Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11 (2021-06-20)

Description

Joined by special guest Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, the TAP panellists discuss whether materialistic accounts of consciousness can overcome the "Hard Problem" - and explore several proposed solutions in the process.

00:00 Introduction and Arguments 1:19:42 - Matthew Bardos (Atheist) 2:14:07 - Thinker Man (Atheist) 3:06:03 - Sam Chaos (Pagan) 3:37:19 - Mohammad Yunus (Muslim) 3:48:09 - Final Thoughts

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The Hosts: ----------------------| Jake Brancatella, The Muslim Metaphysician

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcGQRfTPNyHlXMqckvz2uqQ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MMetaphysician@MMetaphysician

----------------------|

Yusuf Ponders, The Pondering Soul

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsiDDxy0JXLqM6HBA0MA4NA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/YusufPonders@YusufPonders
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yusufponders@yusufpodners

----------------------|

Sharif

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharifhafezi@sharifhafezi

----------------------|

Abdulrahman

Twitter: https://twitter.com/abdul_now@abdul_now

----------------------|

Admin

Riyad Gmail: hello.tapodcast@gmail.com

#Atheism #Consciuosness #Materialism

Summary of Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11

This summary is AI generated - there may be inaccuracies.

00:00:00 - 01:00:00

Hamza Tzortzis discusses the hard problem of consciousness and how materialists try to explain it. He points out the various problems with this approach, and suggests that Muslims should instead approach the problem from a philosophical perspective. He also discusses the importance of neuroscience in understanding consciousness, and how it is limited by its physicalist ontology.

00:00:00 In this episode of the Thought Adventure Podcast, Hamza Tzortzis and Abdul Rahman discuss the hard problem of consciousness, which is the problem of explaining how subjective experience, such as feelings and thoughts, can be explained in terms of objective reality. They discuss how materialists try to explain consciousness, and point out the various problems with this approach. Finally, they discuss how Muslims should approach the hard problem of consciousness, and how full exploration of the topic can lead to greater understanding and intellectual growth.

00:05:00 The problem of experience, or the hard problem of consciousness, is that it is not possible to understand what it is like to be a particular conscious organism from a purely physical perspective. This difficulty can be summarized in two questions: "What is it like for a particular conscious organism to have a specific inner subjective conscious experience?" and "How is it that this inner subjective experience arises from so-called 'blind physical processes'?" If consciousness is an in principle problem for materialism, then materialism is ultimately defeated.
00:10:00 Hamza Tzortzis explains that there are three main approaches to consciousness: materialism, reductive materialism, and functionalism. He explains that each has its own set of problems and that, as an atheist, he is interested in discussing these problems in order to highlight the need for a philosophical approach rather than relying on empirical evidence.
00:15:00 Hamza Tzortzis and Thought Adventure Podcast discuss the idea that consciousness can be grounded on materialism. They point out that philosophy is important in this process because it helps us to question our presuppositions and assumptions. This leads to the development of theories such as philosophy of mind and existentialism.
00:20:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the hard problem of consciousness, highlighting that, in order to assume that what we experience is what's causing our thoughts, one must assume certain things on a physicalist paradigm. He then discusses a professor's book on the topic, which outlines various ways in which thoughts can arise from physical processes.
00:25:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the importance of philosophy in neuroscience, and why it is important for scientists to be aware of different philosophical alternatives when attempting to understand consciousness. He also touches on the fact that neuroscience assumes a physicalist ontology or metaphysics, and argues that this assumption cannot address the hard problem of consciousness. Finally, he suggests that by bypassing the philosophical mess, neuroscience can achieve a level of understanding that is unnecessary and cheap.
00:30:00 Eliminative materialism is the view that all conscious phenomena can be explained by physical processes. It is a common philosophy of the mind and it is supported by current neuroscience.
00:35:00 The two main arguments against materialism are that it is unreasonable to reject the conclusions of a theory due to the potential discovery of another theory that may have great explanatory power and scope, and that subjective consciousness is still a fact even if it is just stuff happening in the brain.
00:40:00 Reductive materialism is the position that consciousness is purely physical, consisting of neurons and other physical components. It is the most consistent materialist position because it denies the hard problem of consciousness and the first person experience.
00:45:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the differences between reductive materialism and eliminative materialism. He argues that reductive materialism ultimately leads to either eliminative materialism or identity theory, while eliminative materialism denies that subjective experience exists at all. He also points out that reductionism is a necessary step in understanding complex phenomena, and that even when subjective experience is reduced to physical processes, it is still possible to have a subjective social state.
*00:50:00 Discusses the challenges of reducing consciousness to materialism, and how it is still possible to make predictions about what the experience of a particular conscious experience would be based on a particular set of physical traits.
00:55:00 by a super neuroscientist discusses how people can be conscious without having specific receptors or neurons in their brain. He goes on to say that consciousness cannot be explained in terms of physical laws and is instead a qualitative leap. Another example given is the experience of being a bat. Although the material makeup of a bat is understood, the experience of being a bat is not reducible to those physical factors. This is why consciousness remains a mystery to science.

01:00:00 - 02:00:00

Hamza Tzortzis discusses the problems with trying to ground consciousness in materialism. He points to examples such as the beetle in a box example, which show that consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone. He argues that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, and that it is not currently possible to fully understand subjective experience.

*01:00:00 Discusses the problems with trying to base consciousness on materialism, and points to examples such as thebeatle in a box example. Functionism, which tries to explain consciousness through relations between inputs and outputs, has been met with objections because it does not account for subjective experiences.

01:05:00 Emergent materialism is the theory that individual physical things can create new properties that don't exist in them, which can emerge as a result of their interactions. This theory is logically equivalent to reductive materialism, which holds that consciousness can be reduced to physical processes.
01:10:00 of the video discusses the problems with reducing consciousness to the physical world. They discuss how this problem is similar to the 'hard problem' of consciousness, and how the idea of emergence might provide a solution.
01:15:00 , Hamza Tzortzis discusses the argument for consciousness being grounded in materialism. He points out that this argument is powerful because it relates to the self directly and explains why reductionism and the philosophical bandwagoning that's been happening over the past 200 years is a problem. He also notes that, no matter what theories or models are brought forward, they will ultimately be based on the materialistic understanding of consciousness.
01:20:00 , Hamza Tzortzis discusses the possibility that consciousness can be grounded on materialism. He argues that every piece of observational evidence we have points towards a physical change in the brain always equaling a change in consciousness. He goes on to say that if monism is established, then consciousness is an inevitable outcome. However, he argues that these two questions - what it is like to have a subjective experience and how it arises - are separate questions and need to be addressed separately.
01:25:00 According to the speaker, consciousness can be explained by a brain and materialism. However, in 100% of cases, when there is a physical change to the brain, there is also a change in consciousness. This experiment demonstrates that consciousness is mechanistic - meaning that it can be reduced to neuronal activity.
*01:30:00 Discusses the epistemic problem of knowledge, or the fact that we can't move from electrochemical activity and mapping it out to knowledge of what it's like for a specific organism to have a specific conscious experience. also discusses the beetle in the box example, in which a child might say that a beetle is red even though they can't see it. argues that this is a case of self-report, meaning the child is using the word "red" to describe an experience that they feel correlates with everyone else's.
01:35:00 , Hamza Tzortzis discusses the "heart problem of consciousness" - the idea that consciousness cannot be explained by physical processes alone. He argues that this problem is an in-principle one, meaning that there is nothing in the physical world that cannot be explained by physical processes. He goes on to say that, for anything else in the objective physical world, we also have privileged access to our mental states.
01:40:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the idea of consciousness being an emergent property of the brain, and how understanding all of the physical processes and causal interactions involved would not necessarily allow one to understand what it is like to have a specific subjective conscious experience. He goes on to say that even the perfect clothing or clone of a person would not be able to reproduce all of the subjective experiences that each individual has.
01:45:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the concept of consciousness, and argues that it is an emergent property of the physical brain. He goes on to say that, in order for this statement to be true, we would need to be able to solve the problem of inner subjective experiences. However, he admits that this is not currently possible.
*01:50:00 Discusses the problem of consciousness, which is difficult to explain from a materialist perspective. It argues that consciousness is different from neurochemical processes, and that it cannot be explained by understanding physical processes in the brain. It concludes that subjective experience arises from chemical and physical processes in the brain, and that this explains the difference between the structure of subjective experience and the structure of neurochemical firing.
01:55:00 Hamza Tzortzis argues that consciousness can be explained by looking at the brain, but that there is still part of the brain that is consciousness. He also argues that subjective experience, such as feeling a color, corresponds to objective experience, such as seeing a neuron fire. He concludes that consciousness cannot be fully understood, but that it is evidentially supported by evidence.

02:00:00 - 03:00:00

Hamza Tzortzis discusses the problem of consciousness and how it cannot be grounded on materialism. He argues that consciousness cannot be understood without dualism, which is the belief that there are two types of reality - the objective reality that we can know and the subjective reality that only individual organisms can experience.

02:00:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the idea that consciousness might be grounded on materialism, citing evidence from his examination of the brain. He argues that, if consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, then it cannot be explained without presupposing the philosophical view that the brain is consciousness.

02:05:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the problem of consciousness being grounded in materialism. He argues that, even if one understands all the physical facts, this does not lead to knowledge of all the facts of consciousness. He cites Frank Jackson's "Mary's Argument" as a good example of this problem.
02:10:00 The next guest discusses whether or not consciousness can be grounded on materialism, and suggests that there is an ontological problem with the concept.
*02:15:00 Discusses how materialism does not fully explain consciousness, as an emergent property of the brain. The presenter suggests that if we knew everything about our physical makeup, we could understand our own experience of consciousness.
*02:20:00 Discusses the idea that consciousness can be grounded on materialism, and points out that this is equivalent to reducing consciousness to physical processes. It argues that this is not a viable explanation, as consciousness cannot arise from material processes that are blind and non-conscious.
02:25:00 The Emergent Materialist project cannot answer two key questions concerning consciousness: what it is like for a specific conscious organism to experience consciousness, and why that consciousness arises from seemingly cold non-conscious physical processes.
02:30:00 The discussion turns to the idea of consciousness arising from physical activity, with Hamza Tzortzis noting that it would not explain why certain things (such as Abdul having a subjective experience) are experienced. He argues that the identity theory, which posits that the physical makeup of a brain produces consciousness, is absurd, and that the position is instead a proposed solution to a problem that is unlike any other epistemic issue faced in our examination of the world.
02:35:00 The presenter argues that consciousness cannot be grounded on materialism, as consciousness is fundamentally different from physical matter. He suggests that we need to provide a solution to the hard problem of consciousness, which is to explain how matter can give rise to awareness.
02:40:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the idea that consciousness can be generated from non-conscious material processes. He argues that this is magic because it defies the laws of physics. If we accept this, all forms of knowledge become null and void.
*02:45:00 Discusses the idea that consciousness can be grounded on materialism, and argues that consciousness is simply a representation that is created by the brain or other neurons. However, the video argues that we don't currently have the tools to understand consciousness on a deep level, and that even if we did, it would not lead to knowledge of what it's like to have a subjective experience arising from seemingly non-conscious physical processes.
02:50:00 The hosts of the Thought Adventure Podcast discuss the idea that consciousness can be grounded in materialism, noting that there is an in principle problem with the theory should materialism fail to explain consciousness. They say that the problem is not a lack of knowledge, but an underlying philosophical problem.
02:55:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the problem of consciousness and how it cannot be grounded on materialism. He argues that consciousness cannot be understood without dualism, which is the belief that there are two types of reality - the objective reality that we can know and the subjective reality that only individual organisms can experience.

03:00:00 - 03:55:00

Hamza Tzortzis discusses the question of whether or not consciousness can be grounded on materialism. He argues that, on a materialist framework, consciousness would be inherent to matter, and that there is no problem with subjective experiences existing on a materialist worldview.

03:00:00 Hamza Tzortzis, a philosopher, discusses the problem of how subjective experiences like our own can exist objectively. He points to Descartes' idea of the mental having no spatial extension as an example of how subjective experiences can exist. He also argues that the use of the word subjective in this context means it is a first person fact that the speaker is experiencing something.

*03:05:00 Discusses the difficulties of explaining consciousness in terms of materialism, pointing out that while states of matter are emergent, consciousness is not. He then goes on to discuss emergence and its relation to weak emergentism, explaining that while consciousness can be fully explained, there is a qualitative gap between the physical structure and the experience of consciousness.
*03:10:00 Discusses the philosophical concept of "zombies," and how they are essentially identical to humans in terms of their lack of intentionality. It goes on to discuss the idea that consciousness can be reduced to a series of interactions between physical things, and that if this is the case, then consciousness itself must be a physical thing.
03:15:00 Hamza Tzortzis argues that consciousness can be reduced to physical processes, and that the problem of the hard problem is a metaphysical problem that could be solved under naturalism.
03:20:00 Sam talks about how he is a "nerd" and is used to being "sarcastic" in his family. He talks about how he found the "stream" and how it has been helpful for him.
03:25:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses how, in his view, people can be consistent with the idea that consciousness can be grounded on materialism, while also acknowledging that certain experiences can be trusted even if they are reduced to physical reality.
*03:30:00 Discusses the idea of consciousness being grounded in materialism, and Sam discusses how often he experiences mind's eye experiences while high on weed. He argues that, while his experiences are material, they are not caused by materialism.
03:35:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses how consciousness could be explained as an emergent property, and how philosophers who are cognizant of the limitations of science still hold to the view that consciousness is an emergency.
*03:40:00 Discusses the idea of consciousness being grounded in materialism, and goes on to explain why these thinkers believe in emergent materialism. points out that even if we knew everything about the science of the mind, it wouldn't lead us to a full understanding of how subjective experience arises from seemingly non-conscious physical processes.
03:45:00 Hamza Tzortzis discusses the question of whether consciousness can be grounded on materialism. He argues that, on a materialist framework, consciousness would be inherent to matter, and that there is no problem with subjective experiences existing on a materialist worldview.
03:50:00 The presenter discusses the problem of explaining materialism and consciousness, saying that there is an in principle unbridgeable gap between the two. They recommend that those who disagree with what they are saying to read Hamza Tzortzis' book, Divine Reality. They also mention that every Wednesday night, Abdullah Newness hosts an evidence show where people can learn more about the scientific evidence for the existence of consciousness.
03:55:00 features Hamza Tzortzis debating the existence of consciousness on the basis of materialism. They discuss whether or not consciousness could be reduced to physical phenomena and whether or not it could be grounds for materialism. concludes that consciousness cannot be reduced to materialism and that it is an important part of human experience.

