, and emptyism the will to allow, and this allowance doesn't need to describe what's there. Indeed, describing what's there tends to exclude for gain, but a little is necessary. This gain if taken too far subverts the neutral monism stance perhaps?
@@projectmalus Interesting comment. I might have to chew on that a bit
@@projectmalus I commentsd a link to an image. At first your comment made little sense and seemed irrelevant. Then thought I saw a connection. Finally I realize the monisms and models I listed are all stuck in the upper circle. I have no idea how to think of will to power as a real ontology. But I can dimly see there is value and reality there to that
@@ibperson7765 There's a recent video on the Footnotes2Plato channel with John Torday and his Cellular Theory of Evolution, I think it describes an initial condition for consciousness or the will to power to emerge. Something about needing a membrane like the cell wall which allows differences, and the lipids being aligned due to their polarity, like magnets. I need to watch it again :)
There was also a paper I looked at on emergence, there's three basic movement reactions, say a particle is moving in relation to another which is fixed. The moving particle can either be parallel, in which the interaction increases then reaches a peak then subsides when moving away, or move away (least interaction) or hit the other particle (most interaction).
I think this means information can move between different levels of intensity, like the information can have space which can be crunched down or inflated to match the intensity of the context. Perhaps a trinity of context, efficiency and identity with the first two being the main drivers and identity like a pressure tank in a plumbing system, able to change and allow. The first two seeming like a duality, but then that third thing emerges and takes (or has the potential to take) awareness to a higher level. The awareness itself could be a sort of static from movement, something cohesive like lipids being aligned.
If you really want a mind blow watch Sapolsky's lecture 21 where the "information" is described in chaos theory and this same element like the lipids aligning happens, something emerges from the periodic and aperiodic combo, when that combo is just right.
Debates like this are exactly why I went the Pragmatist route.
"We will find that philosopher's stone, by golly!" I am sorry, but Searle presents a mere promissory note that's not worth the paper it's written on, with no argument or even a rough sketch of an argument of why we should think we will ever bridge the explanatory gap between brain and mind.
I don't think there's any gap. I don't think there's anything to explain. I think it's just clutching at straws tbh.
Agree. Searle grants himself the argument without providing any rationale. One the last statements in the video is his assertion that we know (a priori) that consciousness is caused by brain function. We don't know that at all. His answer begs the question.
@@markrutledge5855 Can we at least agree that circulation is caused by the heart?
What's the difference?
@@bozo5632 The difference is huge. Take a look at the book Irreducible Mind which is a scientific overview of consciousness and mind. The amount of data that demonstrates that mind is not reducible to brain (which is the title of the book) is staggering.
www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Z4H8Y2MKEMZP&dchild=1&keywords=irreducible+mind&qid=1600819733&sprefix=irreducible+mind%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-1
Well said! Totally agree with you. The fact is that most of our physical theories and metaphors to describe the world of “matter” have been progressively falsified and replaced by what appears to be (immaterial) probability waves that are invisible, bi locational, timeless, unmeasurable and collapse at the wave function during the observer effect, hence the name (immaterial), suggesting that consciousness not “matter” is fundamental to reality. Materialism has crumbled under the weight of evidence from quantum mechanics. Similarly, evolution and selection are just metaphors to describe what the “physical” world does from the observer perspective/philosophical naturalists perspective. “What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (Werner Heisenberg). There’s no empirical science without (observers), that is consciousness. Equally, science is littered with misleading language and metaphors as unconscious “matter” does not literally select for anything as this suggests intention and choice. Only sentient beings do this hence the metaphor as only conscious beings choose to behave in certain ways and choose to attempt to describe reality, that is subjective experience. In this case Searle is using incomplete theories such as materialism and “matter” in the “hope” of defining the irreducible, and unassailable nature of qualitative experience. It’s a contradiction in terms. From a philosophical/deductive perspective there is absolutely no evidence that the world of “matter” is the only world that matters. The fact is that “evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.” (Thomas Nagel). Materialism as beautiful and useful a theory as it is, especially in areas such as medicine, is clearly incoherent as a complete theory of reality. The fact is that “matter” is a theoretical abstraction of the human mind. So when materialists insist that all of reality including love, altruism, bravery, self sacrifice, meaning, purpose and experience, that is mind and consciousness can be reduced to “matter” and “just brain chemicals” or “just survival,” they are unwittingly trying to reduce mind to one of mind’s own conceptual creations. Its hardly surprising that the brilliant physicist Werner Heisenberg said...
