Helen Yetter-Chappell: Is Consciousness Everything? Quasi-Berkeleyan Idealism Without God

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Helen, I've been trying to think
of a way to start this podcast

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interview by giving you the best
opportunity to explain your

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view.
And I think the best way to

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start is how I often start with
certain people.

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I did this with Keith, I mean
with illusionism.

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I'm gonna do this with
panpsychism.

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What I want you to do is give me
a brief philosophical history of

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the mind body problem from your
side, from how you grew to

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listen to this problem, to
understand it.

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And tell me which philosophers,
scientists have played the

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biggest roles in shaping your
current view.

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Cuz I think it gives us a great
understanding of how you came to

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this view.
I know Berkeley's obviously

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gonna be one of them, but I
mean, it's a great way to

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understand how your thought
processes have formed over the

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years.
Yeah, okay.

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So that's a very interesting
question.

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So I I think I first became
introduced to consciousness.

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Actually my dad introduced me to
the knowledge argument when I

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was still in high school, and so
and I and I loved that and I

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have very, very strong dualist
intuitions right from the get

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go.
So my first philosophy of mind

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class that I took spent a lot of
time discussing different

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particular physicalist theories
in the minutiae of those

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theories.
And I spent the whole time

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sitting there like, what?
This is completely missing the

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point, right?
This is missing consciousness.

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Where are the fields coming
from?

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So I I spent all my time sort of
sitting there idly drawing

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little pictures and diagrams and
concluded based on this that

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there could be no such thing as
mental causation.

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And what I was drawing out was
these standard diagrams that

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have been used to support
epiphenomenalism.

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So the idea that, you know,
there's a physical world.

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And every physical event is
caused by a previous physical

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event, and those physical events
cause conscious experiences.

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But there's sort of not any room
in the picture for the conscious

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experiences to do causal work.
The conscious experiences are

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just sort of an extra that
explains the feelings but

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nothing more.
So, so I I quickly became

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concluded that epiphenomenalism
was true, and my philosophy

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professor spent the rest of my
undergraduate career trying to

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disabuse me of this and never
succeeded.

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So my I while I'm currently
working on idealism and

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developing an idealist view of
the nature of reality and the

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nature of the mind body problem.
I'm actually not not necessarily

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a committed idealist.
I'm sort of a committed

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antiphysicalist.
So I have very strong intuitions

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that consciousness can't be
reduced to, can't be reduced to

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something nonconscious, And not
only intuitions, I think these

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intuitions can be developed into
good arguments to this effect.

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But at this point in my life,
I'm sort of neutral between

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dualism of an epiphenomenalist
sort and idealism of an

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epiphenomenalist sort.
So I mean I guess you asked for

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people who had influenced me on
this journey and it's it's a

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little bit funny because I think
I actually kind of came fully

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formed to these views that I
have prior to reading people.

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And then it was subsequently I
started reading people like Dave

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Chalmers and going, ah, he's
said everything I want to say,

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only way better than I could say
it.

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And Thomas does have that
effect, I think.

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Yes, is very, very frustrating.
But so I I sort of I I began my

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career as a dualist, and I put
no stock whatsoever in the truth

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of idealism.
It sounded like a bonkers

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theory.
I met Howard Robinson, who is a

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contemporary idealist
philosopher, when I was in grad

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school, and I was blown away
that he was actually an

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idealist.
And I didn't think there were

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any such people.
But subsequently it actually, I

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started thinking about idealism
more carefully as a result of

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two things.
One was thinking about just

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reading Barkley when I was in
grad school and thinking about

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abstract general ideas.
So this is sort of the question

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of.
That the early modern

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philosophers were interested in
of how it is that we can have

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thoughts that latch on to not
just a particular thing, but

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latch on to many things that are
very diverse in different ways.

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So how we can have a thought, a
particular thought about

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triangles that's not about any
particular kind of triangle, but

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it's triangularity in general.
And so that led me to reading a

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lot of Berkeley and the early
modern philosophers.

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And sort of increased my
interest and idealism and at the

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same time I was being exposed to
work, contemporary work in the

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philosophy of perception and
these people called naive

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realists and naive realism is
this view about perception where

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the thought is that?
You know, somebody I should

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start with representationalism
because I think it's the more

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intuitive view.
So for a representationalist,

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there's this world out there and
you know, light bounces off of

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the object and enters my eye and
stuff happens in my brain and

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causes me to represent a mug
that's before me.

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But what it is that I'm sort of
directly grasping is this thing

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that my brain generates, this
experience of the mug, this

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representation of the mug.
I don't directly grasp the mug.

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I sort of grasp the mug that I'm
looking at or anything in the

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world in an indirect kind of
way.

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And naive realists say no, no.
The intuitive view is that

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vision is kind of like touch.
We sort of reach out and we sort

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of grasp the object and the
object is a part of our thoughts

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and.
I'm listening to this in grad

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school and I found this
completely just insane sounding.

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How is it that my thoughts, my
conscious experiences, could

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have things like cups and trees
and computers as a part of them?

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That made no sense to me at all.
And it made no sense until I

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started thinking, well, but if
the whole world is experiences,

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if the whole world is made-up
out of consciousness.

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Then maybe it's not quite so
insane.

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And that sort of led me down the
road of of interest and

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idealism, and I just sort of
playing with it as a view, not

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because I thought it was true,
but because it seemed

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interesting And I was curious,
Is it a view that could be

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defended?
And actually, the more I sort of

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played with it and the more I
thought about it, the more I

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realized there actually are some
genuinely good things to say in

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favor of this view.
And I've sort of.

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Argued myself into giving it
significant credence.

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Although I'm not a committed
idealist, I mean, if there's so

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many idealists today giving such
great arguments.

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I mean, if you think of people
like you're not a custraps out

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there, You've got someone like
Donald Hoffman who does

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conscious realism.
But I mean, it's a form of

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idealism in a sense.
If you, when you think about it,

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you take consciousness to be
this fundamental reality.

