François Kammerer: Is Consciousness Real? Illusionism As A Theory Of Consciousness

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Once when I read your work this
was around 20/19.

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It was when when I was exploring
Illusionism as a theory of

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consciousness.
This was around the first time I

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really got into it and I used
quite a bit of your work to help

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my own dissertation.
I spoke to Keith quite a lot.

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We had a three plus hour
conversation and I think we did

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quite a good job at condensing
hours of material and tons and

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tons of research into that short
span of time.

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And I think you do an absolutely
great job at taking that work

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even further.
But I think the best place to

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start has to be definitions.
Let's define Consciousness,

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Illusionism, and what you view
as realism or Physicalism.

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Yeah, so let's start with
consciousness.

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So, as has been noted for quite
a few decades, consciousness is

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a mongrel concept.
Probably different concepts

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attached to the word.
But the sort of consciousness

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that people are interested in
discussing when we discuss

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Illusionism is primarily
phenomenal consciousness.

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And how do we define phenomenal
consciousness?

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We define it by introspectively
focusing on a series of mental

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States and noticing that they
seem to have something in

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common.
If you take for example, a

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visual experience of red, a
sensation of pain and auditory

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experience of the sound of a
trumpet and imagination of a red

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tiger, you examine all of these
mental states in terms of how

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they strike you introspectively.
And then people say, oh look,

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they seem to have something in
common.

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There is something it's like to
be in them.

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There is a certain subjective
feeling attached to all of these

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mental States and.
The fact that these mental

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states are the subjective
feelings that they are

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experienced in a certain way, in
certain way, sorry, this is a

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feature that interests us and
that we talk about when we talk

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about phenomenal consciousness.
Now, Illusionism, on the other

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hand, is a view regarding this
feature, and some people say

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it's a radical view.
And I think to some extent it is

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indeed a radical view.
It's a view that these features

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do not really exist in the way
in which we introspect them or

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in the way in which we take
them.

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To exist.
So fundamental consciousness

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does not exist, but it only
seems to exist.

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That's the standard definition
provided by Keith Frankish in

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his Landmarks paper.
Like 2016, Illusionism was a

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theory of consciousness, so
that's really that's

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Illusionism.
Just plainly defined, of course,

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and a lot of different views and
theories about how we mean

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exactly in the detail.
But that's not the definition I

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operate with now.
Your last question was about

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realism and physicalism.
Right.

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Yeah, Okay.
So you mean realism about

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consciousness?
So realism about consciousness

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would be the views that
phenomenal consciousness does

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exist.
That's pretty simple.

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Again, you can have different
conceptions of what it is like.

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You can see it exists and then
have different views of its

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nature.
Physicalists are people who

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believe like let's say.
Physicalism as a metaphysical

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thesis is a view that everything
that exists is physical in the

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sense that.
It might have to be defined, but

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let's just use it that way.
And then if you're a

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physicalist, you think that
everything that exists in

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reality is physical, nothing
over and above physical things.

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And then you can either say, and
consciousness is one of these

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things.
So you're a physicalist and you

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believe that phenomenal
consciousness exists and that

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what it is, is.
Some sort of physical process or

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something constituted by
physical process.

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But of course you can also be a
physicalist and be an

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illusionist, and for example,
that would be my view.

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And so everything that exists is
physical and phenomenal

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consciousness.
This thing that seems so hard to

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reduce the physical simply does
not exist.

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So that's good because we have a
way to defend the physicalist

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position, which is also
attractive independently.

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So I don't know, are you happy
with this definition?

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Do you want to dig somewhere?
I think we will, but the reason

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why I started with asking also
what is physicalism?

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Because I think science operates
mainly on physicalist theories,

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right?
And it's interesting to see cuz

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the current outburst regarding
IIT, integrated information

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theory and band psychism.
I'm pretty sure you've been

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following this.
What?

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What are your thoughts on this?
Yeah, so.

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I mean, to what extent your
audience will know about that, I

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suppose some of them will know.
So I think a couple of days ago

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there was a collective letter
published on I think on archive

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and I don't remember exactly why
it was published.

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It's just a preprint and it's a
letter basically stating that us

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and the people signing the
letter were mostly scientists

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and a couple of philosophers
saying that integrity and

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information theory, which is.
And influential theory of

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consciousness was akin to
pseudoscience.

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And then there has been a huge
outburst of discussions.

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Yeah, people going all the way.
So personally, I did not sign

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the letter and I was not asked
in it.

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But if I had been asked to sign
it, I don't think I would have

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signed it.
Mainly because, although I agree

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with a lot of the content of the
letter, I think that

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pseudoscience is not really
justified as a label here.

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And that's a point that many
people have raised right in the

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in the in the discussion that
ensued and I think it's hard to

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make the case that it counts as
pseudoscience.

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That is the way we ordinarily
use the term pseudoscience.

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We we reserve it for certain
case of disciplines where it's

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very obvious that they are not
science, that they clearly do

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not respect the the norms and
the canons of scientific method

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and.
I I don't think it applies to I

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I TI think I T has a lot of
problems so I think it's really

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impromising.
I think I it is very

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impromising.
I think it's probably very it's

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probably too anchored in
precisely inspection derived

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so-called axioms or principles.
So I think it takes

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introspection at face value in a
way that is for me not justified

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and missing and and I think it's
probably.

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Somewhere in between metaphysics
and and science, and I don't

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think it's very promising as a
scientific theory, but I don't

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think it counts as
pseudoscience.

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Or if you don't think too many
things can count as

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pseudoscience, and we don't want
to count that many theories and

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views as pseudoscience, are you
surprised about the amount of

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backlash this letters received?
How much attention it's gone?

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I'm actually quite surprised
consciousness got so much

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attention in such a short span.
Yeah, I mean, I think the letter

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was also reacting to the fact
that they are.

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Attention given to socalled
adversarial collaboration,

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adversarial experiment that had
been taking place, and some of

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them were presented as the IST
last year.

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And there was supposed, and
there was presented as attempts

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at testing some major theories
of consciousness, including I,

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I, T and I think the latter was
reacting to the fact that the

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way these results have been
presented, including in in the

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press first, seemed to make IIT.
And second, it seemed to imply

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that maybe I I T had been
confirmed and it's certainly

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not, I don't think it had been
confirmed.

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So I think that was also a
reaction to already existing

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coverage and attention as that
had been given to the field of

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consciousness studies and to I I
T in particular.

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And is it surprising?
I don't know.

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I think it's an exciting topic.
I think many people are excited

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about that.
I think that it's been now a

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couple of decades that.
You can have a lot.

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You can receive a lot of
attention, including media

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attention, by claiming to have a
theory of consciousness,

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particularly a scientific theory
of consciousness.

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So I'm not that surprised that
it received a lot of coverage.

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And I think that the
pseudoscience label in the title

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of the letter was also designed
to attract attention, and it

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was, I think, the people who
wrote it, and then many people

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signed it in.
Including many philosophers, but

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the people who wrote it probably
wanted to attract attention.

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So I don't have doubt about the
fact that they used deliberately

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a word that was maybe a bit
stronger than than what they saw

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themselves was fully warranted,
I suspect.

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But yeah, well, I mean there's
there's so many aspects around

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that because it obviously IIT is
very much akin to a panpsychist

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view.
It's very much that

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consciousness is a fundamental
feature of reality.

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I don't want to get too caught
up on the other theories of

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consciousness because I actually
want the chunk of this focus to

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be on illusionism.
But I guess as we prime

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ourselves towards it, let's
let's discuss those other

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theories of consciousness before
we head in.

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What don't you like about
theories like panpsychism,

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idealism.
Let's just start with those two

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and I think we'll work our way
from there.

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Yeah.
So, yeah, so the just I think

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one thing that is important to
keep in mind is what question

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we're answering exactly, right.
Because because about

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panpsychism, idealism might be
not necessarily response to

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exactly the same questions.
So pansychism is a response to

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some sort of question that we
can call the distribution

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question, which is where is
consciousness.

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And pansychism says that
basically it is not literally

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everywhere, but at least that.
It is maybe located at the

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fundamental level.
There is consciousness.

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Idealism on the other end is a
response to metaphysical

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question about what
fundamentally exists.

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And you see that what
fundamentally exists is mental

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and is something like
consciousness.

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Of course, the two questions are
naturally related, but you could

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imagine, for example, being a
pan psychist and being a

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dualist, or being a pan psychist
and being an idealist, I think.

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The way I see it, I don't think
that panpsychism and idealism

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are necessarily in
contradiction.

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Now, what are my problem with
other views of consciousness?

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So if we talk about the
metaphysics, what would be my

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issue with panpsychism?
And most of the time, when

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people are panpsychism, they
also want to make consciousness.

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Something fundamental and
irreducible.

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I say that because you could
very well imagine someone being

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a physicalist about
consciousness, identifying

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consciousness with some
fundamental physical feature,

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but also claiming that
consciousness is nothing over

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and above this very ordinary but
fundamental physical feature.

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In which case that would be a
weird view.

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It would be a Pansacist view,
but it would not be the sort of

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pansacism that people usually
have in mind when they say that

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everything is.
Conscious, but in some sort of

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substantive and strong sense
that goes beyond the ordinary

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physical properties.
So why am I not attracted to

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pansychism?
So there are various reasons for

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that.
Of course there is like the

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unusual reason, which is like it
does not seem warranted.

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But at the end of the day, I
think the reason I'm not

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attracted to that is because I'm
not attracted to a view on which

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consciousness is primitive and
fundamental.

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So people who say that we have
good reasons to believe that

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consciousness is.
Primitive and fundamental, they

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appeal to all sorts of arguments
to show that consciousness

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cannot be reduced like the usual
anti physicalist arguments.

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And I recognize the intuitive
pool of these arguments.

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But I would say the main reason
why I don't buy these arguments,

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and I don't buy I don't accept
that we enter states of

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consciousness that are primitive
and irreducible is by reflecting

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on our evidential.
Like the the sources of our

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beliefs in consciousness, why do
we believe that we are

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conscious?
We believe that we are conscious

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arguably because we ascribe
consciousness to each other in

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mind reading and because we
ascribe it to ourselves in

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introspection.
So we have these ordinary.

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I suppose there are ordinary
cognitive processes by which we

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take such and such entity to be
conscious, and by which we.

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Take ourselves to be conscious.
Now, what are the odds, What are

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the antecedent odds that this
sort of cognitive processes sort

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of put us in contact with some
primitive fundamental reality?

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To me, that seems extremely
unlikely.

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That's just a very weird view.
I don't think it's incoherent.

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I'm just think it's very weird.
It does not make sense overall.

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And because the overall picture
does not make sense to me, yeah,

230
00:12:30,420 --> 00:12:33,100
that's my main reason why I'm
not attracted to it.

231
00:12:33,260 --> 00:12:36,220
I'm not denying it's.
Coherent I don't think the view

232
00:12:36,220 --> 00:12:38,940
is contradictory.
I just think it's just a bizarre

233
00:12:38,940 --> 00:12:41,620
view when you think about it.
On the other hand, the view on

234
00:12:41,620 --> 00:12:45,980
which we ascribe consciousness
to each other and we introspect

235
00:12:45,980 --> 00:12:50,620
consciousness and we happen to
represent it as some sort of

236
00:12:50,900 --> 00:12:55,860
ethereal, irreducible entity.
Although this irreducible and

237
00:12:55,860 --> 00:12:58,740
ether entity does not exist,
this view makes very well sense.

238
00:12:58,860 --> 00:13:01,460
Very much sense, right?
There is no reason to expect

239
00:13:01,460 --> 00:13:03,140
that our introspective
mechanisms.

240
00:13:03,620 --> 00:13:07,660
Should, so to speak, grasp the
ultimate nature of the state

241
00:13:07,660 --> 00:13:10,820
that they represent.
It's nothing surprising in the

242
00:13:10,820 --> 00:13:12,980
idea that they actually
mischaracterize the state that

243
00:13:12,980 --> 00:13:15,180
they represent.
The overall picture at the end

244
00:13:15,340 --> 00:13:20,060
for me makes very good sense.
So yeah.

245
00:13:20,140 --> 00:13:21,740
Does that answer your question?
It does.

246
00:13:21,740 --> 00:13:25,220
I mean, and then it obviously
leads to your view of

247
00:13:25,220 --> 00:13:27,420
Illusionism, because at that
point, if we're denying that

248
00:13:27,460 --> 00:13:32,480
ethereal essence like feature of
reality, it's almost like people

249
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:34,880
are claiming that consciousness
is this Ian Vittal of the 21st

250
00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:36,960
century at this point with that
type of view.

251
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,840
Because they're claiming a sort
of an essence, an ethereal

252
00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:44,080
entity that we don't really have
access to proving.

253
00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:47,120
Cuz it's almost like it makes
the argument very difficult to

254
00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:49,840
have if you claim something that
we cannot really prove exists.

255
00:13:51,820 --> 00:13:55,180
So I'm not.
So are you referring to the fact

256
00:13:55,180 --> 00:13:58,540
that so consciousness?
Seems it described to many

257
00:13:58,540 --> 00:14:00,220
people as a first personal
phenomenon.

258
00:14:00,220 --> 00:14:01,220
Is that what you're referring
to?

259
00:14:01,500 --> 00:14:05,620
And I'm saying that it seems
that claiming that consciousness

260
00:14:05,620 --> 00:14:09,780
is this ethereal essence like
entity today because the topic

261
00:14:09,780 --> 00:14:11,700
of discussing consciousness is
growing and growing.

262
00:14:12,740 --> 00:14:17,220
It's very akin to the eon batel
of back in the day almost.

263
00:14:18,220 --> 00:14:19,700
Yeah, I see.
I see.

264
00:14:19,740 --> 00:14:21,260
Because we didn't really know
what life was.

265
00:14:21,260 --> 00:14:23,100
And then we gave it, yeah, much
vigor.

266
00:14:23,740 --> 00:14:24,340
OK.
I see.

267
00:14:24,420 --> 00:14:25,540
No, no, OK.
I did that.

268
00:14:25,540 --> 00:14:27,300
Just a long vital part.
OK, I get it.

269
00:14:27,540 --> 00:14:30,060
Yeah, I think so.
One thing that people have often

270
00:14:30,100 --> 00:14:34,860
said about this comparison is
that it's partially there is an

271
00:14:34,860 --> 00:14:36,900
analogy here, but that's not
perfect.

272
00:14:37,420 --> 00:14:41,580
And why is it not perfect?
It's because the way Vitalists

273
00:14:41,580 --> 00:14:44,860
were thinking about life, they
were thinking about it in terms

274
00:14:44,940 --> 00:14:47,620
of.
Something caused or generated by

275
00:14:47,620 --> 00:14:50,300
this Elon Vital which is like
this essence of life.

276
00:14:50,780 --> 00:14:53,940
But the reason why they were
doing that seem to have been

277
00:14:54,220 --> 00:14:57,420
because living things were able
to do certain things that non

278
00:14:57,420 --> 00:14:59,140
living things were not able to
do.

279
00:14:59,420 --> 00:15:01,020
Right?
Living things for example were

280
00:15:01,020 --> 00:15:05,300
able to reproduce, to grow.
They seem to have some sort of

281
00:15:05,300 --> 00:15:08,780
teleology that seem directed
towards an end in a way in which

282
00:15:09,020 --> 00:15:12,180
mechanical, non living things
were not, and that it seems to

283
00:15:12,180 --> 00:15:15,530
be that it's why people.
Posited existence of an Elon

284
00:15:15,530 --> 00:15:17,530
vitality.
You need to account for this

285
00:15:17,530 --> 00:15:22,370
power of the living. 6.
Now, the reason why people posit

286
00:15:22,370 --> 00:15:25,250
something like irreducible
consciousness seems a bit

287
00:15:25,250 --> 00:15:29,330
different in the sense that
that's a that's a standard point

288
00:15:29,330 --> 00:15:31,450
that has often been made by Dave
Chalmers.

289
00:15:32,010 --> 00:15:34,970
But the idea is that the problem
with consciousness, the reason

290
00:15:34,970 --> 00:15:38,090
why we might want to posit
something fundamental here, is

291
00:15:38,090 --> 00:15:40,970
not because consciousness does
something special that other

292
00:15:40,970 --> 00:15:43,350
things cannot do.
It's not about the effects of

293
00:15:43,350 --> 00:15:45,550
consciousness, right?
It's not that the effects of

294
00:15:45,550 --> 00:15:48,150
consciousness are particularly
mistakes or hard to explain that

295
00:15:48,150 --> 00:15:49,710
we need to posit something
special.

296
00:15:50,070 --> 00:15:54,430
It is consciousness itself.
It's very being that seems

297
00:15:54,750 --> 00:15:57,310
irreducible to something non
conscious.

298
00:15:57,470 --> 00:16:00,470
So in that respect there is
there is maybe this analogy on

299
00:16:00,470 --> 00:16:02,750
top of the analogy.
Now, I take it that when you

300
00:16:02,750 --> 00:16:06,950
make the analogy, what you have
in mind is a way to insist on

301
00:16:06,950 --> 00:16:11,490
the unscientific.
Aspect of the positive, right.

302
00:16:11,530 --> 00:16:16,290
It's similarly unscientific to
posit Elon Vital and to posit

303
00:16:16,930 --> 00:16:20,170
something like primitive
phenomenal properties or

304
00:16:20,170 --> 00:16:27,290
phenomenal states.
Yeah, I think, I don't know, I

305
00:16:27,290 --> 00:16:29,770
think I don't want to enter into
the business of.

306
00:16:30,150 --> 00:16:32,350
Necessarily saying what is
scientific and what is not.

307
00:16:32,350 --> 00:16:36,350
Because as I think as we saw
with this letter on IIT, when

308
00:16:36,350 --> 00:16:38,950
you dig a little bit it's very
hard to know exactly what

309
00:16:38,950 --> 00:16:41,550
counter scientific and what does
not like.

310
00:16:41,550 --> 00:16:45,230
Philosophers of science in the
20th century have written a lot

311
00:16:45,230 --> 00:16:47,550
about this problem of
demarcation right?

312
00:16:47,670 --> 00:16:51,190
Many criterions have been
proposed to account for the

313
00:16:51,190 --> 00:16:54,510
demarcation between science and
non science and.

314
00:16:54,900 --> 00:16:57,420
I take it without being a
specialist of this question, but

315
00:16:57,420 --> 00:16:59,940
I think that the outcome of this
discussion is that it's actually

316
00:16:59,940 --> 00:17:03,860
very hard to give a criterion of
scientificity.

317
00:17:04,619 --> 00:17:08,859
And so rather than necessarily
like say that it's scientific or

318
00:17:08,859 --> 00:17:12,740
not scientific to posit
something like primitive forms

319
00:17:12,740 --> 00:17:14,740
of consciousness, I would rather
say that it seems just

320
00:17:14,780 --> 00:17:20,060
unjustified and unpromising, and
that would be my way of thinking

321
00:17:20,060 --> 00:17:23,040
about it.
It might be that it also does

322
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,240
not lead to interesting
scientific theories.

323
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,120
But at the end of the day the
question are slightly different,

324
00:17:29,120 --> 00:17:33,560
because it could be that
although in itself is not a

325
00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:35,560
scientific claim, it could be
that it's a justified

326
00:17:35,560 --> 00:17:37,760
philosophical claim, for
instance, right?

327
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:41,680
So the fact that the, the, the
positing of fundamental forms of

328
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:44,640
consciousness in itself would
not be scientific, would not

329
00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:47,000
necessarily be devastating.
We could imagine that some

330
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:48,960
claims are not scientific, but
are nevertheless.

331
00:17:49,300 --> 00:17:51,940
Well justified or even like
likely to be true.

332
00:17:52,500 --> 00:17:58,540
So we do not need to to to
suppose that only scientific

333
00:17:58,540 --> 00:18:02,620
claims are interesting or likely
to be true or justified to

334
00:18:02,620 --> 00:18:06,620
reject these claims.
Yeah, no, OK, I completely agree

335
00:18:06,620 --> 00:18:09,540
with that sentiment.
I think that this The funny

336
00:18:09,540 --> 00:18:14,300
thing is, is that if we had this
conversation in 2021, I would be

337
00:18:14,300 --> 00:18:19,880
like on your side, actively.
MM HM Remoting, Illusionism,

338
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,440
defending it.
With so much bigger in life and

339
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:25,760
since starting this podcast, I
feel like the more I've opened

340
00:18:25,760 --> 00:18:28,200
myself to other theories of
consciousness, it seems to be

341
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:30,520
blurring and warping.
At this point I'm almost really

342
00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:32,080
interesting.
Last point, yeah, it's very

343
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:36,530
strange because I was so firmly
solid with Illusionism.

344
00:18:36,530 --> 00:18:38,530
I was, I mean I told you ended
it.

345
00:18:39,170 --> 00:18:41,970
I I supported it.
And I still for the most part, I

346
00:18:41,970 --> 00:18:44,890
think my intuitions mostly align
with Illusionism, theory of

347
00:18:44,890 --> 00:18:47,450
consciousness.
And with that, with that being

348
00:18:47,450 --> 00:18:49,690
said, talk to me about your
transition because you had one

349
00:18:49,690 --> 00:18:52,210
as well you you were considered
a property dualism at first.

