It looks more like the show-off bookcase of someone with a lot of money. The bookcase of the truly scholarly and creatively intelligent person is a motley collection of mismatched and often ratty volumes, not beautifully matched sets of expensive leather-bound books. I have a rich cousin who has bookshelves that look just like the ones in this video. He never reads a thing.
Just for general information: there is such a thing as a philosophical perspective that is non-physicalist as well as non-dualist. Thinking that those two things are an exclusionary dichotomy is wrong. The perspective I'm referring to is a certain type of panpsychism. It is non-reductive and holds that the physical and the conscious are just different aspects of a unified whole. This might sound like materialist physicalism at first glance until you realize that it holds that consciousness inheres in all matter, right down to sub-atomic particles. This doesn't mean that inanimate particles have thoughts or feelings in any sense that we understand those terms. It does, however, mean that "it is like something to be a particle," and that the conscious content of any matter is simply the information inherent in that matter. I don't have the energy to go into it now, but I'm just putting this out as something some readers might want to look into.
The primary objection to this view is the combination problem: How do we we get a unified sense of consciousness from disparate conscious entities, i.e., particles or whatever
If this were the case, what would be the difference between me and a big rock? The rock has just as many molecules and stores just as much information as my brain, but that doesn't make it conscious. What makes me conscious seems to be that my molecules are arranged in a funny way that creates a complex information system. If you were to stir my brain up with a blender, it wouldn't be conscious anymore. Isn't that all we need to see that consciousness is just an emergent property, and has nothing to do with the consciousness of its component parts? And if the arrangement is important, which it evidently is, panpsychism just seems like the physicalist view of consciousness with some extra nonsense tacked on.
I don't agree at all that physicalism is the view that is unintuitive. The fact of the matter is, if I suffer brain damage, it affects my personality. If I ingest a chemical, it influences my conscious experience. You guys bring this up of course, but I don't think either of you offer any sound refutation beyond "well its possible for dualism to be true regardless of the number of extra steps and assumptions we need to make for it to be plausible." They way we interface with reality is entirely what we would expect from a physicalist perspective, but super unintuitive from a dualist perspective. Its not impossible for dualism to exist where non-physical things are both affected by and affect physical things in some complicated way, but if non-physical things are both affected by and affect the physical, there's really nothing that makes them non-physical. And besides, it seems like a lot of extra assumptions that need to be made just make dualism coherent.
I'm no dualist for the record but I see no reason why non physical matter could be affected by physical matter. They could just be different forms of matter that have a relationship with each other we can't explain! (I'm pretty new to this view so maybe I am mistaken in understanding your argument!)
Another interesting discussion! I found the opening, defending the plausibility of dualistic approaches to mind and matter, more convincing than I expected, and I think I agree that the possibility of some sort of dualism is too easily discarded by many. That section challenged my preconceptions and I appreciated it. The later parts I found less satisfactory. The discussion on special relativity and spacetime in particular seemed half-baked to me. Yes, it is a counter-intuitive idea that space and time might be conceptualized as the same, but that in itself is not a convincing reason to reject the theory, especially when the theory has been very fruitful. Huemer seemed to want to sidestep the fruitfulness of the theory by pointing out that the parts of the theory which are fruitful can be separated from the idea that time and space should be viewed as the same thing, but that doesn't really make the point, because the theory comes as a package deal: it is precisely reconceptualising time and space as unitary that gives rise to fruitful ways of thinking about other features of experience. In fact, I think the fruitfulness question is exactly where I'd want to push the argument here. Let's say we embrace Huemer's dualism - what does that buy us? What can we do now which we couldn't do before? I didn't really hear ay proposals as to what the utility of such a theoretical maneuver would be, and without that I struggle to see why we would want to make that move. This worry really comes into focus in the section on God. I share Huemer's concern that the mechanisms of God's powers is never explicated. Doesn't dualism fall into the same trap, not explaining any of the mechanisms by which, for instance, souls interact with matter? One may well reply that we have no explanation of how matter gives rise to mental states, which is a fair point. But it seems to me that we have enough instances of learning how to explain seemingly non-physical things via a better understanding of matter that it is at least plausible to think that we will one day explain mental states that way. But I don't see that argument being reversible such that it offers similar succor to the dualist.
Those who are familiar with traditional Indian philosophical systems will realize that this chapter concerning Puruṣa, and the previous chapter regarding prakṛtiḥ, examine the ontological DUALISM of “mind versus matter” that has been a common topic in metaphysics in both the East (especially in Bhārata and in China) and in the West (especially since French philosopher René Descartes' postulation that the world comprises two distinct and incompatible classes of substance: res extensa, or extended substance, which extends through space; and res cogitans, or thinking substance, which has no extension in space). This Cartesian dualism is closely aligned with (if not identical to) the “mind-body” problem in philosophy of mind, which is an attempt to investigate the perplexing relationship between mental properties and physical properties. The Sanskrit term “Puruṣa” (literally, “man”, “spirit”, “person”, “self”, or “consciousness”) is a complex concept that has a plethora of interpretations in Vedic thought, but in this chapter it is used according to perhaps its most common definition, and that is, the Cosmic Spirit, or Pure Subjectivity, in contrast to prakṛti, which is material nature, or the phenomenal universe. And because nothing whatever can be said of Pure Subjectivity (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit, or “The Tao”, in Chinese), since the Subject of all subjects is not an objective thing that can possibly be described with dualistic language, this chapter, in the main, is necessarily an exposition of discrete consciousness. If not, the only thing that could be said of Puruṣa is: “The Puruṣa that can be spoken of is not the REAL Puruṣa” (to paraphrase the “Tao Te Ching”). Furthermore, those religionists who adhere to the metaphysical schema of Idealism will find much here to substantiate their somewhat flawed understanding of Ultimate Reality, and hopefully, eventually come to recognize that Idealism is an incomplete metaphysics, in favour of the related but far more accurate schema of dual-aspect monism (“advaita”, in Sanskrit). CONSCIOUSNESS DEFINED: The English word “consciousness” means “the state of being aware”, or “that which knows”, or even more literally, “characterized by knowing”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). To put it succinctly, the phenomenon of consciousness refers to the SUBJECTIVE component of any subject-object relationship. Moreover, there is a hierarchy of localized knowing within the cognitive faculty of vertebrates (that is, a hierarchy of subject-object relationships), as well as a more Universal Awareness (more appositely called “Brahman” or “sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit, or “Tao”, in Chinese), as explicated in the following paragraphs. Consciousness is essentially impersonal, yet it can be expressed via a personal being, such as many species of animals, including we humans. Exactly how consciousness can be detached from a personal agent may be a rather bizarre concept to comprehend, at least in the initial stage, yet after careful study of this chapter, in conjunction with a profound yogic practice, one will eventually understand this to indeed be the case. Higher species of animal life have sufficient cognitive ability to KNOW themselves and their environment, at least to a measurable degree. Just where consciousness objectively begins in the animal kingdom is a matter of contention but, judging purely by ethological means, it probably starts with vertebrates (at least the higher-order birds, reptiles and fishes). Those metazoans that are evolutionarily-lower than vertebrates do not possess much, if any, semblance of intellect, necessary for true knowledge, but operate purely by reflexive instincts, notwithstanding certain notable exceptions to this rule, such as octopuses. For instance, an insect or a jellyfish does not consciously decide to seek food but does so according to its base instincts, directed by its idiosyncratic genetic code. Even when an insect (such as a cockroach) flees from danger, it is not experiencing the anxious emotions that a human or other mammal would experience. See Chapter 11 regarding the concept of will. SENTIENCE EVOLVES INTO TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS: Undoubtedly, the lower species of animals alluded to above, embody, if not true consciousness, varying degrees of SENTIENCE, depending on how many senses it possesses and how complex is its nervous system. Very few would consider a blind worm to be more sentient than a frog! Plants are also sentient but use lower-level mechanisms for their perceptions. To give just a couple of examples, both land-based and water-born plants respond to sunlight (as witnessed by the opening of flowers upon the rising of the sun), and some carnivorous plants can detect arthropods crawling on their leaves. Therefore, when carnists claim that “plants have feelings too!”, they may be justified according to some sense of the term, so the most logical reason for being vegan is not because plants are completely insentient, but simply due to the fact that humans are an herbivorous species. Furthermore, fruit trees indirectly benefit from the consumption of its fruit, since their seeds are spread. Recently, consciousness has become a significant topic of interdisciplinary research in cognitive science, involving fields such as philosophy of mind, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroscience. Many such researchers have seen evidence that the brain is merely a conduit or a TRANSDUCER of consciousness, explaining why the more intelligent the animal, the more it can understand its own existence (or at least be aware of more of its environment - just see how amazingly-complex dolphin and whale behaviour can be, compared with other aquatic species), and the reason why it is asserted that a truly enlightened human must possess a far higher level of intelligence than the average person (See Chapter 17 re: the distinction between enlightenment and mere awakening). The processor of a supercomputer must necessarily be far larger in size, more complex, and more powerful than the processing unit in a pocket calculator, obviously. Therefore, it seems logical to extrapolate that the scale of discrete (localized) consciousness is chiefly dependent on the brain capacity of a specific animal. So, then, in response to the assertion made in the previous paragraph, one could complain: “That's not fair - why can only a genius be enlightened?” (as defined in Chapter 17). The answer is: first of all, as stated above, every species of animal has its own level of intelligence, on a wide-ranging scale. Therefore, a pig or a dog could (if possible) ask: “That is unfair - why can only a human being be enlightened?” Secondly, it is INDEED a fact that life is unfair, because there is no “tit for tat” law of action and reaction, even if many supposedly-great religious preceptors have stated so. They said so because they were preaching to wicked miscreants who refused to quit their evil ways, and needed to be chastized in a forceful manner. It is not possible to speak sweet and gentle words to a rabid dog in order to prevent it from biting you. THE THREE STATES OF AWARENESS: Three STATES of awareness are experienced by humans, and possibly all other species of mammals, as well as many kinds of reptiles and birds: the waking state (“jāgrata”, in Sanskrit), dreaming (“svapna”, in Sanskrit), and deep-sleep or dreamless-sleep (“suṣupti”, in Sanskrit). Human dreaming occurs mostly, but not exclusively, in the state known as “REM” (rapid eye movement) sleep. During this phase, the electrical activity in the brain is more like waking than sleeping. That is why this state is often called “paradoxical sleep.” Scientists have discovered that most non-human animals - mammals, birds, reptiles, and most recently, fish - experience REM sleep, too. The electrical activity found in the brains of these creatures during rapid eye movement sleep is similar to that of humans while they dream, suggesting that animals may dream. Some cognitive psychologists may claim that there are TRANSITIONAL states between waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, but these states are just that - transitory states between the three main states, in the same way that sunrise, daylight/daytime, and sunset have transitional states. Furthermore, there exists the well-known phenomenon of lucid dreaming, where the subject is aware of the fact that a dream is taking place. Beyond these three temporal states of waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, is the fourth “state” (“turīya” or “caturīya”, in Sanskrit). That is the unconditioned, timeless “state”, which underlies the other three, and is therefore completely transcendental to any temporal state whatever. The waking state is the LEAST real (that is to say the least permanent, or to put it another way, the farthest from the Necessary Foundation of Existence, as explained towards the end of this chapter). The dream state is closer to our eternal nature, whilst dreamless deep-sleep is much more analogous to The Universal Self (“Brahman”), as it is imbued with peace. Rather than being an absence of awareness, deep-sleep is an awareness of absence (that is, the absence of phenomenal, sensual experiences). So, in actual fact, the fourth state is not a state, but the Unconditioned Ground of Being, or to put it simply, YOU, the real self/Self, or Existence-Awareness-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit). Cont....