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I mean, you're you're talking
about a difference in the nature

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of consciousness here.
I think a great way to go with

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this is let's go with one of
your papers is called

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dissolving.
I think Type B physicalism, it's

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remembering the title, correct?
Yeah.

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Let's dissolve physicalism.
Tell me why this doesn't work.

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Let's just go with it.
Well, I I don't know that we

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actually can dissolve
physicalism, so I I kind of, I

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think there are certain versions
of physicalism that don't work.

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But I actually am inclined to
think that there is a plurality

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of metaphysical views out there
that actually are each not just

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internally coherent.
Like from the inside you can

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stamp your feet and say no.
I refuse to listen to anything

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you say.
But that are sort of deeply like

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internally plausible, I guess is
maybe the way to put it.

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So let me try to think how to
express this.

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So I think it's it's well known
that you can for you can take

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and you can just refuse to
listen to the other side's

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arguments.
You can say I disagree with that

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premise I I refuse to accept
that.

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And as a result.
I don't have to accept your

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argument.
I'm going to hold on to to my to

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my position.
So, you know, when you have

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something like a physicalist
faced with a knowledge argument,

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the physicalist could say, look,
I just don't think that Mary,

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when she sees red for the first
time, learns anything.

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I think that's.
I think that's the wrong way of

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thinking about it.
I don't think she'd be fooled if

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you showed her a blue banana,
but I think that you could also

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be a physicalist who actually
genuinely accepts the intuitive

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starting point.
And nevertheless can still

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defend from the inside that
viewpoint.

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So I think, and I argue in in
that paper, at the end of the

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paper, the idea is that it's a
kind of mysterianism.

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So the idea is that we we have a
particular sort of cognitive

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structure to our minds, and that
cognitive structure is

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essentially sort of limiting to
what it is, what kinds of things

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it is that we can understand.
And depending on sort of the

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formatting of how it is that our
brain goes about making sense of

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consciousness in sort of
conscious terms versus physical

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stuff, sort of using physical
terms, it may be that our brain

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just is not set up to be able to
match those two kinds of things

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together.
But it doesn't.

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That doesn't mean that it's
impossible for these two things

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to be matched up.
That could just be a limitation

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due to kind of like our neural
hardware.

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And so I think that if a
physicalist were to embrace of

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you like that, that they can
simultaneously accept things

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like the knowledge argument
except the actual intuitive

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datum, the datum that Mary as a
human being, Mary as somebody

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with an art cognitive
architecture that works like

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ours, she would be fooled.
Buy a blue banana.

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She would learn something new
even if she had all the physical

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knowledge, but it doesn't mean
that there's something more to

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consciousness.
So I think, I think a

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physicalist can can sort of
embrace what the dualist says

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and still maintain their
physicalism.

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At the same time, I think that a
dualist can embrace a lot of

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things that a physicalist wants
to throw at them and really

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listen to them and.
Still not have to be moved.

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And I similarly think the same
kind of thing for idealism.

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So I actually think that there's
sort of a a plurality of views

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that they're not just defensible
from the inside, and that you

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can say neener, neener, or, you
know, stick your tongue out at

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the other side and say I refuse
to accept your starting points.

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You can accept the starting
points, explain away as needed,

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and come to an internally
plausible view for these very

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different views.
And I kind of think that, sorry,

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I'm interrupting.
I completely agree with that.

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I think that when I started this
podcast, I had such a specific

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thought going into it.
What I thought consciousness

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was.
I wrote essays on it as well.

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It's part of my dissertation.
So I had my own view.

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But the more I listen to
people's coherent arguments, the

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more you actually try and
sympathize or empathize even

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more with these views.
The more you understand that if

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you set up a great bunch of
assumptions prior to starting

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the argument, you can really
flow with you with your

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argument.
And you can give something

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really succinct and not Nina,
Nina.

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So people can listen to it.
I mean and and you do a great

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job at this.
I think you.

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You do a perfect example.
You're a perfect example of

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someone who can defend idealism
with some really coherent

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arguments.
And even just reading your

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papers.
I mean, you've done a great job

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at that.
I think at this point, do you

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want to defend your your actual
position?

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I mean, what is your position
regarding consciousness?

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What is consciousness to you,
Helen?

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OK, so would you like me to talk
about consciousness or about

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idealism itself?
Let's talk about idealism,

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because, I mean, we obviously
know that that's like your view

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on consciousness.
OK.

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Well in a sense, sorry I keep, I
keep sort of I sort of agree

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with what you're saying, but I
keep sort of also disagreeing

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and it's, it's made it a little
hard to directly answer the

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questions.
So I think in a sense.

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I I think that idealism is not
itself a view of consciousness

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or a view of the mind body
problem in the way that like

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materialism or dualism or
panpsychism, those are views

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that are coming and are
essentially trying to like

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answer the mind body problem.
Whereas idealism I think is

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00:12:32,470 --> 00:12:35,150
essentially a view about the
nature of the physical world.

228
00:12:36,630 --> 00:12:40,430
And the view basically is just
sort of, in a nutshell, what it

229
00:12:40,430 --> 00:12:42,960
takes to be.
I guess I should say an idealist

230
00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:44,080
of the sort that I'm interested
in.

231
00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:46,360
So I I think of this as
ontological idealism.

232
00:12:47,160 --> 00:12:49,720
But what it takes to be an
idealist basically just is to

233
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,680
think that the physical world
around us, it's real, but what

234
00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:56,520
it fundamentally is, is
conscious.

235
00:12:56,760 --> 00:12:59,520
It fundamentally is built up out
of phenomenology.

236
00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:05,840
So I I sort of think of this a
little bit by analogy to like

237
00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:08,160
reductive physicalism.
So, reductive physicalists.

238
00:13:08,670 --> 00:13:11,030
They they want to say, you know,
look, I think consciousness is

239
00:13:11,030 --> 00:13:13,110
real.
I think there is such a thing as

240
00:13:13,110 --> 00:13:15,510
pain.
I'm not trying to do away with

241
00:13:15,510 --> 00:13:17,070
pain.
I'm trying to give an analysis

242
00:13:17,070 --> 00:13:18,870
of it.
And this is the analysis.