“the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” “There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomised.” (Werner Heisenberg). Materialism has parallels with the emperors new clothes in that people believed anything because it was hidden behind the cloak of the emperors authority, in this case its “scientific” authority. It’s similar to a painter who, having painted a self-portrait of himself outside his own home, points at it and proclaims the world, reality, his home and himself to be the portrait. The misguided painter then has to continually explain his internal subjective experience and inner life, even love, family, bravery, self sacrifice and purpose in terms of patterns, brush strokes and colour distribution on the canvas of the painting. This may come across as an absurd and irrational hypothesis to adopt regarding existence and reality and many will claim but surely this is a straw man. However, it is actually analogous to the problem many materialists have put themselves in.
“Materialism is unparsimonious because, in addition to or instead of mentality which is all we ultimately know it posits another category of ‘substance’ or ‘existent’ fundamentally beyond direct empirical verification: namely, “matter”. Under materialism, matter is literally transcendent, more inaccessible than any ostensive spiritual world posited by the world’s religions. This quote by Werner Heisenberg speaks volumes regarding the hubris of materialists who try to reduce all of existence, reality love subjective experience and consciousness to “matter”...
“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables”
(Werner Heisenberg). Horrific problems arise when people take their parables and holy books of science literally hence the Nazis, Stalin, Mau and Pol Pot. The fact is that there is no foundation for empirical science without metaphysics not to mention a conscious observer lol. Equally, science is useless to humanity with out human rights “values” and a “philosophy of care” which is clearly beyond the reach and description of the natural sciences including materialistic hypothesis regarding “matter”
We cannot empirically observe matter outside and independent of mind, for we are forever locked in mind. All we can observe are the contents of perception, which are inherently mental. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived. Interestingly, according to the expert on consciousness Professor David Chalmers who is the Director of The Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, and does not come from a religious perspective .....
“Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.” (David Chalmers)
Fascinating subject!
All the best to you and your family and keep safe during this Corona virus crisis ❤️
Really appreciate your videos Robert !
Are John Searle and Brian Greene related? Can't help but notice the resemblance 😂
On a serious note though, the discovery of alien consciousness would also allow us to derive conclusions that developing it artificially presumably would, suggesting an evolutionary convergence regardless of how consciousness arises.
Why do we need alien consciousness?
We have plenty of examples of conscious species right here on Earth.😀
what a beautiful room. i want to be there. look at the plants.
Perhaps there are many dreams with consistent rules we call physics. One dreamer, many worlds. Put consciousness at the centre and some of the puzzle is resolved. You can do away with panpsychism and simulation (being functionally equivalent). Doorknobs don't need to be conscious nor supercomputers, they can be completely 'illusory' despite us all having a common experience of them. But we're still left with the question of if we can manipulate this dream to make another consciousness/vantage point. And we don't have to make the argument for or against materialism, because we've already taken care of this by stating the dream has rules.
The audio appears to be "raw", calibrated to -20 dB with enough headroom to record a speaker shouting. This is better than other interviews where the sound has been processed with noise gate (besides amplification), and words appear unnaturally separate.
Searle is a wonderful philosopher of science who is dared to challenge all kinds of ticklish philosophies mystifying the world of reality....
The density of hot air tends to increase exponentially?
You cannot derive consciousness from electrochemical fluxes in the nervous system. The terms in the conclusion must be present in the premises.
This is just your typical naive materialist type responses, and 0 proof to all the claims he made, just assumptions
When/if we completely understand thoughts/consciousness, he’s saying we will describe how they arise out of material agency.
Maintaining that materialism consists of only objects is a straw man argument that allows people to dismiss his points without considering what he’s saying. Because his materialistic view does include consciousness.
It also seems likely to me that consciousness arises out of a growing of awareness. At first very simple, here is food, there is danger, and more complex from there like life has for a billion years. At what point does awareness become conscious we don’t know, but I agree with him that we will someday.
Do you think a physical punch from Mike Tyson could render you unconscious?
What would it take for consciousness to defeat materialism or physicalism? *Mental causation*. Here's how: mind-body interaction implies monism, causal events are restricted to closed domains, and there is genuine mental causation. Therefore all non-mental causal events are excluded. This fits perfectly with Monistic Idealism.
materialists cant find a place for free will/consciousness so they deny it even exists, and still claim their materialism religion is the high horse on the mind body problem. materialists are fucking hilarious.
Monistic Idealism How would you respond to a Russellian Monist? Or a Process Philosopher? Both positions avoid your problem while not being committed to an idealism.
I agree with Chalmers in that Russell's version of neutral monism raises the “threat of panpsychism” and “might best be seen as a version of idealism” (Chalmers 1996, 154-155). Consciousness is not reducible to a process. Check out the hard problem of consciousness.
