Bernardo Kastrup: Are We Dissociated Alters Of A Universal Mind? Understanding Analytic Idealism

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Good afternoon, Devin.
Bernardo, welcome back, welcome

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back to Mind Body solution.
How are you?

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Good to see you.
Great to see you, man.

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How have you been?
Busy.

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I can imagine.
I mean, but not the last time we

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spoke.
I mean your video has been very

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engaging.
A lot of people have been going

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back and forth in the comments
section.

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I mean, it's been an intriguing
journey to watch.

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Cool.
I spoke to Sue Blackmore, I

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think it was last week and I was
thinking about the the wonderful

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discussion you guys had, the
theolocution with Kurt.

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How was that for you?
Right.

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It was a while ago because it
was published quite a while

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after it was recorded.
I mean, I like Sue.

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I've met her in person a couple
of times.

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So yeah, if you like someone,
it's pleasant to talk.

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I don't think she's an
illusionist at all, because the

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way she defines illusionism is
not what other people call

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illusionism.
But other than that, it I think

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it was a productive engagement.
It was.

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It was.
It was amazing.

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The last time we spoke, we
touched on so many different

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topics.
But now we spoke about Carl

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Young Sharpen, our mental
health, psychiatry, life, death,

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religion.
And to a point where I was

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trying to figure out how do I
approach this conversation?

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How do we do a Part 2 that's
engaging and that the listeners

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and viewers want to watch?
And the conclusion I've drawn is

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let's do a crash course on
analytic idealism.

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And what inspired me, It was
obviously your course with the

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Assentia Foundation.
I mean, brilliant course, well

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structured.
How do you feel about that?

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How do you feel about this
approach?

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Yeah, I'm I'm game.
Let you go for it.

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I'm keen and look, so I've
broken it down into the seven

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chapters and I think we'll move
from chapter to chapter at any

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point.
I feel that there's anything I

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want to clarify or to provide
some new content for the

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listeners.
I think it's a great.

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Opportunity and for you to also
rectify, clarify anything you

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think you might have wanted to
say and and feel like this is

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the perfect opportunity.
Do you want me to rundown the

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seven chapters for you?
Or do you just want to go step

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by step?
Help me out.

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Give me the structure.
OK, so the first question, I

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mean, we'll go through chapters.
The first one will be

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investigating whether our
ordinary intuitions about the

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nature of reality and the world
at large can be true at all.

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Is the world really what it
looks like on the screen of

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perception then on the?
Do you want me to just break it

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down for you?
You want to go let's do it 1 by

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1 so I don't have to push too
many things to my stack before

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it starts popping.
OK, now then, let's do.

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I think, Yeah, let's start off
with that Chapter one.

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So this is the crash course on
analytic idealism for all the

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listers.
So the question is, is the world

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what it what it seems to be?
In the sense that does the world

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contain these forms and shapes
and entities and events that we

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discern on the screen of
perception and the answer is a

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categorical no.
There are many things about

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analytic idealism that are sort
of best guesses guided by reason

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and evidence.
But other things are pretty

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established.
They are, they are just not

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mainstream, yet they didn't
percolate up to the froth of of

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culture.
The world cannot be what it

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seems, in the sense that it
cannot have those shapes and

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forms and events and spatial
temporal positions that we

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discern on the screen of
perception, because for the

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latter to be true, our
interstates would have to mirror

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the external states of the
world.

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But there is no apriori upper
bound to the dispersion or

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entropy or level of disorder of
the states of the world.

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We cannot decree that the world
has an upper bound in entropy.

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So if we were to mirror the
states of the world in our inner

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states, then our inner states
would have no upper bound in

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their entropy and therefore
perceiving the world could be

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deadly.
You could melt into hot meat

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soup because your internal
entropy has to be bound unbound.

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Internal entropy is not
compatible with the life.

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We would become soup literally.
So now our interstates do not

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mirror the world.
Another another line of argument

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is evolution wouldn't have given
us a perceptual apparatus that

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mirrors the states of the world.
It would be confusing.

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It would be information
overload.

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What we want is to be able to
discern the salient aspects of

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the world in an encoded form
that facilitates prompt

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responses to environmental
challenges and also limits our

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internal entropy.
So to summarize it all, the

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world as it is in itself is not
physical, because what we call

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physical are the things we
discern on the screen of

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perception, which are
describable through physical

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quantities such as length in
centimeters, weight in

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kilograms, electric charge in
coulombs, and so on and so

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forth.
But these cannot be the way we

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we would describe the real
states of the world.

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These are descriptions of our
internal cognitive

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representations, not of the
states that they represent.

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The external states.
So the the real external states

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of the real external world are
not physical in the in the sense

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that they are not describable
through physical quantities.

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And then then it raises the
question, are there states that

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are not describable through
physical quantities?

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Obviously.
How many centimeters does does

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your thought have?
How many kilograms does your

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emotion weigh?
What's the electric charging

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coulombs of your of your
depression?

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Your fantasy?
So what?

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The prospect that it raises is
that the external world is

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probably made of what we call
mental states, experiential

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States, and the physical world
is our cognitive inner

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representation of the real
external states of the world.

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Tell me, Bernardo, how how
aligned is this view with?

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Are you familiar with the work
by Jude Caravan and?

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I mean of course you are with
you're not really OK, but with

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Don Hoffman, I mean you know
that your guys idealism theories

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are very similar.
Of course we spoke about this

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before where you separate at the
point where I think he takes

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conscious agents to be
fundamental.

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So you need that human
consciousness element, no?

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So is that not where?
No, no.

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Don doesn't say that humans are
an instance of conscious.

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Agents.
Yeah.

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So, so fundamentally when you
think about the The Pioneers of

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of this thought because Don
obviously wrote about the case

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against reality and your work
also describes, I mean when you

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talk about the fact that we have
this dashboard in terms of the

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use the plane as a common
example and measurement.

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Briefly elaborate on that just
for all the listeners who are

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not familiar with that analogy,
think of an airplane.

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An airplane has sensors that
measure the external states of

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the sky, air pressure, wind
direction, humidity.

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In the case of a weather radar,
it will pick up also all these

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elements but in a more compound
manner.

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So the airplane has sensors.
Now, the results of the

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measurements that are performed
by the airplane's sensors are

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displayed to the pilot on a
dashboard.

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So the states of the dashboard
represent the real states of the

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world outside.
But the dashboard isn't the real

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world outside, that's obvious.
Yet.

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You can fly the plane without a
transparent windscreen.

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You can fly the plane by
instrument alone, because the

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dashboard conveys accurate
information about the states of

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the world without being the
state of the world.

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So the idea here is that our
perception, perception states,

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the colors we see, the sounds we
hear and the the smells we feel,

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the texture on our skin, all
that.

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These are dashboard
representations of the real

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states of the world.
We are airplane pilots that were

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born inside a cockpit without
windows, and all we have ever

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had is the dashboard.
And we come.

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We've come to take the dashboard
for the world, which is

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understandable, but not under
the light of 21st century

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analytic philosophy and science.
Because we should know better

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now than to make what Donald
Hoffman calls a rookie mistake,

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which is my metaphor, to take
the dashboard for the sky.

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One represents the other.
It doesn't mean that the

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representation is the thing
represented.

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Do you ever feel that there
would be a way for us to to get?

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That dashboard to not be our own
main perceptive.

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Reality.
Do you feel like whatever?

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Reach a point where we can
actually see beyond into the

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true nature of reality, whatever
that is, whatever that means.

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Mystics throughout history seem
to claim that that is possible.

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It hasn't been possible to me,
and I'm not sure about the

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analytic coherence of that
claim.

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But I'm open to my ability to
analyze things rationally to to

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be limited.
I mean, why would the nature

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have to conform to the
limitations of a monkey like me,

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a primate that has been running
around with an intellect for

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only about 30,000 years?
I mean, for all I know it may be

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possible.
I think on the basis of reason

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and evidence and not spiritual
introspection and insight.

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I think the dashboard is an
artifact of life.

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The dashboard was constructed by
evolution in the journey that

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life has undertaken on this
planet.

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So if you don't want to have the
dashboard on your way, that time

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is coming because you're going
to die and and once you die,

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this dissociative process in the
mind of nature that we call

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ourselves will no longer be
dissociated.

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Because life is what the
dissociation looks like.

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If there is life, it means there
is dissociation because life is

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the representation.
It's what that dissociation

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looks like.
It's the extrinsic appearance of

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the dissociation.
And the dashboard is an artifact

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of the dissociation because the
dashboard is the panel that

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allows you to have commerce from
external states to internal

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states.
But for there to be external

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versus internal, there has to be
a boundary.

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Otherwise everything is just
outside or everything is just

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inside and there is no boundary
and then there is no dashboard.

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What is that boundary?
That boundary is the

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dissociative boundary is it's
what is.

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It's a cognitive boundary
enforced by the dissociative

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process we call life because it
looks like metabolism when

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represented on another
dashboard.

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So the end of life is the end of
that boundary and therefore it's

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the end of the of the dashboard
and it's the difference between

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perceiving the world and being
the world.

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So to be honest, personally I'm
not in a hurry to get rid of the

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dashboard.
Gee, I'm OK if it takes a while.

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Have you ever thought about what
I mean?

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Evolution obviously provided us
with these tools.

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Hid the truth from our eyes in a
sense.

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Why would you think that is the
case?

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Do you think that there could
have been alternative ways to do

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this?
Do you think that there were

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other options, possibly
available?

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Options to what?
To perceiving reality in a

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different way.
I mean, I think every species

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has a slightly different
dashboard.

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I don't think they are
completely different because of

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convergent evolution.
If doing things one way worked

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out very well for one branch of
the evolutionary chain, chances

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are that other branches will hit
upon that as well.

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And and that will be fixed by
evolution because it works well

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and therefore things will
converge.

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So I don't know that's our
dashboard.

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You know, our screen of
perception is the most optimal

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way to cognitively represent the
external states of the real

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world.
But if it's not that, it's it's

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not a bad way either, otherwise
we wouldn't be here talking

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about it.
So I don't think it's the only

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way.
I think there are conceivably

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almost infinite other ways to
represent the world, but it's a

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way that works.
And I would expect that even

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other species will have similar
dashboards, similar perceptual

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screens, but not identical.
Because yeah, it doesn't need to

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be identical.
Bees see ultraviolet.

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There are species that detect
infrared, Some species have

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Sonic radar, and we don't have
what is it like to be a bat or a

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00:13:26,810 --> 00:13:31,010
dolphin?
So yeah, ours is not.

233
00:13:31,010 --> 00:13:33,850
It's certainly not the only one.
This is certainly not the only

234
00:13:33,850 --> 00:13:38,890
way, but seems to have been good
enough for the past what since

235
00:13:38,890 --> 00:13:43,250
the genus Homo has been around
at 1.8, maybe 2,000,000 years.

236
00:13:45,250 --> 00:13:47,890
When you had, I remember, I
think you once spoke about, I

237
00:13:47,890 --> 00:13:49,450
think you had one psychedelic
trip.

238
00:13:51,050 --> 00:13:53,370
How did your dashboard change at
that point?

239
00:13:53,850 --> 00:13:55,210
We have had several
psychedelics.

240
00:13:56,650 --> 00:13:59,930
In my mid 30s I was writing
about consciousness and I

241
00:13:59,930 --> 00:14:04,490
thought it would be lapsed to
the point of view responsibility

242
00:14:04,490 --> 00:14:07,690
to write about consciousness and
not investigate consciousness

243
00:14:07,770 --> 00:14:10,490
through every Ave. that we know
to be safe.

244
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:15,400
So I did several fairly high
dose psychedelic trips.

245
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:18,840
I am in a country where it's
legal to the point that before I

246
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:23,000
did my first trip I went to my
doctor and I told him what I was

247
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,400
about to do and asked for him to
check me up.

248
00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:29,560
So I had my liver checked, I had
my heart checked, blood pressure

249
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:32,200
and all that good stuff checked
and I was given an okay and then

250
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,840
here we go.
I don't know whether

251
00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:41,420
psychedelics, a psychedelic
trip, is so overwhelmingly rich

252
00:14:41,420 --> 00:14:45,420
and intense that it's very
difficult to make statements

253
00:14:45,420 --> 00:14:52,140
about what the the causality
behind what you are experiencing

254
00:14:52,140 --> 00:14:54,500
is.
Where does that stuff come from?

255
00:14:54,780 --> 00:14:57,820
Is it from outside me?
Is this my own stuff, My own

256
00:14:57,820 --> 00:14:59,700
shit?
The skeletons and my own

257
00:15:00,820 --> 00:15:05,970
cupboard cupboard.
Is it from Aliens?

258
00:15:06,530 --> 00:15:10,970
Is it from another dimension it?
It's virtually impossible to say

259
00:15:10,970 --> 00:15:15,210
this, and and to be honest with
you, I don't think it's very

260
00:15:15,210 --> 00:15:19,690
important either, because the
most baffling thing about the

261
00:15:19,690 --> 00:15:22,890
psychedelic trip is that it
seems to be exactly what you

262
00:15:22,890 --> 00:15:28,490
need, and and where it comes
from is utterly unimportant

263
00:15:28,530 --> 00:15:31,330
because the effect will be the
same.

264
00:15:33,110 --> 00:15:36,270
So I don't know that
psychedelics allow you to see

265
00:15:36,270 --> 00:15:40,670
the world, this world as it is.
Could they do that?

266
00:15:40,670 --> 00:15:46,150
Yeah, I even suspect they might
to some extent do.

267
00:15:46,790 --> 00:15:50,110
But even in that case, even if
they do to some extent allow you

268
00:15:50,110 --> 00:15:53,590
to see our surroundings, as our
surroundings really are.

269
00:15:54,070 --> 00:15:56,550
And there's good reason to think
that they might be doing that

270
00:15:56,550 --> 00:15:58,830
because psychedelics reduce
brain activity.

271
00:15:59,350 --> 00:16:02,070
The chances are that what is
being reduced is in fact the

272
00:16:02,070 --> 00:16:04,950
dissociative process itself.
The dissociative boundary is

273
00:16:04,950 --> 00:16:07,910
being weakened.
So you're taking in things as

274
00:16:07,910 --> 00:16:09,870
they are as opposed to
representing them on a

275
00:16:09,870 --> 00:16:11,910
dashboard.
But I don't think that's the

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00:16:11,910 --> 00:16:16,350
only thing psychedelics do, or
even the main thing, because if

277
00:16:16,350 --> 00:16:19,110
that were the main thing they
do, we could die from a

278
00:16:19,110 --> 00:16:22,270
psychedelic trip because our the
entropy of our Interstate would

279
00:16:22,270 --> 00:16:26,030
be unbound again, you see.
So I I don't think that that's

280
00:16:26,030 --> 00:16:27,950
the only thing is going that
that is going on.

281
00:16:28,390 --> 00:16:32,830
And even to the extent that that
is going on, I think it sort of

282
00:16:33,110 --> 00:16:35,870
gets mixed in with all kinds of
other things.

283
00:16:35,870 --> 00:16:40,190
So it's impossible to make a
statement that that particular

284
00:16:40,190 --> 00:16:42,870
experience that was the world as
it really is.

285
00:16:43,110 --> 00:16:47,110
I personally feel incapable of
making that pronouncement.

286
00:16:48,030 --> 00:16:50,310
I mean so while sticking to this
chapters the moment.

287
00:16:50,730 --> 00:16:54,890
On our intuitions and whether it
is a true reflection of reality,

288
00:16:55,050 --> 00:16:58,650
when people do have these trips
or make certain claims with its

289
00:16:58,650 --> 00:17:01,930
religious psychedelic trips,
spiritual claims, and the way

290
00:17:01,930 --> 00:17:05,770
they link it to idealism, how do
you feel that impacts the field

291
00:17:05,770 --> 00:17:09,050
of analytic idealism, spiritual
claims in general?

292
00:17:12,130 --> 00:17:19,210
I don't have the delusion that I
am in some sense owner of

293
00:17:20,030 --> 00:17:22,150
analytic idealism or even
idealism.

294
00:17:23,589 --> 00:17:29,150
So what people make of it, it's
their own personal freedom and

295
00:17:29,150 --> 00:17:31,150
their own personal
responsibility.

296
00:17:31,510 --> 00:17:35,590
As long as they don't attribute
that to me or attach that to

297
00:17:35,590 --> 00:17:38,910
analytic idealism, as a
pronouncement of analytic

298
00:17:38,910 --> 00:17:42,710
idealism, what they make of it
in their own lives, I think it's

299
00:17:43,230 --> 00:17:46,590
it's it's their business.
It's it's their responsibility.

300
00:17:46,590 --> 00:17:49,760
It's their lives.
The way analytic idealism forms

301
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:54,080
their lives is their own thing.
So long as they don't attribute

302
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:58,760
spiritual claims to analytic
idealism itself, or to me, I

303
00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:02,720
think it's okay.
Okay, great.

304
00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:06,000
So we've touched on that is
reality, what it looks like.

305
00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:08,200
Anything else you want to touch
on regarding our screen of

306
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:10,200
perception and this nature of
reality that?

307
00:18:10,530 --> 00:18:13,130
We find on that okay.
Let's discuss then why

308
00:18:13,130 --> 00:18:16,490
mainstream physicalism in
general fails on all key post

309
00:18:16,490 --> 00:18:20,890
Enlightenment values such as
coherence, internal consistency,

310
00:18:21,050 --> 00:18:25,090
post money, explanatory power
and empirical adequacy.

311
00:18:26,170 --> 00:18:27,730
Okay, let's start with
coherence.

312
00:18:29,970 --> 00:18:33,090
Mainstream physicalism is
internally contradictory,

313
00:18:34,370 --> 00:18:37,810
probably more ways than one.
I will mention one.

314
00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:44,640
Physicalism will say we have
these physical quantities that

315
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:47,720
describe the contents of the
screen of perception.

316
00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,560
So if I lift a heavy piece of
luggage, I can describe that

317
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:58,040
that heaviness that I feel as 50
kilograms, or the lightness of a

318
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:04,400
feather that I feel as 55 grams.
So physicalism starts with the

319
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:08,320
obvious.
We describe the perceived world

320
00:19:09,180 --> 00:19:13,940
through physical quantities.
This is metaphysically neutral

321
00:19:13,940 --> 00:19:17,220
and eminently reasonable.
Galileo started doing this.

322
00:19:18,140 --> 00:19:20,500
But then physicalism makes a
very weird step.

323
00:19:20,540 --> 00:19:24,820
It says, oh, those descriptions,
those physical quantities, they

324
00:19:24,820 --> 00:19:30,460
precede the thing described.
What really exists is not the

325
00:19:30,460 --> 00:19:34,140
feeling of heaviness that I have
when I lift the 50 kilograms

326
00:19:34,140 --> 00:19:36,900
piece of luggage.
What really exists is the 50

327
00:19:36,900 --> 00:19:42,970
kilograms and somehow my feeling
of lifting it arises from the 50

328
00:19:42,970 --> 00:19:47,330
kilograms or is modulated by the
50 kilograms and and the same

329
00:19:47,330 --> 00:19:50,050
thing for everything else.
What really exists are

330
00:19:50,050 --> 00:19:55,770
kilometers, joules, coulons,
seconds, grams and so on and so

331
00:19:55,770 --> 00:19:58,170
forth.
And the things that are

332
00:19:58,170 --> 00:20:02,610
described through these
quantities, they are secondary,

333
00:20:02,610 --> 00:20:05,170
and they arise from the
quantities.

334
00:20:05,950 --> 00:20:08,390
You know, that's that's
eminently incoherent.

335
00:20:08,390 --> 00:20:12,550
It's like saying I can pull the
territory out of the map.

336
00:20:13,030 --> 00:20:16,910
The map which is describes the
territory, precedes the thing

337
00:20:16,910 --> 00:20:19,470
that is described.
The moment you do that, your

338
00:20:19,470 --> 00:20:23,430
descriptions lose their semantic
anchoring, because the lines on

339
00:20:23,430 --> 00:20:26,190
a map only have meaning so far
as you can link them to the

340
00:20:26,190 --> 00:20:28,550
territory.
But if the map precedes the

341
00:20:28,550 --> 00:20:32,870
territory, the lines mean
nothing, and that's what we call

342
00:20:32,870 --> 00:20:34,470
the hard problem of
consciousness.

343
00:20:36,790 --> 00:20:41,670
We cannot derive the territory
out of the map because the map

344
00:20:41,670 --> 00:20:45,910
loses its meaning unless from
the moment zero it's

345
00:20:46,030 --> 00:20:48,310
semantically anchored to the
territory.

346
00:20:48,830 --> 00:20:53,070
So to translate it into real
life, we cannot derive the

347
00:20:53,070 --> 00:20:58,030
sweetness of eating an apple
from the mass charge beam

348
00:20:58,030 --> 00:21:00,710
momentum of the molecules
constituting the apple.

349
00:21:00,950 --> 00:21:04,420
Of course not, for the same
reason that you cannot pull Cape

350
00:21:04,420 --> 00:21:09,460
Town out of the map of Cape
Town, because the map loses its

351
00:21:09,460 --> 00:21:13,100
semantic anchoring the same way
mass charts spin the momentum.

352
00:21:13,220 --> 00:21:16,300
If you say that they precede the
sweetness of the apple, they

353
00:21:16,300 --> 00:21:18,820
lose their semantic anchoring.
In other words, they mean

354
00:21:18,820 --> 00:21:22,420
nothing, and you cannot derive
anything out of something that

355
00:21:22,420 --> 00:21:23,220
doesn't.
Have meaning.

356
00:21:23,220 --> 00:21:26,420
So that was coherence.
What was the next one?

357
00:21:26,620 --> 00:21:33,390
Internal consistency.
Physicalism defines matter, says

358
00:21:33,390 --> 00:21:37,270
that which has nothing to do
with the qualities of

359
00:21:37,270 --> 00:21:41,710
experience, and then tries to
explain the qualities of

360
00:21:41,710 --> 00:21:46,230
experience in terms of matter.
Good luck with that.

361
00:21:49,590 --> 00:21:53,430
I mean that settles it is kind
of tough, but I mean

362
00:21:53,990 --> 00:21:57,190
particularly knowing that a
mainstream physics has.

363
00:21:57,740 --> 00:22:01,500
At so many different revelations
over time and each time we seem

364
00:22:01,500 --> 00:22:05,220
to be more and more confused
about it and and knowing that

365
00:22:05,220 --> 00:22:08,940
matters like 99.9 recurring
percent, we just don't know what

366
00:22:08,940 --> 00:22:10,820
it is.
There should be a clear

367
00:22:10,820 --> 00:22:13,220
indicator so that we really just
don't know what matter is.

368
00:22:14,140 --> 00:22:20,860
The human psychology is such
that the most obvious and

369
00:22:20,940 --> 00:22:26,040
self-evident bullshit gains an
aura of plausibility.

370
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:30,200
If enough people, a long enough
time tell you that it's true,

371
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,520
that's human psychology.
That's very true.

372
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:35,840
Okay.
Let's go into the next one.

373
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:45,480
Parsimony, the one ontological
category that we absolutely know

374
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:49,720
to exist because it precedes
theory, are the qualities of

375
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:52,750
experience, qualitative stuff.
That's how we begin.

376
00:22:52,790 --> 00:22:54,670
That's how we begin experiencing
the world.

377
00:22:54,990 --> 00:22:57,350
That's how all everything
started.

378
00:22:57,630 --> 00:22:59,950
And then we started theorizing
after that.

379
00:22:59,950 --> 00:23:04,070
But it begins with qualities.
Now the most parsimonious

380
00:23:04,070 --> 00:23:08,150
account of reality would be one
that explains reality in terms

381
00:23:08,150 --> 00:23:11,230
of qualities alone.
Not the not only the qualities

382
00:23:11,230 --> 00:23:14,270
you experience, or only the
qualities that that I

383
00:23:14,270 --> 00:23:18,630
experience, but qualities as a
type, as a type of existent.

384
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,320
If we can make sense of nature
in terms of qualities alone,

385
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:24,720
that's the most parsimonious
because it's only grants

386
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,920
existence to the one ontological
category that we know absolutely

387
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:31,000
sure surely to exist because it
precedes theory.

388
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,960
Physicalism, however, postulates
another one.

389
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:38,080
Physicalism postulates another
type of existent that's not

390
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,000
qualitative at all, but can be
exhaustively described in terms

391
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,920
of quantities alone.
Mass, charge, being, momentum,

392
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,210
dramatical relationships, and so
on and so forth that that is

393
00:23:49,210 --> 00:23:53,890
only justified if you can't make
sense of reality, account for

394
00:23:53,890 --> 00:23:56,210
the dynamics of nature in terms
of qualities alone.

395
00:23:56,970 --> 00:23:59,810
If you can't, then okay, you
postulate something else.

396
00:23:59,810 --> 00:24:03,650
But if you can, then postulating
something else violates the

397
00:24:03,650 --> 00:24:07,570
principle of parsimony.
And physicalism does that All we

398
00:24:07,570 --> 00:24:10,770
need to account for nature is
that there are external states

399
00:24:11,130 --> 00:24:15,170
beyond our individual minds.
External qualitative state

400
00:24:16,220 --> 00:24:18,540
experiences that are not mine or
yours.

401
00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:21,500
They are experiences of nature
out there.

402
00:24:21,500 --> 00:24:24,940
These are real external states,
but they can also be

403
00:24:24,940 --> 00:24:26,980
experiential, just like mine and
yours.

404
00:24:27,460 --> 00:24:29,940
In the same sense that my
thoughts are external to you,

405
00:24:30,780 --> 00:24:33,780
but they are still experiential
states.

406
00:24:34,300 --> 00:24:37,420
If you were not around, I would
still be having my thoughts from

407
00:24:37,420 --> 00:24:39,580
your perspective.
They are external and objective,

408
00:24:39,580 --> 00:24:42,420
but in their own nature,
intrinsic nature.

409
00:24:42,660 --> 00:24:45,200
They are subjective and
qualitative, so that's all we

410
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,800
needed to explain nature,
external qualitative states.

411
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:55,600
But physicalism conflates
everything and in postulating

412
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,600
external states.
Outside our minds, it thinks

413
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,200
that those external states
should also be non mental

414
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,080
because anything outside our
minds should be non mental.

415
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,880
Why?
Why the hell?

416
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,280
I mean, my thoughts are mental,
but they are outside your mind.

417
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,120
So from your point of view, if I
tell you well, the black holes

418
00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:20,160
is made, black holes are made of
experiential states.

419
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:24,520
It's entirely analogous to my
thoughts being experiential and

420
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:30,560
outside your minds too, So
that's a grotesque violation of

421
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,610
the principle of parsimony.
Yeah, for the lost, our

422
00:25:34,610 --> 00:25:36,690
explanatory power and empirical
adequacy.