350
00:18:52,210 --> 00:18:54,810
Well, you, I think you said this
before and then you moved on to

351
00:18:54,810 --> 00:18:58,050
a an illusion.
So I I I don't know exactly

352
00:18:58,050 --> 00:19:00,850
which story you've heard that I
will just tell it the way it

353
00:19:00,850 --> 00:19:02,610
seems to me now.
Maybe, maybe the story is

354
00:19:02,610 --> 00:19:04,090
changing.
I hope it's not changing too

355
00:19:04,130 --> 00:19:06,570
much.
But I got interested in

356
00:19:06,570 --> 00:19:11,050
consciousness because I was very
convinced that there was a hard

357
00:19:11,050 --> 00:19:13,770
problem there.
I was very convinced that the

358
00:19:13,970 --> 00:19:17,570
anti physicalist arguments like
the merry argument and the

359
00:19:17,570 --> 00:19:21,130
zombie argument and all this
like explanatory gap and what

360
00:19:21,130 --> 00:19:22,530
it's like to be about
consideration.

361
00:19:22,570 --> 00:19:25,010
We're not going to sum up them
here.

362
00:19:25,330 --> 00:19:28,610
I was very convinced that they
were onto something, but it was

363
00:19:29,330 --> 00:19:31,770
there was something about
phenomenal consciousness that

364
00:19:31,770 --> 00:19:36,130
really resisted.
Ordinary physicalist reduction.

365
00:19:36,890 --> 00:19:39,010
And of course I was very
fascinated because independently

366
00:19:39,010 --> 00:19:41,570
of that I thought that the
overall physicalist picture of

367
00:19:41,570 --> 00:19:43,250
the world was an extremely
attractive picture.

368
00:19:43,570 --> 00:19:47,970
It seemed well confirmed I
science at this indirectly and

369
00:19:47,970 --> 00:19:50,850
it made sense overall to me.
Like the physicalist picture of

370
00:19:50,850 --> 00:19:52,330
the world made very much sense
to me.

371
00:19:53,330 --> 00:19:55,130
And then there was these things
that seemed to resist it.

372
00:19:55,850 --> 00:19:59,930
And then I got interested in.
In in the in the Problem of

373
00:19:59,930 --> 00:20:02,050
consciousness.
For this reason, and I think at

374
00:20:02,050 --> 00:20:04,730
first I had some sympathy for
property dualism of the sort,

375
00:20:04,730 --> 00:20:09,090
for example, developed by Dave
Chalmers in his book 1996 The

376
00:20:09,090 --> 00:20:12,410
Conscious Mind.
And then I sort of got convinced

377
00:20:12,410 --> 00:20:16,530
that he could not work, mainly
for reasons exposed by Chalmers

378
00:20:16,530 --> 00:20:20,530
in his chapter on the paradox of
phenomenal judgment, which is

379
00:20:20,530 --> 00:20:23,450
basically I think it's a it's a
great chapter that really.

380
00:20:24,030 --> 00:20:27,150
Goes at the heart of the issue,
although does not move Chalmers

381
00:20:27,150 --> 00:20:29,110
himself, but he really raises
the problem.

382
00:20:29,110 --> 00:20:32,470
The problem is basically if
really consciousness is a

383
00:20:32,470 --> 00:20:34,150
fundamental property of the
universe.

384
00:20:35,510 --> 00:20:39,230
So in the book he considers that
it's a fundamental properties

385
00:20:39,230 --> 00:20:41,310
are a set of properties that are
distinct from physical

386
00:20:41,310 --> 00:20:44,350
properties that related to them
by psychophysical laws which are

387
00:20:44,350 --> 00:20:47,670
fundamental of the universe.
But the same problem would arise

388
00:20:47,710 --> 00:20:51,990
if you were a Russian like a
monist for example, who

389
00:20:51,990 --> 00:20:55,860
believes, like maybe Russell
did, that phenomenal properties

390
00:20:55,860 --> 00:21:00,100
are the categorical basis of
physical properties which are

391
00:21:00,100 --> 00:21:03,140
like structural properties.
The same problem would arise.

392
00:21:03,140 --> 00:21:10,940
The problem is how come we
manage to make utterances about

393
00:21:10,980 --> 00:21:14,580
our phenomenal states?
These utterances are physical

394
00:21:14,580 --> 00:21:19,620
events like there are strings of
like series of sound waves or

395
00:21:19,620 --> 00:21:21,860
they are strings of characters
that we write.

396
00:21:22,290 --> 00:21:29,090
And these physical events manage
in some sense to mirror these

397
00:21:29,770 --> 00:21:34,530
primitive fundamental properties
and how they manage to do that.

398
00:21:34,570 --> 00:21:38,170
Although these primitive
fundamental properties are not

399
00:21:38,170 --> 00:21:44,250
supposed to have a direct causal
impact on this view on this

400
00:21:44,250 --> 00:21:47,210
physical events, or at least if
they have a causal impact, it's

401
00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:50,370
a pretty generic one.
Then it's just a mystery that we

402
00:21:50,370 --> 00:21:53,050
can think and talk about
consciousness.

403
00:21:53,090 --> 00:21:57,090
If consciousness really is this
deep fundamental, primitive

404
00:21:57,930 --> 00:22:00,970
feature of nature.
And then it seems much, much

405
00:22:01,170 --> 00:22:03,690
more coherent to think that no
consciousness will be something

406
00:22:03,690 --> 00:22:05,810
physical.
Because if consciousness is some

407
00:22:05,810 --> 00:22:08,530
sort of physical process, then
we understand very well how we

408
00:22:08,530 --> 00:22:12,810
can talk about it is because our
brain states, which constitute

409
00:22:12,810 --> 00:22:19,110
conscious states, causally
impact let's say the cognitive

410
00:22:19,110 --> 00:22:23,230
process, like the like brain
processes that make us think and

411
00:22:23,230 --> 00:22:28,110
talk about consciousness.
So roughly I was I started

412
00:22:28,110 --> 00:22:34,910
drifting away from dualism or
other forms of primitivism about

413
00:22:34,910 --> 00:22:37,070
consciousness because it seemed
to me that they just could not

414
00:22:37,070 --> 00:22:39,790
account for the fact that we
talk and think about

415
00:22:39,790 --> 00:22:42,430
consciousness.
And now I was left with like

416
00:22:42,430 --> 00:22:46,360
materialism about consciousness,
which I was resisting because I

417
00:22:46,360 --> 00:22:50,120
couldn't just not understand how
these fundamental states could

418
00:22:50,120 --> 00:22:53,680
be material.
Because again I was convinced by

419
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,360
this, like I was impressed by
the strength of the anti

420
00:22:56,360 --> 00:22:58,640
physical arguments.
At some point I was working on

421
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:01,440
the socalled phenomenal concept
strategy which are views that

422
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:06,520
try to explain why phenomenal
consciousness seems irreducible

423
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:08,800
and non physical although it
really is physical.

424
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:11,480
And then I was convinced that
this view could not work.

425
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:16,540
And in the end I saw the light
and I thought, yeah, there is a

426
00:23:16,540 --> 00:23:20,860
view that perfectly makes sense.
It's just a view on which indeed

427
00:23:21,300 --> 00:23:23,620
this phenomenal conscious is not
reducible.

428
00:23:23,620 --> 00:23:25,900
It's true.
It's in some sense it is

429
00:23:25,900 --> 00:23:28,340
something non physical.
It's just that it is something

430
00:23:28,540 --> 00:23:30,740
non existent.
It's just something that we

431
00:23:30,740 --> 00:23:33,300
introspect, that we represent,
that we think about.

432
00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:37,860
But that is not really there.
And what I really like with this

433
00:23:37,900 --> 00:23:42,420
view is that in some sense, it
allowed me to make sense of my

434
00:23:42,420 --> 00:23:45,240
very strong antimatist
intuitions.

435
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,080
Right.
I was one of these people who

436
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:52,320
just could not make sense of,
let's say, a sensation of pain,

437
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,160
a subjectively experienced
sensation of pain being nothing

438
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:58,520
but some neural activity.
I just could not make sense.

439
00:23:58,520 --> 00:23:59,920
I still cannot make sense of
that.

440
00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:02,760
Just just absurd to me.
But then if you're an

441
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:04,640
illusionist, you can make sense
of that.

442
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,440
Like it's true that your
fundamental sensation of pain is

443
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,760
not this neural activity.
It's something different.

444
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:12,240
It's just that something that
does not exist.

445
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,020
You merely I think it exists.
You really represent it as

446
00:24:15,020 --> 00:24:16,540
existing, but it does not really
exist.

447
00:24:17,180 --> 00:24:21,540
So for me, the power of
illusionism was this capacity of

448
00:24:21,540 --> 00:24:25,020
making sense of our
antiphysicalist intuition while

449
00:24:25,020 --> 00:24:27,540
preserving an overall
physicalist picture of the world

450
00:24:29,300 --> 00:24:30,740
when it comes to the mid that
physics.

451
00:24:32,980 --> 00:24:36,500
I think let's discuss the actual
term illusionism, because when I

452
00:24:36,500 --> 00:24:38,740
spoke to Keith, I think at some
point he mentioned that.

453
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:41,760
He wanted to call it magicalism,
I think it was.

454
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:43,120
I think that was the term, he
said.

455
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,320
I can't remember exactly, and I
think Patricia Churchill, when I

456
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,280
think about when we chatted
about eliminativism and

457
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,800
eliminative materialism, she
wanted Paul and her wanted to

458
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:56,040
call it revisionary materialism.
So a lot of people seem to have

459
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,480
different names.
They wanted to give these

460
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:00,360
theories.
What are your thoughts on the

461
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:04,040
actual word illusionism?
Yeah, that's a good question.

462
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,180
I think the thing with names is
that when you have a view in

463
00:25:08,180 --> 00:25:11,380
mind, your view is very detailed
and then you're going to sum it

464
00:25:11,380 --> 00:25:14,660
up in one or two thesis and the
thesis themselves are going to

465
00:25:14,660 --> 00:25:17,860
be summed up in the name and the
name is going to stick or not

466
00:25:18,380 --> 00:25:20,500
and people are going to get
confused because of the name.

467
00:25:20,500 --> 00:25:23,060
But every name creates some
confusion, like different sort

468
00:25:23,060 --> 00:25:25,540
of confusion.
I think illusionism is a good

469
00:25:25,540 --> 00:25:28,020
name in the sense that it sticks
easily.

470
00:25:28,780 --> 00:25:32,620
People are keen on using it,
which I think are good things,

471
00:25:33,370 --> 00:25:35,730
and it's better than magicalism
because I think magicalism is

472
00:25:35,730 --> 00:25:39,450
just too specific, right?
Because magicalism would be the

473
00:25:39,450 --> 00:25:42,530
view that we think of
consciousness as magic.

474
00:25:43,010 --> 00:25:45,610
And I think religionism is a bit
more general than that, because

475
00:25:45,610 --> 00:25:50,170
it's not as specific as to
what's the right metaphor to

476
00:25:50,170 --> 00:25:52,530
understand how we think of
consciousness.

477
00:25:52,530 --> 00:25:55,170
Like magic might be an
enlightening metaphor, but it

478
00:25:55,170 --> 00:25:57,090
might not be the most
enlightening, or it might not be

479
00:25:57,090 --> 00:26:02,980
the only one.
So yeah, I think that flows with

480
00:26:03,020 --> 00:26:04,900
all the names, right?
Some people have object to the

481
00:26:04,900 --> 00:26:09,180
name illusionism because there
is at least one way of using the

482
00:26:09,180 --> 00:26:13,780
term illusion so that illusions
require something like

483
00:26:14,300 --> 00:26:19,460
perceptual experience.
And since illusion is about

484
00:26:19,460 --> 00:26:23,340
consciousness seems to deny that
perceptual experience in a

485
00:26:23,340 --> 00:26:25,500
certain sense of perceptual
experience exist.

486
00:26:25,860 --> 00:26:28,260
Some people say, oh, but then
illusionism is contradictory

487
00:26:28,260 --> 00:26:31,930
because to be in the illusion of
consciousness, you need to have

488
00:26:31,930 --> 00:26:35,050
a conscious state.
That is the state of illusion

489
00:26:35,050 --> 00:26:36,570
itself.
So there was a contradiction

490
00:26:36,570 --> 00:26:38,850
here.
So of course this objection is

491
00:26:39,090 --> 00:26:41,210
easily answered.
But it's true that the name

492
00:26:41,210 --> 00:26:45,450
itself keeps suggesting the
objection to objectors, so to

493
00:26:45,450 --> 00:26:47,570
speak.
So that might be a flaw of the

494
00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:50,130
name, But I think every name has
flaws, right?

495
00:26:50,690 --> 00:26:53,130
So I'm not sure I can think of a
better name.

496
00:26:54,250 --> 00:26:56,410
Eliminative materialism is a
good name too.

497
00:26:56,410 --> 00:26:59,340
But then there is this ambiguity
that you don't know if you're

498
00:26:59,340 --> 00:27:03,500
talking about metaphysical
elimination or about verbal or

499
00:27:03,500 --> 00:27:07,900
discourse elimination, and the
two issues are different.

500
00:27:08,780 --> 00:27:12,180
Yeah, that's why I said to you
they preferred revisionary

501
00:27:12,180 --> 00:27:14,340
materials because it's almost
like you're updating and

502
00:27:14,500 --> 00:27:17,660
correcting all terms and all
terminologies for phenomenon.

503
00:27:17,660 --> 00:27:20,700
We're describing also, I mean,
Keith and I spoke about the fact

504
00:27:20,700 --> 00:27:22,420
that with Illusionism you have
to backtrack.

505
00:27:22,420 --> 00:27:23,860
You almost have to start at the
back.

506
00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:26,480
And and work your way forward
with the name because it's

507
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,200
called illusionism.
And a lot of people seem to

508
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,280
assume that you're basically
claiming that consciousness does

509
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,320
not exist, which is incorrect.
Your your claim is that

510
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,880
phenomenal consciousness so that
ethereal essence like feel or

511
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,480
that qualitative phenomenon is
actually what does not exist.

512
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,360
Yeah.
So again, as I said at the

513
00:27:44,360 --> 00:27:47,320
beginning, but a bit fast, like
when we talk of consciousness,

514
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,120
we can mean many different
things, right?

515
00:27:49,120 --> 00:27:53,080
And for example, there is this
great fundamental article by Net

516
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,440
Block where it's called On the
confusion about the function of

517
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:58,400
consciousness Way.
It distinguishes various

518
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:03,720
concepts that are distinct as
concepts, but that we attach

519
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,680
maybe to the same word when in
English we use the word

520
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,920
consciousness.
And there are many forms of

521
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,280
consciousness in that sense,
corresponding to some of these

522
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,040
other concepts that are
perfectly legitimate from the

523
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:16,320
illusionist point of view.
Right?

524
00:28:16,360 --> 00:28:19,680
Access consciousness, for
instance, like the property of

525
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,600
some of our mental states to be
like available for using

526
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,840
reasoning and rational control
of action.

527
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:31,600
This is a sense of consciousness
that seems perfectly legitimate

528
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:32,920
from an illusionist point of
view, right?

529
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,120
It's a functionally defined form
of consciousness.

530
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,840
There is no reason to deny that
consciousness exists in this

531
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,200
sense.
There is also no reason to deny

532
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,480
that some creatures are
conscious in the sense that they

533
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,840
are self-conscious, that they
have a representation of

534
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,840
themselves as themselves.
This is not something that

535
00:28:49,530 --> 00:28:51,210
illusionists have any problem
with.

536
00:28:51,930 --> 00:28:55,570
So it's only on one specific
sense of consciousness, which is

537
00:28:55,570 --> 00:28:58,890
phenomenal consciousness, that
Illusionism denies existence of

538
00:28:58,890 --> 00:29:01,450
consciousness.
And of course it happens.

539
00:29:01,450 --> 00:29:03,690
And I think I've probably also
written things like that, that

540
00:29:03,690 --> 00:29:07,130
sometimes you go fast and then
because you have defined in the

541
00:29:07,130 --> 00:29:09,450
first paragraph of your article
that you were talking about

542
00:29:09,450 --> 00:29:11,650
phenomenal consciousness and you
end up just talking about

543
00:29:11,850 --> 00:29:14,610
consciousness assuming that
everyone understands what you

544
00:29:14,610 --> 00:29:17,470
talk about.
And sometimes maybe you can be

545
00:29:17,470 --> 00:29:19,150
sloppy, right?
I'm sure.

546
00:29:19,150 --> 00:29:22,830
I'm sure people can sometimes be
sloppy in their formulations And

547
00:29:22,830 --> 00:29:26,030
this create question about, but
aren't you denying too much?

548
00:29:26,030 --> 00:29:27,670
Isn't it obvious that we are
conscious?

549
00:29:29,430 --> 00:29:32,230
I think the proper answer from a
delusionist is to say that there

550
00:29:32,230 --> 00:29:35,990
are various senses in which it's
obvious that we are conscious.

551
00:29:37,030 --> 00:29:41,070
But I do believe that at the end
of the day, denying the

552
00:29:41,110 --> 00:29:44,290
existence of phenomenal
consciousness does amount to

553
00:29:44,290 --> 00:29:46,730
denying the existence of
something that seems extremely

554
00:29:46,730 --> 00:29:51,010
intuitive, that is or seems in a
way obvious too.

555
00:29:51,370 --> 00:29:56,090
So I don't know if Keith is
entirely on board with that, but

556
00:29:56,090 --> 00:29:59,770
personally I think that illusion
is to sort of own the fact that

557
00:29:59,810 --> 00:30:02,170
they are being highly
revisionary.

558
00:30:02,410 --> 00:30:06,930
Like, yes, the picture of
reality that we suggest is the

559
00:30:06,930 --> 00:30:11,570
correct picture departs quite a
lot from maybe the picture of

560
00:30:11,570 --> 00:30:14,370
reality.
That would be the one of common

561
00:30:14,370 --> 00:30:16,970
sense.
So I I I would accept that I

562
00:30:17,010 --> 00:30:19,650
would buy this bullet.
I I thought the reason why I

563
00:30:19,650 --> 00:30:23,130
brought that up the the actual
word is because it I often the

564
00:30:23,130 --> 00:30:25,370
first person who comes to mind
when I say that is, is Michael

565
00:30:25,370 --> 00:30:27,730
Graziano.
Because even when we spoke

566
00:30:27,730 --> 00:30:29,090
about.
I mean Michael's clearly an

567
00:30:29,090 --> 00:30:31,490
illusionist.
There's it's almost nothing

568
00:30:31,490 --> 00:30:34,370
about his work that does not
scream illusionism, and yet he

569
00:30:34,730 --> 00:30:36,530
would much rather call it a
caricature.

570
00:30:37,370 --> 00:30:39,090
What are your thoughts on
Michael's work and how it

571
00:30:39,090 --> 00:30:41,450
illuminates Illusionism?
Yeah, I see.

572
00:30:41,450 --> 00:30:46,310
I think Michael Gradiento's work
is extremely important.

573
00:30:46,310 --> 00:30:52,230
It was also very influential for
me and I think so I have a

574
00:30:52,230 --> 00:30:53,550
couple of things.
So there are some things that

575
00:30:53,550 --> 00:30:55,670
I've discussed in print
regarding his work and then

576
00:30:55,670 --> 00:30:57,750
there are some other things that
I have to answer.

577
00:30:58,230 --> 00:31:03,670
So basically what is view?
So the attention schema theory

578
00:31:03,670 --> 00:31:06,030
of consciousness says is
something like this.

579
00:31:07,150 --> 00:31:11,110
Our brain enters attentional
processes in the sense that it

580
00:31:11,350 --> 00:31:14,550
dedicates more or less
computational resources to the

581
00:31:15,270 --> 00:31:17,350
treatment of certain sort of
information.

582
00:31:17,750 --> 00:31:21,790
And these attentional processes
need to be controlled and one

583
00:31:21,790 --> 00:31:25,830
way to control them is for our
brain to construct the model of

584
00:31:25,830 --> 00:31:28,510
these processes as an attention
schema.

585
00:31:28,870 --> 00:31:34,150
That sort of simplify like gives
sort of simplified model of what

586
00:31:34,150 --> 00:31:36,670
really takes place, which is
like very complex attention

587
00:31:36,750 --> 00:31:39,290
processes.
And then there are simplified

588
00:31:39,290 --> 00:31:45,490
caricatured as consisting in
some sort of simple relation of

589
00:31:45,490 --> 00:31:48,250
awareness between the subject
and a piece of information,

590
00:31:49,050 --> 00:31:50,890
right.
So that's the attention schema.

591
00:31:50,890 --> 00:31:56,570
And what Graciana says is that
when we do that and when we

592
00:31:56,570 --> 00:31:59,890
ascribe to ourselves or to
others the simple relation of

593
00:31:59,890 --> 00:32:03,690
awareness, that's when we
ascribe to ourselves and to

594
00:32:03,730 --> 00:32:07,730
others conscious states.
But since and this attention

595
00:32:07,730 --> 00:32:10,130
schema is a simplification, it's
a caricature.

596
00:32:10,490 --> 00:32:14,290
We tend to think of this counter
state as having a certain nature

597
00:32:14,290 --> 00:32:15,890
that is very different from
their real nature.

598
00:32:15,890 --> 00:32:21,370
Their real nature is to be again
like perfectly physical, complex

599
00:32:21,370 --> 00:32:23,770
computational processes.
But then we represent them as a

600
00:32:23,770 --> 00:32:27,370
sort of primitive, simple
relation of awareness.

601
00:32:27,610 --> 00:32:29,930
There is no such thing as this
simple primitive relation of

602
00:32:29,930 --> 00:32:32,330
awareness are just this complex
attentional processes.

603
00:32:34,290 --> 00:32:37,260
So I think I think this is a
very interesting view.

604
00:32:37,260 --> 00:32:41,500
I agree with a lot of it.
I have this article where I

605
00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:44,300
criticize this view because I'm
not entirely sure.