243
00:13:19,270 --> 00:13:23,110
Pain reduces to some sort of
physical state, some sort of

244
00:13:23,230 --> 00:13:26,790
brain state, functional state.
Similarly for the idealist.

245
00:13:26,990 --> 00:13:29,390
The idealist wants to say the
physical world is real.

246
00:13:29,790 --> 00:13:31,910
There are rocks, There are
stars.

247
00:13:31,910 --> 00:13:33,950
There are atoms.
But what are they?

248
00:13:33,950 --> 00:13:36,950
Fundamentally I'm trying to give
an analysis of it and the

249
00:13:36,950 --> 00:13:40,550
analysis is such that it
ultimately reduces to

250
00:13:40,670 --> 00:13:43,950
phenomenology.
Now that sort of doesn't answer

251
00:13:43,950 --> 00:13:45,950
your question right?
Cuz you asked me about my view

252
00:13:45,950 --> 00:13:49,430
of consciousness, which I
haven't said anything about what

253
00:13:49,430 --> 00:13:53,310
consciousness is, what it is
that this is built up out of.

254
00:13:53,390 --> 00:13:55,190
You're talking.
So we're going metaphysics here.

255
00:13:55,190 --> 00:13:57,470
We're talking about the
fundamental nature of reality,

256
00:13:58,430 --> 00:14:03,200
and we know that if everything
is fundamentally matter, that's

257
00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:05,440
going to be physicalism.
And if everything is

258
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,160
fundamentally mind, then you're
going towards more of an

259
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:11,920
idealistic viewpoint.
So you're basically saying that

260
00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:16,880
the fundamental nature of
reality is conscious, rather

261
00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:19,680
than consciousness.
Is something, something,

262
00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:20,920
something.
Yeah.

263
00:14:21,430 --> 00:14:22,870
Yeah.
So consciousness is sort of

264
00:14:22,870 --> 00:14:24,670
coming in like as you're, as
you're, as you're pointing out,

265
00:14:24,670 --> 00:14:27,510
consciousness is coming in as a
primitive, Yes.

266
00:14:27,510 --> 00:14:32,750
So I mean, I suppose you could
try to like reduce the physical

267
00:14:32,750 --> 00:14:34,630
world to consciousness and
reduce consciousness to

268
00:14:34,630 --> 00:14:36,270
something else.
That doesn't tend to be the way

269
00:14:36,270 --> 00:14:38,870
that idealists go.
We do tend to take it as a

270
00:14:38,870 --> 00:14:40,350
primitive as just to be
generous.

271
00:14:40,430 --> 00:14:43,950
Yeah, but so.
But that makes it very much very

272
00:14:43,950 --> 00:14:47,750
similar to pan psychism, because
you're obviously now taking that

273
00:14:47,750 --> 00:14:50,850
to be the fundamental property
of reality.

274
00:14:51,130 --> 00:14:53,570
At what point do you guys
diverge?

275
00:14:54,570 --> 00:14:58,130
Yeah, that's a surprisingly
tricky question, and I think the

276
00:14:58,130 --> 00:15:02,850
reason is because there aren't
really sufficiently precise

277
00:15:02,850 --> 00:15:06,330
agreed upon definitions of what
it takes to be a panpsychist

278
00:15:06,330 --> 00:15:10,170
versus to be an idealist.
So there are people who are

279
00:15:10,170 --> 00:15:16,290
panpsychists who think that
consciousness is 1 fundamental.

280
00:15:16,860 --> 00:15:18,980
One sort of fundamental
property, but that there might

281
00:15:18,980 --> 00:15:21,580
be other sorts of fundamental
properties that are not

282
00:15:21,740 --> 00:15:25,740
conscious, so be kind of impure
panpsychism, which would be

283
00:15:25,740 --> 00:15:27,340
quite different.
The idealist.

284
00:15:28,020 --> 00:15:31,900
According to the idealist, it's
all phenomenology is sort of

285
00:15:31,980 --> 00:15:35,180
what is essentially the nature
of reality.

286
00:15:36,180 --> 00:15:38,100
So that's one potential
difference.

287
00:15:38,580 --> 00:15:41,580
I think some of the differences
between panpsychism and idealism

288
00:15:41,580 --> 00:15:44,510
come in.
In in sort of two respects.

289
00:15:44,510 --> 00:15:47,670
One is just in the canonical
form of panpsychism and the

290
00:15:47,670 --> 00:15:50,230
canonical form of idealism wind
up looking different, and the

291
00:15:50,230 --> 00:15:54,270
other is in their motivations.
So sort of the canonical form of

292
00:15:54,270 --> 00:15:57,350
panpsychism is what some people
call micropsychism.

293
00:15:57,350 --> 00:16:00,630
So this is the idea that the
fundamental building blocks of

294
00:16:00,630 --> 00:16:06,110
reality are tiny particles,
quarks, whatever it is, maybe

295
00:16:06,110 --> 00:16:09,470
something smaller.
And those fundamental particles

296
00:16:09,470 --> 00:16:12,070
have as their intrinsic nature
consciousness.

297
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:17,160
So perhaps I can give arguments
for this, of course, and then

298
00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:18,680
everything else is built up out
of them.

299
00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:21,360
So we get consciousness in at
the ground level in building

300
00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,040
everything up.
But sort of wait, the

301
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,600
fundamental locust of it is at
the very tiny level.

