Hamza Tzortzis on The Hard Problem of Conscioussness | Podcast Highlight (2021-03-21) ​

0:00:08 okay good thanks for the introduction
0:00:10 jake well i bless you all just ask me
0:00:12 for the opportunity
0:00:19 i wrote a book called the divine reality
0:00:21 and
0:00:23 i did an m.a in philosophy
0:00:26 my dissertation was on the heart problem
0:00:28 of consciousness
0:00:30 and other bits and pieces and i'm
0:00:32 continuing my postgraduate research at
0:00:34 the university of london
0:00:36 and i have a particularly interesting
0:00:37 consciousness because
0:00:40 i had a bit of an issue when i was i was
0:00:42 around i don't know maybe 11 or 12
0:00:44 years old i had this kind of
0:00:47 existential crisis not from the point of
0:00:49 view of meaning or the point of view of
0:00:51 um you know purpose and life it was more
0:00:55 on it was more a form of solipsism which
0:00:58 was
0:00:59 i had a realization just dawned on me
0:01:02 that
0:01:03 i was the only one aware of my own
0:01:06 conscious awareness
0:01:07 and i wasn't aware of other people's
0:01:09 conscious awareness at the same time
0:01:12 that i'm aware of my own awareness
0:01:14Laughter 0:01:16 that might be a bit confusing but that
0:01:18 was extremely lonely
0:01:20 it was it just dawned on me it was such
0:01:22 a lonely thing
0:01:23 that i i think i started crying i'll get
0:01:26 slightly you know
0:01:26 contextually depressed because i felt
0:01:30 like i was maybe the only one who really
0:01:32 exists
0:01:33 right now people may not empathize with
0:01:35 this at all because they haven't had
0:01:37 this experience
0:01:38 thank god but some people just have
0:01:41 those experiences and i think that was
0:01:42 the kind of
0:01:43 emotional existential driver
0:01:46 in order for me to try and explore the
0:01:48 whole topic of consciousness a little
0:01:50 bit more
0:01:51 and that's why i was very fascinated
0:01:53 with the hard problem of consciousness
0:01:55 now
0:01:56 as many of you may know or not know the
0:01:58 hard problem of consciousness
0:02:00 in the philosophy of the mind is really
0:02:03 based on two key
0:02:04 questions people think it's only one
0:02:06 question but in actual fact is two key
0:02:07 questions
0:02:09 the first key question is what is it
0:02:11 like for a particular
0:02:12 organism to have a in a subjective
0:02:15 conscious experience
0:02:16 okay so i know i have inner subject of
0:02:19 conscious experiences
0:02:21 and i know what it's like for me to have
0:02:22 a hot chocolate on a sunday looking at
0:02:24 the sunset
0:02:26 but what about jake's in a subjective
0:02:28 conscious experience
0:02:30 can i know what it's like for jake to
0:02:32 have a hot chocolate on a sunday
0:02:34 looking at the sunset no i just have my
0:02:37 own
0:02:38 now it's subjectivity for sure
0:02:41 however it is a first person fact no one
0:02:44 can deny the fact that they
0:02:46 have an awareness of their own awareness
0:02:48 or they are
0:02:50 undergoing or they're experiencing a a
0:02:52 form of phenomenal consciousness because
0:02:54 in the literature it's also called
0:02:56 known as phenomenality or phenomenal
0:02:59 experience which basically means
0:03:01 in a subjective conscious experience so
0:03:03 i may be able to
0:03:04 to describe my experience as warm
0:03:08 sweet beautiful and you may use exactly
0:03:11 the same words and we're thinking we're
0:03:13 talking about the same type of
0:03:14 inner subjective conscious experience
0:03:16 but in actual fact we still wouldn't
0:03:18 know
0:03:19 why because words are vehicles to
0:03:21 meaning and meaning is like a reflection
0:03:23 a mirror of that inner subject of
0:03:25 conscious experience
0:03:26 so when i say warm and beautiful and
0:03:29 amazing i have a certain kind of
0:03:32 experience that backs that up that's
0:03:34 personal to me but that doesn't
0:03:35 necessarily mean
0:03:37 that jake has exactly the same type of
0:03:39 experience even though he's using the