Full transcript with timestamps: CLICK TO EXPAND

0:00:08 i am
0:00:39 on today's thought adventure podcast
0:00:42 uh alhamdulillah we have our special
0:00:46 guest back again
0:00:47 uh abdul rahman are you joking hamza
0:00:50 hamza is here hondura
0:00:51 and today's topic that we're going to be
0:00:53 discussing today
0:00:55 is going to be on consciousness which is
0:00:56 really a part two discussion
0:00:59 uh on the discussion that we had a few
0:01:01 months ago uh assalamu alaikum hamza how
0:01:04 are you
0:01:07 good brother and abdul how are you guys
0:01:14 has done uh lots of work
0:01:18 and discussions and he's done his
0:01:20 master's
0:01:21 and essays thesis on the topic of
0:01:24 consciousness
0:01:24 and the hard problem uh so alhamdulillah
0:01:28 for coming down so we can really get
0:01:29 into some of the nitty gritty
0:01:30 discussions
0:01:31 on this topic and really move on from
0:01:33 the second part and obviously we've also
0:01:35 got
0:01:36 abdul rahman assalamu alaikum
0:01:51 but he's always special
0:01:56 we've also got brother yusuf from
0:01:57 pondering souls joining us but he's
0:01:59 running a little bit late but he'll join
0:02:01 jump into the stream
0:02:02 as soon as he's free unfortunately jake
0:02:05 the muslim metaphysician couldn't make
0:02:07 it this week
0:02:08 uh but um
0:02:11 he'll be uh he'll be here next uh in the
0:02:13 next session
0:02:14 uh inshaallah so what is today's topic
0:02:17 today's topic
0:02:18 is on part two of consciousness and
0:02:21 the hard problem of consciousness and
0:02:24 the first
0:02:25 stream that we had and that was very
0:02:27 informative
0:02:28 really important stream that we had we
0:02:30 discussed is consciousness a miracle
0:02:34 does it in essence we were asking the
0:02:36 question does consciousness supersede
0:02:38 any materialistic explanation yeah and
0:02:41 so
0:02:42 in this part of the stream because
0:02:44 there's so much to discuss on this
0:02:45 really we could have
0:02:46 another two three four five shows on
0:02:48 this topic area but this part of the
0:02:50 stream we want to really focus on some
0:02:52 of the
0:02:53 responses materialists themselves give
0:02:56 to the issue of consciousness
0:02:58 and demonstrate some of the problems uh
0:03:01 regards to consciousness so
0:03:03 in essence we really want to get into
0:03:05 you know how materialist explain a
0:03:07 explain consciousness and whether there
0:03:10 is still an unbridgeable and in
0:03:13 principle problem
0:03:14 regards to consciousness uh in this in
0:03:17 this area
0:03:18 so uh i want to just ask hamza just to
0:03:21 maybe
0:03:23 and i want the brothers to be trying to
0:03:25 be as concise as possible
0:03:27 i know it's always difficult for us but
0:03:30 you know
0:03:30 um what what is this hard problem of
0:03:34 consciousness
0:03:34 it's a big question but if you could
0:03:36 just really quickly like summarize the
0:03:39 couple of points regardless of what what
0:03:40 is it that what
0:03:42 uh when we talk about the hard problem
0:03:43 of consciousness yeah
0:03:46 for giving me the opportunity again to
0:03:48 engage with you wonderful brothers i
0:03:49 have to admit
0:03:51 the thought adventure podcast is
0:03:53 probably the best
0:03:54 podcast that we have online at the
0:03:56 moment i'm not just saying that
0:03:58 and it is limited because i don't really
0:04:00 listen to many podcasts
0:04:02 but in terms of kind of intellectual
0:04:04 nature with good ada
0:04:06 i am absolutely impressed and may allah
0:04:11 bless every single one of you and
0:04:12 preserve you all
0:04:14 and i think all the brothers and sisters
0:04:16 should support
0:04:17 full adventure podcasts and
0:04:21 subscribe and share and engage with them
0:04:24 and also take them to account you know
0:04:26 get them to improve even more because
0:04:27 they're wonderful
0:04:29 they are a beacon of light on the online
0:04:32 sphere i have to say especially the way
0:04:33 you dealt with aaron rah
0:04:35 it was like awesome i think i tweeted on
0:04:38 that and i was like
0:04:38 really impressed alhamdulillah
0:04:40 especially sharif you
0:04:42 you sneaky intellectual
0:04:45 the way you you're like a smiling
0:04:47 assassin man you just
0:04:49 digged in that intellectual dagger and
0:04:50 he was completely finished
0:04:52 like the way you anchored off the the
0:04:55 principle of sufficient reason and you
0:04:57 and you and you basically got him to
0:05:00 understand it from the perspective of
0:05:01 science as well
0:05:02 and then he just whoa it just like i was
0:05:05 really impressed exactly her brothers
0:05:07 you guys did really really well
0:05:09 and the adap and the patients and we
0:05:11 have to eliminate our game in the dao
0:05:13 you know
0:05:13 the online sphere unfortunately has
0:05:15 become a kind of ego
0:05:16 fest and we have to be very very careful
0:05:19 about that
0:05:20 and uh you know the famous one if it's
0:05:23 famous i just found out about this
0:05:24 hadith a few
0:05:25 few months ago i think hadith i believe
0:05:28 and i'm paraphrasing and it's that
0:05:31 fame and wealth are more
0:05:35 dangerous to one's religion than two
0:05:37 free
0:05:38 roaming wolves among sheep and the
0:05:41 online sphere
0:05:42 obviously is a platform to gain wealth
0:05:45 but significantly from a dow context
0:05:47 fame but yet we just push people we give
0:05:50 people
0:05:50 platform and we have to be very very
0:05:52 wary so may god bless you guys so
0:05:54 let me answer the question i do
0:05:55 apologize the heart problem of
0:05:57 consciousness
0:05:58 is the problem of experience and there
0:06:01 are two main
0:06:02 questions that basically summarize the
0:06:04 hard problem of consciousness
0:06:06 question number one what is it like for
0:06:09 a particular conscious organism
0:06:11 particular organism to have a specific
0:06:14 inner subjective conscious experience
0:06:17 and number two
0:06:18 how is it that this inner subjective
0:06:21 conscious experience
0:06:22 arises from so-called
0:06:26 blind physical processes and what i mean
0:06:28 by blind and cold
0:06:30 is that there is no intentional force
0:06:32 directing the physical processes
0:06:34 anywhere
0:06:34 and they're blind meaning they're not
0:06:36 aware of themselves or aware of anything
0:06:38 outside of themselves
0:06:39 so these two questions cannot be
0:06:41 answered
0:06:43 if you refer to the materialistic or
0:06:44 physicalist paradigm let me just repeat
0:06:47 the question
0:06:48 questions number one what is it like for
0:06:50 a particular conscious organism to have
0:06:52 a inner subjective conscious experience
0:06:54 for example what is it like for me
0:06:56 to have a banana milkshake on a sunday
0:06:58 morning i only know
0:06:59 really what that is like even if i use
0:07:02 words that you can
0:07:02 relate to those words are just a vehicle
0:07:05 to meaning which is a representation of
0:07:07 my experience my personal inner
0:07:08 experience
0:07:09 the second question is well how do i get
0:07:11 that inner subjective experience
0:07:13 arising from blind code physical
0:07:16 processes
0:07:20 yeah yeah no alhamdulillah i think in
0:07:22 essence
0:07:24 the problem is is that you've got
0:07:26 non-conscious physical material that
0:07:28 suddenly becomes aware of itself
0:07:32 aware of its physicality and then it has
0:07:33 these experiences
0:07:35 and these experiences cannot be
0:07:37 described
0:07:38 uh in a way where we can describe like
0:07:41 energy as
0:07:42 equals c squared but we can't describe
0:07:45 as you mentioned the banana milkshake on
0:07:47 sunday morning
0:07:48 so we have this like this this really
0:07:50 strange phenomena
0:07:51 that occurs within material within
0:07:54 within ourselves
0:07:55 uh i don't know if you wanted just to
0:07:57 add to that in terms of
0:07:58 you know just very briefly in terms of
0:08:00 touching upon what this hard problem of
0:08:02 consciousness
0:08:04 is is about because i think a lot of
0:08:06 atheists and
0:08:07 you know not just atheists but a lot of
0:08:09 people tend to think it's just
0:08:11 you know quite a simple question you
0:08:13 know uh
0:08:15 yeah maybe maybe i just want to add that
0:08:17 it's not something that
0:08:19 sorry maybe i just want to add that it's
0:08:21 not something that
0:08:22 theists are making up to you know uh
0:08:26 prove the existence of god or a soul or
0:08:29 spirit or whatever
0:08:31 the term was actually coined by a
0:08:33 non-theist
0:08:34 an atheist scientist actually he was
0:08:36 trained as a scientist
0:08:37 scientist david chalmers and he is is
0:08:40 the one who coined this term the hard
0:08:42 problem of consciousness
0:08:44 and he takes a very strong stance on
0:08:46 this he believes that
0:08:47 consciousness is an in principle problem
0:08:50 for materialism in
0:08:51 the sense that it's not just a problem
0:08:54 that you know
0:08:55 requires us to do more science in order
0:08:57 to solve he regards it as an
0:08:59 in-principle problem for
0:09:01 uh materialism as a whole that's why he
0:09:03 himself has adopted pan-psychism he's
0:09:05 he's not a theist
0:09:06 he he's a pan psychist and i think
0:09:09 that's very important to point out
0:09:10 because a lot of people
0:09:11 think that theists try to make a big
0:09:13 deal out of it
0:09:14 when in fact the term itself wasn't even
0:09:17 coined by
0:09:17 a theist and and it's it's it's very
0:09:20 commonly discussed
0:09:22 amongst atheists uh uh philosophy
0:09:24 atheists and theaters philosophers alike
0:09:27 yeah yeah but you know i think uh a lot
0:09:29 of atheists a lot of thea sorry
0:09:31 really jump on this one this this
0:09:33 discussion of consciousness because
0:09:35 yeah we've got one up on the the atheist
0:09:38 materialist
0:09:39 well it is it is a it is a problem for
0:09:41 materialism really because if there's
0:09:43 anywhere you're going to go
0:09:44 to defeat materialism then really the
0:09:47 the most
0:09:47 obvious place to go is consciousness so
0:09:50 there's that
0:09:52 uh of course a lot a lot of theists i
0:09:54 mean you could say that a lot of uh
0:09:56 it's not that sonic music you can say
0:09:58 that
0:10:00 that theists sometimes would make
0:10:01 unreasonable inferences from it
0:10:03 maybe or argue against materialism in an
0:10:07 unreasonable way
0:10:08 so i mean you can have a correct
0:10:10 conclusion although your reasoning is
0:10:11 wrong
0:10:12 but the the the the gist of what i'm
0:10:14 saying here is that
0:10:16 this is a serious problem for
0:10:18 materialism like materialists
0:10:20 themselves acknowledge the seriousness
0:10:23 of this problem to the extent
0:10:25 that they um desperately take measures
0:10:28 that we're probably going to talk about
0:10:29 here throughout the stream like
0:10:30 eliminative materialism consciousness
0:10:32 doesn't exist mental states do not exist
0:10:34 so it's it's
0:10:35 it's clearly a problem for materialism
0:10:38 and uh
0:10:39 it doesn't really need for us to make a
0:10:40 big deal out of it it is a big deal
0:10:43 all right as hamza uh jazakallahu
0:10:52 waiting for it to pass out and then
0:10:53 finally right at the end i'll
0:10:55 do that so yeah really just to move on
0:10:58 really quickly so
0:10:59 uh because we we do want to get callers
0:11:01 to call in uh so we do want to have a
0:11:03 discussion with
0:11:04 with our audience um but just to move on
0:11:07 really quickly then so
0:11:09 uh hamza what are the sort of the major
0:11:11 positions
0:11:12 in the philosophy of mind because
0:11:14 obviously this whole topic areas about
0:11:16 the philosophy of the mind
0:11:18 so what are those sort of the major
0:11:19 positions that we we can have or people
0:11:21 have proposed
0:11:22 yeah i mean the reason we're talking
0:11:26 about philosophy you're not like
0:11:27 neuroscience
0:11:28 or empirical theories it's because all
0:11:30 of these empirical theories and the
0:11:31 neuroscience itself
0:11:33 are based on key philosophical
0:11:35 assumptions this is well known
0:11:37 you could read anthony rowancio
0:11:40 manzotti rex wilson and others
0:11:44 and they all agree and they all affirm
0:11:46 that you have
0:11:48 empirical theories or empirical
0:11:50 investigation and neuroscientific or
0:11:52 neurobiological
0:11:54 experiments they are all based on
0:11:57 certain approaches to the philosophy
0:12:00 philosophy of the mind
0:12:02 specifically in this context usually a
0:12:04 form of materialism or
0:12:06 physicalism and we're going to be using
0:12:08 physicalism materialism
0:12:10 interchangeably they have slightly
0:12:11 different histories and meanings
0:12:13 but in the philosophy of the mind they
0:12:15 generally mean the same thing when you
0:12:16 say
0:12:17 physicalism or materialism so that's
0:12:20 important to note the reason we're
0:12:21 talking about philosophy because
0:12:23 no matter how good your experiment is no
0:12:25 matter how
0:12:26 amazing you know your empirical theory
0:12:29 is with all due respect it's based upon
0:12:31 a certain philosophical approach which
0:12:33 needs
0:12:33 which you have to assume you can't
0:12:36 actually prove it to be true because you
0:12:37 assume it to be true in order for your
0:12:39 theory your empirical theory
0:12:40 or your neurobiological investigation to
0:12:42 actually work now you can't use it to
0:12:44 prove your assumption
0:12:45 that's arguing in a one of those called
0:12:48 a circle yeah
0:12:49 so that's why it's very important to
0:12:51 highlight this fact
0:12:52 because a lot of scientists a lot of
0:12:55 atheists a lot of
0:12:57 materialists who are like would always
0:12:59 latch on to empirical theories or
0:13:00 a neurobiological account or
0:13:02 investigation look we found it it's like
0:13:04 50 megahertz or something some kind of
0:13:06 frequency in the brain
0:13:07 that's the basis for consciousness um
0:13:09 well when we break that down all you're
0:13:11 really doing you're assuming
0:13:12 for example reductive materialism to be
0:13:15 true
0:13:16 or reductive physicalism or form of
0:13:17 physicalism you need to prove that to be
0:13:19 true my friend your
0:13:21 your study hasn't done anything yeah
0:13:22 it's just an expression
0:13:24 of that assumption this is very
0:13:25 important from an atheist discourse
0:13:27 point of view
0:13:28 because sometimes we get lost in the
0:13:29 science we forget the bigger
0:13:31 metaphysical picture because philosophy
0:13:33 of the mind is really
0:13:34 about metaphysics so the main kind of
0:13:37 approach is now i want to make this as
0:13:38 simple as possible because there's
0:13:40 so much literature on these issues but
0:13:42 you could really summarize some of the
0:13:44 approaches in the following way you have
0:13:46 what you call eliminative materialism
0:13:48 you have reductive materialism
0:13:51 you have functionalism you have emergent
0:13:53 materialism
0:13:54 the strong version and the weak version
0:13:57 you have behaviorism
0:13:58 you have epi epi phenomenalism which is
0:14:01 a non-physicalist theory
0:14:03 you also have substance dualism which is
0:14:06 also
0:14:08 materialist in nature and you have pan
0:14:11 psychism so these are kind of
0:14:12 general kind of approaches to the mind
0:14:15 but even when you zoom in on a
0:14:16 particular one
0:14:17 you have like identity theory and so on
0:14:20 and so forth but that's all within the
0:14:22 kind of nature of reductive materialism
0:14:24 anyway
0:14:24 and but those are the broad approaches
0:14:26 to the philosophy of the mind and we can
0:14:28 unpack those today inshallah
0:14:30 yeah so for my understanding is uh
0:14:32 there's sort of generally three
0:14:35 different approaches towards
0:14:36 consciousness there's
0:14:38 materialism uh i.e that consciousness
0:14:41 comes from a
0:14:42 physical matter but then different
0:14:44 models underneath that
0:14:45 there's what you said dualism which is
0:14:48 obviously you have
0:14:49 physical material and something that's
0:14:51 immaterial some sort of conscious
0:14:53 mind that exists independent but
0:14:56 you know uh symbiotic with the
0:15:00 with the material and then you've got
0:15:02 idealism
0:15:03 as well uh you know this idea that
0:15:06 consciousness is foundational
0:15:08 and materialism comes out of of
0:15:10 consciousness
0:15:12 so but i know i want to go into maybe
0:15:14 some of the more details as well in
0:15:15 terms of the actual
0:15:16 the materialistic explanations
0:15:18 regardless of this but
0:15:20 just maybe to focus on that that first
0:15:22 part that you said and maybe bring
0:15:23 yourself into this
0:15:25 why does philosophy matter in this why
0:15:27 can't we just simply say right let's
0:15:29 you know we're talking about mind let's
0:15:31 open up the brain let's look at
0:15:32 neurons firing you know let's look at
0:15:34 neuroscience why do we have to look at
0:15:36 the philosophy first
0:15:53 this touches on one of my my favorite
0:15:55 subjects as well so phenomenology
0:15:58 edmund hussell he began this whole
0:16:00 project
0:16:01 um which ended up being something akin
0:16:03 to like the science of
0:16:04 consciousness or the science of
0:16:06 quote-unquote
0:16:07 um because he was noticing a lot of
0:16:09 these problems that were sort of
0:16:11 occurring with the development of
0:16:12 philosophy as it sort of grew
0:16:14 towards the the early 1900s end of the
0:16:17 1800s
0:16:18 and what he was noticing is that we just
0:16:22 kept getting ourselves in terms of
0:16:23 philosophy and these sort of circles and
0:16:25 these hoops
0:16:26 and um we were setting out to prove
0:16:28 things and
0:16:30 i mentioned this quite a lot but like um
0:16:32 like there was there was a sort of
0:16:34 an excitement so they went from going
0:16:36 from this
0:16:37 sort of dogmatic theism in the the early
0:16:40 medieval period
0:16:41 uh to the late medieval period and then
0:16:42 the early enlightenment comes along and
0:16:44 skepticism starts to grow
0:16:46 and what they do is they start being
0:16:47 really skeptical of the the dogmatism
0:16:50 uh that was sort of prevalent in europe
0:16:51 at the time
0:16:53 and they start to put that aside
0:16:56 and just move towards this sort of like
0:16:59 heavy
0:17:00 scientific approach and then what they
0:17:02 do is they like
0:17:03 some of the things that they held in the
0:17:04 the early medieval period into the late
0:17:06 medieval period
0:17:07 like for example the flat earth um the
0:17:10 you know
0:17:10 the the idea that the earth was the
0:17:12 center of the universe all of these
0:17:14 things
0:17:14 started to be sort of turned upside down
0:17:17 and this caused a sort of
0:17:19 an excitement within the the scientific
0:17:21 community they were like
0:17:22 oh we're becoming enlightened and what
0:17:24 was funny is that
0:17:25 they sort of they applied skepticism to
0:17:28 the
0:17:29 the scientific uh sorry to the the
0:17:31 theistic realm so that which was held
0:17:33 dogmatically
0:17:34 um and when they started coming up with
0:17:37 these new theories
0:17:38 they started holding them more
0:17:40 dogmatically for me enough but it gave
0:17:42 this sort of um
0:17:44 i don't know this it was just you know
0:17:46 they sat calling it the early
0:17:48 enlightenment period
0:17:49 and there was a big buzz around what
0:17:51 science was capable of
0:17:52 and what reason was going to show to the
0:17:54 world and what the human being was going
0:17:56 to be capable of
0:17:57 and we were moving into the into the
0:17:59 light and you know
0:18:00 everything was going to start to become
0:18:01 known and things like that but then as
0:18:03 it sort of
0:18:04 developed they started to be shown more
0:18:06 as this sort of like childish naive
0:18:08 approach and then all these problems
0:18:10 started or it's especially within
0:18:11 philosophy and they were like well you
0:18:14 know
0:18:15 in order to hold something um in a
0:18:18 justified manner you have to be able to
0:18:20 at least give like a rational deduction
0:18:22 uh you know like a syllogism uh in a in
0:18:24 deductive form or at least in
0:18:26 an inductive form for the existence of
0:18:29 any of your beliefs
0:18:31 and uh and then they were like well
0:18:32 we'll start off with the external world
0:18:33 and then that
0:18:34 kind of devolved into sort of idealism
0:18:37 and then
0:18:38 realism and a combination of the two you
0:18:39 end up with like transcendental idealism
0:18:41 moving on into
0:18:42 khan and like as they kind of start
0:18:45 going through and philosophy just
0:18:46 continues and continues it just
0:18:48 and it starts to look like as you move
0:18:51 into
0:18:51 sort of the early 1900s it's like
0:18:53 everyone's just getting really tired
0:18:56 of trying to be able to like prove
0:18:58 things um
0:18:59 in the way that they thought they were
0:19:00 going to be able to
0:19:02 and and then what you start to see is
0:19:04 the rise of the existentialists
0:19:06 and a lot of these existentialist
0:19:08 thinkers um
0:19:09 they developed out of a thinker called
0:19:11 edmund hussell
0:19:12 and edmund hussell's relatively unknown
0:19:15 um but he's like the father of
0:19:16 phenomenology
0:19:18 and he ends up sort of starting this
0:19:20 philosophy
0:19:21 of consciousness um where he talks about
0:19:24 the issues with all of these sort of
0:19:26 presuppositions and assumptions that
0:19:28 everyone holds
0:19:29 in the the scientific community and how
0:19:32 we need to sort of step away from that
0:19:34 and go to what is foundational go to
0:19:36 what is
0:19:37 the first thing that which is you know
0:19:40 at the beginning of all uh en endeavor
0:19:43 or all inquiry which is
0:19:45 uh the conscious experience and so he
0:19:47 starts to build this up and then you
0:19:48 start to see
0:19:49 a lot of things like philosophy of mind
0:19:51 develop out of that and then more
0:19:53 problems
0:19:53 sort of going back and forth hamza's
0:19:55 going to be much more
0:19:56 glued up on that than i am but yeah
0:20:00 that was such a continental response
0:20:03 yeah every time i say so it is
0:20:09 this is yusuf's continental philosophy
0:20:12 training yeah
0:20:13 it's like forget deductive arguments
0:20:15 forget you know abstract rational proofs
0:20:18 let's talk about the experience of
0:20:20 experience
0:20:21 the phenomenological aspect yeah
0:20:24 so that was like a way i was like a long
0:20:27 way of answering the question
0:20:28 but i like it but continental dig at you
0:20:32 bro
0:20:33 i know every time bro every time but it
0:20:35 gives people
0:20:36 because i think what's important here is
0:20:38 to sort of mention the the historical
0:20:39 development of these problems
0:20:41 um and how they build up and you know
0:20:44 how there's a lot of excitement that
0:20:45 appears out of something and
0:20:47 that makes this sort of bubble inflate
0:20:49 and then something happens and it pops
0:20:51 um and deflates and you saw obviously
0:20:54 you can even see that in today you have
0:20:55 the development of things like the the
0:20:57 post-modern
0:20:57 philosophy where everything is up for
0:21:00 grabs now everything is up for
0:21:02 um deconstruction everything is up to be
0:21:04 doubted there is no
0:21:05 nothing should be held at all almost
0:21:07 like it moves towards us
0:21:09 um creating the creative endeavors where
0:21:12 things such as
0:21:13 you know everyone was holding even
0:21:14 things like gender
0:21:16 um all of these things are being
0:21:18 questioned like
0:21:19 not one thing is being left unprobed
0:21:22 yeah i think i think the issue
0:21:25 about menology
0:21:28 phenomenon
0:21:34 the thing regardless of that is that
0:21:36 what we sense and what we experience of
0:21:38 the world does not necessarily
0:21:40 correspond to this third person
0:21:41 objective analysis
0:21:43 i think i don't know who it was but
0:21:45 somebody gave the example
0:21:46 that when you look at a table you see
0:21:48 this solid structure
0:21:50 but when you you know discover you know
0:21:52 from
0:21:53 physics about the nature of a table is
0:21:55 that most of the table
0:21:57 is empty space yeah it actually exists
0:22:01 mainly as empty space and when you touch
0:22:04 the table the thing that's keeping the
0:22:06 table up are the forces
0:22:08 so these invisible forces are keeping
0:22:10 these things up
0:22:12 so you have this third person objective
0:22:14 analysis of
0:22:15 things within the universe and then you
0:22:17 have our experiences
0:22:19 of the universe itself so we don't
0:22:21 really experience
0:22:22 tables being mainly empty space we see
0:22:24 as a solid object
0:22:26 and so when it comes to the issue of
0:22:28 science and philosophy regards to the
0:22:30 the idea of the hard problem of
0:22:31 consciousness you know and uh
0:22:34 you know i think it gave this example
0:22:35 last time is i was speaking to one
0:22:36 non-muslim atheist
0:22:38 and he said here let me show you country
0:22:40 let me show you thinking i thought
0:22:42 and he showed me this neuron growing and
0:22:45 the dendrites and
0:22:46 connectivity so i said what's that he
0:22:49 goes that's a thought i go how do you
0:22:50 notice a thought
0:22:52 yeah how do you know that is an actual
0:22:54 thought and he goes well that's what
0:22:56 happens in the brain i go yes but
0:22:58 how do you know it's a thought because
0:23:00 you have to come with certain
0:23:02 axioms presuppositions that the
0:23:06 neurons and the connections of the
0:23:08 neurons are what's causing thoughts
0:23:11 in order to make that now a lot of
0:23:13 people you know
0:23:14 whenever i talk about this a lot of
0:23:16 atheists are like uh
0:23:18 no no no no they just don't get it no we
0:23:20 can we can do this with the for brain we
0:23:22 can do that with the brain
0:23:23 but ultimately that point which is
0:23:26 you have to sort of assume certain
0:23:29 things on a physicalist paradigm
0:23:31 that what we're seeing what's occurring
0:23:33 in the physical brain is what's actually
0:23:35 causing
0:23:36 not just correlating but causing
0:23:40 the uh the the conscious experience
0:23:44 because neurobiology is yeah
0:23:45 neurobiology is a science of
0:23:47 correlations and even if they were to
0:23:49 map out everything in the brain and they
0:23:51 could correlate to for example you
0:23:53 having a strawberry on a sunday morning
0:23:55 with some cream
0:23:56 all they've done is they've shown that
0:23:59 when you have
0:24:00 strawberry and cream on a sunday morning
0:24:04 this happens in your brain now when they
0:24:07 say now
0:24:07 that is your conscious experience that's
0:24:10 making a
0:24:11 massive inference and leap which they
0:24:13 cannot make because they have to now
0:24:15 ensure that actually
0:24:17 what is in your brain is that conscious
0:24:20 experience
0:24:20 all you've shown is when you have that
0:24:22 particular conscious experience you're
0:24:24 having these
0:24:25 this electrochemical activity happening
0:24:27 that's all you can say
0:24:28 by now for you to make the logical leap
0:24:30 and say what it is identical to that
0:24:33 there's a massive problem and even if
0:24:35 they were to claim that was the case
0:24:37 they would still have to try and unravel
0:24:40 the massive problem which is well how
0:24:42 does this subjective conscious
0:24:43 experience arise from that
0:24:45 blind code physical process but to
0:24:48 answer your question
0:24:49 without going into like the history of
0:24:51 philosophy and the history of
0:24:53 the world yeah um
0:24:58 professor wrote a really good book
0:25:02 on consciousness about the science of
0:25:04 subjectivity and it's a really
0:25:05 accessible book
0:25:06 and this quote just summarizes why
0:25:08 philosophy is important this discussion
0:25:10 he says
0:25:11 however it is useful also for empirical
0:25:14 scientists
0:25:15 to be aware of the different
0:25:17 philosophical alternatives
0:25:19 because every empirical theory also
0:25:22 necessarily involves some
0:25:24 sort of implicit philosophical
0:25:26 commitments
0:25:27 the over-empirical approach that a
0:25:28 scientific scientist takes to
0:25:30 consciousness
0:25:31 is guided by his prior philosophical
0:25:34 commitments or intuitions about the
0:25:36 nature of science
0:25:37 and the nature of consciousness whether
0:25:39 he is aware of such commitments or not
0:25:41 so neurobiology really is reduced to a
0:25:44 form of physicalism whether it's
0:25:46 emergent materialism whether it's
0:25:48 maybe functionalism or reductive
0:25:50 materialism the point is
0:25:52 all of these fancy science that you will
0:25:54 see in neuroscience
0:25:55 and neurobiological studies are really
0:25:58 reduced to some of the approaches we're
0:26:00 going to talk about today
0:26:01 so when they say yeah look i've proven
0:26:03 it they haven't they've disproved
0:26:04 they've just assumed their assumption
0:26:06 they're saying this makes sense of our
0:26:08 assumption okay it doesn't prove your
0:26:10 assumption because you can't prove it
0:26:11 because i'll be like arguing in a circle
0:26:13 you need to do the philosophy to show
0:26:15 that this
0:26:17 approach to the mind this metaphysics if
0:26:19 you like
0:26:20 actually is coherent and actually makes
0:26:22 sense of the heart problem which
0:26:24 when we look into today we're going to
0:26:26 see that the approaches to the
0:26:27 philosophy of the mind
0:26:29 act especially the physicalist ones or
0:26:30 the materialist ones do not make sense
0:26:33 or cannot make sense of the hard problem
0:26:35 of consciousness
0:26:36 yeah so can i can i just add to that
0:26:39 part because i think
0:26:40 uh brother hamza said it beautifully
0:26:42 earlier and and it kind of sort of
0:26:44 like answers the question of why you
0:26:45 need to do philosophy well
0:26:47 so like neuroscientists for example why
0:26:50 they think they can't answer the heart
0:26:52 problem of consciousness
0:26:53 it's very simple why they think that is
0:26:55 because they assume
0:26:56 a certain metaphysics right they assume
0:26:59 a certain philosophy of mind
0:27:01 even if they don't know they're assuming
0:27:02 it so they so they assume that in order
0:27:04 to
0:27:05 answer the hard problem of consciousness
0:27:07 what you need to do is explain these
0:27:09 behavorial and
0:27:10 functional aspects of of of of human
0:27:14 uh behavior and that's it they don't
0:27:17 they don't
0:27:17 really they they're really answering the
0:27:19 easy problem of consciousness which
0:27:21 anyone would acknowledge that there must
0:27:23 be some kind of correlation
0:27:25 between our neural activity and our
0:27:28 physical uh behavior what is what does
0:27:32 appear from a third-person perspective
0:27:34 so it's almost as if you're just
0:27:36 sweeping the
0:27:37 actual heart problem under the carpet
0:27:39 and you're saying it doesn't matter
0:27:40 which is an implicit kind of eliminative
0:27:43 materialism or
0:27:44 reductionism and and and that's really
0:27:47 what it gets down to i mean you can't
0:27:49 uh uh provide a materialistic account of
0:27:53 consciousness without
0:27:55 reducing your position collapsing into
0:27:57 one of these two either a reductive
0:27:59 materialist position or an eliminative
0:28:01 materialist position
0:28:02 whether or not they know they're taking
0:28:05 these philosophical positions is a
0:28:06 different story but they are taking them
0:28:08 yes abdullah what's very interesting is
0:28:10 when we can show that the
0:28:12 the materialistic or physicalist
0:28:15 ontologies or
0:28:16 metaphysics uh doesn't make sense it
0:28:19 doesn't
0:28:19 answer the hard problems of
0:28:21 consciousness the two main questions
0:28:22 that relate to the heart problem of
0:28:24 consciousness
0:28:25 then we don't have to go into the
0:28:26 neurobiological studies if we can
0:28:28 already show that
0:28:29 the neurobiological studies are based on
0:28:32 a form of physicalism and we can show
0:28:35 physicalism fails
0:28:36 you don't even need to know the science
0:28:37 i know that sounds really weird because
0:28:39 listen to the following premises number
0:28:41 one neuroscience
0:28:42 assumes a physicalist ontology or
0:28:45 metaphysics
0:28:46 number two physicalism cannot address
0:28:48 the problems of
0:28:50 inner subjective conscious experience in
0:28:51 other words the heart problem of
0:28:52 consciousness and the conclusion
0:28:54 therefore
0:28:54 neuroscience can't deal with the heart
0:28:56 problem of consciousness that's
0:28:58 it so it's like a really easy
0:29:00 philosophical route of just bypassing
0:29:02 all the philosophical or the
0:29:03 neurobiological mess
0:29:05 um but because we live in a kind of
0:29:06 social age that science matters
0:29:08 a lot yeah um it it's very hard for
0:29:11 people
0:29:12 to register this so but it's very good
0:29:13 that we've actually spent some time
0:29:15 showing why the philosophy matters in
0:29:17 this case
0:29:18 can i just touch on that as well so what
0:29:20 you notice is
0:29:21 whenever you sort of delve into these
0:29:24 assumptions that they're making
0:29:26 um usually and it's usually the typical
0:29:30 characters that you see like for example
0:29:32 um aaron
0:29:33 uh richard dawkins um that
0:29:36 other bloke that hamza debated that one
0:29:38 time what was his name lawrence krauss
0:29:40 lawrence krauss easy one and they
0:29:43 they're always very dismissive of
0:29:45 philosophy and they'll usually say the
0:29:48 only kind of good philosophy is
0:29:49 philosophy that happens to agree with
0:29:51 everything that they're already saying
0:29:52 um and it's cheap because they're always
0:29:55 talking against theistic
0:29:57 uh dogmatism and they hold this
0:30:00 scientific dogmatism in terms of like
0:30:03 the assumptions that they hold the
0:30:04 axioms that they put forward
0:30:06 are intuitive and obvious and you don't
0:30:09 even need to really question them or
0:30:10 look into them at all
0:30:12 and if you do then you're just being
0:30:13 silly or pedantic
0:30:15 um let's be honest if some of these
0:30:18 characters are
0:30:20 some of the most ridiculous incoherent
0:30:23 characters that have emerged on the web
0:30:25 i don't know how they get away with it
0:30:26 with all due respect especially
0:30:28 aaron rod's performance on the thought
0:30:30 adventure podcast
0:30:32 i think he should quit he should quit
0:30:34 and he should stop doing what he's doing
0:30:36 i mean he's definitely funded i think
0:30:38 he's already said that he's funded so
0:30:40 you know follow the money man because
0:30:43 you know even saying that
0:30:44 they reject philosophy and the statement
0:30:46 that you made was a philosophical
0:30:48 statement anyway yeah yeah
0:30:50 but they can't run away from philosophy
0:30:52 it's gonna bite them in their logical
0:30:53 posterior in some way
0:30:55 but anyway but yeah it's um cool uh just
0:30:58 so let's move on really quickly
0:31:00 so hamza what are the major
0:31:03 stroke materialist theories of the mind
0:31:06 yeah so i think we just touched on it
0:31:08 very briefly so you have eliminative
0:31:10 materialism
0:31:11 you have reductive materialism you have
0:31:14 emergent materialism you have
0:31:16 behaviorism and you have
0:31:17 functionalism so these are the kind of
0:31:19 main type of
0:31:20 materialist ontologies and within them
0:31:24 there are kind of things that branch out
0:31:26 but if you focus on the main
0:31:28 conceptual framework hopefully we'll be
0:31:31 able to educate
0:31:32 the listeners to be able to understand
0:31:33 how to deal with them at least on a on a
0:31:35 basic conceptual level
0:31:37 i don't want to get too deep into these
0:31:38 issues because you could even as you can
0:31:40 imagine in the academic literature
0:31:42 you have like the phenomenal concept
0:31:44 strategy and if you
0:31:46 zoom into that there's a massive
0:31:47 discussion and
0:31:49 we'll be here all day as you said we
0:31:50 could spend at least
0:31:52 maybe even eight to ten sessions on
0:31:55 these issues
0:31:56 so let's basically structure today's
0:31:58 podcast around the kind of you know the
0:32:00 basic
0:32:01 conceptual framework for each ontology
0:32:04 so you have eliminative materialism
0:32:06 reductive materialism emergent
0:32:08 materialism
0:32:09 functionalism and behaviorism these are
0:32:10 the all these are the kind of basic
0:32:13 uh approaches physicalist approaches to
0:32:16 to the philosophy of the mind and again
0:32:18 just to repeat people just jumped on
0:32:20 physicalism and materialism are used
0:32:22 synonymously in the philosophy of the
0:32:24 mind
0:32:24 they have slightly different histories
0:32:25 slightly different meanings by the
0:32:27 philosophy of the mind
0:32:28 it just basically means physicalism
0:32:31 which
0:32:31 consciousness can be reduced to in some
0:32:34 way or is identical to
0:32:36 in some way to physical processes but
0:32:38 not necessarily
0:32:39 bits of matter i think they've moved
0:32:41 away from the bits of matter issue
0:32:43 um especially since the hard problem has
0:32:45 given them a bit of a headache
0:32:47 and it's very hard to find an academic
0:32:49 who's a traditional materialist
0:32:51 although you do find people online who
0:32:53 are traditional materialists for sure
0:32:55 yeah
0:32:56 um but yeah so those are the kind of
0:32:58 overall approaches
0:32:59 um and we could basically unpack each
0:33:01 one maybe yeah yeah so
0:33:03 that's that was going to be my next
0:33:04 question so let's go to the first one
0:33:06 then eliminative material
0:33:08 eliminated materialism yes so
0:33:13 eliminative materialism basically argues
0:33:16 that
0:33:16 everything could be explained by
0:33:18 physical processes okay
0:33:20 and they basically state that phenomenal
0:33:23 consciousness doesn't exist meaning
0:33:25 subjective consciousness is like an
0:33:26 illusion
0:33:27 it just doesn't exist so what they're
0:33:29 saying is that the brain is made up of