302
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:30,200
By contrast, the the the
canonical representation, I

303
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,960
think of idealism, at least in
the Western tradition, would be

304
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:38,640
Barkley's idealism, which has
basically the world all as

305
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:42,480
experiences in the mind of God,
at least as one way of putting

306
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:45,190
it.
So there's sort of a difference

307
00:16:45,190 --> 00:16:48,270
in terms of whether, you know,
the one starts with these very,

308
00:16:48,270 --> 00:16:51,390
very tiny things and experiences
coming in as parts of them, and

309
00:16:51,390 --> 00:16:54,710
the other starts with these sort
of very large experiences,

310
00:16:54,710 --> 00:16:58,150
experiences of the universe.
Now that's not essential to the

311
00:16:58,150 --> 00:17:00,710
two views, because there are now
pan psychists who call

312
00:17:00,710 --> 00:17:04,349
themselves cosmos pycists,
Philip Goff being one of them,

313
00:17:05,310 --> 00:17:09,310
and they are going to embrace
this this bigger, top down

314
00:17:09,310 --> 00:17:12,470
picture.
But I think the other difference

315
00:17:12,470 --> 00:17:15,069
between idealism and panpsychism
really comes from the standard

316
00:17:15,069 --> 00:17:18,710
motivations for the views.
So panpsychists typically come

317
00:17:18,710 --> 00:17:22,349
to their view as a way of giving
a solution to the mind body

318
00:17:22,349 --> 00:17:26,869
problem.
So they, you know, look around

319
00:17:26,869 --> 00:17:31,530
and they go look.
I think that consciousness can

320
00:17:31,530 --> 00:17:34,010
be explained in the same way
that we explain all the other

321
00:17:34,010 --> 00:17:37,330
stuff in the world, right?
We explained liquidity by, you

322
00:17:37,330 --> 00:17:39,290
know, we've got a bunch of
molecules they arrange in the

323
00:17:39,290 --> 00:17:43,010
right way and liquidity emerges.
I think consciousness is the

324
00:17:43,010 --> 00:17:44,210
same.
I think you can take these

325
00:17:44,210 --> 00:17:46,410
little physical building blocks,
put them together and you can

326
00:17:46,410 --> 00:17:49,930
build consciousness.
But so that.

327
00:17:49,970 --> 00:17:52,650
In a sense that's agreeing with
the physicalist, but it also the

328
00:17:52,650 --> 00:17:54,490
pan psychic says.
But I also agree with.

329
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,640
To non physicalists with the
dualists, because how could you

330
00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,240
take non physical things and put
them together and sorry non

331
00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:03,560
conscious things, non conscious
things and put them together and

332
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,280
have consciousness pop into
existence out of that.

333
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:11,080
So they sort of infer from that
that the consciousness must have

334
00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:15,440
been in there from the start and
it's the only way we're able to

335
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:19,440
build big consciousness is like
ours up is that we started with.

336
00:18:20,310 --> 00:18:23,470
Little consciousnesses.
This is obviously a cartoonish

337
00:18:23,670 --> 00:18:28,350
caricature of the view, but so
the mind body problem is the

338
00:18:28,350 --> 00:18:32,470
central driving force they're
getting people to pan psychism

339
00:18:32,950 --> 00:18:35,950
with idealism.
The standard route to idealism

340
00:18:36,070 --> 00:18:38,390
actually doesn't have to do with
the mind body problem.

341
00:18:38,510 --> 00:18:42,310
It has to do with trying to give
an account of the physical world

342
00:18:42,310 --> 00:18:44,630
around us and just directly of
its nature.

343
00:18:46,550 --> 00:18:48,190
So I can say more about that.
But.

344
00:18:49,890 --> 00:18:51,690
Okay.
Yeah.

345
00:18:51,690 --> 00:18:55,370
So I mean, I guess if we sort of
started with like Barkley as

346
00:18:55,450 --> 00:19:00,170
sort of the father of the
Western idealist tradition, you

347
00:19:00,170 --> 00:19:03,530
know, very rough caricature
again of the view.

348
00:19:03,690 --> 00:19:06,770
You look around and you're like,
you know, what do I know about

349
00:19:06,770 --> 00:19:08,450
the world?
Well, I know it's populated by

350
00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:11,450
mugs like the one I'm holding by
trees, like the trees I see

351
00:19:11,450 --> 00:19:16,210
outside by stars and so on.
What's that?

352
00:19:18,430 --> 00:19:20,710
You know, the last time I didn't
interview, I had a different mug

353
00:19:20,710 --> 00:19:22,030
and I was also complimented on
it.

354
00:19:23,870 --> 00:19:30,910
I like mugs, so right.
So I know, I know all these

355
00:19:30,910 --> 00:19:32,750
things, but what do I know about
these things?

356
00:19:33,430 --> 00:19:38,070
Well, the mug in my hand, I know
it feels solid and warm.

357
00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:42,680
I know, you know, I see blue in
the mug and white on the inside.

358
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:47,360
I see brown sort of with light
reflecting off of it, because I

359
00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:48,240
shouldn't quite describe that
way.

360
00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:52,600
I see brownish Bobby, uppy
downness when I look inside of

361
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:54,640
the mug and see the tea sloshing
around.

362
00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:01,920
Now, all of these things that I
just described were the ways

363
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:05,400
that it seems to me were
experiences that I have when I

364
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,000
look at the mug, right Hardness,
warmth.

365
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:11,880
And so on.
And when you think about it, all

366
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:14,800
of the information that we gain
about the world around us,

367
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,960
empirically, we gain through our
senses, through the experiences

368
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:22,440
that we have of the world.
Even when you're, you know, in a

369
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,840
science laboratory, you're
looking through a microscope or

370
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:27,840
I mean presumably when you're
running tiny particles together

371
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:29,200
in a particle accelerator,
right.

372
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:34,080
What it is you get from that is
the experiences that you have of

373
00:20:34,120 --> 00:20:39,930
looking through the microscope.
So now we could say, all right,

374
00:20:39,970 --> 00:20:43,290
there is some sort of mind
independent matter out there

375
00:20:43,730 --> 00:20:45,650
that we don't know anything
about what it's like.

376
00:20:45,690 --> 00:20:49,610
We just know that it causes us
to have certain experiences.

377
00:20:51,090 --> 00:20:52,450
That's one sort of view we could
have.

378
00:20:54,650 --> 00:20:56,810
But why?
First of all, Barkley thinks,

379
00:20:56,810 --> 00:20:58,010
you know, Barkley's an
empiricist.