I found it surprisingly unconvincing. We have a tough time, we physicalists, in explaining what mind is but isn't that to be expected for something so much more complex than QM or anything else we have to explain? That seemed to be one of his reasons.
@@AnswersInAtheism N.B. Before reading the following Glossary entry, it is absolutely imperative to understand that the term “mind” is being used according to the definition provided by the ancient Indian philosophical paradigm (in which it is called “manaḥ”, in Sanskrit), and NOT according to the manner in which the term is used in most all other systems (that is, as a broad synonym for “consciousness” - e.g. “The mind-body problem”). mind: Although the meaning of “mind” has already been provided in Chapter 05 of “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, it shall prove beneficial to further clarify that definition here in the Glossary. It is NOT implied that mind is the sum of the actual thoughts, the sensations, the memories, and the abstract images that inhabit the mental element (or the “space”) that those phenomena occupy, but the faculty itself. This mental space has two phases: the potential state (traditionally referred to as the “unconscious mind”), where there are no mental objects present (such as in deep sleep or during profound meditation), and the actualized state (usually referred to as the “conscious mind”), where the aforementioned abstract objects occupy one’s cognition (such as feelings of pain). Likewise, the intellect and the pseudo-ego are the containers (or the “receptacles”) that hold conceptual thoughts and the sense of self, respectively. It is important to understand that the aforementioned three subsets of consciousness (mind, intellect, and false- ego) are NOT gross, tangible objects. Rather, they are subtle, intangible objects, that is, objects that can be perceived solely by an observant subject. The three subsets of consciousness transpire from certain areas of the brain (a phenomenon known as “strong emergence”), yet, as stated above, are not themselves composed of gross matter. Only a handful of mammal species possess intelligence (that is, abstract, conceptual thought processes), whilst human beings alone have acquired the pseudo-ego (the I- thought, which develops in infancy, following the id stage). Cf. “matter, gross”, “matter, subtle”, “subject”, and “object”. In the ancient Indian systems of metaphysics known as “Vedānta” and “Sāṃkhya”, mind is considered the sixth sense, although the five so-called “EXTERNAL” senses are, nonetheless, nominally distinguished from the mind, which is called an “INTERNAL” sense. This seems to be quite logical, because, just as the five “outer” senses involve a triad of experience (the perceived, the perception, and the perceiver), so too does the mind comprise a triad of cognition (the known, the knowing, and the knower). See also Chapter 06. Nota Bene: There is much confusion (to put it EXTREMELY mildly) in both Western philosophy and in the so-called “Eastern” philosophical traditions, between the faculty of mind (“manaḥ”, in Sanskrit) and the intellect (“buddhiḥ”, in Sanskrit). Therefore, the following example of this distinction ought to help one to understand the difference between the two subtle material elements: When one observes a movie or television show on the screen of a device that one is holding in one’s hands, one is experiencing auditory, textural, and visual percepts, originating from external objects, which “penetrate” the senses of the body, just as is the case with any other mammal. This is the component of consciousness known as “mind” (at least according to the philosophical terminology of this treatise, which is founded on Vedānta, according to widely-accepted English translations of the Sanskrit terms). However, due to our intelligence, it is possible for we humans (and possibly a couple of other species of mammals, although to a far less-sophisticated degree) to construct conceptual thoughts on top of the purely sensory percepts. E.g. “Hey - look at that silly guy playing in the swimming pool!”, “I wonder what will happen next?”, or “I hate that the murderer has escaped from his prison cell!”. So, although a cat or a dog may be viewing the same movie on the screen of our electronic device, due to its relatively low level of intelligence, it is unable to conceptualize the audio-visual experience in the same manner as a primate, such as we humans. To provide an even more organic illustration of how the faculty of mind “blends” into the faculty of the intellect, consider the following example: When the feeling of hunger (or to be more precise, appetite) appears in one’s consciousness, that feeling is in the mind. When we have the thought, “I’m hungry”, that is a conceptual idea that is a manifestation of the intellect. So, as a general rule, as animals evolve, they develop an intellectual faculty, in which there is an increasingly greater perception of, or KNOWLEDGE of, the external world (and in the case of at least one species, knowledge of the inner world). In addition to these two faculties of mind and intellect, we humans possess the false-ego (“ahaṃkāraḥ”, in Sanskrit). See Chapter 10 of "F.I.S.H" regarding the notion of egoity.
I wish a dualist would help me out. I have lost my Hard Problem and cannot seem to get it back. Now dualists seem incredulous and incapable of an intuition of mind being just this brain/body/world stuff. That isn't surprising given that you want to apprehend mind, as if it were any other physical object, and even though it IS a physical bit of fluff, you cannot observe or apprehend it at all. It isn't just that I can't observe YOUR mind, it is that I cannot actually even observe my own. But dualists seem to stubbornly believe they can. Help me figure out how to do that please. Another way to ask this is, can you tell me what this mind stuff you think you observe actually is? Someone down below I think said it was a capacity. Not what I want. That sounds like just functionalism.
How do you get qualia from quanta? Dualism is unavoidable ,you either have substance dualism or you have property dualism. I find property dualism more parsimonious. Me,I am a substance monist but a property dualist.
@@cristristam9054 I mean, we don't know. But jumping to the conclusion that dualism is therefore necessary is like a God of the Gaps argument, only worse, because what "qualia" means, beyond something we recognize personally, is not even properly defined. So you are essentially arguing that, based on something which we can't define, we now have to postulate a mystical soul-like substance, which we also can't explain, and they both somehow explain each other. The whole thing is just bizarre and nonsensical. The first duty of any philosopher should be to clearly define their terms. What is qualia? Some sensation that we think occurs in the brain. Because we feel it there, does it somehow mean it is non-physical? No, because apart from the sensation, we know nothing about it or how it is generated. Can we claim it is a consequence of purely material processes? No there either, we simply don't understand the brain to that extent. So the proper answer is, no one knows. And from this you certainly don't make wild and unfounded claims about God, dualism, souls or any other quasi-religious concept.
I don’t understand the claim that consciousness or souls are non spatial. When I’m having a thought, I’m having it wherever my body is and not anywhere else. Similarly, my perception of the outside world is bound by where my body is (I can’t see the other side of the earth, for example). What am I missing?
I think whats meant by that is that consciousness doesn't have length or width. You cannot measure in metres the length of your awareness, or the height of your imagination of an elephant in your minds eye or the imagination of a melody in your mind's ear. This is because they don't have spatial properties, they are only exhausted by the property of what it is like to have experiences.
@@zak2659 Okay that part of it makes sense. Thoughts don’t take up physical space, but they do take a certain amount of time. What I’m confused about is why that alone rules out conscious experience having a spatial aspect to it. A thought is located in a certain region of space, right? If not then it would presumably always seem like our thoughts were completely disconnected from the physical environment in which we find ourselves.
@@senseofmindshow If consciousness has no spatial properties, it would be pretty weird if we could attribute position to it. It's like saying "this thing has no height,length or width, but it takes up 3-d coordinates." Seems like a category error. But yes, your last sentence, I believe, is a restatement of the interaction problem for dualism. Clearly interaction is real, but dualism cannot account for it, that's why I'm an Idealist.
Would be interesting if you were able to interview Edward Feser. It seems like he could lay out a decent classical theistic picture of God which you might have fun questioning, considering the last ten minutes of your discussion where you touched on theism.