0:33:31 like
0:33:31 neurons and neurochemical processes
0:33:35 and once you explain these processes
0:33:37 you're actually going to
0:33:38 explain away consciousness right
0:33:41 so you hear this a lot in very basic
0:33:44 textbooks that eliminate material
0:33:46 materialism asserts that
0:33:47 the kind of old ideas of folk psychology
0:33:50 that we we talk about you know
0:33:52 it refers to consciousness and
0:33:55 you know will be made redundant because
0:33:58 we're going to now find a matured
0:34:01 scientific process we're going to find a
0:34:03 mature neuroscience
0:34:04 that's going to replace folk
0:34:08 psychology i think i remember this may
0:34:10 be true i need to find out a reference
0:34:11 for this there was an
0:34:12 eliminative materialist that was
0:34:14 teaching their children not to say
0:34:16 love anymore but to say oh you know
0:34:18 there is a so-called
0:34:20 frequency happening in you know this
0:34:22 area of my brain
0:34:23 it was it was ridiculous honestly i
0:34:25 don't know
0:34:26 i don't know i don't know what's wrong
0:34:27 with these people honestly anyway so
0:34:30 basically what they're saying is
0:34:31 neuroscience will replace the subjective
0:34:32 consciousness
0:34:34 um you know the kind of folk psychology
0:34:36 with
0:34:37 i'm quoting neuro neuro activity in
0:34:40 specialized
0:34:41 anatomical areas now what is the kind of
0:34:45 motivation for this the motivation is
0:34:47 that
0:34:48 you know as science improves and science
0:34:50 gets better
0:34:52 um it's going to replace our old
0:34:54 understanding
0:34:55 our folk psychology of describing these
0:34:58 kind of conscious phenomena and we're
0:35:00 going to use
0:35:01 a neurobiological objective third person
0:35:04 type of language
0:35:06 now there's two ways to refute this in
0:35:08 my view and
0:35:09 brothers please jump in the first way to
0:35:12 refute this is well hold on a second
0:35:13 you're not really answering anything
0:35:14 you're you're basically you know
0:35:18 pushing away you're brushing aside you
0:35:20 put under the carpet the two main
0:35:21 questions that we have to answer when it
0:35:23 comes to
0:35:24 the hard problem of consciousness why am
0:35:26 i having this subjective experience
0:35:27 right
0:35:28 even if even if it's you know some kind
0:35:31 of frequency in the brain or
0:35:32 electrochemical activity i still don't
0:35:34 know why i'm having this
0:35:35 in a subjective experience and why what
0:35:39 what makes it so meaning why
0:35:42 do i have this inner subjective
0:35:44 experience arising from cold
0:35:46 blind you know physical processes you
0:35:48 know these processes are not
0:35:49 don't what i mean by blind is that they
0:35:51 don't have any intentional force direct
0:35:53 them anywhere
0:35:54 and they're not and they're blind and
0:35:56 they're cold meaning they're not aware
0:35:58 of themselves aware of anything outside
0:35:59 of themselves so
0:36:00 you're just brushing away the questions
0:36:02 related to the hard problem of
0:36:03 consciousness which one would argue is a
0:36:04 first person fact
0:36:06 who's gonna deny pain and and falling in
0:36:08 love
0:36:09 or hating someone or you know who's
0:36:12 going to deny things like you know the
0:36:13 beautiful taste of a really nice organic
0:36:16 strawberry with some cream
0:36:17 and who's going to deny that that's a
0:36:19 beautiful experience so that's one way
0:36:21 of doing it the second way of doing it
0:36:22 is what frank
0:36:23 jackson and philip petit argue which i
0:36:26 think is quite smart
0:36:27 and they basically say the following
0:36:29 that the claim that the history of
0:36:32 science has so
0:36:33 has shown that a physicist language
0:36:35 replace our old psychology so the claim
0:36:37 that
0:36:37 the more we develop in in science and
0:36:40 neurobiology
0:36:41 the third person some objective language
0:36:44 is going to replace
0:36:46 you know a kind of folk psychology
0:36:48 doesn't logically follow they simply say
0:36:50 it doesn't know as you can follow
0:36:51 because they say the basis of the
0:36:52 argument
0:36:53 is that it's unreasonable so the basis
0:36:55 of philip
0:36:56 petits and frank jackson's argument is
0:36:58 that the the
0:36:59 is unreasonable to reject the
0:37:01 conclusions of a theory
0:37:03 due to the potential discovery of
0:37:05 another theory that may have great
0:37:06 explanatory power and scope
0:37:08 it's unreasonable why number one you
0:37:11 you're assuming that that's going to be
0:37:12 the case
0:37:13 but even if it is the case that you'll
0:37:14 have a better
0:37:16 scientific theory that basically has
0:37:19 greater
0:37:19 com it's more comprehensive has more
0:37:21 explanatory scope
0:37:23 if it does get replaced by that it
0:37:25 doesn't now mean that the weaker theory
0:37:28 um is is untrue it could still mean
0:37:32 that the weaker theory is
0:37:35 still a an adequate way of explaining
0:37:37 the particular phenomenon so for example
0:37:39 there's so many things in science that
0:37:41 we may say that you know take
0:37:42 kinetic theory of interactions say we
0:37:45 develop something even better
0:37:47 that has a better way of understanding i
0:37:49 don't know the relation of molecules and
0:37:51 and stuff like that
0:37:53 and atoms are we now going to say that
0:37:55 the kinetic theory was absolutely false
0:37:58 no it just doesn't logically follow it's
0:37:59 still an adequate theory
0:38:01 and even if you look into the philosophy
0:38:02 of science you would see that a theories
0:38:05 are actually untrue
0:38:06 some of them still have very good
0:38:08 predictive power
0:38:09 so you unpack a whole load of issues in
0:38:12 the philosophy of science because you
0:38:13 know even if you
0:38:14 read the works of eliot sober who's an
0:38:16 atheist philosopher of science
0:38:18 you can have untrue theories that still
0:38:21 have
0:38:22 you know explanatory scope and
0:38:23 predictive power to the degree i think
0:38:26 it was eliot sober or it was
0:38:28 um okay professor okasha another
0:38:31 philosopher of science he basically says
0:38:32 that
0:38:33 there are theories today that are untrue
0:38:35 that have greater predictive power than
0:38:37 some
0:38:37 so-called true theories today so that
0:38:40 also opens another mess
0:38:41 on what you mean by greater explanation
0:38:44 and so on and so forth but the main
0:38:45 essence of
0:38:47 petites and jackson's point here is that
0:38:49 even if
0:38:50 you get some kind of scientific theory
0:38:52 that explains
0:38:54 you know a way the folk psychology that
0:38:56 we've been talking about and if it
0:38:57 and if it has great explanatory power
0:38:59 and it has third person
0:39:00 objective you know terms in it that
0:39:03 explain reality in a so-called
0:39:05 third person object objective way it
0:39:08 doesn't now
0:39:09 necessarily follow that our previous
0:39:11 understanding of
0:39:12 consciousness is actually totally forced
0:39:14 based on their point but nevertheless
0:39:17 the greatest weakness of a limited
0:39:18 materialism is really ignoring the
0:39:20 problem
0:39:21 um because even if you say that
0:39:24 subjective consciousness
0:39:25 is just stuff that's happening in your
0:39:28 brain
0:39:29 then the problem is you're actually
0:39:30 denying that which you want to explain
0:39:34 so you're not explaining the question at
0:39:35 all because
0:39:37 you can't start with the axiom that it's
0:39:38 a first person fact that we have this
0:39:42 inner subject of conscious experience
0:39:44 and there is a structure to our
0:39:45 experience
0:39:46 a unified structure to our experience
0:39:49 even when we focus certain parts
0:39:51 of our experience is still a unified
0:39:53 there is a unified sense
0:39:55 of our experience so um they're just
0:39:59 basically denying
0:40:00 what needs to be explained really yeah
0:40:03 so if i understand
0:40:04 uh eliminated materialism so what you're
0:40:06 saying hamza is that
0:40:08 if we see the color red well there's
0:40:11 what eliminated materialists are saying
0:40:13 is that the color red is the illusion
0:40:16 what you're really seeing is the photons
0:40:18 of light specific wavelength specific
0:40:21 energy
0:40:22 yeah and this idea that you have this
0:40:24 subjective experience of red
0:40:26 doesn't really exist but what you just
0:40:29 said
0:40:30 is okay fine even if you want to have
0:40:33 that as an explanation
0:40:35 you're not actually explaining why
0:40:38 you see it as a color red yes exactly
0:40:41 beautifully put so um they're not
0:40:44 denying red
0:40:45 itself what they're saying is our
0:40:48 experience of
0:40:49 red right is just
0:40:52 physical stuff that's happening in the
0:40:54 brain that's it right
0:40:56 but does that explain now the my
0:40:58 experience
0:40:59 that i'm having a first person
0:41:01 subjective conscious experience does it
0:41:03 explain that
0:41:04 and does it explain how why why
0:41:08 how it emerges how how that subjective
0:41:10 experience emerges
0:41:12 fine even if you say it's this
0:41:14 neurochemical stuff in the brain
0:41:17 we need an explanation of why am i
0:41:19 having this experience in the first
0:41:20 place
0:41:21 and how on earth is this experience uh
0:41:24 arising from cold blind physical
0:41:27 processes it's like
0:41:28 you said something last time it's like
0:41:30 rubbing on a rock and the more you rub
0:41:32 on the rock you're going to get
0:41:33 butterflies emerging
0:41:34 i mean with all due respect how's that
0:41:36 going to happen you know that's like
0:41:38 almost impossible
0:41:39 so um they just explain away
0:41:43 the hard problem of consciousness and
0:41:45 that is the major problem with
0:41:46 eliminative materialism but you have
0:41:47 like the churchlins
0:41:49 um who basically especially patricia
0:41:52 church and she's an advocate i still
0:41:53 think i still think she is an advocate
0:41:55 of
0:41:56 eliminative materialism but i think
0:41:59 they're just motivated by you know the
0:42:01 scientific project the
0:42:02 physicalist project and i think some of
0:42:04 them motivated by
0:42:05 they don't want god to creep in the back
0:42:07 door anywhere right honestly
0:42:10 and let's just be very honest because
0:42:11 even when you have discussions on an
0:42:12 academic level
0:42:13 speaking about god is still very very
0:42:15 difficult right
0:42:17 you know they're like ah we've dealt
0:42:18 with that sorry you know they have this
0:42:20 kind of you know
0:42:21 medieval european uh hangover
0:42:24 from the catholic church like oh no no
0:42:26 religion is is bad for us because we may
0:42:28 have
0:42:29 you know the medieval version of the
0:42:31 catholic church that's using the
0:42:32 oppressive arm of the state to prevent
0:42:34 any thinking
0:42:36 uh which is a very eurocentric
0:42:37 perspective as well and we have to talk
0:42:38 about psychology here you know it's not
0:42:40 just
0:42:40 don't let's not with all due respect
0:42:42 let's not give them too much respect
0:42:43 thinking that they're like you know
0:42:45 pure and sincere and they have all these
0:42:47 rational arguments with all due respect
0:42:49 you're motivated you just don't like god
0:42:51 some of you people yeah
0:42:52 there's a really interesting book called
0:42:54 um
0:42:55 hating god the untold history of uh
0:42:58 untold story of miso theism by associate
0:43:00 professor bernard schweizer
0:43:03 he says mesotheism is not that they
0:43:04 denied god they hated him
0:43:06 and he quotes a lot of european thinkers
0:43:08 it's an evil book i mean
0:43:10 associate professor he's not evil he's
0:43:12 quoting people and the quotes are just
0:43:14 really evil i think my wife told me to
0:43:16 take that book and put it away put it in
0:43:18 the garage because it's not it's not a
0:43:20 good book man
0:43:21 yeah and and so people are still
0:43:23 motivated by this sense of miso theism
0:43:25 you know they they have this uh
0:43:26 position that they don't like god they
0:43:28 don't like an authority above them and
0:43:30 and in reality when they do that they
0:43:32 become their own dictators or they
0:43:34 become their own deities as allah says
0:43:35 in the quran have you not seen the one
0:43:37 who takes his own
0:43:38 desire as his lord so we have to also
0:43:40 appreciate there are psychological
0:43:42 reasons for why people want to develop
0:43:44 these theories is because some
0:43:46 just they just don't like the idea of
0:43:48 god they got this kind of you know
0:43:50 eurocentric post-catholic hangover or
0:43:54 something i don't know
0:43:55 but anyway so yeah you're right you the
0:43:56 way you put it was much simpler
0:43:58 that's what it is really they just say
0:44:00 and even if the
0:44:02 subjective experience is something in
0:44:04 the brain and they say you know it's
0:44:05 these chemicals
0:44:06 electrochemical activity or
0:44:08 neurobiological activity well you're not
0:44:09 answering any of the
0:44:11 problems of the heart any of the
0:44:12 questions of the heart problem of
0:44:13 consciousness
0:44:14 so what they have to do is deny the hard
0:44:16 problem of consciousness or deny the
0:44:18 fact
0:44:19 that we have a first person fact a first
0:44:21 person
0:44:22 experience there's more that i
0:44:25 want to talk about that but because of
0:44:27 the time and because we want to try and
0:44:28 bring in the guests
0:44:29 i want to quickly move on there abdul uh
0:44:33 what is reductive materialism
0:44:36 okay can i real quick real quick
0:44:39 one sentence about eliminated
0:44:41 materialism because as bad as all that
0:44:44 that brother hamza just laid out sounds
0:44:46 as bad as about as bad as it all sounds
0:44:48 honestly speaking i think it is the most
0:44:51 consistent materialist position
0:44:52 because what options do you have really
0:44:55 because if you say that the conscious
0:44:57 experience the first person subjective
0:44:59 experience
0:44:59 is identical to the the the neurons and
0:45:03 whatever physical thing you're going to
0:45:04 pause it
0:45:05 that doesn't make sense you're saying
0:45:07 the the the subjective experience
0:45:08 is the matter and they reject
0:45:12 all kinds of emergentism because they
0:45:15 realize again what problems those those
0:45:17 views come with
0:45:18 so i think the only consistent view on a
0:45:21 purely materialistic worldview
0:45:22 is to adopt some kind of eliminative
0:45:24 materialism but then
0:45:26 obviously it comes with all these
0:45:27 problems it's seriously absurd i mean
0:45:29 you're denying that you have an
0:45:30 experience so um
0:45:32 yeah reductive materialism on the other
0:45:35 hand is basically the idea that you want
0:45:37 to reduce
0:45:38 any everything to its basic material
0:45:41 components
0:45:42 so everything is reducible to uh
0:45:45 uh like for example uh um
0:45:48 there have been throughout the history
0:45:50 of science you've had
0:45:52 many concepts that have been reduced to
0:45:54 their more
0:45:55 fundamental constituents right and and
0:45:58 the
0:45:59 the the deeper you go the better your
0:46:01 understanding of whatever phenomenon
0:46:03 you're trying to explain
0:46:04 and now now the idea is that you can
0:46:07 reduce consciousness
0:46:08 to its material constituents
0:46:12 is radical because of what i just said
0:46:14 about
0:46:15 uh identity theory and the fact that if
0:46:17 you are going to reduce it you're
0:46:19 either going to end up with eliminative
0:46:20 materialism with which is what brother
0:46:22 hamda just explained
0:46:24 a complete denial of subjecting
0:46:25 subjective experience i am not having a
0:46:27 subjective experience right now
0:46:29 and i think that last uh part that
0:46:31 brother hansa said
0:46:32 ignoring the problem altogether is the
0:46:33 best option because of how just absurd
0:46:35 it is i mean
0:46:36 just giving an incredulous look does the
0:46:38 job for me
0:46:39 and the other option you're not going to
0:46:41 escape a
0:46:43 identity theory so it's between identity
0:46:44 theory and eliminated materialism if
0:46:47 you're a reductionist
0:46:48 there's no way around it and i want to
0:46:49 say just one important thing because
0:46:51 there's a lot of fancy language going
0:46:52 around and all these theories with very
0:46:54 fancy names you know
0:46:56 computational theories like attention
0:46:57 schema theory
0:46:59 integrated information theory they call
0:47:01 they're these really intimidating names
0:47:03 but there's no escape
0:47:06 in principle there's no escape from the
0:47:08 problem the more if you ask the right
0:47:10 questions
0:47:10 it's going to reduce to either an
0:47:12 identity theory
0:47:13 where the person is telling you that the
0:47:16 neural activity
0:47:17 is the conscious experience or
0:47:19 eliminated materialism
0:47:21 where they're going to tell you that the
0:47:22 subjective experience is an illusion it
0:47:24 doesn't exist
0:47:25 and an example of that is attention
0:47:27 schema theory and and a lot of people
0:47:29 don't realize that so they hear
0:47:30 all the the theory around the the the
0:47:34 you know
0:47:34 the the ideas around the theory and how
0:47:36 you know information and
0:47:38 you know how the brain works with
0:47:40 attention and signaling and stuff like
0:47:42 that and to
0:47:43 try to provide an account for it but
0:47:45 then when you ask further questions
0:47:47 but wait what is that subjective
0:47:49 experience
0:47:50 and it's going to come down on many of
0:47:53 these computational theories to the idea
0:47:55 that
0:47:55 it's not there it's just it's just
0:47:57 something the computer is telling itself
0:47:59 right so no matter how fancy and
0:48:01 complicated the theory
0:48:02 sounds grant guaranteed that it's going
0:48:06 to reduce to either
0:48:07 eliminative materialism or this
0:48:08 reductive view of identity theory
0:48:11 the difference between reductive
0:48:12 materials and limited materialism is
0:48:14 that
0:48:15 reductive materialism accepts that there
0:48:17 is consciousness
0:48:19 and they say it can be reduced to in
0:48:21 some way but not necessarily of
0:48:23 necessary to individual components it
0:48:25 could be like
0:48:26 you know maybe a complex uh physical
0:48:29 reality or something so you're right so
0:48:32 it's all motivated by science here so
0:48:34 for example when they heard
0:48:36 you know historically when we said heat
0:48:38 the idea of heat from a scientific
0:48:39 perspective
0:48:41 now means mean kinetic energy of
0:48:43 molecules
0:48:44 right for example so similarly in
0:48:47 from this perspective they will say
0:48:49 neuroscience will replace words like
0:48:50 love
0:48:51 with the neural chemical equivalent yeah
0:48:54 so
0:48:55 they are reducing phenomenal experience
0:48:58 in a subject of conscious experience to
0:48:59 physical processes
0:49:01 but they're not denying that you have um
0:49:05 in a subjective social states that's the
0:49:06 subtle difference between reductive
0:49:08 materialism and eliminative materialism
0:49:11 so they would say yeah you do have an
0:49:13 inner subjective conscious state because
0:49:15 it's this complex process happening
0:49:16 that's the reason that you're having
0:49:18 because there's all these
0:49:18 complex processes and we don't know yet
0:49:21 and science is going to improve but once
0:49:22 it improves we're able to close that
0:49:24 kind of epistemic gap if they like
0:49:27 if you want to put it that way then
0:49:28 they're saying well the reason you have
0:49:30 um you know this inner subject of
0:49:32 conscious experience arising from
0:49:34 so-called code blind physical stuff is
0:49:35 because when you put cold blind and
0:49:36 physical stuff together in a complex way
0:49:39 you're going to get it now we can't
0:49:40 explain why so really
0:49:42 reductive materialism at this stage
0:49:45 doesn't have any explanation
0:49:47 real explanation they're just motivated
0:49:49 by the kind of successes of science and
0:49:51 they're motive by
0:49:52 abstract theoretical considerations but
0:49:54 they're not they don't have anything
0:49:55 substantial when you say right
0:49:57 why am i having this experience okay
0:49:59 this complex stuff going on okay
0:50:01 show me how does that work oh we don't
0:50:02 know yet science is going to improve
0:50:04 that's why most of neuroscience is
0:50:07 assumes reductive materialism to be true
0:50:09 because that's their project we want to
0:50:10 find out
0:50:11 we want to we want to answer these
0:50:12 questions and
0:50:14 the other thing is well the reason you
0:50:16 have this subjective experience arising
0:50:18 from cold blind physical processes um
0:50:21 is because when they interact in some
0:50:23 kind of complex calls away
0:50:25 then you know you're going to get that
0:50:26 stuff we don't know why how yet
0:50:28 and that's why when we talk about
0:50:29 emergent materialism and measure
0:50:31 materialism the weak version at least
0:50:33 is logically equivalent to reductive
0:50:35 materialism yeah
0:50:36 but we could discuss it when we get
0:50:38 there so yeah absolutely i mean redux
0:50:40 material doesn't really have an answer
0:50:41 yet that's why the whole neurobiological
0:50:43 project
0:50:44 is based on reductive materialism as an
0:50:46 assumption
0:50:47 and that's what they're continuing this
0:50:48 project which i think is a failed
0:50:50 project because
0:50:51 it's it's not an issue of science
0:50:53 because think about this
0:50:54 look at my brain if you could map out
0:50:56 all of my brain
0:50:58 and every time i have a specific
0:51:00 conscious experience
0:51:02 in a subject of conscious experience you
0:51:03 just have all the electrochemical
0:51:06 networks going on you can map them all
0:51:07 out how does that answer any of the
0:51:10 questions let's be honest
0:51:11 does it answer any of the questions it
0:51:12 doesn't answer
0:51:15 why i have an inner subjective conscious
0:51:18 experience arising from
0:51:19 seemingly cold blind physical processes
0:51:22 and it doesn't
0:51:24 answer the question what is that
0:51:26 particular conscious experience like
0:51:29 which is the key part of the hard
0:51:30 problem even if you can map out all the
0:51:32 neurochemical
0:51:33 pathways and all the neurobiological
0:51:36 activity
0:51:36 and correlate to my specific conscious
0:51:39 experience
0:51:41 just by looking at that electrochemical
0:51:43 stuff
0:51:44 how does it follow you now know what
0:51:46 it's like for me to have a specific
0:51:48 experience
0:51:49 so reductionism is a joke that's why
0:51:52 anti-ravancio he says something very
0:51:54 cool he says
0:51:55 still it seems clear that to talk about
0:51:58 neural firings
0:51:59 activations and deactivations in
0:52:02 different brain areas or oscillatory
0:52:03 synchrony in neural assemblies
0:52:05 it's not at all the same thing as
0:52:07 talking about feelings of pain
0:52:09 sensations of color passionate emotions
0:52:11 or inner thoughts
0:52:12 and never will be what is being left out
0:52:15 is
0:52:16 first and foremost the subjective aspect
0:52:18 of conscious mental events
0:52:21 maybe uh the way if i understand this
0:52:24 correctly then
0:52:25 the way i sort of analogize this is that
0:52:27 we can look at phenotypes within
0:52:30 organisms and we can map phenotypes very
0:52:33 clearly to a genotype to genes to dna
0:52:36 and if we know that if we've done the
0:52:39 the
0:52:40 decoding of the whole of the dna the
0:52:42 genome
0:52:43 we're able to say okay if we've got this
0:52:46 this and this gene
0:52:47 we're going to have this this and this
0:52:49 physical
0:52:50 type or attribute we can reduce
0:52:54 the physical traits to very clear
0:52:57 genes within the dna what
0:53:01 it seems like is that what they're
0:53:02 trying to do with this reductive
0:53:04 materialism on consciousness
0:53:05 is say we can say right this particular
0:53:09 conscious experience can be reduced to
0:53:11 this this and this
0:53:13 particular pathway however complex
0:53:15 whatever it is but it's reduced to that
0:53:18 but the problem that you're saying hamza
0:53:19 and abdul is that you're saying well
0:53:22 even if you try to say
0:53:24 it's this this and this if you just had
0:53:27 the
0:53:28 physical aspect what they've reduced it
0:53:31 to
0:53:32 you can't make any predictions as to
0:53:35 what the experience would be
0:53:37 if i had the genes i could make
0:53:39 predictions of what the physical
0:53:41 traits of the animal or the organism is
0:53:44 the phenotype
0:53:45 but i can't do that when it comes to
0:53:47 saying okay
0:53:48 these types of neurons within this
0:53:50 particular complexity
0:53:52 is going to give rise to this first
0:53:55 person subject
0:53:56 well they may they may be able to say
0:54:00 this neurochemical activity
0:54:03 correlates to pain so they can say that
0:54:06 let's say it's pain but could they say
0:54:09 what is it
0:54:10 like for sharif to be in pain yeah
0:54:12 that's right
0:54:13 while he's basically cutting his toenail
0:54:15 and he accidentally cut some flesh off
0:54:16 his toe
0:54:17 yeah yeah they wouldn't know what it's
0:54:19 like for you to have that experience
0:54:20 right
0:54:21 that's the one that's the first problem
0:54:23 the second problem is they won't even be
0:54:24 able to answer
0:54:25 how the inner subject of conscious
0:54:27 experience arises from
0:54:28 seemingly cold blind physical processes
0:54:31 and just to remind the audience
0:54:32 code meaning they don't they those
0:54:35 processes are not aware of themselves
0:54:36 aware of anything outside of themselves
0:54:37 and blind meaning there is no
0:54:39 intentional force direct them anywhere
0:54:40 that's the kind of
0:54:41 physicalist ontology how can you have in
0:54:44 the subject of conscious experience
0:54:45 coming from that cold blind stuff
0:54:47 so it's yes it's right but slightly just
0:54:50 a slight adjustment from that yeah
0:54:52 so so maybe a a way to look at this is
0:54:54 that you you do have certain human
0:54:56 beings who are born without pain
0:54:57 receptors
0:54:58 and if you can say right okay this is a
0:55:01 guy's like a super neuroscientist
0:55:03 and he's able to say okay this person
0:55:07 he has uh these particular receptors
0:55:11 uh nancy scepters i think they're called
0:55:13 uh uh in
0:55:15 you know that triggers this particular
0:55:16 thing within the brain
0:55:18 he can't just from looking and studying
0:55:21 of the receptors
0:55:22 and the neurons understand what it means
0:55:25 to feel pain
0:55:26 because he's never felt pain yeah so
0:55:29 whereas
0:55:30 you know i don't need to have a
0:55:32 particular protein
0:55:34 in my organism in order to say well
0:55:37 these genes are going to code for this
0:55:38 particular protein
0:55:40 i can understand that yeah
0:55:43 if you could think of it in terms of uh
0:55:45 like laplace's demon
0:55:46 right when he says that if so if there's
0:55:48 this super powerful all-knowing demon
0:55:50 that that knows
0:55:51 every single uh atom and and and
0:55:54 natural law in the universe he could
0:55:55 predict the outcomes of whatever uh
0:55:58 physical system right but then if if
0:56:01 that
0:56:01 kind of demon
0:56:05 had access to all like the the the
0:56:08 neural chemical breakdown of your
0:56:11 brain in principle he couldn't possibly
0:56:15 predict some kind of consciousness
0:56:16 unless because that's the thing about
0:56:19 first person subjective experience
0:56:20 he can predict what the complexity is
0:56:24 going to look like he can predict the
0:56:25 way the neurons are going to behave he
0:56:26 can predict the interactions then you
0:56:28 know
0:56:28 the increase in complexity he can
0:56:30 predict all of these things
0:56:32 but in order for him to predict a
0:56:34 subjective state
0:56:36 uh you'd have to presuppose that he has
0:56:38 that very subjective state i mean
0:56:40 that's the thing about first person
0:56:42 subjective experience that you don't
0:56:43 have access to it from a third person
0:56:45 perspective
0:56:45 that's what makes it so difficult that
0:56:48 everything in science like even emergent
0:56:49 properties when you talk about weak
0:56:50 emergence like wetness from water for
0:56:52 example or
0:56:53 the softness or hardness of of materials
0:56:56 from
0:56:56 their fundamental constituents it's
0:56:58 reducible in the sense that if you know
0:57:00 everything about the way it works it's
0:57:03 perfectly explainable in physical terms
0:57:05 there's no qualitative leap from the
0:57:08 interactions between the physical
0:57:10 components and the
0:57:12 uh the property that emerges and we
0:57:14 convergence right it's
0:57:15 perfectly reducible but in the case of
0:57:17 consciousness
0:57:18 it's a very different story story you
0:57:20 can know every single thing
0:57:22 about what's happening in my brain right
0:57:24 now yet the subjective experience is
0:57:26 just
0:57:27 a a a it's just a qualitative leap to
0:57:29 say that you can uh you can you can map
0:57:31 those two
0:57:32 i think for example we'll call that the
0:57:34 abdul's demon
0:57:38 he said yes
0:57:44 so there's an important or a better
0:57:47 example that's usually made is um
0:57:48 it's the what's it like to be a bat
0:57:51 because it
0:57:52 one of the issues when you're sort of
0:57:53 talking about you don't know what it's
0:57:54 like
0:57:55 for me to experience things because
0:57:56 we're human and they're human when
0:57:58 they're hearing it they usually draw
0:57:59 this analogy and go well no i do i you
0:58:00 know i have
0:58:02 this human experience of pain or i have
0:58:03 this blah blah blah
0:58:05 the point is is that there's there's
0:58:07 many different ways of having the
0:58:08 experience of a particular thing be that
0:58:10 pain or pleasure
0:58:11 some people um have high tolerance to
0:58:14 pain some people have a less filament
0:58:16 and the bat example is really good
0:58:18 because it's not just about
0:58:20 experiences of pain or of pleasure but
0:58:23 of the experience of the external world
0:58:25 like how do they
0:58:26 experience the external world when
0:58:28 they're engaging with they have a
0:58:29 completely different method of
0:58:30 interacting with the the objects around
0:58:32 them they do it through the soul now
0:58:34 and this is the the issue no matter how
0:58:38 much you describe about the
0:58:39 makeup of the bat you know it's
0:58:40 genealogy as this is that
0:58:42 um none of that tells you about the
0:58:44 experience of being a bat
0:58:46 and they always there's always this huge
0:58:48 jump so you can talk about the black man
0:58:50 unless you're a batman but there's
0:58:53 always this sort of even batman doesn't
0:58:55 know
0:58:56 yeah but there's always this description
0:58:58 of things in terms of the material
0:59:00 you know it's made up of this atoms it's
0:59:01 got these sort of molecules in it blah
0:59:03 blah blah
0:59:04 and and then there's this this huge jump
0:59:07 so
0:59:08 and then this gives rise to
0:59:09 consciousness and they they try to make
0:59:11 it sound like it's not as much of a jump
0:59:13 when they're trying to talk about
0:59:14 neurobiology and
0:59:16 um reducing conscious experience to
0:59:18 what's going on in the brain
0:59:20 and what's happening with the
0:59:21 interactions of neurons and they reduce
0:59:23 they they make it look like it's
0:59:24 that much of a jump but the reality is
0:59:26 it's like yes it's one hell of a leap
0:59:29 it and it really it doesn't explain
0:59:31 things it's not equivalent to say for
0:59:33 example how they try to explain
0:59:34 how burning happens on a material where
0:59:37 they can describe it in terms of you
0:59:39 know these
0:59:40 atoms and electrons are moving and
0:59:43 this happens and this happens and then
0:59:44 what happens is this releases certain
0:59:47 chemicals
0:59:47 or whatever um from this material and
0:59:50 then that leaves
0:59:51 behind only carbon or whatever
0:59:54 and that is a much more in-depth
0:59:56 experience of
0:59:57 the interaction of one thing with
0:59:58 another and the processes or the the
1:00:01 um the consequences of the things that
1:00:02 arise out of that reaction
1:00:04 that's not the same as when they try to
1:00:07 reduce
1:00:08 all of the conscious experiences that
1:00:10 can and
1:00:11 are being had yeah to the material room
1:00:14 yusuf like thomas nagel he wrote
1:00:18 his famous 70s paper on about what it's
1:00:20 like to be about
1:00:21 and he mentioned and he basically ended
1:00:22 up from the beginning that
1:00:24 science is third person fact
1:00:26 consciousness conscious experiences
1:00:28 first person they're just non you just
1:00:30 you can't use one
1:00:31 you can't use the third person to try
1:00:33 and find out the first person
1:00:35 but on your point i think we talked
1:00:37 about this before you came which was
1:00:39 even if they try and say oh i'm human
1:00:41 too the point is if i use was like sweet
1:00:44 or painful or slightly painful or a
1:00:46 little bit sweet with a little bit of
1:00:49 i don't know bitter undertones if i ex
1:00:51 express and explain my
1:00:53 experience as best as possible language
1:00:56 it doesn't take us anywhere because
1:00:57 language is a representation of meaning
1:00:59 it's a vehicle to meaning and meaning is
1:01:01 a representation of my inner subject of
1:01:02 conscious experience
1:01:04 so you would have to assume that you're
1:01:06 sweet in the way you're describing
1:01:08 in a particular way is exactly the way
1:01:11 he's experiencing it too which is
1:01:13 impossible just
1:01:14 using the footage this gives rise to
1:01:16 that whole problem of like
1:01:17 when you say your experience it's what
1:01:19 is it um
1:01:20 wittgenstein's beetle in the box
1:01:24 have you heard of it no it's such a
1:01:26 beautiful example basically he says
1:01:29 we have all of these ideas and we're all
1:01:31 right bro what is b
1:01:32 for you well we're gonna find out in
1:01:34 that one
1:01:36 so he talks about this um he says we you
1:01:39 know
1:01:39 we grow up and we're taught these
1:01:40 concepts all these words and we
1:01:42 associate them with particular
1:01:43 experiences
1:01:44 and he says it's it's this he gives the
1:01:47 example of a beatle in a box he says
1:01:49 every
1:01:49 time someone is born they're given a box
1:01:52 and on the box has written the word
1:01:53 beetle and they're told inside their box
1:01:55 is a beetle
1:01:56 but they they're not allowed to show
1:01:58 anyone what's in their box
1:02:00 they're the only ones that's allowed to
1:02:01 look inside and so everyone's looking in
1:02:04 their box and they're all talking about
1:02:05 this
1:02:06 beetle in a box and they you know they
1:02:08 they have meaningful conversations with
1:02:10 one another
1:02:11 and you know they're able to hold
1:02:13 conversations and they feel like they're
1:02:14 all talking about the same thing
1:02:16 they're feeling amazing yeah and um
1:02:20 and then he says but if you were able to
1:02:22 look in each person's box
1:02:24 it is very possible you might find
1:02:25 something completely different in every
1:02:27 box
1:02:28 and you link this to like the experience
1:02:30 of red so i grow up i have an experience
1:02:33 of this
1:02:34 color here and i call this red
1:02:38 because everyone else sees what i
1:02:41 experience as red
1:02:42 and they refer to that as red but it
1:02:44 doesn't follow from that
1:02:46 that you have the identical experience
1:02:48 so you might be seeing
1:02:49 what i call purple when you look at that
1:02:52 and but you've not been told to call it
1:02:54 purple you've been told to call it red
1:02:57 yes and so you see purple and call it
1:02:59 red i see red and call it red and then
1:03:02 we just have no way of being able to
1:03:04 jump from
1:03:05 one mind to the other to map them
1:03:09 side by side and make sure that the
1:03:11 experiences of themselves identical
1:03:13 you might be able to look in terms of
1:03:15 the neurology
1:03:16 and say oh well these neurons have been
1:03:18 fired here and these neurons are being
1:03:20 fired here they look identical but
1:03:22 again it doesn't follow from that the
1:03:24 experience is identical
1:03:26 yeah and that is the huge problem
1:03:29 absolutely that's it
1:03:30 i think we should move on to the next
1:03:32 one yeah yeah oh it's good
1:03:34 the other one is the other one is
1:03:35 functionalism yeah yeah
1:03:37 so function is actually very popular and
1:03:40 this is motivated by the kind of
1:03:42 you know posts 60s 70s when we started
1:03:45 develop computers
1:03:47 and functionalism basically is this that
1:03:49 you have
1:03:50 inputs mental states and outputs so
1:03:53 there is there are relations between
1:03:55 inputs mental states and outputs so for
1:03:58 example
1:04:00 if i see my bus arriving that's an input
1:04:03 i
1:04:03 experience the mental state of worrying
1:04:05 about being late
1:04:07 and then i run to for to the bus stop
1:04:10 which is the output similarly i
1:04:13 witness a dog coming towards me running
1:04:16 towards me
1:04:17 that's an input i've got the mental
1:04:19 state of being
1:04:20 in fear and then i start running right
1:04:23 or i jump over the fence or something
1:04:25 and that's the
1:04:26 output so there is a relation between
1:04:29 inputs mental states and outputs which
1:04:31 is quite interesting but it has faced
1:04:33 a lot of objections especially from the
1:04:35 perspective in a subjective conscious
1:04:36 experience
1:04:38 because it doesn't tell you nothing
1:04:39 about um
1:04:41 conscious experience in a subjective con
1:04:43 experience it doesn't say nothing about
1:04:44 it uh because if you're just a relations
1:04:47 of inputs
1:04:48 mental states and outputs if you ask the
1:04:51 question well what
1:04:51 why do i have these mental states in the
1:04:53 first place functionism can't really
1:04:55 answer that
1:04:56 and if and if and if you were to argue
1:04:59 ask the question