380
00:20:58,010 --> 00:20:59,330
He thinks we should just pause
it.

381
00:20:59,330 --> 00:21:01,490
What we get through our
experiences and nothing more

382
00:21:01,490 --> 00:21:05,370
than we need to pause it.
Why go about positing that?

383
00:21:05,370 --> 00:21:08,330
Why not just pause it?
That it is the thing that we're

384
00:21:08,330 --> 00:21:10,890
directly aware of experiences.
Why not just pause it?

385
00:21:10,890 --> 00:21:14,650
That we've got warmth,
cylindricality, hardness, and so

386
00:21:14,650 --> 00:21:16,690
on.
And that's what the mug is,

387
00:21:16,690 --> 00:21:18,330
after all.
That's all I directly have

388
00:21:18,330 --> 00:21:20,210
evidence of.
And if you tell me there's

389
00:21:20,210 --> 00:21:22,650
something more to it than that,
I don't know what the hell it

390
00:21:22,650 --> 00:21:29,010
could be.
So that sort of is the the

391
00:21:29,010 --> 00:21:31,690
motivation for Barkley getting
to idealism.

392
00:21:31,690 --> 00:21:33,370
And I think the standard
motivation for getting to

393
00:21:33,410 --> 00:21:37,760
idealism is thinking, you know,
this is what we have evidence to

394
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,240
think that there is, and there's
not evidence to think there's

395
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,520
anything more.
So if we don't need anything

396
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,560
more, if we can do without it,
that looks like the more simple

397
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:49,080
parsimonious view.
Yeah, which is, which is a very

398
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,520
coherent way of thinking.
I mean, ideally, if that's the

399
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,640
way it all looks, the the best
assumption to make is that

400
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,920
that's just the way it all looks
and is.

401
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:05,240
Yeah, I mean, I I find this kind
of argument actually quite

402
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:06,840
compelling.
I think a lot of people don't.

403
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:10,000
I mean, I guess, I guess the
question is, can we actually

404
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,360
come to a coherent view that's
able to respect what we learned

405
00:22:14,360 --> 00:22:18,040
from science, that's able to
respect our intuitions about the

406
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,360
world having a sort of stability
that it does and does the

407
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,520
ultimate view that we get when
we really try to flesh this all

408
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:29,080
out, does that look good?
And that's, I think, maybe where

409
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:34,130
idealism has work to do.
At least that I hope to help.

410
00:22:35,330 --> 00:22:38,970
So wait, so coming into this
view, I mean you must have had

411
00:22:38,970 --> 00:22:42,370
knowledge of, I mean reality, we
dark matters 95% of the

412
00:22:42,370 --> 00:22:44,090
universe.
We don't know anything about it.

413
00:22:45,050 --> 00:22:47,890
Dark energy, we know nothing
about the fundamental nature of

414
00:22:47,890 --> 00:22:51,090
reality.
So coming into this was that

415
00:22:51,090 --> 00:22:55,290
does what we've learned from
physics and basically everything

416
00:22:55,290 --> 00:22:57,450
we know about biology,
everything else we know.

417
00:22:58,010 --> 00:23:00,090
Did that play a huge role in
forming this view for you?

418
00:23:00,290 --> 00:23:03,970
Was that was that a driving
force for you to no no longer

419
00:23:03,970 --> 00:23:06,250
trust reductionism or
physicalism?

420
00:23:07,290 --> 00:23:09,010
Yeah, that's a very interesting
question.

421
00:23:09,690 --> 00:23:12,530
That was not a driving force for
me.

422
00:23:12,890 --> 00:23:16,770
I think that some of the cases
that you present are interesting

423
00:23:17,010 --> 00:23:19,850
puzzle cases, though, for the
idealist and cases that the

424
00:23:19,850 --> 00:23:22,930
idealist really needs to think
about and be able to speak to.

425
00:23:24,940 --> 00:23:28,140
So, I mean, what I started off
describing was the sort of

426
00:23:28,140 --> 00:23:30,500
experiences that I have of the
world, right?

427
00:23:30,500 --> 00:23:33,580
And I started saying, you know,
that it seems like we want to

428
00:23:33,580 --> 00:23:36,020
have a world that has that, at
very least as a part of it.

429
00:23:36,020 --> 00:23:38,500
It's interesting that the cases
that you're describing, things

430
00:23:38,500 --> 00:23:41,020
like dark matter, you're
describing things that I, as you

431
00:23:41,020 --> 00:23:43,820
say, you know, we don't have the
ability to perceive.

432
00:23:45,020 --> 00:23:47,300
So that might be taken to be
something that would pose a

433
00:23:47,300 --> 00:23:50,740
challenge for the idealist,
insofar as the idealist wants to

434
00:23:50,740 --> 00:23:54,300
say that everything in the world
is experiences.

435
00:23:54,650 --> 00:23:57,690
So how do we account for the
sorts of things that perhaps are

436
00:23:57,850 --> 00:24:00,610
certainly that we can't
experience or perhaps are

437
00:24:00,610 --> 00:24:05,650
essentially imperceivable?
So would you like me to talk

438
00:24:05,650 --> 00:24:08,250
about this a little bit or?
Yeah, this is, yeah, this is

439
00:24:08,250 --> 00:24:09,770
about.
I wanna listen to what you have

440
00:24:09,770 --> 00:24:12,090
to say.
All right.

441
00:24:13,850 --> 00:24:15,250
Yes.
I mean, I just think you've sort

442
00:24:15,290 --> 00:24:18,090
of actually hit on quite a
challenging sort of puzzle case.

443
00:24:19,730 --> 00:24:24,550
So I think it might make sense
to get to this after getting

444
00:24:24,550 --> 00:24:27,790
more of the positive view out,
but maybe.

445
00:24:28,110 --> 00:24:29,990
I think let's do that first and
then we'll get, we'll touch on

446
00:24:29,990 --> 00:24:32,350
this, I'll try and just make you
know, OK.