423
00:25:36,690 --> 00:25:38,250
I mean, and a part of it I mean
I wanted.

424
00:25:38,250 --> 00:25:41,170
I wanted to ask you about
certain things like the observer

425
00:25:41,170 --> 00:25:45,010
effect or perhaps even The Big
Bang and how we explain all of

426
00:25:45,010 --> 00:25:47,730
these Using this concept now and
understanding it differently.

427
00:25:49,850 --> 00:25:52,210
I'm not sure what people mean by
the observer effect.

428
00:25:53,010 --> 00:25:55,250
Yeah, because it has to be an
observer and it has to be

429
00:25:55,250 --> 00:25:59,410
separate.
At that point, I don't know how

430
00:25:59,410 --> 00:26:04,140
to map it to to the technical
aspects of of quantum theory,

431
00:26:04,140 --> 00:26:05,660
what people refer to as the
observer.

432
00:26:05,660 --> 00:26:08,620
There's a measurement problem.
That's probably what people mean

433
00:26:08,620 --> 00:26:10,140
by the observer.
In fact, I don't know.

434
00:26:10,820 --> 00:26:12,620
Okay.
So why is physicalism then not

435
00:26:12,620 --> 00:26:17,660
empirically adequate?
Physicalism assumes that what

436
00:26:17,660 --> 00:26:19,620
really exists are physical
states.

437
00:26:19,620 --> 00:26:22,420
In other words, states that can
be exhaustively described

438
00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:27,380
through numbers or quantities
alone, and we call those states

439
00:26:27,380 --> 00:26:28,940
strictly.
Physical states.

440
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,560
If physicalism is correct, then
physical states or physical

441
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,640
entities or physical properties
have standalone existence

442
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,240
because they are supposed to be
the bottom level of reality.

443
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,640
All states, such as mental
states are supposed arise

444
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,240
epiphenomenally from physical
states.

445
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,000
But what really has standal
existence?

446
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,960
In other words, states that do
not depend on anything else to

447
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,600
exist.
Those are physical states.

448
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,360
Physical entities do not depend
on anything non physical to

449
00:26:58,360 --> 00:27:01,530
exist.
They do not depend on processes

450
00:27:01,530 --> 00:27:04,450
to exist because physical
entities at the bottom level of

451
00:27:04,450 --> 00:27:08,530
reality experiments contradict
this.

452
00:27:09,250 --> 00:27:13,090
And there is a series of
experiments which had been going

453
00:27:13,090 --> 00:27:17,050
on about 45 years, and in each
one the Nobel Prize in physics

454
00:27:17,050 --> 00:27:22,130
last year, which shows that if
you have two particles, physical

455
00:27:22,130 --> 00:27:25,410
particles that are entangled and
you shoot one at the speed of

456
00:27:25,410 --> 00:27:27,890
light in One Direction and you
shoot the other in the opposite

457
00:27:27,890 --> 00:27:30,620
direction.
And then after a while, let's

458
00:27:30,620 --> 00:27:34,780
say scientist Alice makes a
measurement on particle A and at

459
00:27:34,780 --> 00:27:38,300
the same time scientist Bob
makes makes a measurement on

460
00:27:38,300 --> 00:27:42,220
particle B and Alice and Bob do
not talk to one another.

461
00:27:42,740 --> 00:27:46,020
It turns out that what Alice
chooses to measure about

462
00:27:46,020 --> 00:27:50,260
particle A determines what Bob
sees when he looks at particle

463
00:27:50,260 --> 00:27:52,700
B.
How can this be if particle A

464
00:27:52,780 --> 00:27:54,660
and B are fundamental?
If they have standalone

465
00:27:54,660 --> 00:27:58,340
existence, they should be
whatever they are, irrespective

466
00:27:58,380 --> 00:28:02,060
of what Alice chooses to
measure, right?

467
00:28:02,420 --> 00:28:05,820
Measurement is supposed to
merely disclose what the

468
00:28:05,820 --> 00:28:08,900
particle already was immediately
prior to measurement.

469
00:28:09,380 --> 00:28:12,060
That's not what turns out to be
the case.

470
00:28:12,060 --> 00:28:15,340
Alice's choice of what's to
measure technically.

471
00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:21,460
For instance, the the axis of
angular momentum, in which you

472
00:28:21,460 --> 00:28:26,140
measure angular momentum.
That choice by Alice determines

473
00:28:26,180 --> 00:28:29,860
100% what Bob sees when he
measures particle B.

474
00:28:29,860 --> 00:28:33,260
How can particle B change and be
something different?

475
00:28:33,580 --> 00:28:37,180
Because of what Alice on the
other side of the universe chose

476
00:28:37,180 --> 00:28:40,100
to measure about particle A.
So what this is telling us is

477
00:28:40,100 --> 00:28:43,020
that physical entities do not
have standalone existence.

478
00:28:43,340 --> 00:28:45,820
Physical entities are a product
of measurement.

479
00:28:46,340 --> 00:28:50,700
They arise from measurement.
The thing that is measured, the

480
00:28:50,700 --> 00:28:53,660
state that is measured in the
1st place, isn't physical.

481
00:28:55,220 --> 00:28:59,460
It can give you a metaphor.
Suppose you you love a foot, you

482
00:28:59,460 --> 00:29:01,300
love football, but you can't go
to the stadium.

483
00:29:01,820 --> 00:29:04,540
So you buy 2 television sets and
you put them in your living room

484
00:29:04,860 --> 00:29:09,420
and you watch the match on both
televisions at the same time and

485
00:29:09,420 --> 00:29:12,580
but on different broadcasters.
Now assume that each

486
00:29:12,580 --> 00:29:15,700
broadcasters, each broadcaster,
has their own cameras in the

487
00:29:15,700 --> 00:29:18,100
stadium.
So the images on the two

488
00:29:18,100 --> 00:29:20,660
televisions will not be the same
because they are produced by

489
00:29:20,660 --> 00:29:24,180
different cameras, but they will
be completely correlated.

490
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,360
Because they're images of the
same football match.

491
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,200
Now, if a time traveler from the
19th century, you were next to

492
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,600
you watching this in your living
room, the time traveler would be

493
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:38,280
discombobulated, flabbergasted.
How do the little man inside the

494
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:43,720
box to the left can run exactly
in synchronicity with the little

495
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,600
man on the inside, the box to
the right, without communicating

496
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,560
the boxer separate?
How do the little man on the

497
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,120
left know what to do based on
what the little man to the

498
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:54,260
right?
Are doing.

499
00:29:54,460 --> 00:29:57,900
The mistake our time traveler
does is to confuse the

500
00:29:57,900 --> 00:30:01,780
appearance, the image of a
phenomenon, the representation

501
00:30:01,780 --> 00:30:04,940
of a phenomenon, for the
phenomenon itself.

502
00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:08,180
The time traveler thinks that
there are real little man inside

503
00:30:08,180 --> 00:30:11,700
the two boxes.
He doesn't understand that those

504
00:30:11,700 --> 00:30:15,980
images are just that, images of
something else, of of a reality.

505
00:30:15,980 --> 00:30:17,820
But that's reality is in the
stadium.

506
00:30:18,620 --> 00:30:21,900
What you see on the television
are just appearances thereof.

507
00:30:22,450 --> 00:30:25,330
And the appearances are
synchronized because they are

508
00:30:25,330 --> 00:30:27,010
both appearances of the same
thing.

509
00:30:27,410 --> 00:30:30,850
Now, what the Alice and Bob
experiment tells us is that what

510
00:30:30,890 --> 00:30:35,770
Alice sees and what Bob sees,
the particles they measure, they

511
00:30:35,770 --> 00:30:37,770
are the images on the television
screen.

512
00:30:38,490 --> 00:30:41,370
And Bob's measurements are
completely correlated with

513
00:30:41,410 --> 00:30:45,370
Alice's measurements, just for
the same reason that the images

514
00:30:45,370 --> 00:30:47,890
on the two television screens
are correlated with one another.

515
00:30:48,090 --> 00:30:51,410
In other words, the particles
are not the thing in itself.

516
00:30:51,860 --> 00:30:55,700
The particle is the appearance
that arises upon measurement

517
00:30:55,700 --> 00:30:58,460
when the cameras shoot A-frame
in the stadium.

518
00:30:59,180 --> 00:31:03,620
That's why they're synchronized.
They are both frames of the same

519
00:31:03,620 --> 00:31:07,180
underlying reality and the clue
that that's on the underlying

520
00:31:07,180 --> 00:31:14,100
reality is the same is the word
entanglement and and we have to

521
00:31:14,100 --> 00:31:17,540
part with this notion that when
we make a measurement and we see

522
00:31:17,540 --> 00:31:20,100
a particle.
That the particle was the thing

523
00:31:20,100 --> 00:31:20,860
measured.
No.

524
00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:22,980
The particle is the image on the
television screen.

525
00:31:23,260 --> 00:31:25,940
The thing measured.
Measured isn't a particle.

526
00:31:25,940 --> 00:31:28,700
It isn't physical.
It isn't exhaustively

527
00:31:28,700 --> 00:31:30,620
describable through physical
quantities.

528
00:31:30,940 --> 00:31:33,700
It is almost certainly a mental
state.

529
00:31:33,900 --> 00:31:36,660
Not in your mind or my mind or
my mind.

530
00:31:37,020 --> 00:31:39,860
A mental state out there in
nature at large.

531
00:31:40,940 --> 00:31:42,380
I mean, you spoke about
entanglement.

532
00:31:42,380 --> 00:31:45,460
And I mean, I'm just thinking
about, you mentioned that Nobel

533
00:31:45,460 --> 00:31:47,260
Prize.
And when you think about Nobel

534
00:31:47,260 --> 00:31:49,860
prizes, they're usually given to
settled sciences.

535
00:31:49,860 --> 00:31:52,500
So when when something is
settled you get the prize.

536
00:31:53,180 --> 00:31:55,420
I was just discussing the other
day how Einstein never got the

537
00:31:55,700 --> 00:32:00,060
Nobel Prize for the for
relativity, rather for for the

538
00:32:00,060 --> 00:32:03,500
photoelectric effect.
Rather than that and but more

539
00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:05,700
and more there's a growing body
of evidence that seems to be

540
00:32:05,700 --> 00:32:11,420
showing us just how in true this
non locality actually is the

541
00:32:11,420 --> 00:32:15,660
fact that something that happens
here is can happen 12.8 billion.

542
00:32:16,270 --> 00:32:20,070
Light years away, how do you
feel that these new physical

543
00:32:20,070 --> 00:32:24,070
data, well, we'll call it
physical data for now, actually

544
00:32:24,070 --> 00:32:27,750
provides more evidence for your
claim rather than for for the

545
00:32:27,750 --> 00:32:31,790
physicals out there.
The Nobel Prize tends to be

546
00:32:31,790 --> 00:32:35,870
given to discoveries that have
meaningfully and positively

547
00:32:35,870 --> 00:32:39,310
impacted human life, so that's
something to keep in mind.

548
00:32:39,670 --> 00:32:42,470
Even the Nobel Prize last was
given to those scientists

549
00:32:42,830 --> 00:32:45,630
because of quantum communication
and quantum encryption.

550
00:32:46,510 --> 00:32:49,630
In other words, it tends to
focus on the applications rather

551
00:32:49,630 --> 00:32:53,990
than the raw theory, which is
one of the reasons why there is

552
00:32:53,990 --> 00:32:58,710
Nobel Prize in mathematics.
You wait until it's applied by

553
00:32:58,710 --> 00:33:02,110
engineering and then you get the
Nobel Prize in engineering of

554
00:33:02,110 --> 00:33:04,550
physics, and then you get the
Nobel Prize somewhere else.

555
00:33:04,830 --> 00:33:07,870
In mathematics there is the
Feuds medal, which is something

556
00:33:08,350 --> 00:33:15,430
different but just as important.
Look, it it There is no question

557
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,080
that these new scientific
results, which are not only

558
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:22,040
foundations of physics like we
talked about, but also also in

559
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:24,680
the neuroscience of
consciousness, we've known for

560
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,080
10 years now, and this result
has been repeated at nauseam,

561
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,600
that the psychedelics only
reduce brain activity.

562
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:33,960
They don't increase brain
activity anywhere beyond

563
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:39,440
measurement error.
That's also not what physicalist

564
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,840
intuitions would expect.
There is no question that these

565
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,350
results are not what the
physical intuition would would

566
00:33:48,350 --> 00:33:52,350
expect.
But what happens is, and this is

567
00:33:52,390 --> 00:33:55,470
nothing new, this has been the
case throughout the history of

568
00:33:55,470 --> 00:33:58,630
science, and if you want to know
about it, read a wonderful

569
00:33:58,630 --> 00:34:02,350
little book called The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions

570
00:34:02,510 --> 00:34:06,070
written in 1969, I believe the
3rd edition, which is the one

571
00:34:06,070 --> 00:34:11,469
you should read.
What's happening now is what has

572
00:34:11,469 --> 00:34:13,429
happened many times before in
history.

573
00:34:15,730 --> 00:34:20,290
A certain metaphysics, a certain
worldview, a certain paradigm,

574
00:34:20,330 --> 00:34:25,330
which is the word used in that
book, resists evidence that

575
00:34:26,010 --> 00:34:30,570
contradicted, and it keeps on
resisting that evidence until it

576
00:34:30,570 --> 00:34:36,010
becomes completely untenable.
And so there are two conditions.

577
00:34:36,010 --> 00:34:37,770
One, it becomes completely
untenable.

578
00:34:37,770 --> 00:34:41,409
You run out of excuses.
And two, you have to have an

579
00:34:41,409 --> 00:34:48,130
alternative that is viable.
You never abandon A paradigm or

580
00:34:48,130 --> 00:34:52,770
a metaphysics or a worldview
just because it is untenable.

581
00:34:53,530 --> 00:34:58,770
Human psychology sticks to what
it knows isn't true until it has

582
00:34:58,770 --> 00:35:00,970
an alternative that looks more
appetizing.

583
00:35:01,930 --> 00:35:07,210
So these two conditions have to
be fulfilled and and the

584
00:35:07,210 --> 00:35:12,240
alternative cannot be something
that you finds in in the book

585
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,840
after you devoured an enormous
library for for 10 years.

586
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:19,880
It cannot be hidden.
It has to be in your face.

587
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,720
It has to be talked about, it
has to be known, it has to be

588
00:35:23,720 --> 00:35:28,920
common knowledge in a culture.
And analytic idealism, more

589
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:32,480
idealism in general, has not
achieved that status yet.

590
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:38,830
There are a surprising number of
academics who do not understand

591
00:35:38,830 --> 00:35:41,470
idealism.
They mix it up with solipsism.

592
00:35:42,110 --> 00:35:44,830
They mix it up with upon
experientialism.

593
00:35:46,030 --> 00:35:52,550
It's a catastrophe of ignorance,
so that the one that first

594
00:35:52,630 --> 00:35:57,390
criterion is not yet met, but
the second one is also not met,

595
00:35:57,870 --> 00:36:02,390
which is We haven't run out of
excuses yet, and our tolerance

596
00:36:02,430 --> 00:36:07,590
for absurd excuses has increased
a lot because of science

597
00:36:07,590 --> 00:36:12,350
fiction.
We have become trained by

598
00:36:12,350 --> 00:36:16,350
mainstream science science
fiction to completely abandon

599
00:36:16,350 --> 00:36:18,390
our natural sense of
plausibility.

600
00:36:19,390 --> 00:36:23,110
Think of series like Black
Mirror and stuff like that.

601
00:36:23,110 --> 00:36:27,910
You know you can upload your
consciousness to a computer and

602
00:36:27,950 --> 00:36:35,530
and I mean egregious nonsense or
the evaration view of

603
00:36:36,450 --> 00:36:38,690
multiverses.
There are many multiverse

604
00:36:38,730 --> 00:36:42,490
theories, some of which are
quite reasonable, but this

605
00:36:42,490 --> 00:36:46,170
particular one is egregious as
well, which is no.

606
00:36:46,170 --> 00:36:50,170
The way we explain how Alice and
Bob's measurements are

607
00:36:50,170 --> 00:36:53,490
correlated is that everything
that can happen actually does

608
00:36:53,490 --> 00:36:55,050
happen, just in a parallel
universe.

609
00:36:55,690 --> 00:36:58,570
Congratulations, you just found
a way.

610
00:36:58,900 --> 00:37:02,820
To accept anything, Any kind of
bullshit that doesn't violate

611
00:37:02,820 --> 00:37:06,860
first principles can now be
accepted on the basis of this.

612
00:37:06,860 --> 00:37:13,740
But look, from the moment my
mouth started open when I said

613
00:37:13,740 --> 00:37:20,060
the last word, countless
gazillions of physical universes

614
00:37:20,340 --> 00:37:24,140
as big as this one have popped
into existence out of nothing

615
00:37:24,140 --> 00:37:27,080
for no reason.
For which we have precisely 0

616
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:33,280
empirical evidence.
We now accept this as plausible.

617
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,560
Now there are YouTube videos
from respectable channels like

618
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,720
Veritasium, let's say.
Well, this is probably true.

619
00:37:40,720 --> 00:37:45,520
I mean, you you you have to hang
your rationality at the door

620
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,440
when you come into a room before
you say you say that.

621
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:54,000
But we have legitimized nonsense
through science fiction.

622
00:37:54,580 --> 00:37:58,180
Which has given enormous scope
for excuses.

623
00:37:58,780 --> 00:38:03,500
So it allows people to say,
well, those experiments that

624
00:38:03,500 --> 00:38:07,300
just won the Nobel Prize, they
don't mean actually that

625
00:38:07,300 --> 00:38:09,740
physical entities do not have
standalone existence.

626
00:38:09,940 --> 00:38:13,460
You know why?
Because there are these hidden

627
00:38:13,460 --> 00:38:16,460
variables in nature that are
global.

628
00:38:16,620 --> 00:38:18,260
They are spread across space and
time.

629
00:38:18,260 --> 00:38:21,820
They are everywhere.
And and they do exactly what

630
00:38:21,820 --> 00:38:23,980
needs to be done for us to
continue to believe in

631
00:38:23,980 --> 00:38:26,020
physicalism.
Oh, but how?

632
00:38:26,540 --> 00:38:28,500
Oh, we have no idea.
Okay.

633
00:38:28,740 --> 00:38:32,300
What are those hidden variables?
Can you at least theoretically

634
00:38:32,300 --> 00:38:36,420
define them?
No, we we define them in terms

635
00:38:36,420 --> 00:38:38,900
of what they need to do so we
can continue to believe in

636
00:38:38,900 --> 00:38:41,020
physicalism.
Is there any evidence for these

637
00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:44,300
hidden variables?
No, not an iota.

638
00:38:44,820 --> 00:38:47,500
Yeah, Okay.
I mean, this is worse than

639
00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:49,530
religion.
It is.

640
00:38:50,170 --> 00:38:55,010
It's much worse than religion,
because in religion you at least

641
00:38:55,330 --> 00:39:01,130
are basing your faith in some
state, like your intuitions.

642
00:39:01,850 --> 00:39:05,730
Some it's you're basing it in
some state, in something, in

643
00:39:05,730 --> 00:39:11,010
something that comes across as
substantial in some way.

644
00:39:11,820 --> 00:39:15,780
But this is based on nothing.
This is based on trying to make

645
00:39:15,780 --> 00:39:19,500
nature fit your theory as
opposed to making your theory

646
00:39:19,540 --> 00:39:23,060
fit in nature.
Unfortunately, we this is

647
00:39:23,060 --> 00:39:26,980
widespread, so we are nowhere
near running out of excuses

648
00:39:27,340 --> 00:39:32,340
because we've now been.
We've grown in our culture to

649
00:39:32,340 --> 00:39:34,900
accept tremendous
implausibility.

650
00:39:35,380 --> 00:39:38,820
As something may be the case.
It's probably true.

651
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:42,460
Multiverse is probably true.
Multiple.

652
00:39:44,140 --> 00:39:46,940
Yeah, there's a lot of those.
OK, so chapter two, I think.

653
00:39:46,940 --> 00:39:49,980
Look, so physicalism, we've,
we've concluded, We've spoken

654
00:39:49,980 --> 00:39:52,860
about why that failed and all
those post Enlightenment values.

655
00:39:53,020 --> 00:39:55,140
Anything else about physicalism
you want to touch on, Bernardo?

656
00:39:55,540 --> 00:39:57,140
Anything else you like?
Let's go.

657
00:39:57,500 --> 00:39:58,500
Yeah.
Chapter 3.

658
00:39:58,500 --> 00:39:59,980
Right.
Let's investigate.

659
00:39:59,980 --> 00:40:01,460
Now we'll move on to the next
one.

660
00:40:01,460 --> 00:40:03,420
I mean, this one is something I
know you're very passionate

661
00:40:03,420 --> 00:40:06,260
about, talking about as well.
Let's investigate the insoluble

662
00:40:06,260 --> 00:40:08,860
problems of constitutive pan
psychism.

663
00:40:09,230 --> 00:40:12,590
Fashionable metaphysics
postulates consciousness to be a

664
00:40:12,630 --> 00:40:16,630
fundamental property of matter.
But let's first look at the

665
00:40:16,630 --> 00:40:19,270
differences.
What idealism says is that

666
00:40:19,350 --> 00:40:24,870
everything is mental state, not
your mental states alone, or my

667
00:40:24,870 --> 00:40:27,270
mental states alone.
Mental states at large.

668
00:40:27,390 --> 00:40:30,270
Everything's a mental state.
Physical states are

669
00:40:30,270 --> 00:40:33,110
representations of mental states
upon measurement.

670
00:40:33,710 --> 00:40:37,310
But even the physical states are
mental because the contents of

671
00:40:37,310 --> 00:40:40,910
the screen of perception, the
things we see here, touch feel.

672
00:40:41,270 --> 00:40:46,070
They're experiential as well.
So we have mental states

673
00:40:46,070 --> 00:40:47,630
representing other mental
states.

674
00:40:47,830 --> 00:40:52,310
All there is is mental state.
Matter is a mental

675
00:40:52,310 --> 00:40:54,910
representation of other mental
states.

676
00:40:56,030 --> 00:40:58,990
Pen psychism is not like that.
Pen psych.

677
00:40:59,150 --> 00:41:03,070
Pen psychism says what really
exists is matter.

678
00:41:03,820 --> 00:41:06,620
And matter has physical
properties that are not mental,

679
00:41:06,660 --> 00:41:08,540
such as mass, charge, being
momentum.

680
00:41:09,180 --> 00:41:12,780
But in addition to having
physical properties, matter also

681
00:41:12,780 --> 00:41:15,780
has mental properties that are
fundamental and irreducible.

682
00:41:16,220 --> 00:41:22,860
So mass, charge, momentum, and
experience, Still an experience

683
00:41:22,860 --> 00:41:26,700
is now seen either as a property
of matter or as the intrinsic

684
00:41:26,700 --> 00:41:29,540
nature of matter.
In this latter case, it comes

685
00:41:29,540 --> 00:41:31,660
closer to idealism, but not
much.

686
00:41:32,150 --> 00:41:35,590
Because even if experience is
the intrinsic nature of matter,

687
00:41:35,990 --> 00:41:39,870
the structure of reality is
still the structure of matter,

688
00:41:39,870 --> 00:41:42,350
the structure we perceive on the
screen of perception.

689
00:41:42,750 --> 00:41:46,190
In other words, reality is still
made of tiny little particles

690
00:41:46,190 --> 00:41:49,670
that come together to form
bigger physical arrangements and

691
00:41:49,670 --> 00:41:53,390
bigger consciousnesses, because
the mental state somehow are

692
00:41:53,390 --> 00:41:56,510
supposed to combine with one
another until giving giving rise

693
00:41:56,510 --> 00:41:59,590
to.
What it feels like to be us a

694
00:41:59,590 --> 00:42:02,310
combination of the mental states
of every every subatomic

695
00:42:02,310 --> 00:42:04,470
particle in our brains.
Something like this.

696
00:42:05,070 --> 00:42:09,710
So constitutive pensychism is
different from idealism.

697
00:42:09,710 --> 00:42:12,750
Now why is constitutive
pensychism obviously wrong?

698
00:42:13,230 --> 00:42:16,710
There are many reasons.
I I will mention one reason and

699
00:42:16,710 --> 00:42:20,270
then I will try to dissect the
intuition behind pensychism.

700
00:42:20,270 --> 00:42:22,510
So you even drop that motivation
to begin with.

701
00:42:22,950 --> 00:42:25,670
But first, one empirical reason
Pensychism.

702
00:42:26,530 --> 00:42:30,970
Assumes that at the bottom level
of nature, according to modern

703
00:42:30,970 --> 00:42:34,570
physics, there are subatomic
particles, In other words,

704
00:42:35,370 --> 00:42:38,690
discrete little.
Building blocks with spatial

705
00:42:38,690 --> 00:42:43,490
boundaries that form structure
by the way they either split

706
00:42:43,490 --> 00:42:47,810
apart or come together.
This is incredibly naive.

707
00:42:47,810 --> 00:42:52,250
This would have been acceptable
in physics in the up to the mid

708
00:42:52,250 --> 00:42:56,560
1920s.
But by the late 1940s, we've

709
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:01,920
known better when physicists and
and by this what I mean is

710
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,640
highenergy physicists or or
theoretical physicists working

711
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,520
foundations of physics because
you know we have solid-state

712
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:11,560
physicists and applied
physicists applied physics guys

713
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:16,480
and they they tend to make the
same mistake they because it's a

714
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:19,520
model that works in practice.
Let's think of nature as

715
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:24,770
gazillions of little bricks but.
We know that's not the case

716
00:43:24,970 --> 00:43:27,690
because since the advent of
quantum field theory in the late

717
00:43:27,690 --> 00:43:31,970
40s, well, that was quantum
electrodynamics by Feynman.

718
00:43:31,970 --> 00:43:38,050
And then that was extrapolated
not only to electromagnetism but

719
00:43:38,050 --> 00:43:40,770
to all the other families of
particles.

720
00:43:41,370 --> 00:43:42,890
So now we have quantum field
theory.

721
00:43:43,690 --> 00:43:47,050
We know that what we call
particles, we use the word as a

722
00:43:47,050 --> 00:43:49,370
metaphor.
Particles are like.

723
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,560
Ripples, Excitations of
underlying quantum fields.

724
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,480
A ripple on a lake can be
characterized through physical

725
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:01,680
quantities.
A ripple has a certain height,

726
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:07,480
has a certain speed, a direction
of movement, a certain width and

727
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,280
breadth.
But that doesn't mean that the

728
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,240
ripple is something other than
the lake.

729
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:14,400
The ripple is a doing of the
lake.