Dr. Searle, materialism also does not give us an account of how consciousness comes to us.
Materialistic physicalism implies panpsychism in very few steps:
1) There is one type of extent stuff and that stuff is physical.
2) Consciousness exists (is not epiphenomenal).
3) Therefore, consciousness is/must be/supervenes on physical stuff.
4) The difference between conscious and non-conscious physical stuff consists in the differing configurations of the physical stuff.
5) Since all physical stuff is interchangeable, any token or tokens of physical stuff properly configured must be conscious.
6) Therefore, all physical stuff is potentially or proto-conscious.
7) Therefore, panpsychism is true.
If you deny 1, you're not a physicalist. Denying 2 makes you an epiphenomenalist at best, or an idiot at worst. 3 logically follows from 1 and 2. Denying 4 while accepting 1-3 gets you to panpsychism by default. Denying 5 contradicts monism, since consciousness would then require something extra that is non-physical. And accepting 1-5 forces you into 6, which is the definition of panpsychism.
Now, if you're uncomfortable with panpsychism, but unwilling to give up physicalism, you're forced into some kind of dualistic physicalism on account of your denial of monism (which may or may not make you not a physicalist, but I concede that I just don't know the answer to that one).
In any case, Searle, while obviously a bright guy, is just full of crap on this one.
Excellent post.
Thanks :)
You assume too much and it flaws your argument (point 2, point 6). Non-sequiturs (point 3, point 7). The important thing here isn't the stuff itself, but rather its configuration, therefore, not "all physical stuff is potentially conscious" - that's a category mistake.
Configuration is only one part of consciousness, it is also a process unfolding over time, taking impressions from the external world and representing those impressions within the neural substrate. We also have to consider the different brain structures which are required for consciousness to exist.- Sensory input, sensory organs, perceptual mechanisms, a vast conceptual array contained in the cortex, a self model, an executive function (prefrontal cortex). There are so many interacting pieces required for consciousness to exist that we can't necessarily talk about a simple arrangement of matter as the necessary requirement for consciousness. It is a very complex process, unfolding over time. You can't pause time and have an arrangement of matter represent a conscious moment. Consciousness must have time to unfold within our neurological structures.
J V
Yup. It's a pretty egregious category error, too, to say nothing of the semantic issues.
Any fans of Advaita here?
One fan --- But not two ;)
I have respect for advaita, a little bit.
But it is such a folly of advaita followers to be adamant to base their philosophy on a gap in scientific research.
Eventually science will understand bio-chemistry of consciousness. And conscious algorithms will be created. You are basing your whole ideology on a knowledge gap.
And by the way, if consciousness is related to some activity of brain, and all parts of our brain are material, then isn't consciousness maya too?
Searl assumes that the brain produces consciousness. The fact that he asserts that to be a matter of fact doesn't make it more valid.
It's not an assumption. It's just what it is.
@@christdhasjoseph6997 Do you mind unpacking that a bit? How are you coming to the conclusion that the brain produces consciousness?
@@christdhasjoseph6997 that's what a religious would say though.
@@christdhasjoseph6997 Lol no evidence that brain generates consiusness but there is evidence that it doesn't generate in brain rather it generates in mind
If I simulate a chess player, and play chess with it, there is no doubt that what is going on is a game of chess.
I don't think the theory of simulation is Searle's area of expertise.
Yes but that is not what is being addressed. The question is if you simulated a chess player on say a computer using a computer program, does the computer understand that its playing chess? And the answer is no. Searle was the first person to point this out 25 yrs ago using his now (in)famous Chinese room argument. Simulation is not duplication. You can simulate a rainstorm however accurately as you want but nobody will get wet.
Remember, no one can prove that they are conscious, and many people say consciousness itself is a myth. My point still holds. In Searle's Chinese room, what is being simulated, is a behavior that only those we call conscious can perform. In my example, what is being simulated, is a chess player. The system that includes the man following instructions, does in fact speak Chinese, and the computer does play chess. I would say both of those activities require some kind of awareness of the system's internal state, and that's consciousness, to some degree.
@@ernststravoblofeld "I would say both of those activities require some kind of awareness of the system's internal state, and that's consciousness, to some degree. "
You can say that, but you can't prove it .
I suspect you are redefining the term "conscious" in a way that suits the argument.
@@LuxPerp I think I am using the word in it's intended way, and not heaping a bunch of mystical nonsense on it.
As to proof, is that what goes on in a TH-cam comment section? Are you here writing scholarly articles in the comments? What are your standards of proof. How do you define proof? Do you often demand detailed footnotes of sources in common conversion?
Either take part in good faith, or go away.