0:03:40 same words
0:03:41 right so this is what you may call the
0:03:44 epistemic gap there's an epistemological
0:03:46 gap meaning there is a gap of knowledge
0:03:49 how do we bridge that gap under
0:03:50 materialism and by the way
0:03:52 when we use the word materialism and the
0:03:54 philosophy of the mind
0:03:56 it's used synonymously with physicalism
0:03:58 yes they have two different
0:04:00 histories however they really mean the
0:04:03 following
0:04:04 that consciousness can be reduced to
0:04:07 or is identical to physical processes
0:04:11 materialism historically used to talk
0:04:13 about uh
0:04:14 sorry materialism historically used to
0:04:16 talk about bits of matter
0:04:18 but in the philosophy of the mind in the
0:04:19 literature as far as i'm aware of it
0:04:22 that those two terms are used
0:04:23 synonymously and
0:04:25 they're used in the context that we've
0:04:26 just said that all
0:04:29 conscious consciousness can be reduced
0:04:30 to in some way or identical to
0:04:33 physical processes so that's the first
0:04:35 question of the hard problem
0:04:36 the second question is not an
0:04:38 epistemological question
0:04:40 it's not an epistemic question because
0:04:41 people a lot of the naturalists they say
0:04:44 oh you know we're going to bridge the
0:04:45 gap right we're going to bridge that gap
0:04:48 when we know the science when we learn
0:04:49 more science we'll bridge it
0:04:51 which i think is a huge fallacious
0:04:52 argument we could discuss later and
0:04:54 unpack it later
0:04:55 but the point here is they say we could
0:04:57 bridge the gap but they've misunderstood
0:04:58 the hard problem because the hard
0:05:00 problem is not just an epistemic issue
0:05:02 it's an ontological issue meaning the
0:05:04 source and nature of reality
0:05:05 so the second question is why and how do
0:05:10 phenomenal experiences meaning how and
0:05:12 why do inner subjective conscious
0:05:14 experiences arise
0:05:16 from neurobiological processes this is
0:05:20 has some epistemic issues but it's also
0:05:22 an ontological issue given the fact that
0:05:24 we
0:05:24 have a kind of first person fat sincere
0:05:28 sensation of what it's like to have in
0:05:30 the subject of conscious experiences and
0:05:32 we know
0:05:33 what kind of physical processes are
0:05:36 supposed to be because even according to
0:05:37 the naturalists physical processes are
0:05:39 what
0:05:40 they're blind and non-conscious what
0:05:42 does that mean let's unpack that
0:05:44 when we say physical processes are blind
0:05:46 it means there is no intentional force
0:05:48 directing them anywhere
0:05:49 when we say they're non-conscious we're
0:05:51 saying physical processes
0:05:53 do not have something called
0:05:54 intentionality i know that's a massive
0:05:57 issue in the philosophy of the mind
0:06:00 there's lots of ichthyolaf as they say
0:06:01 the differences of opinion
0:06:03 but just to break it down in in a simple
0:06:05 way
0:06:06 intentionality is about aboutness for
0:06:09 example
0:06:10 i'm looking at my mobile phone my my
0:06:13 stream of consciousness now
0:06:14 is about something other than what's in
0:06:18 here
0:06:18 it's outside it's about something else
0:06:21 physical processes
0:06:22 by definition are not about anything
0:06:26 they're not even about their own selves
0:06:27 they just are cold
0:06:29 and non-conscious from that perspective
0:06:31 so one would argue
0:06:33 if that's the ontology of physicalism
0:06:34 which also relates to
0:06:36 philosophical naturalism then how
0:06:40 can we have inner subjective conscious
0:06:42 experiences arise
0:06:44 from seemingly cold and non-conscious
0:06:47 physical processes
0:06:48 it's like whoa right so how do they
0:06:52 try and answer these questions so let me
0:06:54 go backwards
0:06:56 the first way they're trying to answer
0:06:57 this question
0:06:59 especially from the kind of atheistic
0:07:00 perspective is that science