606
00:32:44,940 --> 00:32:51,540
It gets us a full explanation of
why we resist so much to

607
00:32:51,740 --> 00:32:55,020
identify consciousness with
physical states.

608
00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:58,140
Why?
Basically, my view is that,

609
00:32:58,380 --> 00:33:02,040
like, my argument is that if
really what happens when we

610
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:04,680
represent consciousness is that
we represent it in a way that is

611
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:09,760
only schematic, so a way that is
merely incomplete, then it's not

612
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:13,280
clear why we should resist so
much to actually complete the

613
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:18,240
picture and add information to
this schematic and simplified

614
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,080
representation, right?
A little bit like if, let's say

615
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:26,880
I draw a map of South Africa and
I draw a very schematic map

616
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:31,240
where basically I just, I don't
know, I just put the three or

617
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,560
four major cities on the map as
sports.

618
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:34,960
And then I present to you the
map.

619
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,040
You just see the borders and
four major cities and then you

620
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,280
come up and say, well actually
there is more in South Africa

621
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,480
because there is also this city
and this city and this road and

622
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,560
this road.
If my original map was really

623
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,200
just a simplification, just
incomplete map, why should we

624
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,040
resist to adding more
information?

625
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,560
There should be no cognitive
resistance there, so to speak.

626
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,720
And the idea that if really our
attention schema was merely an

627
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,760
incomplete representation, then
we should not have the sort of

628
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,160
deep resistance that we have
when we try to accept the purely

629
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,239
physical nature of our contrast
state, because trying to accept

630
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:13,159
that would be merely adding
information to some incomplete

631
00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:16,280
description.
But I believe that we resist

632
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,639
quite a lot to admit the
physical nature of our contrast

633
00:34:20,639 --> 00:34:23,639
state.
So for me, this suggests that

634
00:34:24,100 --> 00:34:26,900
when we represent consciousness,
for example in introspection,

635
00:34:27,100 --> 00:34:30,900
it's not just that we represent
it incompletely, it's that we

636
00:34:30,900 --> 00:34:34,780
represent it positively as
having some features that they

637
00:34:34,780 --> 00:34:36,900
do not have.
I don't know if that makes

638
00:34:36,900 --> 00:34:38,020
sense.
Well, I don't know if that was

639
00:34:38,020 --> 00:34:40,179
clear enough.
It does, but a part of me is

640
00:34:40,179 --> 00:34:44,780
trying to figure out at which
point exactly do you kind of

641
00:34:45,100 --> 00:34:47,409
dive.
This going to two different

642
00:34:47,409 --> 00:34:49,370
directions, cuz I think at some
point when you read some of

643
00:34:49,370 --> 00:34:52,449
Michael's work, it does sort of
claim that we do tend to make

644
00:34:52,449 --> 00:34:56,610
this claim of something that
does not actually exist via the

645
00:34:56,610 --> 00:34:58,690
attention schema theory I'm
trying to figure out.

646
00:34:58,690 --> 00:35:00,370
Yeah, yeah.
It's more alike than you think,

647
00:35:01,250 --> 00:35:04,330
yeah.
So I think my so my view, if I

648
00:35:04,330 --> 00:35:09,610
had to detail it more, is that I
think probably that's what he

649
00:35:09,610 --> 00:35:11,130
wants to say because that's
probably what happens.

650
00:35:11,290 --> 00:35:13,530
But I don't think his view
accounts for that, right.

651
00:35:13,530 --> 00:35:14,530
That's another way of framing
it.

652
00:35:15,050 --> 00:35:18,330
I think in his, for example, in
his original book Contrasted in

653
00:35:18,330 --> 00:35:21,010
the Social Brain where I first
discovered his theory, which is

654
00:35:21,010 --> 00:35:23,450
a great book, I really recommend
everyone should buy it.

655
00:35:24,770 --> 00:35:26,810
There is this moment where we
say, yeah, we represent

656
00:35:26,810 --> 00:35:32,340
contrasted as a sort of ethereal
essence that cannot be physical.

657
00:35:32,340 --> 00:35:35,020
But then when you look at the
actual theory, it's not case

658
00:35:35,020 --> 00:35:36,780
that it accounts for that.
I think it accounts for

659
00:35:36,780 --> 00:35:39,780
something like a caricatural
simplified incomplete

660
00:35:39,780 --> 00:35:43,740
representation, but not for the
representation of something that

661
00:35:43,780 --> 00:35:46,500
we would then judge cannot.
Be physical, I see.

662
00:35:46,580 --> 00:35:50,780
So that's in itself, sorry.
So it's more about the actual

663
00:35:50,780 --> 00:35:54,220
belief or thereafter like the
representation of the belief

664
00:35:54,260 --> 00:35:56,180
afterwards that you're talking
about.

665
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,520
Well, I just think that there
are different ways of framing

666
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,080
it.
But yeah, one one thing that you

667
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,080
could say is how come we tend to
have these beliefs if really our

668
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,520
representation of consciousness
is merely as some, as is merely

669
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:11,160
an incomplete representation,
right.

670
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:16,280
And my my, my concern is that
the attention schema theory as

671
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,040
is does not really account for
why these beliefs arise.

672
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:23,360
So I'm not saying of course
maybe Graziano can give some

673
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:28,870
other story to explain this, but
I think as it's done, I'm not

674
00:36:28,870 --> 00:36:32,270
sure that the view explains it.
So I think he answered my

675
00:36:32,310 --> 00:36:35,870
objection is is is in his other
book in 2019.

676
00:36:35,870 --> 00:36:38,950
He has this couple of pages
where he answers his objection.

677
00:36:39,190 --> 00:36:42,270
I'm not sure his answer works,
but maybe for a reason that I'll

678
00:36:42,270 --> 00:36:45,710
be too long to detail now, maybe
you can dig into it a bit later.

679
00:36:46,390 --> 00:36:49,830
But roughly just to to finish on
that and then address another

680
00:36:49,830 --> 00:36:52,230
concern.
So I think my so my disagreement

681
00:36:52,230 --> 00:36:56,350
with with Gradina on this point
is that I tend to believe that

682
00:36:56,350 --> 00:37:00,430
the illusion of consciousness is
a much richer illusion, that it

683
00:37:00,430 --> 00:37:05,470
describes much more substantive
properties that are not had by

684
00:37:05,470 --> 00:37:08,230
our real mental states to our
conscious states.

685
00:37:08,510 --> 00:37:14,710
And roughly my idea is that at
the end, the way we represent

686
00:37:14,710 --> 00:37:18,990
consciousness is epistemological
through and through.

687
00:37:19,110 --> 00:37:21,990
What I mean by that is that I
think we essentially think of

688
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:26,320
conscious states are states with
which we are in a certain sort

689
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:30,040
of epistemic relationship,
states with which are

690
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:34,280
immediately known, so to speak.
So there is some sort of rich

691
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,320
substantive epistemological
characterization of our

692
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,920
conscious states that is
operated by introspection.

693
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,440
So the illusion is more than a
mere incomplete representation.

694
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:46,960
I think it's an actual
misrepresentation.

695
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,280
So that would be 1 disagreement
with another is another point of

696
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,930
disagreement.
But again, all that being said,

697
00:37:55,250 --> 00:37:59,010
again with the Assam really I
want to to stress it that his

698
00:37:59,010 --> 00:38:01,090
work was really extremely
influential for me and I think

699
00:38:01,090 --> 00:38:03,850
it's one of the best work on
consciousness that has been done

700
00:38:03,850 --> 00:38:07,050
in the last decades.
One other disagreement which is

701
00:38:07,050 --> 00:38:09,610
verbal is about whether or not
we should use the word

702
00:38:09,650 --> 00:38:14,820
illusionism.
And as you said Graziano, he's

703
00:38:14,820 --> 00:38:17,900
very close to illusionism.
He has for example in his 2019

704
00:38:17,940 --> 00:38:21,380
book I think he says my view is
essentially essentially it's an

705
00:38:21,380 --> 00:38:24,380
illusionist view.
But then he also says but we

706
00:38:24,380 --> 00:38:27,020
should not use that word for
various reasons.

707
00:38:27,020 --> 00:38:30,540
So some of them I think are
linked to some connotation of

708
00:38:30,540 --> 00:38:34,940
illusions that have to do maybe
with dysfunctions of cognitive

709
00:38:34,940 --> 00:38:36,940
or perceptual system.
So he doesn't like that for this

710
00:38:36,940 --> 00:38:40,940
reason which I understand.
I think he has other in other

711
00:38:40,940 --> 00:38:44,830
more strategic motivation.
I think he has is one part of

712
00:38:44,830 --> 00:38:47,110
his book where he say something
like you should not call

713
00:38:47,110 --> 00:38:49,470
consciousness and delusion.
Because if you call

714
00:38:49,470 --> 00:38:51,150
consciousness and delusion, no
one is going to take.

715
00:38:51,150 --> 00:38:54,750
You see, it's like the kiss of
death for a theory if you say

716
00:38:54,750 --> 00:38:57,350
consciousness is an illusion, so
just don't say that.

717
00:38:57,350 --> 00:39:01,350
It's just bad politics.
And so that's something that

718
00:39:01,350 --> 00:39:05,270
I've been thinking about
recently in the last two years

719
00:39:05,270 --> 00:39:07,590
I've been thinking about that
and I think I disagree with him.

720
00:39:08,590 --> 00:39:13,110
And the reason why I disagree
with him is the following.

721
00:39:14,860 --> 00:39:19,060
Why is it that calling
consciousness and illusion is

722
00:39:19,900 --> 00:39:22,900
likely to create such hostile
reaction?

723
00:39:23,580 --> 00:39:25,740
So one first reason might be,
well, because of

724
00:39:25,740 --> 00:39:27,620
misunderstanding.
Because people don't understand

725
00:39:27,620 --> 00:39:30,580
that we deny only phenomenal
consciousness and not access

726
00:39:30,580 --> 00:39:33,580
consciousness.
They say OK, but normally in a

727
00:39:34,020 --> 00:39:37,220
philosophical theoretical
context we clarify everything.

728
00:39:37,220 --> 00:39:39,580
So this misunderstanding, of
course they can arise, but they

729
00:39:39,580 --> 00:39:42,740
could arise for any of you.
So what is it?

730
00:39:44,290 --> 00:39:46,890
And I say that at the end of the
day, the reason why people

731
00:39:46,890 --> 00:39:49,490
resist so much to calling
phenomenal consciousness and

732
00:39:49,490 --> 00:39:53,050
delusion might be because its
existence is very intuitive.

733
00:39:53,690 --> 00:39:57,930
It might be because it is indeed
a very counterintuitive claim

734
00:39:59,050 --> 00:40:02,010
than the claim that phenomenal
consciousness is illusory.

735
00:40:02,330 --> 00:40:05,410
But if really that's the reason,
then you should not shy away

736
00:40:05,410 --> 00:40:07,770
from this counterintuitiveness.
You should just accept it

737
00:40:08,050 --> 00:40:10,530
because it is part of the view,
it is part of the claim.

738
00:40:10,930 --> 00:40:14,730
And if you try to.
Make it less salient then you

739
00:40:14,730 --> 00:40:16,490
might assume.
Make the corresponding theory

740
00:40:16,490 --> 00:40:20,130
less clear because people might
be confused about what exactly

741
00:40:20,410 --> 00:40:23,250
you are denying.
People might think that you

742
00:40:23,290 --> 00:40:28,490
actually admit in your ontology
this intrinsically Philly set of

743
00:40:28,490 --> 00:40:32,010
States and just believe that you
give a certain theory about

744
00:40:32,010 --> 00:40:33,410
them.
But I think we should be very

745
00:40:33,410 --> 00:40:38,370
clear that now we are denying
this intrinsically Philly set of

746
00:40:38,370 --> 00:40:40,930
states which create an
explanatory gap, create the

747
00:40:40,930 --> 00:40:43,760
HARPM, etcetera.
So I think I disagree with

748
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,640
Gradiano in this respect.
I think we should to the I think

749
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:49,880
to some extent Illusionism is
content with you.

750
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:51,280
Anything.
We should just accept that.

751
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,680
I think I agree with you.
I think when I wrote my paper I

752
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,520
remember saying at some, I can't
remember exactly what I said,

753
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,880
but I remember actually saying
we should call a spade a spade.

754
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,280
I mean, this is if this is what
we're saying, this is what we

755
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,240
should say.
And then people need a sort of

756
00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:08,720
warp change their view around
the theory rather than actually

757
00:41:08,720 --> 00:41:11,520
change stock.
Changing this word, I mean,

758
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,920
that's what we do all the time.
Today, due to political reasons,

759
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:15,880
due to so many different things,
we're slowly changing and

760
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,320
redefining terms.
And that's not the solution.

761
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,240
You actually really need to
understand what the term is

762
00:41:21,240 --> 00:41:23,880
referring to.
That's the bottom line, yeah.

763
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:25,120
No, no, I think I agree with
that.

764
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,240
I think it's also fine to change
the terms and to redefine them

765
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,840
when you need that, yes, but
then it should be very it should

766
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,640
be very explicit about that, as
explicit as you can, right When

767
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:37,000
you for some you can have good
scientific or good philosophical

768
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:42,050
reason to use an old word in a
slightly different manner.

769
00:41:42,610 --> 00:41:46,050
But then I think it's really
important to not be sneaky about

770
00:41:46,050 --> 00:41:49,970
that, to be very clear and.
To be the transparent aspect of

771
00:41:49,970 --> 00:41:53,370
clearly defining it and letting
people know why you've changed

772
00:41:53,370 --> 00:41:56,570
it and sort of have that track
record to maintain that

773
00:41:56,570 --> 00:41:59,650
coherence, Yeah.
But that being said, I also

774
00:41:59,650 --> 00:42:03,090
understand Michael Graziano's
concern, right, about the sort

775
00:42:03,090 --> 00:42:04,970
of reaction that the theory
attracts.

776
00:42:04,970 --> 00:42:07,590
Because you have a theory, you
think it's true, you want it to

777
00:42:07,590 --> 00:42:13,670
be adopted, and if your theory,
the way it's formulated create

778
00:42:13,670 --> 00:42:17,790
is very strong hostility, then
what are the chances that it

779
00:42:17,790 --> 00:42:19,430
will ever be adopted?
So I also understand this

780
00:42:19,430 --> 00:42:22,030
content.
I just think that there are good

781
00:42:22,030 --> 00:42:25,030
reasons to just own the content
treativeness of the view.

782
00:42:25,390 --> 00:42:27,830
That's what I believe.
I really do understand as well.

783
00:42:27,830 --> 00:42:32,430
I mean, I completely get why?
It's it's it's almost scary to

784
00:42:32,430 --> 00:42:34,990
say something like this is an
illusion because so many people

785
00:42:34,990 --> 00:42:37,670
hold so dear conscious
experience.

786
00:42:37,910 --> 00:42:40,910
This is literally like, it's
almost like being atheist.

787
00:42:41,430 --> 00:42:43,910
You're going out and telling
people that God does not exist.

788
00:42:44,990 --> 00:42:46,830
It's it's very similar in that
regard.

789
00:42:46,870 --> 00:42:49,590
And when it's associated with
people like Dennett, Susan

790
00:42:49,590 --> 00:42:52,430
Blackmore, you've got these
people, these this type of thing

791
00:42:52,630 --> 00:42:54,910
that occurs.
So there is the social stigma

792
00:42:54,910 --> 00:42:57,030
that comes with it.
So I kind of do understand why

793
00:42:57,030 --> 00:42:59,630
this view would be viewed in a
sort of negative.

794
00:43:01,850 --> 00:43:04,210
Yeah.
I mean, I I mean, I think there

795
00:43:04,330 --> 00:43:06,850
are lots of potential
sociological, ideological

796
00:43:06,850 --> 00:43:12,130
factors that could explain that.
I think one way around it is, I

797
00:43:12,170 --> 00:43:15,930
think Keith does that pretty
well, is just to insist on the

798
00:43:15,930 --> 00:43:20,050
fact that what is denied this
fundamental consciousness might

799
00:43:20,450 --> 00:43:23,290
not really be what people
usually care about.

800
00:43:23,290 --> 00:43:25,010
Maybe only philosophers care
about it.

801
00:43:25,010 --> 00:43:28,700
Or maybe people who have entered
a certain sort of academic

802
00:43:28,700 --> 00:43:31,060
training really care about
phenomenal consciousness.

803
00:43:31,500 --> 00:43:34,740
Maybe what ordinary people care
about is consciousness in a way

804
00:43:34,740 --> 00:43:38,420
that is much more underdefined.
And since there are lots of

805
00:43:38,420 --> 00:43:40,900
senses of consciousness in which
illusionists do not deny

806
00:43:40,900 --> 00:43:43,980
existence of consciousness,
maybe it's not that bad for the

807
00:43:43,980 --> 00:43:47,820
ordinary people.
I'm not sure about that.

808
00:43:47,820 --> 00:43:49,380
To be frank.
I think it might be that the

809
00:43:49,380 --> 00:43:54,140
more ordinary people care about
phenomenal consciousness and

810
00:43:54,140 --> 00:43:57,380
what Keith says.
So I think again, that might be

811
00:43:57,380 --> 00:43:59,380
a point where I might be in
disagreement.

812
00:43:59,380 --> 00:44:02,020
With it is growing.
I mean at this point some it

813
00:44:02,020 --> 00:44:04,300
seems like ordinary people are
becoming more and more involved

814
00:44:04,300 --> 00:44:06,420
with this topic in this
conversation, which is exciting.

815
00:44:06,420 --> 00:44:09,820
But also that means we do have
to tip to around the definitions

816
00:44:09,820 --> 00:44:12,420
of words at this point and kind
of really clearly define these

817
00:44:12,420 --> 00:44:15,900
terms now even more than ever.
No, for sure, for sure.

818
00:44:15,900 --> 00:44:18,980
And that's that's also something
that has appeared clearly with

819
00:44:19,060 --> 00:44:26,790
this big IT affair, which is
that when you engage in science

820
00:44:26,790 --> 00:44:31,510
popularization or like diffusion
of scientific results, but it

821
00:44:31,510 --> 00:44:33,750
was all applied to philosophical
theories.

822
00:44:34,390 --> 00:44:38,830
Of course you need to avoid the
temptation of click baiting or

823
00:44:38,830 --> 00:44:42,590
sounding sexier than you are,
yeah.

824
00:44:43,420 --> 00:44:46,820
No, no, definitely.
So I mentioned Sue and tell me,

825
00:44:47,140 --> 00:44:48,860
how influential was Daniel
Denner to you?

826
00:44:48,860 --> 00:44:51,260
Because I remember when I was
writing my own, he was.

827
00:44:51,820 --> 00:44:54,020
He's one of those figures where
I do really look up to him in a

828
00:44:54,100 --> 00:44:56,820
in a very God figure sometimes
in terms of philosophy.

829
00:44:57,540 --> 00:45:00,340
Yeah.
So I think Dennet is probably

830
00:45:00,340 --> 00:45:04,060
one of these philosophers, one
of the few contemporary

831
00:45:04,060 --> 00:45:08,180
philosophers of mine where I
would be tempted to say that

832
00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:12,020
he's really above, above most of
what has been done is was so

833
00:45:12,020 --> 00:45:17,240
much ahead of his time and so
many just great ideas are there.

834
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,000
It's really impressive and a bit
frightening.

835
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,320
At the same time, I don't think
Dennett was the most influential

836
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,400
in bringing me to Illusionism
for the reason that when I

837
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,800
remember reading Dennett as an
as an undergrad and as a young

838
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,160
grad student.
And I remember that when

839
00:45:34,720 --> 00:45:37,000
Dennett, like for example, in
Consciousness Explained or in

840
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,600
his subsequent book Like Sweet
Dreams, when Dennet addressed

841
00:45:41,150 --> 00:45:44,950
the illusion of phenomenal
consciousness or illusion of

842
00:45:44,950 --> 00:45:49,590
Quellia, although it did not
always use the word illusion, a

843
00:45:49,590 --> 00:45:54,030
lot of these explanations as to
why we were subject to the

844
00:45:54,030 --> 00:45:57,270
illusion had to do with us
committing a certain number of

845
00:45:57,470 --> 00:45:59,710
reasoning mistakes.
Right then.

846
00:45:59,710 --> 00:46:04,710
It was trying to make us see
through our philosophical

847
00:46:04,710 --> 00:46:09,550
mistakes, through our fallacies,
and make us understand that in

848
00:46:09,550 --> 00:46:13,150
fact we're not conscious and in
the phenomenal sense and that we

849
00:46:13,150 --> 00:46:15,230
thought we were.
We thought we had qualia because

850
00:46:15,390 --> 00:46:16,990
we made all of these
philosophical mistakes.

851
00:46:17,390 --> 00:46:19,950
And that did not sit well with
me, because I had the very

852
00:46:19,950 --> 00:46:23,190
strong impression that the
reason why it seemed to me that

853
00:46:23,230 --> 00:46:25,830
these states with qualia had
very little to do with

854
00:46:25,870 --> 00:46:28,590
philosophical reasoning.
It seemed to me that it was in

855
00:46:28,590 --> 00:46:33,590
fact a lot of pre theoretical
impression that I had, that I

856
00:46:33,590 --> 00:46:37,200
was conscious in this sense.
Conscious in this sense that

857
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:40,480
maybe cannot be easily reduced
to some function of a physical

858
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:43,920
process.
And I also remember thinking

859
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:48,560
that I had some sort of rough
intuition of the hard problem

860
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:50,640
even before I really studied
philosophy.