730
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,400
You cannot fish the ripple out
of the lake.

731
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:18,440
The ripple is something the lake
does.

732
00:44:19,020 --> 00:44:21,140
There is only the lake.
There are no ripples.

733
00:44:21,900 --> 00:44:25,700
You see what I mean?
In exactly the same way there

734
00:44:25,700 --> 00:44:28,140
are only the quantum fields.
There are no elementary

735
00:44:28,140 --> 00:44:31,180
subatomic particles.
And yet we talk about the

736
00:44:31,180 --> 00:44:33,420
properties of elementary
subatomic particles.

737
00:44:33,660 --> 00:44:36,260
Spin, charge, Momentum.
Yeah, just like the ripple has a

738
00:44:36,260 --> 00:44:38,380
certain height, speed, the
direction of movement.

739
00:44:38,740 --> 00:44:41,140
It doesn't mean that there is
anything to particles other than

740
00:44:41,140 --> 00:44:44,260
the underlying quantum field.
There are only quantum fields

741
00:44:44,260 --> 00:44:45,820
and they are not spatially
bound.

742
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,720
They they, they do not have
spatial boundaries.

743
00:44:48,720 --> 00:44:51,080
They cut across the entire
universe.

744
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,720
And and this is true in very
significant ways, because

745
00:44:56,720 --> 00:44:59,800
without it we could not explain
a great many things.

746
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:01,960
For instance, for instance, we
could not explain particle

747
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,360
interactions, which is how I
grew up.

748
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,560
You know, my first job was at
CERN, and CERN is about the

749
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:10,640
experimental study of particle
interactions.

750
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,840
We use a Collider to make
particles interact.

751
00:45:16,630 --> 00:45:22,030
When particles interact, they
produce other particles that

752
00:45:22,590 --> 00:45:26,630
were not part of them.
For instance, when you produce a

753
00:45:26,630 --> 00:45:31,510
Higgs boson in the Atlas
experiment at CERN, that Higgs

754
00:45:31,510 --> 00:45:36,150
boson decays into particles that
were not part of the Higgs

755
00:45:36,150 --> 00:45:38,030
boson, and that's what we
measured.

756
00:45:38,030 --> 00:45:39,430
You can never measure the Higgs
boson.

757
00:45:39,430 --> 00:45:42,230
It decays too quickly before it
interacts with any measurement

758
00:45:42,230 --> 00:45:43,310
surface.
So.

759
00:45:44,130 --> 00:45:48,050
One of the possibilities is that
the Higgs boson decays into two

760
00:45:48,050 --> 00:45:52,450
muons, or heavy electrons, but
the Higgs boson is not made of

761
00:45:52,450 --> 00:45:55,370
two muons.
There aren't muons inside the

762
00:45:55,370 --> 00:45:58,290
Higgs boson.
And yet somehow the Higgs boson,

763
00:45:58,290 --> 00:46:01,930
when it ceases to exist, 2 muons
appear, and that's what we

764
00:46:01,930 --> 00:46:04,170
measured.
How do you explain that?

765
00:46:04,730 --> 00:46:07,530
Well, you cannot explain it
without Quantum Feud theory,

766
00:46:08,210 --> 00:46:12,210
because the Muon was a certain
ripple, and that ripple decayed

767
00:46:12,210 --> 00:46:15,620
into two other ripples.
And that's all there is to it.

768
00:46:15,620 --> 00:46:18,980
There were there was never Higgs
boson, there were never 2 muons.

769
00:46:19,180 --> 00:46:22,580
There were patterns of
excitation of underlying quantum

770
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:26,980
fields which decay and become a
take on different patterns.

771
00:46:27,380 --> 00:46:30,820
A ripple can decay and become
lower in height, longer in

772
00:46:30,820 --> 00:46:35,900
breath, and reduce speed.
That's why particles decay into

773
00:46:35,900 --> 00:46:39,100
other particles.
Or another thing that you cannot

774
00:46:39,100 --> 00:46:41,300
explain without quantum field
theory unless you.

775
00:46:41,820 --> 00:46:43,980
You you are prepared to accept
magic.

776
00:46:44,340 --> 00:46:47,820
It's quantum fluctuations.
You know, the spontaneous

777
00:46:48,100 --> 00:46:50,860
appearance and disappearance of
elementary particles in a

778
00:46:50,860 --> 00:46:54,220
complete vacuum.
I mean, this is bloody magic.

779
00:46:54,220 --> 00:46:57,060
If you think particles that are
little bricks, little bricks,

780
00:46:57,300 --> 00:47:00,260
boom, pop into existence and
little bricks, boom, pop out of

781
00:47:00,260 --> 00:47:02,900
existence, no, that's not what's
happening.

782
00:47:03,020 --> 00:47:06,780
What's happening?
Are the the the unavoidable

783
00:47:07,260 --> 00:47:10,440
noise?
Or the unavoidable excitation on

784
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,480
the surface of a lake.
If you look even a very calm

785
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:16,640
lake, if you look at it with a
magnifying glass, you see there

786
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:19,560
are tiny little ripples
appearing and disappearing

787
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:22,400
everywhere.
The same thing on the fabric of

788
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:24,320
reality.
And that's quantum fluctuations.

789
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:25,800
I mean, I could.
I could go.

790
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,400
On and on.
There are no bloody particles,

791
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,520
There are only feuds.
Feuds are not spatially unbound.

792
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:35,720
Therefore, insofar as
constitutive pen psychism

793
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,990
assumes very naively.
That the elementary building,

794
00:47:39,990 --> 00:47:43,310
lots of nature of particles,
which it does for it to be able

795
00:47:43,310 --> 00:47:45,510
to work.
It's just wrong.

796
00:47:46,230 --> 00:47:50,910
This is not a philosophical
opinion, this is a scientific

797
00:47:50,910 --> 00:47:55,390
bloody fact.
The whole thing is based on a

798
00:47:55,390 --> 00:48:00,990
surprising ignorance of, we
could say, modern physics, but

799
00:48:00,990 --> 00:48:05,040
it's by now a century old.
I mean it's not even really very

800
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:08,880
modern anymore.
For the past 50 years we've been

801
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,680
trying to go beyond quantum
field theory and fold gravity

802
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:15,240
into it.
I mean that quantum field theory

803
00:48:15,240 --> 00:48:16,760
is right.
I mean it's the most successful

804
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:18,280
theory in the history of
mankind.

805
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:22,360
So yeah, it's Pennzac is is
wrong.

806
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,280
Now let's explore the intuition
behind it.

807
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,480
Sorry for the long winded user.
Go ahead.

808
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,880
I mean, this is this is
literally your opportunity to do

809
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,640
that.
The intuition.

810
00:48:33,470 --> 00:48:37,950
Behind Penn psychism is that we
are compound beings.

811
00:48:38,510 --> 00:48:42,830
We are made of discreet little
cells, billions of them.

812
00:48:43,790 --> 00:48:46,750
Therefore our minds should be
compound as well.

813
00:48:47,190 --> 00:48:51,070
Our consciousness should also be
made of a combination of

814
00:48:51,350 --> 00:48:53,390
kazillions of little
consciousnesses.

815
00:48:53,990 --> 00:48:57,390
Our subjectivity should be made
of the combination of kazillions

816
00:48:57,390 --> 00:49:00,870
of little subjectivities,
because, after all, we are

817
00:49:00,870 --> 00:49:03,810
compound.
So should our consciousness be

818
00:49:03,810 --> 00:49:06,770
compound, ergo constitutive and
psychism?

819
00:49:07,650 --> 00:49:09,770
Now this makes all kinds of
mistakes.

820
00:49:10,130 --> 00:49:13,650
The first one, which I would
just mention without going in

821
00:49:13,650 --> 00:49:18,090
depth, is it mistakes the
structure of what is represented

822
00:49:18,090 --> 00:49:22,010
on the screen of perception for
the structure of the perceiver.

823
00:49:23,250 --> 00:49:27,530
It's like mistaking the
pixelation of my screen for

824
00:49:27,530 --> 00:49:34,000
pixelation of my subjectivity.
Particles or elementary

825
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,200
subatomic processes, they are
the pixels of the screen of

826
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:42,720
perception, not necessarily the
the structure of the perceiver.

827
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,080
But you say, well you are a
perceiver and if I would look at

828
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:51,480
your body with a big magnifying
glass, I would see that it's

829
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,400
made of little pixels, little
subatomic particles.

830
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,280
And no, no, my body is not my
subjectivity, my body.

831
00:49:58,810 --> 00:50:01,730
Is the appearance of my
subjectivity on a screen of

832
00:50:01,730 --> 00:50:05,050
perception, My body is itself a
representation.

833
00:50:05,050 --> 00:50:08,970
It's what my subjectivity looks
like on the screen of perception

834
00:50:08,970 --> 00:50:12,570
that we call the physical world.
So that pixelation you're seeing

835
00:50:12,570 --> 00:50:15,010
is the pixelation of the
representation of my

836
00:50:15,010 --> 00:50:17,490
subjectivity, not necessarily of
the subject.

837
00:50:17,970 --> 00:50:21,650
So that's one error.
The other error is more subtle,

838
00:50:21,650 --> 00:50:23,370
so I won't spend a little more
time with it.

839
00:50:25,370 --> 00:50:29,270
It's this very notion.
That we are actually assembled

840
00:50:29,270 --> 00:50:35,310
together by a number of cells.
If we look at the grown human

841
00:50:35,310 --> 00:50:37,350
body, yes, you'll find lots of
cells.

842
00:50:37,750 --> 00:50:40,990
And then you may confuse it with
a car, because a car is also

843
00:50:40,990 --> 00:50:44,510
made of parts.
We are made of parts cells, the

844
00:50:44,510 --> 00:50:47,510
cars made of parts.
What you have to remember is how

845
00:50:47,510 --> 00:50:50,430
the car came to being and how a
human being came to be.

846
00:50:51,030 --> 00:50:55,110
A car was assembled, parts were
brought together from different

847
00:50:55,110 --> 00:50:58,810
places And then.
Welded together or boated

848
00:50:58,810 --> 00:51:05,010
together to form a car, our car
truly is a compound entity, but

849
00:51:05,010 --> 00:51:11,210
we are not.
We were not formed by kazillions

850
00:51:11,210 --> 00:51:15,010
of little cells crawling towards
one another on the ground and

851
00:51:15,010 --> 00:51:18,090
then piling up on top of one
another until, hey, you're a

852
00:51:18,090 --> 00:51:20,010
human being.
That's not how it happened.

853
00:51:20,010 --> 00:51:23,570
We grew, we were not assembled.
And if you look at growth?

854
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,920
Immediately after affecting and
you know that of course better

855
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:34,160
than than most people are
hearing, the the, the, the egg,

856
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:38,400
the the, the fertilized egg is a
single cell.

857
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,360
It's not a compound Organism.
It's 1 cell.

858
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:46,120
Three days later it's eight
cells.

859
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:50,800
But if you look at it, you
realize that those eight cells

860
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:54,070
is just.
A linguistic way to say that the

861
00:51:54,070 --> 00:51:59,790
original zygote or the original
egg fertilized developed in

862
00:51:59,790 --> 00:52:05,870
their structure.
Our cells are not part, they are

863
00:52:06,550 --> 00:52:11,390
a kind of self similar or
fractal in their structuring of

864
00:52:11,390 --> 00:52:16,070
the original zygote.
In other words, I am still that

865
00:52:16,070 --> 00:52:19,710
zygote that was in the womb of
my mother nine months before I

866
00:52:19,710 --> 00:52:23,010
was born.
It's just that that Zygot got

867
00:52:23,010 --> 00:52:27,650
bigger and created internal
differentiation in a self

868
00:52:27,650 --> 00:52:30,570
similar way.
So it started as a cell.

869
00:52:30,890 --> 00:52:34,410
So it's internal differentiation
has the shape of guess what

870
00:52:34,410 --> 00:52:38,290
cells.
Because it it was a cell it only

871
00:52:38,290 --> 00:52:41,130
knew how to be a cell.
So it's internal differentiation

872
00:52:41,130 --> 00:52:43,690
is cell like.
There's nothing really

873
00:52:43,770 --> 00:52:45,930
counterintuitive or surprising
about this.

874
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:51,440
We are as unitary and non
compound as adults as we were

875
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:54,720
when we were a one day old
zygote in the warm of our

876
00:52:54,720 --> 00:52:58,000
mothers is just that.
It's a big and highly in

877
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,240
internally differentiated
zygote.

878
00:53:00,240 --> 00:53:04,200
Right now we are not compound,
so that very intuition behind

879
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:09,960
pen psychism is wrong because it
naively presupposes that we were

880
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,200
formed by kazillions of cells
crawling towards one another and

881
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,840
piling up on on top of one
another to make us.

882
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:18,600
No, sorry, that's not how it
worked.

883
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,480
And the clue to it is that every
cell has the same genome.

884
00:53:23,720 --> 00:53:25,960
That's the physical clue that we
are not compound.

885
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,240
And tell me, Bernardo, why do
you think it's on the rise, the

886
00:53:30,240 --> 00:53:33,640
way it is?
Pensarcosin, that is.

887
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:42,400
Because we as a culture, even
amongst the elites, cultural

888
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:44,960
elites in academia, I use this
word.

889
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:50,400
In in a rather pejorative sense.
So I mean it pejoratively.

890
00:53:51,720 --> 00:53:55,240
I think this whole elite stuff
is one of the biggest bullshits

891
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,120
in in the history of mankind,
which doesn't mean that

892
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:00,720
everybody is an authority on
anything.

893
00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:05,640
But anyway, I digress.
There is this.

894
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:11,120
Sense in academia and in
cultural elites that you know

895
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,440
what physical is indeed doesn't
work.

896
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,520
We are screwed.
It's not going to go anywhere.

897
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:23,640
Chris, of course, just lost his
bets to David Chalmers, made 25

898
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,720
years ago that in 25 years
science would have an account

899
00:54:27,720 --> 00:54:30,720
for experiential states or
consciousness.

900
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,840
Well, it doesn't.
And it's not any further than it

901
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:37,320
was before.
In fact, things got worse.

902
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:40,640
So Crystal will have to give
Dave, I think.

903
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:41,640
What?
What was it?

904
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,600
I think there's a case of wine.
I forgot what the bet was.

905
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,480
So there is the sense that
there's the sense of impending

906
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:55,960
doom for physicalism.
But there is a very strong

907
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:04,240
psychological need to see this
process not as an error, but as

908
00:55:04,240 --> 00:55:09,280
a step in a kind of evolutionary
path in which we are constantly

909
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,000
getting things more and more
right.

910
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:16,310
So physicalism was.
A step forward, but it was not

911
00:55:16,310 --> 00:55:18,670
the final step.
So now we have to take the next

912
00:55:18,670 --> 00:55:26,110
step by reusing the good parts
of physicalism, namely that the

913
00:55:26,110 --> 00:55:30,190
universe is made of matter, and
now we just add experience as a

914
00:55:30,190 --> 00:55:33,030
fundamental property of matter,
or the intrinsic nature of

915
00:55:33,030 --> 00:55:34,350
matter.
And.

916
00:55:34,470 --> 00:55:37,830
Physicalism still sort of
survives and we have we have

917
00:55:37,830 --> 00:55:42,190
this warm fuzzy feeling that how
it was not all for nothing, you

918
00:55:42,190 --> 00:55:46,320
know, we were not stupid.
We just didn't see far enough

919
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:50,320
and therefore Penn Psych is now,
now adds the ingredients that

920
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:53,880
was missing and merrily we go
onwards and now it's a

921
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:55,640
progression.
It's not an error.

922
00:55:56,120 --> 00:55:58,120
That's the psychology underlying
this.

923
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:03,080
We want to hold on to as much as
possible of what we used to

924
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,640
believe, even after we realized
that it will.

925
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:10,240
Not delivered the the child that
the child is stillborn.

926
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:14,120
We still want to stick to as
many aspects of it as possible

927
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,560
in order to go to bed with that
feeling that we didn't waste our

928
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:22,440
intellectual lives well.
This is complete nonsense, of

929
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:25,720
course.
This injects human subjectivity

930
00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:30,360
into what is supposed to be a
rational, reason and evidence

931
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:33,000
based process.
No physical is just bloody

932
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:35,520
wrong.
And that's the end of it.

933
00:56:36,100 --> 00:56:39,620
We owe nothing to it.
Science doesn't depend on

934
00:56:39,620 --> 00:56:41,700
physicalism.
Science is metaphysics,

935
00:56:41,700 --> 00:56:43,500
agnostic.
Science is the study of what

936
00:56:43,500 --> 00:56:48,020
nature does, not what nature is.
All scientific entities,

937
00:56:48,020 --> 00:56:50,220
theoretical entities are
convenient fictions.

938
00:56:50,500 --> 00:56:53,580
Nature behaves as though those
entities really existed.

939
00:56:53,740 --> 00:56:56,060
Whether they really exist or not
is irrelevant.

940
00:56:56,060 --> 00:57:00,220
We can still build mobile phones
and put the man put the

941
00:57:00,220 --> 00:57:03,700
spaceship on an asteroid, even
knowing that Newton's laws of

942
00:57:03,700 --> 00:57:07,020
motions were wrong.
Newton's laws were wrong, and we

943
00:57:07,020 --> 00:57:34,750
put an asteroid on this.
During the early stages of the

944
00:57:34,750 --> 00:57:40,070
Enlightenment, you know, after
Bruno was burned in 1600 in a

945
00:57:40,430 --> 00:57:44,430
central square in Rome, burned
at the stake for holding

946
00:57:44,950 --> 00:57:50,150
scientific views, scientists
realized, Damn, we have to come

947
00:57:50,150 --> 00:57:53,630
up with the story here to say
that now we are working on

948
00:57:53,630 --> 00:57:56,070
something completely different
from the church, and we are not

949
00:57:56,070 --> 00:57:09,540
not a threat to the Church.
Sorry, a spaceship on the

950
00:57:09,540 --> 00:57:14,660
surface of an asteroid using
Newton's laws of motion because

951
00:57:14,940 --> 00:57:16,940
things behaved as though they
were true.

952
00:57:17,500 --> 00:57:22,140
So these convenient fictions are
the the basis of both science

953
00:57:22,460 --> 00:57:26,460
and technology.
We owe nothing to physicalism.

954
00:57:27,220 --> 00:57:29,540
The only thing we owe to
physicalism is that less

955
00:57:29,540 --> 00:57:58,630
scientists died, burned at the.
So what?

956
00:57:58,630 --> 00:58:00,750
What's the domain of the church?
Well, the Church is the.

957
00:58:02,010 --> 00:58:07,090
Claims domain over a psyche, the
Greek word for spirit and so,

958
00:58:07,090 --> 00:58:11,050
but also mind with in in in.
In Greek there is.

959
00:58:11,050 --> 00:58:15,010
In ancient Greek there was no
differentiation between mind and

960
00:58:15,010 --> 00:58:17,450
spirit, and so it was all
psychic.

961
00:58:17,890 --> 00:58:19,450
So okay, that's the domain of
the church.

962
00:58:19,450 --> 00:58:23,450
Let's invent another one, one
that is not psyche, one that is

963
00:58:23,450 --> 00:58:26,650
not mental, and we will not to
burn at the stake.

964
00:58:26,650 --> 00:58:30,470
And lo and behold, it worked.
And the problem is that the

965
00:58:30,590 --> 00:58:32,910
early figures of the
Enlightenment knew what they

966
00:58:32,910 --> 00:58:35,030
were doing.
They needed the whole is on

967
00:58:35,030 --> 00:58:39,270
record.
Saying material is the old word

968
00:58:39,270 --> 00:58:42,510
for physicalism.
Materialism doesn't work, but we

969
00:58:42,510 --> 00:58:45,430
have to keep on using it as a
weapon against the Church.

970
00:58:45,430 --> 00:58:47,910
I mean, he this is written, it's
on record.

971
00:58:48,110 --> 00:58:52,070
They knew that, but at some
point with the bourgeois

972
00:58:52,150 --> 00:58:55,310
intellectual revolution of
Darvin in the mid 19th century.

973
00:58:56,650 --> 00:59:00,050
Intellectual elites figured not
only can we survive the Church,

974
00:59:00,410 --> 00:59:06,050
we can supplant the Church.
And drunken as they were in that

975
00:59:06,050 --> 00:59:10,410
time, they started believing
their own snake oil and they

976
00:59:10,410 --> 00:59:12,970
bought into physicalism.
There were other psychological

977
00:59:12,970 --> 00:59:15,090
factors as well.
You know, you get rid of hell,

978
00:59:15,530 --> 00:59:19,130
You get rid of the greatest fear
of mankind, which is what will

979
00:59:19,130 --> 00:59:23,090
we experience after we are dead.
That has been the greatest

980
00:59:23,090 --> 00:59:25,130
anxiety of mankind throughout
our history.

981
00:59:25,620 --> 00:59:28,620
And in the mid 19th century, it
was gone.

982
00:59:29,420 --> 00:59:31,740
I mean, this is, this is
fantastic stuff, right?

983
00:59:32,100 --> 00:59:36,620
And then we forgot that certain
things were never meant to be

984
00:59:36,620 --> 00:59:40,540
truly believed.
They were political tools.

985
00:59:40,580 --> 00:59:44,500
And now we believe that shit
Sincerely, sincerely.

986
00:59:46,540 --> 00:59:48,820
You mentioned so many different
things that I want to touch on.

987
00:59:48,820 --> 00:59:52,180
I mean, I think the first thing
that stood down is you mentioned

988
00:59:52,180 --> 00:59:54,500
Christophe Corker and he lost
that bet.

989
00:59:54,890 --> 00:59:56,970
I spoke to him quite recently.
And I'm just thinking about

990
00:59:56,970 --> 01:00:00,050
when, if you were there, when
Francis Crick was started, this

991
01:00:00,050 --> 01:00:02,170
whole talk about the neural
correlate of consciousness, what

992
01:00:02,290 --> 01:00:07,890
you have said to him.
But Christophe, I I regard

993
01:00:08,490 --> 01:00:12,490
Christophe very highly and I
tell you why Christophe is

994
01:00:12,490 --> 01:00:14,090
sincere.
Yes.

995
01:00:14,770 --> 01:00:19,770
He's not a politician.
He's not trying to protect his

996
01:00:19,770 --> 01:00:24,290
image or his respectability or
his grants.

997
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:32,040
He is honest, he's sincere.
And his view of things therefore

998
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:36,640
evolves.
Because as he thinks more deeply

999
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:40,720
about things, as he's exposed to
more evidence, as he exposed to

1000
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:45,040
different ideas, he is
incorporating all of that in his

1001
01:00:45,040 --> 01:00:49,040
inner mental processes.
Outwardly, of course, he will be

1002
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:54,700
cautious, because nobody in
science or analytic philosophy

1003
01:00:55,380 --> 01:00:59,740
wants to be coopted by the
nonsensical fringes.

1004
01:01:00,180 --> 01:01:04,620
Nobody wants to do that.
I run this risk more than most

1005
01:01:04,620 --> 01:01:07,700
because idealism has for so long
being associated with the

1006
01:01:07,700 --> 01:01:11,820
religion and spirituality, even
though that's not my angle on

1007
01:01:11,820 --> 01:01:14,460
it.
I run that risk, But I'm not an

1008
01:01:14,460 --> 01:01:16,220
academia.
I don't depend on grants.

1009
01:01:17,660 --> 01:01:23,800
I pretty free to say what I
really think, but Christophe, I

1010
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:29,520
think he's quite sincere.
And the influence of Francis

1011
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,120
Creek on him was of course
immense.

1012
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:36,640
Christophe was very young.
Francis was already Nobel Prize

1013
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:39,440
winner and Francis was beyond
the Nobel Prize winner.

1014
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:42,160
I mean, he's the guy who
discovered DNAI mean.

1015
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:44,920
This is the Nobel amongst the
Nobels.

1016
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:49,300
This is the Meta Nobel Prize.
Right then, the guy was his

1017
01:01:49,300 --> 01:01:53,260
mentor.
I had a mentor to Rudy Bach, who

1018
01:01:53,260 --> 01:01:57,100
was a famous physicist at CERN.
He was a father figure to me.

1019
01:01:57,540 --> 01:02:03,740
I know what it is to be in the
field of a mentor, and I don't

1020
01:02:03,740 --> 01:02:06,420
know for a fact that that
happened to Christophe.

1021
01:02:06,820 --> 01:02:09,020
But Christophe is human, just
like the rest of us.

1022
01:02:09,020 --> 01:02:13,500
I would be surprised if that
hadn't been a fact, a factor

1023
01:02:14,140 --> 01:02:17,890
there.
So in other words, I am prepared

1024
01:02:17,890 --> 01:02:22,810
to give Christoph all kinds of
passes for because I believe in

1025
01:02:22,810 --> 01:02:24,090
his sincerity.
Yes.

1026
01:02:24,090 --> 01:02:25,810
Now believe in his honesty,
yeah?

1027
01:02:26,370 --> 01:02:29,250
And and your thoughts on your
just general neural currents of

1028
01:02:29,250 --> 01:02:31,010
consciousness.
Anything you want to say about

1029
01:02:31,010 --> 01:02:39,090
that?
I think it is undeniable that

1030
01:02:39,090 --> 01:02:42,250
there are correlations between
patterns of brain activity and

1031
01:02:42,250 --> 01:02:45,640
inner experience.
I just interpret that

1032
01:02:45,640 --> 01:03:07,040
differently.
It's an appearance of, I mean,

1033
01:03:07,400 --> 01:02:47,480
right.
Instead of thinking of patterns

1034
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:51,480
of brain activity as the cause
of inner experience, I interpret

1035
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:54,520
them as the appearance of inner
experience.

1036
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,400
In other words, brain activity
is what inner experience looks

1037
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:00,320
like when it's observed from the
outside.

1038
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:04,320
And this is not surprising.
The appearance of a phenomenon

1039
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:09,820
correlates with the.
So it's a different

1040
01:03:09,820 --> 01:03:13,620
interpretation, but not a denial
of the fact of the correlation.

1041
01:03:13,620 --> 01:03:18,340
The correlation is there, and to
do neuroscience all you need is

1042
01:03:18,340 --> 01:03:23,460
the correlation because an
objective measurement of brain

1043
01:03:23,460 --> 01:03:27,180
activity.
Gives you an extrinsic

1044
01:03:27,180 --> 01:03:30,940
appearance of what's going on in
the mind of the subject, and

1045
01:03:30,940 --> 01:03:33,260
that ought to be tremendously
useful.

1046
01:03:34,340 --> 01:03:37,820
So analytic idealism does not
contradict neuroscience.

1047
01:03:38,580 --> 01:03:41,900
On the contrary to it validates
neuroscience metaphysically.