0:07:02 neuroscience neurobiological studies is
0:07:06 going to solve the problem now with all
0:07:07 due respect
0:07:08 right with all due respect
0:07:12 neuroscience is predicated on a
0:07:14 philosophical assumption
0:07:16 this is well known if you read the works
0:07:17 of um
0:07:19 rex wilson anti romancio manzotti
0:07:22 moderato
0:07:23 blah blah blah blah blah the
0:07:25 philosophers of the mind and even
0:07:26 neuroscientists themselves
0:07:28 understand that neurobiological studies
0:07:30 neuroscience
0:07:32 it assumes physicalism
0:07:35 so what all neuro biological studies can
0:07:39 do
0:07:40 is basically give you a physicalistic
0:07:42 approach or a materialistic
0:07:44 approach to this question and by
0:07:46 definition it won't really solve the
0:07:47 problem because it will be always
0:07:49 assumed
0:07:51 to be true what we're trying to show is
0:07:54 well
0:07:54 is physicalism true is materialism of
0:07:57 physicalism
0:07:58 the correct philosophy of the mind to
0:08:00 understand the reality of consciousness
0:08:02 right
0:08:02 they can't even start dealing with that
0:08:04 question because all neurobiological
0:08:06 studies
0:08:06 are basically uh predicated on this
0:08:10 philosophical assumption which is
0:08:12 physicalism so neuroscience will never
0:08:14 be able to address this issue because
0:08:16 neuroscience generally speaking is a
0:08:18 study of correlations as one of my
0:08:20 friends who's a who did a masters in
0:08:21 neuroscience he called it
0:08:23 pixelated phrenology yeah the phenology
0:08:26 of the study of the brain is pixelated
0:08:28 phonology
0:08:29 and and listen to this this is my
0:08:30 challenge even if we're to map
0:08:33 out the entirety of jake's brain right
0:08:36 say we map it out and we can correlate
0:08:40 every single pattern and the minutiae
0:08:43 the differences and correlate them
0:08:46 to inner subject of conscious
0:08:48 experiences
0:08:50 and correlate those to his utterances of
0:08:52 the descriptions of his inner
0:08:54 experiences
0:08:56 it still would not he still won't solve
0:08:57 the problem people still want to answer
0:08:59 both questions
0:09:00 he won't answer okay well what is it
0:09:02 like for jake to undergo a particular
0:09:04 inner subject of conscious experience we
0:09:05 just have his
0:09:06 we just have his descriptions right
0:09:08 right but what is it like
0:09:10 and we won't be able to answer the
0:09:11 question well how on earth does he have
0:09:13 this inner subjective conscious
0:09:14 experience
0:09:15 arising arising from
0:09:18 seemingly cold blind physical processes
0:09:22 so even if neuroscience were to map
0:09:26 everything in the brain because this is
0:09:27 one of the arguments from the atheist
0:09:29 look man when we know everything about
0:09:30 the brain we'll know everything about
0:09:32 consciousness
0:09:34 that would only make sense if you're an
0:09:36 eliminative materialist right but we
0:09:37 could discuss a bit later
0:09:39 so neuroscience can't really deal with
0:09:41 the problem and
0:09:43 i've got something here from professor
0:09:46 i forgot his name now he's from king's
0:09:49 college university in london
0:09:51 he actually articulated a really
0:09:53 powerful undercutting defeater
0:09:55 to people who claim that neuroscience is
0:09:58 actually
0:09:59 if we know more about the brain will
0:10:01 know more about consciousness from the
0:10:02 point of view of inner subjective
0:10:04 conscious experiences so he makes a
0:10:08 really
0:10:08 beautiful point here it's papino the
0:10:10 professor papinel
0:10:12 yeah i think his name is david papino he
0:10:13 presents a really nice argument i want
0:10:15 to summarize the argument for you it's
0:10:17 the seven statements
0:10:18 so he says number one and i'm
0:10:20 paraphrasing
0:10:21 a neurochemical event e is identical
0:10:25 with the conscious experience p
0:10:28 number two e cannot be absent