1:05:00 um what is it like for me to have that
1:05:02 particular mental state they'll be like
1:05:04 look we're just about relations mate
1:05:06 we're just about inputs
1:05:07 mental states and outputs and how they
1:05:08 relate together you're going too deep
1:05:10 for us
1:05:11 we're functionalists here and that's why
1:05:13 functionalism really
1:05:14 they moved away from the hard problem of
1:05:16 consciousness and they wanted to solve
1:05:18 more practical kind of problems related
1:05:20 to consciousness which
1:05:21 are known as the easy problems or other
1:05:23 problems
1:05:24 with related to consciousness so if you
1:05:26 were to know all of the inputs and all
1:05:28 of the outputs and all of the mental
1:05:30 states and know how they relate
1:05:32 it doesn't answer the two questions of
1:05:33 the heart problem which is
1:05:35 what is it like for a particular
1:05:36 conscious organism to have a conscious
1:05:38 experience
1:05:39 and why do i have these subjective
1:05:41 experiences arising from
1:05:43 seemingly cold blind physical processes
1:05:46 okay cool
1:05:47 just to move on because i know we want
1:05:49 to try and get the guests in as
1:05:50 uh as well or the audience members uh
1:05:54 but what is hamza what's emergent
1:05:57 materialism
1:05:59 it seems to be this term that keeps to
1:06:00 be bandied about a lot not just
1:06:02 in consciousness now but i've seen it
1:06:04 you know causality is
1:06:06 emergent from the physical state of the
1:06:09 universe so
1:06:10 yes yes but in consciousness what do we
1:06:11 understand by emerging it's a spooky
1:06:13 magic bro
1:06:14 that's what it is honestly a lot of
1:06:17 emerging materials in the spooky magic
1:06:19 so generally speaking you have two types
1:06:21 of emergent materialism you have
1:06:23 uh weak and strong so the weak form what
1:06:25 is this well firstly what is emergent
1:06:27 materialism merger materialism basically
1:06:28 says
1:06:30 that you can have a property
1:06:33 a new property that doesn't exist
1:06:36 in the individual processes or physical
1:06:40 stuff
1:06:41 okay and it can emerge as a result of
1:06:44 the individual plus and physical stuff
1:06:47 in a causally connected in a in a
1:06:49 complex way so you have all these
1:06:51 physical processes of physical stuff
1:06:53 complex in a complex causal relation and
1:06:56 from that you could it emerges
1:06:58 a property that cannot be found in
1:07:01 the individual physical things or the
1:07:03 individual physical processes but
1:07:05 because they come together and they
1:07:06 interact in such a way
1:07:07 it's like hocus pocus man that's what it
1:07:10 is
1:07:10 yeah it's hocus pocus now the the weak
1:07:13 version of
1:07:14 of uh emergent materialism really
1:07:17 presupposes reductive materialism
1:07:21 because what they're saying is we don't
1:07:22 know yet we're going to find out once we
1:07:24 unravel
1:07:25 all of these physical processes and all
1:07:26 of these complex causal interactions
1:07:29 we'll be able to now understand how how
1:07:32 we get this new property of inner
1:07:33 subjective conscious reality yeah or in
1:07:36 a subjective conscious experience
1:07:38 but we can only do that when we work on
1:07:40 the science which is exactly the same
1:07:41 what reductive materialism is saying
1:07:44 it's the same thing you assume reductive
1:07:45 materialism to be true because
1:07:47 once the weak emergent materialist finds
1:07:50 out everything about these
1:07:51 physical processes and how they causally
1:07:53 interact in a complex way
1:07:54 then what they're basically saying is
1:07:57 subjective consciousness can be reduced
1:07:58 to
1:07:59 physical processes so it's logically
1:08:02 equivalent to reductive materialism
1:08:04 the strong version is we don't know
1:08:07 that's what it is they just say we don't
1:08:09 know it's so beyond us
1:08:11 it's equivalent of basically putting
1:08:14 uh darwin's theory of evolution his
1:08:16 origins of species in a hamster's cage
1:08:19 thinking the hamster's gonna understand
1:08:21 its origins yeah
1:08:22 that's what they're saying that's a very
1:08:23 kind of uh strong version
1:08:26 now they try and argue that you know
1:08:29 emerging materialism is true because
1:08:31 look at water
1:08:32 yeah i was thinking that yeah you have
1:08:35 h2o
1:08:36 you have hydrogen and you have oxygen
1:08:39 and these kind of molecules are
1:08:41 interacting in some kind of complex way
1:08:43 and we know that we get
1:08:45 things like a shiny liquid right we have
1:08:48 the properties of shiny and the
1:08:49 properties of a liquid and
1:08:51 these properties don't exist in the
1:08:52 individual kind of
1:08:54 physical things that are interacting in
1:08:57 a so-called complex way
1:08:58 so they say there you go but there is
1:09:00 there is an issue here
1:09:03 so every emergent property of water
1:09:08 can be explained in a physical sense
1:09:10 okay
1:09:11 because we explain the properties of
1:09:14 water
1:09:15 uh uh the atoms or molecules in in
1:09:18 interacting the physical way why because
1:09:20 we refer to the kinetic theory of
1:09:22 interactions
1:09:23 okay so because we have a physical
1:09:26 theory that explains this stuff
1:09:28 by trying to explain consciousness by
1:09:30 emergence just
1:09:31 just is pushing the question forward
1:09:33 it's basically saying
1:09:34 how does material phenomena at a
1:09:36 particular level of
1:09:38 complexity give rise to consciousness so
1:09:42 from this perspective i don't think is
1:09:44 an adequate way of
1:09:45 you know trying to show that emergent
1:09:48 materialism is actually true but even if
1:09:50 it were true
1:09:51 even if we could again let's go back to
1:09:53 reductive materialism
1:09:54 even if we could reduce consciousness to
1:09:56 physical stuff and how it interacts
1:09:58 how does that now solve the hard problem
1:10:00 of consciousness
1:10:02 it doesn't you still have the first
1:10:03 question which is okay
1:10:05 you're saying that you could reduce
1:10:07 consciousness when you
1:10:09 iron out all of the complexity find out
1:10:10 what's going on
1:10:12 okay there you go we've no we know what
1:10:15 it is from a physical point of view
1:10:16 but how does that now correlate to how
1:10:19 does that now lead us to an
1:10:20 understanding
1:10:21 of what it's like for sharif to be in
1:10:23 pain on a sunday morning when
1:10:25 you know he's got i don't know he has to
1:10:27 lower the moon
1:10:28 yeah okay he doesn't want to do it he's
1:10:30 too tired he's in anguish
1:10:32 i don't want to lower the moon man i've
1:10:33 been working all week right so
1:10:36 i have a gardener yeah he doesn't answer
1:10:39 that question
1:10:40 and the second question is well how on
1:10:42 earth do we get the kind of
1:10:46 ontological features of consciousness
1:10:48 arising from physical stuff that's just
1:10:50 that's
1:10:51 blind and and and uh and cold meaning
1:10:55 we have inner subjective conscious
1:10:56 states and how do they arise from
1:10:59 this physical complexity why do they
1:11:02 arise from
1:11:02 physical complexity rather especially
1:11:05 since this physical complexity is what
1:11:07 cold and blind there's no intentional
1:11:09 force directing anywhere
1:11:11 and it's not aware of itself aware of
1:11:13 something outside of itself so even if
1:11:14 it were to be true
1:11:16 even if you could unravel and and and
1:11:19 say yes
1:11:20 you know imagine weak measure
1:11:21 materialism is true which basically
1:11:23 means reductive materialism is true
1:11:25 it makes sense because we found out all
1:11:27 the complex processes and complex
1:11:29 schools or interactions
1:11:31 even if we were to do that the two main
1:11:33 questions of the heart problem remain
1:11:35 unanswered
1:11:36 as simple as that so it seems to be more
1:11:39 of a correlation then isn't it really
1:11:41 it's a correlation
1:11:42 rather than a causation yeah absolutely
1:11:44 and i think
1:11:45 the the issue of water is a good example
1:11:48 because
1:11:49 we can explain why water uh is a liquid
1:11:52 even though it's made up of two gases
1:11:55 you know we can
1:11:55 reduce the discussion down to the oxygen
1:11:58 atom the hydrogen atom the
1:12:00 electronegativity of the oxygen atom
1:12:02 the production of dipoles within the
1:12:05 molecules so you've got a
1:12:07 hydrogens and slightly more positive
1:12:09 you're gonna oxygen more negative you're
1:12:11 gonna create a weak hydrogen bonding
1:12:14 therefore you're gonna have sort of a
1:12:16 liquid
1:12:17 structure at room conditions you know we
1:12:20 can make
1:12:21 and we can reduce everything down
1:12:23 regardless of that it's not emerging
1:12:25 you know it's not like a property that's
1:12:27 greater than the parts that make it up
1:12:30 yeah but with this idea of emergent
1:12:33 materialism and consciousness
1:12:34 it's like if you break the parts down
1:12:37 you have no consciousness
1:12:39 you put them together something happens
1:12:42 we don't know what
1:12:43 and you get this consciousness and it
1:12:45 emerges
1:12:49 i honestly do think this idea of
1:12:51 emergence emergence
1:12:53 is just another word for magic yeah this
1:12:55 is usually
1:12:56 a mystery it's a mystery
1:12:59 so yes i've gone you're gonna say yeah
1:13:01 yeah yeah
1:13:03 i was just going to throw a question at
1:13:04 you so like these qualities that they're
1:13:07 saying are immersion
1:13:08 so things like shiny or wet they also
1:13:11 happen to be
1:13:13 descriptive terms of how
1:13:16 the human being experiences the world
1:13:19 but it's not to say that that
1:13:20 is like you you can't divorce the
1:13:23 like wet or shiny from an experience of
1:13:26 a conscious being
1:13:28 yes so is it not emergent from conscious
1:13:30 experience and not necessarily emergent
1:13:33 from
1:13:33 these things in enough themselves like
1:13:36 does it make sense to talk about
1:13:38 wetness or shiny absent off the notion
1:13:42 of
1:13:42 consciousness that's an interesting
1:13:44 question but i think before we get there
1:13:46 what sharif was saying which is
1:13:47 brilliant which is even to reduce
1:13:51 everything as the emergent materialist
1:13:53 wants us to reduce things too
1:13:55 uh it still wouldn't give us an
1:13:56 explanation and answered the hard
1:13:58 problem of consciousness but when we
1:14:00 reduce water to for example
1:14:03 you know our understanding of uh what is
1:14:06 it called
1:14:07 whatever bonding kinetic theory of
1:14:09 interactions and so on and so for the
1:14:11 hydrogen bonding
1:14:12 we can now have an explanation but if we
1:14:14 have a physicalist explanation of
1:14:15 consciousness we still have those two
1:14:16 questions of the heart problem not
1:14:18 answered
1:14:19 and similar to what you're saying uh
1:14:20 yusuf but slightly different raymond
1:14:22 tallis
1:14:23 he's an atheist philosopher he wrote the
1:14:25 book aping mankind he's quite an
1:14:27 accessible book
1:14:28 concerning consciousness and he says you
1:14:30 can't reduce consciousness to the
1:14:31 physical world and he's an atheist
1:14:33 and he mentions another problem of the
1:14:35 h2o example he says
1:14:37 both shiny water and hdl molecules
1:14:40 need to be revealed as one or the other
1:14:43 they correspond to
1:14:44 two different modes of observation two
1:14:47 aspects of water are two appearances
1:14:49 two modes of experiencing it and this
1:14:52 hardly applies to neural activity
1:14:54 as electrochemical activity and as
1:14:57 experience
1:14:58 so that is a very interesting way which
1:15:00 slightly similar to
1:15:01 what you're saying but to answer your
1:15:03 particular question
1:15:05 uh i was at the fifth amendment i plead
1:15:08 the fifth
1:15:10 no comment i need to think about it
1:15:14 no but i guess the issue here is just
1:15:16 that that you're right
1:15:17 i always need them yeah you need or you
1:15:19 always need a conscious agent
1:15:21 and this is why this argument is so
1:15:22 powerful it's not because this is the
1:15:24 last thing that the theists have
1:15:25 with all due respect we have contingency
1:15:28 argument we have argument
1:15:30 we have the kalam argument we have so
1:15:31 many arguments it's not as if we're
1:15:33 clutching on an intellectual straw here
1:15:36 it's so powerful because it relates to
1:15:38 you
1:15:39 the self right and what makes us human
1:15:43 and what the physicalist project or if
1:15:45 you like philosophical naturalism what
1:15:47 it does
1:15:48 it removes or it can't explain what
1:15:51 makes us human
1:15:52 that we can feel and love and experience
1:15:55 and have all these wonderful emotions
1:15:56 and this stream of consciousness
1:15:58 the reason this argument is amazing is
1:16:00 because it relates to that self
1:16:02 directly right um so
1:16:06 yeah and i think on on on the
1:16:08 materialistic view i mean the problem is
1:16:10 that
1:16:11 you're you're gonna have to deny that
1:16:13 innermost experience that you're having
1:16:15 the denial of the self which a lot of
1:16:17 people are doing like um
1:16:19 what's his name uh the very smart but
1:16:22 not smart guy at the same time the sam
1:16:24 harris
1:16:26 sam harris uh yeah so so he he has a lot
1:16:28 of uh
1:16:29 uh talks and he has an upcoming book
1:16:31 about like where he just completely
1:16:33 denies the the
1:16:34 notion of the self and the problem is
1:16:36 and that's why i think what yusuf was
1:16:37 saying earlier is very relevant the
1:16:39 the that continental aspect because
1:16:41 because uh
1:16:42 this idea of reductionism and and
1:16:46 the the philosophical bandwagoning
1:16:48 that's been happening over the past 200
1:16:49 years because of this obsession with the
1:16:51 idea of reducing
1:16:53 everything to what we can observe from a
1:16:56 third-person perspective
1:16:57 no more or phenomenological you know
1:17:00 view
1:17:01 of the world deny anything that isn't
1:17:04 accessible from the third person
1:17:06 has led us to some radical radical ideas
1:17:08 to the extent
1:17:09 of you know wholesale a wholesale denial
1:17:13 of your innermost human experience not
1:17:16 just consciousness
1:17:17 free will like like they're they're of
1:17:19 course related but then you the idea of
1:17:21 free will is
1:17:22 out the window as well and and this is
1:17:25 really really a huge huge problem the
1:17:27 idea of reductionism
1:17:29 is is uh basically as dogmatic has to
1:17:32 like really
1:17:33 and and it's and it's interesting how i
1:17:36 made this comment a few days ago how
1:17:38 when trying to escape certain forms of
1:17:40 dogmatism
1:17:41 you go to other way more extreme
1:17:45 forms of dogma so you don't escape it
1:17:47 you end up being more
1:17:48 dogmatic than the dogmas you're trying
1:17:49 to escape to the extent that right now
1:17:51 you're telling me basically i'm not
1:17:53 thinking i don't have thoughts i mean
1:17:55 i've never heard a more ridiculous idea
1:17:57 in my life regardless of what real sense
1:17:59 yeah yeah so see that's really what it
1:18:02 leads you to and and the reason
1:18:04 what i said earlier about eliminative
1:18:05 materialism being the most
1:18:07 honest and consistent materialistic
1:18:10 position
1:18:10 is because they see the problem and they
1:18:12 see
1:18:13 where it's taking you they're like guys
1:18:15 we're gonna have to deny
1:18:17 any notion of a subjective experience
1:18:19 because on a materialistic world
1:18:21 it doesn't make sense to have this
1:18:24 subjective experience it's literally an
1:18:27 admission of what they're saying
1:18:28 of of the of the situation they're in
1:18:31 yeah okay
1:18:32 so um we've still got a couple more
1:18:34 questions that we wanted to get through
1:18:35 but
1:18:36 i don't know if you guys are okay if we
1:18:38 start to introduce
1:18:40 some of the guests callers hamza would
1:18:42 you want to go through the rest of the
1:18:43 questions or
1:18:45 you know i think it's better to have
1:18:46 conversations absolutely
1:18:48 yeah i think the the key the key points
1:18:51 though in terms of eliminating
1:18:52 materialism
1:18:54 reductive materialism functionalism and
1:18:56 emergent uh materialism are pretty
1:18:58 key i think pan psychiatrism something
1:19:00 different yeah it
1:19:01 sort of goes away with this idea of
1:19:03 trying to reduce everything down to the
1:19:05 material and just says
1:19:06 consciousness is a brute fact yeah but
1:19:09 those are the probably the key and
1:19:11 i think what's really important as well
1:19:12 to note uh is
1:19:14 uh whatever theories whatever technical
1:19:18 theories people bring
1:19:20 ultimately it's going to reduce into one
1:19:22 of these categories
1:19:23 it's not going to be outside of these
1:19:25 categories yeah so
1:19:27 if the category itself is problematic no
1:19:30 matter what model of theory or
1:19:32 hypothesis they bring forward it's going
1:19:34 to be built upon this
1:19:36 uh this this model this understanding
1:19:39 and if that's problematic then
1:19:41 everything else will be problematic
1:19:43 so i don't know if yourself you can uh
1:19:44 see if there's anybody
1:19:46 hey we've got uh come on
1:19:50 hello matt hi everyone thanks for having
1:19:53 me on big fan of the show
1:19:56 how are you finding the show today are
1:19:57 you okay oh i i i loved it
1:20:00 um so far fascinating um because i i'm
1:20:04 actually
1:20:04 want to kind of defend the monast
1:20:05 position here and i never thought it
1:20:07 really needed much defending and i'm
1:20:08 hearing a lot of arguments about
1:20:10 sort of dual mind uh consciousness
1:20:13 dualism here but i never thought it
1:20:14 really needed defending and i'll tell
1:20:16 you why
1:20:16 because i'm an evidentialist and every
1:20:19 single piece
1:20:20 of observational evidence that we have
1:20:22 observed
1:20:23 about a physical change in the brain it
1:20:26 always with
1:20:27 100 percent of the time
1:20:30 equals a change in consciousness so all
1:20:33 of the direct
1:20:34 observational evidence we observe so
1:20:37 let's just listen
1:20:38 age fatigue nutrition or lack thereof
1:20:42 psychoactive drugs physical brain damage
1:20:46 it happens and then the constitution has
1:20:48 changed in 100
1:20:49 of cases so what is the explanation for
1:20:52 that
1:20:53 matt do you think there is a hard
1:20:55 problem of consciousness sorry i just
1:20:56 want to ask that in the beginning i
1:20:57 don't
1:20:57 i i don't there's no hard problem
1:20:59 consciousness comes from the brain like
1:21:01 digestive enzymes come from the pain
1:21:03 yeah but that's fine i just i just think
1:21:05 because there are two types of people
1:21:07 like approaches from from the
1:21:09 materialist side either there is a hard
1:21:10 problem
1:21:11 but there are promising solutions to it
1:21:14 or there's no problem at all
1:21:15 so there's no problem at all in my view
1:21:17 i mean i i heard your like examples of
1:21:19 subjectivism
1:21:20 but that's like so so for example i'm
1:21:22 near-sighted right and you take my
1:21:23 glasses off my
1:21:24 vision is 2200. so that that is a
1:21:27 different vision than
1:21:28 what you guys will be seeing however
1:21:30 that doesn't mean that vision is not
1:21:31 caused by the eyes
1:21:33 if you remove my eyes in 100 percent of
1:21:35 cases i'll be blind
1:21:37 so the fact that i'm perceiving things
1:21:39 differently i don't find that to be a
1:21:40 problem uh in terms of consciousness
1:21:43 emerging from our
1:21:44 organ the brain so i just wanted to ask
1:21:47 that question i think
1:21:49 can uh yeah i mean thanks for coming on
1:21:52 matt
1:21:53 i mean i think what you're basically
1:21:55 saying is that you need the brain for
1:21:57 consciousness right
1:21:59 yeah yeah i agree
1:22:03 so occam's razor then we have a
1:22:05 sufficient explanation for consciousness
1:22:07 why do we need to positively see this is
1:22:10 important why
1:22:11 abdul mentioned the question in the
1:22:12 beginning which is well
1:22:14 do we do we appreciate that there is a
1:22:17 first person fact here do we appreciate
1:22:19 that we have
1:22:20 inner subjective conscious and
1:22:24 is it a valid question to ask that well
1:22:27 how do i get these
1:22:28 in a subjective conscious experience
1:22:30 arising arising from seemingly
1:22:32 cold blind physical processes
1:22:36 now those questions still remain even if
1:22:38 you adopt your position
1:22:40 because you could give the analogy of a
1:22:42 car and a driver
1:22:44 if the car is broken no matter how alive
1:22:47 if you like or functioning the driver is
1:22:49 the car's not going to go anywhere
1:22:51 and if the car is working and the driver
1:22:54 is dead
1:22:54 the car's still not going to go anywhere
1:22:57 they both need each other right
1:22:59 so you could have an analogy where you
1:23:01 still need the brain for consciousness
1:23:03 it could be the seat for consciousness
1:23:04 maybe let's
1:23:05 let's argue that for argument's sake uh
1:23:08 but even if you need the brain for
1:23:09 consciousness
1:23:10 how does that now address the questions
1:23:13 that we raise today
1:23:16 what is the question that different
1:23:17 people have different subjective
1:23:19 experiences no i mean maybe
1:23:20 you missed the beginning so just to
1:23:22 repeat the hard problem of consciousness
1:23:24 is based on two questions
1:23:26 number one what is it like for a
1:23:28 specific conscious organism to have
1:23:31 an inner subjective conscious experience
1:23:32 so what is it like for matt
1:23:34 to have say you like hot chocolate hot
1:23:36 chocolate in a sunday morning
1:23:38 and if we map out everything in your
1:23:40 brain we would not know what that
1:23:42 experience
1:23:43 is like yeah secondly how do you have
1:23:46 that inner subjective conscious
1:23:47 experience
1:23:48 arising from seemingly called blind
1:23:51 physical processes
1:23:52 your position is an interesting position
1:23:54 which is not controversial at all
1:23:56 i could agree with you nearly everything
1:23:58 no problem but we're talking about i
1:24:00 think you've probably missed the
1:24:01 beginning in terms of those
1:24:02 specific two questions that we raise
1:24:03 which are the questions of
1:24:05 the hard problem of consciousness and
1:24:07 even modests from my understanding don't
1:24:09 deny those questions they they probably
1:24:11 just
1:24:12 try and figure them out somehow but you
1:24:14 know the the you know those questions
1:24:15 still remain
1:24:16 number one just to repeat what is it
1:24:18 like for a particular conscious organism
1:24:20 to have a
1:24:20 specific conscious experience subjective
1:24:23 experience
1:24:23 and number two why how does that
1:24:26 subjective experience arise from
1:24:28 seemingly cold blind physical processes
1:24:31 the modest position says it's the brain
1:24:33 is the brain of the brain fair enough we
1:24:35 don't disagree with that say
1:24:36 the state consciousness is this uh the
1:24:38 brain is the seat of consciousness we
1:24:40 don't have a problem with that
1:24:41 we still need these two questions
1:24:42 answered so
1:24:46 yeah but so so we're moving to me i
1:24:48 consider those questions
1:24:49 separate questions monism has been
1:24:52 established
1:24:53 and now we're on to two separate
1:24:54 questions so if monism is established
1:24:56 great i've convinced you all that
1:24:58 consciousness is is
1:25:00 there is no such thing as consciousness
1:25:01 without a brain
1:25:03 is that i think i think you're
1:25:04 misunderstanding the problem
1:25:08 the problem is is that does the brain
1:25:10 adequately explain consciousness
1:25:13 that's the issue does it yes it does
1:25:15 because in 100
1:25:16 of cases of observation when there's a
1:25:18 physical change to the brain there's a
1:25:20 change in consciousness in 100 percent
1:25:22 of cases
1:25:24 can i give you an interesting thought
1:25:25 experiment so you deconstruct someone's
1:25:27 brain and with every
1:25:29 you know maneuver or everything you do
1:25:31 to the neural activity
1:25:33 they report a certain state i'm hungry
1:25:36 i'm thirsty
1:25:37 whatever it may be could it be the case
1:25:39 that this
1:25:40 behavior you're seeing is merely
1:25:42 mechanistic and this person you're
1:25:44 operating on
1:25:45 has no internal self-awareness at all
1:25:48 it is mechanistic we can look in an fmri
1:25:52 yeah up when you feed someone something
1:25:56 yeah yeah that is a mechanical i i don't
1:25:58 know it is
1:25:59 are you saying the consciousness is
1:26:01 mechanical or are you saying that what
1:26:03 we're looking at the brain
1:26:04 is mechanical because the brain can be
1:26:05 mechanical i can agree with you there
1:26:07 what i'm asking
1:26:08 is if you observe everything and
1:26:10 correlate what's happening in the brain
1:26:12 with what he reports to you
1:26:13 is it conceivable that this
1:26:17 a person you're operating on doesn't
1:26:18 have an internal self-awareness
1:26:21 it's just a like a robot
1:26:24 yeah consciousness is mechanical it can
1:26:27 be reduced to these
1:26:28 to neurons if if neurons get fired one
1:26:30 way you can predict what's going to
1:26:32 happen if they get fired another way you
1:26:33 can predict what's going to happen
1:26:37 so the robot yeah i was going to say
1:26:40 matt i think you misunderstood what
1:26:41 abdul's saying
1:26:42 abdul saying this he's saying could you
1:26:45 have a situation
1:26:46 where you could map everything that
1:26:48 occurs in the brain
1:26:50 with a particular output but that person
1:26:53 who has that output
1:26:55 has no self awareness
1:26:58 no conscious experience
1:27:01 do you understand that the second part
1:27:03 of your phrase what do you mean
1:27:04 that person doesn't have an awareness so
1:27:07 let's say i put a person in
1:27:08 a an eeg machine or mri machine i look
1:27:13 at all of his brain functions
1:27:15 and i say i you know give him food and
1:27:18 he certain parts of his brain lights up
1:27:20 and i give him water another part of his
1:27:22 brain lights up and
1:27:23 i show him an image and another part of
1:27:25 his brain lights up yeah
1:27:27 so i can say okay i could correlate all
1:27:30 where his brain is lighting up
1:27:32 to a particular output in that person
1:27:35 could that person also have no
1:27:38 self-awareness
1:27:40 yeah like a robot has no self or a
1:27:43 computer
1:27:44 has no self-awareness i can say well if
1:27:47 i
1:27:48 you know this particular uh you know
1:27:51 chip fires in this particular way or gp
1:27:54 unit i'm not really computer scientist
1:27:56 then this will occur on the image of the
1:27:58 screen and
1:27:59 if this occurs then the computer will do
1:28:01 this but the computer's not self aware
1:28:04 of doing any of these things
1:28:05Music 1:28:07 uh let me rephrase what you're saying to
1:28:09 see if i understand it
1:28:11 because i don't think i do if you are
1:28:14 saying
1:28:14 if we feed person x we should expect
1:28:18 vision y in their brain and as they're
1:28:20 sitting there in the mri
1:28:21 vision z comes out and that's a no
1:28:25 no no you're wondering can they be
1:28:27 different
1:28:28 you can map everything in the brain and
1:28:31 map all of these outputs but that
1:28:34 doesn't necessarily
1:28:35 necessarily tell us that that person has
1:28:38 a subjective experience of the thing
1:28:42 well no are you saying that the
1:28:43 subjective experience could be different
1:28:44 than what we were potentially mapping
1:28:45 out no
1:28:46 we're saying he doesn't have to have one
1:28:48 we could map everything
1:28:51 and he doesn't have a subjective
1:28:52 experience but in
1:28:54 a hundred percent of cases they do and
1:28:55 anyone who's ever going into an mri
1:28:58 and they're conducting conspiracy
1:29:02 i think subjective experience the entire
1:29:04 time okay matt so let's just follow
1:29:06 through your thinking here yes
1:29:07 you're saying when there's a change in
1:29:09 the brain there's a change in
1:29:11 consciousness in a hundred percent of
1:29:12 the time that's what you're saying right
1:29:13 yeah yeah okay everyone cannot step on
1:29:16 the same
1:29:17 price every moment that goes by our
1:29:19 consciousness is changing as
1:29:21 as neurons are firing in our brain
1:29:24 okay good but this all this says
1:29:27 is that in order to have consciousness
1:29:30 you also need a brain
1:29:32 it doesn't say consciousness is equal to
1:29:34 the brain or it's the same identical to
1:29:36 the
1:29:37 occur that's correct a digestive enzyme
1:29:39 is not equal to the pancreas
1:29:41 however good if it's 100 million right
1:29:43 it's an emergent property
1:29:46 okay well let's continue with this
1:29:47 conversation so right so far what we're
1:29:49 saying is
1:29:50 that when we're having when there's a
1:29:54 change in
1:29:54 the brain there's a change in
1:29:56 consciousness 100 of the time
1:29:58 which we can now argue that you need the
1:30:00 brain for consciousness that would be a
1:30:01 good inference to make
1:30:02 okay now let's continue the conversation
1:30:05 now if we go into the brain and we find
1:30:07 out everything about the brain
1:30:10 in terms of all the neurochemical
1:30:11 pathways all the electrochemical
1:30:13 activity
1:30:14 would that lead to knowledge of what
1:30:17 it's like for me to have a hot chocolate
1:30:19 on my on a monday
1:30:20 morning oh i would say
1:30:24 so it would it wouldn't be perfect it
1:30:26 wouldn't be perfect because each person
1:30:27 is a different individual and they're
1:30:29 different
1:30:29 they have different combinations of
1:30:30 cells they're made up of but we could
1:30:32 get a very strong indication based on
1:30:34 your taste buds
1:30:35 based on you could actually watch if you
1:30:37 went in the mri what part of the brains
1:30:39 light up and then
1:30:39 we could light up my part of that brain
1:30:42 and see try to get
1:30:43 recreate the same experience you could
1:30:45 you could get pretty close
1:30:46 at least yeah okay if you had a perfect
1:30:48 clone of you you could probably get the
1:30:50 identical
1:30:51 yes so we could get we could get pretty
1:30:53 close to the point where we'll be
1:30:54 we may be able to say he's having
1:30:56 something sweet and creamy
1:30:59 but here's another question just by
1:31:02 looking at
1:31:02 neurochemical activity would it lead to
1:31:05 knowledge of what it's like for me to
1:31:07 have something that is sweet and creamy
1:31:11 if we had a perfect clone of you then
1:31:13 yes
1:31:14 but each and we don't have that
1:31:15 technology doesn't exist each human is a
1:31:17 different individual so it's going to be
1:31:18 slightly different
1:31:19 i don't see that as a problem why is it
1:31:23 the problem is because there is an
1:31:25 epistemic problem here it's a problem of
1:31:27 knowledge
1:31:28 because we can't move from
1:31:30 electrochemical activity and mapping it
1:31:32 out
1:31:32 to knowledge of what it's like for a
1:31:35 specific organism to have a specific
1:31:37 conscious experience
1:31:39 no matter the game even if true no
1:31:41 matter
1:31:42 what you do with the brain no matter how
1:31:44 much you map of the brain
1:31:45 it would not lead to that knowledge
1:31:48 that's the point that's one of the
1:31:49 epistemic problems
1:31:50 i'll ask you a thought experiment if i
1:31:51 had a perfect clone of you could we do
1:31:53 it then
1:31:55 no no why not because a perfect clone
1:31:59 so in other words you have the exact
1:32:01 same experiences and he's
1:32:02 exactly the same physically as you well
1:32:05 that's one of the issues how would you
1:32:06 know
1:32:06 that yeah that's the whole point of the
1:32:08 problem so so
1:32:10 so if you're not going to talk about
1:32:11 epistemology i believe a justified
1:32:13 belief can be something with 51 percent
1:32:15 evidence
1:32:16 so objectively report if he subjectively
1:32:20 reports it to me
1:32:21 this is what the hot chocolate tastes
1:32:22 like that's the only evidence we have no
1:32:24 no but even with
1:32:25 the problem is even with the language
1:32:27 that he's using that doesn't
1:32:29 necessarily correlate the experience yes
1:32:33 it's preponderance of the evidence it's
1:32:34 the only evidence we have there's
1:32:36 self-report
1:32:37 but this is the issue with the problem
1:32:39 it's the same thing with the whole
1:32:41 it's not a problem no no no it is it is
1:32:43 because it's the same thing with the the
1:32:44 beetle in the box example i gave before
1:32:46 we're using these words and we're
1:32:48 assuming that they all mean the same
1:32:50 thing
1:32:51 like everyone is saying the word red in
1:32:54 the example i gave earlier when i was
1:32:55 talking about that
1:32:56 do i need to go over it again no i did
1:32:59 and it
1:33:00 made me think of the example with my
1:33:01 eyes if you remove my eyes in a hundred
1:33:03 percent of cases
1:33:04 i'll be blind so this is the thing when
1:33:05 you're talking about the exact clone of
1:33:07 hamza
1:33:08 saying i'm having an experience i think
1:33:11 the hot chocolate tastes sweet
1:33:12 that's just this common word
1:33:16 or phrase that's being used to describe
1:33:18 something that they
1:33:19 feel like correlates with everyone
1:33:21 else's but it's all it's a feeling it's
1:33:22 not does that
1:33:23 monitor the main types of taste salty
1:33:25 yeah but
1:33:26 your example if there was a perfect
1:33:28 clone in the way that you're saying
1:33:30 then that would be me so you don't have
1:33:32 no there'd be two
1:33:33 so you could talk to each other and
1:33:35 explain to each other what the hot
1:33:36 chocolate was like and you'd have an
1:33:37 identical experience
1:33:39 well say even if that's the case say
1:33:42 that those perfect clones can exist
1:33:44 which is a a bizarre
1:33:45 kind of proposition to make if you're an
1:33:47 evidentialist but anyway that is a
1:33:49 thought experiment i don't believe that
1:33:50 to be true but i think you're making a
1:33:52 god of the gaps argument so i can make
1:33:54 you know this is not the reason it's not
1:33:56 god of the gaps is because we're talking
1:33:58 about the science here
1:33:59 we're saying even if we knew everything
1:34:01 about the science of the brain
1:34:02 yeah if we map out all the neurochemical
1:34:05 activities in the brain
1:34:06 it's never going to lead me to know what
1:34:09 the conscious experience you're having
1:34:10 right now
1:34:11 being on someone's platform and having a
1:34:14 brave courageous stance for monism right
1:34:16 so the point is that's why i'm saying so
1:34:18 you're making a hypothetical so i can
1:34:20 say
1:34:20 if you had a perfect clone even if even
1:34:22 though i know that's not possible
1:34:24 based on our current technology then
1:34:26 yeah you that would
1:34:27 no get rid of the subjective oh my my my
1:34:29 point is not hypothetical because we do
1:34:31 have neurochemical activity we have
1:34:33 mapped out electrochemical activity and
1:34:36 we have correlated to people's
1:34:37 experiences
1:34:38 and since we have those electrochemical
1:34:41 neurochemical
1:34:42 pathways mapped out it still doesn't
1:34:45 lead us to knowledge of what that
1:34:47 person's experience is for him
1:34:51 i don't so i again i don't agree that
1:34:53 there's a hard problem of conscience i
1:34:54 think what you're describing
1:34:56 is a separate issue for monism monism to
1:34:59 me is the idea that consciousness can be
1:35:01 explained
1:35:02 from the physical processes of the brain
1:35:05 the fact that humans have different
1:35:07 subjective experiences because each
1:35:08 human is different i don't see how that
1:35:11 means that the first point is not true
1:35:13 absolutely
1:35:14 because you may be able to show through
1:35:17 monism
1:35:18 that the con that the brain is the seat
1:35:20 of consciousness
1:35:21 but through monism you can't explain why
1:35:24 do
1:35:25 i or yourself have those subjective
1:35:27 experience arising from
1:35:29 seemingly cold blind physical processes
1:35:31 let's step back from the ramifications
1:35:33 of this
1:35:34 if you're actually cons i i didn't mean
1:35:36 to interrupt you i'm sorry
1:35:37 i was just going to say if if let's step
1:35:39 back and imagine the ramifications of
1:35:41 this if you're conceding
1:35:42 monism then there's no reason to posit a
1:35:45 soul
1:35:45 there's no reason to posit that
1:35:46 consciousness uh persists after the
1:35:49 physical death of the body and there in
1:35:51 the brain
1:35:52 i think he's like nobody bro nobody
1:35:56 yeah yeah i can hear him i can hear him
1:35:58 perfectly fine
1:35:59 uh matt i think nobody here first when
1:36:01 you're saying a god of the gaps argument
1:36:03 no one no one here made
1:36:04 an argument for god so i don't know i
1:36:06 mean if
1:36:08 mean there's a gap yeah our knowledge
1:36:10 therefore right okay so the
1:36:12 question is and we've mentioned this in
1:36:14 the intro the question is
1:36:15 is it an in-principle gap or is it a gap
1:36:19 because of a lack of information now
1:36:21 you're talking about the gaps and how
1:36:23 theists try to use this
1:36:25 lack of information or in principle
1:36:27 problem but
1:36:28 i mentioned early on that the coin the
1:36:31 hard pro
1:36:32 the who the person who coined the term
1:36:33 the heart problem of consciousness
1:36:35 is an atheist he's an atheist who was
1:36:38 trained as a scientist
1:36:39 and you came on saying that there is no
1:36:42 heart problem of consciousness yet you
1:36:44 do acknowledge through
1:36:45 hamdas questioning that you can
1:36:48 make correlations between brain states
1:36:51 and mental
1:36:52 states yet there will always be a gap
1:36:54 with regard to you
1:36:56 accessing subjective experience now my
1:36:58 question is
1:36:59 can we say the same for anything else in
1:37:02 the objective physical world because in
1:37:04 the physical world
1:37:05 you can break something up to its basic
1:37:07 constituents and explain