1048
01:03:42,100 --> 01:03:47,500
You should keep on doing brain
scans because that appearance is

1049
01:03:47,500 --> 01:03:50,740
what the phenomenon you're
interested in looks like.

1050
01:03:51,860 --> 01:03:54,220
You look at the image of a
phenomenon to study it.

1051
01:03:54,220 --> 01:03:56,140
There is nothing wrong.
I mean, this is the essence of

1052
01:03:56,140 --> 01:03:58,620
science sciences.
We look at the image of a

1053
01:03:58,620 --> 01:04:00,420
phenomenon.
For instance, when I'm in my

1054
01:04:00,420 --> 01:04:03,180
work bench here behind me and
I'm using an oscilloscope to

1055
01:04:03,180 --> 01:04:06,060
measure electrical activity.
I don't think that.

1056
01:04:06,430 --> 01:04:09,670
That picture on the screen of my
oscilloscope is the phenomenon.

1057
01:04:10,190 --> 01:04:13,350
No, it's what the phenomenon
looks like upon measurement.

1058
01:04:14,230 --> 01:04:16,350
But that appearance is extremely
useful.

1059
01:04:16,350 --> 01:04:19,590
I use it every day.
You know, do the same thing for

1060
01:04:19,590 --> 01:04:21,630
brain activity.
You're looking at the appearance

1061
01:04:21,630 --> 01:04:24,150
of of the phenomenon you're
interested in, and that that's

1062
01:04:24,150 --> 01:04:27,670
science that's legitimate.
So I think looking for the

1063
01:04:27,670 --> 01:04:29,630
neural correlates of
consciousness.

1064
01:04:30,070 --> 01:04:32,350
Pay attention to the words the
neural.

1065
01:04:32,850 --> 01:04:36,690
Correlates of consciousness, not
the neural causes of

1066
01:04:36,690 --> 01:04:39,810
consciousness, is incredibly
valid.

1067
01:04:40,250 --> 01:04:41,650
I think there is an issue with
that.

1068
01:04:41,650 --> 01:04:44,250
For for a long time we mixed up
the neuro correlates of

1069
01:04:44,250 --> 01:04:48,290
consciousness with the neuro
correlates of matter

1070
01:04:48,290 --> 01:04:50,730
consciousness.
In other words, reportable

1071
01:04:50,730 --> 01:04:54,770
experience, which is something
extra on top of the experience

1072
01:04:54,770 --> 01:04:58,130
itself.
But awareness of this conflation

1073
01:04:58,330 --> 01:05:01,610
is is growing.
And so now we will be.

1074
01:05:02,490 --> 01:05:07,650
Adopting say no report paradigms
to look at the true Neuro

1075
01:05:07,650 --> 01:05:10,130
Correlate of Consciousness.
And I'm all for it.

1076
01:05:10,610 --> 01:05:13,970
I'm all for it.
I think neuroscience is critical

1077
01:05:13,970 --> 01:05:16,690
for a healthy future of the the
human species.

1078
01:05:17,930 --> 01:05:22,450
And I am not skeptical of neuro
imaging to the extent that

1079
01:05:22,570 --> 01:05:26,010
others are, because those bugs
were found in analysis software

1080
01:05:26,010 --> 01:05:29,570
a couple of years ago and people
said, well, throw away 23 years

1081
01:05:29,570 --> 01:05:32,410
of neuro imaging.
I don't think that I think some

1082
01:05:32,410 --> 01:05:36,530
results are so robust that the
despite those bugs, many of the

1083
01:05:36,530 --> 01:05:38,650
conclusions can still be set to
hold.

1084
01:05:39,850 --> 01:05:41,890
So I'm I'm, I'm not antagonistic
at all.

1085
01:05:42,170 --> 01:05:47,650
What I'm antagonistic of is when
a neuroscientist is biased and

1086
01:05:47,650 --> 01:05:55,210
tries to fit or communicate his
results in a way that makes it

1087
01:05:55,210 --> 01:05:57,330
sound compatible with
physicalism.

1088
01:05:57,890 --> 01:06:01,920
That, I think, is dishonest.
I think it's a lie.

1089
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:09,240
I think not only it defaces
science, but it's it's immoral

1090
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:15,080
and I think things like that
should end scientific careers

1091
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:19,720
when it they become public.
I think before we close up for

1092
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:22,560
Chapter 3, which on which is up,
by the way, Christophe is guilty

1093
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:25,080
of none of what I just said.
We had other people in mind.

1094
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:27,680
OK.
Do you want to mention them or

1095
01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:30,950
should we just move on?
OK, before whoever pays

1096
01:06:30,950 --> 01:06:33,030
attention to my output knows who
I'm talking about.

1097
01:06:33,110 --> 01:06:36,150
Oh God.
I mean, we're closing off on

1098
01:06:36,150 --> 01:06:38,030
Pansacs.
And before we do that, we have

1099
01:06:38,030 --> 01:06:40,430
to address the elephant in the
room, which I think in this case

1100
01:06:40,430 --> 01:06:44,510
has to be Philip Gough, because
the last time we spoke about we

1101
01:06:44,510 --> 01:06:46,870
had a chat, you mentioned Philip
Gough and how he changes his

1102
01:06:46,870 --> 01:06:48,670
views all the time, but we
didn't go into it.

1103
01:06:48,950 --> 01:06:51,510
So I think this is a perfect
time to touch on that.

1104
01:06:52,630 --> 01:06:54,910
Oh, but that That's cruel,
because now you're you're

1105
01:06:54,910 --> 01:06:59,260
inviting me to freely criticize
a colleague.

1106
01:06:59,540 --> 01:07:00,820
I mean that Phillip's A
colleague of mine too.

1107
01:07:00,820 --> 01:07:02,980
We've chatted as well.
So this is not, this is not a

1108
01:07:02,980 --> 01:07:06,220
platform for hatred or anything,
but just more of an A critique

1109
01:07:06,220 --> 01:07:09,140
of his ideas.
Now if you give me a specific

1110
01:07:09,140 --> 01:07:14,260
point that I disagree with,
point that Philip makes and I

1111
01:07:14,260 --> 01:07:16,860
disagree with, I'm prepared to
argue why Philip is wrong.

1112
01:07:17,220 --> 01:07:19,860
But if you just invite me to
say, OK now, no.

1113
01:07:20,180 --> 01:07:23,540
OK, criticize Philip Goff.
OK, not Philip Goff Phillips

1114
01:07:24,100 --> 01:07:28,880
version of Pan Psychism.
It is a form of constitutive

1115
01:07:28,880 --> 01:07:34,160
pansychism in which instead of
saying that experiential states

1116
01:07:34,160 --> 01:07:39,160
are a property of matter, he
says experiential states are the

1117
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:42,600
intrinsic nature of matter.
In other words, matter is

1118
01:07:42,720 --> 01:07:46,160
experiential state and physical
properties are sort of

1119
01:07:46,200 --> 01:07:48,680
epiphenomenal.
So it comes very close to

1120
01:07:48,720 --> 01:07:52,840
idealism in a sense, but not at
all in another sense, which is

1121
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:57,650
it's still attributes to
consciousness, the structure of

1122
01:07:57,650 --> 01:08:01,170
matter.
And that's the error of taking

1123
01:08:01,410 --> 01:08:04,890
the pixelation of the image for
the structure of the thing that

1124
01:08:04,890 --> 01:08:07,970
is represented as an image.
For instance, on your screen

1125
01:08:07,970 --> 01:08:12,170
right now I appear pixilated
unless you are using an Apple

1126
01:08:12,170 --> 01:08:14,890
Retina display.
If you look close enough, you

1127
01:08:14,890 --> 01:08:18,370
see that Bernardo on your screen
is made of little rectangles.

1128
01:08:19,050 --> 01:08:22,410
But that's the pixilation of my
representation on your screen.

1129
01:08:22,850 --> 01:08:25,569
Bernardo himself is not made of
little rectangles.

1130
01:08:26,460 --> 01:08:29,300
So when Phillips says the
structure of nature is the

1131
01:08:29,300 --> 01:08:32,020
structure of elementary
subatomic particles, he's making

1132
01:08:32,020 --> 01:08:35,340
precisely this mistake.
He's taking the pixelation of

1133
01:08:35,340 --> 01:08:38,420
the appearance for the structure
of the thing that appears.

1134
01:08:39,460 --> 01:08:43,899
And he also makes the mistake,
which is was forgivable for him

1135
01:08:43,899 --> 01:08:48,180
when he began of taking
elementary subatomic particles

1136
01:08:48,620 --> 01:08:54,260
as irreducible things.
While physics for the past 90

1137
01:08:54,260 --> 01:08:59,939
years is, or at least eighty
knows, that no particles are

1138
01:08:59,939 --> 01:09:02,939
just ripples of fields, what
really exists are the fields.

1139
01:09:03,500 --> 01:09:08,420
Now I've made this criticism to
Philip years ago, and his his

1140
01:09:08,420 --> 01:09:12,260
response was to say, well, but
there is one possible theory of

1141
01:09:12,260 --> 01:09:16,380
physics which acknowledges that
there really are particles, and

1142
01:09:16,380 --> 01:09:21,580
that's Bohmian mechanics, you
know, came up in a came out in a

1143
01:09:21,580 --> 01:09:28,260
famous double paper by David
Bohm in 1951, famous pilot wave

1144
01:09:28,380 --> 01:09:30,899
theory, which is an
interpretation of quantum

1145
01:09:30,899 --> 01:09:34,260
mechanics according to which
particles really exist as little

1146
01:09:34,260 --> 01:09:38,540
things.
But there is a reason why that

1147
01:09:38,540 --> 01:09:41,420
thing was never taken seriously
by the vast majority of

1148
01:09:41,420 --> 01:09:44,660
scientists.
There are many reasons, many of

1149
01:09:44,660 --> 01:09:50,420
them technical.
There is that check.

1150
01:09:51,540 --> 01:09:53,819
Or is it Slovakian?
And there's a Czech physicist.

1151
01:09:54,460 --> 01:09:58,340
Not all I forgot Ludo Lubos, Not
all.

1152
01:09:58,340 --> 01:10:02,980
I forgot his name.
But he once wrote that sort of

1153
01:10:05,860 --> 01:10:08,700
the definitive criticism of
Bohmian mechanics.

1154
01:10:08,700 --> 01:10:13,180
He took the time to elaborate in
every technical detail why that

1155
01:10:13,180 --> 01:10:18,340
thing is just nonsensical.
But an intuition survived

1156
01:10:18,340 --> 01:10:22,350
because there was a famous
experiment done many years ago

1157
01:10:22,710 --> 01:10:27,990
with droplets on a fluid that
work that was claimed to emulate

1158
01:10:28,070 --> 01:10:30,630
the results of the double slit
experiment but with little

1159
01:10:30,630 --> 01:10:32,550
droplets.
In other words, physical little

1160
01:10:32,550 --> 01:10:38,710
entities.
But three years ago or 4 paper

1161
01:10:38,710 --> 01:10:41,990
came out showing that those
results were because of

1162
01:10:41,990 --> 01:10:45,310
experimental errors.
Those results were not valid.

1163
01:10:45,310 --> 01:10:47,950
So even the intuition behind it
isn't it.

1164
01:10:48,150 --> 01:10:51,820
It's now gone.
So Bomian mechanics is is, is

1165
01:10:51,820 --> 01:10:54,060
history.
It just, it doesn't have a

1166
01:10:54,060 --> 01:10:56,740
chance.
And even if it had, it's such a

1167
01:10:56,740 --> 01:11:01,460
niche thing that if Philip hangs
the plausibility of his view on

1168
01:11:01,460 --> 01:11:07,540
that, as he did a couple of
years ago, then might as well

1169
01:11:07,540 --> 01:11:11,180
give up.
Instead of going to Joe Rogan

1170
01:11:11,180 --> 01:11:15,500
and then and other podcasts and
talking about something that by

1171
01:11:15,500 --> 01:11:17,960
now he shouldn't know is
untenable, there's something

1172
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:20,480
else he should know, but
apparently he's still talking

1173
01:11:20,480 --> 01:11:23,240
about it.
He says, ideally is inflationary

1174
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:27,320
compared to Penn psychism.
And the reason is he says, well,

1175
01:11:27,680 --> 01:11:31,040
Bernardo, you yourself talks
about mind underlying the

1176
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:34,000
physical world.
So you have these two things,

1177
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:37,160
the physical world and mind.
Which makes me go that Oh my

1178
01:11:37,160 --> 01:11:39,160
God, no.
I would expect that from a

1179
01:11:39,160 --> 01:11:41,360
podcast listener, but not from a
professor.

1180
01:11:42,560 --> 01:11:45,760
He is running away with language
and failing to understand what

1181
01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:50,330
is meant.
Under idealist, mind underlies

1182
01:11:50,330 --> 01:11:54,450
matter only in the sense that
the thing that really exists is

1183
01:11:54,450 --> 01:11:57,810
mind.
In what we call matter is itself

1184
01:11:57,810 --> 01:12:01,130
a mental process that represents
mental processes.

1185
01:12:02,250 --> 01:12:03,610
In other words, there is only
mind.

1186
01:12:03,610 --> 01:12:06,650
There aren't two things.
The the usage of the word

1187
01:12:06,810 --> 01:12:11,450
underlies is just to cater to a
popular intuitions.

1188
01:12:11,770 --> 01:12:14,420
You see a physical world.
There is something that

1189
01:12:14,420 --> 01:12:16,940
underlies that in the sense that
the sky underlies the

1190
01:12:16,940 --> 01:12:20,140
indications on a dashboard.
But the dashboard and the sky

1191
01:12:20,140 --> 01:12:23,220
are physical.
The sky is not a separate

1192
01:12:23,220 --> 01:12:27,940
ontological category in the same
way the physical world is

1193
01:12:27,940 --> 01:12:30,060
mental, because it's an
experience I have.

1194
01:12:30,620 --> 01:12:34,100
And what underlies this mental
process is another mental

1195
01:12:34,100 --> 01:12:36,340
process that is represented by
the first one.

1196
01:12:36,780 --> 01:12:39,020
In other words, there are only
mental processes there there.

1197
01:12:39,260 --> 01:12:42,180
There's absolutely no
inflationary approach here.

1198
01:12:42,550 --> 01:12:45,550
If you bother to think about it
for 10 seconds and and try to

1199
01:12:45,550 --> 01:12:48,950
understand what is meant as
opposed to sticking to the mere

1200
01:12:48,950 --> 01:12:53,270
word underlies as if it's
signaled ontological inflation,

1201
01:12:53,270 --> 01:12:54,230
it doesn't.
Sorry.

1202
01:12:55,510 --> 01:12:58,390
But not before.
I wanted to move on to Chapter 4

1203
01:12:58,390 --> 01:13:00,510
before this, But I mean I have
to ask you this question.

1204
01:13:00,510 --> 01:13:03,670
I know because Philip and Keith
now have the podcast mind chat.

1205
01:13:03,670 --> 01:13:05,830
I mean, I love the fact that
more people are chatting about

1206
01:13:05,830 --> 01:13:07,190
this.
We're getting into this a lot

1207
01:13:07,190 --> 01:13:09,430
more in depth.
What are your thoughts on on

1208
01:13:09,430 --> 01:13:11,630
that as a concept?
Because I know Philip does say

1209
01:13:11,630 --> 01:13:14,250
that.
If panpsychism does not work,

1210
01:13:14,490 --> 01:13:17,810
he's most the most reasonable
theory that he thinks is second

1211
01:13:17,810 --> 01:13:22,730
best is illusionism.
I think it's the stupidest thing

1212
01:13:22,730 --> 01:13:27,770
in the history of philosophy.
It's a completely self defeating

1213
01:13:27,770 --> 01:13:33,650
thing that only survives by
making its own proponents very

1214
01:13:33,650 --> 01:13:36,810
confused and all tied up in a
conceptual web.

1215
01:13:37,480 --> 01:13:40,720
So, so confused that at some
point they squeaked their eyes

1216
01:13:40,720 --> 01:13:43,400
and waved their hands and say,
oh, and behind all that, That's

1217
01:13:43,400 --> 01:13:48,200
the answer, that's that's how it
survives it it it it's not a

1218
01:13:48,200 --> 01:13:52,800
product of clear thinking that
let's first address it from the

1219
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:57,240
obvious perspective.
We will go deeper, because most

1220
01:13:57,240 --> 01:14:02,160
listeners should believe that
the proponents cannot be this

1221
01:14:02,160 --> 01:14:06,280
drastically wrong that they see
a little deeper than this.

1222
01:14:06,650 --> 01:14:11,570
So the obvious perspective is an
illusion is already an instance

1223
01:14:11,810 --> 01:14:14,850
of a conscious process.
You experience an illusion.

1224
01:14:15,730 --> 01:14:19,250
So you cannot dismiss the
existence of consciousness by

1225
01:14:19,250 --> 01:14:23,690
appealing to illusions because
illusions are already instances

1226
01:14:23,690 --> 01:14:25,770
of that which you want to
dismiss.

1227
01:14:27,170 --> 01:14:29,210
So it's it's immediately self
defeating.

1228
01:14:29,210 --> 01:14:32,410
If consciousness is an illusion,
then consciousness exists.

1229
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,560
If every content of
consciousness is an illusion in

1230
01:14:36,560 --> 01:14:39,680
the sense that it doesn't
correspond to external states of

1231
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:43,960
affairs, consciousness would
still exist and actually to be

1232
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:47,200
the only thing that exists,
because it's all illusion.

1233
01:14:47,200 --> 01:14:49,240
So there is nothing else, There
is only the illusion.

1234
01:14:49,480 --> 01:14:51,480
Illusion is already an instance
of consciousness.

1235
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:56,400
And then you might think, oh,
but these guys with pH D's, they

1236
01:14:56,400 --> 01:14:58,640
must, they must see deeper than
this.

1237
01:14:58,640 --> 01:15:01,400
There must be something to
illusionism beyond this, right?

1238
01:15:02,730 --> 01:15:04,930
Not really, But they think there
is.

1239
01:15:04,930 --> 01:15:07,690
And I'll tell you what they
think is there.

1240
01:15:08,370 --> 01:15:12,610
What they say is the following,
and this could be a paraphrasing

1241
01:15:12,690 --> 01:15:16,890
not only of Keith Frankish but
of Danny Dennett, his master as

1242
01:15:16,890 --> 01:15:25,810
well, that it goes like this if
my experiences are actually just

1243
01:15:25,810 --> 01:15:31,030
brain activity.
Why do my experiences not look

1244
01:15:31,030 --> 01:15:36,670
like firing neurons?
If my experience is firing

1245
01:15:36,670 --> 01:15:42,310
neurons, why do they not look
like firing neurons, right?

1246
01:15:42,470 --> 01:15:45,350
If I experience the night sky,
the night sky doesn't look like

1247
01:15:45,350 --> 01:15:49,430
firing neurons.
Then the theory goes as follows.

1248
01:15:49,510 --> 01:15:55,910
Well, it's because the brain
produces a kind of summary

1249
01:15:55,910 --> 01:16:01,370
digest.
Of its own activity and what we

1250
01:16:01,370 --> 01:16:04,890
experience is that sort of
summary digest.

1251
01:16:06,250 --> 01:16:10,450
Now the summary digest is not
the original brain activity and

1252
01:16:10,450 --> 01:16:13,610
that's why we don't experience
things that look like brain

1253
01:16:13,610 --> 01:16:16,090
activity that look like firing
neurons.

1254
01:16:16,530 --> 01:16:20,450
It's because what we experience
is a summary digest produce

1255
01:16:20,970 --> 01:16:24,410
produced by the brain of its own
activity and not the original

1256
01:16:24,410 --> 01:16:27,530
activity itself.
Does it sound reasonable?

1257
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:31,440
It's difficult.
It's difficult for me to say

1258
01:16:31,440 --> 01:16:34,440
because I mean initially when I
came into this podcast I

1259
01:16:34,440 --> 01:16:37,360
actually supported Illusionism
as a theory of consciousness.

1260
01:16:38,760 --> 01:16:40,160
It does sound reasonable,
doesn't it?

1261
01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:41,280
Yeah.
So that's the thing to me.

1262
01:16:41,280 --> 01:16:42,960
It actually does something
reasonable.

1263
01:16:43,760 --> 01:16:48,440
Now let's take the next step.
What is this summary digest?

1264
01:16:50,320 --> 01:16:54,880
It's reactivity.
It cannot be anything else.

1265
01:16:55,200 --> 01:16:57,750
Yes.
Because if you say, well it's

1266
01:16:57,750 --> 01:16:59,830
the soul, then you're not an
illusionist.

1267
01:17:00,470 --> 01:17:03,470
If you say it's mental stuff,
then you're not an illusionist,

1268
01:17:04,830 --> 01:17:06,830
right?
You could say, well, it's not

1269
01:17:06,830 --> 01:17:10,230
brain activity, it's liver
activity, but but did you still

1270
01:17:10,230 --> 01:17:12,430
have the same problem that I'm
about to tell you?

1271
01:17:12,950 --> 01:17:16,310
The argument is we don't
experience firing neurons

1272
01:17:16,350 --> 01:17:19,270
because what we experience is a
summary digest of firing

1273
01:17:19,270 --> 01:17:23,750
neurons, but that summary digest
can only be firing neurons.

1274
01:17:25,070 --> 01:17:28,790
There is nothing else it can be.
So why doesn't the summary

1275
01:17:28,790 --> 01:17:32,870
digest itself feels like firing
neurons?

1276
01:17:34,190 --> 01:17:37,030
Oh, because there must be a meta
summary digest.

1277
01:17:38,390 --> 01:17:41,550
Yeah, but the meta summary
digest can only be firing

1278
01:17:41,550 --> 01:17:45,630
neurons and infinite regresses
upon us.

1279
01:17:46,150 --> 01:17:51,470
You cannot escape this and
people think they can escape

1280
01:17:51,470 --> 01:17:55,000
this.
By doing all kinds of linguistic

1281
01:17:55,000 --> 01:18:04,120
hand waving Key, for instance,
the way he defines qualia makes

1282
01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:10,480
you dizzy and and and at some
point you realize that there

1283
01:18:10,480 --> 01:18:14,440
really is nothing there.
There is just an attempt by

1284
01:18:14,440 --> 01:18:19,720
otherwise intelligent people to
accommodate their belief system

1285
01:18:21,080 --> 01:18:23,960
and therefore.
Fooling themselves.

1286
01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:29,160
They need to fool themselves in
order to accommodate their own

1287
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:33,160
belief system, and they will
fool themselves linguistically

1288
01:18:33,400 --> 01:18:36,720
and through conceptual
obscurantism, which is not

1289
01:18:36,720 --> 01:18:38,880
malicious.
Normally obscurantism is

1290
01:18:38,880 --> 01:18:41,640
malicious.
You do that in order to deceive

1291
01:18:41,640 --> 01:18:44,440
other people.
But there is such a thing as

1292
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:48,880
auto obscurantism, which is
something your mind does to

1293
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:54,340
safeguard its own belief system.
So you will start adding layers

1294
01:18:54,340 --> 01:18:57,780
of conceptual abstraction one on
top of another, until you can't

1295
01:18:57,780 --> 01:19:00,100
see the end anymore and say, oh,
but there is something there.

1296
01:19:00,100 --> 01:19:02,580
Therefore, I can continue to
believe that materialism is

1297
01:19:02,580 --> 01:19:05,700
right.
Do you think you fully grasped

1298
01:19:05,980 --> 01:19:08,660
Sue's version of illusion or
delusionism?

1299
01:19:09,660 --> 01:19:13,220
No, it's not Illusionism,
because if you look at the

1300
01:19:13,220 --> 01:19:18,380
conversation, she defined
illusionism as the idea that

1301
01:19:18,380 --> 01:19:20,260
some things we experience are
illusions.

1302
01:19:21,250 --> 01:19:27,530
So yeah, it's certainly right.
But it's not what Danny Dannett

1303
01:19:27,530 --> 01:19:29,490
and Keith Frankish make of
illusionism.

1304
01:19:29,890 --> 01:19:35,170
Because the problem of
illusionism is that it is either

1305
01:19:35,450 --> 01:19:43,730
incoherent or it is irrelevant.
You see, Because if it is

1306
01:19:43,730 --> 01:19:47,130
relevant, then it offers an Ave.
for solving a hard problem of

1307
01:19:47,130 --> 01:19:50,300
consciousness.
And for it to do that, it has to

1308
01:19:50,300 --> 01:19:52,540
convince people that
consciousness doesn't exist,

1309
01:19:52,980 --> 01:19:56,220
that it's some kind of illusion.
Which backfires because an

1310
01:19:56,220 --> 01:19:58,900
illusion is already an instance
of consciousness, but never

1311
01:19:58,900 --> 01:20:01,420
mind.
So for it to be relevant, it has

1312
01:20:01,420 --> 01:20:05,380
to solve the hard problem, or at
least offer an Ave. for treating

1313
01:20:05,380 --> 01:20:08,260
the hard problem.
Or in that case the in this case

1314
01:20:08,260 --> 01:20:10,100
the illusion problem is what
they refer.

1315
01:20:10,100 --> 01:20:12,660
To Yeah, yeah.
So for it to be relevant, it has

1316
01:20:12,660 --> 01:20:14,500
to do that.
But if it does that, it's

1317
01:20:14,500 --> 01:20:17,690
incoherent.
Now, if you don't want it to be

1318
01:20:17,690 --> 01:20:20,850
incoherent, you have to redefine
illusionism in a way that makes

1319
01:20:20,850 --> 01:20:23,330
it coherent.
But then it no longer addresses

1320
01:20:23,330 --> 01:20:25,450
the hard problem at all, and
therefore it's irrelevant.

1321
01:20:26,050 --> 01:20:31,090
So Illusionism is either
nonsensical or it is irrelevant.

1322
01:20:32,350 --> 01:20:35,590
And and and that's a conundrum.
And because of that, he would

1323
01:20:35,590 --> 01:20:38,070
see true illusionists.
Not not so.

1324
01:20:38,270 --> 01:20:41,830
So based on our conversation,
she clearly is not an

1325
01:20:41,830 --> 01:20:43,910
illusionist in the strict sense
of the word.

1326
01:20:44,070 --> 01:20:45,230
I mean, I spoke to her last
week.

1327
01:20:45,230 --> 01:20:48,310
Her view is more it's more about
our delusions, about how we

1328
01:20:48,310 --> 01:20:51,910
approach consciousness and the
illusions of how we perceive the

1329
01:20:51,910 --> 01:20:55,750
word per se, or the way we
perceive everything about this

1330
01:20:55,950 --> 01:20:57,550
concept.
So it's there.