Regarding relativity, So one of the postulates of special relativity is that the speed of light is constant, regardless of the motion of its source relative to the observer. I don't know how to make sense of this metaphysically, but it seems in tension with the common sense view Dr Huemer puts forward, that there is a fact of the matter about temporal and spatial measurements which differ across reference frames. Also, even if there are "privileged reference frames", i.e. reference frames which yield measurements which are more accurate relative to some absolute space or flow of time or something, there is no way of knowing which reference frame has this status, no way of knowing how to correctly measure things. For pragmatic reasons, we "privilege" the reference frame of being at rest relative to the earth's surface, but the earth is moving relative to the sun and other planets, our solar system moves relative to other solar systems and stars, and so on, and there isn't any justification for saying that measurements taken in other reference frames are less valid or accurate.
59:48 I think it seems reasonable to say that they are both the kind of continuation of a person for which we ascribe identity. Obviously if identity is taken to be numerical identity this wouldn't work but for personal identity I think it does. It's like a road, what makes something the same road. It is continuing in the right way from the last piece of road. If it forks then both those roads continue in the right kind of way but they don't continue in the right kind of way from eachother so they wouldn't be identical to eachother in that sense.
What's the argument for consiousness being private? I'm taking this to mean like essentially private not just private like "my diary is private" where private just means hard to access although it is possible to do so in principle.
I was wondering the same thing. We can roughly reproduce images and sounds that people are imagining, which would seem to give us a reason to doubt this idea.
@@dakotadalton85 If you think that rough reproductions of sounds and images describe the total content of consciousness at a given moment, then I don't know what to say to you. Even if we had precise reproductions of sounds and images, that would still be massively incomplete. Even if you had a description of the total contents of someone else's consciousness, the receiver of the reproductions would still not experience those qualia in the same way as the generator of them. There is no direct experience of someone else's consciousness. That would require the total replacement of the receiver's consciousness by the generator's consciousness, at least for a limited period of time. This is what is meant by the privacy of consciousness. It is non-transferable, no matter how much information you may be able to learn about it.
@@donnievance1942I didn't say that rough reproductions of sounds and images describe the total content of consciousness at a given moment, I said the fact we can do this seems to give us a reason to doubt the privacy of consciousness.
@@donnievance1942 Nobody ever said that's the total content. But if its possible, even with our rudimentary technology, to get some of that information, it doesn't seem like the information is really fundamentally private. Its in there, and we can physically observe it.
@epsteindidntkillhimself69 reproducing images from someone else's brain is not an observation of their consciousness. We can use brain data to reproduce an image verified against a reference of that reproduced image, but the reproduced image is experienced only by each individual's own consciousness. Let's say you reproduce a green image. That image isn't showing you how the subject sees green in their own consciousness, rather, its only displaying your own interpretation of green to yourself. You, therefore, are not actually accessing the subject's consciousness, instead only the data stored in their brain.
It is interesting that at the very beginning Huemer says "It doesn't APPEAR that thoughts are physical." This directly follows from his epistemology of appearances. But anyone who rejects this epistemology doesn't have to accept dualist theories.
I think that is my issue. It seems like a Hard Problem of Intuition rather than of physicalism. My position is that we have a really bad intuition and model of our own minds. I like to elaborate on a 'broad brush of time' model and look at the correlation of two ribbons, one a subjective cartoon of best guesses, the other, our best description of the physicality of brain/body/world. Things started to make better intuitive sense to me when I started to apply this method. Somewhere in Consciousness explained is that little illustration of an XY graph where subjectivity zigzags back and forth across time. That helps with the intuition.
There is no interaction problem. There are laws that govern how matter interacts with matter. Similarly there are laws that govern how minds interact with matter.
@@otakurocklee That is the dualist position. The problem is you have no reason to assume that. Its obvious that what happens in your mind has a direct effect on your physical brain. And we know that the physical state of the brain has a direct impact on the mind because brain damage can fundamentally change your personality. So if the interaction goes both ways, and in every way we've yet to observe these interactions map 1:1, why would we just go with the assumption that they're separate things? Of course its possible that there is a completely redundant set of laws governing how our minds work that just happens to map onto the physical reality of our brains so exactly as to be both superfluous and completely undetectable... but there are a lot of theoretically possible things that are impossible to detect or prove. The problem is that you're making this wild assumption for no reason whatsoever.
Kudos to Michael Huemer, for keeping it rational in a world where common sense is on the endangered species list! Going toe-to-toe with those hardcore materialist professors must feel like you're the only clear-minded person at an out-of-control party - what a test of patience and clear thinking! Keep up the philosophical work! And keep on 'Huemer-ing' through the madness, Mike! It boggles my brain how anyone with a fully functioning brain could entertain the notion that everything is purely physical! Er... I mean: It boggles my mind!
I would love for one of you to explain to this physicalist what exactly is this Conscious thing you start talking about without fleshing it out. In other words, what exactly is your question here?
Very strange that Huemer thinks him having 0 idea how the soul interacts with a body doesn't count against his view, while at the same time thinking Christians not knowing how creatio ex nihilio works means that they probably have no idea what they are talking about. That's the typical Michael Huemer arrogance that makes many not take him seriously. He's probably right about dualism though
i think an issue with a lot of discussions like this are the implicit assumption of scientific realism. The whole bit on relativity only makes sense if you assume that physics provides an accurate picture of the world, but there's no good reason provided to do so.
There's a very good reason to assume physics provides an accurate picture of the world. It has allowed us to make many accurate predictions about things before actually observing and confirming them. With every one of those, the probability of it just being some cosmic coincidence goes down exponentially.
@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 I'm not going to argue this point. I'm not trying to take down materialism or physics or whatever. My point was that they don't provide a reason I should accept physics as an accurate picture. In a conversation like this, it was just something I would hope to see at least attempted.
@@jan-Sanso And my counterpoint was just that the justification for the assumption is so basic that they probably didn't feel the need to go over it. Not that this is a good video. They make plenty of very stupid arguments. This just really isn't one of the issues of note.
It is really strange that there arent other species, have never been other species on the planet doing math, science and literature. If there is a soul, then perhaps all creatures carry one around, but there is something weird about this one species. I am sure there are species on other planets that are more advanced and less violent, but something isnt quite right here with one species. But I do lean more toward the view that that the road kill with rotting brains by the road has lost its consciousness as I have come so close to being road kill on my bicycle.
39:45 - 50:00 I've rarely seen such atrocious takes in philosophy of physics, I respect Huemer but here he's a paradigmatic example of the danger of doing philosophy that is not scientifically informed
I recommend reading "The Hidden Spring" by Solms, for a scientific examination of consciousness. Although Solms is not mainstream, he offers a reasonable challenge to substance dualism.
Michael doesn't appear to understand special relativity in this video (or at least the block time conception of special relativity). The reason it's OK for objects to have lengths only with respect to frames of reference in special relativity is because lengths don't exist (or at least aren't absolute properties of objects) in the same way that width doesn't exist. In order to talk about an object's width we need a reference frame that breaks 3-D space into x,y and z coordinates (and then assign width to be the measure of the object along one of these axes), similarly in order for us to talk about the length of a spacetime object we need a reference frame that breaks spacetime into space and time coordinates. I do think what Michael has said is a good illustration of how special relativity does seems (to me at least) to require block time (only spacetime objects exist absolutely) and that we couldn't just go for an instrumentalist account of special relativity as Einstein put in his original paper. Another comment is that when you've said theists seem entirely unfazed by the incomprehensibility of aspects of theism, I would say that every theory hits some primitive level of incomprehensibility just as you admitted that dualism requires believing that mental states affect physics objects in way that's not immediately intuitive that you don't find problematic for the position.
Objection a) H2O has very important emergent properties (for life on earth and everywhere it may be found) that H and O don´t have. So your idea that it is a "weak" emergence seems very subjective , maybe it is not important for you, Why? I mean emergence is just emergence, weak or strong is a subjective view you are adding. Objection b) It´s not possible to clone mental states because it is not possible to copy the dynamic electric interactions between particles etc (provided it was possible to clone those). It´s not a stationary state of a system, mental states are interactions , and also there is no hard disk or mental palace for memories. Objection C) many things in science like evolution are counter intuitive. You seem to rely a lot on intuition.
So already in the first 2 minutes...isn't his argument kind of nonsensical? Because to say "if feeling is physical, then aren't you using that word to mean anything? Surely if there is one thing that isn't physical its our feelings". But he hasn't defined feelings, so on what grounds can he make any of these claims? No one knows precisely what feelings are, besides the fact that we feel them. For all we know we are just advanced computers with some form of sensory input. Who is to say that electrical impulses in our brain aren't what make up our feelings? Aren't electrical impulses a form of materialism? Isn't it irrational for him to claim that feelings are not material, when feelings are so poorly defined to begin with, and the brain and consciousness are not fully understood in general? I would think you would at least wait for those things to be clearly explained before making these sorts of leaps of logic. And similarly, I don't think we should assume materialism is true or that idealism isn't a valid alternative model. The reality is we simply can't make judgements about the metaphysics of our world and engaging in philosophy on these matters is I think largely a waste of time until the science can provide a deeper explanation. But already I wouldn't be surprised if the electrical stimulation of certain parts of our brains didn't produce certain feelings or sensations. If this isn't evidence for the physical nature of feelings, then to quote Huemer, what is? And why would you just randomly insert some mystical woo involving souls, which are also poorly defined and basically sound synonymous with a "magical ghost entity"? Like honestly, how on Earth does that help things to introduce additional layers of mystical jargon that no one understands? Are we also going to bring in magical dragons and pixies? The whole endeavour just seems utterly preposterous. My university math teacher was right. Mathematicians define things first and then argue about them. Philosophers on the other hand, like to argue about things, and then later try to define them. Its just so silly and backwards. If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you making claims about it? Deeply disappointing show from Huemer
You really hit the nail on the head. Substance dualists, just like all magical thinkers, always seem to lean on pre-supposing their conclusions. There's no other way to go about it.