The simulator will never be conscious of the thrill of victory, or the agony of defeat, it's just doing as it was programmed.
Thumbs down for posting another video with inaudible volume.
Does software defeat hardwareism ?
The brain isn't a machine though. It appears to function as such but by definition it isn't mechanical. It's organic. Searle does make that distinction but still calls it a machine.
It's an organic machine
I agree and I thought he was being a bit dishonest with his digestive system analogy. Machine metaphors are useful in areas such as medicine and surgery. However, It’s an unhelpful metaphor when it comes to human ethics and “values”, that is the qualitative experience of consciousness because history demonstrates that reducing our children, our families and our community to nothing more than biological/chemical robots clearly has the potential to lead to harmful ideologies.
“Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights.” (Rabbi Johnathan Sacks).
Love John Searle but i can't agree with his ontological argument as its assuming there is a subject there, but surely this is just ghost in the machine stuff. I don't agree with terms like human subject and 1st person perspective becuse i don't see that there is any person there. We have the feeling of personhood but its physically caused by the brain, and because we have the feeling of personhood we have feelings of roles for that subject we feel to exist eg observer. But I only see a physical system which produces causally a product consciousness aswell as the feeling of subjectivity, and this two products come together as the conciousness thats experienced by a subject. Because we as physical systems speak a noun based language we have trouble viewing things as processes, which is improtant because theres a subtle but profound diference between observation as an activity produced by a physical system, and the physical world as a thing which another thing, the observer, is aware of. Seems to be John Searle is actually back in bed with descartes aswell - dualism runs deep.
qubitz it's hard to deny inner experience when we experience them. Just because we are a biological system doesn't deny we experience a inner world that's intimately linked to the brain. The hard problem can't be conveniently ignored. It's why Dualism won't go away, because of consciousness. . .
Let's get one fact straight.
Before you can be conscious, you need a brain.
And alcohol can easily defeat consciousness !
Right?
So can Mike Tyson 😀
Consciousness doesn't refute materialism. The brain is a machine made out of organic substances. Consciousness is a higher level feature of the brain caused by lower level brain processes. But it a has an irreducible subjective ontology that can't be explained by third person observations. Simulation is not equivalent to duplication. A computer simulation of a brain would no more result in consciousness than a computer simulation of the weather would leave us all wet. But if we could duplicate a brain artificially it would have consciousness.
Evidence?
Audio volume seeam to be a bit low,might put people off from the start or some way.iam sure there is the software to sort it out.
He denies or ignores precognition.
This guy was fascinating, probably a nonbeliever but not a blowhard.
I take a somewhat different approach to consciousness. Biologist Michael Levin points out that every cell engages in problem solving... which alludes to cells being intelligent, having mindedness. Humans obviously are made up of massive amounts of cells, each one of which has a fraction of mind, so lumping them altogether makes for a large mental mass (not literally) which could be how consciousness derives.
Of course, when we say someone is conscious, we mean they're awake. But we also subdivide consciousness into the subconscious below, and the super-conscious above, along with unconsciousness (collective or otherwise), where people in a coma do hear what someone is saying, but can't respond. All are states of mind.
It's not that mind "defeats" materialism, it simply has mastery over it...
Consciousness to me would seem to be material because the thought processes involved in consciousness require material particles at the atomic level, electron flow etc? The brain uses electricity in some form for processing.
#Seem
Consiusness requires it brain doesn't produce consiusness
No need. Math already defeats materialism.
How?
literally 🤣
understanding materialism defeats materialism 😂😂
@@kdub9812
Do you believe a physical punch from Mike Tyson could render you unconscious?
@@giuffre714 stupid rebuttal
conciousness and digestion are same..... philosopher of the century.... he must also mention the region of brain where conciousness resides because digestion is a process which involves multiple organs........... Brain is also a machine made up of molecules and protiens that's true. Similar brain is also present in other mammals but without conciousness. Similar heart is present in other mammals but it is still pumping blood. So this is a lame argument that conciousness is because of brain.
there was a neuroscience experiment idk all of it but it basically says that a surgeon split the brain into parts, and consciousness will get destroyed if it was generated from the brain, however people were still conscious and able to think
also another study showed that no matter how much they try to mess up with the brain, they can never control ur mind nor can they know what u think, therefore consciousness is immaterial
so yes i agree with u 100%
@@ahmedesam5024 Op🔥🔥
Imagine spending all your life worshipping Popeye,
then discovering that he is just a cartoon character !
What a shock.
It's rather simple - The illusion of having free will is included in what is predetermined.
Or: The illusion of determinism is included in free will.