1331
01:20:58,270 --> 01:21:00,550
So it's a lot of.
Nonsense in there, Yeah, lots of

1332
01:21:00,550 --> 01:21:06,880
illusions in there.
The problem is that they this

1333
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:09,240
can be a way to create straw
man.

1334
01:21:10,440 --> 01:21:13,280
I had a director of this.
I once wrote an article

1335
01:21:13,280 --> 01:21:16,480
criticizing the work of a
neuroscientist from California,

1336
01:21:16,960 --> 01:21:18,560
Antonio Damatio.
I think no.

1337
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:21,440
Yeah, Antonio Damatio, the guy
who said consciousness doesn't,

1338
01:21:21,680 --> 01:21:23,560
doesn't exist.
It doesn't happen.

1339
01:21:23,720 --> 01:21:28,200
He's on record saying that in an
article in New Science cover

1340
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:33,560
feature, and I criticize that.
And and the way I criticized

1341
01:21:33,560 --> 01:21:38,800
that was that the what he
defined as consciousness is not

1342
01:21:38,800 --> 01:21:40,840
what philosophers call
consciousness at all.

1343
01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:43,960
It's not even what the the
regular person on the street

1344
01:21:43,960 --> 01:21:47,280
would call consciousness.
He defines consciousness as a

1345
01:21:47,280 --> 01:21:55,080
kind of immortal soul, kind of a
ghost, a kind of persistent self

1346
01:21:55,280 --> 01:21:58,190
that inhabits our body.
And then he proceeds to

1347
01:21:58,190 --> 01:22:01,870
dismantle that notion that there
is no self, no personal self.

1348
01:22:02,590 --> 01:22:05,470
All of which I agree.
There is no stable personal

1349
01:22:05,470 --> 01:22:06,830
self.
There is no personal self.

1350
01:22:06,830 --> 01:22:08,590
This.
It's an illusion.

1351
01:22:08,670 --> 01:22:10,110
The personal self is an
illusion.

1352
01:22:10,470 --> 01:22:12,830
But that's not what we mean by
consciousness.

1353
01:22:12,830 --> 01:22:15,950
What what we mean by
consciousness is the qualities

1354
01:22:15,950 --> 01:22:19,270
of experience.
And the Manzius argument doesn't

1355
01:22:19,270 --> 01:22:24,070
even touch that.
So I I I criticized him and he

1356
01:22:24,070 --> 01:22:29,310
replied with pure ad hominems.
Portraying me as some kind of

1357
01:22:29,310 --> 01:22:35,070
spiritual woo, woo wacko
religious fanatic or and I I I

1358
01:22:35,070 --> 01:22:39,350
was amazed with that.
I mean, I I I'll confess it drew

1359
01:22:39,350 --> 01:22:45,470
a smile because it was a answer
to a criticism that in over 800

1360
01:22:45,470 --> 01:22:48,270
words didn't at all touch the
criticism.

1361
01:22:49,510 --> 01:22:54,310
It wasn't a known answer and but
it dawned on me that.

1362
01:22:55,140 --> 01:22:59,460
It is the illusionists that are
confused about what is meant by

1363
01:22:59,460 --> 01:23:03,300
the word consciousness.
It is they who are thinking of

1364
01:23:03,500 --> 01:23:06,940
these embodied souls or
permanent personal selves.

1365
01:23:07,700 --> 01:23:12,580
It's they who make that mistake.
And now they found a way to

1366
01:23:12,580 --> 01:23:17,460
refute the mistake they make,
but they project that on other

1367
01:23:17,460 --> 01:23:19,520
people.
But the other people are not

1368
01:23:19,520 --> 01:23:22,200
making that mistake.
You see what I mean?

1369
01:23:22,440 --> 01:23:26,720
Like Denny Dennett, he went to
great lengths to dismiss the

1370
01:23:26,720 --> 01:23:30,600
homunculus idea that
consciousness is a little guy

1371
01:23:30,600 --> 01:23:32,960
sitting inside your head
watching the output of your

1372
01:23:32,960 --> 01:23:34,200
brain.
I mean that.

1373
01:23:34,240 --> 01:23:37,200
That's nonsense.
Congratulations, You refuted

1374
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:39,600
something.
Everybody in the world in the

1375
01:23:39,600 --> 01:23:44,840
21st century, no, isn't true.
But don't attribute that

1376
01:23:44,840 --> 01:23:48,180
nonsense to me.
Don't attribute it to analytic

1377
01:23:48,180 --> 01:23:50,940
idealism.
And then go and burn the strong

1378
01:23:50,940 --> 01:23:54,340
man you created.
So what's dawned on me after

1379
01:23:54,340 --> 01:23:59,780
that interaction with Damasio
was that they are not refuting

1380
01:23:59,780 --> 01:24:03,980
the confusion of others, the
illusionists, They are refuting

1381
01:24:03,980 --> 01:24:07,740
their own confusion and they
think that they are refuting

1382
01:24:07,740 --> 01:24:09,820
other people.
And I don't think that's what's

1383
01:24:09,820 --> 01:24:13,380
going on here.
Yeah, what about Galen, Strawson

1384
01:24:13,380 --> 01:24:17,920
and Mysterianism?
Well, mysteriousness by

1385
01:24:17,920 --> 01:24:21,080
definition, is not a step
forward in term.

1386
01:24:21,080 --> 01:24:24,760
It's not a positive step forward
in the sense that it it's not

1387
01:24:24,760 --> 01:24:28,800
bringing new clarity.
It can be positive in the sense

1388
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:33,320
that it at least avoids the
bullshit, avoids the bullshit of

1389
01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:38,400
saying, oh, consciousness is
just brain activity, No brain

1390
01:24:38,400 --> 01:24:41,520
activity is probably.
It's certainly correlated with

1391
01:24:41,520 --> 01:24:44,320
consciousness, but the causality
here is.

1392
01:24:45,150 --> 01:24:47,710
Try to substantiate that for 1
1/2 century.

1393
01:24:48,030 --> 01:24:49,790
And failed.
And now we know for sure that

1394
01:24:49,790 --> 01:24:52,430
it's not there.
So at least we avoid that false

1395
01:24:52,430 --> 01:24:54,590
conclusion by saying well, we
don't know what it is.

1396
01:24:55,230 --> 01:24:57,950
So there is a negative step
forward in the sense that you

1397
01:24:57,950 --> 01:25:02,830
negate a step backwards, but you
don't produce a step forward by

1398
01:25:02,830 --> 01:25:04,190
saying, well, we don't know what
it is.

1399
01:25:04,830 --> 01:25:09,230
I think it's it's too soon to
give up because the problem is

1400
01:25:09,230 --> 01:25:13,270
not as intractable as it seems.
It only seems intractable if one

1401
01:25:13,270 --> 01:25:17,040
makes some.
Unexamined assumptions that make

1402
01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:20,360
it intractable.
But if you drop those unexamined

1403
01:25:20,360 --> 01:25:23,560
assumptions and you clear your
head, and you approach the

1404
01:25:23,560 --> 01:25:26,640
problem with a clear,
unprejudiced head.

1405
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:30,240
It's certainly not as
intractable as it would

1406
01:25:30,240 --> 01:25:32,760
otherwise seem, so I'm not
prepared to give up.

1407
01:25:33,720 --> 01:25:36,440
Yeah, I will meet.
What was the other thing you

1408
01:25:36,440 --> 01:25:38,720
said?
Mysterianism And then I think I

1409
01:25:38,720 --> 01:25:40,920
just said now Galen Strawson.
I was just mentioned Galen

1410
01:25:40,920 --> 01:25:43,540
Strawson and trying to think
there's no other theory of

1411
01:25:43,540 --> 01:25:45,420
consciousness.
But anyway, Chapter 4 is pretty

1412
01:25:45,420 --> 01:25:49,020
much moving away from the other
theories of consciousness where

1413
01:25:49,140 --> 01:25:52,820
I wanted to go into depth on
analytic idealism itself,

1414
01:25:52,820 --> 01:25:55,620
discussing how it makes sense of
reality without requiring

1415
01:25:55,940 --> 01:25:59,340
anything other than Nature's
soul given, which is experience.

1416
01:26:00,820 --> 01:26:05,460
So I think let's do that.
Can we take a quick bio break?

1417
01:26:05,460 --> 01:26:07,740
I need to go to the toilet.
Let's do my bottle.

1418
01:26:11,050 --> 01:26:12,570
Let's realize that would have
actually been a perfect

1419
01:26:12,570 --> 01:26:15,050
opportunity for me to test out
some of these bumpers I created.

1420
01:26:20,610 --> 01:26:25,250
All right, Okay.
Yeah.

1421
01:26:25,250 --> 01:26:27,730
So let's go into depth.
Let's go in depth into analytic

1422
01:26:27,730 --> 01:26:30,570
idealism itself, discussing how
it makes sense of reality

1423
01:26:30,570 --> 01:26:34,010
without requiring anything other
than nature's soul given, which

1424
01:26:34,010 --> 01:26:34,970
is experience.
Yeah.

1425
01:26:36,130 --> 01:26:39,480
So to make sense of nature.
We have to grant that there

1426
01:26:39,640 --> 01:26:41,960
there is an external world that
we inhabit.

1427
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:45,760
If I were in your studio with
you right now, I would describe

1428
01:26:45,760 --> 01:26:48,000
it in a way that would be
consistent with your own

1429
01:26:48,360 --> 01:26:51,240
experience of it.
So our experiences are not

1430
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:56,720
identical, but they are clearly
modulated by something outside

1431
01:26:56,720 --> 01:27:01,000
them, some set of states that we
inhabit and which surround us.

1432
01:27:01,600 --> 01:27:08,530
In other words, solipsism.
We cannot not solipsism.

1433
01:27:08,650 --> 01:27:14,570
We cannot say that the whole of
nature is made of individual

1434
01:27:14,690 --> 01:27:18,090
mind states, In other words,
mind states within people and

1435
01:27:18,090 --> 01:27:22,730
animals and and avoid
postulating an external world.

1436
01:27:22,770 --> 01:27:26,210
I believe that is impossible.
There are attempts to do that

1437
01:27:26,730 --> 01:27:31,450
that are not necessarily
incoherent, Tends to go by words

1438
01:27:31,490 --> 01:27:34,410
like a radical constructivism or
inactivism.

1439
01:27:35,760 --> 01:27:40,520
But I believe, and that may be
just my being oldfashioned or

1440
01:27:40,520 --> 01:27:43,200
too stupid to understand some of
these approaches.

1441
01:27:43,720 --> 01:27:46,680
I believe ultimately to prove
impossible to get rid of the

1442
01:27:46,680 --> 01:27:51,280
external world, there has to be
external states that we inhabit.

1443
01:27:52,640 --> 01:27:57,160
But in admitting this, we do not
need to make them non mental.

1444
01:27:57,320 --> 01:27:59,840
To make them non mental is is
equivalent to.

1445
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:02,840
The following is equivalent to
be standing on the.

1446
01:28:02,840 --> 01:28:06,880
Earth looking until the horizon.
And understanding that

1447
01:28:06,880 --> 01:28:10,120
everything we see until the
horizon is colloquially physical

1448
01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:13,720
in the sense of no content of
perception, But then saying

1449
01:28:13,720 --> 01:28:16,520
beyond the horizon, it's not
planet Earth anymore.

1450
01:28:16,840 --> 01:28:20,240
Until the horizon it's planet
Earth, but beyond the horizon.

1451
01:28:20,240 --> 01:28:22,920
I acknowledge there is something
beyond the horizon, but it's no

1452
01:28:22,920 --> 01:28:26,960
longer planet Earth.
Why beyond the horizon?

1453
01:28:26,960 --> 01:28:32,440
It's just more of the same type
of what is in the horizon in the

1454
01:28:32,440 --> 01:28:36,830
same way.
Beyond individual minds, it's

1455
01:28:36,830 --> 01:28:40,470
more stuff of the same type that
individual minds are made of.

1456
01:28:40,470 --> 01:28:42,950
In other words, mental
processes, mental state.

1457
01:28:43,710 --> 01:28:45,870
They are beyond the horizon.
They are not within my

1458
01:28:45,870 --> 01:28:48,510
individual mind.
If I stopped existing, those

1459
01:28:48,510 --> 01:28:50,430
external mental states would
still exist.

1460
01:28:50,750 --> 01:28:53,670
If every living being would die,
those mental states would still

1461
01:28:53,670 --> 01:28:55,870
exist.
They existed before the 1st

1462
01:28:55,870 --> 01:28:59,190
living being popped into
existence, but they were still

1463
01:28:59,470 --> 01:29:02,900
intrinsically mental.
It's just more earth beyond the

1464
01:29:02,900 --> 01:29:07,380
horizon, that's the idea.
And with that, you can explain

1465
01:29:07,420 --> 01:29:10,340
nature as something separate
from our individual minds and

1466
01:29:10,340 --> 01:29:13,020
which is not susceptible to our
whims.

1467
01:29:13,500 --> 01:29:18,980
Our fantasies, our fears will
not change what it does because

1468
01:29:18,980 --> 01:29:23,700
of our morning affirmations.
There is still a world out there

1469
01:29:23,700 --> 01:29:27,700
that is objective from our
perspective, but from its own

1470
01:29:27,700 --> 01:29:31,430
perspective it is subjective.
Just like my thoughts are

1471
01:29:31,430 --> 01:29:34,990
objective to you, but from their
own intrinsic intrinsic

1472
01:29:34,990 --> 01:29:36,510
perspective, they are
subjective.

1473
01:29:37,310 --> 01:29:39,270
So that's analytic idealism in a
nutshell.

1474
01:29:39,270 --> 01:29:41,830
And the question that remains
unanswered is.

1475
01:29:42,510 --> 01:29:45,470
What creates this inside,
outside division?

1476
01:29:46,150 --> 01:29:48,830
Just to speak of individual
minds and the world outside

1477
01:29:48,830 --> 01:29:51,710
individual minds, you need
boundaries that determine the

1478
01:29:51,710 --> 01:29:55,430
inside of the individual mind if
everything is mental.

1479
01:29:56,540 --> 01:29:59,340
What mental process accounts for
this boundary?

1480
01:29:59,380 --> 01:30:02,660
Well, the answer is a mental
process we have known to exist

1481
01:30:03,020 --> 01:30:08,260
already for centuries, but we
know for sure is a fact of of

1482
01:30:08,260 --> 01:30:10,860
nature for the past 20 years or
so.

1483
01:30:11,460 --> 01:30:16,900
And that's dissociation.
Dissociation can literally make.

1484
01:30:16,900 --> 01:30:21,020
You blind to what is right in
front of your open eyes, as has

1485
01:30:21,020 --> 01:30:25,230
been shown in Germany in 2015.
So the association creates A

1486
01:30:25,230 --> 01:30:28,950
cognitive boundary within a
single mind that leads to the

1487
01:30:28,950 --> 01:30:32,070
appearance of multiple
disconnect centers of awareness.

1488
01:30:32,990 --> 01:30:36,110
In psychiatry, these different
centers of awareness go under

1489
01:30:36,110 --> 01:30:40,190
the technical name altars or
alternative personalities.

1490
01:30:41,750 --> 01:30:45,430
Studies by Harvard show that 25%
of people with dissociative

1491
01:30:45,430 --> 01:30:51,550
identity disorder have dreams in
which multiple outers partake at

1492
01:30:51,550 --> 01:30:54,770
the same time.
They experience the same dream,

1493
01:30:54,890 --> 01:30:58,530
each from its own perspective,
and they see one another as

1494
01:30:58,530 --> 01:31:02,210
characters within the dream.
They can even club each other

1495
01:31:02,210 --> 01:31:06,970
over the head, speak to one
another, touch one another, and

1496
01:31:06,970 --> 01:31:09,770
when the person is awake, a
person with associative identity

1497
01:31:09,770 --> 01:31:12,410
disorder.
Depending on the altar that is

1498
01:31:12,410 --> 01:31:15,730
in executive control of the
body, that altar will relate to

1499
01:31:15,730 --> 01:31:18,130
the therapist.
The same dream, but from its own

1500
01:31:18,130 --> 01:31:21,290
point of view, describing the
other altars as.

1501
01:31:21,680 --> 01:31:24,120
Characters within the dream and
the other outers do the same

1502
01:31:24,120 --> 01:31:28,160
thing.
So the the hypothesis is that

1503
01:31:28,280 --> 01:31:30,240
okay, there are only mental
states.

1504
01:31:30,880 --> 01:31:34,520
So you know, the unified field
of physics is a field of

1505
01:31:34,520 --> 01:31:38,520
subjectivity.
Excitations of this field of

1506
01:31:38,520 --> 01:31:40,720
subjectivity are what we call
experiences.

1507
01:31:42,040 --> 01:31:45,760
And within this field,
dissociative processes form that

1508
01:31:45,760 --> 01:31:47,520
created this cognitive
boundaries.

1509
01:31:49,300 --> 01:31:52,300
We know since 2014 that the
people with dissociative

1510
01:31:52,340 --> 01:31:55,780
identity disorder, if you put
them in a brain scanner, there

1511
01:31:55,780 --> 01:31:59,460
is something a dissociative
process looks like in an FM RI.

1512
01:32:00,940 --> 01:32:03,380
In other words, dissociative
processes have an appearance.

1513
01:32:03,380 --> 01:32:06,420
They look like something in the
context of nature at large.

1514
01:32:06,420 --> 01:32:09,940
What the dissociation looks like
is biology.

1515
01:32:10,580 --> 01:32:13,820
It's life.
Life is the appearance of

1516
01:32:13,820 --> 01:32:15,700
dissociation.
It's what the dissociation in

1517
01:32:15,700 --> 01:32:18,180
the mind of nature and the field
of subjectivity.

1518
01:32:18,530 --> 01:32:21,170
That is nature.
It's what it looks like when it

1519
01:32:21,170 --> 01:32:23,410
forms.
And that's why when you look in

1520
01:32:23,410 --> 01:32:24,890
the mirror, you see a living
being.

1521
01:32:24,890 --> 01:32:26,930
And when you look at other
people who can't read your

1522
01:32:26,930 --> 01:32:29,370
thoughts and don't know what's
happening in the Galaxy of

1523
01:32:29,370 --> 01:32:33,650
Andromeda right now, they too
are the extrinsic appearance of

1524
01:32:34,010 --> 01:32:36,370
dissociative processes.
And that's why they can't read

1525
01:32:36,370 --> 01:32:37,570
your thoughts.
That's why they don't know

1526
01:32:37,570 --> 01:32:40,170
what's happening The Galaxy of
Andromeda, even though they're

1527
01:32:40,170 --> 01:32:43,170
all part of the same underlying
field of subjectivity, the one,

1528
01:32:43,250 --> 01:32:46,570
the one mind of nature.
They cannot access cognitive

1529
01:32:46,570 --> 01:32:48,810
content beyond their own
dissociative boundary.

1530
01:32:50,410 --> 01:32:55,770
And because of this dissociative
boundary, we lose access to the

1531
01:32:55,770 --> 01:32:58,930
mental states in the world that
surround us, which which is

1532
01:32:58,930 --> 01:33:02,690
itself made of mental state.
But evolutionarily speaking,

1533
01:33:02,810 --> 01:33:06,370
it's very important for our
survival that we can collect

1534
01:33:06,370 --> 01:33:10,090
information about the
environment around us, negotiate

1535
01:33:10,090 --> 01:33:13,690
that environment to perceive
threats, to perceive food and

1536
01:33:13,690 --> 01:33:17,870
water.
So it stands to reason that we

1537
01:33:17,870 --> 01:33:24,430
would have evolved to indirectly
represent external states as

1538
01:33:24,430 --> 01:33:27,830
these external states impinge on
our dissociative boundary.

1539
01:33:28,830 --> 01:33:33,110
Because even in a person with
dissociation, let's not talk

1540
01:33:33,110 --> 01:33:36,230
about pathological dissociation,
let's talk about something that

1541
01:33:36,230 --> 01:33:40,110
everybody can relate to.
We all undergo dissociation all

1542
01:33:40,110 --> 01:33:42,030
the time.
Most of the time it's not

1543
01:33:42,030 --> 01:33:44,430
pathological.
For instance, if you're having.

1544
01:33:44,890 --> 01:33:49,210
Relationship problems with your
partner at home and and it's

1545
01:33:49,210 --> 01:33:52,330
really grieving you, but in the
morning you have to go to work.

1546
01:33:52,890 --> 01:33:56,330
So what do we do?
We park our problems.

1547
01:33:56,850 --> 01:33:59,610
That's a way to induce a form of
dissociation.

1548
01:33:59,610 --> 01:34:03,450
When you are at work, you're not
experiencing your your

1549
01:34:03,450 --> 01:34:06,490
relationship problems, you're
experiencing your work.

1550
01:34:06,930 --> 01:34:12,410
But that dissociated emotion is
impinging indirectly on your

1551
01:34:12,410 --> 01:34:15,900
work life.
It is modulating the tone of

1552
01:34:15,900 --> 01:34:18,380
your thoughts.
You may become more negative,

1553
01:34:18,860 --> 01:34:22,300
less optimistic.
It's modulating your react, your

1554
01:34:22,300 --> 01:34:24,140
reactions to environmental
challenges.

1555
01:34:24,140 --> 01:34:29,380
For instance, you become more
brisk, abrupt and rude towards

1556
01:34:29,380 --> 01:34:32,420
people.
All that is happening Why are

1557
01:34:32,420 --> 01:34:34,740
you're still dissociated from
your relationship problems

1558
01:34:34,740 --> 01:34:37,900
because you've parked them, but
they dissociated?

1559
01:34:38,300 --> 01:34:42,020
Process is still impinging on
your dissociative boundary and

1560
01:34:42,020 --> 01:34:43,700
modulating what's happening
inside.

1561
01:34:44,060 --> 01:34:47,300
Not the same thing in nature.
When the living being forms,

1562
01:34:47,700 --> 01:34:50,900
that's the appearance of a
dissociative process, but the

1563
01:34:50,900 --> 01:34:53,780
mental states around that living
being are still impinging on

1564
01:34:53,780 --> 01:34:56,540
that dissociative boundary.
And evolution, of course

1565
01:34:56,540 --> 01:35:00,100
leverage that impingement to
collect information about what's

1566
01:35:00,100 --> 01:35:03,380
happening outside, even though
because of dissociation, you are

1567
01:35:03,380 --> 01:35:06,460
no longer able to directly
access external states.

1568
01:35:07,740 --> 01:35:09,300
And that's what we call
perception.

1569
01:35:10,180 --> 01:35:14,860
Perception is a way to collect
the sensory input, the sensor

1570
01:35:14,860 --> 01:35:17,820
input of the airplane that comes
in the form of impingement, and

1571
01:35:18,300 --> 01:35:21,620
then translate it into an
experience that gives you a sort

1572
01:35:21,620 --> 01:35:24,220
of at a glance view of what's
around you.

1573
01:35:25,020 --> 01:35:27,540
And we may call that vision.
Now, what would be the

1574
01:35:27,540 --> 01:35:29,300
alternative?
The alternative is that you are

1575
01:35:29,300 --> 01:35:33,620
not dissociated, so you're a
telepath now if you're a perfect

1576
01:35:33,620 --> 01:35:35,640
telepath.
It would be impossible to

1577
01:35:35,640 --> 01:35:37,800
survive.
Imagine a telepath in the middle

1578
01:35:38,040 --> 01:35:40,680
of a roused, political oriented
crowd.

1579
01:35:41,280 --> 01:35:42,960
You've become completely
dysfunctional.

1580
01:35:43,200 --> 01:35:49,520
So what you need is to have a
sort of not direct at a glance

1581
01:35:49,560 --> 01:35:54,160
view of what's going on.
So you see people agitated, but

1582
01:35:54,160 --> 01:35:57,280
you don't get overwhelmed by it.
You have a dashboard

1583
01:35:57,280 --> 01:36:01,160
representation of the mental
states There are outside, but

1584
01:36:01,160 --> 01:36:03,800
you're not directly experiencing
those mental states or.

1585
01:36:04,210 --> 01:36:05,890
That would be the end of your
dissociation.

1586
01:36:07,130 --> 01:36:10,810
So that's what perception is.
Perception is the way evolution

1587
01:36:10,810 --> 01:36:15,850
has found to allow our inner
mental states inside the

1588
01:36:15,850 --> 01:36:20,930
dissociative boundary to be
modulated by external mental

1589
01:36:20,930 --> 01:36:23,610
states that impinge on our
dissociative boundary.

1590
01:36:24,090 --> 01:36:27,010
And what we call the physical
world is basically the contents

1591
01:36:27,010 --> 01:36:30,760
of the screen of perception.
And physical quantities such as

1592
01:36:30,760 --> 01:36:38,280
meters, coulombs, seconds.
These are descriptions of the

1593
01:36:38,280 --> 01:36:42,320
representations.
So the the hierarchy you get is

1594
01:36:42,320 --> 01:36:46,160
that real states are mental
states out there beyond your

1595
01:36:46,160 --> 01:36:49,560
dissociative boundary.
Physical states are inner

1596
01:36:49,560 --> 01:36:52,760
cognitive representations of
these external mental States,

1597
01:36:53,880 --> 01:36:56,360
and physical quantities are
descriptions.

1598
01:36:57,090 --> 01:36:59,250
Of this cognitive
representations of this inner

1599
01:36:59,250 --> 01:37:06,290
physical sort of physical state.
So life is what dissociation

1600
01:37:06,290 --> 01:37:08,850
looks like.
Death is the end of

1601
01:37:08,850 --> 01:37:11,810
dissociation.
There is still an external world

1602
01:37:11,810 --> 01:37:14,690
that you cannot change just by
doing your morning affirmations.

1603
01:37:14,730 --> 01:37:17,490
Otherwise, believe me, my world
would have changed already long

1604
01:37:17,490 --> 01:37:20,130
ago.
Science is still valid.

1605
01:37:20,450 --> 01:37:24,050
Science is a way to model and
predict the behavior of the

1606
01:37:24,050 --> 01:37:26,610
external mental states.
It says nothing.

1607
01:37:26,890 --> 01:37:29,970
About what those states are,
That's not part of the

1608
01:37:29,970 --> 01:37:32,650
scientific methodology.
It's only part of the

1609
01:37:32,650 --> 01:37:35,330
methodology of people who are
very confused about the

1610
01:37:35,330 --> 01:37:37,170
difference between science and
philosophy.

1611
01:37:37,810 --> 01:37:40,370
And often they are science
spokespeople.

1612
01:37:40,410 --> 01:37:42,290
People who don't do science just
talk about it.

1613
01:37:44,650 --> 01:37:47,690
Yeah, that's it.
I mean, that's a wonderfully in

1614
01:37:47,690 --> 01:37:52,810
depth summary of it all.
I mean the overall.