Gods are definitely not required for dualism. But abstract concepts, non-existent things are the products of the human biological brains and language, the latter providing placeholders for anything we can dream up. Consciousness is one of those words. Dualism could be true, but we have no way of knowing currently and there's no hard evidence for it.
Didn't finish the whole video but the main claim of the video is: consciousness doesn't seem to be physical. I think it's entirely due to the difference in expertise. Philosophers that take philosophy-only approach (are unaware and don't complement their work with the sciences of mind) are bound to have different intuitions compared to neuroscientists and neuro-philosophers or philosophers of cog sci. Intuitions from the latter discipline/group of people are closer to truth because they have greater expertise. This is evident in this discussion because Michael states "representation is hard to understand in physical terms", which is clearly false. Manner in which humans represent external information is understood and modelled into artificial systems with great precision *using knowledge of physics*. This is also evident from my experience as someone with above average expertise level in psychology and neuroscience, that I simply don't share the same intuitions about mind as lay people and non-physicalist philosophers (most of whom tend to have subpar knowledge of the behavioural sciences).
These two talking and laughing every few second triggers me. Every single thing you are talking about are highly controversial and people have detailed reasons for thinking differently, all these laughing agreeing as if that's the most obvious thing in the world when discussing philosophical topic is annoying.
I mean that’s sorta just huemers personality / speech style. It’s not like he’s genuinely suggesting these things are uncontroversial. He’s simply stating what he believes seems obvious (which is the foundation of his entire epistemology) in a joyful way instead of in an interrogative or know-it-all way. Idk. That’s just the way I see it.
@@Raiddd__ Except, he also repeatedly suggests that physicalists are "just ignoring the exception of the mind", which is ridiculous because the mind being made of matter is just a fundamental part of what physicalists believe. The mind and conscious experience obviously aren't seen as an exception to them. If they were some obvious exception to the physicalists, they wouldn't be physicalists. He's just assuming his philosophical opponents are starting with the premise that his intuitions are correct in order to laugh at and dismiss them out of hand. The fact of the matter is, what seems intuitive to him seems incredibly unintuitive to a lot of other people. "I have an intuition" is a perfectly fine statement in philosophy. "I have an intuition, and nobody's intuitions can possibly differ from mine, so I'm just going to laugh off any opposing view instead of actually engaging with what they believe and why" just makes him look like a smug idiot.
Hmm. Just started listening. You guys do not seem to understand what common sense means. The content of common sense varies wildly from person to person and group to group depending upon a variety of factors. My sister and I are professional engineers. Because of our training, experience, and intelligence, what is "common sense" to us (and others with similar backgrounds) is very different from what is common sense to others. I have often witnessed arguments between people, both of whom are appealing to common sense, in which one is claiming A and the other is claiming not-A. Such observations make it common sense to me that the content of common sense is all over the map. Regarding consciousness, I do not know what the fuck consciousness is or how it comes about. However it is common sense to me that physical brains create consciousness. Change a brain with injury and the person created by that brain changes. A small injury might cause a person to no longer be able to say the word spoon. (I know someone who lost this particular ability due to a stroke). A more serious injury might cause them to lose their vision and lose the ability to count and do simple arithmetic. (I know someone who lost these abilities due to a heart attack.) I have read about people who become radically different people in the eyes of those who know them as a result of brain injury. Such data are common to me me and common sense tells me that brains cause consciousness/minds. Whatever consciousness is, it is 100% caused by whatever physical things the brain happens to be doing. That is common sense to me and many others. It seems obvious to me that if minds were somehow independent of the physical processes occurring in brains (isn't that what dualism posits?), then my mind ought to be able to do stuff on its own and not appear to be 100% dependent upon the particular physical status of the brain. I will now listen to more of your discussion and see if you change my mind.
Your examples of an injured brain only show that the brain is a necessary condition for consciousness, which is clearly the case. What is less clear is whether the brain is a sufficient condition.
@@danielray7965 OK. Can you suggest something else that might be an additional necessary condition? How might one determine the existence of this extra necessary thing? If this thing is undetectable, then just how exactly does it interact with the brain? What is the difference between something that is completely undetectable and something that simply does not exist?
@@matthewalan59 To be clear, I am not myself a substance duelist (If I had to commit to a position, it would probably be something like non-reductive physicalism). My point was that the fact that brain damage affects experience - something all substance dualists have acknowledged since Descartes - doesn't disprove substance dualism. Anyway, if you want to argue that something other than the brain is required, the general argument would be that consciousness is immaterial and therefore requires an immaterial substance - another word is "soul" - not just a material substance like the brain. Obviously a soul is not detectable, assuming by detectable you mean something like observable or measurable, but you can posit it as an explanation and judge it against alternative explanations. As for how this immaterial substance would interact with the brain, no one has any idea. Also, no one really has any idea where these souls would come from apart from religious explanations or how or when the would attach to a physical organism.
@@danielray7965 I know enough about science that I know scientists do not "prove" or "disprove." They do create useful explanations and models that work more or less well depending upon context and the needed accuracy. I have had many people (not you) claim that their soul, once released from its brain, can think, see, hear, etc. with perfect clarity. I am skeptical. I fail to understand why a soul can see perfectly without eyes but cannot see with damaged eyes. Something that is not detectable cannot "attach" itself to anything because I do not think an undetectable attachment is an attachment at all. Good day.
The time thing. Perhaps God can create entirely new strands of time derivative from eternal time. So perhaps God operates from eternal time and is not bound by our strand of time, and is thus timeless in that sense. Unless of course being the master of all strands of time God decides to interject on our time. Lol. And then of course one can imagine that God works by a system of endless laws, foundational and new, bound by God's truth. The laws then being foundational information that is existence. God being the master of foundational laws of existence working by making laws that are meaning and power in accordance with foundational existential laws. Of course these are all magical pixie dust explanations, but if one entertains the possibility of God then there are endless powers, and of course it's impossible for God to violate God's truth. From the realm of imagination I'm sure there are endlessly more ways to counter things than strictly adhering to the reality humanity knows of. It's all simpler to just say the universe comes from an infinite, eternal default state, and no natural, or supernatural God exists. Or perhaps God is a novice in creation science. From my perspective how things exist and behave is far simpler than determining why things exist the way they do. If there is a why then it will always be lost in philosophy, as there shall never be absolutely certain ways of knowing about natural whys, souls or agency. There's no way to know if souls are rooted in physical contents, or are a separate but integrated dimension of reality. The qualities of being are definitely not explainable in physical language though.
Just starting the video so I'll see what happens but im interested because in my Healthcare job i regularly have instances that make it obvious to me that we are what the brain does shoved in my face.
I'm utterly fed up with these staunch physicalists who think everything's as physical as an overcooked spaghetti noodle. The only noodle they overcooked was their own! And the only thing resembling an overdone strand of spaghetti is the physicalist's own reasoning! They're the kind who'd stick a Fitbit on Schrödinger's cat to check how many steps it took while being simultaneously dead and alive. It's like they look at a beautiful sunset and say, "Ah, yes, approximately 6.24 x 10^18 photons reflecting off atmospheric particles. Very romantic." They've got their wires crossed if they think everything's that simple - their noodle must be simmering in the same pot as that mushy spaghetti. It's like they take the symphony of the universe and turn it into elevator music. And now, out of the blue, I'm hankering for some spaghetti. What's your take on that, you overcooked pasta-loving materialists? What saucy spell is this?! Did your god - the Flying Spaghetti Monster - touch me with His noodly appendage or what? Oh, the noodle of physicalists - those who think the brain's but a bowl of overcooked spaghetti. But let’s not noodle too hard on their shortcomings. After all, if the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn had a love child, it'd be the Physicalist, who's all about hard facts despite coming from the most hilariously hypothetical lineage. Imagine a baby with a noodle whip and a sparkle that's felt but not seen, trying to prove its own existence scientifically. Scientifically!!! Now that's a metaphysical comedy sketch waiting to happen!
Oh Emerson Green, the guy who thinks that not believing in the existence of God is a mistake and that claims are evidence. Defending substance dualism, what else can one expect from the likes of him? The saying, "Birds of a feather flock together" fits perfectly here.
Michael Huemer himself appears to be a non-physical substance emerging from a jpg of a very scholarly-looking bookcase.
😂😂😂
😂😂🤣🤣
It looks more like the show-off bookcase of someone with a lot of money. The bookcase of the truly scholarly and creatively intelligent person is a motley collection of mismatched and often ratty volumes, not beautifully matched sets of expensive leather-bound books. I have a rich cousin who has bookshelves that look just like the ones in this video. He never reads a thing.
*zzzing! 😂
Micheal Huemer is my Keanu Reeves.
He is The One
I love when he grabs a book from the photo of the bookcase
Just for general information: there is such a thing as a philosophical perspective that is non-physicalist as well as non-dualist. Thinking that those two things are an exclusionary dichotomy is wrong. The perspective I'm referring to is a certain type of panpsychism. It is non-reductive and holds that the physical and the conscious are just different aspects of a unified whole. This might sound like materialist physicalism at first glance until you realize that it holds that consciousness inheres in all matter, right down to sub-atomic particles. This doesn't mean that inanimate particles have thoughts or feelings in any sense that we understand those terms. It does, however, mean that "it is like something to be a particle," and that the conscious content of any matter is simply the information inherent in that matter. I don't have the energy to go into it now, but I'm just putting this out as something some readers might want to look into.