447
00:24:33,750 --> 00:24:35,950
But continue.
So, so wait, let's let's start

448
00:24:35,950 --> 00:24:39,270
off with, I mean, so let's run
through some of the various

449
00:24:39,270 --> 00:24:42,990
types of idealism that they are.
I mean, cuz Barclays idealism is

450
00:24:42,990 --> 00:24:46,710
very much, I mean there's a lot
of credence placed on God.

451
00:24:47,230 --> 00:24:50,110
God one of the main driving
forces behind this.

452
00:24:50,350 --> 00:24:53,240
And your view does not.
Have that behind it.

453
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,160
It's more of a secular version
of this.

454
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,880
So let me let's touch on the
different versions of this and

455
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,840
how yours differs from most of
the others.

456
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,280
I am not.
I'm probably not the best person

457
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,760
to give a rundown of all the
different versions of idealism.

458
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:15,280
Well, at least the most, the
most commonly brought up.

459
00:25:16,610 --> 00:25:20,450
Yeah, So, Well, OK, so, so
you've brought up Barclays

460
00:25:20,450 --> 00:25:22,130
Idealism.
So Barclays Idealism.

461
00:25:22,570 --> 00:25:25,450
We, I started off describing a
little bit how he came to the

462
00:25:25,450 --> 00:25:29,210
motivation for it.
But as you've touched on, God is

463
00:25:29,210 --> 00:25:31,250
playing this very central role.
So maybe I should just say a

464
00:25:31,250 --> 00:25:33,290
little bit about how that comes
in.

465
00:25:34,570 --> 00:25:41,010
So if the world is just a world
of experiences, if the cup that

466
00:25:41,010 --> 00:25:43,730
I'm seeing right now just is
sort of the experiences that I'm

467
00:25:43,730 --> 00:25:47,540
having of the Cup, you very
quickly run into problems,

468
00:25:47,540 --> 00:25:49,900
right?
For one thing, if I sort of set

469
00:25:49,900 --> 00:25:52,780
the cup down out of view and
there's no one else in the room

470
00:25:52,780 --> 00:25:55,500
perceiving it, does the cup pop
out of existence?

471
00:25:56,660 --> 00:26:01,020
That seems bonkers.
So Barclays answer to this is

472
00:26:01,020 --> 00:26:03,940
no, it doesn't.
The world around us is stable

473
00:26:03,940 --> 00:26:05,820
and persists in the way we think
that it does.

474
00:26:05,820 --> 00:26:08,660
And the answer the solution to
this is God.

475
00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:12,420
So at least on the caricature,
that of the view that is

476
00:26:12,620 --> 00:26:15,300
typically presented to
undergraduate students, God is

477
00:26:15,300 --> 00:26:17,900
always perceiving the totality
of reality.

478
00:26:18,380 --> 00:26:20,180
So God is experiencing the cup
even when I'm not.

479
00:26:20,220 --> 00:26:24,380
And this actually I think is is
important in other ways.

480
00:26:24,380 --> 00:26:26,980
So it's not just that God is
ensuring that my cup continues

481
00:26:26,980 --> 00:26:29,980
to exist, but if you think about
it, there's a lot of features of

482
00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:33,700
the cup that I'm not aware of.
Like even when I am looking at

483
00:26:33,700 --> 00:26:36,540
it, I'm not aware of the
backside of the cup, but the

484
00:26:36,540 --> 00:26:39,140
Cup's backside doesn't pop in
and out of existence.

485
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,640
Why will God is experiencing it?
Similarly, the molecular

486
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,280
structure of the cup that maybe
you know with a high-powered

487
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,040
microscope I could perceive, but
I'm not.

488
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,560
Currently the molecular
structure doesn't pop in and out

489
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,600
of existence because God is
always experiencing it.

490
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,880
So God is playing this really
big role, which as you've

491
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,160
pointed out, I want to get away
from for a variety of reasons.

492
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,900
So there is, I sort of think of
my my view as kind of a Neo

493
00:27:08,900 --> 00:27:11,140
Barkley in view.
So it's very much in the Barkley

494
00:27:11,140 --> 00:27:14,580
in tradition.
It's a realist view that you

495
00:27:14,580 --> 00:27:18,100
know, a view that says cups
exist, they're real, rocks

496
00:27:18,100 --> 00:27:20,900
exist, they're real.
You can't refute the view by

497
00:27:20,900 --> 00:27:27,660
kicking a rock.
But God is not the thing that's

498
00:27:27,660 --> 00:27:30,940
accounting for this stability
and persistence of objects and

499
00:27:30,940 --> 00:27:34,880
their properties.
A different sort of view that

500
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,040
has also been kind of
resurrected recently is the

501
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,040
phenomenalist view.
So phenomenalism is a position

502
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,520
according to which reality is
not constructed out of

503
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:51,200
experiences per se, It's
constructed out of potentials

504
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:56,080
for experience.
So this cup, you know, right now

505
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:00,800
I'm experiencing it.
I put it down and I'm not

506
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,400
looking at it.
But nevertheless, were I to turn

507
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:07,720
my head and look at the cup, I
would have certain experiences.

508
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,960
And according to the
phenomenalist, those potentials

509
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,040
to have experience, those maybe
conditionals, those

510
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:18,200
counterfactual claims those
obtain even when I'm not

511
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,120
actually looking at the cup.
And that is what the cup is

512
00:28:21,120 --> 00:28:23,640
constructed out of.
So this is a position that was

513
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:29,080
associated with Nil and that
Mike Pellisar has recently done

514
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:33,720
a an admirable, remarkable job
of resurrecting and defending.

515
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,800
So there's sort of another
version of idealism, or not

516
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,200
exactly idealism, but view in
the ballpark.

517
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:44,840
We've touched a little bit on
panpsychism.

518
00:28:45,650 --> 00:28:48,210
There are, of course, there are
a lot of views that are sort of

519
00:28:48,210 --> 00:28:50,970
idealists that are very of a
different kind.