1:37:09 every bit of it in principle you can do
1:37:11 that even if you can't do that right now
1:37:13 but here's the punch line
1:37:17 in principle you cannot have
1:37:20 a direct third-person observation about
1:37:24 what it's like for me
1:37:25 to be in any mental state you can't
1:37:28 there's nothing else in the world
1:37:29 that you don't have a have third-person
1:37:32 public access to
1:37:34 this you know privileged access that you
1:37:37 and i
1:37:37 have to our mental states isn't
1:37:39 something we can say about anything out
1:37:42 there in the world
1:37:43 isn't something we can say about
1:37:44 physical things if you do acknowledge
1:37:47 that part
1:37:48 then that's the hard problem of
1:37:50 consciousness
1:37:51 if you if you want to see because you
1:37:53 can you can say there's a hard problem
1:37:55 but i'm going to assume
1:37:56 a physicalist materialist position
1:37:58 because it's the best explanation
1:38:00 and that's my proposed solution to the
1:38:03 heart problem
1:38:04 but to deny it all together you're
1:38:06 basically denying the
1:38:08 radical qualitative difference between
1:38:10 the mental
1:38:11 which is which which is only accessible
1:38:14 privately and the physical which you and
1:38:17 i have equal access to
1:38:19 you don't have access to my mentors can
1:38:21 i ask you a question just
1:38:22 on this why do some or why do
1:38:26 all neuroscientists and philosophers
1:38:30 of the minds talk call it the hard
1:38:32 problem of consciousness
1:38:33 well i think you're making uh they're
1:38:36 not here to defend that you're
1:38:37 they're making an argument uh to
1:38:39 authority there
1:38:40 uh the argument needs to stand alone
1:38:50 no no i'm asking you why do you think
1:38:52 they call it the hard problem of
1:38:56 consciousness i they
1:38:58 maybe they should call it the hard
1:38:59 problem of subjectiveness
1:39:01 i don't know why because of this my
1:39:04 argument is that consciousness is fully
1:39:06 explainable from physical processes of
1:39:08 the brain
1:39:09 i don't care what someone who's not in
1:39:10 this chat right now calls it
1:39:12 right that's like killed no no it's not
1:39:15 an appeal to authority because i'm not
1:39:16 making an argument yeah i'm not saying
1:39:18 it isn't a hard problem of consciousness
1:39:19 because x as it is
1:39:21 what i'm saying is that if i was to say
1:39:23 that there are people who are
1:39:25 neuroscientists
1:39:26 who are philosophers of the minds who
1:39:29 say that this is an
1:39:30 in principle problem and the in
1:39:31 principle problem and i think you're not
1:39:33 quite getting why it's an
1:39:34 in principle problem and i think the
1:39:36 reason why it's an in-principle problem
1:39:38 is
1:39:39 there's nothing in a neuron in the
1:39:41 action potentials of a neuron
1:39:43 that tells us anything about what the
1:39:45 subjective experience
1:39:47 is that's not true
1:39:50 it is so you're saying it is
1:39:56 are you all going to tell me that you
1:39:58 don't know what pain feels like
1:40:00 i know what pain feels like because i'm
1:40:01 a human saying this is the point this is
1:40:03 what
1:40:04 there's a firm wait sorry let me just
1:40:07 focus on pain that's
1:40:08 absolutely not true the studies on pain
1:40:12 people have so many different subjective
1:40:14 experiences of pain
1:40:15 uh if you study on basically how
1:40:17 athletes for example are able to push
1:40:19 past the pain barrier and the
1:40:20 experiences of pain
1:40:22 it's not the same as saying my pain is
1:40:23 the same as your pain that is right so
1:40:25 you just use the word subjective that's
1:40:26 that's totally fine
1:40:28 everyone has a different subjective
1:40:29 experience but that's the point
1:40:31 this is still an emergent property of
1:40:32 the physical brain there's two different
1:40:34 concepts that are
1:40:36 you you're trying to combine two things
1:40:38 no no no no
1:40:40 yes that's the problem you already admit
1:40:43 that we have subjective experiences
1:40:46 this is not separate so give me the
1:40:47 linkage between the two
1:40:49 because you're making the equivalent
1:40:50 okay
1:40:52 consciousness is a physical uh emergent
1:40:55 property of the brain
1:40:56 link that to each person has a different
1:40:59 subjective experience
1:41:00 okay good so here's your problem the
1:41:01 problem is you've assumed
1:41:03 emergent materialism in your discussion
1:41:04 number one let's just look at
1:41:07 it it's based on evidence but go ahead
1:41:08 no the there is an assumption because
1:41:10 you're you're basically making
1:41:12 distinction between
1:41:13 uh conscious of being an emergent
1:41:15 property and this idea of subjectivity
1:41:18 subject of conscious awareness
1:41:19 if emergent materialism were true it
1:41:21 should be able to explain
1:41:23 subjectivity as well because that is a
1:41:26 key aspect of consciousness
1:41:27 because each person is physically
1:41:29 different
1:41:31 uh okay person is physically different
1:41:34 so
1:41:35 each consciousness will be slightly
1:41:36 different but because each brain is
1:41:38 physically different
1:41:39 okay consciousness is still coming from
1:41:41 the brain okay even if each
1:41:43 brain is physically different even if
1:41:47 you've answered the question even if we
1:41:50 have a specific
1:41:51 neurochemical pathway for me when i'm
1:41:53 having a hot chocolate and there is a
1:41:55 different specific neurochemical pathway
1:41:57 when you have a chocolate does that now
1:42:00 tell us anything about what it's like
1:42:02 for me and you to have a chocolate
1:42:04 no and also it doesn't say nothing about
1:42:06 why we have the subjective experience
1:42:08 arising from a specific neurochemical
1:42:11 and you're still not making the two
1:42:12 things
1:42:14 people have different subjective
1:42:15 experiences that's that's claim number
1:42:17 one and i'm saying
1:42:19 consciousness is an emergent property of
1:42:21 the brain that's my entire argument
1:42:22 you've got a separate argument over here
1:42:24 yes
1:42:24 because if because if consciousness is
1:42:27 emergent property of the brain
1:42:29 within that consciousness you it also
1:42:32 includes in a subjective experience
1:42:34 because that is part of consciousness
1:42:37 unless you're willing unless you're
1:42:38 willing to do something very radical
1:42:40 in the academic and popular literature
1:42:43 and make a
1:42:44 clear distinction between consciousness
1:42:46 and inner subjective conscious states
1:42:48 if you're doing that then i'll give you
1:42:50 the noble peace prize my friend because
1:42:52 because in a subjective conscious state
1:42:54 art is part of consciousness
1:42:56 okay so it's actually a lesser thing
1:42:57 it's subsumed into that and you admit
1:42:59 the consciousness is an emergent
1:43:00 property of the brain so why are you not
1:43:02 a modest
1:43:02 no no no i'm not assuming that so okay
1:43:05 let's work with your emergent property
1:43:07 issue right
1:43:08 so when you're saying consciousness and
1:43:10 within that is
1:43:11 in a subjective conscious state is an
1:43:13 emergent property of the brain
1:43:15 are you saying that you could answer
1:43:18 these two questions these are two valid
1:43:20 questions
1:43:21 when you find out all of the physical
1:43:24 processes and the complex causal
1:43:26 interaction
1:43:27 will you be able to understand what it's
1:43:30 like for me to have a hot chocolate
1:43:32 on a monday morning would you know what
1:43:34 that experience is like for me
1:43:35 no because each person has a physically
1:43:38 different brain
1:43:39 yes my physical brain i'm not talking
1:43:41 about joseph you had a perfect clone of
1:43:43 you yes
1:43:43 that's enough no no no no even the
1:43:46 perfect clothing is irrational because
1:43:47 if what is the same of a is the same of
1:43:49 being every instance concerning
1:43:50 consciousness you're just defining one
1:43:51 thing by principle
1:43:52 let's just look at this yeah this isn't
1:43:54 literally if you're in a physical clone
1:43:57 no he doesn't understand when you when
1:43:59 you say perfect when you understand
1:44:01 perfect clone
1:44:02 you understand perfect clone as in
1:44:04 perfect on a philosophical perspective
1:44:06 he's saying perfect cloning in terms of
1:44:08 just simply having all the stuff yeah i
1:44:10 get that but
1:44:10 that but that's also slightly a red
1:44:13 herring because
1:44:14 you've agreed that we will have
1:44:15 different physical structures physical
1:44:17 brain so let's go back to me
1:44:19 i'm having a hot chocolate on a sunday
1:44:21 morning
1:44:22 you're going to my brain not to abdullah
1:44:24 or yusufs or mats you're going to my
1:44:26 brain my unique brain
1:44:27 and you are and you map out all the
1:44:29 neurochemical pathways
1:44:31 in my brain when i'm having a hot
1:44:32 chocolate right
1:44:34 now tell me what is it like for me to
1:44:36 have a hot chocolate
1:44:38 just by virtue of those neurochemicals
1:44:40 firing
1:44:42 you would be able well you you actually
1:44:45 you would do more than that you'd also
1:44:46 examine your tongue your mouth your
1:44:48 taste buds
1:44:49 everything entire physical body
1:44:50 everything examine the properties of the
1:44:52 hot chocolate
1:44:53 and you'd be able to get an output that
1:44:56 that somewhat describes it because we
1:44:58 know how the human body works it just
1:45:00 wouldn't be identical
1:45:01 maybe human has a physically different
1:45:03 way to slowly impact this it's slowly
1:45:04 unplugged
1:45:06 i want you to clearly answer something
1:45:08 okay yeah
1:45:10 you you you're looking at my taste buds
1:45:12 you're looking at my stomach you just
1:45:14 imagine
1:45:14 the stomach has its own neural biology
1:45:16 which some argue it does
1:45:18 even look at my neural cardiology
1:45:20 there's about 40 000 neurons in the
1:45:22 heart
1:45:23 look at everything look at the the
1:45:25 everything possible you can
1:45:27 physically math out bro
1:45:31 and then you correlated to my experience
1:45:33 of having a hot chocolate on a sunday
1:45:35 can you answer what it's like for me to
1:45:38 have that experience just by virtue of
1:45:40 mapping everything out
1:45:42 do you mind if i jump in wait wait wait
1:45:44 wait we need to get man i know i know
1:45:46 but it might be better to use the
1:45:47 example of the bat again
1:45:48 because he keep he's in his head he
1:45:51 won't he won't he
1:45:52 don't know no because
1:45:55 the experience of the bat is the perfect
1:45:57 example because we don't know what it's
1:45:58 no one's
1:45:59 had a similar experience of what it's
1:46:00 like to be a bat can you hear me so
1:46:02 i i did and i heard the example of the
1:46:04 bat and i yeah and i understood it
1:46:06 right so how does any information about
1:46:10 you know any material information at all
1:46:14 tell us about what it's like to be a bat
1:46:16 if you guys are gonna
1:46:18 buy this do you believe that it is
1:46:20 justified to have a position based on
1:46:23 preponderance of the evidence
1:46:25 in other words if you have 51 evidence
1:46:27 on one side and 49
1:46:28 on the other provisionally it is it is
1:46:31 justified to hold to the 51
1:46:32 view yes okay we have
1:46:36 all kinds of evidence about
1:46:39 neurons uh and even even of an animal
1:46:43 how an animal experiences pain how an
1:46:46 animal perceives
1:46:47 vision so we only have evidence in fact
1:46:51 that it's all physical we have no
1:46:54 evidence if not
1:46:55 something else out here that there so
1:47:01 yeah i don't find it to be a problem and
1:47:03 so we're talking past one another
1:47:05 because i don't think
1:47:06 you've not you're not you're not
1:47:07 addressing the question you're not
1:47:08 addressing the question but
1:47:10 you're not explaining what it's like to
1:47:12 feel like a bat this is the whole point
1:47:14 you keep talking about other things
1:47:16 but why is that relevant to whether or
1:47:18 not problems
1:47:22 can i finish the the conversation
1:47:24 because yeah
1:47:25 so matt was about to answer a critical
1:47:27 question which i think was very
1:47:28 important and i do
1:47:29 understand why the bat is important but
1:47:31 at the moment
1:47:33 flying bats may just take the direction
1:47:35 of the conversation somewhere else
1:47:37 although it is very valid because you
1:47:38 have the philosophical know-how bro
1:47:40 we all don't i don't have your
1:47:42 continental experience my beloved
1:47:44 brother yeah
1:47:46 philosophy i'm on the other side a
1:47:48 little bit right although i do like
1:47:49 phenomenology and etc
1:47:50 and existentialism so matt we were in
1:47:53 the position of looking at me as a
1:47:55 unique human being with my unique brain
1:47:57 structure and my unique neurochemical
1:47:58 firings
1:47:59 and we managed to map them out and
1:48:01 correlate them to me having a chocolate
1:48:03 on a sunday morning
1:48:04 and the question i asked was do we now
1:48:07 know or can you know just by virtue of
1:48:09 mapping all of that out
1:48:11 do you know what it's like for me to
1:48:13 have a hot chocolate on a sunday morning
1:48:16 the answer is we can all we can't get it
1:48:20 perfect i've already conceded that we
1:48:21 could get we could get an indication i
1:48:23 believe now
1:48:23 wait are you are you going to object
1:48:26 that we can get some sort of an
1:48:27 indication
1:48:28 i'm not i'm going to admit that because
1:48:30 each person is physically different
1:48:32 we can't get it exact i admit that
1:48:35 now are you going to admit that we can
1:48:37 still we can get some sort of an
1:48:38 indication of what it
1:48:39 might be like it's not just the physical
1:48:41 difference
1:48:42 it's the fact that we're looking at
1:48:44 something physical
1:48:46 i don't see that that's why i brought
1:48:48 the clone example if there was a perfect
1:48:50 clone then the two of you could talk to
1:48:51 one another and give you
1:48:53 the exact example of what it would feel
1:48:55 like
1:48:56 okay how would i know it's a perfect
1:48:58 clone this is a thought experiment
1:49:02 i mean the full experiment you're
1:49:04 getting into
1:49:05 you're getting into solipsism and things
1:49:08 now no no no no
1:49:09 my entire point of coming on here is to
1:49:11 defend that consciousness is an emergent
1:49:13 property of the physical brain and in
1:49:15 every case without a physical brain we
1:49:17 don't have consciousness
1:49:18 therefore monism is justified in
1:49:20 preponderance of the evidence
1:49:21 and therefore there's no reason to posit
1:49:23 consciousness
1:49:26 i get that but what you need to
1:49:27 understand is that when you say
1:49:29 consciousness is an emergent property of
1:49:31 the brain part of what you mean by
1:49:33 consciousness and what everyone means by
1:49:35 consciousness is
1:49:36 also includes the fact that we have
1:49:38 inner subjective experiences
1:49:39 so in order for that statement to be
1:49:41 true you should be able to solve the
1:49:44 problem of inner subjective conscious
1:49:45 experience which you've already admitted
1:49:46 we would not be able to find out what
1:49:48 it's like for me to have
1:49:49 why would we be able to asserting
1:49:53 no no we just went through that
1:49:55 conversation and you just said we
1:49:56 wouldn't know
1:49:57 yeah because each person is physically
1:49:59 different yeah but even
1:50:01 the only reason that if you even if you
1:50:04 went to my
1:50:04 physical reality and you try to map out
1:50:07 all of my brain just me my difference my
1:50:10 uniqueness
1:50:10 and you've mapped it all out and you've
1:50:12 correlated it to that inner subjective
1:50:14 experience
1:50:15 we will still not know what it's like
1:50:17 for me to have a chocolate hot chocolate
1:50:18 giving you the materialistic reason it
1:50:21 is because
1:50:22 each human is physically different do
1:50:24 you deny that no but i'm
1:50:25 but we're bypassing that point
1:50:29 by looking at me as the unique
1:50:31 individual
1:50:32 right we're not going to generalities
1:50:34 here we're saying fine i agree matt
1:50:36 we're all unique so let's go to hamza
1:50:38 his brain not matt's brain not
1:50:40 abdullah's brain brain
1:50:42 and we map it out and we map out the
1:50:44 neural cardiology the
1:50:45 stomach card neurology whatever you want
1:50:47 to call it we map everything possible
1:50:49 physically out
1:50:50 does that now lead to knowledge of me of
1:50:53 knowing what it's like for me
1:50:55 to have a hot chocolate on a sunday no
1:50:56 which shows
1:50:58 that even if you were to unravel all of
1:51:00 the kind of emergent
1:51:01 stuff that's going on all the complex
1:51:03 physical processes interacting in a
1:51:04 complex way you just do not know what
1:51:07 it's like for me to have a conscious
1:51:08 experience
1:51:09 and there's a materialistic explanation
1:51:11 for that and the second
1:51:13 problem say that again matt sorry
1:51:16 there's a materialistic explanation for
1:51:18 that which i've given multiple times
1:51:19 which was the materialist explanation
1:51:21 matt
1:51:22 what what's the materialistic
1:51:24 explanation that we are each
1:51:26 different individuals physically because
1:51:27 you you have a different
1:51:29 different experience to hamza's
1:51:32 experience but
1:51:34 hamsay is saying if i know everything
1:51:38 physical of hamza's physical brain
1:51:42 physical body everything all the things
1:51:45 that light up
1:51:46 on a monday morning having hot chocolate
1:51:49 could you
1:51:50 as a scientist with all the technology
1:51:54 at your disposal know what it's like for
1:51:56 him
1:51:57 his experience if you know all i can't
1:52:00 i can't become him exactly
1:52:04 exactly a point but that does not mean
1:52:08 that consciousness is is not is
1:52:10 something separate out here
1:52:12 why does that follow that's not the
1:52:14 argument that's not the end that's not
1:52:16 the argument
1:52:17 are you all committed to man or
1:52:19 something no matt we already said in the
1:52:21 beginning that the brain could be the
1:52:22 sea of consciousness we're going to have
1:52:23 a problem per se
1:52:25 but then after let's carry the
1:52:26 conversation so we've shown the first
1:52:28 part of the hard problem of
1:52:29 consciousness so the second part of the
1:52:30 heart problem of consciousness is this
1:52:34 it seems to be that there is a drastic
1:52:37 distinct ontological difference between
1:52:40 physical chemical processes
1:52:42 neurobiological processes
1:52:44 and conscious experience in a subjective
1:52:47 conscious experience seems to be very
1:52:49 different
1:52:50 from neurochemicals firing so even if we
1:52:53 were to
1:52:54 reduce consciousness in this sense
1:52:56 subjective consciousness to
1:52:58 neurochemicals firing can we ask the
1:53:00 question
1:53:02 how is it that inner subjective
1:53:04 experience arises from
1:53:06 physical stuff or processes that are
1:53:08 blind
1:53:10 and cold meaning there is no intentional
1:53:12 force directing physical processes
1:53:14 anywhere
1:53:15 and physical processes in of themselves
1:53:17 are not aware of themselves aware of
1:53:18 anything outside of themselves
1:53:21 how do we get subjectivity subjective
1:53:24 consciousness
1:53:25 emerging from that can can emergent
1:53:28 materialism answer that question
1:53:30 just keep ignoring what i'm saying
1:53:33 subjectivity
1:53:35 subjectivity is the it's because
1:53:38 each human is physically different yes
1:53:41 ma'am but let's talk about me
1:53:42 let's talk about matt let's talk about
1:53:44 matt bardos okay
1:53:46 where's bardos come from by the way is
1:53:47 it spanish or latino hungarian
1:53:50 hungarian brilliant so you're european
1:53:53 so i'm greek
1:53:54 so we share so
1:53:57 um let's go to matt and we
1:54:00 we analyze matt's physical stuff in his
1:54:02 brain
1:54:04 and we realize that he has
1:54:07 subjective consciousness and
1:54:10 we want to ask the question from an
1:54:13 ontological perspective by this the
1:54:14 structure of your subjective experiences
1:54:16 seem
1:54:17 completely different from the structure
1:54:19 of neurochemicals firing i disagree with
1:54:21 that but okay
1:54:23 can we say can we say
1:54:26 that in the subject of conscious
1:54:29 experience
1:54:30 is because of your
1:54:34 chemical physical process in the brain
1:54:36 can we say that can we
1:54:38 because we can because we can provide a
1:54:41 specific part of the brain on each
1:54:42 person
1:54:43 and it will cause a similar output um
1:54:46 they've done all sorts of experiments on
1:54:48 these things uh just for example
1:54:50 it's like just like a human being when
1:54:51 he presses the gas in the car the car
1:54:53 will go forward but the human being is
1:54:55 not the car
1:54:58 okay and a um digestive enzyme
1:55:01 is not the pancreas but it emerges from
1:55:04 the pancreas
1:55:05 so i think yes sorry forgive me for
1:55:08 saying yeah
1:55:09 and i don't want to jump in but that's
1:55:11 saying that's equivalent of saying
1:55:14 that the petrol is not part of the
1:55:16 engine
1:55:17 no there is part still part of the car
1:55:19 that's this analogous yeah
1:55:21 but but also i think what i think the
1:55:23 problem that matt has
1:55:24 is that i think matt what you do
1:55:26 understand is when you're talking about
1:55:28 the brain
1:55:29 being consciousness you're saying that
1:55:32 we can as a third person
1:55:34 objective analysis look at the brain
1:55:38 and conclude from looking at the brain
1:55:40 consciousness
1:55:42 yeah we can we have psychological drugs
1:55:45 right we give them to people
1:55:46 with the expectation of a specific
1:55:48 outcome yeah but matt the problem that
1:55:50 you have
1:55:51 is you're not trying you're you're
1:55:53 thinking within the box of your own
1:55:55 experience
1:55:57 and you have to come outside of your own
1:55:59 experience
1:56:00 in order to try to think so let me give
1:56:02 you an example of this is why
1:56:03 i think hamza was talking about himself
1:56:05 this is why you'll start talking about
1:56:07 that let me give you an example very
1:56:08 briefly yeah
1:56:10 you've got a person who's blind from
1:56:11 birth yeah
1:56:13 can you describe the color red to him
1:56:18 well you could talk about what light
1:56:21 is and the and the waves but no
1:56:25 no right okay you could
1:56:30 let's say this let's say you have a
1:56:31 person who's only lived in a black and
1:56:33 white room
1:56:34 yeah and he sees a
1:56:38 uh neuron of a third of a second person
1:56:42 who's seen the color red yeah
1:56:46 in that that person who's who studied
1:56:48 that neuro
1:56:49 and he's only lived in a black and white
1:56:51 room maybe he's color blind he can't see
1:56:53 the color red
1:56:54 if he sees that neuron fire can he
1:56:57 understand what the property and the
1:56:59 color red looks like
1:57:04 no he can't can he yeah
1:57:07 so this is the problem this is something
1:57:09 what hamza is trying to say in the first
1:57:11 part of the
1:57:12 problem which is that there's an
1:57:13 epistemic problem meaning there's a
1:57:15 problem of trying to understand
1:57:17 knowledge from the physical structure
1:57:20 to understanding conscious states
1:57:23 you're saying yeah but i can correlate
1:57:26 my experience
1:57:27 of consciousness with what other
1:57:29 people's experience with consciousness
1:57:31 is and we can have this communication
1:57:33 fine but what we're saying is if you
1:57:35 take a
1:57:36 third person analysis like the person
1:57:38 who lives in a black and white room
1:57:40 sees a neuro another person who's seen
1:57:42 color he can't just look at that and
1:57:44 think of
1:57:44 what the color red is i can maybe i can
1:57:47 say okay this correlates to how i
1:57:49 understand the color red
1:57:51 yeah and then he said yes i see the
1:57:52 color red you know while he's awake and
1:57:54 you prob the particular part of the
1:57:55 brain
1:57:56 and then in my mind a light bulb comes
1:57:58 on and i see the image red
1:57:59 yeah or redness come in my in my mind
1:58:02 because i have an experience of that so
1:58:05 it's not
1:58:06 because of the neuron i'm coming to the
1:58:08 conclusion
1:58:09 it's because of my experience of the
1:58:11 language that's being explained to me
1:58:14 or the correspondence of the neuron to
1:58:17 the length to the symbol
1:58:19 of the color or the meaning that it
1:58:21 represents
1:58:22 so i already know the meaning
1:58:25 i i think this is the why we're having
1:58:27 such a misunderstanding and
1:58:29 talking past each other i get and
1:58:31 understand everything you just said
1:58:34 i just do not understand
1:58:37 why that means that consciousness
1:58:40 is somehow you can have you do any of
1:58:43 you
1:58:43 believe that you can have consciousness
1:58:44 without a brain this is my only point
1:58:47 because matt the
1:58:48 problem now becomes is you're saying you
1:58:51 can't
1:58:51 understand consciousness by studying the
1:58:53 brain that's what we're concluding
1:58:56 yeah we cannot know
1:58:59 okay so let's go back to the point you
1:59:00 didn't use the word fully maybe we can't
1:59:02 fully understand we can obviously
1:59:03 partially see that when we talk about
1:59:06 consciousness we're talking about qualia
1:59:08 which is the experience and we're
1:59:10 talking about intentionality which is
1:59:11 the ability to think about things yeah
1:59:14 so let's just focus on qualia this is
1:59:15 what we're talking about qualia as a an
1:59:18 aspect
1:59:18 so let's focus on the other but okay
1:59:20 yeah uh
1:59:22 it's even more problem with
1:59:23 intentionality by the way but let's
1:59:25 focus on qualia so
1:59:26 i'm giving one example of kwali which is
1:59:28 the color red
1:59:29 i'm saying you've got a person who's
1:59:31 never seen the color red
1:59:32 he comes across a person's neuron who
1:59:35 has seen the color red
1:59:36 when that person who's seen the color
1:59:38 red his neuron
1:59:39 fires yeah which corresponds to the
1:59:42 color red
1:59:43 does that person who has never seen the
1:59:45 color red
1:59:46 just from the neuron conclude that
1:59:49 qualia
1:59:50 no but i've already explained also that
1:59:53 i'm a i'm an evidentialist
1:59:55 i'm going by preponderance of the
1:59:57 evidence we can explain
1:59:59 numerous parts of consciousness just by
2:00:01 an examination of the brain
2:00:03 even if we cannot explain all of it the
2:00:06 best position
2:00:06 justifiably to hold because i believe
2:00:09 outcomes razor why are we going to
2:00:11 assume anything else
2:00:12 if i can explain 75 of consciousness
2:00:14 from examining a physical brain
2:00:16 and i have no evidence anywhere else
2:00:18 that consciousness is
2:00:19 coming from something different then why
2:00:21 should i not conclude that conscious at
2:00:22 least provisionally
2:00:24 that consciousness is an emergent
2:00:25 property of the organ the brain just as
2:00:28 enzymes come from the pancreas and if
2:00:31 not what does the brain
2:00:32 do no no because here's the point here's
2:00:34 the point which is really important
2:00:36 what you're doing what you're saying is
2:00:38 is that the neuron
2:00:40 from a third person objective way who's
2:00:43 never experienced
2:00:45 what that neuron does yeah in his own
2:00:47 life
2:00:48 he cannot say anything about the qualia
2:00:53 of that neuron from a third person
2:00:55 perspective
2:00:56 it's like if we had uh yeah i don't want
2:00:59 to use another analogy because it would
2:01:00 just confuse it
2:01:01 but if you had 80 of what you're saying
2:01:04 you don't have to re-explain it
2:01:05 i agree with it i just don't see it as
2:01:08 if you had robots that came
2:01:09 and they studied the physical neurons of
2:01:12 the brain
2:01:13 it could not tell us anything about the
2:01:15 qualia of that person's experience
2:01:18 because there's nothing that is that
2:01:22 is causative this is the point there's
2:01:24 nothing causative
2:01:25 from a scientific point of view that
2:01:27 says this
2:01:28 action potential of a neuron results in
2:01:32 this particular
2:01:33 experience there's no necessary
2:01:36 connection between the two
2:01:38 we make a rational connection as human
2:01:40 beings
2:01:41 because we see our own experience
2:01:44 we infer other people's experience yeah
2:01:48 and based upon that but now we're not
2:01:51 using science
2:01:52 we're not using a third person and
2:01:54 that's all okay because
2:01:56 we're preponderance of the announcements
2:01:57 you just gave evidence it's not
2:01:59 it's it is irrespective of preponderance
2:02:01 we're not using science
2:02:03 we're no longer going to science now
2:02:05 it's considered conclusion
2:02:07 can we because there are a lot of people
2:02:08 waiting so i just i just want i just
2:02:10 want to tell matt
2:02:11 matt uh um i think my main problem i
2:02:14 don't have a problem with someone coming
2:02:15 on saying
2:02:16 you know i'm a materialist and i assume
2:02:19 such and such you know theory of mind
2:02:22 if you acknowledge your philosophical
2:02:24 presuppositions but you're just sweeping
2:02:25 them all under the carpet you're saying
2:02:26 they're not there
2:02:27 there's no hard problem one second yeah
2:02:30 one second one second
2:02:31 so so so so when you came on you said
2:02:33 there's no heart problem but you do
2:02:35 acknowledge that there is this
2:02:37 qualitative gap between the objective
2:02:39 and the subjective
2:02:40 we can't say that about ev anything else
2:02:42 that we examine in the world
2:02:44 anything else we examine in the world
2:02:46 you can break it down to its
2:02:48 you know uh fundamental constituents and
2:02:51 know
2:02:51 what the interactions result in except
2:02:54 for this qualitative experience
2:02:56 of consciousness you have this
2:02:57 qualitative leap
2:02:59 so you don't have a qualitative leap
2:03:00 from the physical to the mental we can
2:03:02 know it 100 percent of circumstances if
2:03:04 you remove my brain from my body i'll
2:03:06 have no more consciousness
2:03:07 okay so so i don't i don't keep this
2:03:10 going for too long yeah
2:03:11 bro the problem is the problem is you
2:03:13 are assuming an
2:03:14 identity theorist model for
2:03:17 consciousness that consciousness is the
2:03:19 brain right that whatever
2:03:21 is happening in there is the brain
2:03:23 that's fine but it's difficult to have
2:03:25 this conversation if you don't
2:03:27 acknowledge
2:03:28 that the preponderance of evidence
2:03:29 you're talking about is
2:03:31 based on a philosophical presupposition
2:03:34 it's based on this philosophical view i
2:03:36 mean it doesn't have to be a
2:03:37 presupposition you can argue for it but
2:03:39 you're bringing it to the table like
2:03:41 it's a fact like guys
2:03:42 we are going to assume that everything
2:03:45 in these physical interactions within
2:03:47 the brain
2:03:48 is consciousness and whatever wherever
2:03:50 the evidence takes us
2:03:52 that's the explanation for consciousness
2:03:54 whatever occurs in the neural activity
2:03:56 is by definition consciousness you need
2:03:58 to realize at least acknowledge
2:04:00 that that is a physicalist
2:04:02 pre-supposition
2:04:03 that you're going to know also it's a
2:04:05 philosophical uh
2:04:06 underlying i'm not you're
2:04:17 is he thinks that because you can say if
2:04:20 you take the brain out of a person's
2:04:22 body he dies
2:04:23 and therefore he has no consciousness
2:04:25 therefore the brain
2:04:26 is consciousness now what hamza's
2:04:28 explained he said there's another way to
2:04:30 view this
2:04:31 and you have to be able to demonstrate
2:04:33 this is incorrect
2:04:34 which is to say that the brain is like
2:04:37 the car
2:04:38 yeah for the car to work you need two
2:04:41 components you need the physical
2:04:42 component of the car
2:04:44 and you also need the mental component
2:04:46 of the person to drive the car
2:04:47 or another way to look at it if you have
2:04:49 a radio you have a radio
2:04:51 but you also need radio signals yes if
2:04:53 you get rid of the radio
2:04:55 if you get rid of the radio yes or you
2:04:58 destroy the radio you take the batteries
2:05:00 out the radio it's not going to work
2:05:02 nobody so so your your explanation
2:05:05 does not solve the fact that the
2:05:08 explain the problem the only thing which
2:05:10 is consciousness this is the
2:05:12 the car example you have a
2:05:14 bi-directionality the there's
2:05:16 interdependence between the person
2:05:18 and the car you need both simultaneously
2:05:20 you do not have bi-directionality with
2:05:22 the brain you have
2:05:22 mono direction the brain and then
2:05:24 consciousness you don't have
2:05:25 consciousness and then brain
2:05:28 nobody this is the problem is that you
2:05:30 you
2:05:31 guys you do sorry just i know we're
2:05:34 gonna have to go but i
2:05:35 will we appreciate you thank you by the
2:05:37 way for having me on all the time
2:05:39 i think a good a good uh thought
2:05:41 experiment which is well known in the
2:05:42 literature is called
2:05:44 frank jackson's mary's argument if you
2:05:47 investigate that thought experiment it's
2:05:49 a good
2:05:49 place to start with because it shows
2:05:51 that knowledge of all the physical facts
2:05:55 does not lead to knowledge of all the
2:05:57 facts
2:05:58 of course that's why i go but
2:05:59 preponderance of the evidence yes i know
2:06:02 but but you're assuming that the
2:06:04 proponents of the evidence is justifying
2:06:06 your eliminative
2:06:08 your emergent materialism but that is a
2:06:10 very false assumption because there are
2:06:12 other models that actually not only
2:06:14 explain all of the physical facts
2:06:16 it they explain also the non-physical
2:06:19 realities like
2:06:20 the fact that we have inner subjective
2:06:21 conscious states the fact that knowing
2:06:23 having knowledge of a particular neuron
2:06:25 is not going to give you the holier
2:06:26 or give you the phenomenal reality the
2:06:28 phenomenal experience
2:06:30 the inner subject of conscious
2:06:31 experience and this is the problem
2:06:32 you've assumed
2:06:33 all along that the proponents of
2:06:35 evidence actually justifies your
2:06:38 philosophical thesis of emergent
2:06:40 materialism which i feel
2:06:42 is extremely problematic because have
2:06:44 you for example
2:06:45 studied and looked into integrated
2:06:48 dualism that accepts
2:06:49 all of the physical stuff accepts all of
2:06:52 the neuroscience
2:06:52 also has a kind of metaphysical
2:06:54 understanding of
2:06:56 substance dualism you probably haven't
2:06:58 and this is the problem is when you come
2:07:00 to discussions like this
2:07:01 and you hold into a certain position
2:07:04 based on
2:07:05 maybe one empirical reality that you
2:07:07 understand if you have no brain you have
2:07:08 no consciousness
2:07:10 and you build your whole framework from
2:07:11 there and you stick to that without
2:07:13 opening your mind that there might be
2:07:15 other things that fully explain
2:07:17 consciousness
2:07:18 uh uh then you may be able to stand in
2:07:20 the possibility that
2:07:21 maybe i've got it wrong because
2:07:32 that there are other metaphysical
2:07:35 um positions other than emergent
2:07:38 materialism
2:07:40 that actually explained what was about
2:07:42 proponents of evidence
2:07:43 that explain all the physical stuff and
2:07:46 also
2:07:46 deal with the hard problem of
2:07:48 consciousness which is a part of
2:07:50 consciousness itself
2:07:51 and that's something that you need to
2:07:53 stand in the possibility and investigate
2:07:55 god willing i really appreciate you
2:07:57 coming on
2:07:58 but i just wanted just to end it i want
2:08:00 to say this right see this this all this
2:08:02 disagreement we had which is which is
2:08:03 fine it was fun talking to you
2:08:05 but then we won't have it we wouldn't
2:08:07 have it about anything else
2:08:10 uh like that that um let's say let's say
2:08:12 if we're discussing the makeup of a car
2:08:14 right
2:08:14 and you break it down for me and we both
2:08:16 agreed about all the interactions that
2:08:18 are happening and the way it's working
2:08:20 we couldn't have this disagreement
2:08:21 because that's all you need to explain
2:08:23 but right now we are two reasonable
2:08:27 people
2:08:27 who seem to be disagreeing that even in
2:08:29 principle if you do break down
2:08:31 all the physical makeup of the brain
2:08:35 we will disagree of whether or not that
2:08:36 explains this thing called
2:08:38 consciousness i'm just saying that in
2:08:40 the case of consciousness
2:08:41 you literally you literally can't say
2:08:43 this for anything else in the world
2:08:44 in principle if you break anything else
2:08:47 in the physical world down to its
2:08:48 you know fundamentals we will agree on
2:08:50 the way it works it's a full explanation
2:08:53 that's all good except for this one this
2:08:55 is just different that's the reason
2:08:56 you can come with your physicalist
2:08:58 understanding of it but
2:09:00 i just would like for you to appreciate
2:09:02 the philosophical nuance and
2:09:04 depth that needs to come with this kind
2:09:06 of discussion
2:09:08 again i understand that i'll repeat that
2:09:11 there's a physicalist counter argument
2:09:13 to that the cars are coming off an
2:09:14 assembly line in a standardized
2:09:16 uh fashion on purpose okay our brains
2:09:18 are each
2:09:19 it's physically different because we're
2:09:20 biological organisms so
2:09:22 that's fine that's fine that's okay
2:09:23 that's okay that's a physical
2:09:25 explanation for that difference that's
2:09:26 okay
2:09:29 you could customize each car to be
2:09:30 different and still need a human being
2:09:32 to work it bro come on that's a very
2:09:33 silly
2:09:35 fans still know what how each car works
2:09:37 yeah yeah yeah
2:09:40 that's i think that's not happening yeah
2:09:42 matt i think