0:10:31 when p is testified to be present
0:10:35 three e cannot be present when p
0:10:38 is testified to be absent four
0:10:42 e must be present to be necessary for p
0:10:45 five e is sometimes absence when p
0:10:48 is testified to be present six e
0:10:51 is sometimes present when p is testified
0:10:54 to be absent
0:10:55 seven conclusion therefore e is not
0:10:57 necessary for p
0:10:58 so his conclusion is that the
0:11:00 neurochemical event e is not necessary
0:11:02 for
0:11:03 in a subjective conscious experience p
0:11:06 because when you do a study of all the
0:11:08 neurobiological
0:11:09 correlations you will see that sometimes
0:11:12 the neurobiological
0:11:14 event e is not always present for a
0:11:15 particular p
0:11:17 and sometimes it's absent sometimes it's
0:11:18 present and so on and so forth
0:11:20 so it shows that the correlations they
0:11:22 have found so far are not
0:11:24 necessary for p which is a really
0:11:26 interesting argument by papua new now
0:11:28 i've gone too long i don't want to take
0:11:30 too much time so i just want to
0:11:31 mention what are the physicalist claims
0:11:34 so i'm not going to go into them and
0:11:35 refute them i think we should do that
0:11:36 together
0:11:37 right so one approach
0:11:40 is what you would call eliminative
0:11:42 materialism okay
0:11:44 and one would argue that the church
0:11:46 lands had this view
0:11:47 then it had this view in 1991 he wrote
0:11:49 the book consciousness explained
0:11:51 met some philosophers said that book
0:11:53 should have been called
0:11:54 consciousness explained away
0:11:57 he doesn't deal with the the questions
0:11:59 of the hard problem of consciousness he
0:12:00 just he just thinks that we're just like
0:12:01 you know
0:12:02 robots we don't have any consciousness
0:12:03 right yeah so it's eliminative materials
0:12:05 which basically says that there is no
0:12:07 consciousness that's essentially what
0:12:08 they're saying
0:12:09 and we could unpack what it means and
0:12:11 unpack and how we can address that
0:12:12 during
0:12:13 the podcast today and by the way a lot
0:12:16 of the
0:12:16 empirical neurobiological studies that
0:12:18 have fancy names right there are so many
0:12:20 fancy names for many different
0:12:22 you know uh neuro
0:12:25 the neuro correlations and all that
0:12:28 fancy names right all of these things
0:12:29 still have
0:12:30 these um approaches as their
0:12:33 philosophical assumptions so it's very
0:12:34 important to deal with the philosophical
0:12:36 assumptions because
0:12:37 the kind of minutiae of the empirical
0:12:39 neurobiological study
0:12:40 is interesting but it's really
0:12:41 predicated on these approaches anyway
0:12:43 so one is eliminative materialism the
0:12:45 other one is reductive materialism
0:12:47 which basically says it doesn't deny
0:12:49 inner subject of conscious experience
0:12:51 but it says
0:12:52 that that the brain or
0:12:56 understanding or science understanding
0:12:57 of the brain would eventually close the
0:13:00 gap
0:13:00 and will be able to understand that
0:13:04 that that that that consciousness can be
0:13:07 explained
0:13:08 or reduced due to physical processes in
0:13:10 some way so don't say
0:13:11 individual process or individual bits of
0:13:14 matter they will say
0:13:16 you know you could reduce it to physical
0:13:18 processes in some way then we could
0:13:19 discuss
0:13:20 why that's that fails right the other
0:13:22 physicalist approach which is very
0:13:24 popular
0:13:25 is called functionalism functionism just
0:13:28 to really make you understand this it's
0:13:29 like a mirroring a computer system
0:13:31 you have inputs mental states and
0:13:33 outputs
0:13:34 and you know they say when you have an
0:13:36 input for example
0:13:38 your your your bus is coming right
0:13:41 um and your mental state is oh my god
0:13:44 i'm going to be late
0:13:45 right you have the inner subjection
0:13:46 cause experience i'm actually late