861
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:53,920
I did not say, of course, it
appeared to me exactly as

862
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,200
sophisticated that would be
false, but as some sort of sense

863
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:00,640
that there was an issue there
even before I was formally

864
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,320
trained in philosophy.
So because of that, I was not

865
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:07,480
inclined to take the illusion of
phenomenal consciousness as a

866
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,880
potential highly intellectual
theoretical illusion.

867
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,160
So that's why the net was not
the one that brought me to

868
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,120
illusionism, right?
Because his form of illusionism

869
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,120
was too theoretical, so to
speak.

870
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:23,120
He was really seeing the
illusion of consciousness more

871
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:27,800
as a theoretical mistake.
And I think I was more attracted

872
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,000
to a view on which the illusion
of phenomenal consciousness is

873
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,600
introspective, right.
So it does not have to do with

874
00:47:34,100 --> 00:47:37,340
reasoning mistakes that we make,
but it has to do with some

875
00:47:37,340 --> 00:47:41,820
potentially hard wired, at least
very hard to modify feature of

876
00:47:41,900 --> 00:47:44,900
our introspective systems.
So that's why for instance,

877
00:47:44,900 --> 00:47:48,740
views like Graziano's view on
which attention schema is

878
00:47:48,900 --> 00:47:51,300
something that we cannot change.
It's not the result of any

879
00:47:51,300 --> 00:47:53,540
reasoning that we make right.
That's just the way our brains

880
00:47:53,540 --> 00:47:55,700
works.
It just produces attention

881
00:47:55,700 --> 00:47:58,260
schema.
I found that more attractive

882
00:47:58,260 --> 00:48:02,180
also like for example the view
of dark Per Boom was a great

883
00:48:02,180 --> 00:48:06,950
book where it also explores part
of the book The illusionist

884
00:48:06,950 --> 00:48:10,190
option.
Yeah, I was more attracted that

885
00:48:10,190 --> 00:48:12,230
these are the views.
And also of course kis, Frankie,

886
00:48:12,230 --> 00:48:15,150
these are the views that really
led me to Illusionism more than

887
00:48:15,670 --> 00:48:17,390
Dennet.
Although once I turned

888
00:48:17,390 --> 00:48:20,190
Illusionist and I went back to
Dennet and read it and I found a

889
00:48:20,190 --> 00:48:23,990
lot of extremely precious ideas
there, but just not his

890
00:48:23,990 --> 00:48:26,870
explanation of the of the.
I agree with you because I think

891
00:48:26,870 --> 00:48:30,570
Dennet himself when he wrote.
I think it was illusion as the

892
00:48:30,570 --> 00:48:33,890
obvious theory of consciousness
after Keith finally put this

893
00:48:33,890 --> 00:48:36,250
together into words that he
probably agreed with at the

894
00:48:36,250 --> 00:48:38,050
time.
I think that Keith managed to

895
00:48:38,050 --> 00:48:42,050
frame his thoughts in a bit of a
more specific way and I think

896
00:48:42,050 --> 00:48:44,330
did it at that point, realized
that this is pretty much what

897
00:48:44,330 --> 00:48:45,690
he's saying.
Cuz there were times where I

898
00:48:45,690 --> 00:48:48,330
think Dennet's written a lot of
work with pan psychist

899
00:48:48,690 --> 00:48:52,930
philosophers and and I know a
lot of it seems to align

900
00:48:52,930 --> 00:48:55,770
sometimes back when I think I
was reading one of his papers

901
00:48:55,770 --> 00:48:58,860
with Michael Levin and.
I remember thinking like, is

902
00:48:58,860 --> 00:49:02,340
Dennett actually an illusionist
here or is sort of a pants I

903
00:49:02,340 --> 00:49:05,260
guess, But I mean, clearly he's
an illusionist through and

904
00:49:05,260 --> 00:49:06,540
through.
What about your thoughts on

905
00:49:06,700 --> 00:49:10,100
delusionism?
And I'm sorry, can you repeat?

906
00:49:10,420 --> 00:49:12,940
Delusionism.
Blackmore's Delusionism.

907
00:49:14,860 --> 00:49:17,140
So can you serve it up again for
me as just that I'm sure that I

908
00:49:17,140 --> 00:49:19,860
and say it properly.
I think just, well, I hope I do

909
00:49:19,940 --> 00:49:23,340
justice at this, but pretty
much, I mean, Susan says that.

910
00:49:24,420 --> 00:49:27,220
So I mean how often do we really
ask ourselves are we conscious

911
00:49:27,220 --> 00:49:29,660
right now?
And I mean we walk around with

912
00:49:29,660 --> 00:49:31,860
this almost deluded thought
process where we think we're

913
00:49:31,860 --> 00:49:36,300
constantly conscious of the
world and at some point we draw

914
00:49:36,300 --> 00:49:38,100
these false conclusions on
reality.

915
00:49:38,540 --> 00:49:40,780
It pretty much like a if you
think of Bayesian brains and you

916
00:49:40,780 --> 00:49:44,780
think if we get enough prior
information that's telling us we

917
00:49:44,860 --> 00:49:48,700
we conscious, the most likely
posterior outcome is going to be

918
00:49:48,700 --> 00:49:52,150
that we're going to conclude.
That we are conscious, and it

919
00:49:52,150 --> 00:49:54,470
makes sense from a Bayesian
brain perspective because we

920
00:49:54,470 --> 00:49:56,870
don't walk out through our life
thinking we're not conscious.

921
00:49:57,190 --> 00:49:59,150
We're constantly kind of
introspecting or the thought

922
00:49:59,150 --> 00:50:02,390
that we kind of are, which
generally leads to a conclusion

923
00:50:02,390 --> 00:50:05,030
that you sort of are, which is
deluded in the sense that we

924
00:50:05,030 --> 00:50:09,710
really are bad at introspecting.
We're taking shortcuts.

925
00:50:09,710 --> 00:50:12,150
There's always heuristic
adaptations, poor processing

926
00:50:12,150 --> 00:50:14,750
power.
I'm probably poor job at

927
00:50:14,750 --> 00:50:16,550
explaining that, so I'm sorry.
Yeah.

928
00:50:17,270 --> 00:50:20,780
So I think, yeah, when you say
that, I think it reminded me of

929
00:50:20,900 --> 00:50:24,420
like Susan Blackmore's article
in the Illusionism Symposium.

930
00:50:24,420 --> 00:50:25,740
And I suppose that's what you
have in mind.

931
00:50:25,740 --> 00:50:31,780
I think the way I see it, ID is
something close to what has

932
00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:35,380
sometimes been called the grand
illusion, does a refrigerator

933
00:50:35,380 --> 00:50:38,580
like illusion when it comes to
the richness of perception.

934
00:50:38,900 --> 00:50:43,580
And the idea of this socalled
grand illusion is that you

935
00:50:43,580 --> 00:50:47,900
believe that your visual field
is very rich and detailed and

936
00:50:47,900 --> 00:50:50,780
that, yeah, there's a lot of
information that you are

937
00:50:50,900 --> 00:50:54,340
currently perceiving.
The reason why you believe that

938
00:50:54,340 --> 00:50:56,860
is not because your perception
is actually very rich and

939
00:50:56,860 --> 00:50:59,660
detailed.
It's just that whenever you turn

940
00:50:59,660 --> 00:51:03,540
your attention, turn your eyes
towards a certain direction,

941
00:51:03,540 --> 00:51:05,580
then you can have all of this
rich information.

942
00:51:05,940 --> 00:51:08,020
And because it's always
available, you tend to assume

943
00:51:08,020 --> 00:51:11,180
that it's actually already
there, not just available, but

944
00:51:11,780 --> 00:51:14,660
really present.
The same way someone naive could

945
00:51:14,660 --> 00:51:17,970
assume that because each time
you open the refrigerators there

946
00:51:17,970 --> 00:51:20,330
is light inside, you could
assume that, well, there is

947
00:51:20,330 --> 00:51:22,330
always light inside, even when
it's closed.

948
00:51:24,810 --> 00:51:28,170
And I think that the idea of
Susan Blackmore is that

949
00:51:28,170 --> 00:51:31,370
something similar goes on with
consciousness, and that in that

950
00:51:31,370 --> 00:51:34,730
sense maybe we would be
sometimes conscious, but just

951
00:51:34,730 --> 00:51:37,130
quite rarely.
We're only conscious when we

952
00:51:37,130 --> 00:51:39,730
look, so to speak, or when we
probe ourselves in the

953
00:51:39,770 --> 00:51:42,770
appropriate way, when we perform
the appropriate sort of

954
00:51:42,810 --> 00:51:46,040
introspective act.
But the rest of the time we're

955
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:47,880
not.
So it would be a view on which

956
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:51,080
consciousness, phenomenal
consciousness, I suppose is

957
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:55,520
real, is just very rare and very
space, and we assume that it is

958
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:58,320
much more common and much more
rich than it is.

959
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:04,040
I think for me, this sort of
view is a bit orthogonal to the

960
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,000
form of religionism, as that
interests Why?

961
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:10,360
Because if you admit that
phenomenal consciousness is

962
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,120
real, although it's rare, you
still have the same problem of

963
00:52:14,060 --> 00:52:16,220
explaining it, right?
So you still need to solve the

964
00:52:16,220 --> 00:52:17,940
hard problem of consciousness,
so to speak.

965
00:52:18,220 --> 00:52:21,140
Even if you think that we are
just conscious 10 seconds a day,

966
00:52:21,380 --> 00:52:24,300
the metaphysical problem is
exactly the same because does

967
00:52:24,300 --> 00:52:27,180
not matter, right how frequent
consciousness is, At least as

968
00:52:28,420 --> 00:52:30,940
soon as there is some phenomenal
consciousness then you get you

969
00:52:30,940 --> 00:52:33,260
have to explain it and you have
the hard problem.

970
00:52:33,700 --> 00:52:37,060
So if you have this sort of
view, then you need to give some

971
00:52:37,100 --> 00:52:40,620
other answer to this problem,
which I take very seriously.

972
00:52:41,500 --> 00:52:45,650
So of course you could imagine
being a double illusionist, so

973
00:52:45,650 --> 00:52:49,370
to speak.
You could imagine that the idea

974
00:52:49,370 --> 00:52:52,530
is that, well, phenomenal
consciousness is an illusion.

975
00:52:52,530 --> 00:52:58,090
It does not really exist.
And on top of that, we are less,

976
00:52:58,290 --> 00:53:00,250
let's say, access conscious than
we think.

977
00:53:00,690 --> 00:53:06,370
Or maybe on top of that we have
less of these.

978
00:53:07,130 --> 00:53:09,330
Sorry, I need to do a little
digression here.

979
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:12,280
For your audience, and I know
you know that, but for your

980
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:14,600
audience.
So Keith Frankie has this nice

981
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,920
distinction between phenomenal
consciousness and quasi

982
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,400
phenomenal consciousness.
Where quasi phenomenal

983
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:23,440
consciousness is something real.
For illusionists it is the set

984
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:28,720
of actual real mental states,
probably brain states, that tend

985
00:53:28,720 --> 00:53:32,280
to trigger introspective
representations of phenomenal

986
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:34,120
states.
So basically the idea is that

987
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:38,060
our brains enter certain states,
are real, genuine mental states

988
00:53:38,060 --> 00:53:40,860
with lots of interesting
functional properties, and that

989
00:53:40,860 --> 00:53:44,820
some of them trigger or tend to
trigger introspective

990
00:53:44,820 --> 00:53:46,340
representations of phenomenal
states.

991
00:53:46,780 --> 00:53:51,700
So these real mental states are
quasi phenomenal States and they

992
00:53:51,700 --> 00:53:56,340
are mischaracterized as
phenomenal by our introspective

993
00:53:56,340 --> 00:53:58,860
states, right.
So now let's go back one second

994
00:53:58,860 --> 00:54:01,220
to what I was saying about this
sort of double illusionism.

995
00:54:01,220 --> 00:54:04,020
You could be an illusionist and
a delusionist if, for example,

996
00:54:04,020 --> 00:54:07,730
you thought that phenomenal
consciousness is not real, the

997
00:54:07,770 --> 00:54:10,530
only quasi phenomenal states
that are mischaracterized as

998
00:54:10,530 --> 00:54:13,090
phenomenal.
And on top of that, this quasi

999
00:54:13,250 --> 00:54:16,530
phenomenal states are not even
as frequent as we would think.

1000
00:54:16,570 --> 00:54:19,570
It's only when we introspect
them that they really exist with

1001
00:54:19,930 --> 00:54:22,650
all their complexity and in fact
there is not even that.

1002
00:54:22,770 --> 00:54:24,210
So you could combine the two
pictures.

1003
00:54:24,610 --> 00:54:26,850
But the reason why, at least the
way I understand it, is

1004
00:54:26,850 --> 00:54:28,690
delusionist picture is not
attractive.

1005
00:54:28,730 --> 00:54:32,170
Not so attractive to me is
because I don't think it gets

1006
00:54:32,170 --> 00:54:33,930
rid of the main metaphysical
issue.

1007
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:39,040
Yeah, so let's let's break into
Illusionism even more.

1008
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,200
I mean, you've got weak and
strong Illusionism.

1009
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:43,040
Do you want to give me your
version of how you define these

1010
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,480
two terms as well?
Yeah.

1011
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:50,040
So basically, strong Illusionism
is more or less what I called

1012
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:51,960
Illusionism earlier.
So it's just a view that

1013
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:54,520
phenomenal consciousness does
not exist, but it seems to

1014
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,080
exist.
Then Weak Illusionism is

1015
00:54:57,080 --> 00:55:01,680
something a bit different.
It consists in saying, well,

1016
00:55:01,720 --> 00:55:03,320
phenomenal consciousness does
exist.

1017
00:55:03,950 --> 00:55:06,670
It just seems to have certain
properties that it does not

1018
00:55:06,670 --> 00:55:09,710
really have.
So there are illusions regarding

1019
00:55:09,710 --> 00:55:12,310
phenomenal consciousness.
It's just not about its very

1020
00:55:12,310 --> 00:55:14,110
existence.
It's just about some of its

1021
00:55:14,110 --> 00:55:15,590
features, some of its
properties.

1022
00:55:16,870 --> 00:55:21,590
For example, someone could say
and then yeah and then you can

1023
00:55:21,590 --> 00:55:24,550
be more or less of a weak
illusionist depending on how

1024
00:55:24,550 --> 00:55:29,390
many features and how important
are these features that you

1025
00:55:29,630 --> 00:55:32,280
claim to be illusory when it
comes to phenomenal

1026
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:34,720
consciousness.
So typically someone could say

1027
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,960
phenomenal consciousness is
real, it just seems to be non

1028
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,520
physical for instance.
And if you claim that then you

1029
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,680
would be a weak illusionist.
You think fundamentality is

1030
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:46,880
real, it just seems to have some
properties it does not have.

1031
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,080
There is one variety of weak
illusionism, which I think is

1032
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:55,800
maybe the most coherent, and
it's a variety on which it's in

1033
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,320
fact the same thing as strong
illusionism with only verbal or

1034
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:04,600
semantic difference, right?
So it would be someone who says

1035
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:07,600
we like phenomenal consciousness
is real.

1036
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:12,600
But what I call phenomenal
consciousness is nothing more

1037
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:16,000
than what the strong illusionist
calls quasi Phenomenal

1038
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:21,080
consciousness and all the other
properties that it seems to

1039
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,630
have.
They do not like all these extra

1040
00:56:23,630 --> 00:56:24,630
properties that it seems to
have.

1041
00:56:24,630 --> 00:56:27,750
They do not exist.
So if you have this view, in

1042
00:56:27,750 --> 00:56:30,190
fact you're weak illusionist.
But you say exactly the same

1043
00:56:30,230 --> 00:56:32,910
thing as a strong illusionist in
a slightly different vocabulary.

1044
00:56:34,150 --> 00:56:37,190
And I take it that the most
coherent forms of weak

1045
00:56:37,190 --> 00:56:39,310
illusionism are actually this
form.

1046
00:56:39,350 --> 00:56:42,790
They are the sort of verbal
variation on strong Illusionism.

1047
00:56:43,670 --> 00:56:47,430
I think that problem for
instance defends weak

1048
00:56:47,430 --> 00:56:52,740
illusionism, but in a way that
he admits is only semantically

1049
00:56:52,740 --> 00:56:54,300
distinct from strong
illusionism.

1050
00:56:54,420 --> 00:56:58,220
At the end of the day you agree
regarding what is out there in

1051
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:00,460
the reality.
Are you say for example, that

1052
00:57:00,460 --> 00:57:03,900
only brain states in the
physical properties and you

1053
00:57:03,900 --> 00:57:08,580
agree that it introspectively
seems to be more and then

1054
00:57:08,860 --> 00:57:11,900
basically the only difference is
that the strong illusionist says

1055
00:57:12,460 --> 00:57:14,300
this thing extra that seems to
exist.

1056
00:57:14,300 --> 00:57:16,500
That's what I call phenomenal
consciousness and I say it does

1057
00:57:16,500 --> 00:57:19,290
not exist.
And the wiki lesionist says no,

1058
00:57:19,290 --> 00:57:20,770
no, no, no.
Phenomenal consciousness is the

1059
00:57:20,770 --> 00:57:24,010
name I give to the actual real
brain states that are

1060
00:57:24,010 --> 00:57:26,570
mischaracterized as having this
thing extra.

1061
00:57:26,570 --> 00:57:28,170
And this thing extra, I call it
differently.

1062
00:57:28,650 --> 00:57:31,970
Maybe I call it like, I don't
know, phenomenal consciousness

1063
00:57:32,010 --> 00:57:35,090
as it seems to exist, or maybe I
call it qualia.

1064
00:57:35,210 --> 00:57:39,130
I give some of the name just to
maintain that phenomenal

1065
00:57:39,130 --> 00:57:40,770
consciousness refers to
something real.

1066
00:57:42,130 --> 00:57:44,610
I think let's.
I think you wrote one of those

1067
00:57:44,610 --> 00:57:46,410
paper.
You wrote a paper once where you

1068
00:57:46,410 --> 00:57:50,630
spoke about the.
Against the Marian argument and

1069
00:57:50,950 --> 00:57:52,510
you spoke about pain, pain,
pain.

1070
00:57:52,790 --> 00:57:54,750
And I like what you did there
cuz you spoke about, I think it

1071
00:57:54,750 --> 00:57:57,430
was the functional aspect, the
normative aspect.

1072
00:57:57,630 --> 00:58:00,030
Let's go through that, because I
think understanding these issues

1073
00:58:00,030 --> 00:58:02,670
of introspection that we're
talking about becomes very

1074
00:58:02,670 --> 00:58:04,910
important.
And what people tend to counter

1075
00:58:05,310 --> 00:58:08,750
Illusionism with and how you
respond to it, Yeah.

1076
00:58:09,310 --> 00:58:12,470
So just maybe a bit of context
for your audience.

1077
00:58:12,470 --> 00:58:17,810
So in in an important article
called The Metapolim of

1078
00:58:17,810 --> 00:58:20,730
Consciousness, Dave Chalms
presented what he called the

1079
00:58:20,730 --> 00:58:22,650
Mauryan argument against
illusionism.

1080
00:58:23,530 --> 00:58:26,410
So basically, Chalms says yeah,
illusionism is an attractive

1081
00:58:26,410 --> 00:58:28,450
view.
There are interesting arguments

1082
00:58:28,570 --> 00:58:31,250
in its favor, but we can still
rule it out.

1083
00:58:31,410 --> 00:58:37,210
We can still conclusively reject
it for good reasons, and we do

1084
00:58:37,210 --> 00:58:41,770
so by building a socalled
Mauryan argument against.

1085
00:58:42,100 --> 00:58:44,460
So it's a Morrian argument
because it belongs to this

1086
00:58:44,820 --> 00:58:48,620
family of argument that might
have started with more proof of

1087
00:58:49,020 --> 00:58:54,180
the existence of the external
world early 20th century.

1088
00:58:54,860 --> 00:58:57,420
So what is the idea of the
Morrian argument is that the

1089
00:58:57,580 --> 00:59:00,540
first premise is that I think
the way China was put is like

1090
00:59:01,140 --> 00:59:06,260
people sometimes feel pain.
The second premise is that if

1091
00:59:06,260 --> 00:59:10,060
Illusionism is true, no one ever
feels pain, and the conclusion

1092
00:59:10,060 --> 00:59:15,270
is that Izionism is false.
Yes, and so this is this sort of

1093
00:59:15,270 --> 00:59:16,510
argument.
Sort of more an argument.

1094
00:59:16,510 --> 00:59:20,070
Seems just weird.
Too many people, but because

1095
00:59:20,070 --> 00:59:22,350
they they might seem to beg the
question, that might seem to

1096
00:59:22,350 --> 00:59:24,390
sort of assume what is what they
need to prove.

1097
00:59:24,710 --> 00:59:27,230
But if you want to read them
charitably, the idea is that

1098
00:59:27,230 --> 00:59:33,990
what they do is in fact make it
manifest that among your

1099
00:59:33,990 --> 00:59:37,750
premises that allow you to show
the falsity of illusionism, you

1100
00:59:37,750 --> 00:59:41,430
have premises that are so
obvious, so commonsensical, that

1101
00:59:41,430 --> 00:59:44,550
they are more plausible than any
other premise that might support

1102
00:59:44,550 --> 00:59:46,390
illusionism.
Right?

1103
00:59:46,630 --> 00:59:49,710
The premise that some people
sometimes feel pain is just one

1104
00:59:49,710 --> 00:59:54,750
of these basic, obvious, common,
sensical statements.