2:09:43 we're gonna have to move on to the next
2:09:44 guest i do appreciate you coming on but
2:09:46 i also want to say one thing when we say
2:09:48 preponderance of evidence
2:09:50 there's a difference here because we're
2:09:52 saying there's an in principle
2:09:54 problem of being able to bridge the gap
2:09:57 between a
2:09:58 third person objective analysis to
2:10:00 understanding
2:10:01 how that results in a first person
2:10:04 subjective experience
2:10:05 that's that's the example of saying can
2:10:08 i bridge the gap between
2:10:10 a person who's been blind from birth and
2:10:13 being able to explain to him what the
2:10:14 color red is
2:10:15 that's an unbreakable gap and not only
2:10:18 do i not see it as a problem
2:10:20 i i never got an answer maybe one day i
2:10:22 will to why that means that
2:10:23 consciousness is not an emerging
2:10:24 property of the brain i see them as two
2:10:26 separate arguments
2:10:27 two separate things floating here no
2:10:29 because it's part
2:10:30 because it's part of what we mean by
2:10:31 consciousness one of the parts of what
2:10:33 we mean by consciousness
2:10:34 is called qualia
2:10:39 if you can't explain qualia based upon
2:10:42 the physical components of the brain
2:10:44 that demonstrates there's an
2:10:46 in-principle problem between the two
2:10:48 matt i appreciate you coming on we're
2:10:49 gonna have to move on i appreciate it
2:10:51 have a great time thank you very much
2:10:53 as well thank you bye
2:10:57 all right and so the next guest we've
2:10:59 got on now is thinkerman uh do you want
2:11:01 to bring him on or do you want to sort
2:11:02 of have any
2:11:03 is is there a srn or i think his son was
2:11:06 waiting wasn't he
2:11:07 no no he's not even jumped on oh is he
2:11:10 not okay
2:11:11 no no but i think i think her man is a
2:11:12 regular that's
2:11:14 but yeah maybe if if anybody wants to
2:11:16 say something about uh that
2:11:18 call me brother hamza i i do have a
2:11:22 couple of things so like
2:11:22 the example when he gave me a pain
2:11:25 example
2:11:28 i'll be honest i found that really
2:11:29 frustrating because he gave this
2:11:31 this word pain and he says so we all
2:11:34 know what that feels like
2:11:35 and when he gives the word makes that
2:11:38 example
2:11:39 he he's saying it or he's using that
2:11:41 example in a way as if every
2:11:43 example of pain is identical because in
2:11:46 order for that example to work
2:11:48 you have to give it forward like that
2:11:50 but the problem is is he then
2:11:52 after that conceded that there's this
2:11:54 huge spectrum
2:11:55 in terms of how pain can be experienced
2:11:58 and that there is no
2:11:59 identical experience here between any of
2:12:02 them and so
2:12:03 bringing pain as an example here to
2:12:05 prove the point he was trying to make
2:12:07 it just gets completely undermined by
2:12:09 the thing it's not it's not
2:12:11 it's not a catch-all term to describe
2:12:14 experiences in many different in the
2:12:17 countless variety of ways that
2:12:18 it can be you know you you what's really
2:12:20 interesting because i i had to in
2:12:22 my degree how to study pain receptors uh
2:12:26 uh and when you study pain receptors
2:12:28 you're
2:12:29 you're i like i think they're called
2:12:31 nancy scepters yeah
2:12:32 um i got it completely wrong now it's a
2:12:35 while ago since i studied it
2:12:37 but if you understand how the action
2:12:39 potential and the pain receptors
2:12:41 work there's nothing that tells me
2:12:44 forget about the subjective nature of
2:12:46 the pain
2:12:47 that you feels it's slightly more than
2:12:48 another person there's nothing
2:12:50 in the actual physical nerve and neuron
2:12:53 that's going to tell me anything about
2:12:55 the fact that the person's going to feel
2:12:57 pain in the first place
2:12:58 it's because we had to correlate between
2:13:01 a guy saying how that hurts and
2:13:04 this you know exactly the action
2:13:06 potential of the neurons and then we say
2:13:08 all right that must
2:13:09 correlate to pain yeah so just a few
2:13:11 things for the audience when we say
2:13:12 qualia it's just
2:13:13 like a neurobiological equivalent of
2:13:16 saying phenomenal experience or
2:13:17 subjective experience yeah
2:13:19 um and the other thing is this is why i
2:13:22 was trying to
2:13:22 have a kind of socratic discourse with
2:13:25 him and just break him down ask
2:13:26 questions slowly
2:13:28 and then get him to get that realization
2:13:30 but your point of
2:13:32 does the knowledge of that neuron give
2:13:33 us we give rise to knowledge of what
2:13:35 it's like to have
2:13:36 the conscious experience of red he still
2:13:40 didn't get it
2:13:41 and i think he was presuming he was
2:13:44 presuming uh he i think he was he was
2:13:48 thinking that we think consciousness is
2:13:50 like a ghost in a way yeah
2:13:51 and he felt like he's got nothing to do
2:13:54 with the brain and then when we gave the
2:13:55 car
2:13:56 analogy he's thinking oh there is
2:13:57 another way of looking at it my
2:13:59 my view is not necessarily true so i
2:14:01 think he's going to think about this and
2:14:03 it's going to
2:14:04 something's going to happen inshaallah
2:14:06 so yeah let's get the next
2:14:09 next person hello thinker man
2:14:13 hello assalamu alaikum welcome apologies
2:14:16 for
2:14:16 having you wait so long and to all the
2:14:18 other guests
2:14:21 no problem uh so i have a couple of
2:14:24 questions for you guys
2:14:26 um number one uh do you guys think that
2:14:28 materialism can
2:14:30 not be sorry consciousness cannot be
2:14:32 grounded on materialism do you think
2:14:34 it's impossible
2:14:40 is that to anyone in particular or to
2:14:42 all of us
2:14:44 yeah anyone can answer hamza do you want
2:14:47 to answer that one
2:14:49 can is it impossible
2:14:52 well uh yes so
2:14:56 there's an ontological problem here so
2:14:58 when we go back to the heart problem of
2:14:59 consciousness
2:15:00 there's two questions that we have to
2:15:02 ask
2:15:03 what is it like for a particular
2:15:05 conscious organism to have a specific
2:15:07 conscious experience
2:15:08 and the other question is how does this
2:15:11 in a subjective conscious experience or
2:15:13 how do these qualia if you like
2:15:15 arise from seemingly cold blind physical
2:15:19 processes
2:15:21 so if we were to know everything about
2:15:23 the material brain would it lead
2:15:24 to sharif uh to understanding what it
2:15:28 feels like
2:15:30 what the shari's subjective experience
2:15:32 of looking at his phone when he's on
2:15:34 this live stream
2:15:34 yeah we don't know we don't know what
2:15:37 that is right
2:15:38 even if you to map out all the new
2:15:40 chemical pathways all of the neurons if
2:15:42 we to map everything out it wouldn't
2:15:44 lead us to
2:15:46 understanding his subjective conscious
2:15:49 experience of
2:15:50 playing on his phone why his spouse man
2:15:51 the live stream for example
2:15:52Laughter 2:15:55 um the the other the other thing is um
2:15:59 okay fine so we agree he had we have
2:16:00 this first person fact of inner
2:16:02 subjective conscious experience we
2:16:04 all have them how can we explain that
2:16:06 with them with a materialist ontology
2:16:08 we can't because physicalism or
2:16:12 material stuff or physical processes are
2:16:14 blind
2:16:15 and cold what do we mean by this blind
2:16:17 there is no intentional force directing
2:16:19 them anywhere
2:16:20 and cold meaning they're not aware of
2:16:22 themselves aware of anything outside of
2:16:24 themselves
2:16:24 so how can we get from that how can we
2:16:27 get how can we get into
2:16:29 the richness of inner subjective
2:16:30 conscious experiences from this blind
2:16:33 uh cold stuff it's it's equivalent of
2:16:37 trying to say that we get two pieces of
2:16:39 wood
2:16:40 and what emerges from these two pieces
2:16:42 of wood is
2:16:43 a functioning complex human being right
2:16:46 fine you from two pieces of wood you
2:16:48 could make maybe a table
2:16:50 and you make you can make a sculpture or
2:16:52 whatever the case may be but can you
2:16:54 really can you really you know have this
2:16:57 complex
2:16:58 functioning human being from two pieces
2:16:59 of wood it's ontologically impossible
2:17:02 the reality of physical stuff does not
2:17:05 lead us to knowledge of people's inner
2:17:07 subjective conscious experience and it
2:17:08 does not
2:17:09 in any shape way or form explain how on
2:17:12 earth we can get the richness of in a
2:17:15 subjective conscious experience from
2:17:17 cold non-conscious blind physical stuff
2:17:21 it's equivalent of kissing a rock
2:17:24 and expecting a bunch of butterflies to
2:17:27 come out
2:17:28 right well i don't know what sharif said
2:17:30 the other time he said rubbing
2:17:31 a bottle and the genie and getting a
2:17:33 genie coming out yeah yeah
2:17:35 is that what it is and this is why
2:17:37 materialism
2:17:38 just by virtue of what just said is it
2:17:41 it's not going to explain consciousness
2:17:42 fully
2:17:45 uh what do you think thank you man
2:17:48 uh leaving aside the uh coal blind
2:17:50 forces
2:17:51 uh if there was if there was a
2:17:53 sufficient
2:17:54 materialistic explanation for why we
2:17:57 cannot
2:17:58 uh understand um what it's like for
2:18:01 hamza to
2:18:02 drink chocolate in them in monday
2:18:05 morning if there was a materialistic
2:18:06 explanation
2:18:07 for why we can't understand that would
2:18:10 you then change your mind
2:18:12 well we can't say let's ignore the code
2:18:14 blind physical process at all that's
2:18:16 part of
2:18:16 that's part what physical stuff is right
2:18:19 we'll deal with that
2:18:21 also but let's deal it with one step at
2:18:23 a time so if
2:18:24 if there was a materialistic explanation
2:18:26 for why we cannot
2:18:28 understand what it's like for hamza to
2:18:30 have a chocolate
2:18:31 in them in monday morning uh would that
2:18:34 affect
2:18:35 your belief in this are you saying if
2:18:38 there was a materialistic explanation
2:18:40 why we cannot
2:18:42 explain why i'm having an inner
2:18:44 subjective conscious experience would
2:18:46 that be sufficient for materialism to be
2:18:48 true
2:18:48 so what you're saying yeah so
2:18:50 consciousness
2:18:51 would be a result of uh
2:18:54 it would be an emergent property of the
2:18:56 brain right
2:18:57 but we cannot understand what the other
2:19:00 person
2:19:01 feels when he has his uh consciousness
2:19:03 his experiences because
2:19:06 because of a certain materialistic
2:19:08 explanation
2:19:10 if we know everything if if you were to
2:19:13 know everything about your own physical
2:19:15 makeup
2:19:16 and therefore to understand your own
2:19:18 experience
2:19:19 that be sufficient as an explanation for
2:19:22 a materialist explanation of
2:19:23 consciousness is that what you're saying
2:19:24 thinker man
2:19:27 yeah uh i'm saying um it's similar to
2:19:31 what matt was saying because i think
2:19:33 that the experience
2:19:34 that we have of consciousness it depends
2:19:36 a large part on
2:19:38 uh the physical makeup of our brain and
2:19:40 the memories that we've had the past
2:19:42 experiences that we've had
2:19:44 and the other person naturally he cannot
2:19:46 have those same memories he cannot have
2:19:48 the same physical brain
2:19:49 and that's a good materialistic
2:19:50 explanation for why
2:19:53 we cannot understand what it's like for
2:19:55 you to have a certain
2:19:57 experience but that does not necessitate
2:20:00 that
2:20:01 consciousness consciousness itself does
2:20:04 not come out
2:20:04 from purely materialistic uh things such
2:20:07 as the brain
2:20:09 so thinker man that's an okay
2:20:10 explanation provided we accept
2:20:12 like some kind of identity theory right
2:20:14 or so a reductionism
2:20:16 so if we give a a a an account
2:20:19 uh if we reduce consciousness to the
2:20:21 material then that's a good but the
2:20:23 problem is
2:20:23 that's again that's circular so you have
2:20:25 to assume that so you have to assume
2:20:27 that
2:20:28 the consciousness is reducible to that
2:20:31 material
2:20:32 or physical description you're providing
2:20:34 then yeah you can say it all you want
2:20:36 that different physical structures give
2:20:38 you different consciousnesses but then
2:20:40 how are you going to substantiate the
2:20:42 idea that
2:20:44 the con that consciousness is reducible
2:20:47 to
2:20:47 this physical structure is the main
2:20:49 question yeah once you're
2:20:51 human you can make all kinds of you can
2:20:53 say whatever you want and
2:20:55 on the basis of that assumption but it's
2:20:56 the assumption we're questioning here
2:20:58 because because emergent materialism is
2:21:00 basically saying
2:21:01 that you can reduce
2:21:05 the inner subjective conscious
2:21:06 experience to
2:21:09 physical processes or to a complex
2:21:12 mesh of physical processes interacting
2:21:14 causally
2:21:15 interacting in a complex way that's what
2:21:18 emerging materialism
2:21:19 is basically saying and what the
2:21:21 emergent materials say is once we get to
2:21:23 understand all of these individual
2:21:25 physical processes or physical things
2:21:28 causing interaction
2:21:29 in a complex way we'll be able to solve
2:21:32 the hard problem of consciousness
2:21:34 but what we're saying is no this
2:21:36 actually
2:21:37 reduces back to reductive materialism
2:21:40 it's equivalent logical equivalent to
2:21:42 reductive materialism because even if we
2:21:44 can reduce
2:21:45 in a subjective conscious experience or
2:21:47 qualia if you like
2:21:48 to physical processes it still
2:21:52 does not answer the two problems of the
2:21:54 hard problem
2:21:55 which is what is it like for a
2:21:57 particular conscious organism to have a
2:21:59 specific conscious
2:22:00 uh specific subjective experience and
2:22:02 why does that subjective experience
2:22:04 arise for sim
2:22:05 from seemingly cold
2:22:08 blind physical processes so even if
2:22:11 imagine materialism which would be true
2:22:12 you still haven't solved the problems
2:22:14 we're addressing today
2:22:18 uh right so uh abdul said that
2:22:21 if we assume that consciousness
2:22:24 is emerging from the brain then it's a
2:22:27 logical explanation it's a possible
2:22:29 explanation
2:22:30 but he you ask that how would i prove
2:22:33 that this is actually the case
2:22:35 so uh i don't think that we can prove
2:22:38 necessarily that consciousness is
2:22:41 definitely an
2:22:42 uh emerging property of the brain but i
2:22:44 definitely do think that this is
2:22:46 a possibility or like that's why i asked
2:22:49 the question first that do you guys
2:22:51 think it's
2:22:51 at all possible even for consciousness
2:22:54 to be grounded on materialism
2:22:56 and what do you mean by emergent
2:22:57 property though sorry because because if
2:22:58 you were listening to hamza earlier he
2:23:00 explained that you know because the
2:23:01 number
2:23:02 if it's an emergent property it's
2:23:03 basically gonna it's gonna the same
2:23:05 thing it's gonna reduce
2:23:06 to the the physical the underlying
2:23:09 physical structure so
2:23:10 you're basically saying that that
2:23:12 consciousness
2:23:13 is uh physical i mean it's it's more or
2:23:16 less the same thing not very different
2:23:18 from
2:23:19 identity theory unless you assume some
2:23:20 kind of strong emergence which
2:23:22 has all sorts of problems so it depends
2:23:24 on yeah what you mean by
2:23:26 property yeah and here's his a principle
2:23:29 to understand can something arise
2:23:33 from another thing when it's not
2:23:36 contained in that thing
2:23:38 or it doesn't have the potential to give
2:23:41 rise to that thing
2:23:43 like if i don't have five pounds in my
2:23:44 pocket i can never give you five pounds
2:23:49 materialism and physical stuff by
2:23:51 definition
2:23:52 are blind and non-conscious they're cold
2:23:55 so can they give rise
2:23:57 to something that is intentional
2:24:00 something that is aware
2:24:03 that is the kind of basic first
2:24:05 principle we're dealing with here
2:24:07 if i have if i don't have five pounds in
2:24:09 my pocket i can't give you five pounds
2:24:12 so when we look into the pocket of
2:24:14 materialism it doesn't have the five
2:24:16 pounds of consciousness anywhere
2:24:18 so you can't give it to us so you can't
2:24:20 give rise to it
2:24:21 unless you're willing to believe in
2:24:22 magic you're willing to believe in hocus
2:24:25 pocus
2:24:26 that you get you know uh a
2:24:29 blind code physical process over here
2:24:31 you get another blind physical process
2:24:33 over here
2:24:34 you put it into this physicalist hat
2:24:37 materialist hat and you give it a good
2:24:39 shake and all of a sudden
2:24:40 you you have something that is
2:24:43 you know intentional and aware
2:24:47 with all due respect people who argue
2:24:49 this are literally telling us
2:24:51 you need to believe in magic
2:24:54 that's what they say so this is this is
2:24:57 the very basic first principle here
2:24:59 can something arise from another thing
2:25:03 that doesn't contain it right in the
2:25:06 first place or doesn't have the
2:25:08 potential to give rise to it
2:25:10 if i don't have five pounds in my pocket
2:25:12 i cannot give you five pounds
2:25:14 likewise if we use this analogy for the
2:25:17 physicalist maturities project
2:25:18 if we get a blind code physical process
2:25:21 over here and another blind physical
2:25:23 process over here
2:25:24 and we put it into this materialist hat
2:25:25 physically this time we give it a good
2:25:27 shake
2:25:28 what you're saying to me is you're going
2:25:29 to have the bunny rabbit of
2:25:31 consciousness
2:25:32 you can't have something that's
2:25:34 intentional and
2:25:35 aware arising from something that's not
2:25:38 intentional
2:25:38 and aware that's the very basic thing so
2:25:41 what
2:25:42 this all fancy philosophy of emerging
2:25:44 materialists are saying is
2:25:45 hamza sharif yusuf abdul you guys need
2:25:48 to believe in magic
2:25:49 in hocus pocus how is that logically
2:25:53 different from what you accuse uh
2:25:55 theists of doing yeah
2:25:57 i mean this is like you know let's just
2:25:59 be honest here man
2:26:00 you want us to believe in magic do you
2:26:03 know what i mean
2:26:05 yeah yeah i i i understand what you're
2:26:07 trying to
2:26:08 trying to say so my response would be
2:26:11 uh that the difference between these and
2:26:14 what we're doing is that
2:26:16 whatever we say it has some sort of
2:26:18 basis on uh
2:26:21 on empiricism it has
2:26:24 on the physical world that we see
2:26:27 so when you said that um non-conscious
2:26:31 beings gave rise to conscious beings i
2:26:33 don't really see a problem
2:26:35 in that logically speaking like it's
2:26:37 sort of
2:26:38 i think uh what's that fallacy called i
2:26:41 think composition fallacy or something
2:26:44 that just because the some uh
2:26:47 uh the parts don't have a certain
2:26:49 property doesn't mean that
2:26:50 some of it can't have it
2:26:54 it's like saying that when you like
2:26:55 break an atom up
2:26:57 it it gives off energy why does it give
2:27:01 give off energy there's a there's a
2:27:02 certain point when
2:27:04 you get to the final explanation you
2:27:06 can't go beyond that
2:27:08 so the fact that different physical
2:27:10 processes such as neurons firing
2:27:12 and the organ of the brain existing
2:27:15 leads to the experience
2:27:17 of consciousness this would be as as far
2:27:20 down uh as an explanation that we can
2:27:24 give
2:27:24 so there's no explanation beyond that
2:27:27 and
2:27:27 i don't think that would be you're
2:27:29 already assuming a physicalist ontology
2:27:31 that's the problem you're already
2:27:34 assuming
2:27:35 emergent materialism to be true you're
2:27:37 already assuming
2:27:38 a materialistic philosophy this is like
2:27:42 in the discourse if you i'm not trying
2:27:44 to prove it
2:27:45 i'm not trying to prove it i'm just
2:27:47 trying to show that there's nothing
2:27:48 logically
2:27:49 incoherent or logically
2:27:53 contradictory in holding the view that
2:27:56 consciousness is ground
2:27:58 is a result of materialistic things such
2:28:00 as the brain
2:28:01 there's nothing logically contradictory
2:28:03 or absurd about it that
2:28:05 that's the only position that i'm trying
2:28:06 to defend i'm not trying to say that
2:28:08 yeah the only the only logic where i
2:28:11 would
2:28:11 the logical problem that i would say is
2:28:13 is that you can't answer two key
2:28:15 questions
2:28:16 that's the problem and these are key
2:28:19 questions concerning consciousness
2:28:21 the the epistemic gap meaning we don't
2:28:23 know after looking at all the material
2:28:25 physical stuff
2:28:26 what it's like for specific conscious
2:28:27 organism to have a
2:28:29 conscious experience and we don't know
2:28:32 why that conscious experience arises
2:28:33 from seemingly cold non-conscious
2:28:35 physical processes
2:28:37 that the emergent materialist project
2:28:39 can't answer those two key questions
2:28:41 that's the point
2:28:45 so it's not about logic it's about
2:28:47 reasonable and being rational
2:28:50 that means we may have to give up the
2:28:51 emergent materialist project and we
2:28:53 basically
2:28:54 need to start developing a different
2:28:55 ontology in order to
2:28:57 satisfy and explain all the physical
2:29:00 stuff
2:29:01 and the reality of the heart problem of
2:29:03 consciousness
2:29:06 um i thought that i did give a good uh a
2:29:09 reasonable explanation for the two
2:29:11 problems that you mentioned
2:29:12 i mean i can grant that we cannot know
2:29:15 what it's like for you to experience
2:29:17 your reality but there can be a
2:29:19 materialistic explanation for why that
2:29:21 is
2:29:22 and as for your second question of why
2:29:24 unconscious things can give rise to
2:29:26 consciousness
2:29:27 i would just say that that's a property
2:29:29 of those things
2:29:31 that's as far down as an explanation as
2:29:33 we can get
2:29:34 there's nothing but you can't say the
2:29:36 property of those things because that
2:29:38 means you'd be drastically redefining
2:29:39 what physical
2:29:40 is and what material is and
2:29:43 you can't do that that's like that's
2:29:45 that's like that's
2:29:47 absurd because if you want to redefine
2:29:50 physicalist physicalism and con and
2:29:53 materialism to mean
2:29:54 that physical process and physical
2:29:56 things actually are aware
2:29:58 and they have intentionality and they
2:30:01 they they have within them uh subjective
2:30:05 experience or proto-consciousness
2:30:08 you're defining something totally
2:30:09 different now by definition
2:30:12 physical processes of physical things
2:30:15 are cold
2:30:15 and blind there is no intentional force
2:30:17 directing them anywhere
2:30:19 and they're not aware of themselves
2:30:20 aware of anything outside of themselves
2:30:22 so with all due respect you can't just
2:30:25 just make it up and say oh because you
2:30:26 know
2:30:27 there is a subjective property in these
2:30:30 physical things
2:30:31 that's just making it up as you go
2:30:35 i'm not saying that those are conscious
2:30:38 are they are being guided somehow
2:30:40 they're they're just being guided
2:30:42 through the physical laws of nature the
2:30:44 way everything obeys the physical
2:30:46 laws of nature and when certain things
2:30:50 yeah which has no explanatory force and
2:30:52 it's
2:30:53 and it's uh assuming again your
2:30:57 your metaphysic your oncology emergent
2:30:59 materialism
2:31:01 let's break it down very simple emerging
2:31:03 materialism
2:31:04 assumes that there are complex physical
2:31:06 processes
2:31:08 interacting with each other in in in in
2:31:10 complex ways
2:31:11 causal complex interactions once we know
2:31:14 what these are about we'll be able to
2:31:16 explain the hard problem of
2:31:17 consciousness that's the claim here
2:31:19 but we're saying no that's not the claim
2:31:20 because that brings us back down to
2:31:22 reductive materialism
2:31:23 which basically which basically the
2:31:25 problems are that even if we know
2:31:27 anything everything
2:31:28 about the brain and all the physical
2:31:29 facts it wouldn't lead to
2:31:31 knowledge of what it's like for abdul to
2:31:34 have
2:31:34 a glass of water on a saturday evening
2:31:38 likewise it will not explain why he has
2:31:40 that in a subject of conscious
2:31:42 experience
2:31:44 coming from seemingly cold blind
2:31:47 physical
2:31:48 stuff so uh it doesn't answer it at all
2:31:54 i'm sure you appreciate you i just want
2:31:55 to know if you appreciate
2:31:57 how like what the the identity theory
2:32:00 are positing
2:32:01 how radical it is so if i tell you that
2:32:03 this cup right so so
2:32:04 you're saying that the the you know the
2:32:08 physical makeup of our brain
2:32:11 will explain what consciousness is and
2:32:15 at the same time you're saying you're
2:32:16 you're alluding to some kind of
2:32:18 emergency this might be an emergent
2:32:20 properly which
2:32:20 does kind of collapse to some kind of an
2:32:23 identity theory
2:32:24 now the so what i the basic problem is
2:32:26 with identity theory is that you're
2:32:28 pointing to a physical thing like this
2:32:29 cup
2:32:30 you're not saying it produces
2:32:32 consciousness
2:32:33 so so you're not saying that this cup
2:32:35 produces a subjective experience you're
2:32:37 saying
2:32:38 this cup is a subjective experience
2:32:42 because a lot of people don't appreciate
2:32:43 how radically
2:32:45 absurd that can be it's not that this
2:32:49 cup can produce subjective experiences
2:32:53 it is that it is itself the subjective
2:32:56 experience
2:32:57 it it's d do you do you appreciate the
2:33:00 gravity of that at least i mean
2:33:03 it's it's very serious it's quite a
2:33:06 claim to make that this
2:33:08 subjective first person experience i'm
2:33:10 having right now of what it's like
2:33:12 to be me and to be having this
2:33:14 discussion with you
2:33:16 it is itself that experience
2:33:19 is the neurons in my brain is the
2:33:21 electrons firing
2:33:23 in my brain that's the it's not that
2:33:26 the electrons firing produces it it's
2:33:29 not like
2:33:30 it's it's it's the underlying
2:33:33 structure that consciousness rests on
2:33:36 no it is the subjective experience
2:33:40 so so if
2:33:43 do you do you get you know how serious
2:33:46 that claim is how
2:33:48 odd it sounds yeah i i don't see any
2:33:53 problem with it
2:33:54 the the way the brain reacts uh the
2:33:57 neurons different neurons firing
2:33:59 diff whatever the neurology of it is uh
2:34:02 that's what produces consciousness
2:34:06 and it is located oh no no that's what
2:34:08 is consciousness
2:34:09 um please just use that language so that
2:34:12 that
2:34:12 is consciousness fine you could take
2:34:15 that position
2:34:16 you can take that position but then do
2:34:18 you acknowledge do you acknowledge
2:34:20 that there is a heart problem in the
2:34:21 sense that this position you're taking
2:34:24 is basically a proposed solution
2:34:27 to a problem that is seriously unlike
2:34:30 any other epistemic issue that we face
2:34:33 in our examination
2:34:34 our third person examination of the
2:34:36 world we don't face that problem
2:34:37 when we're examining things in the
2:34:39 physical world we don't have this issue
2:34:40 of subjectivity that we can't access
2:34:42 from a third person perspective so you
2:34:44 need to realize at least
2:34:45 that you're making that philosophical
2:34:47 assumption because you have nowhere to
2:34:49 go
2:34:49 you have no escape yeah i think the
2:34:51 problem here guys though
2:34:54 we haven't offered an alternative
2:34:56 because you have to understand that
2:34:57 there are a lot of uh
2:34:58 psychological dimensions behind
2:35:00 arguments it's it is
2:35:01 with with respect to all of us it is
2:35:04 intellectually and spiritually immature
2:35:06 to believe that we're just
2:35:08 abstract robots that the inputs and
2:35:10 outputs now we have a functionist
2:35:12 approach
2:35:12 to convincing people human beings are
2:35:14 very dynamic and we have
2:35:16 kind of you know even the quranic
2:35:18 discourse and the sunnah
2:35:20 indicate this we have emotional drivers
2:35:22 behind these things and you know what
2:35:23 they're jumping on the kind of
2:35:25 scientific bandwagon scientific success
2:35:28 story and all this that and the other
2:35:30 and what we need to realize is we need
2:35:32 to also start now me providing the
2:35:33 solution
2:35:34 or the theistic response that accepts
2:35:37 all of the physical pro that all the
2:35:39 physicalist projects like neuroscience
2:35:40 and your biology
2:35:42 but also has a an adequate metaphysic to
2:35:44 explain the hard problem of
2:35:46 consciousness i think that's what we
2:35:47 should be doing as well so people are
2:35:48 like oh that's interesting
2:35:50 you know they accept some of the science
2:35:51 they accept the science the
2:35:52 neurobiological project
2:35:54 but when it comes to these critical
2:35:55 issues that the science can't address
2:35:57 and will never address
2:35:58 they have a really good ontology and
2:36:00 that's something that we need to
2:36:01 basically
2:36:02 uh spell out but i want to also ask the
2:36:04 brother
2:36:06 if you in the beginning of the universe
2:36:08 all you had
2:36:09 is matter and you put all the matter
2:36:11 together
2:36:12 then are you really going to get mined
2:36:15 that's really the most basic way of
2:36:17 putting it
2:36:18 you know if if you had for example bits
2:36:21 of wood
2:36:22 and you put all these bits of wood
2:36:24 together are you going to get
2:36:26 a a uh a tesla
2:36:31 that that's what we're basically saying
2:36:34 it's not an issue of yeah you know when
2:36:36 we find out more about these pieces of
2:36:37 wood
2:36:38 and we hammer them in a particular way
2:36:40 we shape them in a particular way we're
2:36:42 gonna we're gonna we're gonna understand
2:36:43 what's going on it's not it's beyond
2:36:45 that it's an
2:36:45 ontological problem no matter how many
2:36:48 pieces of wood you have
2:36:50 and no matter what you do to the pieces
2:36:51 of wood you're not gonna get
2:36:54 a tesla right so
2:36:57 if you had in the beginning of the
2:36:58 universe lots of matter
2:37:01 are you gonna get mined and if you think
2:37:04 you're gonna get mind
2:37:05 without having mind in the beginning or
2:37:07 consciousness in the beginning or
2:37:08 awareness in the beginning
2:37:10 then with all due respect as i said this
2:37:12 is hocus pocus man
2:37:14 this is magic you want us to believe in
2:37:16 magic but you are article in a way that
2:37:18 sounds you know a bit smart
2:37:21 you know we can we can say anything we
2:37:24 can say this
2:37:25 like i don't want to do this but we can
2:37:28 say the same thing about
2:37:29 uh whichever hypothesis you guys put up
2:37:32 whichever religion you guys want to put
2:37:34 up
2:37:34 it's the same like god says be and it is
2:37:37 because
2:37:38 what what that's that's just magic man
2:37:40 no no no that's just magic
2:37:42 so the reality is that whatever the
2:37:44 ultimate explanation is whether it's uh
2:37:46 completely natural whether it's darkness
2:37:48 there's a fundamental difference because
2:37:51 the one who's saying be
2:37:53 has names and attributes that
2:37:56 enables him to say be and to but how
2:37:59 does he does
2:38:00 how does he do it that's the question
2:38:02 and you're going to have to say that
2:38:03 either you don't know or it's magic and
2:38:05 you know even if you say you don't know
2:38:07 the
2:38:08 the atheists can just say well then
2:38:10 that's just magic and i don't believe in
2:38:12 magic and so on so i don't think that's
2:38:13 it's
2:38:14 useful to use terms like these no no no
2:38:17 no because saying i don't know isn't
2:38:19 isn't a claim to anything so they can't
2:38:21 say oh well that's just magic because
2:38:23 you
2:38:23 you've not given an x to say
2:38:26 x is magic you said i don't know yes
2:38:30 but but with regards to you you're
2:38:31 saying that you can get those pieces of
2:38:34 wood and you can somehow miraculously
2:38:36 and magically create a tesla there is a
2:38:37 fundamental difference here yeah
2:38:40 that's the whole thing you have to
2:38:42 appreciate that there are
2:38:43 there are two interesting examples here
2:38:45 what you're saying is
2:38:47 we have matter and physical stuff that
2:38:49 is not aware
2:38:50 doesn't have intentionality is has
2:38:54 there's nothing intentionally directing
2:38:56 these physical processes anywhere
2:38:57 they're not aware of themselves aware of
2:38:58 anything outside of themselves so
2:38:59 they're cold blind non-conscious
2:39:01 and what you're saying that gives rise
2:39:03 to consciousness which is equivalent of
2:39:05 saying
2:39:05 give me a pile of wood and i'm going to
2:39:07 give you a tesla that is magic
2:39:10 saying i don't know how god does
2:39:12 something because by virtue of his
2:39:13 maximal perfection
2:39:15 is not magic claiming that i have this
2:39:18 non-conscious reality and all of a
2:39:20 sudden
2:39:21 appears his consciousness that's magic
2:39:24 i'm sorry i'm not gonna let you get away
2:39:25 with that one yeah that was a little
2:39:26 nice little tricky move
2:39:28 yeah it was like you know hidden little
2:39:32 left right whatever you call it yeah the
2:39:34 point here is
2:39:35 you are saying to me that we have pieces
2:39:38 of wood
2:39:39 and it's going to give us a tesla i'm
2:39:41 saying to you
2:39:42 that's magic and you're saying it's
2:39:44 logically possible
2:39:46 i want to know how when you get a cold
2:39:48 blind non-conscious thing
2:39:49 that can give rise to consciousness
2:39:51 let's break it down the forget
2:39:53 functionism emergent materialism
2:39:55 all of these isms and schisms of
2:39:56 philosophical gymnastics let's break it
2:39:58 down to the raw
2:39:59 nuts and bolts for me it's really one in
2:40:01 the morning so let's do this
2:40:03 very simply so you want to hear my
2:40:05 response it's it's it's very simple
2:40:08 you either had you either had um
2:40:11 a god or intelligent being that created
2:40:14 a human consciousness okay or you either
2:40:17 had
2:40:18 a physical materialistic matter or
2:40:21 energy or whatever it up whatever it was
2:40:24 that had the potential to somewhere down
2:40:26 the road con
2:40:29 gave rise to consciousness so both of
2:40:31 these are hypothesis
2:40:32 and they're i'm not saying that my my
2:40:35 hypothesis is necessarily correct
2:40:38 neither am i saying that your hypothesis
2:40:40 is necessarily wrong
2:40:41 i'm just saying that there's a
2:40:44 hypothesis your hypothesis my brother is
2:40:48 magic because your words such as
2:40:50 potential down the road
2:40:52 what does that mean are you saying that
2:40:55 all of a sudden
2:40:56 blind cold physical processes
2:40:58 potentially down the road
2:40:59 won't be blind cold physical processes
2:41:01 anymore is that what you're saying
2:41:03 and if that's the case how did that
2:41:05 happen and are you just redefining what
2:41:07 it means to be physical and blind and
2:41:08 unconscious
2:41:09 with all due respect we have to unpack
2:41:11 what you're actually trying to say
2:41:13 i'm not gonna allow you intellectually
2:41:15 to make an equivalence between your
2:41:16 magic
2:41:17 and theism because theism make complete
2:41:19 sense because you have an all-aware
2:41:20 being that brought into existence
2:41:22 creatures that are aware
2:41:23 that makes sense even if you don't know
2:41:25 how it makes
2:41:26 philosophical metaphysical sense as a
2:41:29 metaphysical
2:41:30 first principle explanation but your
2:41:32 explanation doesn't make sense
2:41:34 it's still magical in nature because
2:41:36 unless you're willing to convince us
2:41:38 that physical processes
2:41:39 are actually not blind and they actually
2:41:41 are conscious then you'll be moving away
2:41:43 from emergent materialism and you'll be
2:41:45 a pan cyclist or something
2:41:46 you'd be moving to another explanation
2:41:49 do you see what i'm saying so what do
2:41:50 you mean
2:41:51 down the road you understand
2:41:55 so really quickly so i think a man just
2:41:58 one second
2:41:59 do you understand that the claim that
2:42:00 we're making here is that
2:42:02 there's an epistemic and ontological
2:42:05 problem
2:42:05 saying that non-conscious physical
2:42:08 material can produce consciousness do
2:42:10 you understand that
2:42:11 that's what we're saying yeah
2:42:14 that was what my question was going to
2:42:16 be so uh
2:42:17 what do you think that it's impossible
2:42:20 for non-conscious to bring
2:42:21 into uh being conscious material or do
2:42:24 you think that it's
2:42:25 very unintuitive or unlikely or whatever
2:42:28 you want to call it or something like
2:42:30 that
2:42:32 listen guys if we accept that you can
2:42:35 get consciousness from non-consciousness
2:42:38 you accept a philosophical principle
2:42:40 that something
2:42:41 can arise from another thing that
2:42:43 doesn't contain it and doesn't have the
2:42:44 potential to give rise to it
2:42:46 the minute you accept such a principle
2:42:49 all
2:42:50 forms of knowledge are null and void
2:43:00 having the potential means what
2:43:04 it means that under certain conditions
2:43:07 it can give rise to consciousness
2:43:09 certain materials
2:43:10 things come together under certain
2:43:12 conditions they have the potential to
2:43:14 give
2:43:14 consciousness so let's unpack that so
2:43:16 you're saying a non-conscious blind
2:43:18 physical process
2:43:19 plus another non-conscious blind and
2:43:21 physical process will give you x
2:43:23 consciousness what's wrong with that
2:43:26 that's magic man that's what it is man
2:43:28 let's just be honest listen if it looks
2:43:30 like a duck and it cracks like a duck
2:43:32 then it's not a donkey it's a duck man