0:13:48 and then the output is that you start
0:13:50 running for your bus
0:13:52 so there is a connection between inputs
0:13:54 outputs
0:13:55 and mental states but as you know that
0:13:57 doesn't even answer any of the problems
0:13:59 of the hard
0:14:00 problems of consciousness but we could
0:14:01 address that later
0:14:03 another view well probably the final
0:14:05 physical is to be main physicalist views
0:14:07 what you call
0:14:08 emergent materialism which is getting
0:14:10 quite popular and there are two forms of
0:14:12 emergent materialism you have strong
0:14:13 emergent materialism and weak emergent
0:14:15 materialism
0:14:17 strong emergent materialism says look
0:14:19 consciousness exists
0:14:21 but it's based on complex physical
0:14:24 processes and these physical processes
0:14:25 have complex causal relations
0:14:27 and it's impossible to impossible to
0:14:30 unravel them
0:14:31 and they say to try and understand it
0:14:32 it's equivalent of putting for example
0:14:35 darwin's book on the original species in
0:14:37 a hamster's cage
0:14:39 thinking that hamster is going to
0:14:40 understand its origins right it's a good
0:14:42 it's an interesting
0:14:43 point but it's a failed point because
0:14:45 all they're doing they're really
0:14:46 assuming
0:14:47 some type of physicalism like reductive
0:14:50 materialism anyway or reductive
0:14:51 uh or yeah reductive materialism
0:14:55 and it's a bit of a compound we can
0:14:56 unders we could discuss later why that's
0:14:57 the case
0:14:58 the other version which is called weak
0:15:00 emergent materialism
0:15:02 which basically says yes it's based on
0:15:04 complex physical processes and these
0:15:06 physical processes have complex
0:15:08 causal relations when we unravel them
0:15:11 we'll be able to understand subjective
0:15:13 consciousness
0:15:14 but really that's not a philosophy in
0:15:16 itself
0:15:17 that's reductive materialism you're
0:15:19 assuming reductive materialism
0:15:21 to be true and if you dealt with
0:15:22 reductive materialism then you've dealt
0:15:24 with
0:15:25 uh weak emergence and they give you
0:15:26 things like you know what about water
0:15:28 you know you have the the molecules of
0:15:31 oxygen
0:15:32 and and hydrogen and they combine
0:15:34 together to give you properties that
0:15:36 don't exist in in the original
0:15:38 individual processes that's what
0:15:40 emergent materialism basically says
0:15:42 that you're going to get something an
0:15:43 emergent property like consciousness
0:15:46 and the properties of consciousness
0:15:47 cannot be found in the individual
0:15:49 processes or in the
0:15:50 physical system that is causally related
0:15:54 and causally connected and they say look
0:15:56 this exists in science anyway look at
0:15:58 look at water h2o
0:16:00 you have hydrogen you have oxygen
0:16:03 and you put them together and they
0:16:06 causally relate in some way
0:16:08 and you have properties of water that
0:16:09 don't belong to the individual
0:16:11 uh molecule molecules for example the
0:16:14 individual
0:16:15 atoms hydrogen atoms oxygen atoms right
0:16:17 so you have water that is shiny and it's
0:16:19 a transparent liquid but those
0:16:21 properties cannot be found in the
0:16:22 individual process themselves
0:16:23 which we know that example is a really
0:16:25 bad example for many reasons
0:16:27 which we could discuss so those are the
0:16:28 main type of physicalist ontologies if
0:16:31 you like
0:16:31 or the physical assist or physicalist
0:16:33 approaches to the mind
0:16:35 and i would argue from this we could
0:16:36 even talk about god's existence from the
0:16:38 heart problem of consciousness but
0:16:40 that's
0:16:40 maybe for another day uh sorry for
0:16:43 waffling but
0:16:44 that's the introduction oh no that was
0:16:46 great no no no it was a great
0:16:48 introduction
0:16:49 really do appreciate it so as far as
0:16:51 what i understood you saying brother
0:16:53 hamza is that