Experiments have shown that humans have free won't, not free will
Lol idiot your future is determined and predicted by the brain. it's not a fate lol you are a fatalist and calling your self determist
The only thing we can be sure of is awareness. And all that is constructed thereof. Materialists cannot even define material. They have a bunch of equations about how “it” behaves (descriptions of phenomenal patterns), but cannot define it. (Not to dis that I was a research engineer myself, but this vague “material” no one has ever seen or touched, only awareness of phenomena- be it conception or perception. You dont experience material you experience awareness of phenomena and add a material model to it). Only one thing is self-evident, awareness; so let that be our monism. Until I hear a definition of physical or material, and find it in my most bare and raw experience, I dont take seriously a metaphysics built upon IT as the fundamental ontology. The only reason modern westerners think physicalism is true or even self-evident is the same reason religious fundamentalists think their religion is true or even self-evident: they were indoctrinated from an early age to believe it. Any honest take of what you actually know and rigorously defining and following truth will take you to awareness as the monism (and maybe neutral monsim, and maybe mentalism along the way under you explore deeper). I use “awareness” not consciousness because consciousness has two meanings. One is the totality of a conscious entity (as searle describes) and the other is by the consciousness monists and is totally different. This causes confusion. Better to call it awareness, and your individual consciousness is made of awareness (as is everything), as are other consciousnesses - not made of “matter”, which no one has even seen or experienced and is just a place holder in physics models. To end up with “matter” as the fundamental ontology is sillier and sillier the longer you think about it objectively. It’s just hard to escape early brainwashing, which I too received.
This is a thoughtful post, which helped me to clarify my thoughts on the subject. Read on if you care to. Philosophers of science (good ones at least -- in my opinion), do not require a definition of material other than 'it's the stuff that gives rise to our observations'. The only thing particle physics, for example, observes is interactions between particles. The properties of matter (which is all we know of matter) only arise as interactions between what we take to be discrete material things (including interactions between those 'things' and 'things' in our instruments for observing interactions). Furthermore, many physicists and philosophers of science think that it's not even clear that individual particles exist discretely in the way that we use that word in ordinary language. Even so, and without any ontology at all, this does not risk toppling the foundations on which particle physics is built. It's a mistake to take an inability to define ‘material’ as some kind of fatal flaw for scientism and materialism. We can simply rework the basic project of science without a definition of ‘material’ as follows: “The structure of hte world that is revealed by math and scientific investigation is nothing more than the relations between things in the world, whatever those things are, and the laws that science produces are regularities in this structure that are mathematically formalized.” I share in your suspicion of ontology, but a materialist does not need an ontology to get to work showing e.g., that consciousness is material in origin. Your need for an ontology is where you go wrong, in my opinion (along with the epistemological priority given to awareness, which can be fundamentally mistaken without 3rd person review and reproducibility - notable hallmarks of the scientific method). These errors make you posit something (awareness) as fundamental, which has no scientific basis. If you are not very attached to the methods of science, that is fine. I understand. Personally, I don't think there is any more reliable path to truth than science. I should add that I like other stories too - many types of stories that are unscientific. I just don’t think that they get to reproducible truths about the physical world. Those stories are useful/good for other reasons and in other ways.
@@johnhausmann2391 interesting thoughts. Thanks for both reading and commenting. I disagree that “awareness can be fundamentally mistaken without third person review and reproducibility.” If you’re aware of something that no one else is aware of, then you are still aware of it, and know that you are. Even if you conclude it was a mirage, the awareness of it was palpably *real*, and you need no confirmation.
The other relevant thought is that “the methods of science” all, always, run through awareness. No one ever did any science any other way. If awareness did not exist, science wouldnt. If science didnt exist, awareness still would.
Perhaps rather than attacking conclusions that are downstream of awareness - about the existence of matter, I should instead limit myself to emphasizing that such conclusions ARE downstream and derivative but not necessarily invalid, in their place.
If one looks at his own experience, I would guess he’d eventually admit the only thing he knows exists, with *absolute* certainty, is awareness of phenomena (including of thoughts).
Immediately following awareness of phenomena (or mainfold to it rather than following it) is consciousness, ie knowing “I am”. If someone took all memories, what would one still know? He would still know “I am here.”
So using this logic, if you knew exactly how life works, you could do it artificially. Which means that you no more know how life works than consciousness, or cognition or feeling or any other mental phenomena.
fun how he completly avoided talking about idealism.
everything is made out of consciousness.
Nonsense. No combination of atoms and molecules will ever create consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing. It uses matter to perceive matter with the 5 physical senses. But those sensations can also be experienced in the absence of physical stimulus when dreaming or imagining with consciousness alone. Consciousness is the awareness of those 5 senses.