1105
00:59:55,350 --> 00:59:58,670
And if you think about the
support that a theory such as

1106
00:59:58,710 --> 01:00:02,510
illusionism can have, you will
probably need to have scientific

1107
01:00:02,510 --> 01:00:04,150
premises, philosophical
premises.

1108
01:00:04,150 --> 01:00:07,190
And all of these premises are
debatable, and they cannot be as

1109
01:00:07,190 --> 01:00:09,070
plausible as something as simple
as.

1110
01:00:09,540 --> 01:00:12,140
People sometimes feel paid.
So that should be, you know,

1111
01:00:12,140 --> 01:00:14,460
starting point, so to speak,
because it's just obvious.

1112
01:00:15,420 --> 01:00:20,980
So that's the Mori an argument.
So my I wrote an article about

1113
01:00:20,980 --> 01:00:24,580
this argument and basically I
was arguing that the argument

1114
01:00:24,580 --> 01:00:26,940
fails.
So the article is pretty

1115
01:00:26,940 --> 01:00:28,300
complicated.
There are lots of different

1116
01:00:28,300 --> 01:00:31,740
layers.
So you were you were referring

1117
01:00:31,740 --> 01:00:34,620
to the beginning of the article,
where basically I want to say

1118
01:00:34,980 --> 01:00:38,930
first of all we must be really
clear about what exactly the

1119
01:00:38,930 --> 01:00:42,850
illusionist denies to be.
Also very clear about how

1120
01:00:43,330 --> 01:00:46,890
obvious is the existence of this
form of consciousness that the

1121
01:00:46,890 --> 01:00:50,090
illusionist denies.
And what I say is that when we

1122
01:00:50,450 --> 01:00:53,810
say that the illusionist denies
the existence of pain, it can be

1123
01:00:53,810 --> 01:01:00,450
a bit misleading because pain
arguably can express a lot of

1124
01:01:00,450 --> 01:01:04,790
different concepts because they
are not distinguished in

1125
01:01:04,870 --> 01:01:07,990
ordinary talk or ordinary
thought, and they do not need to

1126
01:01:07,990 --> 01:01:10,510
be distinguished by being
ordinary, talking ordinary

1127
01:01:10,510 --> 01:01:12,430
thought, but that we as
philosophers we should

1128
01:01:12,430 --> 01:01:14,510
distinguish.
Basically what I say is that

1129
01:01:14,510 --> 01:01:17,430
when we say, well, people
sometimes feel pain, and it's

1130
01:01:17,470 --> 01:01:19,990
obvious, we can be referring to
lots of different things.

1131
01:01:20,030 --> 01:01:24,430
So there's one first sense in
which people feel pain, and it

1132
01:01:24,430 --> 01:01:27,270
seems pretty obvious, which is
what I call the functional sense

1133
01:01:27,310 --> 01:01:29,590
of pain.
What I mean by that is that

1134
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:33,400
sometimes people feel pain would
mean something like sometimes

1135
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:37,600
people enter states that have
certain typical causes such as

1136
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:44,000
like physical wounds, like
shocks, emotional disturbances,

1137
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:47,200
whatever you want.
And the states make people act

1138
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:49,720
in a certain manner.
They make people say I'm in

1139
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:51,800
pain.
They make people entering

1140
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:54,760
avoidance behavior into like
fighting behaviors.

1141
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:58,520
They they, yeah, they have all
this sort of rich functional

1142
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:01,170
role.
And in this sense, in this

1143
01:02:01,170 --> 01:02:03,530
functional sense of pain, it's
completely obvious that people

1144
01:02:03,530 --> 01:02:05,970
feel pain.
Like no one would deny that

1145
01:02:05,970 --> 01:02:08,690
sometimes people enter in this
state that makes them act and

1146
01:02:08,690 --> 01:02:10,250
behave and think in a certain
way.

1147
01:02:10,690 --> 01:02:12,690
And the illusionist does not
need to deny that.

1148
01:02:12,690 --> 01:02:15,450
It's perfectly OK with
illusionism, that people

1149
01:02:15,450 --> 01:02:17,810
sometimes enter pain states of
pain.

1150
01:02:17,810 --> 01:02:23,410
In this functional sense, there
is another sense of pain that in

1151
01:02:23,410 --> 01:02:26,170
which for which illusionists
also do not have to deny it.

1152
01:02:26,170 --> 01:02:28,010
That's what I call the normative
sense of pain.

1153
01:02:29,740 --> 01:02:31,900
So it's not clear that it's
really a different concept of

1154
01:02:31,900 --> 01:02:33,180
pain.
It might more be like some sort

1155
01:02:33,220 --> 01:02:35,340
of associated conception that we
have with the concept.

1156
01:02:35,340 --> 01:02:38,900
But roughly, the idea is that
when we think that people

1157
01:02:38,900 --> 01:02:42,540
sometimes feel pain, we one of
the things that we think that

1158
01:02:42,540 --> 01:02:46,940
people sometimes enter states
that are bad for them, states

1159
01:02:46,940 --> 01:02:51,060
that are awful, right, that have
negative value and that maybe

1160
01:02:51,540 --> 01:02:55,540
call for compassion or call for
more consideration.

1161
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:01,320
And in this sense of pain, the
illusionist also does not deny

1162
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:02,920
that people sometimes enter
pain.

1163
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:06,360
Of course people sometimes enter
states that are awful for them,

1164
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:09,440
state that call for our
compassion or for more

1165
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:11,720
consideration.
We do not need to deny that at

1166
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:14,840
all.
What we are left with the

1167
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:19,440
residue that illusionism indeed
deny, is only the phenomenal

1168
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:25,760
sense of pain, this subjective
experience such that there is

1169
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:28,790
something is like to be in it.
That's what the illusionist

1170
01:03:28,790 --> 01:03:31,070
denies.
Not the functional pain, not the

1171
01:03:31,070 --> 01:03:33,870
normative pain.
And I think it's very important

1172
01:03:33,910 --> 01:03:35,550
to be clear about that.
Why?

1173
01:03:35,910 --> 01:03:41,990
Because it might be tempting to,
for example, confuse the

1174
01:03:41,990 --> 01:03:46,430
different senses or things that
only phenomenal pain can play

1175
01:03:46,430 --> 01:03:49,190
the role of functional pain or
can play the role of normative

1176
01:03:49,190 --> 01:03:52,550
pain.
So that if you believe that, you

1177
01:03:52,550 --> 01:03:56,410
would also believe that
illusionists things that nothing

1178
01:03:56,450 --> 01:03:59,290
has value or nothing is
important and that it's OK to

1179
01:04:00,210 --> 01:04:03,610
cut the arm of my neighbor.
But that's not what Evenism

1180
01:04:03,610 --> 01:04:06,290
says, that that's insane and
that's certainly not what we

1181
01:04:06,290 --> 01:04:09,090
say.
There is not this sort of moral

1182
01:04:09,090 --> 01:04:11,130
or normative consequences.
So that's why I think it's very

1183
01:04:11,130 --> 01:04:13,970
important to first be clear
about what is exactly denied

1184
01:04:13,970 --> 01:04:15,490
there.
Yes, and I think you also wrote

1185
01:04:15,490 --> 01:04:17,330
a paper about that normativity
in general.

1186
01:04:17,330 --> 01:04:20,370
You also wrote a paper that all
I think it was What is what is

1187
01:04:20,370 --> 01:04:22,290
the name?
Again, something about normative

1188
01:04:22,290 --> 01:04:24,290
aspects all illusionists have to
claim.

1189
01:04:26,810 --> 01:04:29,370
I mean, I have to, yeah.
I wrote two papers actually, on

1190
01:04:29,370 --> 01:04:33,290
the issue of the potential
normative consequences of

1191
01:04:33,770 --> 01:04:36,970
illusionism.
One's called The Normative

1192
01:04:36,970 --> 01:04:39,090
Challenge for Illusionist views
of Consciousness.

1193
01:04:39,770 --> 01:04:43,610
And I've also written another
paper more recently called

1194
01:04:43,730 --> 01:04:49,010
Ethics Without Sentence.
And so basically I think it's a

1195
01:04:49,010 --> 01:04:51,850
very intricate issue, and to be
frank, I'm still thinking about

1196
01:04:51,850 --> 01:04:54,130
it, so I'm not sure I've
entirely made-up my mind about

1197
01:04:54,130 --> 01:04:58,050
this issue.
But just one way to maybe

1198
01:04:58,050 --> 01:05:00,370
fragment is a problem and then I
will tell you what I think about

1199
01:05:00,370 --> 01:05:01,730
the issue.
One way to frame the problem is

1200
01:05:01,730 --> 01:05:07,090
to say that means at least one
reaction to illusionism, which I

1201
01:05:07,090 --> 01:05:11,490
think is misguided but is also
influential, which consists in

1202
01:05:11,490 --> 01:05:17,500
saying, well, what matters in
reality is consciousness.

1203
01:05:18,940 --> 01:05:23,340
This is what has value, what has
negative values, for example,

1204
01:05:23,340 --> 01:05:28,500
your states of phenomenal pain
or sorrow, and what has positive

1205
01:05:28,500 --> 01:05:31,140
value is your phenomenal states
of joy and pleasure.

1206
01:05:31,860 --> 01:05:35,660
To simplify, and that would mean
that if you're an illusionist,

1207
01:05:35,660 --> 01:05:40,460
you're denying that our mental
states really have value because

1208
01:05:40,460 --> 01:05:44,340
you are taking away, so to
speak, the only thing that

1209
01:05:44,340 --> 01:05:48,210
really has value, which is
phenomenal consciousness.

1210
01:05:49,170 --> 01:05:52,890
I think Galen Strawson has this
bit where he says something like

1211
01:05:52,890 --> 01:05:56,490
that, Like if illusionists are
right, then no one ever suffers,

1212
01:05:57,090 --> 01:06:01,530
no one ever enjoys anything, and
it's some sort of version of

1213
01:06:01,530 --> 01:06:07,130
nihilism and nothing matters.
So of course it does not follow

1214
01:06:07,130 --> 01:06:08,770
right?
The first thing to say that of

1215
01:06:08,770 --> 01:06:10,570
course it does not follow.
You can be an illusionist and

1216
01:06:10,570 --> 01:06:13,410
believe lots of things matter.
They just do not matter because

1217
01:06:13,410 --> 01:06:14,290
they are phenomenal.
That's it.

1218
01:06:14,290 --> 01:06:18,750
But they still matter.
Now, I also think that while you

1219
01:06:18,750 --> 01:06:22,350
can say that, and you should say
that, I also think that the

1220
01:06:22,390 --> 01:06:27,470
issue is complicated in the
sense that I think that if you

1221
01:06:27,470 --> 01:06:32,150
admit illusionism, then you
probably need to do some sort of

1222
01:06:32,150 --> 01:06:37,190
revisions to our intuitive
picture of what has value and

1223
01:06:37,190 --> 01:06:40,550
who is deserving of more
consideration.

1224
01:06:41,550 --> 01:06:43,030
Why?
Because I do believe that, at

1225
01:06:43,030 --> 01:06:45,270
least right now, maybe it was
not the case in the past, but at

1226
01:06:45,270 --> 01:06:49,430
least right now, our intuitive
picture of value and moral

1227
01:06:49,430 --> 01:06:52,750
status has to do with phenomenal
consciousness.

1228
01:06:52,830 --> 01:06:55,470
For example, it's very clear if
you think about the current

1229
01:06:55,470 --> 01:06:58,950
discussion surrounding animal
ethics or AI ethics.

1230
01:06:59,510 --> 01:07:04,070
When people ask which animals
matter, which animals should be

1231
01:07:04,070 --> 01:07:07,510
treated with care and which
animals do not matter, which

1232
01:07:07,510 --> 01:07:09,990
maybe Organism do not matter
very often.

1233
01:07:09,990 --> 01:07:13,660
They take it that the answer to
this question requires first to

1234
01:07:13,700 --> 01:07:17,420
answer which animals or which
creatures are sentient, and what

1235
01:07:17,420 --> 01:07:20,140
they usually have in mind by
sentient is something like the

1236
01:07:20,140 --> 01:07:22,700
ability to enter certain sort of
phenomenal states.

1237
01:07:23,580 --> 01:07:27,620
Similarly, you have lots of
discussions recently about AI

1238
01:07:28,460 --> 01:07:31,060
consciousness and one of the
reason why people are so

1239
01:07:31,060 --> 01:07:36,320
interested in AI consciousness
is because they think that if we

1240
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:39,560
can establish that some AI
system is conscious in the

1241
01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:42,360
phenomenal sense of the term,
then we'd also establish that

1242
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:46,880
this system has certain moral
stages or rights or dignity.

1243
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:50,560
So I do believe that in our
current intuitive picture, we

1244
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,720
give a huge role to sentence and
phenomenal consciousness when it

1245
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:58,040
comes to deciding what has value
and what has moral stages.

1246
01:07:58,400 --> 01:08:00,280
So if we're illusionist and we
say, well actually you know

1247
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:02,880
what, there is no such thing
like this phenomenal conscious

1248
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:06,380
that just does not exist.
I don't believe that you're your

1249
01:08:06,380 --> 01:08:07,980
conclusion should be that
nothing matters.

1250
01:08:08,220 --> 01:08:10,500
But I do believe that your
understanding of what matters

1251
01:08:10,500 --> 01:08:13,020
and why has to change.
I don't think you can just do

1252
01:08:13,020 --> 01:08:16,500
exactly business as usual.
You will, for example, for

1253
01:08:16,500 --> 01:08:23,420
example, probably not salvage a
sort of binary division between

1254
01:08:23,420 --> 01:08:26,859
creatures who have more status
because they are sentient and

1255
01:08:26,859 --> 01:08:28,700
creatures who do not.
Probably you will end up with

1256
01:08:28,700 --> 01:08:32,100
different lines of divisions,
maybe with something more

1257
01:08:32,100 --> 01:08:36,450
graded, but at any rate I think
you will have to do some

1258
01:08:36,450 --> 01:08:41,490
revisions.
So basically to the question,

1259
01:08:41,490 --> 01:08:45,609
which is one question that was
asking in my work that you

1260
01:08:45,609 --> 01:08:48,689
mentioned earlier, like does
evisionism have normative

1261
01:08:48,689 --> 01:08:51,410
consequences?
I think my answer would be

1262
01:08:51,410 --> 01:08:55,090
something like not the most
dramatic ones, but you probably

1263
01:08:55,330 --> 01:09:00,090
you probably not condemned to go
for this sort of nihilism.

1264
01:09:00,680 --> 01:09:03,720
But it will be surprising if you
did not have any consequence at

1265
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:06,640
the whole when it comes to like
our decision regarding what has

1266
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:10,120
value and who has more status.
Yes, I don't think.

1267
01:09:10,319 --> 01:09:12,000
Yeah.
May I please go on SO?

1268
01:09:12,399 --> 01:09:15,000
When I was writing about it, I
remember Keith and I also

1269
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:18,439
discussed the fact that the
moment you make this conclusion,

1270
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:24,390
there's also certain liberating.
Implications to it, Because the

1271
01:09:24,390 --> 01:09:26,910
same way someone goes through
that, that almost transition

1272
01:09:26,910 --> 01:09:30,550
from religion to perhaps an
optimistic sort of nihilism

1273
01:09:30,550 --> 01:09:34,310
where they they kind of know the
universe is this dark, empty

1274
01:09:34,310 --> 01:09:36,710
place, but it's almost
liberating and freeing in that

1275
01:09:36,710 --> 01:09:38,790
sense.
There's a similar type of

1276
01:09:38,790 --> 01:09:41,109
experience that occurs with
illusionism in the sense that

1277
01:09:41,390 --> 01:09:44,229
you start to recognize that
there is no essence to this

1278
01:09:44,229 --> 01:09:46,109
experience.
You're just like the rest of the

1279
01:09:46,109 --> 01:09:47,950
universe.
You're just like this table.

1280
01:09:48,270 --> 01:09:50,390
You're kind of, you're just like
the cell phone.

1281
01:09:50,390 --> 01:09:53,189
You're a part of this universe,
not apart from it.

1282
01:09:53,550 --> 01:09:56,550
And and that's also very
psychologically stimulating in a

1283
01:09:56,550 --> 01:09:58,830
sense.
So there is that also that sort

1284
01:09:58,830 --> 01:10:01,710
of positive implication that you
can sort of reel out of it.

1285
01:10:01,950 --> 01:10:05,390
The question is how to someone
in a way that they can make it

1286
01:10:06,480 --> 01:10:08,000
so.
But of course, of course you

1287
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:11,920
could say that this particular
application is not specific to

1288
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:15,600
Illusionism, because if you're
let's say, are a realist

1289
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:19,160
materialist, that it's also true
that you are the same stuff for

1290
01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:23,280
this table.
If you are a panpsychist of any

1291
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:26,400
sort, right, a panpsychist who
is also a monist or pansychist

1292
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:28,240
was also a realist.
Then you also believe that you

1293
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:30,560
are made of the same stuff as
this table, since this table is

1294
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:34,040
also phenomenatic conscious.
So I agree with you that

1295
01:10:34,940 --> 01:10:38,300
illusionism as a consequence
that we definitely are a part of

1296
01:10:38,700 --> 01:10:40,260
nature.
It's a naturalistic view, but

1297
01:10:40,260 --> 01:10:41,620
it's not the only naturalistic
view.

1298
01:10:41,620 --> 01:10:44,980
So that's something that should
be acknowledged to the other

1299
01:10:44,980 --> 01:10:49,900
view like in credit to the other
view, other views.

1300
01:10:51,780 --> 01:10:54,620
I think when it, yeah, I think
when it comes to the positive

1301
01:10:54,620 --> 01:10:58,030
implications, I don't know.
I think it's always a bit tricky

1302
01:10:58,030 --> 01:10:59,830
because.
It's a tough one, of course.

1303
01:10:59,950 --> 01:11:01,870
Of course, when you have a view,
you want to say, look, my view

1304
01:11:01,870 --> 01:11:04,670
is so great, it also makes you
feel better about yourself, but

1305
01:11:04,870 --> 01:11:06,790
maybe not right.
And it's not an argument against

1306
01:11:06,790 --> 01:11:08,830
the view that it does not make
you feel better about yourself

1307
01:11:09,430 --> 01:11:11,390
because you could be true and
makes you feel worse about

1308
01:11:11,390 --> 01:11:13,910
yourself.
It's possible let's say.

1309
01:11:14,230 --> 01:11:18,380
If you think about the sort of
standard few like, I think it

1310
01:11:18,380 --> 01:11:22,020
was like fusion stories about
the the company, like the three

1311
01:11:22,020 --> 01:11:24,820
competition revolutions.
What whether the story is true

1312
01:11:24,820 --> 01:11:28,700
or not and it's another matter.
But the idea is that humankind

1313
01:11:28,700 --> 01:11:32,980
went through three narcissistic
wounds.

1314
01:11:33,060 --> 01:11:35,180
I don't, I don't know.
It's exactly translated in

1315
01:11:35,180 --> 01:11:39,190
English, but like 3 moments of
narcissistic pain when they

1316
01:11:39,190 --> 01:11:41,430
realize further that Earth is
not that the center of the

1317
01:11:41,430 --> 01:11:45,070
universe, and 2nd that humankind
is not different from the other

1318
01:11:45,070 --> 01:11:47,990
species.
And supposedly for Freud that

1319
01:11:47,990 --> 01:11:51,670
like the conscious mind is only
a small island in the on the in

1320
01:11:51,670 --> 01:11:54,270
the unconscious.
But this sort of stories,

1321
01:11:54,270 --> 01:11:56,470
whether or not it's true, what
it suggests, that the view can

1322
01:11:56,470 --> 01:11:59,270
be sad and still be true, like
it's possible.

1323
01:11:59,270 --> 01:12:03,430
So maybe Indianism is joyful,
hopefully it is, but whether or

1324
01:12:03,430 --> 01:12:04,830
not, it is not an argument for
the view.

1325
01:12:04,830 --> 01:12:06,390
That's what I meant.
Most.

1326
01:12:06,830 --> 01:12:09,980
Most of these.
Life changing discoveries like

1327
01:12:09,980 --> 01:12:12,300
heliocentrism taking us from the
center of the universe,

1328
01:12:13,060 --> 01:12:15,660
Darwinism taking us from the top
of the future, and most of them

1329
01:12:15,660 --> 01:12:18,020
have been quite negative.
Overall.

1330
01:12:18,020 --> 01:12:20,780
It takes quite a lot to kind of
work yourself through it and I

1331
01:12:20,780 --> 01:12:22,580
think illusionism will probably
be the same.

1332
01:12:22,580 --> 01:12:26,020
I think most people won't
initially like the idea of it,

1333
01:12:26,020 --> 01:12:28,940
but once they they see the
practical implications or they

1334
01:12:28,940 --> 01:12:31,460
can kind of look at the
coherence behind it, let's not

1335
01:12:31,460 --> 01:12:34,620
to appreciate it a bit more.
Yeah, probably.

1336
01:12:34,620 --> 01:12:36,820
I think.
I think in general, I think it's

1337
01:12:36,820 --> 01:12:40,040
in general probably a
psychological truth about human

1338
01:12:40,040 --> 01:12:42,080
beings that we like familiar
things.

1339
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:46,320
We like familiar IDs or IDs that
have sort of familiar ring.