0:16:54 there there's two main problems uh with
0:16:57 consciousness and materialism
0:16:59 one is an ontological problem and one is
0:17:02 an epistemological problem
0:17:04 and then you went over various different
0:17:06 um possible
0:17:08 responses that are offered in the
0:17:09 literature
0:17:11 in philosophy of mind from a materialist
0:17:14 or
0:17:15 physicalist paradigm and then you
0:17:17 explain
0:17:18 some of the some of the issues or
0:17:20 potential issues with each one of those
0:17:22 um responses to the uh to the two
0:17:25 problems that you mentioned
0:17:27 so i think that was a great intro to
0:17:29 explaining sort of the foundations for
0:17:31 the discussion
0:17:33 i do want to point out to the audience
0:17:35 that um
0:17:36 we are going to spend a little bit more
0:17:38 time on the introduction portion of this
0:17:40 because
0:17:41 it is a bit more in-depth and kind of
0:17:44 uh gets in the weeds a little bit
0:17:46 philosophically so we want to
0:17:48 lay the groundwork for the discussion
0:17:50 before we invite guests on and we're
0:17:52 probably
0:17:53 gonna shoot for maybe around 45 minutes
0:17:55 to an hour to when we start to
0:17:57 invite guests on um but yeah once again
0:18:01 hamza do appreciate that
0:18:02 intro now brother sharif i want to hear
0:18:05 what your thoughts are on the question
0:18:07 can materialism actually account for or
0:18:10 ground consciousness what are your
0:18:13 thoughts on that
0:18:14 yeah um so i think brother hames has
0:18:17 mentioned a lot of points and
0:18:18 really covered the subject area
0:18:20 comprehensively uh it seems on this
0:18:23 uh how i i also see it is
0:18:27 when we look at the issue of
0:18:28 consciousness what we're asking is
0:18:31 how is it that non-physical things
0:18:35 become self-aware become have this
0:18:37 internal experience how do non-physical
0:18:39 sorry
0:18:40 physical non-conscious things have this
0:18:42 internal experience
0:18:43 that's the first question we're trying
0:18:45 to work out the second question
0:18:47 is okay how do we approach that how can
0:18:50 we
0:18:50 analyze the internal experiences of
0:18:54 something that's physical you know what
0:18:56 what do we do
0:18:57 so normally the scientists will say well
0:18:59 we'll use science to try to investigate
0:19:01 that
0:19:02 and i think as hamza's mentioned and
0:19:04 also yourself jake
0:19:05 is that there is a problem there's like
0:19:07 an in-principle problem the in principle
0:19:10 problem is this let me give an example
0:19:12 if i've got a color red yeah uh i've i
0:19:15 thought this bottle was red but it's
0:19:17 actually more purple but if i've got
0:19:18 this
0:19:18 this purple ribena yeah shouldn't be
0:19:21 showing that
0:19:22 we're not sponsored by them so if we've
0:19:24 got this yeah which is sort of a purpley
0:19:26 color
0:19:27 yeah we experience it as purple
0:19:30 yeah now science what's science going to
0:19:32 tell us
0:19:33 about this science is going to say well
0:19:36 it has a particular
0:19:38 reflection of light at a specific
0:19:40 wavelength and a specific energy
0:19:42 it will tell me the properties of the
0:19:43 light none
0:19:45 of those properties are related to my
0:19:48 experience
0:19:50 yeah so there's an experience there's an
0:19:52 attribute that i'm sensing
0:19:54 which is not physical for the light
0:19:57 itself
0:19:58 yeah it goes beyond the light in essence
0:20:00 beyond the physical
0:20:01 so what science is going to tell me is
0:20:03 going to give me a third person
0:20:05 objective analysis of some reality but
0:20:08 consciousness my experience of this is a
0:20:12 first person subjective experience and
0:20:15 there's nothing
0:20:16 about the reflection of the wavelength
0:20:18 of light and its energy
0:20:20 that tells me i will experience it as
0:20:23 being
0:20:24 uh purple or red or whatever color
0:20:26 there's another problem
0:20:28 if i have a person who's been blind from