+onetruekeeper
consciousness is defined usually by the fact of sentience, of there being 'something that it is like'
the question is why should it be the case that it 'feels' like something? this seems to invoke our brain, since it is at the heart of experience and everything, moreover everything is within our consciousness. in ur own words, how are we aware of those 5 senses or even aware of the lack of them, if not by the brain?
+Stan Alpha Because from a philosophical standpoint the true nature of what it is that we are perceiving can never be known with any certainty. Matter for instance might only exists in our minds and perhaps there is nothing "out there". Going with this idea the fact that other minds can see the same objects might be a form of telepathy.
+onetruekeeper that doesn't affect what i'm saying at all. i'm not contesting all things we see are really there - what's the quote? 'we are made of things we cannot regard as real'
But i don't think it means anything to say matter is not 'out there' it's a semantic contradiction in the first place. you might restate it as we have no reason to be certain that there are, but i don't think this stops from us constructing a reality. u seem to be invoking cartesian sceptic ideas but the consciousness issue is not of the same kind since the seeming illusion of consciousness itself may be cited as the evidence for consciousness, because if it seems like anything it is a part of conscious experience (u might say dreams seem like things but we are unconscious, but in that instance we are only physically conscious - there are still processes that we perceive.
+Stan Alpha There is no evidence that an unconsciousness exists other than when someone tells us we were unconscious. The experiencer is always conscious and cannot account for those gaps between worldly events, thoughts or dreams where nothing is perceived. Try it for yourself. Can you ever recall being unconscious? It is impossible.
+onetruekeeper the unconscious most certainly exists. It's what allows you to run and walk without falling over, it is what 'makes up your mind' measurably one third to one half a second before 'you' (the conscious monitor level) realise you have, it is what lets you play tennis without thinking "exactly how do I return this ball with the required spin to get it to bounce _there_, and go off in _that_ direction". You'd be lost without it.
What's with the sound? DELETE
"You don't get an immortal soul out of physics," he says. So, the people to ask about whether or not the near-death experience is objectively real is not a neurologist like Peter Fenwick or a cardiologist like Pim van Lommel - both NDE researchers - but a physicist. Or a philosopher who thinks he knows physics. Excuse me? I think knowledge of physiology is relevant to the question.
Materialism is about the silliest idea out there.
Do you think a physical punch from Mike Tyson could render you unconscious?
@@giuffre714 then we should interview fighters instead 😅
@@belakhdaryoucef2668
I think I'd prefer to see non-fighters who say no give it a try. 😀
John Searle was born before his time. When we finally are able to build a brain with consciousness, then he would explain why it works as opposed to the other computers that do not have consciousness.
+David Roberts You cannot build a brain with consciousness. It will be a zombie that only mimics a conscious being if it is sophisticated enough. If it did possesed consciousness then it will be the same as trying to explain how consciousness in humans emerge and seems to interface with the brain. We are back to square one with no clear answers. I doubt we would ever know.
+WoundrousMindTrick You are being pragmatic by insisting that mind come from the arrangement of matter although that idea has never been proven nor would ever likely to be. But you will not like where your "truth" will take you. If mind is nothing more than the complex arrangement of atoms then in the future entropy and chaos will destroy all consciousness because order emerges from chaos but chaos will always win in the end. Just like a ship of consciousness floating momentarily on the ocean, it will eventually sink into the depths of chaos and perhaps will never rise again. Why materialists seem to accept and defend this horrific possibility is hilarious. They would tell you truth is truth and there is nothing one can do about it since we don't make the rules...blah blah blah. Oh well, to each his own I suppose...lol.
+WoundrousMindTrick Consciousness is a fact since we experience it but to ask what is "responsible" for it implies a prime cause but how does one apply cause to something that cannot be measured with scientific instruments or even be certain as to how far it goes back in time? I believe to ask that kind of question in regards to consciousness is futile. A description of what it feels to be conscious and it's interactions in the material world is all that could be asked of consciousness and that should suffice.
+David Roberts did you intend that to be an insult or do you like the guy?
Well basically u dont know how to mesure consciousness but u are sure that consciousness is not simulated by the material brain for what reason?
You tell them John!!!
Absolutely outstanding! This is top-notch content. I read something similar, and it was mind-blowing. "The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Living Guide" by Matthew Cove
I really, really wanted to listen to this in a charitable way but cmon... This guy is confused. First, the amount of begging the question on the origin of consciousness is unbearable. Second, he managed to contradict himself in 5 minutes... He said that he can reconciliate his version of materialism with an _irreducible_, first person consciousness, and then proceeded to claim that consciousness is a product of the brain... Pick one!