1340
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:50,240
And of course, if an idea or
view is unfamiliar, departs from

1341
01:12:50,240 --> 01:12:54,000
whatever we took to be common
sense, it's reason to reject it,

1342
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:56,400
except for the contrarians for
whom it's a reason to embrace

1343
01:12:56,400 --> 01:12:59,400
it.
So, yeah, and and I think it's

1344
01:12:59,400 --> 01:13:02,240
likely that the more of you is
around and the more you thought

1345
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:04,760
about, and the clearer its
consequences are.

1346
01:13:04,760 --> 01:13:06,880
And then we also see that does
not have the dramatic

1347
01:13:06,880 --> 01:13:08,200
consequence that one might
think.

1348
01:13:08,560 --> 01:13:11,880
I think the the comparison with
atheism is probably

1349
01:13:11,880 --> 01:13:14,480
enlightening.
If you think for example about

1350
01:13:15,240 --> 01:13:19,600
very religious people, I think a
lot of them have sincerely this

1351
01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:24,280
impression that if someone is an
atheist, then they must be

1352
01:13:24,830 --> 01:13:27,030
immoral or at least amoral,
right?

1353
01:13:27,030 --> 01:13:31,230
It's sort of the the old
Dostoevsky line that he never

1354
01:13:31,230 --> 01:13:33,550
exactly wrote that way.
But like if God does not exist

1355
01:13:33,550 --> 01:13:36,350
and nothing must be forbidden
and everything must be

1356
01:13:36,350 --> 01:13:38,190
permitted.
And.

1357
01:13:38,910 --> 01:13:41,430
And then what is interesting is
that when when people are our

1358
01:13:41,430 --> 01:13:43,510
face actually it's very rare,
then they think that way.

1359
01:13:43,510 --> 01:13:46,150
I don't think many athletes are
naives in this sense, right?

1360
01:13:47,030 --> 01:13:49,750
Maybe some of them can be naives
like philosophically, but isn't

1361
01:13:49,750 --> 01:13:54,270
the way they behave and act?
They do not seem to act like a

1362
01:13:55,250 --> 01:14:00,090
A, a like Raskolnikov or any
character that you might have in

1363
01:14:00,090 --> 01:14:05,730
mind.
So I think, I think the more you

1364
01:14:05,730 --> 01:14:08,250
appropriate the view and the
more you integrate it into the

1365
01:14:08,250 --> 01:14:13,410
rest of your views and and also
your existence, probably in some

1366
01:14:13,410 --> 01:14:15,410
sense it becomes more familiar,
it becomes more acceptable.

1367
01:14:15,410 --> 01:14:17,530
It also becomes less spectacular
because it does not have all

1368
01:14:17,530 --> 01:14:20,410
these crazy normative
consequences that it might have

1369
01:14:20,410 --> 01:14:26,320
seemed to have at first glance.
It's almost like a reset cause I

1370
01:14:26,320 --> 01:14:31,000
remember as a child when I I was
around 9:00, I remember when I

1371
01:14:31,320 --> 01:14:36,400
became I was, I was very, I grew
up in a very Hindu culture.

1372
01:14:36,400 --> 01:14:41,280
So very not religious, not very
intense, but but I was religious

1373
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:44,600
and I remember around 9:00 I
became an atheist and from then

1374
01:14:44,600 --> 01:14:47,480
onwards I was very antitheist.
You know, you grow, you start to

1375
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:52,800
despise, then it slowly went
into sort of child.

1376
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:56,240
Still non, still very much a non
believer, but very relaxed.

1377
01:14:56,480 --> 01:14:59,520
No longer.
And then I remember with with

1378
01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:01,240
consciousness the same thing
kind of happened.

1379
01:15:01,240 --> 01:15:05,400
We we started loving the topic
then became an illusionist and

1380
01:15:05,400 --> 01:15:07,840
sort of sort of going at it.
Just trying to defend

1381
01:15:08,480 --> 01:15:11,320
illusionism very firmly.
Now I still consider myself

1382
01:15:11,920 --> 01:15:15,320
illusionist, but still not.
But no longer defending it as

1383
01:15:15,320 --> 01:15:18,640
hard as I feel like I would.
I wonder just because I was

1384
01:15:18,640 --> 01:15:20,880
talking so many other people at
this point.

1385
01:15:21,320 --> 01:15:23,310
He's been warped.
Yeah.

1386
01:15:23,950 --> 01:15:26,510
So I want to know, I want to
know more about your own path

1387
01:15:26,510 --> 01:15:29,190
because you just said because
earlier I thought you were

1388
01:15:29,190 --> 01:15:31,430
saying that you were.
You went back from illusionism.

1389
01:15:31,430 --> 01:15:33,230
Now you're saying you still
consider yourself a delusionist.

1390
01:15:33,230 --> 01:15:37,550
So what would be your your
current view on consciousness?

1391
01:15:37,630 --> 01:15:41,350
I think my most intuitive feel
about it is that there we were

1392
01:15:41,350 --> 01:15:42,870
not fundamentally different from
everything.

1393
01:15:42,990 --> 01:15:47,670
So I I think my most intuitive
my view would be illusionism.

1394
01:15:47,670 --> 01:15:49,670
Except I don't.
I'm not as.

1395
01:15:50,750 --> 01:15:53,990
Firm about it as I used to be,
but it still is, I think that.

1396
01:15:53,990 --> 01:15:56,270
So what would be the alternative
then?

1397
01:15:56,270 --> 01:15:58,270
What would be this like the
other view that?

1398
01:15:58,710 --> 01:16:00,750
Yeah, I think the most
important, I think the most

1399
01:16:00,750 --> 01:16:03,990
important factor that's made me
reconsider how firm I was about

1400
01:16:03,990 --> 01:16:07,030
it is my my lack of
understanding of reality.

1401
01:16:07,030 --> 01:16:10,630
I consider myself agnostic at
this point on the fundamental

1402
01:16:10,630 --> 01:16:13,030
nature of reality.
And because of that, it's not

1403
01:16:13,030 --> 01:16:15,950
that I'm more open to idealist
views, it's more that I get

1404
01:16:15,950 --> 01:16:18,870
where they're coming from with
trying to.

1405
01:16:19,510 --> 01:16:22,110
They find reality differently,
and if they're making the

1406
01:16:22,110 --> 01:16:25,510
assumption that consciousness
comes first, it's very tough to

1407
01:16:25,510 --> 01:16:28,550
just immediately just say no,
That's incorrect.

1408
01:16:28,550 --> 01:16:31,590
I find that difficult to do
nowadays, but there was a time

1409
01:16:31,590 --> 01:16:35,430
where I considered myself so
strong and firm illusionist that

1410
01:16:35,430 --> 01:16:37,470
I would say that that's
completely absurd.

1411
01:16:38,950 --> 01:16:41,550
Yeah, I don't think it's absurd.
I don't think it's incoherent.

1412
01:16:41,550 --> 01:16:44,740
I think for me.
Really is very important, I

1413
01:16:44,740 --> 01:16:45,220
think.
Yeah.

1414
01:16:45,300 --> 01:16:47,980
I think my conception of
illusionism is compatible with

1415
01:16:47,980 --> 01:16:52,300
the idea that we might be
extremely ignorant about

1416
01:16:53,740 --> 01:16:57,220
certainly the intrinsic nature
of reality, whatever that is, or

1417
01:16:57,220 --> 01:16:59,180
even if there is an intrinsic
nature of reality.

1418
01:17:00,340 --> 01:17:05,700
But roughly, my view would be,
yeah, we might admit that we're

1419
01:17:05,700 --> 01:17:07,900
ignorant about the intrinsic
nature, for example, of the

1420
01:17:07,900 --> 01:17:12,190
physical, or we might even begin
about whether it makes sense to

1421
01:17:12,190 --> 01:17:14,310
say that the physical has an
intrinsic nature.

1422
01:17:14,310 --> 01:17:18,350
It might be that all conception
of what an intrinsic nature is

1423
01:17:18,790 --> 01:17:22,150
is deeply misguided, so that
there is no such thing as

1424
01:17:22,150 --> 01:17:26,470
intrinsic natures, or nothing
that corresponds to our concept.

1425
01:17:27,310 --> 01:17:30,870
So we can admit our ignorance
there while also saying, but we

1426
01:17:30,870 --> 01:17:33,350
have no reason to believe that
the intrinsic nature is

1427
01:17:33,350 --> 01:17:38,670
precisely this very local thing
that we talk about when

1428
01:17:39,420 --> 01:17:43,100
following introspection, right?
Or following like introspective

1429
01:17:43,180 --> 01:17:46,060
processes.
And again, my reason to think

1430
01:17:46,060 --> 01:17:50,500
that it would be a strange
supposition to do that is just

1431
01:17:50,500 --> 01:17:55,860
because of the way we can best
make sense of what we know,

1432
01:17:56,140 --> 01:18:01,820
which is some sort of physical
is picture of the world does not

1433
01:18:01,820 --> 01:18:04,620
leave.
Like it gives us a certain

1434
01:18:05,140 --> 01:18:09,420
conception of what or collative
processes are of what our

1435
01:18:09,420 --> 01:18:12,900
introspective processes are.
And it would be extremely weird

1436
01:18:13,460 --> 01:18:17,660
if this processes just happened
to perfectly mirror some

1437
01:18:17,740 --> 01:18:20,820
essential deep feature of
reality that just be weird.

1438
01:18:21,140 --> 01:18:26,060
Like, why would this very local,
extremely that, like this

1439
01:18:26,060 --> 01:18:29,020
process seem extremely
diosyncratic processes of some

1440
01:18:29,820 --> 01:18:33,770
naked apes that sort of, you
know, can see of their own

1441
01:18:33,770 --> 01:18:35,770
quality processes in sort of
specific way?

1442
01:18:35,770 --> 01:18:38,690
Why would that actually be the
most accurate conception of the

1443
01:18:38,690 --> 01:18:40,490
nature of reality?
That just seems weird to me.

1444
01:18:40,690 --> 01:18:43,010
I don't think it's incoherent.
I agree with you because that I

1445
01:18:43,010 --> 01:18:44,530
feel the same way.
I think that's that's pretty

1446
01:18:44,530 --> 01:18:46,530
much how I view it as well.
But I do see the coherence

1447
01:18:46,530 --> 01:18:48,370
behind it.
Another thing that Franco that's

1448
01:18:48,370 --> 01:18:51,850
that started to really I started
sympathizing, empathizing a bit

1449
01:18:51,850 --> 01:18:56,450
more with is certain views of
band psychism, because there's

1450
01:18:56,450 --> 01:18:58,810
work being done by people like
Call Friston, Michael Levin,

1451
01:18:58,810 --> 01:19:01,530
etc, where they're starting to
understand protocognition.

1452
01:19:02,310 --> 01:19:05,550
Certain vote processes with the
intelligence that's very

1453
01:19:05,550 --> 01:19:09,070
intriguing to me.
But still I mean overall I still

1454
01:19:09,070 --> 01:19:12,470
think that if I'm if I'm going
to be deeply physicalist in my

1455
01:19:12,470 --> 01:19:15,590
approach and view then illusions
them to me becomes the most

1456
01:19:15,630 --> 01:19:17,950
convincing argument.
Yeah.

1457
01:19:18,030 --> 01:19:20,750
So I'm not extremely familiar
with his views.

1458
01:19:20,750 --> 01:19:23,830
I've been, of course.
I I know bit, but not a lot

1459
01:19:23,830 --> 01:19:26,350
about like Friston's views or I
can live in the view.

1460
01:19:26,710 --> 01:19:30,010
But my impression is that as far
as I understand, there's nothing

1461
01:19:30,010 --> 01:19:32,130
that prevents you from accepting
these views and accepting

1462
01:19:32,130 --> 01:19:33,850
Illusionism.
Because again, Illusionism is

1463
01:19:33,850 --> 01:19:38,290
not about denying mentality.
Yes, it's about denying

1464
01:19:38,290 --> 01:19:40,930
phenomenal consciousness.
So you could very well admit

1465
01:19:41,330 --> 01:19:44,730
that there is cognition at some
sort of very basal level.

1466
01:19:46,210 --> 01:19:51,090
For example, we have the level
of cells or everything living is

1467
01:19:51,090 --> 01:19:54,050
in some sense cognitive.
If you want, as long as you

1468
01:19:54,050 --> 01:19:56,170
don't say or you don't think
that there is anything

1469
01:19:56,210 --> 01:19:59,290
phenomenal going on there
nothing intrinsically feely.

1470
01:19:59,740 --> 01:20:03,700
If, for example, you conceive
cognition only in terms of, like

1471
01:20:05,740 --> 01:20:09,100
minimization of free energy,
there is no link to the

1472
01:20:09,100 --> 01:20:13,740
phenomenon there, right?
So you could admit, as far as I

1473
01:20:13,740 --> 01:20:18,820
understand at least, you could
admit that every living Organism

1474
01:20:18,820 --> 01:20:23,020
minimizes free energy, and that
this minimization of free energy

1475
01:20:23,020 --> 01:20:26,780
is not deeply different from.
What goes on in us when we and

1476
01:20:26,780 --> 01:20:29,380
get in cognitive processes?
As long as you don't involve

1477
01:20:29,380 --> 01:20:31,380
anything phenomenal there you
can also be an illusionist.

1478
01:20:31,380 --> 01:20:33,260
So I think it can be fine.
Maybe you can.

1479
01:20:33,260 --> 01:20:34,580
You can just combine all of
that.

1480
01:20:34,620 --> 01:20:38,340
You're right, 100%.
Because when I spoke to Cole, I

1481
01:20:38,340 --> 01:20:42,340
actually, I gave him this
example of how you could draw an

1482
01:20:42,340 --> 01:20:45,580
illusionist account of
consciousness via the free

1483
01:20:45,580 --> 01:20:48,620
energy principle and he agreed.
He said if you say, if you say

1484
01:20:48,620 --> 01:20:51,620
it the way you just said it,
which people have watched that

1485
01:20:51,620 --> 01:20:54,680
episode and just check it out.
Then he said, then yes, the

1486
01:20:54,680 --> 01:20:57,760
conclusion of saying Illusionism
is correct is actually true with

1487
01:20:57,760 --> 01:20:59,880
the free energy principle.
So you're right about that

1488
01:21:00,480 --> 01:21:02,600
Interesting.
And by the way you might also

1489
01:21:02,640 --> 01:21:05,800
know.
So there is so one proponent,

1490
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:08,160
not exactly the free energy
principle, but more generally

1491
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:10,560
like the predictive processing
approach to the mind.

1492
01:21:10,560 --> 01:21:14,080
For example Andy Clark as Co
written with Friston and they go

1493
01:21:14,080 --> 01:21:16,120
very close to illusionism
together, right.

1494
01:21:17,080 --> 01:21:21,300
And I don't know to what extent
Friston cares really about this

1495
01:21:21,300 --> 01:21:24,180
specific aspect, but it's on the
comments on the meta problem

1496
01:21:24,940 --> 01:21:26,740
probably is not really exactly
his concern.

1497
01:21:26,900 --> 01:21:28,620
I think Clark might care a bit
more.

1498
01:21:29,300 --> 01:21:33,660
I think they wrote us with some
concern if my memory is correct.

1499
01:21:34,100 --> 01:21:37,540
So, and there's this article
called Bias in qualia where

1500
01:21:37,540 --> 01:21:42,180
basically they say something
like if we take the general

1501
01:21:42,180 --> 01:21:45,870
predictive processing approach
and we consider that what our

1502
01:21:45,870 --> 01:21:49,110
minds are doing are just like
formulating hypothesis to

1503
01:21:49,110 --> 01:21:56,430
account for sensory input and
that and and just try to adapt

1504
01:21:56,430 --> 01:21:58,750
this hypothesis as to minimize
prediction error.

1505
01:21:59,190 --> 01:22:02,670
And we can also imagine that our
beliefs about qualia are nothing

1506
01:22:02,670 --> 01:22:05,590
but one of these hypothesis.
And in that sense, qualia are

1507
01:22:05,590 --> 01:22:08,990
not a given.
They are a constructed

1508
01:22:09,350 --> 01:22:14,320
hypothesis which might be to
some extent incorrect, right, in

1509
01:22:14,320 --> 01:22:16,720
the sense that maybe our beliefs
in quality are to some extent

1510
01:22:16,760 --> 01:22:20,440
correct, are just in some
specific context the best

1511
01:22:20,440 --> 01:22:25,160
hypothesis that we have to
account for certain sort of of

1512
01:22:25,640 --> 01:22:28,520
sensory influx.
But that might not correspond to

1513
01:22:28,520 --> 01:22:32,360
anything.
I mean, I don't think they would

1514
01:22:32,360 --> 01:22:34,680
not they would say talk to
anything real, but at least

1515
01:22:34,680 --> 01:22:38,200
there might be a significant
distortion of whatever is really

1516
01:22:38,200 --> 01:22:40,840
going on.
So my impression that there is

1517
01:22:40,840 --> 01:22:46,260
also a way to like not only say
that like pretty processing all

1518
01:22:46,260 --> 01:22:50,540
the like free energy principle
are compatible with Illusionism,

1519
01:22:50,540 --> 01:22:53,660
but actually a way to implement
that in a specific research

1520
01:22:53,660 --> 01:22:56,460
program.
Yes, as far as I understand.

1521
01:22:56,580 --> 01:22:59,260
Also wrote, I think it was quite
recently where he wrote

1522
01:22:59,660 --> 01:23:02,300
something and he presented
something on the physics of

1523
01:23:02,300 --> 01:23:04,860
sentience.
So I think slowly he is treading

1524
01:23:04,860 --> 01:23:07,500
along those lines a lot more and
I think at some point he's going

1525
01:23:07,500 --> 01:23:10,500
to make his view a lot clearer
because with Michael Evan,

1526
01:23:10,620 --> 01:23:13,970
what's happened was.
As he did the work, the research

1527
01:23:14,770 --> 01:23:17,690
and did a lot of the
experiments, slowly but surely

1528
01:23:17,810 --> 01:23:19,850
he's come out to be more of a
band psychist.

1529
01:23:19,850 --> 01:23:22,970
So I think the more, the more
they continues to do this, the

1530
01:23:22,970 --> 01:23:25,730
more their view on the
philosophical aspect is bound,

1531
01:23:27,210 --> 01:23:29,010
yeah.
Sorry, continue first.

1532
01:23:29,530 --> 01:23:30,930
Yeah, But I think again I would
be.

1533
01:23:31,650 --> 01:23:34,050
So I don't know what Michael
Levin exactly says in this

1534
01:23:34,050 --> 01:23:36,610
respect when it comes to
philosophical interpretation of

1535
01:23:36,610 --> 01:23:41,110
his theories or approaches, but
that would be curious to knowing

1536
01:23:41,110 --> 01:23:44,230
what's and they he would see
himself as a pan psychis.

1537
01:23:44,230 --> 01:23:48,270
Because I think there is a lot
of difference between saying

1538
01:23:49,230 --> 01:23:53,550
like you have cognition taking
place at a very low level and

1539
01:23:53,550 --> 01:23:56,270
saying you have phenomenality
taking place at a very low

1540
01:23:56,270 --> 01:23:57,990
level.
These two things seem to be

1541
01:23:57,990 --> 01:24:01,990
extremely different and I think
that might be only a very

1542
01:24:01,990 --> 01:24:05,120
superficial and verbal
similarity between people who

1543
01:24:05,240 --> 01:24:08,320
are pan psychist about the
phenomenal like I don't like for

1544
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:12,400
example on on social media like
Philippe Goff would be an

1545
01:24:12,400 --> 01:24:14,920
important name but of course
he's far from being the only one

1546
01:24:15,880 --> 01:24:21,440
and and people who are
pansychists in this like Basal

1547
01:24:21,440 --> 01:24:24,000
Cognition Center, I think to me
that's importantly very

1548
01:24:24,000 --> 01:24:26,080
different.
I'm not saying you cannot hold

1549
01:24:26,080 --> 01:24:27,960
both, but that seems to me
different things.

1550
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:30,080
What do you think?
A part of me thinks that it

1551
01:24:30,080 --> 01:24:33,080
might be both in that case for
for Mike, because I think Mike

1552
01:24:33,080 --> 01:24:36,750
is definitely following A.
A technical, he calls it tame

1553
01:24:36,750 --> 01:24:40,910
technological approach to mind
everywhere and I wonder if he's

1554
01:24:40,910 --> 01:24:44,830
considering mind to have
phenomenal states or not at that

1555
01:24:44,830 --> 01:24:46,270
point.
But I am chatting to him again

1556
01:24:46,590 --> 01:24:48,470
at some point, so I'll
definitely ask him about that.

1557
01:24:48,550 --> 01:24:51,870
Yeah, that would be great to
know exactly because I'm

1558
01:24:51,870 --> 01:24:55,470
wondering if the reasons that
you have to posit because

1559
01:24:55,470 --> 01:24:57,670
roughly I will tell you why I
think this is very different.

1560
01:24:58,250 --> 01:25:00,010
Again, I don't know very well
his work.

1561
01:25:00,010 --> 01:25:02,090
I've just really heard of it.
So I cannot.

1562
01:25:02,330 --> 01:25:04,570
Brilliant.
I must say some of the I've

1563
01:25:04,570 --> 01:25:07,370
heard very good things about it,
so I should definitely read

1564
01:25:07,370 --> 01:25:10,010
more.
But as far as I understand, the

1565
01:25:10,010 --> 01:25:17,010
idea of people interested in
supposing or positing something

1566
01:25:17,010 --> 01:25:19,890
like cognitive process has lots
of very very low level is just

1567
01:25:19,890 --> 01:25:23,170
because it does a certain sort
of explanatory job, right?

1568
01:25:23,610 --> 01:25:27,840
You posit something like simple
forms of cognition, and it

1569
01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:32,640
accounts for striking results,
striking experimental results.