1615
01:37:52,810 --> 01:37:55,900
I think that for people who want
to listen to this further and

1616
01:37:55,900 --> 01:37:58,020
find out more about that, they
should definitely go watch the

1617
01:37:58,020 --> 01:38:00,740
Essential course, because this
is definitely a crash course.

1618
01:38:00,740 --> 01:38:03,500
But I think let's move on to
Chapter 5, because you've done

1619
01:38:03,500 --> 01:38:06,980
you've already dived quite deep
into analytical idealism at this

1620
01:38:06,980 --> 01:38:09,820
point.
Chapter 5 is we review empirical

1621
01:38:09,820 --> 01:38:12,660
evidence from the fields of
foundations of physics and

1622
01:38:12,660 --> 01:38:14,980
neuroscience of consciousness,
which seems to directly

1623
01:38:14,980 --> 01:38:17,780
contradict mainstream
physicalism and suggest the

1624
01:38:17,780 --> 01:38:21,790
validity of analytic idealism.
So one of these things we

1625
01:38:21,790 --> 01:38:26,070
already touched upon, which is
the physical entities do not

1626
01:38:26,070 --> 01:38:30,310
have standalone reality.
They are produced out of an act

1627
01:38:30,310 --> 01:38:32,550
of measurement.
And this is very easy to

1628
01:38:32,550 --> 01:38:34,350
understand with the dashboard
metaphor.

1629
01:38:35,670 --> 01:38:39,670
If physicality is what appears
on the dashboard, if the

1630
01:38:39,670 --> 01:38:43,190
airplane sensors don't make a
measurement, then the dashboard

1631
01:38:43,190 --> 01:38:45,390
shows nothing.
Is it?

1632
01:38:45,550 --> 01:38:47,830
Is it so complicated to
understand?

1633
01:38:47,830 --> 01:38:50,150
It's not.
It's not magical, It's not

1634
01:38:50,150 --> 01:38:51,790
quantum.
Oh my God.

1635
01:38:51,790 --> 01:38:55,510
The quantum mysterion is no.
There are no physical entities

1636
01:38:55,510 --> 01:38:58,550
unless you measure for exactly
the same reason that the

1637
01:38:58,550 --> 01:39:02,190
dashboard dials show nothing
unless the airplane sensors

1638
01:39:02,470 --> 01:39:05,630
measure.
What we have to abandon is this

1639
01:39:05,630 --> 01:39:08,550
notion that the external world
is the physical world.

1640
01:39:09,070 --> 01:39:11,350
It isn't.
The external world is what's

1641
01:39:11,350 --> 01:39:13,390
measured.
The physical world is the

1642
01:39:13,390 --> 01:39:15,430
representation of the
measurement results on the

1643
01:39:15,430 --> 01:39:20,370
dashboard.
So physical experiments show

1644
01:39:20,370 --> 01:39:24,850
have shown already, unless you
believe in egregiously

1645
01:39:24,850 --> 01:39:29,330
gratuitous and and inflationary
science fiction like ever

1646
01:39:29,330 --> 01:39:34,810
Russian multiverses or the
magical undetermined hidden.

1647
01:39:34,810 --> 01:39:38,170
Variables of of super
determinism, Unless you're

1648
01:39:38,170 --> 01:39:42,530
prepared to entertain fantasy,
experimental evidence has

1649
01:39:42,570 --> 01:39:44,960
refuted.
The standalone existence of

1650
01:39:44,960 --> 01:39:49,160
physical entities and and
neuroscience of consciousness

1651
01:39:49,160 --> 01:39:53,600
now has a number of examples
that show a inverse correlation

1652
01:39:53,600 --> 01:39:56,920
between brain activity and the
richness and intensity of

1653
01:39:56,920 --> 01:39:58,920
experience.
The most famous one is of course

1654
01:39:58,920 --> 01:40:01,680
psychedelics.
You have the richest, most

1655
01:40:01,680 --> 01:40:06,720
intense experience of.
Your life while the activity of

1656
01:40:06,720 --> 01:40:10,040
your brain has only reduced with
respect to the to the baseline.

1657
01:40:10,520 --> 01:40:13,400
But there is more.
Pilots undergoing G force

1658
01:40:13,640 --> 01:40:19,040
training in centrifuges.
They pass out, but when they

1659
01:40:19,040 --> 01:40:23,240
come round they report, and I
will quote, memorable dreams.

1660
01:40:24,200 --> 01:40:28,080
In other words, what we take to
be unconsciousness is just

1661
01:40:28,160 --> 01:40:31,800
unresponsiveness.
They those people are not

1662
01:40:31,800 --> 01:40:36,400
unconscious at all.
They are experiencing memorable

1663
01:40:36,400 --> 01:40:39,680
dreams.
Or another example, acquired

1664
01:40:39,680 --> 01:40:43,540
savant syndrome.
People who suffer accidents or a

1665
01:40:43,540 --> 01:40:47,460
shot in the head or suffer head
head trauma, they suddenly

1666
01:40:47,460 --> 01:40:51,140
become capable of incredible
mathematical feats.

1667
01:40:51,460 --> 01:40:56,980
Or they start composing music
like professional composers,

1668
01:40:56,980 --> 01:40:58,020
even though they had no
training.

1669
01:40:58,020 --> 01:40:59,900
Or they become exquisite
artists.

1670
01:41:00,540 --> 01:41:04,060
So that's another instance of
impaired brain function leading

1671
01:41:04,060 --> 01:41:07,900
to broader consciousness.
Or Vietnam War veterans.

1672
01:41:07,900 --> 01:41:13,280
That's a study from 2016.
War veterans, more than 100 of

1673
01:41:13,280 --> 01:41:15,920
them were studied.
Damage to specific parts of the

1674
01:41:15,920 --> 01:41:20,680
brain is correlated with much
higher propensity to socalled

1675
01:41:21,120 --> 01:41:25,720
spiritual or religious insight.
My more prospective study was

1676
01:41:25,720 --> 01:41:29,680
done in Italy in 2010, in which
people who were to undergo

1677
01:41:29,680 --> 01:41:32,200
operations for the removal of
brain tumors.

1678
01:41:32,680 --> 01:41:36,560
They were studied for an index
called self transcendence, your

1679
01:41:36,560 --> 01:41:39,040
ability to identify to something
bigger than yourself.

1680
01:41:39,500 --> 01:41:42,980
They were scored for that before
and after surgery and after

1681
01:41:42,980 --> 01:41:45,780
surgery which which always
causes damage in in a

1682
01:41:45,780 --> 01:41:51,020
surrounding cerebral tissue.
Spiritual self transcendence,

1683
01:41:51,020 --> 01:41:54,420
the index of self transcendence
is much higher, so people have a

1684
01:41:54,420 --> 01:41:59,420
broader, deeper experience of
life despite impairment of brain

1685
01:41:59,420 --> 01:42:05,300
function or even trivial things
that have been like choking in

1686
01:42:05,300 --> 01:42:08,780
ages worldwide have figured out.
And this is a very dangerous

1687
01:42:08,780 --> 01:42:11,410
thing.
That the partial strangulation

1688
01:42:12,050 --> 01:42:15,210
can give you a psychedelic trip.
You can go to other dimensions,

1689
01:42:15,210 --> 01:42:19,450
Spectra, alien beings and
unfathomable experience just by

1690
01:42:19,450 --> 01:42:21,970
partial strangulation.
Of course some of them die

1691
01:42:21,970 --> 01:42:24,890
because turned out they actually
get strangulated.

1692
01:42:25,970 --> 01:42:30,890
But strangulation, which reduces
blood flow flow to the brain and

1693
01:42:30,890 --> 01:42:33,930
therefore reduces metabolism.
A generalized reduction of brain

1694
01:42:33,930 --> 01:42:38,010
metabolism leads to much richer
and intensive experience.

1695
01:42:38,490 --> 01:42:44,090
I could go on and on and on, but
this shows that experience is

1696
01:42:44,090 --> 01:42:48,090
not caused by brain activity,
because there are cases in which

1697
01:42:48,090 --> 01:42:50,810
brain activity reduces and
experience increases and both

1698
01:42:50,810 --> 01:42:53,730
happen in significant amounts,
significant degrees.

1699
01:42:54,130 --> 01:42:57,130
So what this shows us is that
brain activity is what

1700
01:42:57,130 --> 01:42:59,450
experience in their experience
looks like.

1701
01:43:00,130 --> 01:43:03,570
And unlike the cause of a
phenomenon, the appearance of a

1702
01:43:03,570 --> 01:43:05,290
phenomenon doesn't need to be
complete.

1703
01:43:05,330 --> 01:43:07,250
It doesn't need to tell
everything there's to know about

1704
01:43:07,250 --> 01:43:09,980
the phenomenon.
For instance, I I I see an

1705
01:43:09,980 --> 01:43:12,660
appearance of you right now, but
I I can't see what's underneath

1706
01:43:12,660 --> 01:43:14,900
your skin.
I don't know what's on your

1707
01:43:14,900 --> 01:43:17,340
back.
I can't see the details of your

1708
01:43:17,340 --> 01:43:20,660
metabolism.
Your appearance correlates with

1709
01:43:20,660 --> 01:43:22,740
what you are.
You're conscious in their life,

1710
01:43:23,180 --> 01:43:25,340
but it doesn't tell me
everything there is to know

1711
01:43:25,500 --> 01:43:28,420
about that.
In the exact same way brain

1712
01:43:28,420 --> 01:43:31,860
activity correlates with your
conscious in their life, but

1713
01:43:31,860 --> 01:43:34,980
doesn't tell you everything
there is to know about conscious

1714
01:43:34,980 --> 01:43:37,460
in their life.
If it were A cause, it would

1715
01:43:37,460 --> 01:43:40,290
need to.
There cannot be anything to a

1716
01:43:40,290 --> 01:43:42,930
phenomenon but what you can
trace back to its causes.

1717
01:43:43,690 --> 01:43:46,250
But an appearance doesn't need
to be complete, and that's why

1718
01:43:46,250 --> 01:43:49,770
in all these instances you have
experience that cannot be traced

1719
01:43:49,770 --> 01:43:52,770
back to brain activity.
I mean, you've given so many

1720
01:43:52,770 --> 01:43:55,380
different.
Neuroscience of consciousness

1721
01:43:55,380 --> 01:43:57,620
examples there.
I mean, I'm definitely not going

1722
01:43:57,620 --> 01:43:59,700
to say or be one of those guys
gonna say.

1723
01:43:59,740 --> 01:44:01,660
I'll find each paper and put the
link up below.

1724
01:44:02,020 --> 01:44:03,380
Anyone listening and watching?
Just this.

1725
01:44:03,460 --> 01:44:07,020
I have done that already because
although you are not one of

1726
01:44:07,020 --> 01:44:09,420
those guys, there are many of
those guys out there.

1727
01:44:09,860 --> 01:44:12,180
Yeah, that's funny.
Now I'm talking about for the

1728
01:44:12,180 --> 01:44:13,580
audience.
If they wanna find those things,

1729
01:44:13,580 --> 01:44:15,340
they're just gonna have to
Google it and research it on

1730
01:44:15,340 --> 01:44:18,620
their own if you go to.
Which chapter was it Chapter 5?

1731
01:44:18,900 --> 01:44:21,460
Chapter 5 is, so you need to go
to all the language.

1732
01:44:22,090 --> 01:44:24,890
Yeah, you go to the description
of that video and it's perfect.

1733
01:44:25,170 --> 01:44:27,570
Not all because there are just
too many, but it's a couple of

1734
01:44:27,570 --> 01:44:30,050
dozen there at some point.
I thought this should be enough

1735
01:44:30,050 --> 01:44:31,770
for the worst skeptic at this
point.

1736
01:44:32,130 --> 01:44:33,210
Okay.
Now then, I'll definitely have

1737
01:44:33,210 --> 01:44:36,490
that leg ready for them.
Within that, something I thought

1738
01:44:36,490 --> 01:44:39,650
about while you were talking,
but otherwise cuz part of it was

1739
01:44:39,650 --> 01:44:41,170
the fields of foundations of
physics.

1740
01:44:41,530 --> 01:44:43,730
Well, I don't think we touched
on this, but what do you think

1741
01:44:43,730 --> 01:44:48,490
about Penrose's and Stuart
Hameroff's Quantum consciousness

1742
01:44:48,490 --> 01:44:51,430
Theory?
I don't think it.

1743
01:44:52,030 --> 01:44:56,270
I think it was a valid attempt,
but I don't think it pans out

1744
01:44:56,910 --> 01:44:58,870
now.
But Penrose's objective

1745
01:44:58,870 --> 01:45:04,670
collapse, I think it looks at
things the wrong way.

1746
01:45:05,350 --> 01:45:08,310
And and now I'm, I mean,
extremely dangerous territory

1747
01:45:08,310 --> 01:45:11,550
because I'm about to criticize a
physics Nobel Prize winner.

1748
01:45:13,670 --> 01:45:18,070
But sometimes physicists get
sidetracked by wrong or

1749
01:45:18,070 --> 01:45:22,300
unexamined philosophical
assumptions, and for those I am

1750
01:45:22,300 --> 01:45:26,980
a bit of an authority.
So what I'm about to say I, I

1751
01:45:26,980 --> 01:45:33,180
say with humble humility towards
Ben Rose because I have profound

1752
01:45:33,540 --> 01:45:35,900
admiration for him more than
respect.

1753
01:45:38,220 --> 01:45:40,620
But we are all humans.
Nobody gets it perfect.

1754
01:45:40,660 --> 01:45:45,100
So, and I'm too committed to
truth to not say what I feel

1755
01:45:45,100 --> 01:45:50,050
needs to be said just because of
my extraordinary respect for Sir

1756
01:45:50,050 --> 01:45:53,810
Roger.
I don't think there is such a

1757
01:45:53,810 --> 01:45:58,770
thing as collapse.
I think collapse is a merely

1758
01:45:59,130 --> 01:46:04,890
operational concept that allows
us to operationalize experiments

1759
01:46:04,890 --> 01:46:08,410
and talk about them, but it
doesn't reflect an actual

1760
01:46:08,410 --> 01:46:12,330
element of reality.
I don't think anything collapses

1761
01:46:12,330 --> 01:46:16,090
in reality and therefore
objective collapse is an

1762
01:46:16,090 --> 01:46:18,090
illusion because there isn't
collapse to begin with.

1763
01:46:19,490 --> 01:46:22,330
And I think Sir Rogers started
from the assumption of collapse

1764
01:46:22,330 --> 01:46:25,210
because operationally it's
useful.

1765
01:46:25,730 --> 01:46:28,050
You know you have a quantum
system in a superposition.

1766
01:46:29,210 --> 01:46:33,250
If you touch it, it will
decohere and collapse.

1767
01:46:34,050 --> 01:46:38,090
So that's what we experience
doing science.

1768
01:46:38,090 --> 01:46:43,910
So I understand the the the
tendency to try to take it for a

1769
01:46:43,990 --> 01:46:47,310
fact, an objective event.
I don't think it is, I don't

1770
01:46:47,310 --> 01:46:52,230
think.
If you have specialist viewers,

1771
01:46:52,230 --> 01:46:54,070
they they will now raise all
kinds of questions.

1772
01:46:54,070 --> 01:46:56,910
So I should at least continue a
little bit more, at least to

1773
01:46:56,910 --> 01:46:59,630
give an impression to people
that I have thought about it.

1774
01:46:59,630 --> 01:47:01,550
Maybe I didn't give you a
complete answer, but I have

1775
01:47:01,550 --> 01:47:06,350
thought about that.
Decoherence is not collapse.

1776
01:47:07,350 --> 01:47:09,830
What we take to be collapsed is
merely.

1777
01:47:10,170 --> 01:47:14,650
Decoherence.
But decoherence is such a marked

1778
01:47:14,650 --> 01:47:17,370
effect that we think collapse
really exists.

1779
01:47:17,370 --> 01:47:20,890
So what do I think is happening?
What is decoherence?

1780
01:47:20,890 --> 01:47:22,170
Let's start like that.
Okay.

1781
01:47:22,170 --> 01:47:24,330
If you have a microscopic
quantum system in a

1782
01:47:24,330 --> 01:47:28,370
superposition, that
superposition has information.

1783
01:47:30,290 --> 01:47:33,210
When you touch that quantum
system with a classical

1784
01:47:33,250 --> 01:47:39,570
apparatus, the information in
the superposition will.

1785
01:47:40,900 --> 01:47:44,900
Sort of leak into the classical
environment.

1786
01:47:46,100 --> 01:47:49,180
In other words, you can no
longer see the superposition,

1787
01:47:50,340 --> 01:47:52,420
but the superposition is not
lost.

1788
01:47:52,420 --> 01:47:57,900
That information didn't go away,
it just became diluted in the

1789
01:47:57,900 --> 01:48:01,740
classical environment the moment
you touched the quantum system.

1790
01:48:03,340 --> 01:48:06,760
So nothing collapses.
The superposition still exists

1791
01:48:06,960 --> 01:48:09,680
in the broader classical
environment, but you can't

1792
01:48:09,680 --> 01:48:13,040
receive it for the same reason
that you cannot receive a drop

1793
01:48:13,040 --> 01:48:17,920
of ink in the ocean.
When you drop ink in the ocean,

1794
01:48:18,320 --> 01:48:22,640
the droplet didn't disappear, it
didn't collapse out of

1795
01:48:22,640 --> 01:48:25,600
existence.
The information in the droplet

1796
01:48:25,800 --> 01:48:29,360
in its molecules, properties of
its molecules, it it's still

1797
01:48:29,360 --> 01:48:33,480
there, it's just diluted and
dispersed in a much broader

1798
01:48:33,480 --> 01:48:36,150
context.
So that's that's the coherence.

1799
01:48:36,510 --> 01:48:39,830
You lose your ability to see the
information in the

1800
01:48:39,830 --> 01:48:41,750
superpositions.
If you run an interference

1801
01:48:41,750 --> 01:48:45,150
experiment, you will not see an
interference anymore because

1802
01:48:45,150 --> 01:48:47,270
it's now diluted in the
classical context.

1803
01:48:48,550 --> 01:48:52,750
What the coherence does not tell
you is how the classical context

1804
01:48:52,750 --> 01:48:57,110
became classical to begin with,
because the whole thing is based

1805
01:48:57,110 --> 01:49:00,350
on this notion that OK, the
laboratory equipment and the

1806
01:49:00,350 --> 01:49:03,890
laboratory itself is classical.
But if everything is quantum,

1807
01:49:03,890 --> 01:49:06,130
how did that become classical to
begin with?

1808
01:49:06,770 --> 01:49:10,730
That's where we need to review
our understanding of foundations

1809
01:49:10,730 --> 01:49:13,730
of physics.
But the point I'm trying to make

1810
01:49:13,730 --> 01:49:17,610
for now is that what passes for
collapse is merely the

1811
01:49:17,610 --> 01:49:20,530
coherence.
Nothing truly collapses.

1812
01:49:20,810 --> 01:49:24,210
The question we need to answer
is how things appear classical

1813
01:49:24,210 --> 01:49:28,090
to begin with.
Interesting.

1814
01:49:30,700 --> 01:49:33,380
I wanted to ask you about this,
but I was considering just

1815
01:49:33,380 --> 01:49:35,220
moving on to the next one.
But I was going to ask about the

1816
01:49:35,220 --> 01:49:37,460
last one regarding super
determinism.

1817
01:49:39,460 --> 01:49:45,060
Oh yeah, I had a debate with
Zabini Hossen Fowler a while

1818
01:49:45,060 --> 01:49:53,100
ago.
How do I describe that without

1819
01:49:53,100 --> 01:49:54,940
coming across in a way that I
don't want to?

1820
01:49:55,780 --> 01:49:59,740
I read, I think I read your
paper on about it already.

1821
01:50:02,090 --> 01:50:06,490
I I can repeat some of the
criticisms I made of of super

1822
01:50:06,490 --> 01:50:10,770
determinism towards if you link
the video then people can go

1823
01:50:10,770 --> 01:50:13,330
back or or they I wrote about it
as well.

1824
01:50:16,450 --> 01:50:22,530
But in in a nutshell, what super
determinism tries to account for

1825
01:50:23,370 --> 01:50:26,970
is is the measurement problem.
For instance, the correlations

1826
01:50:26,970 --> 01:50:30,010
between Bob's measurements and
Alice's measurements.

1827
01:50:30,450 --> 01:50:33,610
Even the Wallace and Bob cannot
communicate and the particles

1828
01:50:33,610 --> 01:50:36,250
were already in flight for a
while, so the particles couldn't

1829
01:50:36,250 --> 01:50:38,050
communicate with one another
either.

1830
01:50:39,290 --> 01:50:45,090
Super Determinism tries to
address that by saying that the

1831
01:50:45,090 --> 01:50:49,130
statistical character of an
individual quantum measurement

1832
01:50:49,490 --> 01:50:52,410
which cannot be determined when
you make a single quantum

1833
01:50:52,410 --> 01:50:55,450
measurement, the outcome is
random.

1834
01:50:55,940 --> 01:50:59,140
All you can determine is the is
a law of large numbers.

1835
01:50:59,140 --> 01:51:02,100
If you make enough measurements
then we know the statistic

1836
01:51:02,100 --> 01:51:05,100
distribution of the results.
But for individual results they

1837
01:51:05,100 --> 01:51:07,380
are random.
In other words, they violate

1838
01:51:07,380 --> 01:51:10,540
determinism.
What super determinism says is

1839
01:51:10,540 --> 01:51:13,580
that no, there is no violation
of determinism.

1840
01:51:14,020 --> 01:51:17,420
We just cannot predict the
outcome of a single measurement

1841
01:51:17,420 --> 01:51:21,860
because there are variables
involved that we don't measure,

1842
01:51:21,860 --> 01:51:27,090
that we know nothing about.
And it's those hidden variables

1843
01:51:27,530 --> 01:51:29,610
that that actually determine
everything.

1844
01:51:30,170 --> 01:51:34,010
And that's that's been that's
been extrapolated to account for

1845
01:51:34,010 --> 01:51:36,850
the whole of quantum mechanics
and preserve notions such as

1846
01:51:37,130 --> 01:51:39,410
physical entities do have
standalone existence.

1847
01:51:39,810 --> 01:51:42,770
And the correlations between
Alice and Bob's measurements is

1848
01:51:42,770 --> 01:51:46,010
just because these hidden
variables are not spatially

1849
01:51:46,010 --> 01:51:48,410
located.
So they provide a kind of

1850
01:51:48,410 --> 01:51:52,730
instantaneous transmission of
information that causes the,

1851
01:51:52,930 --> 01:51:58,590
the, the, the correlations.
What this if you elaborate, if,

1852
01:51:58,630 --> 01:52:01,510
if you go a little bit a little
bit deeper into this general

1853
01:52:01,510 --> 01:52:06,030
idea and try to explore what it
means in practice, what you get

1854
01:52:06,030 --> 01:52:08,150
is the following.
I will use a metaphor, but the

1855
01:52:08,150 --> 01:52:12,110
metaphor really corresponds to
the to the technicality of the

1856
01:52:12,110 --> 01:52:14,550
thing.
What is being postulated here is

1857
01:52:14,550 --> 01:52:18,310
the following.
If you were suppose you you, you

1858
01:52:18,310 --> 01:52:21,910
are an astronomic photographer
and you want to make a picture

1859
01:52:21,910 --> 01:52:25,630
of the moon at night.
So you take your camera out to

1860
01:52:25,630 --> 01:52:28,230
your backyard, you put it on a
tripod, you point it at the

1861
01:52:28,230 --> 01:52:31,910
moon, and then you will program
the parameters of the camera

1862
01:52:32,470 --> 01:52:36,550
such as exposure, exposure, time
and aperture.

1863
01:52:38,110 --> 01:52:46,190
What super determinism says is
that what the moon is depends on

1864
01:52:46,190 --> 01:52:50,990
the settings of your camera.
So if you change the exposure,

1865
01:52:50,990 --> 01:52:56,060
you change the aperture.
The moon will change the

1866
01:52:56,060 --> 01:52:59,100
settings of your experimental
apparatus.

1867
01:53:00,340 --> 01:53:05,020
Determines what the thing that
you measure is.

1868
01:53:06,220 --> 01:53:08,980
How does it do that?
Hidden variables?

1869
01:53:09,620 --> 01:53:12,420
We don't know, but that's what
it does.

1870
01:53:12,980 --> 01:53:17,260
And why is this interesting?
In order to preserve materialism

1871
01:53:17,340 --> 01:53:21,310
for the following reason.
If you believe that your camera

1872
01:53:21,310 --> 01:53:27,070
settings change the moon itself,
then whatever your photo shows

1873
01:53:27,790 --> 01:53:31,550
will be consistent with your
theory, because the photo that

1874
01:53:31,550 --> 01:53:35,350
comes out is no longer an
objective representation of the

1875
01:53:35,350 --> 01:53:38,710
thing measured, it is now a
representations of your

1876
01:53:38,910 --> 01:53:42,950
experimental settings.
Nothing is objective anymore.

1877
01:53:42,950 --> 01:53:44,870
Everything depends on
experimental settings.

1878
01:53:45,330 --> 01:53:48,530
Because your experimental
settings will change what things

1879
01:53:48,570 --> 01:53:51,570
are via these hidden causal
chains.

1880
01:53:52,890 --> 01:53:57,210
Worse yet, even if you postulate
the theoretical entities, such

1881
01:53:57,210 --> 01:54:01,490
as hidden variables that have
not been shown yet to exist, for

1882
01:54:01,490 --> 01:54:05,170
which there is no evidence even
in that case, the minimum that

1883
01:54:05,170 --> 01:54:11,410
is expected from decent
scientists is to specify what it

1884
01:54:11,410 --> 01:54:13,610
is that you're postulating to
exist.

1885
01:54:14,350 --> 01:54:18,070
Not to just say hidden variable,
but no, no, no.

1886
01:54:18,110 --> 01:54:21,430
Tell me something more, more or
less.

1887
01:54:21,430 --> 01:54:25,190
What is it supposed to be?
You know, where am I supposed to

1888
01:54:25,190 --> 01:54:26,950
find it?
What would be?

1889
01:54:26,950 --> 01:54:29,710
What would be the physical
parameters under which I could

1890
01:54:29,710 --> 01:54:31,870
expect to measure them or to
find them?

1891
01:54:32,110 --> 01:54:34,910
Give me something.
To give you a concrete example,

1892
01:54:35,790 --> 01:54:38,910
when Higgs predicted the Higgs
boson in the 60 Peter Higgs,

1893
01:54:40,550 --> 01:54:42,950
there was 0 evidence for the
Higgs boson.