It's all a matter of perspective. Who is the viewer in your head? Is it just chemical? 🤔
I think not.
Beign selfaware is really a tricky point.
No it's not
For what reason do you not think it's just chemical?
@@mrmoth26 What chemical just asked that question?
@@hellavadeal No specific chemical, but the mixture of chemicals which is me.
Any evidence for consciousness not being chemical? Or is it just feelings and intuitions?
Newton abolished the concept of physical by his law of gravity, abandoning the mechanical philosophy as a criterion of intelligibility of the Universe. There is no mind-body dualism any longer, since Newton got rid of the machine, leaving the ghost intact.
Davemac1116 what?!?!?!?
Ryan Webb I've condensed the details. What was it specifically you are questioning that I may be able to clarify ?
Does the cuckoo defeat the design argument ?
So how does he explain nonlocal consciousness if he thinks our consciousness is dependent on the brain? There are thousands of personal testimonies of people who have had their consciousness leave their bodies and operate independently of their brains. They maintain sight, hearing and logical thought process.
Wtf, how could they know such thing? How would that be to know that your consciousness it not coupled in your brain?
@@Vinuken07 There are literally thousands of personal accounts from people who have experienced their consciousness separating from their brain. They maintain sight, hearing and logical thought process while while they are separated.
@@Vinuken07 look up Michael Levin research
What does it feel like to be a silicone chip?
Thats the problem with belief in AI.
Would it be immoral to turn it off?
Such silliness, and they call it science.
Here's a good question for hardcore materialists. What benefit would it be for raw matter to organize itself in such a way as to have consciousness emerge in order to have subjective experience? Furthermore, how would it go about organizing itself and what survival benefit would subjective experience have?
It seems pretty obvious that it would priori require consciousness to organize matter. Inanimate objects tend towards entropy/chaos.
@Rakscha Nope. If you make something that behaves exactly like a human would, then it will be conscious.
Subjective experience and self-awareness is useful for survival, especially in social groups where you want to predict what the consequences will be of certain actions, like cooperation or cheating.
@@user232349Ah - but we only have humans who have this level of consciousness. If this were such an advantage, then why do we not see it elsewhere? Why us? You boil it down to the assumption - not fact - that it is a survival mechanism, whereas many animals do perfectly fine surviving, adapting, and reproducing without our level of reasoning.
you will not be able to do. you will not be able to create the concioussness of a fly. be humble.
Do you believe a punch from Mike Tyson could cause you to lose consciousness?
@@giuffre714 i don't know about mike tyson but i would make you meet god with one punch.
@@giuffre714 repent and be humble. Fear god so you don't fear anyone else
@@ertegi64366
I have nothing to fear from God.
Can you answer my question now?
@@ertegi64366
I have nothing to fear from God.
Can you answer my question?
It is ridiculous to say that your mind is not neurophysiologically determined.
This is the ultimate filter to see who is a theist and who is not.
Your witnessing your mind is not neurophysiologically determined.
It is also a filter to see who's rational and who jumps to conclusions. If it was true, then higher brain activity should correspond to expanded consciousness, while it is experimentally evident to be the exact opposite...
Lol idiot brain predicts not determines
A photon going thru a double slit experiment KNOWS IF a measurement device is PRESENT to record it's wave function and CHOOSES (conscious)to CHANGE it's behavior as a wave or particle on the projected interference pattern. Consciousness can be reducible to even subatomic nuclei,electrons, protons.
A photon doesn't know anything. It has no conciousness. It doesn't know, it simply reacts to something because if something interacts with anything the other thing reacts in some way.
The brain is a machine made without hands. So what is the without hands dynamic?
The jam comment is a simplistic misrepresentation of Panpsychism. There can be proto-consciousness at the base level of matter, of the 'boiler' and the 'screw' without either being conscious subjects. Panpsychism claims no such thing. A straw man.
petegoestubular
Considering "protoconsciousness" is undefined nonsense, i'd say no.
Corey Herrick Definition is difficult, but the assertion that matter is entirely un-experiencial is not proven. It is an assumption without evidence.
petegoestubular
Except that that assumption is the default one. In other words, it is *your* burden of proof to coherently define and then demonstrate protoconsciousness, since it is your claim that such a thing is possible/exists. Conversely , it is absolutely not in any way my responsibility to demonstrate such a thing *doesn't* exist.
petegoestubular
In other words, I think the claim being examined is panpsychism (specifically that matter is experiential); if i were making a claim to some other position, I would absolutely have to defend that. Here though, my claim is basically "not panpsychism", and I discharge my burden of proof by simply saying it is "not demonstrated and incoherent". Boom.