1570
01:25:33,000 --> 01:25:35,800
But at the end of the day, what
matters is explanatory job done

1571
01:25:35,800 --> 01:25:39,240
by this position of cognition.
But it's a very different

1572
01:25:39,280 --> 01:25:42,280
explanatory job from the
explanatory job done by positing

1573
01:25:42,280 --> 01:25:45,240
fundamentality at the lowest
level, right?

1574
01:25:45,240 --> 01:25:49,560
When people like Philip Goff or
Heida Hassel Merck want to posit

1575
01:25:49,840 --> 01:25:53,680
phenomenality everywhere in the
universe, they're not interested

1576
01:25:53,680 --> 01:25:56,560
in making specific predictions
about the behavior of some

1577
01:25:56,560 --> 01:25:59,440
specific cell.
They're interested in finding a

1578
01:25:59,440 --> 01:26:01,120
place for consciousness in the
universe.

1579
01:26:01,280 --> 01:26:04,160
So their explanatory goal is
completely different.

1580
01:26:05,000 --> 01:26:08,760
They might also be interested in
maybe in the maybe in explaining

1581
01:26:08,760 --> 01:26:13,560
why they are categorical basis
to our physical properties.

1582
01:26:13,960 --> 01:26:16,400
But again, these are not
specific predictions.

1583
01:26:16,880 --> 01:26:20,560
This is not about explaining
specific behavior of specific

1584
01:26:20,560 --> 01:26:23,110
organisms.
So you see what I mean?

1585
01:26:23,150 --> 01:26:26,390
I feel like the.
Again, you can probably be a

1586
01:26:26,390 --> 01:26:29,270
Pansackist in both senses, like
a pansackist about, let's say,

1587
01:26:29,270 --> 01:26:30,470
cognition.
A pansack is about

1588
01:26:30,470 --> 01:26:32,910
phenomenality.
But it's just that the reason to

1589
01:26:32,910 --> 01:26:35,510
be a pansackist about one seemed
to me to be very different from

1590
01:26:35,510 --> 01:26:37,190
the reason to be a pansackist
about the other.

1591
01:26:37,830 --> 01:26:41,470
So that's why maybe Mike is a
Pansackist about both.

1592
01:26:41,510 --> 01:26:43,790
But I think it's probably for
different reasons.

1593
01:26:43,790 --> 01:26:45,750
Then something like more like a
pan proto psychism.

1594
01:26:45,950 --> 01:26:48,550
It's just very it is slightly
different.

1595
01:26:48,590 --> 01:26:52,270
It I must it's not the exact
same version of pan psychism

1596
01:26:52,270 --> 01:26:54,110
that Philip is.
But I think we're both going to

1597
01:26:54,110 --> 01:26:58,150
do a disjunct as a disservice if
we if we not explaining his view

1598
01:26:58,150 --> 01:27:01,030
appropriately.
But along those lines, what I

1599
01:27:01,030 --> 01:27:05,390
wanted to say was the main
reason why I don't firmly go

1600
01:27:05,390 --> 01:27:08,150
around defending Illusionism as
much anymore, because my project

1601
01:27:08,150 --> 01:27:09,950
is quite.
It's quite different now.

1602
01:27:09,950 --> 01:27:12,870
I think at this point I'm trying
to explore this field in

1603
01:27:12,870 --> 01:27:14,950
general, just consciousness.
I love this topic.

1604
01:27:14,950 --> 01:27:18,030
I love the mind body problem and
and the goal's been to actually

1605
01:27:18,030 --> 01:27:20,830
understand everybody else's
views and with that's become

1606
01:27:21,110 --> 01:27:23,750
it's become a lot easier to
empathize with all the other

1607
01:27:23,750 --> 01:27:26,790
theories is I find something
that genuinely does happen to

1608
01:27:26,790 --> 01:27:30,710
philosophers is the moment you'd
firmly stick to a view you can

1609
01:27:30,710 --> 01:27:35,070
defend it blindly at all costs
and that's a very common feature

1610
01:27:35,070 --> 01:27:37,270
and I was afraid that was going
to happen and when I noticed.

1611
01:27:37,740 --> 01:27:40,820
When I looked at my first series
of interviews, I noticed my

1612
01:27:40,820 --> 01:27:44,540
illusionism coming out.
It was very difficult to sort of

1613
01:27:44,580 --> 01:27:47,220
ask questions openly.
It was very tough to kind of

1614
01:27:47,220 --> 01:27:49,060
just open my mind to what the
person's really doing.

1615
01:27:49,220 --> 01:27:51,540
And I have to say, the moment I
stopped doing that, the moment I

1616
01:27:51,540 --> 01:27:55,100
actually stopped spending my own
view and listening, the more I

1617
01:27:55,100 --> 01:27:57,580
really took some of these
arguments very seriously.

1618
01:27:57,580 --> 01:27:59,540
And it's not a more.
It's not so much of A relativist

1619
01:27:59,540 --> 01:28:00,500
thing.
It's not where I'm letting

1620
01:28:00,500 --> 01:28:02,540
anything go.
It's it's kind of like I still

1621
01:28:02,540 --> 01:28:04,220
hold my view.
It's firmly.

1622
01:28:05,430 --> 01:28:07,150
So about what?
Their views are very intriguing

1623
01:28:07,150 --> 01:28:10,590
as well.
Yeah, I mean, I mean there are

1624
01:28:10,830 --> 01:28:12,990
different issues here.
I think the first issue that I

1625
01:28:13,030 --> 01:28:18,630
think you incidentally raise is
that there are certain set of

1626
01:28:19,030 --> 01:28:22,590
incentives and structures like
in the academic world but also

1627
01:28:22,590 --> 01:28:26,790
in the in the world of social
media that just create some sort

1628
01:28:26,790 --> 01:28:31,390
of motivation, more or less
conscious to just define the

1629
01:28:31,390 --> 01:28:32,630
view.
Once you have a view, your name

1630
01:28:32,630 --> 01:28:35,030
start being associated with this
view, and then you need to

1631
01:28:35,030 --> 01:28:36,910
defend it.
That's what people expect from

1632
01:28:36,910 --> 01:28:37,990
you, right?
Defend this view.

1633
01:28:37,990 --> 01:28:39,670
That's what you end up expecting
from yourself.

1634
01:28:39,670 --> 01:28:43,430
So you don't even think anymore
as much about what is true or

1635
01:28:43,430 --> 01:28:44,910
not.
You just think about how can I

1636
01:28:44,910 --> 01:28:47,350
best defend my view.
That's definitely something that

1637
01:28:47,710 --> 01:28:50,190
philosophers should be very
careful about, because that goes

1638
01:28:50,190 --> 01:28:52,710
against our goal, which is to
just figure things out.

1639
01:28:53,230 --> 01:28:58,290
And there is something else,
which is that whenever you think

1640
01:28:58,290 --> 01:29:00,730
about, like when you're engaged
with others, it always makes

1641
01:29:00,730 --> 01:29:03,490
sense to try to see things from
their own point of view, like to

1642
01:29:03,490 --> 01:29:06,010
be as charitable as possible,
because that's the best way to

1643
01:29:07,490 --> 01:29:10,290
get the most of what they are
saying right.

1644
01:29:10,730 --> 01:29:15,850
It's easy to object or to
contradict, but then it's more,

1645
01:29:15,850 --> 01:29:18,930
it's certainly more fruitful to
do what you do right, which is

1646
01:29:18,930 --> 01:29:21,410
like you create some sort of
little simulation in your mind

1647
01:29:21,410 --> 01:29:25,050
of the others position and then
you examine that and that's how

1648
01:29:25,050 --> 01:29:26,330
you that's how you learn the
most.

1649
01:29:27,650 --> 01:29:29,530
I don't think the best
philosophers are also good at

1650
01:29:29,530 --> 01:29:33,130
doing that.
For example, one that is

1651
01:29:33,130 --> 01:29:36,250
extremely good at doing that is
Dave Chalmers, who has positions

1652
01:29:36,250 --> 01:29:38,890
that are extremely different
from illusionism, for instance,

1653
01:29:38,890 --> 01:29:41,890
but has also done a lot to
clarify the position, has

1654
01:29:41,890 --> 01:29:44,610
written very important things
about it, and he has done that

1655
01:29:44,610 --> 01:29:47,970
for a variety of positions which
he has not always endorsed.

1656
01:29:47,970 --> 01:29:50,170
And I think that's something we
should strive.

1657
01:29:50,550 --> 01:29:53,470
Yeah, David Chaum with writing,
I must say, he's one of those

1658
01:29:53,830 --> 01:29:56,150
writers where you can kind of
see there's a lot of clarity in

1659
01:29:56,150 --> 01:29:58,790
his thought, and I find it very
impressive the way he's able to

1660
01:29:58,790 --> 01:30:00,150
kind of do what you're talking
about.

1661
01:30:01,230 --> 01:30:02,070
No, for sure.
For sure.

1662
01:30:02,310 --> 01:30:03,630
It is something.
It's a model, I think, for many

1663
01:30:03,630 --> 01:30:05,790
people.
Yeah, tell me, Efron.

1664
01:30:05,790 --> 01:30:07,710
So there's something I wanted to
ask you earlier and I forgot

1665
01:30:07,710 --> 01:30:12,670
about it where it was.
Nicholas Humphrey, what are your

1666
01:30:12,670 --> 01:30:14,950
thoughts on his transition?
Because I know he went from

1667
01:30:14,950 --> 01:30:18,990
illusionist to phenomenal
surrealist and he defines that

1668
01:30:18,990 --> 01:30:21,670
term very differently.
What are your thoughts on that?

1669
01:30:22,070 --> 01:30:25,190
So yeah, that's that's a
difficult question.

1670
01:30:25,190 --> 01:30:27,910
I of course, when you describe
someone else's view, you're

1671
01:30:27,910 --> 01:30:30,150
always afraid maybe you're going
to mischaracterize it.

1672
01:30:30,150 --> 01:30:32,870
So I'm just going to say how I
understand it.

1673
01:30:33,230 --> 01:30:34,830
And of course I might be wrong
about it.

1674
01:30:35,670 --> 01:30:39,310
But as far as I remember in his,
in his paper and phenomenal

1675
01:30:39,310 --> 01:30:43,300
surrealism, what he says is
something quite close to the

1676
01:30:43,300 --> 01:30:46,820
sort of strategic consideration
that Graziano mentioned.

1677
01:30:46,980 --> 01:30:51,820
He says something basically like
if you claim to be a

1678
01:30:51,820 --> 01:30:54,380
delusionist, people will always
have the feeling that you're

1679
01:30:54,380 --> 01:30:59,340
taking something away from them,
that you are the killjoy

1680
01:30:59,860 --> 01:31:02,340
philosopher or the killjoy
scientist who says, hey, you

1681
01:31:02,340 --> 01:31:04,420
know, these things you like,
actually, it's not real.

1682
01:31:04,740 --> 01:31:07,220
No one wants to do that.
No one wants to hear that.

1683
01:31:08,460 --> 01:31:11,890
And he says maybe we can just.
At least that's how I understand

1684
01:31:11,890 --> 01:31:13,610
this.
I think he really has a line

1685
01:31:13,610 --> 01:31:16,330
like that.
But roughly what I understand,

1686
01:31:16,330 --> 01:31:18,610
he's saying that, well, we
should not call the view

1687
01:31:18,610 --> 01:31:20,330
illusionism.
We should more or less keep the

1688
01:31:20,330 --> 01:31:24,730
same view, but call it
surrealism because it both

1689
01:31:24,770 --> 01:31:28,530
emphasizes that the thing
concerned like phenomenal

1690
01:31:28,530 --> 01:31:31,010
consciousness is not completely
real.

1691
01:31:31,010 --> 01:31:34,370
It's not at the same level of
reality as the rest, but at the

1692
01:31:34,370 --> 01:31:38,750
same time it stresses that this
thing that is not real, it's

1693
01:31:38,750 --> 01:31:42,310
also very important, right?
We do talk about it a lot.

1694
01:31:42,310 --> 01:31:45,590
We do think about it a lot.
It does play an important role

1695
01:31:45,590 --> 01:31:48,350
in how we conceive of ourselves,
how we conceive of others.

1696
01:31:48,950 --> 01:31:54,030
And in that sense, it's not
entirely doing it justice to

1697
01:31:54,070 --> 01:31:56,670
just see it as an illusion
because it plays such an

1698
01:31:56,670 --> 01:32:00,590
important role that it's it
keeps being illusory in a sense,

1699
01:32:00,590 --> 01:32:02,430
but it's more than just an
illusion because of all this

1700
01:32:02,430 --> 01:32:04,950
role it plays.
And then he says, what about

1701
01:32:04,950 --> 01:32:08,470
surrealism?
So the label did not really take

1702
01:32:08,470 --> 01:32:10,470
off, I think.
I don't think many other people

1703
01:32:10,470 --> 01:32:12,630
have used it.
I mean I might be wrong, but

1704
01:32:12,630 --> 01:32:14,270
I've not really seen many other
people using.

1705
01:32:14,350 --> 01:32:17,510
It what do you think happened
cuz I really saw because when we

1706
01:32:17,510 --> 01:32:19,710
spoke about it, I remember
telling him, I think I told him

1707
01:32:19,710 --> 01:32:20,190
this.
I was.

1708
01:32:20,470 --> 01:32:23,190
I said, I mean when I was
reading your work, I remember

1709
01:32:23,830 --> 01:32:26,110
just being an author.
I mean he was very influential

1710
01:32:26,110 --> 01:32:27,710
to me as well.
He's one of those people who I

1711
01:32:27,710 --> 01:32:30,430
read quite a lot and it was very
surprising to me.

1712
01:32:30,430 --> 01:32:32,870
I said, I mean, I was quite
shocked that you took that.

1713
01:32:33,300 --> 01:32:37,180
Completely different term.
Did you find that quite

1714
01:32:37,180 --> 01:32:41,220
surprising as well or do you
feel like he was heading down

1715
01:32:41,220 --> 01:32:43,220
that route?
But I mean he does say things

1716
01:32:43,220 --> 01:32:46,620
like seeing red is a beautiful
experience or it is quite

1717
01:32:46,620 --> 01:32:48,260
phenomenal, but not in the
phenomenal sense.

1718
01:32:48,260 --> 01:32:51,420
But yeah, I think, I don't know,
I think it's, I mean you should

1719
01:32:51,420 --> 01:32:53,380
ask him again.
I don't want to speak for him.

1720
01:32:53,380 --> 01:32:55,820
Right.
I don't think it's.

1721
01:32:55,820 --> 01:32:57,500
No, I think it's difficult to
say.

1722
01:32:57,500 --> 01:33:01,100
My impression is that, But
again, all I can say is what I

1723
01:33:01,100 --> 01:33:04,140
would do or what I would say.
It's hard to do what the other

1724
01:33:04,140 --> 01:33:06,340
should do, I should say.
But my impression is that

1725
01:33:06,380 --> 01:33:10,020
Illusionism is the pretty good
label, that it's pretty clear,

1726
01:33:10,820 --> 01:33:12,780
and the phenomenal Surrealism
label.

1727
01:33:12,780 --> 01:33:16,140
I feel like the main argument
for it is sort of strategic

1728
01:33:16,140 --> 01:33:22,420
rhetorical argument, which I'm
not sure we should give too much

1729
01:33:22,420 --> 01:33:25,100
importance.
I understand why people are

1730
01:33:25,100 --> 01:33:29,270
concerned by these sort of
concerns, but I also think that

1731
01:33:29,270 --> 01:33:34,110
we should, for example, accept
that the view is content with

1732
01:33:34,110 --> 01:33:40,510
you own it and still defend it.
So that's why I will not use the

1733
01:33:40,510 --> 01:33:42,950
labels phenomenal surrealism
because I'm not sure it

1734
01:33:42,950 --> 01:33:46,910
maximizes clarity, like it might
make for something attractive,

1735
01:33:46,910 --> 01:33:48,510
but I'm not sure it maximizes
clarity.

1736
01:33:49,430 --> 01:33:54,030
But then again, I cannot speak
for the country why he exactly

1737
01:33:54,030 --> 01:33:57,780
does what he does, right.
That's I cannot commit to that.

1738
01:33:58,060 --> 01:34:01,020
What do you love most about
illusionism as a theory of

1739
01:34:01,020 --> 01:34:04,820
consciousness?
Yeah, but I totally think for me

1740
01:34:04,820 --> 01:34:13,660
the most attractive part is that
it allows to, excuse me, it

1741
01:34:13,660 --> 01:34:19,700
allows to sort of save a picture
of religious I find coherent,

1742
01:34:19,700 --> 01:34:24,580
which is like the physicalist
picture in which we are physical

1743
01:34:24,580 --> 01:34:27,980
beings.
Our cognitive capacities are the

1744
01:34:27,980 --> 01:34:31,700
product of like process of
evolution by natural selection

1745
01:34:32,020 --> 01:34:36,260
on which we are built out of
originally very simple physical

1746
01:34:36,260 --> 01:34:38,660
beings that just become more
complexly organized.

1747
01:34:39,060 --> 01:34:44,180
There is no leap, there is no
sudden transition.

1748
01:34:45,140 --> 01:34:47,900
And it allows me to combine all
of that with my very strong

1749
01:34:47,900 --> 01:34:52,020
impression that when I look into
myself, I find these experiences

1750
01:34:52,020 --> 01:34:55,380
that are nothing like anything
physical, that are very this,

1751
01:34:55,810 --> 01:34:59,890
that does very much sort of
unique, experiential, subjective

1752
01:34:59,890 --> 01:35:01,730
character.
And for me, illusionism is the

1753
01:35:01,730 --> 01:35:05,730
only views that allow me to make
sense of all of that by saying

1754
01:35:05,730 --> 01:35:08,530
that my introspection is
illusory.

1755
01:35:09,970 --> 01:35:14,610
Other views, Yeah, yeah.
So all the views of course give

1756
01:35:14,610 --> 01:35:18,490
different answers to the problem
of making sense of all of that.

1757
01:35:18,490 --> 01:35:20,210
But for me, illusionism is the
most elegant.

1758
01:35:20,610 --> 01:35:24,310
So one that once you've accepted
it, even for a second, and

1759
01:35:24,310 --> 01:35:28,270
suddenly everything makes sense.
Yeah, and and once you have

1760
01:35:28,270 --> 01:35:31,350
accepted it, also you find the
other pictures really cumbersome

1761
01:35:31,710 --> 01:35:34,310
and just weird.
Like why do you need to posit

1762
01:35:34,310 --> 01:35:36,430
all of that?
It's so much simpler to admit

1763
01:35:36,430 --> 01:35:40,430
that this impossible to explain
entities are in existent and

1764
01:35:40,430 --> 01:35:45,870
illusion after that.
I think there is also, but

1765
01:35:45,870 --> 01:35:47,510
that's only something that came
later.

1766
01:35:47,710 --> 01:35:50,110
I do think that there is some
sort of aesthetic dimension that

1767
01:35:50,110 --> 01:35:54,820
I appreciate in the view, which
is basically that there is

1768
01:35:54,820 --> 01:35:58,180
something a bit fascinating and
a bit beautiful in the idea that

1769
01:35:59,180 --> 01:36:05,260
the way we can relate to reality
and know about reality is not by

1770
01:36:05,260 --> 01:36:08,460
looking deep into ourselves.
And that actually when we look

1771
01:36:08,460 --> 01:36:11,980
deep into ourselves we do have
the impression that we touch

1772
01:36:11,980 --> 01:36:14,260
reality with our fingers is
actually false.

1773
01:36:14,260 --> 01:36:18,580
We actually very much under an
illusion when we look deeply

1774
01:36:19,060 --> 01:36:21,570
into ourselves.
And so the way to enter in

1775
01:36:21,570 --> 01:36:24,730
contact with reality and to know
about reality is not by

1776
01:36:24,730 --> 01:36:28,330
retreating to our rooms and
starting to be like Descartes,

1777
01:36:28,330 --> 01:36:29,810
like looking deep into
ourselves.

1778
01:36:29,810 --> 01:36:34,850
It's actually by being in the
world, by behaving, acting in

1779
01:36:34,850 --> 01:36:38,810
the world, exploring actively
the world as how we know more

1780
01:36:38,810 --> 01:36:40,610
about reality.
And that's how we can overcome

1781
01:36:41,290 --> 01:36:45,250
the sort of original illusion
that we find ourselves in.

1782
01:36:45,970 --> 01:36:47,890
And I think there be something
beautiful in this picture,

1783
01:36:47,890 --> 01:36:48,850
right?
In this picture, where

1784
01:36:49,750 --> 01:36:53,230
introspection is not the
revelation of something deeply

1785
01:36:53,230 --> 01:36:55,550
real.
It's another layer of illusion.

1786
01:36:55,550 --> 01:37:00,470
But we can overcome it thanks to
our collective work of science

1787
01:37:00,470 --> 01:37:02,910
and philosophy.
There is something a bit heroic

1788
01:37:02,910 --> 01:37:05,710
in this picture.
But again, that's not why I

1789
01:37:05,710 --> 01:37:07,550
endorsed it.
That's more something that I

1790
01:37:07,550 --> 01:37:11,150
came to appreciate later when
thinking more about the picture.

1791
01:37:11,990 --> 01:37:13,750
Yeah.
I agree that that aesthetic

1792
01:37:13,830 --> 01:37:15,390
aspect is.
Be something.

1793
01:37:15,390 --> 01:37:17,710
I also find it's quite
attractive to me as well.