1894
01:54:43,380 --> 01:54:47,340
But he told us what was the
expected energy level.

1895
01:54:47,940 --> 01:54:52,420
He told us what it was expected
to decay into, so we couldn't

1896
01:54:52,420 --> 01:54:57,380
know what to to find.
He told us the circumstances and

1897
01:54:57,380 --> 01:55:00,220
parameters and conditions under
which we could expect to produce

1898
01:55:00,220 --> 01:55:02,980
it.
He gave us the ranges of

1899
01:55:02,980 --> 01:55:05,500
different physical properties of
the Higgs bosom.

1900
01:55:06,580 --> 01:55:09,540
No evidence for it, but he told
us what the Higgs bosom was

1901
01:55:09,540 --> 01:55:12,140
supposed to be if you postulated
theoretical entity.

1902
01:55:12,570 --> 01:55:15,450
At the very least, you have to
specify what it's supposed to be

1903
01:55:15,570 --> 01:55:18,450
so people can look for it.
And sure enough, we went looking

1904
01:55:18,450 --> 01:55:22,370
for it and they found it.
By the way, we found it within

1905
01:55:22,410 --> 01:55:24,650
the range that Peter Hicks
predicted.

1906
01:55:25,090 --> 01:55:28,330
It was not being in the middle
of it because a little higher on

1907
01:55:28,330 --> 01:55:31,650
the energy level, but it was
within range.

1908
01:55:31,970 --> 01:55:36,330
This is science.
But Zabina, she doesn't even

1909
01:55:36,330 --> 01:55:38,370
begin to tell you what it's
supposed to be.

1910
01:55:38,370 --> 01:55:40,730
So the how does she define
hidden variables?

1911
01:55:40,730 --> 01:55:43,460
Well.
Hidden variables are whatever is

1912
01:55:43,460 --> 01:55:47,620
necessary to be in nature, such
that I can continue to believe

1913
01:55:47,620 --> 01:55:51,620
in materialism and determinism.
That's not science.

1914
01:55:52,100 --> 01:55:55,580
And during the debate, she told
me now she did determine the

1915
01:55:55,580 --> 01:55:59,940
hidden variables.
She even referred to a paper and

1916
01:55:59,940 --> 01:56:03,180
I believed that her.
I thought, well then I failed in

1917
01:56:03,180 --> 01:56:05,340
my homework.
She determined it somewhere.

1918
01:56:05,820 --> 01:56:09,180
Turned out that she just.
Oh, just saying.

1919
01:56:09,300 --> 01:56:12,620
She just lied to my bloody face.
And it was an outright lie

1920
01:56:12,980 --> 01:56:16,380
because I went to the paper she
mentioned and there is no such a

1921
01:56:16,380 --> 01:56:19,820
thing down there.
The paper was a toy model of

1922
01:56:19,820 --> 01:56:23,340
hidden variables which was never
meant to apply to reality.

1923
01:56:23,340 --> 01:56:27,180
It was a mathematical exercise
so they could train about

1924
01:56:27,180 --> 01:56:31,580
writing the equations path
integrals.

1925
01:56:31,740 --> 01:56:36,180
Sabina Sabina's Path Integral
for Super Determinism has a term

1926
01:56:36,180 --> 01:56:40,140
called.
Quantumness which which is

1927
01:56:40,140 --> 01:56:42,700
supposed to be minimized.
And it's like, come on, I mean

1928
01:56:42,700 --> 01:56:46,420
this is this, this isn't theory,
this isn't science, this is hand

1929
01:56:46,420 --> 01:56:49,340
waving.
And in the very paper she

1930
01:56:49,340 --> 01:56:52,580
referred to, the first author of
her was not her.

1931
01:56:53,660 --> 01:56:57,980
He says at the end, this is just
a toy exercise.

1932
01:56:58,340 --> 01:57:01,820
The hidden variables we are we
are specifying here cannot exist

1933
01:57:01,820 --> 01:57:04,780
in reality because we are
violating several things we know

1934
01:57:04,780 --> 01:57:10,420
to apply in reality.
So it it is so far, it may

1935
01:57:10,420 --> 01:57:12,620
change.
Somebody may specify coherently

1936
01:57:12,620 --> 01:57:15,860
some hidden variables and give
us ranges and give us something

1937
01:57:15,860 --> 01:57:20,220
that we can work with.
But right now it's a kind of

1938
01:57:20,860 --> 01:57:24,060
unfalsifiable religion.
It's something that is defined

1939
01:57:24,060 --> 01:57:28,660
in terms of it in terms of which
what you want, in terms of what

1940
01:57:28,660 --> 01:57:33,780
you want to believe nature to
be, or how you want to how you

1941
01:57:33,780 --> 01:57:37,270
want nature to behave.
So you don't see what the hidden

1942
01:57:37,270 --> 01:57:39,910
variable is, you just say there
is something that does whatever

1943
01:57:39,910 --> 01:57:41,870
needs to be done so I can
continue to believe what I

1944
01:57:41,870 --> 01:57:44,030
believe.
Yeah, this isn't science.

1945
01:57:44,750 --> 01:57:48,510
Yeah, it borders on the
unethical in my opinion.

1946
01:57:49,790 --> 01:57:52,110
Well, at least it has a cool
name.

1947
01:57:52,190 --> 01:57:55,230
Super determinism.
I mean, it's a pretty nice

1948
01:57:55,230 --> 01:57:58,510
thing, I think.
Let's move on to Chapter 6.

1949
01:57:59,650 --> 01:58:01,370
So in this chapter we're going
to discuss the distinction

1950
01:58:01,370 --> 01:58:05,050
between phenomenal consciousness
and meta consciousness, arguing

1951
01:58:05,050 --> 01:58:08,690
the so-called unconscious
reflects merely a lack of the

1952
01:58:08,690 --> 01:58:14,290
latter, not the former.
So phenomenal consciousness is

1953
01:58:14,290 --> 01:58:16,210
present when there is
experience.

1954
01:58:17,730 --> 01:58:21,210
I'll give you an example.
Right now, everybody listening

1955
01:58:21,210 --> 01:58:24,010
to this is experiencing their
breathing.

1956
01:58:24,720 --> 01:58:27,720
They are experiencing the air
going into the lung, the the

1957
01:58:28,000 --> 01:58:30,880
dilation of the rib cage.
They are experienced.

1958
01:58:30,880 --> 01:58:32,320
They are flowing through their
nostrils.

1959
01:58:33,360 --> 01:58:39,320
But they right before I said it,
they didn't know that they were

1960
01:58:39,320 --> 01:58:42,400
experiencing their breathing.
They were not telling themselves

1961
01:58:42,400 --> 01:58:44,360
in their minds, oh, I'm now
breathing.

1962
01:58:45,160 --> 01:58:48,440
This can happen also with subtle
forms of pain, especially with

1963
01:58:48,440 --> 01:58:51,720
men.
Men can be in pain for for days.

1964
01:58:51,720 --> 01:58:56,300
That has happened to me and only
realize after days oh, I've been

1965
01:58:56,300 --> 01:59:00,900
feeling this pain for a while,
so experiencing pain, but I

1966
01:59:00,900 --> 01:59:03,540
couldn't report on my pain, even
to myself.

1967
01:59:04,100 --> 01:59:07,300
I was experiencing my breathing,
but I was not reporting on my

1968
01:59:07,300 --> 01:59:10,980
breathing, even to myself.
So phenomenal consciousness

1969
01:59:10,980 --> 01:59:15,900
requires the experience, the
pain, the breathing, but not the

1970
01:59:15,900 --> 01:59:19,350
report of the experience.
When an experience is

1971
01:59:19,350 --> 01:59:22,830
accompanied by the internal
report, I am now having this

1972
01:59:22,830 --> 01:59:26,830
experience that's now meta
consciousness or conscious meta

1973
01:59:26,830 --> 01:59:29,830
cognition.
That's your ability to

1974
01:59:29,910 --> 01:59:33,510
introspectively assess the
contents of your own mind and

1975
01:59:33,510 --> 01:59:37,430
then describe them for yourself.
Now we know these two things are

1976
01:59:37,430 --> 01:59:39,310
separate.
At the very least.

1977
01:59:39,710 --> 01:59:42,110
I mean, arguably we have known
this forever because it's very

1978
01:59:42,110 --> 01:59:44,510
reasonable.
And in in in the.

1979
01:59:45,290 --> 01:59:48,930
Panels of philosophy.
We have people talking about it

1980
01:59:48,930 --> 01:59:52,410
without using the name.
Nietzsche talked explicitly

1981
01:59:52,410 --> 01:59:54,570
about the distinction between
consciousness and meta

1982
01:59:54,570 --> 01:59:56,610
consciousness.
So did Schopenhauer.

1983
01:59:56,970 --> 02:00:01,970
So did Kikagon.
So there's history for about

1984
02:00:01,970 --> 02:00:04,290
that.
But technically, we've known

1985
02:00:04,290 --> 02:00:08,290
since at least 2002 that there
is this distinction when

1986
02:00:09,050 --> 02:00:11,610
Jonathan Schooler published the
paper.

1987
02:00:12,380 --> 02:00:15,420
In which he showed that not only
these two things are separate,

1988
02:00:15,980 --> 02:00:19,540
they can even differ.
You can have one experience and

1989
02:00:19,540 --> 02:00:22,620
report on something else.
There are dissociations between

1990
02:00:22,620 --> 02:00:24,420
consciousness and meta
consciousness, which is the

1991
02:00:24,420 --> 02:00:27,500
title of the paper Dissociations
between Consciousness and Method

1992
02:00:27,500 --> 02:00:32,220
Consciousness.
What often people talk about

1993
02:00:32,220 --> 02:00:35,900
when when they say
consciousness, what what the

1994
02:00:36,140 --> 02:00:38,540
what the what they mean is meta
consciousness.

1995
02:00:39,960 --> 02:00:43,720
It's the experiences that not
only we have stuff that we not

1996
02:00:43,720 --> 02:00:46,680
only experience, but that we
know that we are experiencing

1997
02:00:46,680 --> 02:00:48,960
them.
In other words, it requires this

1998
02:00:48,960 --> 02:00:52,920
higher level mental function
called rerepresentation.

1999
02:00:53,640 --> 02:00:55,920
An experience is already a
representation.

2000
02:00:56,080 --> 02:00:59,320
If you see a balloon in the sky,
that balloon you perceive is an

2001
02:00:59,320 --> 02:01:02,960
inner cognitive representation
of external states of affairs.

2002
02:01:03,400 --> 02:01:07,080
But when you tell yourself I am
experiencing a balloon, now you

2003
02:01:07,080 --> 02:01:11,710
rerepresent that inner cognitive
representation such that the

2004
02:01:11,710 --> 02:01:15,270
rerepresentation points to their
to their representation and say

2005
02:01:15,670 --> 02:01:19,350
that is happening.
This rerepresentation is a

2006
02:01:19,350 --> 02:01:23,150
higher level mental function
that perhaps only humans have.

2007
02:01:23,270 --> 02:01:27,110
And if other animals have only
higher animals, pachyderms,

2008
02:01:27,190 --> 02:01:29,830
cetaceans, other higher
primates.

2009
02:01:30,950 --> 02:01:36,110
But it's not there in
earthworms, probably it's not

2010
02:01:36,110 --> 02:01:38,310
there in a cat.
A cat's not going around saying

2011
02:01:38,740 --> 02:01:41,820
I feel hungry.
Now I have the experience of

2012
02:01:41,820 --> 02:01:43,540
hunger.
The difference between

2013
02:01:43,540 --> 02:01:46,100
consciousness and meta
consciousness is the difference

2014
02:01:46,100 --> 02:01:51,100
between I am hunger and I feel
hungry.

2015
02:01:51,940 --> 02:01:55,820
Because when you are not meta
conscious, the experiences, all

2016
02:01:55,820 --> 02:01:59,460
there is, There isn't the
subject who is having the

2017
02:01:59,460 --> 02:02:01,300
experience, There is only the
experience.

2018
02:02:01,300 --> 02:02:03,980
So you are the hunger.
But when you say I am

2019
02:02:03,980 --> 02:02:06,900
experiencing hunger right now,
that's meta consciousness right

2020
02:02:06,900 --> 02:02:11,930
there.
And humans are so big in this

2021
02:02:11,930 --> 02:02:18,130
matter of consciousness business
that we mistake it for raw

2022
02:02:18,130 --> 02:02:22,570
consciousness itself.
Yes, at some point, I mean what

2023
02:02:22,570 --> 02:02:24,490
are your thoughts cuz I remember
with the last time we spoke, we

2024
02:02:24,490 --> 02:02:27,530
spoke about how?
David Chalmers perfectly framed

2025
02:02:27,530 --> 02:02:29,290
the hard problem of
consciousness for everyone

2026
02:02:29,290 --> 02:02:32,010
because that's the first step to
getting a solution to a problem.

2027
02:02:32,290 --> 02:02:35,890
It's framing it correctly.
And then now we obviously know

2028
02:02:35,890 --> 02:02:38,290
he started the meta problem of
consciousness.

2029
02:02:38,930 --> 02:02:41,730
What were your thoughts when he
came out of that infamous new

2030
02:02:41,730 --> 02:02:45,370
line?
The meta problem of

2031
02:02:45,370 --> 02:02:50,570
consciousness is why about 30%
of people do not see the hard

2032
02:02:50,570 --> 02:02:53,700
problem of consciousness, right?
Yeah.

2033
02:02:54,020 --> 02:02:57,380
OK, I'll talk about this just
just to conclude my previous

2034
02:02:57,380 --> 02:02:59,580
thought, because it didn't
connect it back into the

2035
02:02:59,580 --> 02:03:02,940
storyline.
The important thing about making

2036
02:03:02,940 --> 02:03:04,820
this distinction between
consciousness and meta

2037
02:03:04,820 --> 02:03:09,460
consciousness is that when we
talk about unconscious states,

2038
02:03:10,300 --> 02:03:13,860
we may actually be talking about
non meta conscious states.

2039
02:03:14,980 --> 02:03:18,100
Under idealism, everything is a
conscious state or a mental

2040
02:03:18,100 --> 02:03:20,460
state, so there is no such a
thing as unconsciousness.

2041
02:03:20,740 --> 02:03:27,540
So how do we how do we account
for this nominally unconscious

2042
02:03:27,540 --> 02:03:29,340
states?
Well, we can account for them in

2043
02:03:29,340 --> 02:03:32,060
two ways.
One is they're not unconscious,

2044
02:03:32,060 --> 02:03:35,260
they're just not metaconscious,
and the other one is they're not

2045
02:03:35,260 --> 02:03:37,260
unconscious.
They're just not accessible.

2046
02:03:37,260 --> 02:03:41,180
To the reporting ego because of
internal dissociative processes

2047
02:03:41,500 --> 02:03:44,260
in inner dissociation.
That's why we talk about

2048
02:03:44,260 --> 02:03:47,980
unconsciousness.
It's not that there is actual,

2049
02:03:48,580 --> 02:03:50,940
there are actual states that are
not conscious.

2050
02:03:51,310 --> 02:03:56,150
It's just that those states are
not accessible due to lack of

2051
02:03:56,150 --> 02:03:58,630
metacognition or lack of
associative links.

2052
02:03:58,910 --> 02:04:01,590
They're not accessible to
reportability, even self

2053
02:04:01,590 --> 02:04:04,310
reportability.
Now the meta problem of

2054
02:04:04,310 --> 02:04:08,390
consciousness is the problem of
why a certain percentage of

2055
02:04:08,390 --> 02:04:13,350
people do not see the hard
problem of consciousness, why

2056
02:04:13,350 --> 02:04:17,030
they do not, they do not
recognize its existence.

2057
02:04:17,790 --> 02:04:19,910
The hard problem of
consciousness is the following.

2058
02:04:21,260 --> 02:04:27,100
There is nothing about physical
parameters in terms of which we

2059
02:04:27,100 --> 02:04:30,300
could in principle deduce the
qualities of experience.

2060
02:04:30,980 --> 02:04:33,540
In other words, there's nothing
about the configuration or

2061
02:04:33,540 --> 02:04:36,460
disposition of subatomic
particles and fields in your

2062
02:04:36,460 --> 02:04:40,260
brain in terms of which we could
deduce in principle what it

2063
02:04:40,260 --> 02:04:44,340
feels like to eat an apple, or
to have a belly ache, or to

2064
02:04:44,340 --> 02:04:49,780
experience disappointment.
There is no link between the

2065
02:04:49,780 --> 02:04:54,860
two, and I I I already gave you
an explanation for why there is

2066
02:04:54,860 --> 02:04:57,980
no link between the two.
It's physical parameters are

2067
02:04:57,980 --> 02:04:59,780
descriptions.
They are the map.

2068
02:05:00,300 --> 02:05:04,100
But when you try to put the
descriptions prior to the thing

2069
02:05:04,100 --> 02:05:06,900
described, the lines in the map
lose their meaning.

2070
02:05:06,900 --> 02:05:09,460
They mean nothing.
And if they mean nothing, of

2071
02:05:09,460 --> 02:05:12,300
course you cannot account for
the qualities of experience or

2072
02:05:12,300 --> 02:05:15,060
deduce the qualities of
experience from a map.

2073
02:05:15,060 --> 02:05:18,470
That means nothing.
It's it's very clear.

2074
02:05:19,390 --> 02:05:22,670
Now the problem is, why do some
people not understand this?

2075
02:05:23,310 --> 02:05:25,630
Some people think that there is
no hard problem of

2076
02:05:25,630 --> 02:05:30,350
consciousness, that it's
perfectly reasonable that the

2077
02:05:30,350 --> 02:05:37,510
physical parameters of your
brain as a material object leads

2078
02:05:37,510 --> 02:05:41,830
to conscious experience.
I have theories about this.

2079
02:05:42,070 --> 02:05:44,950
There are there are different
reasons why some people don't

2080
02:05:44,950 --> 02:05:47,420
recognize it.
I think the leading reason is

2081
02:05:47,420 --> 02:05:52,340
that they do not understand what
physicalism means or entails.

2082
02:05:52,740 --> 02:05:54,260
They do not understand
physicalism.

2083
02:05:54,660 --> 02:05:58,900
And that's that's something that
I discovered by personal

2084
02:05:58,900 --> 02:06:02,980
interactions with friends of
mine who are very technically

2085
02:06:03,180 --> 02:06:07,580
capable, very erudite people,
not philosophers, engineers,

2086
02:06:07,580 --> 02:06:10,700
scientists.
They do not understand

2087
02:06:10,700 --> 02:06:14,140
physicalism.
I had a friend a couple of years

2088
02:06:14,140 --> 02:06:16,420
ago.
Here in my backyard and we were

2089
02:06:16,420 --> 02:06:20,220
having a beer in my backyard and
at some point I sort of you know

2090
02:06:20,220 --> 02:06:23,500
was got lost in my own thoughts
and I made a comment out loud

2091
02:06:23,500 --> 02:06:25,060
which was basically an inner
thought.

2092
02:06:25,540 --> 02:06:28,420
I said look at this garden.
I have several trees in my

2093
02:06:28,420 --> 02:06:34,780
backyard and lots of plants.
Under physicalism, all of this

2094
02:06:34,980 --> 02:06:38,860
is inside your head.
Why did I say that?

2095
02:06:38,900 --> 02:06:42,060
Because under physicalism, the
qualities of perception are

2096
02:06:42,060 --> 02:06:43,860
created by your brain inside
your head.

2097
02:06:45,230 --> 02:06:47,870
Yeah, the green of my garden is
inside your head.

2098
02:06:48,190 --> 02:06:50,430
Oh yeah, there is stuff out
there in my garden.

2099
02:06:50,430 --> 02:06:52,750
But it has no qualities.
It's a set of mathematical

2100
02:06:52,750 --> 02:06:55,710
equations floating in a vacuum.
It's the best way you can

2101
02:06:55,710 --> 02:06:58,390
visualize that.
All the qualities that I

2102
02:06:58,390 --> 02:07:01,070
associate with my garden, they
are supposed to be produced by

2103
02:07:01,070 --> 02:07:03,910
my brain side, my skull.
So they own my garden, as I

2104
02:07:03,910 --> 02:07:07,190
perceive is supposed to exist
inside my head, which is absurd.

2105
02:07:07,470 --> 02:07:10,780
And I made that comment and my
friend, he jumped.

2106
02:07:10,780 --> 02:07:12,620
He has a doctorate in computer
science.

2107
02:07:12,620 --> 02:07:14,980
He jumped and said what
nonsense.

2108
02:07:15,420 --> 02:07:17,220
Physicalism says no such a
thing.

2109
02:07:17,340 --> 02:07:18,860
Of course your garden is out
there.

2110
02:07:19,180 --> 02:07:22,700
And then it dawned on me that
many people who identify as

2111
02:07:22,700 --> 02:07:25,180
physicalists do not understand
physicalism.

2112
02:07:26,020 --> 02:07:30,300
They think that the only thing
that is inside your head are

2113
02:07:30,300 --> 02:07:34,980
endogenous experiences, like
thoughts, fantasies, emotions,

2114
02:07:35,500 --> 02:07:38,750
but that perceptual experience
is really out there.

2115
02:07:38,750 --> 02:07:42,070
No, that's not physicalism.
Physicalism.

2116
02:07:42,230 --> 02:07:45,990
Physicalism says that perceptual
experiences too are inside your

2117
02:07:45,990 --> 02:07:50,550
head.
The world has yeah, it's a form

2118
02:07:50,550 --> 02:07:54,750
of naive realism.
So I I I think it's my suspicion

2119
02:07:55,350 --> 02:07:59,790
that many people who do not
recognize the hard problem fail

2120
02:07:59,790 --> 02:08:02,430
to do so because they do not
understand physicalism.

2121
02:08:03,070 --> 02:08:06,520
If they truly understood
physicalism, that you would have

2122
02:08:06,520 --> 02:08:10,920
to acknowledge that there is an
impassable bridge between

2123
02:08:10,920 --> 02:08:14,200
quantities and qualities.
But not anything else you want

2124
02:08:14,200 --> 02:08:16,480
to touch on between that
distinction between phenomenal

2125
02:08:16,480 --> 02:08:20,160
and meta consciousness and the
unconscious relation good to go,

2126
02:08:20,320 --> 02:08:21,080
good to go.
Good to go.

2127
02:08:21,080 --> 02:08:24,480
OK, so the closing part of the
job, this crash course on

2128
02:08:24,480 --> 02:08:27,840
analytic idealism.
We respond to any objections

2129
02:08:27,840 --> 02:08:31,640
that you found most most
appealing, most convincing,

2130
02:08:31,800 --> 02:08:33,840
close to convincing you
otherwise.

2131
02:08:34,220 --> 02:08:36,100
And then obviously you can leave
us with some personal

2132
02:08:36,100 --> 02:08:38,020
reflections about idealism in
life.

2133
02:08:39,220 --> 02:08:42,380
Many of the objections are based
on the misunderstanding of

2134
02:08:42,380 --> 02:08:44,820
idealism.
For instance, some time ago some

2135
02:08:44,820 --> 02:08:51,500
Harris was at the Lex Friedman
podcast and he was asked a

2136
02:08:51,500 --> 02:08:54,860
question about idealism and I
will paraphrase his answer.

2137
02:08:54,860 --> 02:08:57,020
I don't remember the words
exactly, but his answer was

2138
02:08:57,020 --> 02:09:00,940
like.
The notion that all of this out

2139
02:09:00,940 --> 02:09:04,940
today are the cosmos is in my
mind is obviously nonsensical,

2140
02:09:05,580 --> 02:09:09,980
and I was appalled by that
because he is someone who

2141
02:09:09,980 --> 02:09:12,540
brandishes a degree in
philosophy from Stanford

2142
02:09:12,540 --> 02:09:17,940
University and idealism is part
of the ABC123 Canon of

2143
02:09:17,940 --> 02:09:20,340
philosophy, and he didn't know
what idealism is.

2144
02:09:21,580 --> 02:09:27,260
It's farcical almost, if that's
your misunderstanding of

2145
02:09:27,260 --> 02:09:29,790
idealism.
Then as per your

2146
02:09:29,790 --> 02:09:31,750
misunderstanding, idealism is
not true.

2147
02:09:33,510 --> 02:09:36,870
But the idealism you're talking
about is your own delusion about

2148
02:09:36,870 --> 02:09:40,910
what it means.
It's not a real idealism to most

2149
02:09:40,910 --> 02:09:43,310
of the criticisms are based on
these kinds of

2150
02:09:43,390 --> 02:09:46,590
misunderstandings, and they can
come from people even who

2151
02:09:46,590 --> 02:09:49,670
brandish philosophy degree from
Stanford University.

2152
02:09:49,670 --> 02:09:52,190
You know, ignorance suffixed by
the letters.

2153
02:09:52,190 --> 02:09:55,710
PhD is the worst form of
ignorance because it's plausibly

2154
02:09:55,710 --> 02:09:56,950
believable.
Yes.

2155
02:10:00,010 --> 02:10:06,290
Other other criticisms are based
on assumptions that people make

2156
02:10:06,290 --> 02:10:08,250
without knowing that they are
making them.

2157
02:10:08,810 --> 02:10:12,970
For instance, the criticism that
often come that I often hear

2158
02:10:12,970 --> 02:10:17,330
from very highly educated people
is the following, Bernardo, if I

2159
02:10:17,330 --> 02:10:22,490
have a needle and I stick it in
your arm, that physical process

2160
02:10:22,490 --> 02:10:28,310
of a needle piercing your your
skin will lead will cause the

2161
02:10:28,310 --> 02:10:32,070
mental process called pain and
you will withdraw your arm.

2162
02:10:32,470 --> 02:10:36,350
So here we go, a direct arrow of
causation from a physical

2163
02:10:36,350 --> 02:10:40,310
process to a mental process.
Ergo mental processes are not

2164
02:10:40,310 --> 02:10:42,030
fundamental and idealism is not
true.

2165
02:10:42,830 --> 02:10:46,190
Now do you see the straw man
here under idealism?

2166
02:10:46,750 --> 02:10:51,470
There are no non mental
processes under idealism.

2167
02:10:51,960 --> 02:10:56,960
That needle piercing your skin
is a dashboard representation of

2168
02:10:56,960 --> 02:11:01,160
a mental process, A mental
process that impinges so

2169
02:11:01,160 --> 02:11:05,440
strongly on your dissociative
boundary that it directly

2170
02:11:05,440 --> 02:11:08,840
modulates interstates within the
dissociative boundary.

2171
02:11:09,040 --> 02:11:13,800
We call that piging, but the
whole thing is mental.

2172
02:11:14,480 --> 02:11:18,280
The needle or the glass of
alcohol that you drink, those

2173
02:11:18,280 --> 02:11:22,720
are dashboard representations of
transpersonal mental processes

2174
02:11:23,040 --> 02:11:26,800
that in pinch or even Pierce
your dissociative boundary.