The fact is, panpsychism makes too many unfounded, unnecessary assumptions and in most cases resorts to a category error (though obv. this depends on the specific argument).
This is all especially evident after even a cursory glance at the things we actually *do* know about consciousness and conscious beings.
Corey Herrick Sorry. I have to disagree. Because why should the burden of proof be mine. Experiencing is the one thing that I can be certain of. I can be certain that my matter is experiencial.. The burden of proof is if anything therefore slightly more for the 'matter is fundamentally non experiencial' camp's view. I can prove some matter is experiencing... Can you prove that the rest is not? Your bit is..
Over to you my excellent fellow
Consciousness created matter ,,matter can not create consciousness ..consciousness is not part of the physical body ..if it was possible to create consciousness from matter . then you would be able to create spirits ..and that would be like bringing someone back from the dead
Consiusness is like an unknown energy like dark matter and energy
I like John Vervaeke better.
When you skip your metaphysic class.
Let me troll a little bit because I fin his view disappointing :D
Me too, buddy.
So , it seems that John Searle is a materialist... He thinks that consciousness is created by the brain... that consciousness can be created.... Hmm... I think not...
NuggetOfBlueGold so, you are your brain? You are a breathing meat bag? Or how would you define your essence in material terms? Please define yourself
NuggetOfBlueGold ok thanx to clarify this. the majority of people is still really thinking like you claimed in your sarcasm. We indeed do not know how things work at its core, but its becoming pretty appearant that science doesn't even dare to begin to investigate the approach on consciousness from the other way around (the brain receiving and conditioning consciousness, but not generating it). Consciousness can explain how a human brain works. But a human brain is incapable of comprehending the nature of consciousness. This should wake some people up.
Kris C
There is no viewer-independent "essence" of a person.
NuggetOfBlueGold lol
@@badsocks756 There is that is consiusness lol I think you want to capture consiusness and make weapons for your country lol dumb materialist
YES!
A few points: 1. Consciousness is a by_product, 2. Materialism is the truth of this universe, and 3. Idealism is an absolute nonsense.
What materialists and idealists do not know: the soul.
A few things to understand;
The soul is NOT of a mental domain, this is what Plato couldn't discover. It was discovered in ancient India, and within some native American cultures.
The soul is that which clings to consciousness and material sensation. It is the thing that makes you breathe, and suffer. For that matter, a computer can possess consciousness, it can think, and decide (algorithmically), but, unless possessed by a wandering soul (non_liberated), it cannot breathe, suffer, or desire. Trees have souls, all plants, planet earth, many stellar organisms, where_ever you see growth and consumption, there is a soul.
The soul is a like a law, a reality in and of itself. Like matter. There is matter, and there is the soul. Two eternal qualities that make the sum total of reality. The yin, and the yang.
What is matter? = The universe as a whole, a principle in and of itself, physical, and it is feminine in nature.
What is the soul? = The principle that is able to get attached to matter, suffer, desire, or, become boundless, and it is masculine in nature, nonphysical.
Kind regards..
Nonsense, consult a guru.
the brain is material and conciousness is in the brain -> conciousness is a material process.
@@serenity748Then make a consciousness. With our technology, we would have been well on our way to making one right now. Yet we cannot and we cannot pinpoint our first-person self awareness anywhere in the brain. Why am I conscious from my body? Was it random? Why was I placed in this body? Why not yours? Why not a bird? Materialism answers none of this.
At 1:42 this goes off the rails, the interviewee wants to have materialism and consciousness too. These are mutually exclusive because consciousness is not material, nor is self. A materialist is a self trying to convince other selves that neither of them exist. John Searle "So let's get rid of the terminology and just discuss the facts." What??? How are you going to discuss the facts... with grunts and hand waving?
In principle until we don't know how the brain causes consciousness, "Materialism" will remain a theory.
I think consciousness and materialism are inseparable ,that is mind and body ,without body you cant sense mind ,in that way consciousness and materialism are united .The consciousness of the universe and the consciousness of homo sapiens are the same,but only one difference that without materialism you cant sense the consciousness in the case of homo sapiens .
Lol no need for materialists in the world consiusness interacts the environment thorough material bodies and also consiusness doesn't require Brain ever heard of astral projection and OBE? Huh? They literally see the reality
Keep Dundes busy, beyond the grave.
A loaded and misguided question from an ignoramus.
this man is lost. he "can do it". what hubris. explaining God.
Mike Tyson could help you with this.
He can take away your consciousness just using his physical fists. 😀
He makes a lot of blunder.and names theory bs as well
When you skip your metaphysic class.
Let me troll a little bit because I fin his view disappointing :D