520
00:28:50,970 --> 00:28:53,210
So there's sort of
transcendental idealist views,

521
00:28:53,210 --> 00:28:56,250
which have also recently been
resurrected as forms of

522
00:28:56,250 --> 00:28:59,570
linguistic idealism.
So these are views basically

523
00:28:59,570 --> 00:29:02,410
where we're not giving a view
about the nature of the world

524
00:29:02,410 --> 00:29:06,090
around us, we're giving a view
about the nature of what we can

525
00:29:06,090 --> 00:29:09,730
know and of the world as we
interact with it.

526
00:29:10,610 --> 00:29:14,830
Or maybe what it is that our
words are about in the more

527
00:29:14,830 --> 00:29:19,150
recent forms.
So I am very much not an expert

528
00:29:19,150 --> 00:29:22,070
on Kant, but Kant is is the
person associated with

529
00:29:22,070 --> 00:29:25,990
transcendental idealism, which
would be this sort of idea that

530
00:29:26,190 --> 00:29:28,870
there is a cup, a thing in and
of itself.

531
00:29:29,590 --> 00:29:33,310
But that is sort of outside of
the bounds of my ability to

532
00:29:33,310 --> 00:29:37,950
grasp What I grasp is something
that's more akin to what a

533
00:29:37,950 --> 00:29:39,790
Barkley and would would hold
that we grasp.

534
00:29:40,990 --> 00:29:45,120
So yeah, so we've got, we've got
a whole lot of of of different

535
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,680
but sort of interconnected web
of of views that are all cold

536
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:54,800
idealism or idealist adjacent.
Yeah.

537
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:59,880
So it's there's like a
plurality, I'm sorry, but of a

538
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:01,080
tongue twister there.
Yeah.

539
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,680
So there's a lot of, there's
many different views there, and

540
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,000
a lot of them sort of coincide
in certain ways.

541
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,600
But yours differs in some other
ways.

542
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,440
Why have you excluded God from
this?

543
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:13,440
Okay.
Good.

544
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,800
So I guess there's two reasons.
One is just that.

545
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,840
So I'm, I'm agnostic.
And for Barkley, God is playing

546
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,640
this really metaphysically like
heavyweight role, right?

547
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:29,000
I mean, God is ensuring that the
backside of my cup at every

548
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,870
moment continues to exist and
that you know that this has a

549
00:30:32,870 --> 00:30:35,190
molecular structure even when
I'm not looking at it under a

550
00:30:35,190 --> 00:30:39,750
microscope and so on.
And that's, I would kind of

551
00:30:39,750 --> 00:30:42,630
prefer a view that's just more
theologically neutral, in part

552
00:30:42,630 --> 00:30:47,950
because of my own agnosticism.
But beyond that, I think even if

553
00:30:47,950 --> 00:30:52,310
you are a theist, a committed
theist, that there is value in

554
00:30:52,390 --> 00:30:55,270
stepping away, at least
temporarily stepping back from

555
00:30:55,270 --> 00:31:01,160
God, playing the central rule.
Because I think that God kind of

556
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:08,080
is like a black box to us.
And I think, I think part of

557
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,040
that's that, you know, we don't
feel comfortable.

558
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:12,480
I mean, I certainly wouldn't
feel comfortable just

559
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,080
speculating about the structure
of God's mind and then what it's

560
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,240
like and how everything hangs
together, right.

561
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,160
It's something where you'd feel
sort of compelled to go and look

562
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,160
at at theology.
And even then the answer you're

563
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,000
going to get is probably divine
mystery.

564
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:28,480
We don't know.
Humans aren't going to

565
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,110
presuppose about what God is
like, right?

566
00:31:32,230 --> 00:31:35,830
So I think if we sort of step
back from talking and thinking

567
00:31:35,830 --> 00:31:39,030
about God, I mean God, you can
sort of smuggle a lot into God.

568
00:31:39,030 --> 00:31:41,910
You can say like well, God's
doing it and then it's sort of

569
00:31:41,910 --> 00:31:44,110
like that's a that's the end of
that, right?

570
00:31:44,110 --> 00:31:46,910
You shut the case, you've said
God and now there's nothing more

571
00:31:46,910 --> 00:31:49,550
to say.
And I I really think that we

572
00:31:49,550 --> 00:31:51,870
want to have a more substantive
views than that.

573
00:31:52,750 --> 00:31:56,540
So I think that, you know,
stepping back from God and just

574
00:31:56,540 --> 00:32:00,340
thinking about the structure of
the the mind or the phenomenal

575
00:32:00,340 --> 00:32:05,940
unity that constitutes reality
can enable us to do that, can

576
00:32:05,940 --> 00:32:09,700
enable us to say something more
substantive than a theistic.

577
00:32:09,700 --> 00:32:12,100
You could.
And if at the end of the day you

578
00:32:12,100 --> 00:32:14,900
have theistic inclinations and
want to add some of those

579
00:32:14,900 --> 00:32:19,070
traditional godly attributes
back into the picture, you can

580
00:32:19,070 --> 00:32:23,390
do that, but with a sense as to
how it all could work behind the

581
00:32:23,390 --> 00:32:25,870
scenes that I think you wouldn't
get otherwise.

582
00:32:27,790 --> 00:32:30,550
Within your agnosticism, I mean
weird.

583
00:32:30,590 --> 00:32:36,150
Are you most inclined towards
like are you inclined towards a

584
00:32:36,150 --> 00:32:39,990
sort of a theistic God, a
deistic God, polytheistic God,

585
00:32:39,990 --> 00:32:41,630
Or you look, what are you
looking at?

586
00:32:41,630 --> 00:32:45,230
If you had to sort of posit some
sort of a.

587
00:32:46,580 --> 00:32:48,340
Some some helpful Barkley
basically.

588
00:32:49,580 --> 00:32:52,700
Ah yeah.
Well myself I mean this this is

589
00:32:52,700 --> 00:32:55,740
not sort of part of the
arguments that I give but I'm

590
00:32:55,740 --> 00:32:59,300
I'm sort of agnostic between
sort of atheism and a deist God.