The primary objection to this view is the combination problem: How do we we get a unified sense of consciousness from disparate conscious entities, i.e., particles or whatever
If this were the case, what would be the difference between me and a big rock? The rock has just as many molecules and stores just as much information as my brain, but that doesn't make it conscious. What makes me conscious seems to be that my molecules are arranged in a funny way that creates a complex information system. If you were to stir my brain up with a blender, it wouldn't be conscious anymore. Isn't that all we need to see that consciousness is just an emergent property, and has nothing to do with the consciousness of its component parts? And if the arrangement is important, which it evidently is, panpsychism just seems like the physicalist view of consciousness with some extra nonsense tacked on.
I don't agree at all that physicalism is the view that is unintuitive.
The fact of the matter is, if I suffer brain damage, it affects my personality. If I ingest a chemical, it influences my conscious experience. You guys bring this up of course, but I don't think either of you offer any sound refutation beyond "well its possible for dualism to be true regardless of the number of extra steps and assumptions we need to make for it to be plausible." They way we interface with reality is entirely what we would expect from a physicalist perspective, but super unintuitive from a dualist perspective. Its not impossible for dualism to exist where non-physical things are both affected by and affect physical things in some complicated way, but if non-physical things are both affected by and affect the physical, there's really nothing that makes them non-physical. And besides, it seems like a lot of extra assumptions that need to be made just make dualism coherent.
I'm no dualist for the record but I see no reason why non physical matter could be affected by physical matter. They could just be different forms of matter that have a relationship with each other we can't explain! (I'm pretty new to this view so maybe I am mistaken in understanding your argument!)
Another interesting discussion! I found the opening, defending the plausibility of dualistic approaches to mind and matter, more convincing than I expected, and I think I agree that the possibility of some sort of dualism is too easily discarded by many. That section challenged my preconceptions and I appreciated it.
The later parts I found less satisfactory. The discussion on special relativity and spacetime in particular seemed half-baked to me. Yes, it is a counter-intuitive idea that space and time might be conceptualized as the same, but that in itself is not a convincing reason to reject the theory, especially when the theory has been very fruitful. Huemer seemed to want to sidestep the fruitfulness of the theory by pointing out that the parts of the theory which are fruitful can be separated from the idea that time and space should be viewed as the same thing, but that doesn't really make the point, because the theory comes as a package deal: it is precisely reconceptualising time and space as unitary that gives rise to fruitful ways of thinking about other features of experience.
In fact, I think the fruitfulness question is exactly where I'd want to push the argument here. Let's say we embrace Huemer's dualism - what does that buy us? What can we do now which we couldn't do before? I didn't really hear ay proposals as to what the utility of such a theoretical maneuver would be, and without that I struggle to see why we would want to make that move.
This worry really comes into focus in the section on God. I share Huemer's concern that the mechanisms of God's powers is never explicated. Doesn't dualism fall into the same trap, not explaining any of the mechanisms by which, for instance, souls interact with matter? One may well reply that we have no explanation of how matter gives rise to mental states, which is a fair point. But it seems to me that we have enough instances of learning how to explain seemingly non-physical things via a better understanding of matter that it is at least plausible to think that we will one day explain mental states that way. But I don't see that argument being reversible such that it offers similar succor to the dualist.
Those who are familiar with traditional Indian philosophical systems will realize that this chapter concerning Puruṣa, and the previous chapter regarding prakṛtiḥ, examine the ontological DUALISM of “mind versus matter” that has been a common topic in metaphysics in both the East (especially in Bhārata and in China) and in the West (especially since French philosopher René Descartes' postulation that the world comprises two distinct and incompatible classes of substance: res extensa, or extended substance, which extends through space; and res cogitans, or thinking substance, which has no extension in space). This Cartesian dualism is closely aligned with (if not identical to) the “mind-body” problem in philosophy of mind, which is an attempt to investigate the perplexing relationship between mental properties and physical properties.
The Sanskrit term “Puruṣa” (literally, “man”, “spirit”, “person”, “self”, or “consciousness”) is a complex concept that has a plethora of interpretations in Vedic thought, but in this chapter it is used according to perhaps its most common definition, and that is, the Cosmic Spirit, or Pure Subjectivity, in contrast to prakṛti, which is material nature, or the phenomenal universe. And because nothing whatever can be said of Pure Subjectivity (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit, or “The Tao”, in Chinese), since the Subject of all subjects is not an objective thing that can possibly be described with dualistic language, this chapter, in the main, is necessarily an exposition of discrete consciousness. If not, the only thing that could be said of Puruṣa is: “The Puruṣa that can be spoken of is not the REAL Puruṣa” (to paraphrase the “Tao Te Ching”). Furthermore, those religionists who adhere to the metaphysical schema of Idealism will find much here to substantiate their somewhat flawed understanding of Ultimate Reality, and hopefully, eventually come to recognize that Idealism is an incomplete metaphysics, in favour of the related but far more accurate schema of dual-aspect monism (“advaita”, in Sanskrit).
CONSCIOUSNESS DEFINED:
The English word “consciousness” means “the state of being aware”, or “that which knows”, or even more literally, “characterized by knowing”, from the Latin prefix “con” (with), the stem “scire” (to know) and the suffix “osus” (characterized by). To put it succinctly, the phenomenon of consciousness refers to the SUBJECTIVE component of any subject-object relationship. Moreover, there is a hierarchy of localized knowing within the cognitive faculty of vertebrates (that is, a hierarchy of subject-object relationships), as well as a more Universal Awareness (more appositely called “Brahman” or “sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit, or “Tao”, in Chinese), as explicated in the following paragraphs.
Consciousness is essentially impersonal, yet it can be expressed via a personal being, such as many species of animals, including we humans. Exactly how consciousness can be detached from a personal agent may be a rather bizarre concept to comprehend, at least in the initial stage, yet after careful study of this chapter, in conjunction with a profound yogic practice, one will eventually understand this to indeed be the case.
Higher species of animal life have sufficient cognitive ability to KNOW themselves and their environment, at least to a measurable degree. Just where consciousness objectively begins in the animal kingdom is a matter of contention but, judging purely by ethological means, it probably starts with vertebrates (at least the higher-order birds, reptiles and fishes). Those metazoans that are evolutionarily-lower than vertebrates do not possess much, if any, semblance of intellect, necessary for true knowledge, but operate purely by reflexive instincts, notwithstanding certain notable exceptions to this rule, such as octopuses. For instance, an insect or a jellyfish does not consciously decide to seek food but does so according to its base instincts, directed by its idiosyncratic genetic code. Even when an insect (such as a cockroach) flees from danger, it is not experiencing the anxious emotions that a human or other mammal would experience. See Chapter 11 regarding the concept of will.
SENTIENCE EVOLVES INTO TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS:
Undoubtedly, the lower species of animals alluded to above, embody, if not true consciousness, varying degrees of SENTIENCE, depending on how many senses it possesses and how complex is its nervous system. Very few would consider a blind worm to be more sentient than a frog!
Plants are also sentient but use lower-level mechanisms for their perceptions. To give just a couple of examples, both land-based and water-born plants respond to sunlight (as witnessed by the opening of flowers upon the rising of the sun), and some carnivorous plants can detect arthropods crawling on their leaves. Therefore, when carnists claim that “plants have feelings too!”, they may be justified according to some sense of the term, so the most logical reason for being vegan is not because plants are completely insentient, but simply due to the fact that humans are an herbivorous species. Furthermore, fruit trees indirectly benefit from the consumption of its fruit, since their seeds are spread.
Recently, consciousness has become a significant topic of interdisciplinary research in cognitive science, involving fields such as philosophy of mind, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroscience. Many such researchers have seen evidence that the brain is merely a conduit or a TRANSDUCER of consciousness, explaining why the more intelligent the animal, the more it can understand its own existence (or at least be aware of more of its environment - just see how amazingly-complex dolphin and whale behaviour can be, compared with other aquatic species), and the reason why it is asserted that a truly enlightened human must possess a far higher level of intelligence than the average person (See Chapter 17 re: the distinction between enlightenment and mere awakening). The processor of a supercomputer must necessarily be far larger in size, more complex, and more powerful than the processing unit in a pocket calculator, obviously. Therefore, it seems logical to extrapolate that the scale of discrete (localized) consciousness is chiefly dependent on the brain capacity of a specific animal.
So, then, in response to the assertion made in the previous paragraph, one could complain: “That's not fair - why can only a genius be enlightened?” (as defined in Chapter 17). The answer is: first of all, as stated above, every species of animal has its own level of intelligence, on a wide-ranging scale. Therefore, a pig or a dog could (if possible) ask: “That is unfair - why can only a human being be enlightened?”
Secondly, it is INDEED a fact that life is unfair, because there is no “tit for tat” law of action and reaction, even if many supposedly-great religious preceptors have stated so. They said so because they were preaching to wicked miscreants who refused to quit their evil ways, and needed to be chastized in a forceful manner. It is not possible to speak sweet and gentle words to a rabid dog in order to prevent it from biting you.
THE THREE STATES OF AWARENESS:
Three STATES of awareness are experienced by humans, and possibly all other species of mammals, as well as many kinds of reptiles and birds:
the waking state (“jāgrata”, in Sanskrit), dreaming (“svapna”, in Sanskrit), and deep-sleep or dreamless-sleep (“suṣupti”, in Sanskrit).
Human dreaming occurs mostly, but not exclusively, in the state known as “REM” (rapid eye movement) sleep. During this phase, the electrical activity in the brain is more like waking than sleeping. That is why this state is often called “paradoxical sleep.” Scientists have discovered that most non-human animals - mammals, birds, reptiles, and most recently, fish - experience REM sleep, too. The electrical activity found in the brains of these creatures during rapid eye movement sleep is similar to that of humans while they dream, suggesting that animals may dream.
Some cognitive psychologists may claim that there are TRANSITIONAL states between waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, but these states are just that - transitory states between the three main states, in the same way that sunrise, daylight/daytime, and sunset have transitional states.