0:20:31 birth
0:20:32 and i try to describe that color this
0:20:35 color here
0:20:37 there is no language there's no
0:20:40 descriptive way to describe the color to
0:20:43 the person who's never seen it
0:20:45 yeah so we've got another problem in
0:20:46 terms of being able to describe
0:20:49 something because the language doesn't
0:20:51 exist because it is
0:20:52 first person experience which means if
0:20:55 you've not experienced it or i've not
0:20:56 experienced it
0:20:57 there's no way of being able to describe
0:20:59 it because nothing in the property
0:21:02 that allows us to describe describe it
0:21:04 as the experience that we're having
0:21:06 and that's not just like color that's
0:21:08 everything else as well
0:21:10 taste pain you know as hamza mentioned
0:21:14 you know
0:21:14 see you know having a coffee on a sunset
0:21:17 aftermarket maybe with salah and stuff
0:21:19 like that so
0:21:20 you know this this is uh so these things
0:21:24 we don't
0:21:25 any experience it's these things we
0:21:26 can't describe
0:21:28 because the quality is not in the object
0:21:31 yeah it's within our own mind so the
0:21:33 question then becomes well how do i
0:21:35 access the mind now some people say well
0:21:37 as hamza mentioned about this
0:21:38 correlation about how
0:21:40 the brain states tells us you know
0:21:44 if we work out the brain states we can
0:21:46 work out the correlation
0:21:47 yeah and this is very the analogy that
0:21:51 you know strikes home to me is if i had
0:21:54 ones and zeros which are binary code for
0:21:57 computer programs
0:21:58 yeah now there's nothing in the ones and
0:22:01 zeros that tells me what the computer
0:22:03 program
0:22:03 is you need something that occurs
0:22:06 before the computer program and that's
0:22:09 the mind
0:22:10 that's the conscious ability to
0:22:12 interpret the ones and zeros
0:22:14 it's like most code dashes and dots the
0:22:17 dashes and dots are not going to
0:22:18 give me information what's going to give
0:22:20 me information is the fact that i can
0:22:22 interpret
0:22:23 the dashes and dots into a language that
0:22:26 i can understand
0:22:27 so i need a mind before the
0:22:30 signals whether that signals in the
0:22:32 brain you know the action potentials and
0:22:34 the neurons
0:22:35 or whether that is the ones and zeros on
0:22:37 a computer i need something that has the
0:22:39 has already existed separate from
0:22:42 the actual code in order to interpret
0:22:45 the code
0:22:46 and the third example or the third
0:22:48 problem
0:22:49 is even if people are able to point to
0:22:52 and say okay this neuron or these group
0:22:54 of neurons in the brain
0:22:56 if they fire they'll make you perceive
0:22:58 the color purple
0:22:59 yeah but the problem is is that the
0:23:02 ability to say well okay the firing
0:23:04 how does that make it purple it's like
0:23:08 and this is a an example that professor
0:23:10 donald hoffman said
0:23:11 it's like you've got a bottle and you
0:23:13 rub the bottle
0:23:14 yeah you rub the bottle and a genie pops
0:23:17 out
0:23:17 yeah okay fine we rub the bottle yeah
0:23:21 and the genie pops
0:23:22 out every time but you're not going to
0:23:23 say that the bottle is
0:23:25 causative of the genie you're going to
0:23:27 say well this phenomenon is occurring
0:23:29 and i can't
0:23:29 necessarily connect the two yeah and
0:23:32 that's what's happening
0:23:33 because there's a hard problem of
0:23:34 consciousness consciousness
0:23:36 is the inability to you know have the
0:23:39 tools
0:23:40 in science to access it there's nothing
0:23:42 within the properties of the reality
0:23:45 or the brain that tells us how we're
0:23:46 going to experience a reality
0:23:48 and even if we're able to show a
0:23:50 correlation between the
0:23:52 nerves and the neurons in the brain we
0:23:54 still don't have the ability to explain
0:23:57 how this first-person subjective
0:23:59 experience comes about
0:24:10 you