2:43:34 so you're saying if you're getting wait
2:43:37 a minute
2:43:38 can i give you and yeah it's going to
2:43:39 happen
2:43:42 if you're being a bit more laid back now
2:43:44 yeah it's daily that's why
2:43:46 so if you're having a so you're saying
2:43:48 you got a non you got
2:43:50 a non-conscious blind cold physical
2:43:52 process
2:43:53 plus a non-conscious blind physical
2:43:55 process that's going to give you
2:43:56 consciousness again you go back to my
2:43:58 tester analogy lots of planks of wood is
2:44:00 going to give you a tesla it's not
2:44:03 so think about can you if you can think
2:44:05 about it like this yeah
2:44:07 so there's another aspect regards to uh
2:44:10 consciousness called intentionality
2:44:11 which is basically the ability to
2:44:14 think about an idea yeah or think about
2:44:16 some sort of object that's not
2:44:18 in your direct sensation like thinking
2:44:21 about the taj mahal or
2:44:22 mecca or medina even though i'm not
2:44:25 there
2:44:26 now you can break down those thoughts
2:44:30 under a materialistic perspective by
2:44:32 saying that they are
2:44:33 neurons or action potentials of neurons
2:44:36 but there's nothing within the neurons
2:44:38 and the action potentials of the neurons
2:44:40 that's going to say that that particular
2:44:43 set of firings is going to result
2:44:46 in a particular thought about
2:44:49 uh mecca or medina do you understand
2:44:52 that point uni
2:44:54 even if somebody says well we can map
2:44:56 the brain
2:44:57 and if a person sees the image of the
2:44:59 cab this will light up and if you see
2:45:01 the image of medina this will light up
2:45:04 you still need a mind that comes before
2:45:07 to interpret the signals
2:45:10 in order to then correlate the signals
2:45:13 with the particular thought
2:45:15 do you understand that points yeah i
2:45:18 think so
2:45:19 so i so an analogy would be like morse
2:45:22 code
2:45:22 if i had morse code could morse code
2:45:25 plus morse code
2:45:27 tell me what the most code is or do i
2:45:29 need a mind in order to explain the most
2:45:32 code
2:45:39 could most code explain its own
2:45:42 code
2:45:45 so what in in your analogy what would be
2:45:47 the more scored
2:45:49 in our world the most is the brains
2:45:52 the the action potentials the neurons
2:45:56 yeah so because they're actually that
2:45:58 you can look at them as abstract signals
2:46:01 you know you could get as ones and zeros
2:46:03 on a computer screen
2:46:05 like i said before uh you like calling
2:46:08 these processes blind isn't i i don't
2:46:11 think
2:46:12 that's entirely correct because they
2:46:13 obey the laws of physics
2:46:15 so they can't just do whatever they want
2:46:17 they have to obey the laws of physics
2:46:19 and the that just goes down to what were
2:46:21 the initial conditions at the start of
2:46:23 the universe
2:46:24 where there's such that i think yeah but
2:46:26 think about on this particular on this
2:46:28 particular point
2:46:30 when you're turning around and saying
2:46:32 that the brain
2:46:33 is what produces consciousness another
2:46:35 way to look at it is to say well if the
2:46:37 brain is the neurons
2:46:39 and the neurons are then producing their
2:46:42 own
2:46:42 ability to think to give meaning
2:46:46 so in the same way can morse code
2:46:48 produce its own ability
2:46:50 to produce meaning yeah i i don't think
2:46:55 when you say morse code it's it's good
2:46:57 it's complete i think it's the wrong
2:46:58 analogy
2:46:59 well the reason why it's the right
2:47:00 analogy is because
2:47:02 there's nothing in the neurons yeah
2:47:05 there's no
2:47:06 uh you know there's no like
2:47:10 you know the shape of the neuron isn't
2:47:12 like the caliber yeah
2:47:14 the neuron is a neuron yeah it's just a
2:47:17 symbol
2:47:18 and it codes for something let's say
2:47:21 if we're going to talk about in like
2:47:22 computer programming speech it codes for
2:47:25 this particular thought or a set of
2:47:27 neurons codes for this particular set of
2:47:28 thought
2:47:29 that code needs to be decoded by
2:47:32 something
2:47:34 yeah by some mind
2:47:37 now what materialism would say is that
2:47:40 it's the brain
2:47:41 or other sets of neurons that decode
2:47:44 those sets of neurons
2:47:45 to produce the ability to understand
2:47:48 what those neurons are
2:47:50 representing there's no decoding
2:47:53 necessary like
2:47:55 like when you heat water it becomes gas
2:47:58 right similarly when certain
2:48:02 uh certain particles react together in
2:48:05 certain conditions
2:48:07 consciousness is produced no that's the
2:48:09 difference there's a difference because
2:48:11 i can explain
2:48:12 why you get gas from eating water yeah i
2:48:15 can talk about how
2:48:17 the hydrogen bonding has a certain
2:48:19 energy
2:48:20 if you overcome that particular energy
2:48:22 breaks it and therefore they become
2:48:24 h2o water molecules that freely float in
2:48:27 the atmosphere
2:48:28 you know i can explain that yeah i can't
2:48:30 explain this
2:48:32 i can't explain consciousness in that
2:48:34 way
2:48:35 what i have is i have
2:48:38 a surgery unconscious how do you explain
2:48:40 consciousness in that way
2:48:43 neurons firing in the brain right and do
2:48:46 anything of the neurons
2:48:48 that fire in the brain tell us anything
2:48:50 about the thoughts
2:48:52 or the experiences of that person
2:48:57 we we don't have those tools yet that's
2:49:00 what i would say
2:49:00 even if we had the tools yes yeah
2:49:03 what would it look like for ages even if
2:49:06 we knew everything about
2:49:08 the brain all the neurochemicals firing
2:49:11 mapping out everything would it lead to
2:49:14 you having knowledge
2:49:15 of what it's like for yusuf to have
2:49:19 a vegan pie also
2:49:22 would it explain why he has that
2:49:26 that qualitative experience that
2:49:28 phenomenal experience that inner subject
2:49:30 of conscious experience
2:49:32 arising from seemingly non-conscious
2:49:36 cold blind physical processes
2:49:40 if i could have that same person's brain
2:49:43 then yes i would understand what his
2:49:46 experience is
2:49:48 there's a few assumptions in that
2:49:50 analogy the few assumptions include wall
2:49:54 number one that consciousness is
2:49:56 identical to the brain because you're
2:49:58 assuming your own ontology again
2:50:01 also even if we give you that example
2:50:04 would be charitable
2:50:05 you will be him anyway so you wouldn't
2:50:07 be part of the question
2:50:08 we'll be asking what is it like for you
2:50:12 to be
2:50:12 like yusuf for example yeah or what is
2:50:15 it like to be you having a particular
2:50:17 experience so your analogy doesn't work
2:50:19 in any shape or form
2:50:20 i think you are motivated
2:50:23 by the emergent materialist project
2:50:26 because
2:50:27 not of intellectual reasons my friend
2:50:29 purely because of social
2:50:31 social political psychological reasons i
2:50:34 think you
2:50:36 and rightly so you enjoy the scientific
2:50:38 project
2:50:39 it's done a good great service to
2:50:42 humanity
2:50:44 it sounds very intelligent human beings
2:50:47 have a need to belong we have a need to
2:50:48 feel certain
2:50:50 this is how this is how you shape the
2:50:52 social norm in social psychology
2:50:54 it's called informational social
2:50:56 influence and normative social influence
2:50:58 if you're not certain about something
2:50:59 you're gonna go to the dominant group
2:51:01 to gain that certainty if you don't
2:51:04 belong to your sub group you're going to
2:51:05 go to the dominant group to get some
2:51:07 belonging
2:51:08 and i think you're motivated by
2:51:09 psychological factors as well just like
2:51:11 i am and just like many other people are
2:51:13 and maybe you should stand in the
2:51:14 possibility that you're not getting it
2:51:16 up to this point and not getting
2:51:18 the idea that you're already pursuing
2:51:20 your own
2:51:22 assumptions or your own ontology
2:51:25 that it's maybe because primarily there
2:51:29 are other social psychological factors
2:51:31 maybe it's something that i need to
2:51:32 explore and maybe it's something that
2:51:34 you need to explore bro
2:51:35 and this happens you know we're human
2:51:37 beings we're not abstract robots
2:51:39 we're not just inputs and outputs no
2:51:40 matter what the function is tell us
2:51:43 we are we are human beings so maybe
2:51:45 stand in the possibility that maybe
2:51:46 there are some of the things that will
2:51:47 motivate
2:51:48 the way we are trying to articulate
2:51:49 ourselves and the way we're trying to
2:51:51 push
2:51:51 we're trying to intellectualize magic
2:51:53 here i think is primarily because of
2:51:56 underlying social psychological aspects
2:51:59 that we haven't really explored
2:52:01 and part of the maturing process and i'm
2:52:03 not saying this as some kind of
2:52:05 paternalistic guy trying to take care of
2:52:07 you
2:52:07 i'm talking about myself i got full of
2:52:10 these things
2:52:11 you know maybe it's time that we stand
2:52:13 in the possibility that we are motivated
2:52:16 because of other reasons and that's the
2:52:18 real driving force
2:52:19 behind our so-called intellectual
2:52:21 stances in many cases
2:52:23 maybe you should stand in the
2:52:24 possibility that that's the case in this
2:52:26 situation because
2:52:28 because i find it very bizarre that
2:52:29 you've been articulating magic for the
2:52:31 past half an hour and i'm not saying in
2:52:32 a belittling way
2:52:34 i'm just saying i really really i'm
2:52:35 being authentic with you i don't want to
2:52:37 be fake with you man
2:52:38 and i really believe that it's like uh
2:52:41 it's yanny
2:52:43 it's you know you it's logically reduced
2:52:45 to magic man
2:52:46 you know getting the planks of wood and
2:52:48 getting a tesla
2:52:49 because you have not shown what's in the
2:52:52 physical property that can give rise to
2:52:54 the things that we're talking about
2:52:56 you're saying potential one day in the
2:52:58 future
2:52:59 so you know maybe i think
2:53:02 the problem with uh yourself in command
2:53:04 and also matt is i don't think
2:53:06 you really thought about how deep this
2:53:09 problem is
2:53:10 how fundamental this problem is
2:53:14 trying to bridge the gap between
2:53:16 materialism and consciousness
2:53:18 i think you really need to really think
2:53:19 about the fact that there is this
2:53:22 in principle problem that's being
2:53:24 wrestled with now we've gone through
2:53:26 four i think it was four or five key
2:53:29 arguments in the materialism
2:53:31 to try to demonstrate that whatever
2:53:34 scientific models that will represent
2:53:37 one of these
2:53:38 particular particular philosophical
2:53:42 views on
2:53:42 on materialism and consciousness and if
2:53:46 those philosophical views
2:53:47 of consciousness on under materialism
2:53:49 fail then no matter what the model is
2:53:52 it's always going to fail and so this
2:53:55 isn't a problem of a gap in our
2:53:57 knowledge that we will
2:53:59 in future study this thing and in future
2:54:02 get the technology
2:54:03 and therefore in the future maybe work
2:54:05 out
2:54:06 how consciousness works this is an in
2:54:08 principle problem
2:54:10 right now uh and there's like i think
2:54:13 there's many examples that have been
2:54:15 explained regardless of this
2:54:18 okay so uh i think uh i've had a good
2:54:21 conversation and
2:54:22 uh i'll try to look up what you guys
2:54:24 said
2:54:25 can i just uh summarize what i think you
2:54:28 guys
2:54:28 uh what your what your point of view is
2:54:31 yeah and you guys
2:54:32 know no problem but um we're just gonna
2:54:35 start to wrap up with yourself for the
2:54:36 um
2:54:37 now as well so if you try and do that
2:54:39 quickly uh inshallah we're gonna move on
2:54:40 to the
2:54:41 the next guest as well yeah sure so
2:54:44 what i understand is that you guys are
2:54:46 saying that uh
2:54:48 it it's it's akin to magic saying that
2:54:51 unconscious
2:54:52 material things can in certain
2:54:55 conditions
2:54:56 produce uh consciousness it's it's akin
2:54:59 to magic and that that's one of the
2:55:01 reasons and the second reason is
2:55:03 because we cannot know what it's like to
2:55:07 what we cannot we cannot know what it's
2:55:08 like what what
2:55:10 other person's experience is that is why
2:55:14 consciousness cannot be grounded on me
2:55:16 no just you know
2:55:17 so think about really really sorry
2:55:20 what we said is magic is not what you
2:55:23 just said
2:55:24 we said if you believe that something
2:55:27 can arise
2:55:28 from another thing that doesn't contain
2:55:30 it or doesn't give the potential it
2:55:32 doesn't have the potential to give rise
2:55:34 to it
2:55:35 that would be magic and when in our
2:55:37 assessment of physical stuff by virtue
2:55:39 of its definition and reality
2:55:41 falls into that kind of uh
2:55:45 area just to repeat when
2:55:48 when you claim that something can give
2:55:49 rise to another thing that doesn't
2:55:51 contain it in the first place
2:55:53 and doesn't have the potential to give
2:55:55 rise to it yes
2:55:56 that's magic specifically and the other
2:55:59 two things on the heart problem of
2:56:00 consciousness were
2:56:02 that if you understand everything about
2:56:04 the physical brain
2:56:05 the neurons etc all the electrochemical
2:56:09 activity
2:56:10 it doesn't give rise to knowledge of
2:56:12 knowing what it's like for specific
2:56:13 conscious organism to have
2:56:15 a specific conscious experience and it
2:56:18 doesn't answer the question
2:56:20 how do we have it in the subjective
2:56:22 conscious experience arising from
2:56:24 physical processes that are seemingly
2:56:26 non-conscious blind
2:56:27 and um don't have intentionality meaning
2:56:31 they're not aware of themselves aware of
2:56:32 things outside of themselves
2:56:34 or they are about something else
2:56:37 so that's something yeah so think about
2:56:40 one thing that's really important is
2:56:41 that when hamza gives the example about
2:56:43 you can't know his experience the issue
2:56:47 is is that
2:56:47 you can know everything about his brain
2:56:52 you can know everything about my brain
2:56:54 you can know everything about the
2:56:56 neurons and potentially we'll get to
2:56:58 know even more
2:56:59 about the brain and the way the brain
2:57:01 works
2:57:02 but no matter how much you know of the
2:57:05 brain
2:57:06 and the neurons it won't be able to tell
2:57:09 you
2:57:10 anything about the experience
2:57:12 independent of
2:57:13 you having the experience and then you
2:57:16 correlating in your own mind
2:57:18 yeah that's the issue so for example
2:57:21 just as a
2:57:22 just to repeat the example if a person
2:57:24 is blind from birth
2:57:26 and that person who's deaf from birth
2:57:28 and that person
2:57:30 he's able to become the best
2:57:32 neuroscientist in the world
2:57:34 and he and you and he's able to study
2:57:37 everything about the brain
2:57:39 he won't be able to understand what the
2:57:41 experience of listening to mozart
2:57:43 or piano sounds like yeah so no matter
2:57:47 that's the in principle problem
2:57:51 the unbridgeable gap between knowing the
2:57:54 physical aspect
2:57:55 and knowing the experience and that's
2:57:58 not a
2:57:59 in the future we'll get the science not
2:58:01 science of the gap argument
2:58:03 that's an in principle problem
2:58:07 yeah i think i think i understand what
2:58:08 you guys are saying and thanks so much
2:58:10 for
2:58:10 giving me so much time i've had a lot of
2:58:12 fun thank you guys
2:58:14 cool thank you thanks for joining us
2:58:15 thank you thank you
2:58:19 so we've got are we having one more
2:58:21 guest are we finishing it now
2:58:23 uh so there's a couple of guests on uh i
2:58:26 don't want to keep anyone if they they
2:58:27 need to go or anything it's just that
2:58:28 they've been
2:58:29 waiting for a while so that um there's
2:58:32 two that are joined in
2:58:34 a bit ago but not too long ago um but
2:58:37 some chaos
2:58:38 and a guy with an arabic name um that i
2:58:41 can't pronounce
2:58:42 have been waiting um so it's up to you
2:58:44 do you wanna
2:58:45 have these two more guests on and just
2:58:47 sort of limit them to a certain amount
2:58:48 of time or
2:58:50 i'm sorry are you okay or is it it's
2:58:52 been been a while
2:58:53 i'm sorry i'm not nervous okay i'm
2:58:56 having fun now so whenever you guys want
2:58:58 to go
2:59:07 very graciously gave up his place in the
2:59:10 queue for
2:59:11 this gentleman the arabic name um so
2:59:13 we'll just bring him on
2:59:14 now um so do you want to ask your
2:59:17 question brother
2:59:21 hello sultan as sadam alaykum
2:59:31 on i don't think sultan's there
2:59:34 okay we'll bring poor guys in waiting
2:59:36 for too long
2:59:37 fell asleep he's asked this question in
2:59:40 the back
2:59:41 so he said my question is how does the
2:59:44 existence of my own subjective
2:59:45 consciousness
2:59:46 truly objectively exist whereas only i
2:59:50 can subjectively experience my own
2:59:52 existence
2:59:54 it's a good question
2:59:58 that's that's where dualism comes in
2:59:59 though i mean
3:00:01 yeah how does the existence of my own
3:00:04 subjective consciousness truly
3:00:05 objectively exist
3:00:07 whereas i can subjectively experience
3:00:10 can i i i
3:00:11 only i can subjectively experience my
3:00:13 own existence
3:00:15 very good question i like it
3:00:18 how does the existence of my own
3:00:20 personal conscious studies
3:00:23 yeah i think it's the just the only it's
3:00:25 the most
3:00:27 objective thing that we have is that we
3:00:29 have a subjective experience
3:00:31 absolutely absolutely i think i think uh
3:00:34 the
3:00:35 problem he's trying to point to or the
3:00:36 question he's trying to point to is that
3:00:37 how
3:00:38 does this subjective experience real
3:00:41 literally exist when
3:00:43 like we we have a problem with the idea
3:00:45 of pointing to something and saying that
3:00:47 is a subjective experience so i think
3:00:49 that's
3:00:50 the kind of the problem he's alluding to
3:00:52 so if it's a subjective experience
3:00:54 only i'm having it it's kind of like the
3:00:56 say kind of like a reformulation of this
3:00:59 in principle argument
3:01:00 that that you have like with identity
3:01:02 theory and other reductionist
3:01:04 uh models that you know you're trying
3:01:07 you're pointing to this physical thing
3:01:08 and saying it is the experience
3:01:10 so what he's basically saying is if this
3:01:12 subjective experience actually
3:01:13 exists i mean so you you need to be able
3:01:17 to point to it and says it exists
3:01:19 and say it exists i think that's the
3:01:20 assumption right
3:01:22 and i guess it exists by virtue of him
3:01:25 experiencing it
3:01:26 just like him reading a scientific
3:01:29 textbook
3:01:29 that talks about objective things just
3:01:32 like him
3:01:33 experiencing reading a textbook that
3:01:35 tells him about
3:01:36 objectivity the point here is it's like
3:01:38 what sharif is saying
3:01:40 uh experience is indispensable
3:01:44 where and and if you're gonna reduce it
3:01:47 to that question
3:01:49 then you and say well you can't
3:01:51 objectively prove my subjective
3:01:53 experience exists
3:01:55 what that means therefore is that you
3:01:56 can't have any knowledge
3:01:58 because even when you're reading or
3:02:01 analyzing something that's supposed to
3:02:02 be
3:02:02 objective or reading a book that's
3:02:04 telling you about objective facts
3:02:07 who is the one reading the book is the
3:02:09 one who's experiencing it
3:02:11 so if his subjective experience are not
3:02:12 objective then even if you read about
3:02:14 objective stuff
3:02:15 it's all illusion illusory anyway i mean
3:02:18 i think it goes
3:02:18 back to descartes like do this model
3:02:21 like that
3:02:22 like one of the ways he described the
3:02:24 mental is that it has no spatial
3:02:26 extension so i mean that that might be
3:02:28 the idea
3:02:28 i think the reason i like the question
3:02:30 is because like when you think of like
3:02:32 something like abstract objects or
3:02:34 things that exist but they are not
3:02:36 physical
3:02:38 it's it's uh you can't really point to
3:02:41 something
3:02:42 in reality from a third person
3:02:43 perspective and say this is it so i
3:02:45 think the problem
3:02:46 the question assumes is that because
3:02:48 it's objective
3:02:50 there needs to be some kind of third
3:02:52 person physical access to it
3:02:54 but that's really what we're denying
3:02:55 we're saying you can't have that
3:02:57 we're saying it exists but it doesn't
3:03:00 have spatial extension
3:03:01 so so yeah and not just that something
3:03:04 that you
3:03:05 that that he needs to be aware of is his
3:03:07 use of subjecting an objective here
3:03:10 now when we say subjective experiences
3:03:13 we're saying
3:03:14 this experience is the experience that
3:03:17 only you can have it's subject
3:03:19 to you it doesn't mean it's not real or
3:03:22 not true because sometimes
3:03:23 the use of the word subjective means
3:03:26 it's just an opinion it might not be
3:03:27 true
3:03:28 yeah we're not using the word subjective
3:03:30 in this context and that's why
3:03:32 there might be a semantic issue here
3:03:35 what we're saying here is it's a first
3:03:37 person fact
3:03:38 that's the better way of putting it to
3:03:40 be honest there is a first person fact
3:03:42 that i am experiencing something right
3:03:44 now
3:03:45 now maybe using the word subjective if
3:03:47 we don't really
3:03:48 if we can't make the semantic
3:03:50 distinctions they probably think
3:03:51 subjective here means
3:03:53 based on opinion not really true yeah no
3:03:56 what we're saying is you're having an
3:03:57 experience that is subject to you
3:04:00 and that which is slightly different
3:04:02 from making the kind of classical
3:04:03 distinction between something that's
3:04:04 objective and subjective
3:04:06 from a knowledge point of view so this
3:04:08 is something very important for him to
3:04:09 understand maybe he's misunderstood the
3:04:11 use of the word subjective
3:04:13 so let's call it basically a first
3:04:15 person fact
3:04:17 yeah i mean i i think the way i i think
3:04:21 like if if if if i'm going to interpret
3:04:23 him charitably
3:04:24 and i i think he's using subjective more
3:04:26 in like the first person
3:04:28 sense then i think his concern just
3:04:30 intuitive uh
3:04:31 concern is that is that listen this
3:04:34 first person subjective experience
3:04:36 you're saying it really exists but he
3:04:39 has its problem visualizing that
3:04:41 if it can't really exist outside of him
3:04:44 in the sense that
3:04:45 this is just right so it's it's kind of
3:04:47 like
3:04:48 the reason i can relate to it is because
3:04:50 it's something i thought about but then
3:04:52 again i
3:04:52 i think it is going to go back to this
3:04:54 idea of spatial extension and what we
3:04:56 are describing when we say that the
3:04:58 mental exists
3:04:59 we're not talking about physical things
3:05:01 and that's actually kind of the point
3:05:03 that
3:05:03 is that's you start with this you know
3:05:06 epistemic dualism
3:05:07 that there's me and there's the world
3:05:10 and where that leads you
3:05:11 with these kinds of questions is that
3:05:13 wait so since
3:05:15 it does exist and since i can't point to
3:05:17 it objectively from a third person
3:05:19 perspective
3:05:20 in the physical world then there must be
3:05:22 the physical world and this radically
3:05:23 different thing
3:05:24 right so and in a sense there is a
3:05:28 mystery right about
3:05:29 just to just to create more of a mystery
3:05:30 there's someone in the private
3:05:32 chat that said please allow in the real
3:05:34 hamza zordos because as you guys can
3:05:36 tell he's acting on my behalf
3:05:38 some guy so maybe he's my clone that
3:05:43 we're talking about earlier yes
3:05:44 or maybe you're looking for years
3:05:46 absolutely
3:05:49 i think if we've got nobody else we
3:05:50 might as well uh have we don't want
3:05:52 anybody else
3:05:53 yeah yeah there's a few um oh we should
3:05:55 they
3:05:56 quickly one after the other yeah so if
3:05:59 the
3:06:00 the other mod can just unpin the stream
3:06:03 link
3:06:03 um we'll bring on sam because he's been
3:06:05 waiting for quite a while hello sam hi
3:06:07 guys
3:06:08 hello son so i'm gonna open this one up
3:06:11 with
3:06:11 i'm not a naturalist i am pagan um
3:06:15 but i the kind of view that i
3:06:19 would take here is that it is not
3:06:22 in like you can accept consciousness
3:06:26 and naturalism and be consistent i don't
3:06:28 think
3:06:29 that consciousness is a point against
3:06:30 naturalism
3:06:35 how did you find naturalism
3:06:40 um i use the word naturalism i mean
3:06:43 materialism i apologize
3:06:45 um slip of the tongue so how do you
3:06:48 define materialism
3:06:50 so materialism being um
3:06:53 as opposed to dualism where uh only
3:06:57 uh material things exist as in energy
3:07:00 uh matching motion so to speak
3:07:03 okay so how do you make a case for that
3:07:05 if you can just quickly walk us through
3:07:06 it so only
3:07:07 material things exist we have this uh
3:07:10 subjective experience
3:07:11 how do you reduce it to the physical if
3:07:13 you could just give us a quick account
3:07:14 so
3:07:15 if i if i kind of go straight for the
3:07:18 two points that are the hard problem of
3:07:19 consciousness
3:07:21 i think that when you have qualia
3:07:25 uh qualia is inherently
3:07:29 an abstract thing um
3:07:33 and i think that this can be got around
3:07:38 um by discussing things like emergent
3:07:41 properties
3:07:42 which i acknowledge the hamsa you don't
3:07:45 accept but i can get into that in a
3:07:47 second
3:07:48 and so i think that if you were to
3:07:50 completely understand
3:07:52 i'm going to say the body because it's
3:07:53 not necessarily strictly the brain
3:07:55 um if you were to know everything about
3:07:58 the body
3:07:59 and to understand how consciousness is
3:08:00 abstracted and built up
3:08:02 you could build an interface to
3:08:05 demonstrate
3:08:06 how someone else senses things on
3:08:10 naturalism uh or materialism sorry and
3:08:14 so you could do it that way the same way
3:08:17 that a computer
3:08:18 we cannot understand the information in
3:08:20 a computer without an interface
3:08:23 so we're having does it really exist
3:08:27 sorry i'm just trying to rush you
3:08:28 through it
3:08:28 this subjective experience we're having
3:08:29 because you're talking about you know
3:08:31 computationalist theories
3:08:32 and normally they go towards
3:08:33 eliminativism so i want to
3:08:35 cut to the chase do we this subjective
3:08:37 experience we're having
3:08:39 is it just you know a trick the machine
3:08:42 is playing on itself it's just
3:08:43 telling itself that it's conscious
3:08:45 therefore we think we have this first
3:08:47 person subjective experience
3:08:48 or does it really exist
3:08:51 i so i think that this ties into
3:08:56 um what
3:09:00 uh of words i think this ties into what
3:09:03 emerging properties actually are
3:09:06 so i think that when emerging properties
3:09:09 have been discussed here they've not
3:09:10 necessarily been discussed particularly
3:09:12 well
3:09:13 so what an emergent we know emergent
3:09:15 properties exist
3:09:16 because states of matter are emergent
3:09:20 properties
3:09:22 like liquid and gas are emergent
3:09:24 properties
3:09:25 yeah they're reducible to the physical
3:09:27 right so if you explain everything about
3:09:29 the emergent property it it there's no
3:09:32 no in principle problem in breaking it
3:09:34 down to the bare fundamentals and
3:09:36 understanding how the emergent property
3:09:37 works and that's called
3:09:38 weak emergentism right where you can
3:09:41 fully explain it there's no there's no
3:09:42 qualitative gap between
3:09:44 the fundamental physical structure and
3:09:46 the emergent property but right now
3:09:48 you're talking about consciousness yeah
3:09:51 so well while this is true we also have
3:09:54 emergent properties in
3:09:55 computers which is where you can have
3:09:59 abstractions and computations you can
3:10:02 have what
3:10:02 individual logic gates don't do a whole
3:10:05 lot but when you combine them together
3:10:07 you can form things like if statements
3:10:08 and when you've got that
3:10:10 you can form um
3:10:14 massively complex calculations and uh
3:10:17 information in a way that is almost akin
3:10:21 to how people think about consciousness
3:10:24 but where's that qualitative gap i'm
3:10:26 looking for right so a computer
3:10:27 like all that zeros and ones whatever it
3:10:29 does it can compute whatever you want it
3:10:31 to compute
3:10:32 where's the qualitative technology it's
3:10:34 the force analogy as well because
3:10:37 um you can't say just because a computer
3:10:40 can produce for example some very
3:10:43 complex algorithms that somehow akin
3:10:46 to subjectivity and us having an inner
3:10:49 subjective conscious experience and
3:10:51 explaining somehow
3:10:53 how subjectivity arises from non
3:10:57 subjectivity really because
3:11:00 because you have to assume because when
3:11:02 you look at computer system
3:11:04 computers are based on syntactic
3:11:07 arrangements not
3:11:08 semantic arrangements essentially it's a
3:11:10 combination of zeros and ones
3:11:13 now the individual zeros and ones do not
3:11:15 have intentionality which is a key
3:11:17 feature of consciousness
3:11:19 meaning that when we have a stream of
3:11:21 consciousness we're thinking about
3:11:23 something you know external to us so i'm
3:11:26 looking at my
3:11:26 laptop screen now so my thoughts are
3:11:29 about my laptop screen
3:11:31 zeros and ones are not about anything
3:11:33 they're just
3:11:34 syntactic arrangements not semantic
3:11:36 arrangements
3:11:38 and no matter how much you put the
3:11:39 syntax together you're not going to get
3:11:41 meaning
3:11:42 just like for example i think that if
3:11:46 you
3:11:46 take a emergent view then you can say
3:11:50 that you could actually have
3:11:51 consciousness come of a computer
3:11:54 yeah so i would say you can't i don't
3:11:57 know if you've heard of the professor
3:11:58 john so
3:11:59 thought experiment which is quite smart
3:12:01 it's called the chinese room
3:12:05 yeah it's very akin to philosophical
3:12:08 zombies
3:12:08 which i think is
3:12:12 if we were to grant the same principle
3:12:14 of charity to
3:12:15 a seemingly conscious um robot that we
3:12:19 would
3:12:19 to a human then we have to kind of
3:12:24 occam's raise the chinese room otherwise
3:12:27 you would have to argue the chinese room
3:12:29 for
3:12:29 other people because otherwise you end
3:12:31 up in a position of saying
3:12:33 every other entity that appears to be
3:12:35 conscious could be a philosophical
3:12:36 zombie
3:12:40 i know i i think bro i think the main
3:12:42 issue here is that
3:12:43 however you describe your computational
3:12:45 theory it's going to reduce to this
3:12:47 basic point that you're not doing
3:12:49 anything different than what any kind of
3:12:50 identity theorist is doing
3:12:52 you're saying this computation is itself
3:12:56 a subjective experience so you're
3:12:58 pointing to something
3:12:59 physical or you're pointing to
3:13:03 to to a physical or some or a
3:13:04 computation they're saying it itself
3:13:06 this objective thing is itself a
3:13:09 subjective thing
3:13:10 that's the problem it's no different
3:13:11 than in in like by analogy in me like
3:13:14 pointing to my cup
3:13:15 and saying this is subjectiveness or exp
3:13:18 or
3:13:18 this is first person experience you're
3:13:20 not doing anything different
3:13:21 in principle you're you have the exact
3:13:23 same problem regardless of the mechanism
3:13:25 it's just the same thing it's reducible
3:13:28 to the new and this productivity
3:13:30 this is why emerging this was why i
3:13:32 brought up emergent properties and this
3:13:34 is why it's not a false analogy
3:13:35 is that what you're saying there assumes
3:13:37 that consciousness
3:13:39 has no moving parts and that
3:13:40 consciousness is in and of itself
3:13:43 its own property or entity whereas if
3:13:46 you take consciousness to be
3:13:48 the emergent property of a series of
3:13:51 interactions and it's the interactions
3:13:52 themselves
3:13:53 that form the property of consciousness
3:13:56 then you don't have a problem anymore
3:13:57 is the property of consciousness itself
3:14:00 a physical thing
3:14:03 uh the property of consciousness itself
3:14:04 would uh form from interactions the same
3:14:07 way
3:14:07 that a liquid would form from
3:14:09 interactions of arguments
3:14:11 yeah but is it itself is it itself a
3:14:14 physical thing
3:14:17 so it would i know it would result from
3:14:19 that
3:14:21 it's a physical thing in as much as
3:14:24 states of matter are physical things
3:14:26 so if you want i i would argue that
3:14:28 abstract things could also
3:14:29 effectively be physical things no but
3:14:32 let's let's stick to the
3:14:33 the the physical things like as they are
3:14:35 you're saying like states of matter
3:14:37 those are physical things so is it
3:14:39 identical to a physical thing i
3:14:41 i don't want to know if it's kind of
3:14:43 like a physical thing
3:14:44 is it a physical thing or is it not a
3:14:47 physical thing
3:14:50 so this is this is why i was careful
3:14:52 with the phrasing
3:14:53 in the same sense as states of matter
3:14:56 are
3:14:57 then yes if not then it's reducible but
3:15:00 what do you mean
3:15:01 states of states of matter are are are
3:15:03 reducible
3:15:04 to like states of matter are physical
3:15:08 states of matter are actually reducible
3:15:11 to interactions of individual molecules
3:15:14 yes and those interactions are physical
3:15:16 interactions correct
3:15:18 yes yes so you're saying oh they are
3:15:21 physical so in the same way it would
3:15:22 then be a physical thing yes but
3:15:25 some people when they ask that question
3:15:26 aren't meaning that and what they're
3:15:28 meaning
3:15:29 is is consciousness then a tangible
3:15:31 physical thing
3:15:32 no okay i get that but what you're
3:15:34 basically saying in a very simplistic
3:15:36 way
3:15:37 is that subjective consciousness
3:15:41 can be reduced to physical processes
3:15:44 correct under this paradigm yes and i
3:15:47 will keep bringing that up
3:15:48 this isn't my paradigm this is just a
3:15:51 paradigm my view is consistent
3:15:52 yes so the problem with that is it just
3:15:56 brings us back to the problem of
3:15:57 reductive materialism
3:15:59 because when you unpack the kind of
3:16:03 complex physical processes causally
3:16:05 interacting with one another and you
3:16:06 understand them properly
3:16:09 what you're doing now is you're moving
3:16:10 away from emergent materialism to really
3:16:12 productive materialism and saying
3:16:14 that subjectivity or subjective
3:16:16 consciousness or qualia
3:16:18 can be reduced to to physical processes
3:16:21 if that's the case then we would be able
3:16:24 to solve
3:16:26 the problem of the hard problem but we
3:16:28 can't
3:16:29 we can't even obviously given our
3:16:31 current technology there are certain
3:16:33 things
3:16:34 for example uh that are
3:16:37 so for example you have anything that
3:16:39 might have existed before the big bang
3:16:41 isn't accessible by virtue of the data
3:16:43 we have available
3:16:44 now because of the data we have
3:16:45 available the hard problem of
3:16:47 consciousness is not presently solvable
3:16:49 but i would posit the under naturalism
3:16:51 it could be
3:16:52 theoretically solvable and therefore you
3:16:54 could be consistent in holding
3:16:55 naturalism
3:16:56 um or some sort of agnosticism
3:17:02 so naturalism basically says that if you
3:17:05 talking about philosophical naturalism
3:17:07 there is no divine
3:17:09 there is no non-physical and everything
3:17:11 can be explained by physical processes
3:17:13 which
3:17:13 naturalism entails within it fit a form
3:17:16 of physicalism or materialism
3:17:19 so from that perspective what you're
3:17:21 seeing is
3:17:22 that inner subjective conscious states
3:17:24 can be explained they can they can arise
3:17:28 from non-conscious physical processes is
3:17:31 that what you're saying
3:17:34 effectively yes it's the same
3:17:37 but only in the same way
3:17:41 not in a way we could understand in the
3:17:44 same sense
3:17:44 they were perceived without an
3:17:46 additional interface
3:17:48 without an additional way to interact
3:17:49 with it okay
3:17:51 so the fundamental problem here is would
3:17:53 be what you call
3:17:54 a metaphysical problem an ontological
3:17:57 problem
3:17:58 because not like all the other examples
3:18:00 of emergent materialism that you've
3:18:01 given us
3:18:02 which is we could get pieces of wood put
3:18:05 them together and we could create
3:18:07 a table or create a chair or create a
3:18:10 sculpt a wooden sculpture
3:18:12 that wouldn't be a problem because we
3:18:14 could know how
3:18:15 that wooden table or that sculpture is
3:18:18 reduced to the individual
3:18:19 planks of wood or bits of wood this is
3:18:23 bigger than that this is like getting
3:18:24 those planks of wood
3:18:26 and creating a tesla and no matter what
3:18:29 you
3:18:30 no matter what you do to those planks of
3:18:31 wood how you arrange them and put them
3:18:33 together and how you manipulate them
3:18:35 you ain't gonna get a tesla it's more
3:18:39 like
3:18:39 taking silicon and copper and raw
3:18:42 materials raw elements
3:18:44 making them into going away making them
3:18:46 into a phone
3:18:47 and giving you the phone and saying
3:18:49 here's this and you not understanding
3:18:51 the process by which i got there no but
3:18:54 we do understand
3:18:55 how the process how we got there and we
3:18:57 do understand we do give them current