Furthermore, there exists the well-known phenomenon of lucid dreaming, where the subject is aware of the fact that a dream is taking place.
Beyond these three temporal states of waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep, is the fourth “state” (“turīya” or “caturīya”, in Sanskrit). That is the unconditioned, timeless “state”, which underlies the other three, and is therefore completely transcendental to any temporal state whatever.
The waking state is the LEAST real (that is to say the least permanent, or to put it another way, the farthest from the Necessary Foundation of Existence, as explained towards the end of this chapter). The dream state is closer to our eternal nature, whilst dreamless deep-sleep is much more analogous to The Universal Self (“Brahman”), as it is imbued with peace. Rather than being an absence of awareness, deep-sleep is an awareness of absence (that is, the absence of phenomenal, sensual experiences). So, in actual fact, the fourth state is not a state, but the Unconditioned Ground of Being, or to put it simply, YOU, the real self/Self, or Existence-Awareness-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit).
Cont....
I found it surprisingly unconvincing. We have a tough time, we physicalists, in explaining what mind is but isn't that to be expected for something so much more complex than QM or anything else we have to explain? That seemed to be one of his reasons.
@@AnswersInAtheism
N.B. Before reading the following Glossary entry, it is absolutely imperative to understand that the term “mind” is being used according to the definition provided by the ancient Indian philosophical paradigm (in which it is called “manaḥ”, in Sanskrit), and NOT according to the manner in which the term is used in most all other systems (that is, as a broad synonym for “consciousness” - e.g. “The mind-body problem”).
mind:
Although the meaning of “mind” has already been provided in Chapter 05 of “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, it shall prove beneficial to further clarify that definition here in the Glossary. It is NOT implied that mind is the sum of the actual thoughts, the sensations, the memories, and the abstract images that inhabit the mental element (or the “space”) that those phenomena occupy, but the faculty itself. This mental space has two phases: the potential state (traditionally referred to as the “unconscious mind”), where there are no mental objects present (such as in deep sleep or during profound meditation), and the actualized state (usually referred to as the “conscious mind”), where the aforementioned abstract objects occupy one’s cognition (such as feelings of pain).
Likewise, the intellect and the pseudo-ego are the containers (or the “receptacles”) that hold conceptual thoughts and the sense of self, respectively. It is important to understand that the aforementioned three subsets of consciousness (mind, intellect, and false- ego) are NOT gross, tangible objects. Rather, they are subtle, intangible objects, that is, objects that can be perceived solely by an observant subject. The three subsets of consciousness transpire from certain areas of the brain (a phenomenon known as “strong emergence”), yet, as stated above, are not themselves composed of gross matter. Only a handful of mammal species possess intelligence (that is, abstract, conceptual thought processes), whilst human beings alone have acquired the pseudo-ego (the I- thought, which develops in infancy, following the id stage). Cf. “matter, gross”, “matter, subtle”, “subject”, and “object”.
In the ancient Indian systems of metaphysics known as “Vedānta” and “Sāṃkhya”, mind is considered the sixth sense, although the five so-called “EXTERNAL” senses are, nonetheless, nominally distinguished from the mind, which is called an “INTERNAL” sense. This seems to be quite logical, because, just as the five “outer” senses involve a triad of experience (the perceived, the perception, and the perceiver), so too does the mind comprise a triad of cognition (the known, the knowing, and the knower). See also Chapter 06.
Nota Bene: There is much confusion (to put it EXTREMELY mildly) in both Western philosophy and in the so-called “Eastern” philosophical traditions, between the faculty of mind (“manaḥ”, in Sanskrit) and the intellect (“buddhiḥ”, in Sanskrit). Therefore, the following example of this distinction ought to help one to understand the difference between the two subtle material elements:
When one observes a movie or television show on the screen of a device that one is holding in one’s hands, one is experiencing auditory, textural, and visual percepts, originating from external objects, which “penetrate” the senses of the body, just as is the case with any other mammal. This is the component of consciousness known as “mind” (at least according to the philosophical terminology of this treatise, which is founded on Vedānta, according to widely-accepted English translations of the Sanskrit terms). However, due to our intelligence, it is possible for we humans (and possibly a couple of other species of mammals, although to a far less-sophisticated degree) to construct conceptual thoughts on top of the purely sensory percepts. E.g. “Hey - look at that silly guy playing in the swimming pool!”, “I wonder what will happen next?”, or “I hate that the murderer has escaped from his prison cell!”. So, although a cat or a dog may be viewing the same movie on the screen of our electronic device, due to its relatively low level of intelligence, it is unable to conceptualize the audio-visual experience in the same manner as a primate, such as we humans.
To provide an even more organic illustration of how the faculty of mind “blends” into the faculty of the intellect, consider the following example: When the feeling of hunger (or to be more precise, appetite) appears in one’s consciousness, that feeling is in the mind. When we have the thought, “I’m hungry”, that is a conceptual idea that is a manifestation of the intellect. So, as a general rule, as animals evolve, they develop an intellectual faculty, in which there is an increasingly greater perception of, or KNOWLEDGE of, the external world (and in the case of at least one species, knowledge of the inner world). In addition to these two faculties of mind and intellect, we humans possess the false-ego (“ahaṃkāraḥ”, in Sanskrit). See Chapter 10 of "F.I.S.H" regarding the notion of egoity.
@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices I may have missed some concepts. Where are these Chapters?
@@AnswersInAtheism, in the aforementioned book?
I’ve never danced so much while listening to a convo. 🕺🏻😎
I wish a dualist would help me out. I have lost my Hard Problem and cannot seem to get it back. Now dualists seem incredulous and incapable of an intuition of mind being just this brain/body/world stuff. That isn't surprising given that you want to apprehend mind, as if it were any other physical object, and even though it IS a physical bit of fluff, you cannot observe or apprehend it at all. It isn't just that I can't observe YOUR mind, it is that I cannot actually even observe my own.
But dualists seem to stubbornly believe they can. Help me figure out how to do that please. Another way to ask this is, can you tell me what this mind stuff you think you observe actually is?
Someone down below I think said it was a capacity. Not what I want. That sounds like just functionalism.
How do you get qualia from quanta? Dualism is unavoidable ,you either have substance dualism or you have property dualism. I find property dualism more parsimonious. Me,I am a substance monist but a property dualist.
@@cristristam9054 I mean, we don't know. But jumping to the conclusion that dualism is therefore necessary is like a God of the Gaps argument, only worse, because what "qualia" means, beyond something we recognize personally, is not even properly defined. So you are essentially arguing that, based on something which we can't define, we now have to postulate a mystical soul-like substance, which we also can't explain, and they both somehow explain each other. The whole thing is just bizarre and nonsensical.
The first duty of any philosopher should be to clearly define their terms. What is qualia? Some sensation that we think occurs in the brain. Because we feel it there, does it somehow mean it is non-physical? No, because apart from the sensation, we know nothing about it or how it is generated. Can we claim it is a consequence of purely material processes? No there either, we simply don't understand the brain to that extent.
So the proper answer is, no one knows. And from this you certainly don't make wild and unfounded claims about God, dualism, souls or any other quasi-religious concept.
Its confused to ask for the physical location of your non-physical mind. You "observe" your mind through introspection
@@radscorpion8 My argument was in favor of substance monism(OPPOSITE of dualism) and property dualism.
"Mind stuff" is the misleading label that materialists apply to the commonsensical conception of the self that we're all born with.
I don’t understand the claim that consciousness or souls are non spatial. When I’m having a thought, I’m having it wherever my body is and not anywhere else. Similarly, my perception of the outside world is bound by where my body is (I can’t see the other side of the earth, for example). What am I missing?
I think whats meant by that is that consciousness doesn't have length or width. You cannot measure in metres the length of your awareness, or the height of your imagination of an elephant in your minds eye or the imagination of a melody in your mind's ear. This is because they don't have spatial properties, they are only exhausted by the property of what it is like to have experiences.
@@zak2659 Okay that part of it makes sense. Thoughts don’t take up physical space, but they do take a certain amount of time. What I’m confused about is why that alone rules out conscious experience having a spatial aspect to it. A thought is located in a certain region of space, right? If not then it would presumably always seem like our thoughts were completely disconnected from the physical environment in which we find ourselves.
@@senseofmindshow If consciousness has no spatial properties, it would be pretty weird if we could attribute position to it. It's like saying "this thing has no height,length or width, but it takes up 3-d coordinates." Seems like a category error.
But yes, your last sentence, I believe, is a restatement of the interaction problem for dualism. Clearly interaction is real, but dualism cannot account for it, that's why I'm an Idealist.
Would be interesting if you were able to interview Edward Feser. It seems like he could lay out a decent classical theistic picture of God which you might have fun questioning, considering the last ten minutes of your discussion where you touched on theism.
Regarding relativity, So one of the postulates of special relativity is that the speed of light is constant, regardless of the motion of its source relative to the observer. I don't know how to make sense of this metaphysically, but it seems in tension with the common sense view Dr Huemer puts forward, that there is a fact of the matter about temporal and spatial measurements which differ across reference frames.
Also, even if there are "privileged reference frames", i.e. reference frames which yield measurements which are more accurate relative to some absolute space or flow of time or something, there is no way of knowing which reference frame has this status, no way of knowing how to correctly measure things. For pragmatic reasons, we "privilege" the reference frame of being at rest relative to the earth's surface, but the earth is moving relative to the sun and other planets, our solar system moves relative to other solar systems and stars, and so on, and there isn't any justification for saying that measurements taken in other reference frames are less valid or accurate.
59:48 I think it seems reasonable to say that they are both the kind of continuation of a person for which we ascribe identity.