2175
02:11:27,240 --> 02:11:30,920
So the error of causation is not
from physical to mental, it's

2176
02:11:30,920 --> 02:11:34,400
from mental to mental.
And that mental processes

2177
02:11:34,400 --> 02:11:37,960
causally affect other mental
processes of a different type is

2178
02:11:37,960 --> 02:11:39,760
trivial.
Your thoughts.

2179
02:11:40,000 --> 02:11:42,640
Modulatory emotions.
Every day you have a bad

2180
02:11:42,640 --> 02:12:12,090
thought, look how you feel.
Or you could call that something

2181
02:12:12,090 --> 02:12:15,370
positive in the case of a
caress, but that hand caressing

2182
02:12:15,370 --> 02:12:19,250
your skin, That too is the
dashboard representation of a

2183
02:12:19,330 --> 02:12:22,410
mental process that is impinging
on your on your dissociative

2184
02:12:22,410 --> 02:11:46,470
boundary.
Or if you're feeling bad, pay

2185
02:11:46,470 --> 02:11:49,230
attention to your thoughts.
Your emotions modulate causally

2186
02:11:49,230 --> 02:11:52,590
modulate your thoughts.
Every day, mental processes

2187
02:11:52,830 --> 02:11:55,310
causally impinge on other mental
processes.

2188
02:11:55,310 --> 02:11:57,630
This is trivial.
There is nothing extraordinary

2189
02:11:57,630 --> 02:12:00,070
about it.
So that the needle causing pain

2190
02:12:00,070 --> 02:12:03,390
is just an instance of that.
A transpersonal mental process

2191
02:12:04,390 --> 02:12:06,710
piercing through your
dissociative boundary and

2192
02:12:06,710 --> 02:12:09,430
causally impacting your inner
mental processes.

2193
02:12:09,430 --> 02:12:26,730
We call that.
Finally, there is a deeper type

2194
02:12:26,730 --> 02:12:33,210
of criticism that that I already
talked about, which is based on

2195
02:12:33,210 --> 02:12:37,400
this notion that and under
idealism there is only one field

2196
02:12:37,400 --> 02:12:39,400
of subjectivity.
That's how we avoid the

2197
02:12:39,400 --> 02:12:41,720
combination problem.
We start from something that is

2198
02:12:41,720 --> 02:12:45,120
already universal, and now all
you have to explain is the

2199
02:12:45,120 --> 02:12:48,640
appearance of separation, which,
lo and behold, is very easy to

2200
02:12:48,640 --> 02:12:50,880
do, because we have an
empirically established

2201
02:12:50,880 --> 02:12:53,880
phenomena in nature called
dissociation that does exactly

2202
02:12:53,880 --> 02:12:56,310
that.
So we escape all of these

2203
02:12:56,310 --> 02:12:59,390
discussions about the
conceivability of a hypothesis.

2204
02:12:59,590 --> 02:13:01,870
Forget conceivability, it's an
empirical reality.

2205
02:13:01,990 --> 02:13:04,870
Whether you can coherently
conceive of it or not, it's your

2206
02:13:04,870 --> 02:13:07,030
problem.
Don't mix epistemology with with

2207
02:13:07,030 --> 02:13:09,670
ontology.
The association exists whether

2208
02:13:09,670 --> 02:13:13,390
we understand it or not.
But you still have this One

2209
02:13:13,390 --> 02:13:17,190
field of subjectivity, and a
frequent criticism against it,

2210
02:13:17,190 --> 02:13:21,790
is this notion that we are
compound organisms made of parts

2211
02:13:21,870 --> 02:13:25,420
made of cells.
Therefore our consciousness must

2212
02:13:25,420 --> 02:13:27,460
be compound.
It cannot be just one

2213
02:13:27,460 --> 02:13:31,300
dissociative process in a big
unity, It has to be something

2214
02:13:31,300 --> 02:13:36,540
that forms from parts and but I
already discussed the fallacy

2215
02:13:36,540 --> 02:13:39,580
here is to think of human beings
as assembled as opposed to

2216
02:13:39,580 --> 02:13:40,580
groan.
Yeah.

2217
02:13:41,060 --> 02:13:43,900
And tell me, did you touch on,
I'm trying to think, if you did

2218
02:13:43,900 --> 02:13:47,620
touch on the difference between
solipsism and idealism, did you

2219
02:13:47,620 --> 02:13:51,030
touch on that?
There is a lot of confusion out

2220
02:13:51,030 --> 02:13:52,910
there, which is the word
solipsism.

2221
02:13:52,910 --> 02:13:58,910
So the strict definition of
solipsism is the the view that

2222
02:13:58,910 --> 02:14:03,910
you are the only conscious
entity that exists and that

2223
02:14:04,070 --> 02:14:08,750
everything in the world in the
universe is your own dream.

2224
02:14:09,590 --> 02:14:12,350
That the other people you see,
they are figments of your

2225
02:14:12,350 --> 02:14:15,270
imagination.
They there is nothing.

2226
02:14:15,270 --> 02:14:18,840
It's like to be other people.
There is only something is like

2227
02:14:18,840 --> 02:14:21,360
to be you seeing other people
in.

2228
02:14:21,360 --> 02:14:24,280
In other words, other people are
just shells with no ghost

2229
02:14:24,280 --> 02:14:25,760
inside.
They don't, they don't have

2230
02:14:25,840 --> 02:14:29,960
their own conscious perspective.
They're just images you produce

2231
02:14:29,960 --> 02:14:34,360
in your own dreaming mind.
A solipsism is a nonstarter.

2232
02:14:35,680 --> 02:14:38,520
It's not something that can be
discussed because if you are a

2233
02:14:38,520 --> 02:14:41,200
believer in solipsism mean
you're consistent with it.

2234
02:14:41,680 --> 02:14:44,720
You're never going to defend it.
You're never going to talk about

2235
02:14:44,720 --> 02:14:46,280
it because you're just talking
to yourself.

2236
02:14:47,160 --> 02:14:51,880
Imagine argue with solipsists,
often solipsist.

2237
02:14:52,200 --> 02:14:57,920
A true solipsist will not argue.
What's his name?

2238
02:15:01,760 --> 02:15:04,960
Alan Watts.
He made a joke once.

2239
02:15:05,360 --> 02:15:08,320
Imagine a conference of
solipsists.

2240
02:15:11,510 --> 02:15:14,310
Each one of them thinks that
everybody else is an illusion.

2241
02:15:14,310 --> 02:15:15,910
Why would they go to the
conference?

2242
02:15:16,390 --> 02:15:18,950
Why would you defend solipsism
to someone else?

2243
02:15:18,950 --> 02:15:21,150
These are the person supposed to
be a figment of your own

2244
02:15:21,150 --> 02:15:22,870
imagination.
Who are you talking to?

2245
02:15:23,350 --> 02:15:28,070
So there is no there is no
debate around solipsism and

2246
02:15:28,790 --> 02:15:32,430
Betrand Russell in the early
20th century, he said.

2247
02:15:32,830 --> 02:15:39,290
People who maintain to believe
in solipsism actually act in

2248
02:15:39,290 --> 02:15:41,650
contradiction to that professed
belief.

2249
02:15:42,290 --> 02:15:45,450
They don't act consistently with
that professed belief.

2250
02:15:45,450 --> 02:15:47,330
In other words, they aren't
really solipsist.

2251
02:15:48,130 --> 02:15:52,570
You see, solipsist is solipsism
is unfalsifiable because every

2252
02:15:52,570 --> 02:15:57,050
evidence, pro or against
solipsism, is construed by the

2253
02:15:57,050 --> 02:16:00,010
solipsist as a figment of their
own imagination.

2254
02:16:02,770 --> 02:16:06,600
But it is not the the most
reasonable explanation, and I'm

2255
02:16:06,600 --> 02:16:09,720
not going to get into why.
There is a line of argument that

2256
02:16:09,720 --> 02:16:13,320
shows you that solipsism is not
the most reasonable reasonable

2257
02:16:13,320 --> 02:16:16,440
explanation, and it has to do
with observing other people

2258
02:16:16,640 --> 02:16:21,000
behavior that is caused by by
emotions or experiences that you

2259
02:16:21,000 --> 02:16:24,040
haven't yet had.
So therefore you could not have

2260
02:16:24,280 --> 02:16:28,960
imagined them and therefore
solipsism is not the best

2261
02:16:28,960 --> 02:16:31,000
explanation.
But that's strictly speaking

2262
02:16:31,000 --> 02:16:33,799
solipsism, and it's completely
different from idealism.

2263
02:16:34,620 --> 02:16:37,180
A solipsist would say other
people are not conscious, they

2264
02:16:37,180 --> 02:16:40,740
only exist as shells that I
imagine an idealist would say.

2265
02:16:40,740 --> 02:16:43,379
Other people are dissociative
processes in the mind of nature.

2266
02:16:43,540 --> 02:16:45,100
There is something is like to be
them.

2267
02:16:45,100 --> 02:16:47,219
They have their own conscious
point of view too.

2268
02:16:47,940 --> 02:16:52,180
A solipsist would say there are
no external states of the world.

2269
02:16:52,860 --> 02:16:55,540
This is all my personal dream.
They are all in the Interstate.

2270
02:16:56,139 --> 02:16:59,180
An idealist, an objective
idealist, would say no, no,

2271
02:16:59,580 --> 02:17:02,540
there is really an external
world out there that is not in

2272
02:17:02,540 --> 02:17:05,950
my mind.
But that external world is also

2273
02:17:05,950 --> 02:17:08,790
mental.
It's not in my mind, but it's

2274
02:17:08,790 --> 02:17:11,430
mental.
Just Just like your thoughts are

2275
02:17:11,430 --> 02:17:14,910
mental, but they are not in my
mind, They are external to me.

2276
02:17:16,910 --> 02:17:20,950
So yeah, these are these are
glaring, spectacular differences

2277
02:17:20,950 --> 02:17:24,990
between solipsism and idealism.
Things get confused when people

2278
02:17:24,990 --> 02:17:28,350
use the term solipsism in a non
rigorous manner.

2279
02:17:29,030 --> 02:17:31,309
I have a friend, for instance,
who talks about cosmic

2280
02:17:31,309 --> 02:17:33,950
solipsism.
He says no, no, there's really

2281
02:17:33,950 --> 02:17:37,309
just one mind and it's dreaming
this whole thing up.

2282
02:17:37,830 --> 02:17:42,350
And I am it that you are it too.
And that's non dualism.

2283
02:17:42,350 --> 02:17:46,629
That's eastern non dualism.
And and this is an idealism

2284
02:17:46,629 --> 02:17:50,549
indeed, but it's not solipsism.
Strictly speaking, cosmic

2285
02:17:50,549 --> 02:17:54,270
solipsism is idealism.
Why will we use 2 words instead

2286
02:17:54,270 --> 02:17:56,990
of 1?
Just call it idealism, and by

2287
02:17:56,990 --> 02:18:00,510
calling it cosmic solipsism you
create confusion with the strict

2288
02:18:00,510 --> 02:18:03,850
definition of solipsism, yes?
So I steer away from it.

2289
02:18:03,850 --> 02:18:07,090
I disclaim everything that has
the word solipsism because

2290
02:18:07,090 --> 02:18:10,330
acquiescing to it is conducive
to confusion.

2291
02:18:10,809 --> 02:18:12,930
Yeah, and I think they're
already so, and I do think

2292
02:18:12,930 --> 02:18:15,530
they're already so closely
associated in the sense that

2293
02:18:15,530 --> 02:18:18,209
people mistake the two views
that you should actually do

2294
02:18:18,209 --> 02:18:20,969
that.
It's a good way to avoid that.

2295
02:18:21,250 --> 02:18:23,650
Any other objections, Bernardo?
Do you think you've covered them

2296
02:18:23,650 --> 02:18:25,730
all?
Certainly not.

2297
02:18:26,010 --> 02:18:28,730
Well, all the main ones, at
least the ones that are slightly

2298
02:18:28,730 --> 02:18:31,299
convincing.
The ones that came to my mind

2299
02:18:31,299 --> 02:18:33,059
the quickest I have covered
them.

2300
02:18:33,620 --> 02:18:33,980
Okay.
Great.

2301
02:18:33,980 --> 02:18:36,459
So then I think the closing
part, obviously, I know you're

2302
02:18:36,459 --> 02:18:37,900
not a Mystic.
I know you're not someone who's

2303
02:18:37,900 --> 02:18:40,020
very spiritual, You're not very
spiritually inclined.

2304
02:18:40,020 --> 02:18:43,379
You don't like giving that type
of advice or opinions on it, but

2305
02:18:43,420 --> 02:18:46,580
you're closing personal
reflections on idealism and life

2306
02:18:46,580 --> 02:18:48,740
in general.
And then we can conclude this

2307
02:18:48,740 --> 02:18:51,379
crash course on analytic
idealism.

2308
02:18:54,260 --> 02:18:57,059
The idea is with the most
self-evident, obvious,

2309
02:18:57,059 --> 02:19:00,860
intuitive, natural and
empirically adequate worldview

2310
02:19:00,980 --> 02:19:06,059
that we could have and we just
took a wrong path because of

2311
02:19:06,260 --> 02:19:10,540
social political reasons.
In the early Enlightenment we

2312
02:19:10,540 --> 02:19:13,780
started believing our own snake
oil.

2313
02:19:14,940 --> 02:19:18,700
There was a reason for coming up
with this fiction of materialism

2314
02:19:18,700 --> 02:19:20,500
at that time.
It was a social, political

2315
02:19:20,500 --> 02:19:23,780
reason.
And then we started mistaking

2316
02:19:23,900 --> 02:19:27,100
our own fantasies, social,
political tools for realities.

2317
02:19:27,580 --> 02:19:29,340
And this has brought us where we
are.

2318
02:19:30,219 --> 02:19:32,980
And you might say, well, it's
been a long time, no less than

2319
02:19:32,980 --> 02:19:35,100
two centuries.
It's nothing.

2320
02:19:35,459 --> 02:19:38,940
It's the blink of an eye in in
in the cultural history of

2321
02:19:38,940 --> 02:19:42,740
humanity.
We will overcome this, this.

2322
02:19:43,219 --> 02:19:45,219
We put our foot in the wrong
place.

2323
02:19:45,219 --> 02:19:48,260
We will overcome, We'll bring
our foot feet back to the path

2324
02:19:48,700 --> 02:19:52,440
and we'll continue to go forward
and it will be a historical

2325
02:19:52,440 --> 02:19:55,000
blip.
That's all there will be to to

2326
02:19:55,000 --> 02:19:59,280
physicalism in the future.
So don't think for a moment that

2327
02:19:59,400 --> 02:20:06,080
because physicalism is
mainstream, that this and of

2328
02:20:06,080 --> 02:20:09,000
itself makes it extraordinarily
plausible.

2329
02:20:09,720 --> 02:20:12,440
Because throughout human
history, the mainstream has

2330
02:20:12,960 --> 02:20:18,120
always been wrong.
At least throughout Western

2331
02:20:18,120 --> 02:20:21,040
history, the mainstream has
always been wrong.

2332
02:20:21,040 --> 02:20:25,160
We have absolutely no reason to
think that miracle upon miracle

2333
02:20:25,160 --> 02:20:28,520
right now, for the first time,
it will be right.

2334
02:20:29,040 --> 02:20:31,160
It will not.
It is not.

2335
02:20:31,600 --> 02:20:34,720
The plausibility of physicalism
is a cultural artifact.

2336
02:20:34,720 --> 02:20:39,320
It has been manufactured by
people who were born and are

2337
02:20:39,880 --> 02:20:43,480
told that physicalism is true
from their school teachers,

2338
02:20:43,480 --> 02:20:46,580
their parents, their family
doctors and the 8:00 o'clock

2339
02:20:46,580 --> 02:20:49,780
news anchor.
And they think I don't need to

2340
02:20:49,780 --> 02:20:52,060
think about this metaphysical
questions because all these

2341
02:20:52,060 --> 02:20:55,740
people who were alive before I
was even born, they already did

2342
02:20:55,740 --> 02:20:58,460
the thinking for me.
They arrived at this conclusion

2343
02:20:58,900 --> 02:21:02,580
and this conclusion apparently
bases all science, so it it must

2344
02:21:02,580 --> 02:21:05,620
be true.
And people like Bernardo Castro,

2345
02:21:06,100 --> 02:21:09,340
they're just taking too, too,
too much psychedelics, right?

2346
02:21:09,580 --> 02:21:12,740
Too, too many drugs.
I haven't taken psychedelics in

2347
02:21:12,740 --> 02:21:17,540
years now, but it's very easy to
come at this conclusion, and

2348
02:21:17,540 --> 02:21:20,460
very tempting because it's the
lazy conclusion.

2349
02:21:21,020 --> 02:21:25,500
It's the conclusion that doesn't
put the responsibility on your

2350
02:21:25,500 --> 02:21:28,820
shoulder to be critical about
your own beliefs.

2351
02:21:30,260 --> 02:21:32,500
In that sense, it's attractive,
like a religion.

2352
02:21:32,500 --> 02:21:35,740
It gives you the answers without
asking you to do any of the hard

2353
02:21:35,740 --> 02:21:38,380
work.
Now, in the second-half of life,

2354
02:21:38,380 --> 02:21:41,140
this comes back to bite you
because believing in it becomes

2355
02:21:41,140 --> 02:21:44,880
in a personal habit, and it's
very difficult to depart from it

2356
02:21:44,920 --> 02:21:46,920
once it has become a personal
habit.

2357
02:21:47,440 --> 02:21:51,200
And in the second-half of life,
it's a terrible thing to believe

2358
02:21:51,200 --> 02:21:54,240
in because it's it gives you the
picture that the universe is

2359
02:21:54,240 --> 02:21:57,320
dead and life has absolutely no
meaning.

2360
02:21:57,720 --> 02:22:00,880
That if all of everything you
learn, all of your hard earned

2361
02:22:00,880 --> 02:22:03,840
lessons, the product of the
suffering you have, you had to

2362
02:22:04,080 --> 02:22:07,560
undergo throughout life, All of
those are supposed to be

2363
02:22:07,560 --> 02:22:11,270
physical brain states that lose
their coherence once you die.

2364
02:22:11,310 --> 02:22:15,910
And therefore it's all for
bloody nothing, All for nothing.

2365
02:22:16,590 --> 02:22:20,710
I think that's when you're 28.
But when you're 48 you start, oh

2366
02:22:20,870 --> 02:22:24,230
shit, all this shit and it's for
nothing.

2367
02:22:26,070 --> 02:22:31,270
And then the way to get out of
this completely unnecessary

2368
02:22:31,590 --> 02:22:35,200
dilemma that leads to depression
and anxiety is to review

2369
02:22:35,200 --> 02:22:37,680
assumptions.
But now those assumptions have

2370
02:22:37,680 --> 02:22:41,520
become a lifelong habit, and
it's very difficult to even see

2371
02:22:41,520 --> 02:22:46,480
them, let alone revise them.
But if you can revise them, if

2372
02:22:46,480 --> 02:22:51,560
you can value your own
individuality or critical

2373
02:22:51,560 --> 02:22:58,320
individuality as a worthy
opponent to mainstream stories,

2374
02:22:58,920 --> 02:23:01,600
if you have enough trust in
yourself to trust your

2375
02:23:01,600 --> 02:23:09,330
rationality to an equal extent
as the story, the outside, you

2376
02:23:09,330 --> 02:23:13,610
can demolish this artificial
source of depression and anxiety

2377
02:23:14,170 --> 02:23:17,970
and realize that what there is
is mind, and life is a

2378
02:23:17,970 --> 02:23:21,130
configuration of mind.
That configuration ends, Your

2379
02:23:21,130 --> 02:23:23,250
body disappears.
You're no longer dissociated,

2380
02:23:23,850 --> 02:23:29,490
but everything you learn through
this terrible roller coaster

2381
02:23:29,490 --> 02:23:32,730
that we call life, which is
exquisitely prone to suffering

2382
02:23:32,730 --> 02:23:34,690
and pain.
Everything you learned,

2383
02:23:34,690 --> 02:23:38,570
everything, all of your
maturation process, all of your

2384
02:23:38,610 --> 02:23:41,250
edification process.
As a suffering human being.

2385
02:23:42,250 --> 02:23:45,810
It doesn't disappear because at
the end of the dissociation, the

2386
02:23:45,810 --> 02:23:49,690
boundaries over, therefore the
mental contents of that

2387
02:23:49,690 --> 02:23:52,210
dissociative process are now
seeded in a much broader

2388
02:23:52,210 --> 02:23:54,490
cognitive context.
They are now seeded into nature

2389
02:23:54,490 --> 02:23:57,170
at large, and it wasn't all for
nothing.

2390
02:23:57,170 --> 02:24:02,290
If you if you can get to this
point, it will not suffer a day

2391
02:24:02,680 --> 02:24:05,320
of existential depression in
your life anymore.

2392
02:24:05,480 --> 02:24:11,600
What you will suffer again from
is a kind of death anxiety that

2393
02:24:11,600 --> 02:24:14,440
our ancestors knew very well,
but we don't.

2394
02:24:16,320 --> 02:24:22,200
What we fear is oblivion, which
is a kind of existential

2395
02:24:22,200 --> 02:24:27,520
anxiety, but we no longer fear
what we will experience after

2396
02:24:27,520 --> 02:24:31,080
the end of life, the great
unknown, because we think we are

2397
02:24:31,080 --> 02:24:32,840
not going to be there to
experience it.

2398
02:24:33,120 --> 02:24:36,040
So we are not.
We're not fearful at all about

2399
02:24:36,360 --> 02:24:38,960
the state of consciousness that
comes afterlife.

2400
02:24:39,400 --> 02:24:42,880
Well, that's the bad news, that
anxiety comes back.

2401
02:24:43,480 --> 02:24:47,080
If if your listeners have gone
through an experience of ego

2402
02:24:47,080 --> 02:24:51,560
dissolution through
psychedelics, that's a sample of

2403
02:24:51,560 --> 02:24:57,280
what might be coming and and
there is some degree of dread

2404
02:24:57,800 --> 02:24:59,530
about it.
You know it.

2405
02:25:00,410 --> 02:25:05,090
You're going to exit the state
of consciousness that you've

2406
02:25:05,090 --> 02:25:07,850
experienced your whole life,
which is where you feel

2407
02:25:07,850 --> 02:25:09,690
comfortable.
It's our safety zone.

2408
02:25:10,250 --> 02:25:14,050
It's that state of consciousness
where you can repress the stuff

2409
02:25:14,050 --> 02:25:16,090
you don't want to feel, you
don't want to know.

2410
02:25:16,690 --> 02:25:20,410
And with the end of that state
of consciousness we call life,

2411
02:25:21,010 --> 02:25:23,290
you may not be able to repress
any of this shit anymore.

2412
02:25:25,290 --> 02:25:28,420
And then what?
Yeah, so your life will be very

2413
02:25:28,420 --> 02:25:32,340
meaningful again.
Meaning will be will be

2414
02:25:32,340 --> 02:25:35,260
permeating every single aspect
of your life, whether you want

2415
02:25:35,260 --> 02:25:37,660
it or not.
Whatever you do or don't in your

2416
02:25:37,660 --> 02:25:41,940
life, it will still be immersed
in meaning and you cannot avoid

2417
02:25:41,940 --> 02:25:48,030
it but shit when the time comes
making in your pants again.

2418
02:25:50,070 --> 02:25:53,630
I think because, yeah, I am
afraid of that transition.

2419
02:25:53,870 --> 02:25:55,590
I know you're making me quite
afraid right now.

2420
02:25:55,670 --> 02:26:00,590
I mean, sometimes, you know, for
someone who claims to not be as

2421
02:26:01,350 --> 02:26:05,630
so a spiritual storyteller or
Mystic, that is quite mystical I

2422
02:26:05,630 --> 02:26:10,950
must say.
Well, if we equate mysticism

2423
02:26:11,030 --> 02:26:18,090
with human being, human with.
Dealing with what it means to be

2424
02:26:18,090 --> 02:26:21,530
human, such as our sense of
meaning and our anxieties.

2425
02:26:21,970 --> 02:26:24,170
Then then yeah, then everything.
That's what I meant.

2426
02:26:24,370 --> 02:26:25,250
That is what I meant.
Yeah.

2427
02:26:25,930 --> 02:26:30,370
I didn't mean Mystic.
Yeah, I'm not spiritual in the

2428
02:26:30,370 --> 02:26:34,250
sense of some external deity
that is, you know, interfering

2429
02:26:34,250 --> 02:26:38,810
with states of affairs in nature
according to some premeditated

2430
02:26:38,810 --> 02:26:40,170
plan.
No, no, I'm not.

2431
02:26:42,010 --> 02:26:44,050
No, I don't think that it that
applies, no.

2432
02:26:44,530 --> 02:26:46,730
I think we're both the same in
that regard but not a thank you

2433
02:26:46,730 --> 02:26:48,770
so much.
I mean this this is this is

2434
02:26:48,770 --> 02:26:51,130
pretty cool.
I was, I was figuring out how we

2435
02:26:51,130 --> 02:26:54,010
could do this and I think this
was the perfect approach and how

2436
02:26:54,010 --> 02:26:55,850
you feeling?
Anything you want to add to

2437
02:26:55,850 --> 02:26:57,050
that?
Anything you want to say final?

2438
02:26:58,970 --> 02:27:01,410
Test pretty quickly.
Exactly.

2439
02:27:01,410 --> 02:27:03,410
I mean, I looked at the time and
I was actually quite surprised.

2440
02:27:04,330 --> 02:27:05,850
But how you feeling?
Everything.

2441
02:27:05,850 --> 02:27:07,290
You feel like you've got
everything off your chest.

2442
02:27:07,290 --> 02:27:08,850
There is a good crash course.
You're right.

2443
02:27:09,920 --> 02:27:10,320
Yeah.
Yeah.

2444
02:27:10,320 --> 02:27:12,080
I think we covered good ground.
Yeah.

2445
02:27:12,360 --> 02:27:14,040
Thank you so much, Bernardo, for
joining me again.

2446
02:27:14,040 --> 02:27:15,960
I mean, I'll try and think
outside the box for the next

2447
02:27:15,960 --> 02:27:18,480
one.
Sure.

2448
02:27:19,120 --> 02:27:20,760
Thanks for having me again.
It's been a pleasure.

2449
02:27:21,040 --> 02:27:22,520
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Cheers, Bernard.

2450
02:27:22,520 --> 02:27:24,000
Thank you so much.
Crash course.

2451
02:27:24,520 --> 02:27:24,680
Down.