3:18:59 technology but if you didn't have the
3:19:00 data
3:19:01 available to you about how you'd create
3:19:03 a phone you wouldn't know that was
3:19:05 necessarily possible
3:19:06 no because the ontological features of
3:19:09 the silicon and the phone
3:19:10 are not drastically different the
3:19:14 ontological features
3:19:15 of consciousness and physical stuff
3:19:19 are totally different that's the problem
3:19:23 and it's a bit dis analogous to use the
3:19:25 phone and silicon in this way
3:19:27 because they're both physical stuff
3:19:29 they're both
3:19:30 the the ontological features are are
3:19:32 such that we could
3:19:33 possibly say that in the future we could
3:19:35 explain how the phone
3:19:36 came about but when it comes to
3:19:39 consciousness itself
3:19:41 conscious reality the the the kind of
3:19:44 first person conscious experience
3:19:46 the structure of experience the reality
3:19:49 of consciousness
3:19:51 is fundamentally different from
3:19:53 something
3:19:54 physical because by definition something
3:19:57 physical
3:19:58 is cold it's not intentional
3:20:01 it's blind right it's non-conscious
3:20:04 it's not aware of itself aware of
3:20:05 anything outside of itself i think that
3:20:07 i think i think that i would simply
3:20:11 i think this is where our issue is going
3:20:12 to come down to is that i would simply
3:20:14 disagree with you
3:20:15 that consciousness is significantly
3:20:17 different to
3:20:18 physical matter
3:20:22 so are you doing the limit eliminativist
3:20:25 do you do if i if i grant some sort of
3:20:29 naturalism then yes
3:20:30 yeah there you go so i think that's what
3:20:32 it's going to collapse to that yeah
3:20:34 deny that mental state exists you just
3:20:36 basically brought in a limited
3:20:37 materialism from the back door
3:20:39 and you just i think you don't i i don't
3:20:42 think you have
3:20:43 it's the same way a lot of uh people who
3:20:46 are um
3:20:48 materialists will say that free will is
3:20:50 an illusion
3:20:51 i think don't think it's an illusion i
3:20:53 just think that the experience of free
3:20:55 will itself is the free will we're
3:20:56 describing
3:20:57 and so i think we experience the
3:20:59 consciousness and we can describe it as
3:21:00 that
3:21:00 but you could equally describe it as an
3:21:02 illusion and be accurate
3:21:04 that's a good question two questions is
3:21:07 your surname really chaos
3:21:10 uh no it's a screen name and i use
3:21:13 stream yards for my youtube channel
3:21:14 so and why do you have snakes cut a
3:21:17 snake come out
3:21:17 of a box because that's what his beetle
3:21:20 was that's
3:21:21 that's literally just my avatar oh yeah
3:21:25 why why is it your avatar
3:21:28 uh because my best friend gave me as a
3:21:30 birthday present
3:21:32 that's very cute
3:21:37 is it it's i gave the beetle in the box
3:21:39 example before his beetle was always a
3:21:41 snake
3:21:42 so sans you sound like you're from a
3:21:45 different part of
3:21:46 england like you're not from london
3:21:48 yorkshire
3:21:50 oh no
3:21:53 my family's from yorkshire i live just
3:21:55 outside the yorkshire border
3:21:57 but yes up north oh so you're just below
3:21:59 sheffield
3:22:02 kind of area yeah i tend to say
3:22:03 manchester ish but
3:22:11 i don't particularly bother with
3:22:12 football um
3:22:16 i i have i do have family the manchester
3:22:18 united and manchester city
3:22:20 supporters though so i just support the
3:22:22 opposite of who i was in the room
3:22:24 what's your what's your sport what's
3:22:26 your support then if you have one
3:22:29 uh the closest i have to to a sport i
3:22:32 follow a snooker
3:22:33 and that's just because my granddad
3:22:34 taught me to play snooker
3:22:37 yeah that is a tough game actually that
3:22:38 is a really tough girl
3:22:41 especially have those big tables like
3:22:43 pool is easy but snooker is like
3:22:45 it's a tough man yeah if you need to go
3:22:48 yeah a snooker
3:22:50 and what's your favorite food sam what's
3:22:51 your favorite food
3:22:55 see i go back and forth at the moment
3:22:57 i'm on
3:22:58 chicken nuggets as a favorite
3:23:02 so you're not vegan then no
3:23:05 no i i found a lot of vegan arguments
3:23:07 convincing
3:23:09 but at the moment i'm not in a mental st
3:23:13 it doesn't make sense to say i'm not in
3:23:14 a mental state where i could deal with
3:23:17 a lot of the stresses i currently have
3:23:19 and trying to
3:23:20 change to a vegan diet yeah
3:23:24 yeah yeah i guess so i guess so i'm only
3:23:27 asking these questions just to like
3:23:29 you know sometimes it's good to know who
3:23:30 you're talking to really
3:23:32 this is fat yeah and i
3:23:36 i think he's there are you studying
3:23:38 anything or you do work
3:23:40 uh i am currently looking
3:23:44 for work because i i'm 19 so i
3:23:47 a year ago did my a levels math physics
3:23:50 and computer science
3:23:51 i'm brilliant because i'm a __ nerd
3:23:56 and what are you uh what are you going
3:23:57 to do now you're going to university or
3:23:59 you're going to do something else
3:24:01 um i plan to eventually go to university
3:24:05 but i need to work out what the __ i
3:24:06 actually want to do first
3:24:07 language language turn up oh sorry
3:24:10 language
3:24:11 uh um okay okay uh
3:24:14 it sounds like you'd be good at
3:24:15 philosophy a little bit i guess
3:24:18 um yeah i have an interest in philosophy
3:24:21 i've debated going into it
3:24:22 but i also try i want to be kind of
3:24:25 aware if i'm going to
3:24:27 go 27 grand in debt debated whether or
3:24:30 not you wanted to go into philosophy
3:24:33 i'm philosophical that's brilliant well
3:24:36 i do wish you all the best sam
3:24:38 you sound like a very like guy
3:24:41 nice to chat with you yeah i forget
3:24:45 a lot of people are not used to that
3:24:47 counselor yeah yeah of course
3:24:48 i come from a family that swears in
3:24:51 every second sentence i am used to it i
3:24:53 just
3:24:54 still not a fan of it sam how have you
3:24:57 found the stream so far
3:25:00 uh it's been interesting i disagree with
3:25:03 you
3:25:03 on a lot of stuff but i can see where
3:25:06 the points come from
3:25:08 okay okay i think to be honest if you if
3:25:11 you
3:25:12 and all of us isn't it when we study
3:25:13 this subject uh
3:25:15 more i think you we we tend to realize
3:25:19 the real fundamental problem when it
3:25:21 comes to the issue of the heart problem
3:25:22 of consciousness and why it's called
3:25:24 the hard problem i think what i tend to
3:25:28 find with
3:25:29 people is and i'm not trying to
3:25:33 be critical of yourself or anybody else
3:25:35 but there is slightly dunning-kruger
3:25:37 effect
3:25:37 i don't even come across the term
3:25:39 dunning-kruger i am very
3:25:41 intimately familiar yeah so i think what
3:25:45 it is is that people think
3:25:46 yeah i've got the solution i know it
3:25:48 this is a this is the way to
3:25:50 solve the hard problem of consciousness
3:25:52 and then as they go into the subject
3:25:54 matter
3:25:54 more they realize actually there's quite
3:25:57 a lot
3:25:58 of fundamental in principle unbridgeable
3:26:01 problems
3:26:02 regardless and i think as abdul sort of
3:26:04 pointed and alluded to
3:26:06 is is that your sort of your ideas are
3:26:09 sort of
3:26:09 tending towards an eliminative view of
3:26:12 consciousness which basically eliminates
3:26:14 the idea
3:26:16 that there is anything real about qualia
3:26:19 and that it's just simply brain states
3:26:21 and i think that's something that
3:26:23 um is problematic in our view
3:26:26 or in my view anyway yeah i see i
3:26:30 uh it i think that it is consistent
3:26:34 i don't necessarily obviously agree with
3:26:36 it i
3:26:37 i'm a theist uh but
3:26:40 i would i do think that you can be
3:26:43 consistent with it and that's
3:26:45 where my difference is is that i i do
3:26:47 think that the more you get into
3:26:49 the hard problem of consciousness you do
3:26:51 find
3:26:52 that like it becomes very difficult to
3:26:55 say you've solved it
3:26:56 but i think you can get to a point where
3:26:58 you can say you've resolved it
3:26:59 sufficiently
3:27:01 to be kind of agnostic on it and use
3:27:03 other data
3:27:04 to get to a point but bro we're looking
3:27:06 we're looking for a bit more than
3:27:07 consistency i mean consistency is a very
3:27:09 low
3:27:10 bar too right yeah well yeah but if you
3:27:13 already have other reasons for
3:27:14 naturalism
3:27:15 yeah yeah see that's the biggest
3:27:18 political
3:27:19 elements involved in these positions but
3:27:21 sam why on earth are you a pagan you
3:27:23 said you were pagan in the beginning
3:27:24 what the hell do you mean by pagan
3:27:26 yeah so primarily the ancient greek
3:27:30 stuff but with
3:27:31 various of the bits from other places
3:27:33 stolen um
3:27:36 primarily so
3:27:39 i think the easiest way to explain it is
3:27:41 i
3:27:43 have had ex like religious experiences
3:27:47 the same way a lot of people will
3:27:48 with a god but with multiple gods from
3:27:51 different pantheons
3:27:53 and so i i've probably had this
3:27:58 was this induced or evolved by use of
3:28:01 narcotics or
3:28:03 no and when i have a religious
3:28:05 experience i kind of
3:28:07 look at myself and go
3:28:10 okay so was i
3:28:14 was i drunk could i have been drugged
3:28:17 was i even stressed had i slept
3:28:22 and i think a kind of an epistemological
3:28:25 level that gets it something of under
3:28:28 what conditions can we trust our senses
3:28:30 and i have had said experiences under
3:28:32 conditions
3:28:33 where i have no choice if i want to be
3:28:36 consistent but to trust those senses
3:28:40 so what's the kind of uh so what kind of
3:28:44 experience did you have
3:28:45 in order for you to come to that
3:28:46 conclusion give maybe you could
3:28:48 it may be personal but if you want that
3:28:51 experience for us
3:28:53 it was a bit of a process and there were
3:28:55 several experiences
3:28:56 involved um but i can try and break some
3:28:59 of it down for you if you want
3:29:00 well the first thing i want you to think
3:29:02 about before you break it down
3:29:05 would your experience still be valid if
3:29:07 you could just reduce that experience to
3:29:08 blind non-conscious physical reality
3:29:11 and therefore there is no paganism at
3:29:13 all it's all just physical stuff right
3:29:17 well that would be to say
3:29:20 that when you can look at something's
3:29:23 moving parts
3:29:24 of an abstract thing that the abstract
3:29:27 thing doesn't exist in any capacity
3:29:30 and i would hold the abstract things
3:29:32 caused by
3:29:34 um physical things
3:29:38 can still exist in a meaningful way all
3:29:41 right so talk to you about your
3:29:42 experience
3:29:44 so um it's worth noting i have a
3:29:48 fantasia i don't have a mind's eye
3:29:50 so when people say they read and they
3:29:52 see things i don't
3:29:55 so how do you explain a religious
3:29:57 experience then
3:30:00 so and this is this is actually a part
3:30:03 of it
3:30:03 he's not laughing at you sir i'm just
3:30:06 laughing at you
3:30:07 the way he asks the question i
3:30:10 i completely understand that that is a
3:30:12 reaction i do sometimes get
3:30:13 um oh my god when you say that
3:30:17 i just assume a mind's eye sort of
3:30:19 experience when you talk about a
3:30:21 religious experience
3:30:24 but yeah you're making a distinction i
3:30:27 am making a distinction
3:30:28 in the none of mine were that because i
3:30:30 don't have a mind's eye
3:30:31 i rarely have ever dreamed
3:30:37 wait wait wait if you're ready i'm a bit
3:30:38 ignorant what do you mean by no minds i
3:30:40 know i mind i i don't understand so you
3:30:43 know when if i tell you now to close
3:30:44 your eyes and imagine
3:30:46 uh pink elephant walking along the
3:30:48 sahara desert
3:30:49 with the sun setting behind him you see
3:30:51 the silhouette and the sky goes purple
3:30:53 you can see that when you imagine it i'm
3:30:55 guessing sam is saying here that he
3:30:57 doesn't
3:30:57 see that yeah pretty much and i tend to
3:31:00 use
3:31:01 mostly a fantasy because as someone
3:31:03 who's completely fantastic doesn't dream
3:31:05 at all
3:31:06 so i i have very little mind's eye and
3:31:09 it's primarily only active
3:31:11 when i'm very high or asleep
3:31:15 so how do you have these experiences
3:31:17 then
3:31:18 um
3:31:19Music 3:31:22 bizarre sensations and signs and
3:31:26 at one point i just straight up had
3:31:27 three people disappear in front of me
3:31:30 wait what like like i was in i was out
3:31:34 in the woods
3:31:35 and i saw a couple with their child in a
3:31:38 clearing
3:31:39 i get to declaring the sparse woods
3:31:43 and they're just gone what if the people
3:31:45 were a mind's eye vision
3:31:49 which is the thing is that i could not
3:31:54 have that and that's why it's notable
3:31:56 for this particular experience
3:32:02 is that experience purely a
3:32:06 physical phenomena that was caused
3:32:10 and see this is where i come into the
3:32:12 when i was defending
3:32:14 uh materialism earlier i'm not a
3:32:16 materialist
3:32:19 i would tentatively hold some sort of
3:32:21 dualism and
3:32:23 so there's various ways i could explain
3:32:25 that though i don't
3:32:26 think i have any information to explain
3:32:28 it with
3:32:29 this is getting quite bizarre now so you
3:32:32 start off by defending
3:32:34 emerging materialism then you shifted to
3:32:37 eliminated materials and now you're
3:32:39 saying that you affirm a form of
3:32:41 dualism so the question is i said
3:32:46 that's the question okay so i i want to
3:32:49 make sure that it was clear earlier that
3:32:51 i did keep repeating that that is not my
3:32:53 paradigm i just think it's a consistent
3:32:55 one
3:32:55 oh yes of course you did yeah i do
3:32:57 apologize you did say that my apologies
3:33:00 um but how often i'm high is
3:33:04Laughter 3:33:06 a couple of times a week maybe lsd
3:33:09 there is maybe the cause to your
3:33:11 problems my friend
3:33:13 primarily um weed because pain
3:33:18 well let me tell you about something
3:33:20 that has weed in it
3:33:22 but it's um not weed but it sounds like
3:33:25 it it's tauhid
3:33:26 so in islamic tradition though
3:33:30 but
3:33:38 affirming oneness yeah and what we
3:33:42 what we understand by affirming oneness
3:33:43 that we believe there is
3:33:45 one unique creator for everything that
3:33:47 exists and he maintains and sustains
3:33:49 everything
3:33:50 and we also believe that he has names
3:33:52 and attributes that are transcendent
3:33:54 and he is maximally perfect he's perfect
3:33:56 in his knowledge and his wisdom and so
3:33:58 on and so forth and he is the all-loving
3:34:00 and fundamentally we believe that this
3:34:02 creator is worthy of our adoration of
3:34:04 our love
3:34:05 to be known to be obeyed and to direct
3:34:08 all of our acts of worship to him alone
3:34:10 so in essence this is the summary of
3:34:12 what tawhid is there is a one unique
3:34:15 creator
3:34:16 that has names and attributes that are
3:34:19 unique and transcendent and he is
3:34:20 maximally perfect
3:34:22 and that he is worthy of our adoration
3:34:25 and to be known and to be loved
3:34:27 and to be obeyed and for us to direct
3:34:29 our acts of worship like ultimate
3:34:31 gratitude
3:34:32 to him alone and all praise because
3:34:35 isn't it true sam like you know if you
3:34:37 who's your favorite snooker player
3:34:40 uh if i know names i just i don't know
3:34:43 names i just
3:34:43 watch games basically and i'm like oh
3:34:46 okay these people did fairly well
3:34:48 okay good so when you see a really good
3:34:50 for example
3:34:51 a good snooker or you see a was it a 147
3:34:55 or one five seven
3:34:56 one thousand seven yeah what do you do
3:34:58 would you how do you react
3:35:02 i i'll be honest i don't react with much
3:35:04 of anything just a bit of
3:35:05 oh that's really cool okay good
3:35:08 so it's just an emotional response you
3:35:10 react with the form of what you would
3:35:12 like praise because saying something is
3:35:13 really cool
3:35:14 is like saying oh wow that you know it's
3:35:16 praiseworthy
3:35:18 is there anything else that you that you
3:35:19 say wow or wicked or that was brilliant
3:35:22 too
3:35:23 is there anything else uh
3:35:26 sure sure various things uh a lot of the
3:35:29 time it's
3:35:30 in reaction to people or things in
3:35:32 nature
3:35:34 or religious experiences i'll take your
3:35:36 pictures various things that are
3:35:37 brilliant
3:35:39 brilliant so from that perspective you
3:35:41 know when we see things on
3:35:43 naturalistic programs concerning animals
3:35:45 like wow how did the animal do that
3:35:47 that's amazing
3:35:48 when we see a favorite sports player he
3:35:50 does an amazing one four
3:35:51 seven we're like wow that was amazing
3:35:54 when we see someone score an amazing
3:35:55 goal we say wow that was amazing
3:35:57 so in us we have this inbuilt feature
3:35:59 within our psyche
3:36:01 to give praise to things by virtue of
3:36:03 the abilities and the attributes so in
3:36:06 the islamic tradition what we say is
3:36:08 well what about the one who created all
3:36:10 of these things what about the one who
3:36:12 created the human mind what about the
3:36:13 one who created the amazing bird and the
3:36:15 amazing
3:36:18 human that is able to do all of these
3:36:20 feats if we could give them due praise
3:36:22 by virtue of their attributes
3:36:24 even though they're limited and flawed
3:36:26 in some way because they're human
3:36:28 then imagine what kind of extensive
3:36:29 praise that you must give to the one who
3:36:32 create all of this
3:36:33 and whose attributes are maximally
3:36:35 perfect the reason i try to juxtapose
3:36:37 this
3:36:38 is just trying to get you to think about
3:36:40 um you know
3:36:41 the kind of islamic idea of why god is
3:36:43 worthy of worship since we could
3:36:45 naturally praise things by virtue of
3:36:47 their deficient and flawed attributes
3:36:49 then imagine what kind of praise god is
3:36:52 worthy of by virtue of who he
3:36:55 is because he is maximally perfect in
3:36:58 terms of his knowledge and wisdom and
3:37:00 power and so on and so forth so that's
3:37:03 like a
3:37:03 small reason why god is worthy of
3:37:05 worship as well so
3:37:06 anyway man i think we're going to move
3:37:08 on it's been like three hours 37 minutes
3:37:11 yeah we need to try thanks for wrapping
3:37:12 now thanks a lot sam it was good talking
3:37:14 to you was fun yeah man
3:37:21 for our last guest very good friend of
3:37:24 ours
3:37:24 and he's been really wanting to speak to
3:37:27 hamzas
3:37:28 hamza he he was really upset with us
3:37:31 when he
3:37:31 last came on and we didn't invite him or
3:37:34 he couldn't get on the stream
3:37:36 yeah he got really upset with us he said
3:37:38 no and at least we promised him
3:37:41 that he could come on so that he could
3:37:43 speak to you
3:37:45 but he's a good brother martial
3:37:48 yeah i'm what i'm going to say is that
3:37:52 i am i was and i am a very big fan of
3:37:55 yours i'm from cashmere and it was
3:37:57 basically your debate with
3:37:59 professor lawrence krauss which i mean
3:38:01 completely
3:38:02 changed the entire discourse of my life
3:38:05 and i go involved in this islamic
3:38:08 apologetics yeah
3:38:10 and i mean it was that it was that
3:38:12 debate yeah
3:38:13 which caused this such a i mean huge
3:38:16 change in my life so
3:38:18 thank you very much for that so
3:38:22 i mean i have a question i think you i
3:38:24 mean covered it all what i want to ask
3:38:26 you is like
3:38:27 you know people sort of invoke quantum
3:38:30 mechanics yeah
3:38:32 and say that everything in the macro
3:38:35 world
3:38:35 right is an emergent property yeah and
3:38:38 now they say that time
3:38:39 space and everything else is an emergent
3:38:42 property yeah it does not have and you
3:38:45 like
3:38:46 dive deeper into the macro micro things
3:38:49 right
3:38:50 so i mean in in the same way why
3:38:53 couldn't they say
3:38:54 that consciousness yeah when you like go
3:38:57 i mean deeper into the things like
3:39:00 into the into the neurons and stuff like
3:39:03 that you may not have it there but
3:39:05 like you know then like it arranged
3:39:08 itself in a complex manner right
3:39:10 and then it produced something that's
3:39:12 known as consciousness like
3:39:14 how how why they can't use this kind of
3:39:16 argumentation to
3:39:18 prove uh their point the second the
3:39:21 second question i had in my mind is like
3:39:23 why is it
3:39:24 like you know people like i mean
3:39:26 philosophers
3:39:27 who are cognizant of the fact that uh
3:39:31 i mean that uh that there are some
3:39:34 epistemically
3:39:36 limitations with science and like you
3:39:38 know
3:39:39 having a third person method and
3:39:41 applying it to the first person
3:39:43 is not going to give us this part i mean
3:39:45 this this knowledge of first person
3:39:47 experience
3:39:48 why is it that i mean they still hold to
3:39:51 this view of
3:39:52 emergencies and say that i i mean
3:39:55 somehow it kind of does explain or
3:39:58 in the future it may explain uh the the
3:40:02 consciousness that we
3:40:03 i mean which we call heart problem today
3:40:05 like people like
3:40:06 graham opie right i listen to him a lot
3:40:09 because i think like
3:40:10 he is one of the like highly influential
3:40:14 naturalists out there i mean he holds to
3:40:16 this
3:40:17 view as well why do you think i mean
3:40:20 these people
3:40:21 do hold to this wheel yeah jazakallah
3:40:24 mohammed yunus for coming on
3:40:26 and for your nice amazing words um
3:40:34 the second question the first question
3:40:36 the other brothers can answer
3:40:38 but just to elaborate a little bit on
3:40:40 the first question
3:40:42 the question assumes that there is a
3:40:44 link between
3:40:46 the kind of macro physical world and the
3:40:48 quantum world
3:40:49 from my understanding this they are
3:40:52 still non-complementary paradigms
3:40:54 so the question can only really apply
3:40:57 if you've you assume that they are
3:41:00 complementary paradigms
3:41:02 they still haven't found the link
3:41:03 between the quantum reality
3:41:05 and the kind of newtonian reality from
3:41:07 that perspective
3:41:09 so that's the first point to make the
3:41:11 second point to make
3:41:12 is even if it's you can you could break
3:41:15 things down on a quantum level
3:41:18 you still have to reduce it to either
3:41:22 emergent materialism or reductive
3:41:24 materialism and we already explained the
3:41:26 shortcomings of these things
3:41:28 whether you labor label it as quantum or
3:41:30 anything else
3:41:31 is neither here or there conceptually
3:41:33 the problems still
3:41:35 remain with regards to the second
3:41:38 question
3:41:40 which was you know why do these thinkers
3:41:43 these naturalists believe in emergent
3:41:46 materialism
3:41:47 is because if you look at reductive
3:41:49 materialism and emergent materialism
3:41:51 because if you remember today's live
3:41:53 stream we spoke about
3:41:54 weak emergent materialism as well which
3:41:57 really
3:41:57 presupposes reductive materialism
3:42:01 even in academic literature they are
3:42:04 motivated by a psychological reason not
3:42:06 of
3:42:06 not a scientific one they are motivated
3:42:09 by
3:42:10 the fact that science is doing well and
3:42:13 science is going to close the gap that's
3:42:15 it
3:42:16 this if if you look into go read
3:42:18 anterior once you're
3:42:19 read whoever they are motivated by the
3:42:22 fact that in the history of science
3:42:25 scientific language third person
3:42:28 objective language has replaced the kind
3:42:30 of folk
3:42:31 psychological language we've been using
3:42:34 that's the key motivation of a limited
3:42:35 materialism reduction materialism and
3:42:37 also
3:42:38 by extension weak emergent materialism
3:42:41 so they're motivated by a psychological
3:42:43 reason
3:42:44 but is that psychological reason
3:42:46 justified though
3:42:47 no because people don't realize this a
3:42:49 lot about science
3:42:51 sometimes when science improves it
3:42:53 doesn't close the gap it widens the gap
3:42:57 people don't understand this for example
3:43:01 before we believe that the cell was just
3:43:03 blobs of cytoplasm
3:43:05 but then when we basically found out
3:43:07 more about the cell
3:43:09 and we found about dna it opened a huge
3:43:12 kind of worms
3:43:13 right and and so many different things
3:43:15 in scientific discourse sometimes
3:43:17 science doesn't always close
3:43:19 the gap the actions actually widens
3:43:22 the gap as well but even in saying that
3:43:25 if you are attentive to
3:43:27 our criticisms of these different
3:43:29 approaches to the mind
3:43:30 we said even if we were to know
3:43:33 everything about
3:43:34 the science it would not lead to closing
3:43:36 the epistemic gap
3:43:38 in other words knowing what it's like
3:43:40 for abdul to have
3:43:42 i don't know a lemonade on a sunday
3:43:44 morning
3:43:45 and we won't be able to answer
3:43:47 sufficiently the question
3:43:49 of how do we get these qualia or
3:43:51 subjective experience
3:43:53 arising from seemingly non-conscious
3:43:55 cold blind physical processes
3:43:57 it's equivalent of getting a bunch of
3:43:59 wood and manipulating them together and
3:44:01 getting
3:44:02 a tesla car so that would be my answer
3:44:05 to that question
3:44:07 uh from that perspective and just a
3:44:08 quick comment on your the kraus debate
3:44:10 that was like nearly eight years ago i
3:44:12 think
3:44:13 and i just moved on a lot from there and
3:44:15 i don't do that many debates
3:44:16 i think we have to realize in the tower
3:44:19 that debates
3:44:20 are not the only
3:44:23 means and we have to be very strategic
3:44:26 with them
3:44:27 sometimes we think doing debates for the
3:44:29 sake of it
3:44:30 is a good thing in actual fact doing
3:44:32 debates all the time as part of the
3:44:33 dawah
3:44:34 is very immature and it's destructive
3:44:37 like
3:44:37 i don't want to gun down the you know
3:44:39 what happened in high park corner
3:44:41 but in speaker's corner there was
3:44:42 massive debates with i think the black
3:44:44 nationalist kermit guys
3:44:46 and the brothers debated them just by
3:44:48 virtue of having a debate
3:44:50 they revived or they brought into the
3:44:51 public domain
3:44:54 destructive doubts that never existed
3:44:56 before and i remember receiving stuff
3:44:58 saying oh this guy debated him he's got
3:45:00 this question
3:45:00 you know it created a lot of uh for some
3:45:03 people
3:45:04 so we have to be very smart when we do
3:45:06 debates
3:45:07 and we have to basically be strategic
3:45:09 when we do debates
3:45:10 so he has to be in the right time in the
3:45:12 right place in the right context and
3:45:14 debates are not necessarily dower
3:45:16 they are a means to dawa and there are
3:45:18 means for kind of
3:45:19 creating a kind of intellectual issue
3:45:21 for the deen and giving confidence to
3:45:23 the muslims
3:45:24 but it has to be done in the right way
3:45:25 in the right time in the right place
3:45:28 unfortunately these days we think dao is
3:45:30 the only
3:45:31 we think debate is the only means for
3:45:33 daoa and then you know
3:45:35 it's it's not that smart uh and it shows
3:45:39 a lack of maturity in the dao in my view
3:45:42 like i
3:45:42 personally know and i don't want to
3:45:44 mention his name because he's here
3:45:45 there are people here would be probably
3:45:47 better debaters than most of people
3:45:49 online but they don't debate because you
3:45:51 know
3:45:52 they probably got the right tobia we've
3:45:54 got the right understanding of when you
3:45:56 should do it and how you should do it
3:45:57 and why you should do it
3:45:58 and when you should do it um but these
3:46:00 days we're just debating for the sake of
3:46:02 it
3:46:03 um and that is a very problematic thing
3:46:05 concerning the tao and even allah says
3:46:07 and debate with them in ways that are
3:46:09 best
3:46:12 here is like almost like a buffer
3:46:14 between the normal dawah
3:46:16 and the exceptional tawa and you know
3:46:18 the mufasirin they said these type of
3:46:20 debates are exceptions they're not
3:46:22 the norm right and when you do use them
3:46:25 you have to do it from the perspective
3:46:26 of doing it in the right
3:46:28 right time right place for the right
3:46:29 objective to seek the right impact
3:46:32 and we've lost that unfortunately we've
3:46:35 lost that in the tower
3:46:36 um and we need to revive that kind of
3:46:38 tabia you know it's very important
3:46:40 but now everyone's debating everyone you
3:46:42 know
3:46:44 yeah i wanna i wanna add just a part to
3:46:46 um
3:46:48 the the what you said earlier about the
3:46:50 the
3:46:51 the the whole quantum question that just
3:46:53 a very smart
3:46:54 small guy because that happens i i
3:46:56 really need to go now it's like 150 a.m
3:46:59 okay
3:46:59 okay okay for all your patience
3:47:07Laughter 3:47:16 we need to get you more involved man in
3:47:18 everything
3:47:20 i need to use and abuse you man for the
3:47:22 sake of allah
3:47:25 you're the coolest guy in malaysia
3:47:26 you're in malaysia right i'm in sweden
3:47:28 right now i i wasn't sweden
3:47:44 would i would want to invite you to our
3:47:46 channel we go a channel called ea
3:47:48 show on youtube so i mean we do
3:47:53 things similar to what guys do i'm at
3:47:56 your service
3:47:57 just uh get my contact deals from yusuf
3:47:59 and i'll come on board inshallah yeah
3:48:01 inshallah thank you very much every
3:48:03 single one of you exactly for the pacini
3:48:05 guys
3:48:09 so just that quick comment i wanted to
3:48:11 make was that
3:48:13 these quantum theories of consciousness
3:48:14 are basically uh you know identity
3:48:16 theories as well i mean they fall into
3:48:18 that category and
3:48:19 uh stuart hameroff who's one of the main
3:48:22 advocates of these quantum theories
3:48:23 along with roger penrose himself he says
3:48:26 that
3:48:26 yeah it is the quantum events themselves
3:48:28 that are the consciousness
3:48:30 we are advocating for some kind of an
3:48:32 identity theory so it's the same problem
3:48:34 all over again
3:48:35 right before we close uh there's a
3:48:37 question that
3:48:38 brother ryan was telling us to answer
3:48:41 and
3:48:42 then we can close all together uh with
3:48:44 brother eunice here so don't leave
3:48:45 eunice uh
3:48:46 okay so the question is the question is
3:48:49 how would you guys interpret the verse
3:48:51 in the quran where everything makes this
3:48:53 be on allah
3:48:55 does that mean that everything has some
3:48:56 kind of consciousness uh wouldn't that
3:48:58 mean there is no such thing as
3:49:00 cold and blind so i don't want to answer
3:49:03 that
3:49:03 but um oh yeah sorry yeah you read it
3:49:07 um anticipating because there wasn't
3:49:09 enough room for it to go into one
3:49:10 thing like that i i think for me the
3:49:14 main point is that the the verse says
3:49:16 uh you know uh that we do not
3:49:20 understand or comprehend the method or
3:49:22 the mechanism or how
3:49:24 that test be occurs i'm not sure if it's
3:49:26 a conscious just be
3:49:27 if it is i don't again i i just don't
3:49:30 see a problem
3:49:31 it's not this kind of like materialistic
3:49:33 pan psychist view where
3:49:36 matter is both conscious uh matter has
3:49:38 this
3:49:39 property of conscious inherent to it uh
3:49:41 on a purely materialistic framework
3:49:44 which is what someone like
3:49:45 chalmers would would advocate for um i i
3:49:48 think
3:49:49 on theism you already have this dualist
3:49:52 view that accounts
3:49:53 for subjective experiences so wherever
3:49:56 you do find the subjective experience
3:49:58 it's it's really not not a problem the
3:50:00 mechanism of it is not a problem because
3:50:02 it isn't this qualitative uh you know
3:50:05 there isn't this qualitative gap between
3:50:07 the the
3:50:08 material and it producing a conscious
3:50:11 experience so
3:50:11 that's that's the way i'd answer i don't
3:50:13 know if it's a conscious experience
3:50:15 we don't allah says we don't comprehend
3:50:17 or we don't have the ability to
3:50:18 comprehend the method of to speak
3:50:20 and at the same time if it is conscious
3:50:23 we already have that dualist view
3:50:24 on theism that kind of gets us out of
3:50:27 that problem
3:50:30 so we're going to leave it there
3:50:32 apologies to the other brothers that
3:50:33 were in the back
3:50:34 uh or sisters and or sisters um they
3:50:36 wanted to come on
3:50:37 uh it's just it's been so long now when
3:50:40 we're hitting four hours
3:50:41 um we really need to to wrap this up so
3:50:43 i did mention in the chat
3:50:45 um if you could please send us an email
3:50:48 with your question and we'll get one of
3:50:50 the brothers um
3:50:51 inshallah during the the week coming uh
3:50:54 to try to respond to that and that's on
3:50:56 there
3:50:57 um so if you were waiting in the back
3:50:59 before
3:51:00 and then had to leave because waiting
3:51:02 for so long um
3:51:04 if you email that inshallah we'll try to
3:51:06 get back to you and forgive us for
3:51:08 for not being able to bring you on um
3:51:10 it's just obviously very difficult to
3:51:11 sort of manage these and try to get
3:51:13 everyone on
3:51:14 um i can understand it can be very
3:51:16 frustrating when waiting in the back
3:51:18 um but yeah so to wrap that up um to
3:51:21 everyone who's joined us today and has
3:51:22 been watching
3:51:23 um may allah bless you all and guide you
3:51:25 all also
3:51:27 uh don't forget to leave a like
3:51:29 subscribe to the channel if you haven't
3:51:30 already
3:51:31 um check out brother eunice's um channel
3:51:34 who he's helping with
3:51:35 um justin bieber is now referred to as
3:51:38 khalil allah
3:51:40 and there's a few other brothers that
3:51:41 get involved with that as well i think
3:51:42 had hatim
3:51:44 and hanif and etc um so yeah check them
3:51:47 out the ea show
3:51:48 um other than that we are on social
3:51:51 media so you can follow us
3:51:52 uh on twitter uh with this tag i think
3:51:56 if you search the thought adventure
3:51:57 podcast on instagram and facebook
3:51:59 it should pop up uh so check us out
3:52:01 there if you haven't already
3:52:03 and other than that i think we've got
3:52:06 podcasts as well
3:52:07 on all the major podcast platforms like
3:52:08 apple um
3:52:10 what are the other ones spotify et
3:52:12 cetera so yeah check us out on there as
3:52:14 well if that's something
3:52:15 you're into um but other than that was
3:52:18 there anything else anyone wanted to add
3:52:22 uh just maybe really quickly i think
3:52:25 obviously we've had the discussion about
3:52:26 consciousness we've got two
3:52:28 two shows now that have been talked
3:52:30 about it i think
3:52:31 uh i recommend everybody particularly
3:52:34 those people who disagree with what
3:52:35 we're saying is to really dive into this
3:52:38 understanding of it particularly if you
3:52:40 think there is no
3:52:41 hard problem because when you do look at
3:52:44 this issue you'll see that there's an in
3:52:46 principle unbridgeable gap
3:52:48 regards to being able to explain
3:52:49 materialism and consciousness
3:52:51 and if that leads us to then to
3:52:53 understand well there must be something
3:52:54 more than material
3:52:56 then and that's the best explanation and
3:52:58 that's the explanation that we see and
3:53:00 that's the consistent explanation
3:53:01 actually that's one that gives us
3:53:03 the best explanatory power that there's
3:53:05 something more than material
3:53:06 that can explain uh consciousness
3:53:10 okay and abdullah newness do you want to
3:53:13 end with any final comments before we
3:53:15 i'm good eunice go for it yeah
3:53:18 i i just want to say that like if you
3:53:20 guys are interested hamza
3:53:22 gorgeous has written a book called
3:53:23 divine reality there's a big chapter
3:53:26 right on consciousness he explains
3:53:28 everything in detail
3:53:29 you might you guys might um you know
3:53:32 should check that out
3:53:33 like you know if you really want to
3:53:35 understand and it's a brilliant book as
3:53:37 well really approachable yeah
3:53:38 i think we did a reading club on it um
3:53:40 where we were going through it and one
3:53:42 of the most common things that kept
3:53:43 popping up and with anyone who i've ever
3:53:44 spoke to who's mentioned that they read
3:53:46 the book uh it's that
3:53:48 hams and sources male 1 blessing has
3:53:50 writes really well
3:53:51 it's really approachable there's not too
3:53:52 much dragon in there he's making it for
3:53:54 someone who's not necessarily that clued
3:53:57 up on all of this
3:53:58 philosophical dragon and you know it's
3:54:00 false
3:54:01 the evidence course as well every
3:54:02 wednesday night
3:54:04 apparently we might be releasing uh an
3:54:07 extra one on friday as well so you might
3:54:08 get two shows this week
3:54:10 uh if people prefer that way we might
3:54:12 keep it that way twice a week so the
3:54:14 evidence show every wednesday at 8 00 pm
3:54:17 in inshallah but other than that thank
3:54:20 you again
3:54:20 to everyone who's joined us may allah
3:54:22 bless you all i hope you have a
3:54:25 pleasant week coming and and then to
3:54:27 your weekend assalamu alaikum
3:54:39Music 3:55:02 you

Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11 (2021-06-20) #

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Summary of Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11 #

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Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11 (2021-06-20)

Description

Summary of Can Consciousness Be Grounded on Materialism? feat. Hamza Tzortzis | Thought Adventure Podcast #11

00:00:00 - 01:00:00

01:00:00 - 02:00:00

02:00:00 - 03:00:00

03:00:00 - 03:55:00