Obviously if identity is taken to be numerical identity this wouldn't work but for personal identity I think it does.
It's like a road, what makes something the same road. It is continuing in the right way from the last piece of road. If it forks then both those roads continue in the right kind of way but they don't continue in the right kind of way from eachother so they wouldn't be identical to eachother in that sense.
What's the argument for consiousness being private? I'm taking this to mean like essentially private not just private like "my diary is private" where private just means hard to access although it is possible to do so in principle.
I was wondering the same thing. We can roughly reproduce images and sounds that people are imagining, which would seem to give us a reason to doubt this idea.
@@dakotadalton85 If you think that rough reproductions of sounds and images describe the total content of consciousness at a given moment, then I don't know what to say to you. Even if we had precise reproductions of sounds and images, that would still be massively incomplete. Even if you had a description of the total contents of someone else's consciousness, the receiver of the reproductions would still not experience those qualia in the same way as the generator of them. There is no direct experience of someone else's consciousness. That would require the total replacement of the receiver's consciousness by the generator's consciousness, at least for a limited period of time. This is what is meant by the privacy of consciousness. It is non-transferable, no matter how much information you may be able to learn about it.
@@donnievance1942I didn't say that rough reproductions of sounds and images describe the total content of consciousness at a given moment, I said the fact we can do this seems to give us a reason to doubt the privacy of consciousness.
@@donnievance1942 Nobody ever said that's the total content. But if its possible, even with our rudimentary technology, to get some of that information, it doesn't seem like the information is really fundamentally private. Its in there, and we can physically observe it.
@epsteindidntkillhimself69 reproducing images from someone else's brain is not an observation of their consciousness. We can use brain data to reproduce an image verified against a reference of that reproduced image, but the reproduced image is experienced only by each individual's own consciousness. Let's say you reproduce a green image. That image isn't showing you how the subject sees green in their own consciousness, rather, its only displaying your own interpretation of green to yourself. You, therefore, are not actually accessing the subject's consciousness, instead only the data stored in their brain.
Whoever you're referencing at 21:31 sounds very cool
It is interesting that at the very beginning Huemer says "It doesn't APPEAR that thoughts are physical." This directly follows from his epistemology of appearances. But anyone who rejects this epistemology doesn't have to accept dualist theories.
I think that is my issue. It seems like a Hard Problem of Intuition rather than of physicalism. My position is that we have a really bad intuition and model of our own minds. I like to elaborate on a 'broad brush of time' model and look at the correlation of two ribbons, one a subjective cartoon of best guesses, the other, our best description of the physicality of brain/body/world. Things started to make better intuitive sense to me when I started to apply this method. Somewhere in Consciousness explained is that little illustration of an XY graph where subjectivity zigzags back and forth across time. That helps with the intuition.
Isn’t it plausible to argue that high dimensional embedding spaces of LLM’s are “shapes of thoughts” (42.00)
Quarter of the way through...dying for a resolution to the interaction problem. That's my lynch pin
Dustin crummet responded to you
@@greenstar2108 Microtubules don't do that. :)
Your mistake was expecting a dualist to ever be able to resolve the interaction problem.
There is no interaction problem. There are laws that govern how matter interacts with matter. Similarly there are laws that govern how minds interact with matter.
@@otakurocklee That is the dualist position. The problem is you have no reason to assume that. Its obvious that what happens in your mind has a direct effect on your physical brain. And we know that the physical state of the brain has a direct impact on the mind because brain damage can fundamentally change your personality. So if the interaction goes both ways, and in every way we've yet to observe these interactions map 1:1, why would we just go with the assumption that they're separate things?
Of course its possible that there is a completely redundant set of laws governing how our minds work that just happens to map onto the physical reality of our brains so exactly as to be both superfluous and completely undetectable... but there are a lot of theoretically possible things that are impossible to detect or prove. The problem is that you're making this wild assumption for no reason whatsoever.
Kudos to Michael Huemer, for keeping it rational in a world where common sense is on the endangered species list! Going toe-to-toe with those hardcore materialist professors must feel like you're the only clear-minded person at an out-of-control party - what a test of patience and clear thinking! Keep up the philosophical work! And keep on 'Huemer-ing' through the madness, Mike!
It boggles my brain how anyone with a fully functioning brain could entertain the notion that everything is purely physical! Er... I mean: It boggles my mind!
You really don't like having your ideas challenged, do you?
I would love for one of you to explain to this physicalist what exactly is this Conscious thing you start talking about without fleshing it out. In other words, what exactly is your question here?
Very strange that Huemer thinks him having 0 idea how the soul interacts with a body doesn't count against his view, while at the same time thinking Christians not knowing how creatio ex nihilio works means that they probably have no idea what they are talking about. That's the typical Michael Huemer arrogance that makes many not take him seriously.
He's probably right about dualism though
i think an issue with a lot of discussions like this are the implicit assumption of scientific realism. The whole bit on relativity only makes sense if you assume that physics provides an accurate picture of the world, but there's no good reason provided to do so.
There's a very good reason to assume physics provides an accurate picture of the world. It has allowed us to make many accurate predictions about things before actually observing and confirming them. With every one of those, the probability of it just being some cosmic coincidence goes down exponentially.
@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 I'm not going to argue this point. I'm not trying to take down materialism or physics or whatever. My point was that they don't provide a reason I should accept physics as an accurate picture. In a conversation like this, it was just something I would hope to see at least attempted.
@@jan-Sanso And my counterpoint was just that the justification for the assumption is so basic that they probably didn't feel the need to go over it. Not that this is a good video. They make plenty of very stupid arguments. This just really isn't one of the issues of note.
It is really strange that there arent other species, have never been other species on the planet doing math, science and literature. If there is a soul, then perhaps all creatures carry one around, but there is something weird about this one species. I am sure there are species on other planets that are more advanced and less violent, but something isnt quite right here with one species. But I do lean more toward the view that that the road kill with rotting brains by the road has lost its consciousness as I have come so close to being road kill on my bicycle.
The problem is empiricism. Rationalism is the better framework from which to critique the viability of substance dualism.
39:45 - 50:00 I've rarely seen such atrocious takes in philosophy of physics, I respect Huemer but here he's a paradigmatic example of the danger of doing philosophy that is not scientifically informed
Great Job. Thanks.
I recommend reading "The Hidden Spring" by Solms, for a scientific examination of consciousness.
Although Solms is not mainstream, he offers a reasonable challenge to substance dualism.
Loved the ending discussion on god
I like that virtually all the reasons Huemer gives against the existance of God are the reasons classical theists gives against neo-classical theists.
Michael doesn't appear to understand special relativity in this video (or at least the block time conception of special relativity). The reason it's OK for objects to have lengths only with respect to frames of reference in special relativity is because lengths don't exist (or at least aren't absolute properties of objects) in the same way that width doesn't exist. In order to talk about an object's width we need a reference frame that breaks 3-D space into x,y and z coordinates (and then assign width to be the measure of the object along one of these axes), similarly in order for us to talk about the length of a spacetime object we need a reference frame that breaks spacetime into space and time coordinates. I do think what Michael has said is a good illustration of how special relativity does seems (to me at least) to require block time (only spacetime objects exist absolutely) and that we couldn't just go for an instrumentalist account of special relativity as Einstein put in his original paper.
Another comment is that when you've said theists seem entirely unfazed by the incomprehensibility of aspects of theism, I would say that every theory hits some primitive level of incomprehensibility just as you admitted that dualism requires believing that mental states affect physics objects in way that's not immediately intuitive that you don't find problematic for the position.
Damn
Objection a) H2O has very important emergent properties (for life on earth and everywhere it may be found) that H and O don´t have. So your idea that it is a "weak" emergence seems very subjective , maybe it is not important for you, Why? I mean emergence is just emergence, weak or strong is a subjective view you are adding. Objection b) It´s not possible to clone mental states because it is not possible to copy the dynamic electric interactions between particles etc (provided it was possible to clone those). It´s not a stationary state of a system, mental states are interactions , and also there is no hard disk or mental palace for memories. Objection C) many things in science like evolution are counter intuitive. You seem to rely a lot on intuition.
So already in the first 2 minutes...isn't his argument kind of nonsensical? Because to say "if feeling is physical, then aren't you using that word to mean anything? Surely if there is one thing that isn't physical its our feelings". But he hasn't defined feelings, so on what grounds can he make any of these claims? No one knows precisely what feelings are, besides the fact that we feel them. For all we know we are just advanced computers with some form of sensory input. Who is to say that electrical impulses in our brain aren't what make up our feelings? Aren't electrical impulses a form of materialism?
Isn't it irrational for him to claim that feelings are not material, when feelings are so poorly defined to begin with, and the brain and consciousness are not fully understood in general? I would think you would at least wait for those things to be clearly explained before making these sorts of leaps of logic. And similarly, I don't think we should assume materialism is true or that idealism isn't a valid alternative model. The reality is we simply can't make judgements about the metaphysics of our world and engaging in philosophy on these matters is I think largely a waste of time until the science can provide a deeper explanation. But already I wouldn't be surprised if the electrical stimulation of certain parts of our brains didn't produce certain feelings or sensations. If this isn't evidence for the physical nature of feelings, then to quote Huemer, what is? And why would you just randomly insert some mystical woo involving souls, which are also poorly defined and basically sound synonymous with a "magical ghost entity"? Like honestly, how on Earth does that help things to introduce additional layers of mystical jargon that no one understands? Are we also going to bring in magical dragons and pixies?
The whole endeavour just seems utterly preposterous. My university math teacher was right. Mathematicians define things first and then argue about them. Philosophers on the other hand, like to argue about things, and then later try to define them. Its just so silly and backwards. If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you making claims about it? Deeply disappointing show from Huemer
You really hit the nail on the head. Substance dualists, just like all magical thinkers, always seem to lean on pre-supposing their conclusions. There's no other way to go about it.