1794
01:37:19,030 --> 01:37:21,870
When you wrote your papers on
Illusionism and you and you

1795
01:37:21,870 --> 01:37:23,830
finally you got into this group
of thinkers.

1796
01:37:23,830 --> 01:37:27,950
At that point when Keith got
together that that nice book

1797
01:37:27,950 --> 01:37:30,230
with Illusionism as a theory of
consciousness and he put

1798
01:37:30,230 --> 01:37:32,630
together all these articles of
all you different guys, how did

1799
01:37:32,630 --> 01:37:34,750
it feel to be like surrounded by
all these people?

1800
01:37:34,750 --> 01:37:38,070
I mean, I think you are probably
the one of the youngest in that.

1801
01:37:38,110 --> 01:37:39,710
Yeah, that's that's very
possible.

1802
01:37:39,710 --> 01:37:41,550
I was.
I was a grad student at the time

1803
01:37:41,630 --> 01:37:45,890
and I was at the end of my pH.
DI was writing my dissertation

1804
01:37:46,330 --> 01:37:50,090
and I remember I I had become an
illusionist, but without having

1805
01:37:50,090 --> 01:37:52,850
the term right because I hadn't
read his article yet.

1806
01:37:52,850 --> 01:37:55,450
So I just had this idea.
I was not exactly sure how to

1807
01:37:55,450 --> 01:37:58,850
formulate it.
I was still looking for yeah, a

1808
01:37:58,850 --> 01:38:02,330
label or school of thought in
which I could exactly place my

1809
01:38:02,330 --> 01:38:04,690
view of consciousness.
I could see that there was a

1810
01:38:04,690 --> 01:38:08,690
similarity with like the
alienative materialism stands.

1811
01:38:08,690 --> 01:38:12,130
But I was really keen on
insisting on the ideas that the

1812
01:38:12,190 --> 01:38:15,030
the introspective impression
that we are conscious what is

1813
01:38:15,030 --> 01:38:17,390
very strong and it's not a
theoretical mistake.

1814
01:38:18,070 --> 01:38:23,510
And then I got hold of this
article by Frankie before it was

1815
01:38:23,510 --> 01:38:25,230
published.
I got a preprint of it and I

1816
01:38:25,270 --> 01:38:28,230
thought, OK, that's that's
exactly the right way to

1817
01:38:28,230 --> 01:38:31,430
describe the position that I I
think it's true.

1818
01:38:31,470 --> 01:38:34,870
And then I got in contact with
Keith and he invited me to

1819
01:38:34,870 --> 01:38:37,110
contribute really at the last
moment.

1820
01:38:37,110 --> 01:38:38,510
It was sort of the last moment
thing.

1821
01:38:38,950 --> 01:38:43,930
And of course it was very it was
very stressful to be included

1822
01:38:43,930 --> 01:38:49,370
with very respected and very
established thinkers as a young,

1823
01:38:49,770 --> 01:38:51,730
like, not so young as a grad
student.

1824
01:38:52,730 --> 01:38:54,570
And yeah, that was very
exciting.

1825
01:38:54,650 --> 01:38:58,770
Of course, it does not mean that
much in the sense that it's not

1826
01:38:58,770 --> 01:39:01,890
because your name is pretty next
to the other name that anyone

1827
01:39:01,890 --> 01:39:03,610
thinks that you belong to the
same category, right.

1828
01:39:03,770 --> 01:39:06,930
So I have no ah then I still
have no illusion about that.

1829
01:39:07,490 --> 01:39:11,710
But of course it's a very
pleasant and exciting to be a

1830
01:39:11,710 --> 01:39:14,230
part of something like this.
And I think the I think that

1831
01:39:14,470 --> 01:39:17,990
Keith really did a great job
with this article in clarifying

1832
01:39:17,990 --> 01:39:21,990
debates, allowing everyone to
move forward structuring the

1833
01:39:21,990 --> 01:39:23,470
conversation.
And also think that the

1834
01:39:23,470 --> 01:39:26,990
collection that comes with it
contains lots of important

1835
01:39:26,990 --> 01:39:30,910
papers that are, yeah, still
read now it's been like 7 years

1836
01:39:30,910 --> 01:39:33,990
now it's still widely.
And I think.

1837
01:39:34,070 --> 01:39:36,350
I think he also wrote one
responding to each of you guys

1838
01:39:36,350 --> 01:39:38,310
as well.
Yeah, exactly.

1839
01:39:38,310 --> 01:39:39,390
You wrote this.
Sort of.

1840
01:39:39,830 --> 01:39:41,750
I mean that's that's usually
what he's done in the

1841
01:39:41,750 --> 01:39:46,830
symposiums, why you have this
like target paper, series of

1842
01:39:46,830 --> 01:39:51,310
comments or responses and then a
response to the responses.

1843
01:39:51,310 --> 01:39:53,110
So yeah, that's usually the way
it's done.

1844
01:39:53,470 --> 01:39:56,470
And I think he did also a really
good job at summarizing

1845
01:39:56,470 --> 01:40:00,390
everyone's paper.
Aquis is a very clear and

1846
01:40:00,390 --> 01:40:03,230
thorough thinker.
So yes, his capacities and that

1847
01:40:03,230 --> 01:40:06,910
he would like synthesize Ied's
in extremely clear manners.

1848
01:40:06,910 --> 01:40:10,060
It's very appreciable.
I think that in that 2017 paper

1849
01:40:10,060 --> 01:40:12,540
we responded to you guys.
Something along the lines of

1850
01:40:13,780 --> 01:40:16,820
this was at the very end, he
said If consciousness, if

1851
01:40:16,820 --> 01:40:21,020
Illusionism about consciousness
is an illusion, that I am not

1852
01:40:21,020 --> 01:40:22,460
disillusioned.
I think that was one of his

1853
01:40:22,460 --> 01:40:23,860
closing lines.
I like that, yeah.

1854
01:40:25,660 --> 01:40:28,140
Still endorsing the view?
Yes, yes.

1855
01:40:28,700 --> 01:40:32,900
Tell me for who prior to your
jump to Illusionism, and perhaps

1856
01:40:32,900 --> 01:40:36,180
even during and after, which
philosophers most inspired you?

1857
01:40:37,260 --> 01:40:39,220
So did you say before, after or
during?

1858
01:40:39,220 --> 01:40:46,580
I was like all three everything.
During Yeah, So I was educated

1859
01:40:46,580 --> 01:40:50,700
philosophically in France, where
analytic philosophy is not so

1860
01:40:50,700 --> 01:40:54,380
widespread.
So I came to analytic philosophy

1861
01:40:54,380 --> 01:40:56,380
of mine and English speaking
analytic philosophy of mine

1862
01:40:56,380 --> 01:40:58,900
quite late really as a grad
student.

1863
01:40:59,420 --> 01:41:01,820
And before that I was more
trained like.

1864
01:41:02,590 --> 01:41:05,470
Socalled Continental tradition.
And I think the philosophers

1865
01:41:05,470 --> 01:41:07,590
that were from the most
influential were certainly

1866
01:41:07,990 --> 01:41:10,950
Nietzsche and Foucault were
actually very influential.

1867
01:41:12,710 --> 01:41:17,110
And I I don't read them as often
as I used to.

1868
01:41:17,110 --> 01:41:19,870
I rarely read them, but I still
think that they are big

1869
01:41:19,870 --> 01:41:21,470
influence on me, particularly
Nietzsche.

1870
01:41:22,150 --> 01:41:26,830
And I think that the the general
pictures that Nietzsche had of

1871
01:41:26,830 --> 01:41:28,950
the mind is actually very close
to Illusionism.

1872
01:41:28,990 --> 01:41:31,630
I don't think he really cared
about phenomenal consciousness

1873
01:41:31,630 --> 01:41:33,940
per se.
Did not really write about that.

1874
01:41:33,940 --> 01:41:37,540
But yeah, some interesting bits
in the posthumous fragments

1875
01:41:37,900 --> 01:41:40,980
about like internal
phenomenology and consciousness,

1876
01:41:41,020 --> 01:41:43,540
and I think they come really
close to Illusionism.

1877
01:41:43,540 --> 01:41:47,220
So I see Nietzsche as a
potential precursor, like with a

1878
01:41:47,220 --> 01:41:48,380
lot of interpretation, of
course.

1879
01:41:48,380 --> 01:41:50,500
And it was definitely
influential, yes.

1880
01:41:50,540 --> 01:41:53,300
I mean, you saw at the start of
mine where I said I started with

1881
01:41:53,300 --> 01:41:57,060
an opening quote by Nietzsche to
say truths are illusions which

1882
01:41:57,060 --> 01:41:59,020
we have forgotten our illusions
I love, I love.

1883
01:41:59,020 --> 01:42:00,500
That, Yeah, exactly.
Exactly, Yeah.

1884
01:42:00,500 --> 01:42:03,260
That was.
I can send you the other course

1885
01:42:03,260 --> 01:42:05,260
I have in mind.
I don't have them exactly

1886
01:42:05,260 --> 01:42:08,100
precisely in mind, but there is
something about how the

1887
01:42:08,100 --> 01:42:12,340
knowledge of the internal world
is more mischaracterizing and

1888
01:42:12,340 --> 01:42:15,860
more prone to mistakes than all
knowledge of the external world.

1889
01:42:16,260 --> 01:42:18,700
And again, although it's not
framed in terms of phenomenal

1890
01:42:18,700 --> 01:42:21,740
consciousness, I think that this
inspiration is really key to

1891
01:42:22,180 --> 01:42:24,020
illusionism.
Like we actually know a lot

1892
01:42:24,020 --> 01:42:26,620
about matter.
Like through perception, but

1893
01:42:26,620 --> 01:42:29,580
also through science and.
We think we know a lot about our

1894
01:42:29,580 --> 01:42:31,300
consciousness by introspective,
but it's false.

1895
01:42:31,300 --> 01:42:34,060
What we think we know is
actually a lot of.

1896
01:42:34,060 --> 01:42:36,300
I think there's probably some
knowledge in the lot, but there

1897
01:42:36,300 --> 01:42:38,820
is also a lot of
mischaracterization, a lot of

1898
01:42:38,820 --> 01:42:41,740
caricature, a lot of systematic
mistakes.

1899
01:42:41,940 --> 01:42:45,060
So ANNIHI was very influential,
I think, for me in the

1900
01:42:45,100 --> 01:42:47,620
philosophy of mind.
I came to philosophy of mind

1901
01:42:47,620 --> 01:42:50,940
really because I was fascinated
by consciousness and the heart

1902
01:42:50,940 --> 01:42:54,860
problem of consciousness and the
two authors that were the most

1903
01:42:54,860 --> 01:42:57,930
influential for me.
When I came to philosophy of

1904
01:42:57,930 --> 01:43:00,450
mine were actually not at all
materialists.

1905
01:43:02,010 --> 01:43:06,210
That's, that's an exaggeration,
But not leaning materialists and

1906
01:43:06,210 --> 01:43:07,570
certainly not leaning
illusionists.

1907
01:43:07,850 --> 01:43:10,290
They were like, I think Dave
Chalmers and Joseph Levine.

1908
01:43:10,450 --> 01:43:14,370
I think these two philosophers
influenced me a lot, not because

1909
01:43:14,370 --> 01:43:17,570
I agree with them, but because I
found them both extremely clear

1910
01:43:18,930 --> 01:43:21,410
and I really appreciate it.
In both cases, the fact that

1911
01:43:21,410 --> 01:43:23,450
they were not shying away from
problems.

1912
01:43:24,060 --> 01:43:26,140
I think that's something that
sometimes philosophers do, we

1913
01:43:26,140 --> 01:43:30,700
all do, because sometimes, you
know, it's convenient to

1914
01:43:31,380 --> 01:43:36,660
reformulate or to obfuscate
things that the situation seems

1915
01:43:36,660 --> 01:43:39,780
dialectically better for us.
One thing that I really

1916
01:43:39,780 --> 01:43:43,660
appreciate with both Joe and
Dave is that they have a way of

1917
01:43:43,660 --> 01:43:46,660
being extremely honest with the
difficulties that they face

1918
01:43:47,460 --> 01:43:50,100
laying down for the reader all
these.

1919
01:43:50,410 --> 01:43:52,770
Difficulties.
And as a young reader, I found

1920
01:43:52,770 --> 01:43:55,410
that extremely valuable because
you can sort of speak, see

1921
01:43:55,410 --> 01:43:59,170
really in the thought process of
someone, not just the result

1922
01:43:59,170 --> 01:44:01,970
that looks nice and neat, but
really the actual thought

1923
01:44:01,970 --> 01:44:04,690
process that makes it so that
one view is favorite rather than

1924
01:44:04,690 --> 01:44:06,490
another.
So these two philosophers were

1925
01:44:06,490 --> 01:44:10,490
very influential.
And then of course the

1926
01:44:10,730 --> 01:44:14,010
illusionist precursors like
Frankish, Dennet were also very

1927
01:44:14,010 --> 01:44:17,220
influential, But a bit later.
I mean, and it's it's funny

1928
01:44:17,220 --> 01:44:19,540
because those two that you
mentioned, I mean they're so

1929
01:44:19,540 --> 01:44:21,020
synonymous with like those
phrases.

1930
01:44:21,020 --> 01:44:23,100
I mean the hard problem, you've
got the explanatory gap.

1931
01:44:23,340 --> 01:44:25,860
It's clear that they've held,
they've managed to frame these

1932
01:44:25,860 --> 01:44:28,500
problems so well.
Really.

1933
01:44:28,500 --> 01:44:31,500
No for sure, but clearly.
Yeah, for sure.

1934
01:44:31,500 --> 01:44:34,100
And no, I think I really learned
a lot reading them.

1935
01:44:34,380 --> 01:44:40,340
I yeah, I think, I mean, Dave
Chamas is very widely read, of

1936
01:44:40,340 --> 01:44:42,820
course, because these might be
the most influential philosopher

1937
01:44:42,820 --> 01:44:46,750
of mine currently.
I think Joe is very red for his

1938
01:44:47,710 --> 01:44:50,910
explanatory gap article.
I think his book Purple Haze is

1939
01:44:50,910 --> 01:44:53,870
also great and it's not as red
as it should be.

1940
01:44:53,870 --> 01:44:59,390
I think it should be red more.
It's 2001 book and it's it's

1941
01:44:59,390 --> 01:45:01,590
really, really good.
It really goes into the details.

1942
01:45:01,910 --> 01:45:04,110
Also a lot of discussions of
eliminativism.

1943
01:45:05,070 --> 01:45:07,710
It discusses notably, the
position of George Ray, who is

1944
01:45:07,710 --> 01:45:11,520
also a precursor of like.
More than previously, like a

1945
01:45:12,000 --> 01:45:15,920
early defender of Illusionism,
and I think they are also very

1946
01:45:15,920 --> 01:45:20,480
good interesting discussions of
illusionism there, which I which

1947
01:45:20,480 --> 01:45:22,160
I found very valuable for my own
work.

1948
01:45:22,160 --> 01:45:25,840
So yeah, to the audience I said
like read all of these

1949
01:45:25,840 --> 01:45:28,560
philosophers, but really read
Purple Haze, which I think is

1950
01:45:28,560 --> 01:45:31,560
not red enough definitely.
I mean, as we close up, I mean

1951
01:45:31,560 --> 01:45:34,720
we're almost out of time to
close up front.

1952
01:45:34,720 --> 01:45:38,280
So any topics in the philosophy
of mine outside of consciousness

1953
01:45:38,280 --> 01:45:41,180
that you find really fascinating
and you think people should be

1954
01:45:41,180 --> 01:45:45,860
focused more attention on?
Well, there are a lot of, well,

1955
01:45:45,900 --> 01:45:47,780
I think a lot of my attention
has been focused on

1956
01:45:47,780 --> 01:45:50,340
consciousness recently.
But there is one, for example,

1957
01:45:50,340 --> 01:45:55,300
one work that is going out soon
that I've been doing with Keith

1958
01:45:56,060 --> 01:45:58,580
and that is not exactly
unconsciousness, although there

1959
01:45:58,580 --> 01:46:01,220
are links with consciousness.
And then I can maybe say a few

1960
01:46:01,220 --> 01:46:04,500
words about that.
We have this article where we

1961
01:46:04,500 --> 01:46:06,700
try to think about
introspection.

1962
01:46:07,630 --> 01:46:10,790
But not just about introspection
as it is.

1963
01:46:10,870 --> 01:46:13,870
That's just like the actual
process of introspection that we

1964
01:46:14,990 --> 01:46:17,990
adult human beings we enter, but
also about the form that

1965
01:46:17,990 --> 01:46:23,310
introspection could take, that
it is a variety of introspective

1966
01:46:23,310 --> 01:46:26,710
systems that could exist, the
varieties of ways in which a

1967
01:46:26,710 --> 01:46:31,350
given cognitive system be
natural, artificial, could come

1968
01:46:31,350 --> 01:46:33,350
to represent its own mental
states.

1969
01:46:33,930 --> 01:46:37,570
And we try to do some sort of
like Bruce Skye research, bit

1970
01:46:37,570 --> 01:46:40,970
speculative about how to map
this space of possible

1971
01:46:40,970 --> 01:46:44,850
introspective systems, what it
could teach us about mentality,

1972
01:46:44,970 --> 01:46:47,650
not only consciousness, actually
really more like mentality in a

1973
01:46:47,650 --> 01:46:51,610
more general sense.
And this is coming up soon, with

1974
01:46:51,650 --> 01:46:54,250
articles coming up soon in the
Journal of Consciousness

1975
01:46:54,250 --> 01:46:57,500
Studies, although it's not.
Only about consciousness.

1976
01:46:57,740 --> 01:47:00,140
And it goes with the symposium,
like a little bit like the

1977
01:47:00,140 --> 01:47:03,300
symposium and delusionism.
It goes with the symposium with

1978
01:47:03,300 --> 01:47:06,620
a lot of different contributions
from cognitive science and

1979
01:47:06,620 --> 01:47:08,340
philosophy.
People commenting on this

1980
01:47:08,340 --> 01:47:11,820
project trying to explore, let's
say, introspection in animals or

1981
01:47:11,820 --> 01:47:15,180
introspection in AI.
And I think it's a very exciting

1982
01:47:15,180 --> 01:47:17,420
topic.
And so I'm really glad that we

1983
01:47:17,420 --> 01:47:20,460
did that with Keith and we
attracted some attention to this

1984
01:47:20,460 --> 01:47:23,500
question and I'm looking forward
to yeah, thinking more about

1985
01:47:23,500 --> 01:47:29,000
these issues in.
In the next years there is also

1986
01:47:29,040 --> 01:47:31,080
for example, one of the
contribution in the symposium

1987
01:47:31,080 --> 01:47:33,800
that you will maybe be
interested that in reading

1988
01:47:33,800 --> 01:47:37,520
concerns introspection during
certain psychiatric like

1989
01:47:37,520 --> 01:47:39,960
introspection by patients
suffering from certain

1990
01:47:39,960 --> 01:47:42,600
psychiatric disorders.
Like there is this one

1991
01:47:42,600 --> 01:47:46,480
philosopher discussing to solve
the ways in which patient with

1992
01:47:47,160 --> 01:47:50,160
depersonalization disorder and
schizophrenia introspect their

1993
01:47:50,160 --> 01:47:53,060
experience.
And can these patients be said

1994
01:47:53,060 --> 01:47:56,260
to be more accurate
introspectors than normal

1995
01:47:56,260 --> 01:47:57,020
introspectors?
Yes.

1996
01:47:57,700 --> 01:47:59,580
So there is also a discussion of
that which I think you might

1997
01:47:59,580 --> 01:48:02,620
find interesting.
So yeah, the offers something

1998
01:48:02,620 --> 01:48:04,540
along the lines of what I was
touching on in mine as well.

1999
01:48:04,540 --> 01:48:07,380
So that is something I would
definitely be very intrigued by

2000
01:48:08,820 --> 01:48:10,900
also.
I mean it's been such a pleasant

2001
01:48:11,700 --> 01:48:13,060
podcast.
I mean thank you so much for

2002
01:48:13,060 --> 01:48:14,540
joining me.
I've been looking forward to

2003
01:48:14,540 --> 01:48:16,900
chatting to you for quite some
time because of the fact that

2004
01:48:16,900 --> 01:48:20,180
obviously we do share those
similar views And and I I cited

2005
01:48:20,180 --> 01:48:23,380
you a few times as well.
So thanks for your work as well

2006
01:48:23,380 --> 01:48:25,580
in the field.
Yeah, thanks a lot for your

2007
01:48:25,580 --> 01:48:28,380
invitation.
I hope I managed to answer your

2008
01:48:28,380 --> 01:48:30,940
questions in a way you found
clean off.

2009
01:48:30,940 --> 01:48:33,100
I don't know if you were
satisfied with the answer that I

2010
01:48:33,100 --> 01:48:34,780
thought, but it was it was
clear.

2011
01:48:35,270 --> 01:48:38,470
And really, I enjoyed it a lot.
I enjoyed chatting with you and

2012
01:48:38,670 --> 01:48:42,270
I'm looking forward to see how
your own work develops.

2013
01:48:42,270 --> 01:48:45,070
I'm also looking forward to
reading it more carefully.

2014
01:48:45,070 --> 01:48:47,870
I do not have that much time,
but we'll definitely try to make

2015
01:48:47,870 --> 01:48:50,390
time for that.
And yeah, thanks again for the

2016
01:48:50,390 --> 01:48:53,110
invite.
And yeah, have a great day and

2017
01:48:53,110 --> 01:48:54,230
thank, yeah, thanks for
everything.