@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 Hear hear.
Honestly the real answer seems to be nobody knows for sure.
First ❤
Cool stuff
Gods are definitely not required for dualism. But abstract concepts, non-existent things are the products of the human biological brains and language, the latter providing placeholders for anything we can dream up. Consciousness is one of those words. Dualism could be true, but we have no way of knowing currently and there's no hard evidence for it.
Didn't finish the whole video but the main claim of the video is: consciousness doesn't seem to be physical. I think it's entirely due to the difference in expertise. Philosophers that take philosophy-only approach (are unaware and don't complement their work with the sciences of mind) are bound to have different intuitions compared to neuroscientists and neuro-philosophers or philosophers of cog sci. Intuitions from the latter discipline/group of people are closer to truth because they have greater expertise.
This is evident in this discussion because Michael states "representation is hard to understand in physical terms", which is clearly false. Manner in which humans represent external information is understood and modelled into artificial systems with great precision *using knowledge of physics*.
This is also evident from my experience as someone with above average expertise level in psychology and neuroscience, that I simply don't share the same intuitions about mind as lay people and non-physicalist philosophers (most of whom tend to have subpar knowledge of the behavioural sciences).
"fake nous provider" lmao
These two talking and laughing every few second triggers me. Every single thing you are talking about are highly controversial and people have detailed reasons for thinking differently, all these laughing agreeing as if that's the most obvious thing in the world when discussing philosophical topic is annoying.
I think it’s useful to know what great/careful thinkers find obvious.
I mean that’s sorta just huemers personality / speech style. It’s not like he’s genuinely suggesting these things are uncontroversial. He’s simply stating what he believes seems obvious (which is the foundation of his entire epistemology) in a joyful way instead of in an interrogative or know-it-all way. Idk. That’s just the way I see it.
Triggered! Oh no!
@@Raiddd__ Except, he also repeatedly suggests that physicalists are "just ignoring the exception of the mind", which is ridiculous because the mind being made of matter is just a fundamental part of what physicalists believe. The mind and conscious experience obviously aren't seen as an exception to them. If they were some obvious exception to the physicalists, they wouldn't be physicalists. He's just assuming his philosophical opponents are starting with the premise that his intuitions are correct in order to laugh at and dismiss them out of hand. The fact of the matter is, what seems intuitive to him seems incredibly unintuitive to a lot of other people.
"I have an intuition" is a perfectly fine statement in philosophy.
"I have an intuition, and nobody's intuitions can possibly differ from mine, so I'm just going to laugh off any opposing view instead of actually engaging with what they believe and why" just makes him look like a smug idiot.
Also fake we provider is somewhat funny lol should have gone with "vous" fake you provider would have been funnier. Missed French pun opportunity
Hmm. Just started listening. You guys do not seem to understand what common sense means. The content of common sense varies wildly from person to person and group to group depending upon a variety of factors. My sister and I are professional engineers. Because of our training, experience, and intelligence, what is "common sense" to us (and others with similar backgrounds) is very different from what is common sense to others. I have often witnessed arguments between people, both of whom are appealing to common sense, in which one is claiming A and the other is claiming not-A. Such observations make it common sense to me that the content of common sense is all over the map.
Regarding consciousness, I do not know what the fuck consciousness is or how it comes about. However it is common sense to me that physical brains create consciousness. Change a brain with injury and the person created by that brain changes. A small injury might cause a person to no longer be able to say the word spoon. (I know someone who lost this particular ability due to a stroke). A more serious injury might cause them to lose their vision and lose the ability to count and do simple arithmetic. (I know someone who lost these abilities due to a heart attack.) I have read about people who become radically different people in the eyes of those who know them as a result of brain injury. Such data are common to me me and common sense tells me that brains cause consciousness/minds. Whatever consciousness is, it is 100% caused by whatever physical things the brain happens to be doing. That is common sense to me and many others. It seems obvious to me that if minds were somehow independent of the physical processes occurring in brains (isn't that what dualism posits?), then my mind ought to be able to do stuff on its own and not appear to be 100% dependent upon the particular physical status of the brain.
I will now listen to more of your discussion and see if you change my mind.
Your examples of an injured brain only show that the brain is a necessary condition for consciousness, which is clearly the case. What is less clear is whether the brain is a sufficient condition.
@@danielray7965 OK. Can you suggest something else that might be an additional necessary condition? How might one determine the existence of this extra necessary thing? If this thing is undetectable, then just how exactly does it interact with the brain? What is the difference between something that is completely undetectable and something that simply does not exist?
@@matthewalan59 To be clear, I am not myself a substance duelist (If I had to commit to a position, it would probably be something like non-reductive physicalism). My point was that the fact that brain damage affects experience - something all substance dualists have acknowledged since Descartes - doesn't disprove substance dualism.
Anyway, if you want to argue that something other than the brain is required, the general argument would be that consciousness is immaterial and therefore requires an immaterial substance - another word is "soul" - not just a material substance like the brain. Obviously a soul is not detectable, assuming by detectable you mean something like observable or measurable, but you can posit it as an explanation and judge it against alternative explanations.
As for how this immaterial substance would interact with the brain, no one has any idea. Also, no one really has any idea where these souls would come from apart from religious explanations or how or when the would attach to a physical organism.
@@danielray7965 I know enough about science that I know scientists do not "prove" or "disprove." They do create useful explanations and models that work more or less well depending upon context and the needed accuracy. I have had many people (not you) claim that their soul, once released from its brain, can think, see, hear, etc. with perfect clarity. I am skeptical. I fail to understand why a soul can see perfectly without eyes but cannot see with damaged eyes. Something that is not detectable cannot "attach" itself to anything because I do not think an undetectable attachment is an attachment at all. Good day.
The time thing. Perhaps God can create entirely new strands of time derivative from eternal time. So perhaps God operates from eternal time and is not bound by our strand of time, and is thus timeless in that sense. Unless of course being the master of all strands of time God decides to interject on our time. Lol.
And then of course one can imagine that God works by a system of endless laws, foundational and new, bound by God's truth. The laws then being foundational information that is existence. God being the master of foundational laws of existence working by making laws that are meaning and power in accordance with foundational existential laws.
Of course these are all magical pixie dust explanations, but if one entertains the possibility of God then there are endless powers, and of course it's impossible for God to violate God's truth. From the realm of imagination I'm sure there are endlessly more ways to counter things than strictly adhering to the reality humanity knows of.
It's all simpler to just say the universe comes from an infinite, eternal default state, and no natural, or supernatural God exists. Or perhaps God is a novice in creation science.
From my perspective how things exist and behave is far simpler than determining why things exist the way they do. If there is a why then it will always be lost in philosophy, as there shall never be absolutely certain ways of knowing about natural whys, souls or agency.
There's no way to know if souls are rooted in physical contents, or are a separate but integrated dimension of reality. The qualities of being are definitely not explainable in physical language though.
Michelson and Morley might beg to differ about there being no way to test for a preferred reference frame.
What a bunch of cringe gibberish.
Btw, the "I'm an atheist but not a naturalist" angle is totally weird and incoherent.
I disagree, an atheist can be very well platonic when it comes to abstract objects and most of people are fine with it
@@davib.franco7857 You might as well believe in a god then
This comment proved that you have no idea what you're talking about. At least think before you open your mouth for fuck's sake! What an imbecile rotfl
Just starting the video so I'll see what happens but im interested because in my Healthcare job i regularly have instances that make it obvious to me that we are what the brain does shoved in my face.
Save me some time and tell me how they're redefining "soul."
I'm utterly fed up with these staunch physicalists who think everything's as physical as an overcooked spaghetti noodle. The only noodle they overcooked was their own! And the only thing resembling an overdone strand of spaghetti is the physicalist's own reasoning! They're the kind who'd stick a Fitbit on Schrödinger's cat to check how many steps it took while being simultaneously dead and alive. It's like they look at a beautiful sunset and say, "Ah, yes, approximately 6.24 x 10^18 photons reflecting off atmospheric particles. Very romantic." They've got their wires crossed if they think everything's that simple - their noodle must be simmering in the same pot as that mushy spaghetti. It's like they take the symphony of the universe and turn it into elevator music. And now, out of the blue, I'm hankering for some spaghetti. What's your take on that, you overcooked pasta-loving materialists? What saucy spell is this?! Did your god - the Flying Spaghetti Monster - touch me with His noodly appendage or what? Oh, the noodle of physicalists - those who think the brain's but a bowl of overcooked spaghetti. But let’s not noodle too hard on their shortcomings. After all, if the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn had a love child, it'd be the Physicalist, who's all about hard facts despite coming from the most hilariously hypothetical lineage. Imagine a baby with a noodle whip and a sparkle that's felt but not seen, trying to prove its own existence scientifically. Scientifically!!! Now that's a metaphysical comedy sketch waiting to happen!
Nothing of value was said by this comment
@@t.d.2016 No lie. It's one long diatribe of the argument from incredulity. Plus, a prolonged, but failed, attempt at humor.
Congratulations on your contribution of absolutely nothing to the conversation.
Oh Emerson Green, the guy who thinks that not believing in the existence of God is a mistake and that claims are evidence. Defending substance dualism, what else can one expect from the likes of him? The saying, "Birds of a feather flock together" fits perfectly here.
Cope
Dillahunty Clone Number 57498, hold this L.
@@irish_deconstruction I don't watch Dillahunty. Just pointing out the BS I came across on this channel.
Goatfuckers posting their L's online
Salty cuz u can't refute🧂
I love the giggles