591
00:32:59,300 --> 00:33:02,700
I sort of.
I find I find the cosmological

592
00:33:02,700 --> 00:33:07,780
argument rather persuasive and I
find I find a particular variant

593
00:33:07,780 --> 00:33:11,100
of the fine tuning argument that
has to do with fine tuning

594
00:33:12,300 --> 00:33:16,210
psychophysical bridging laws
kind of also quite persuasive.

595
00:33:16,210 --> 00:33:23,250
So you know, dualists and
certain sorts of idealists take

596
00:33:23,250 --> 00:33:25,490
it that, you know, we've got our
brains and we've got conscious

597
00:33:25,490 --> 00:33:28,330
experiences and the relation
between this some sort of law

598
00:33:28,330 --> 00:33:29,890
like relation between them,
right.

599
00:33:29,890 --> 00:33:34,690
So when my brain is in Brain
State five, I'm having a reddish

600
00:33:34,690 --> 00:33:37,810
phenomenal experience.
Whereas the bridging laws could

601
00:33:37,810 --> 00:33:39,970
have been different, my inverted
twin could have been in brain

602
00:33:39,970 --> 00:33:42,370
state 5.
And if the laws were different,

603
00:33:42,410 --> 00:33:44,970
it could have caused a greenish
experience to be generated.

604
00:33:46,730 --> 00:33:49,890
And so, you know, this is a
standard way that do lists think

605
00:33:49,890 --> 00:33:52,810
about consciousness.
But then you can ask these

606
00:33:52,810 --> 00:33:56,730
questions like, well, why is it
that our experiences,

607
00:33:56,730 --> 00:33:58,570
particularly experiences like
pain?

608
00:33:58,930 --> 00:34:02,610
Why is it that our pain
experiences feel bad?

609
00:34:03,050 --> 00:34:05,130
You know, couldn't the bridging
laws have been different such

610
00:34:05,130 --> 00:34:09,730
that whenever we have tissue
damage occurring and signals

611
00:34:09,730 --> 00:34:11,889
being sent to our brain and this
thing happening in our brain

612
00:34:11,889 --> 00:34:15,670
that we feel pleasure, but, you
know, our brain, you know,

613
00:34:15,670 --> 00:34:17,909
causes us to pull away from it
even though we're actually

614
00:34:17,909 --> 00:34:20,830
feeling pleasure.
I think that that's perfectly

615
00:34:20,830 --> 00:34:25,949
possible, You might think, you
know, well, it's just, it was

616
00:34:25,949 --> 00:34:28,190
just good luck.
It was just luck that the

617
00:34:28,190 --> 00:34:30,550
bridging walls worked out right.
I mean, you could have someone

618
00:34:30,550 --> 00:34:34,870
who experiences pain as we feel
it but enjoys it.

619
00:34:34,909 --> 00:34:40,710
I mean, to some people, the wise
guy, yeah, I mean, I mean I tend

620
00:34:40,710 --> 00:34:42,949
to think that if for those cases
of actual people, there's

621
00:34:42,949 --> 00:34:46,230
probably other functional
differences within their brain

622
00:34:46,989 --> 00:34:50,070
beyond beyond this, but but
that's absolutely right.

623
00:34:51,190 --> 00:34:55,710
Yeah, So, but in any event, I
mean I guess if you don't want

624
00:34:55,710 --> 00:34:59,150
to pause it that that's sort of
just good luck and random.

625
00:34:59,470 --> 00:35:02,910
One way of going about
explaining that would be that

626
00:35:03,070 --> 00:35:06,510
God ensured that we had sensible
bridging laws, that God

627
00:35:06,510 --> 00:35:10,110
fine-tuned the bridging laws and
this is sort of, I mean there's

628
00:35:10,390 --> 00:35:15,600
it's a complicated argument but
I think this sort of fine tuning

629
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:17,960
argument gets away from you
can't do things like the

630
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:20,600
anthropocentric kind of
response, right.

631
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,600
So you know if the bridging laws
were different, we would still

632
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,560
be aware of the bridging laws
being different.

633
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,240
So so I'm I'm sort of I I find
those kinds of arguments

634
00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:33,720
somewhat persuasive and
persuasive enough to leave me as

635
00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:36,560
a as an agnostic.
But I I find the problem of

636
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:41,810
evil, the problem of suffering,
really just seems insurmountable

637
00:35:41,810 --> 00:35:43,290
to me.
So I'm not inclined to believe

638
00:35:43,290 --> 00:35:45,450
in the sort of God that Berkeley
would posit.

639
00:35:45,450 --> 00:35:47,730
It's.
Always fascinating to know

640
00:35:47,730 --> 00:35:51,530
someone's spiritual, religious
beliefs because a lot of the

641
00:35:51,530 --> 00:35:53,770
times it does play a role in the
way they view consciousness.

642
00:35:53,810 --> 00:35:59,010
I mean this is very fascinating.
Before by John Hogan called Mind

643
00:35:59,010 --> 00:36:03,130
Body Problems.
Where he dissects different

644
00:36:03,210 --> 00:36:06,850
philosophers and scientists and
talks about their upbringing and

645
00:36:06,850 --> 00:36:10,570
how they came to a certain view
that would expose them to have

646
00:36:10,570 --> 00:36:12,130
that philosophical view in the
end.

647
00:36:12,410 --> 00:36:15,970
So you think your agnosticism
played a role in this?

648
00:36:16,490 --> 00:36:19,530
In this idealist view of the
world?

649
00:36:21,650 --> 00:36:23,330
I would be inclined to think
not.

650
00:36:23,330 --> 00:36:27,010
But I'm probably too close to it
to be the best arbiter.

651
00:36:27,370 --> 00:36:30,160
I mean, I think, you know, the
sociology of philosophy, the

652
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,480
sociology of academics is like,
I mean, it seems fascinating to

653
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,520
me, although maybe it's just
because I'm an academic and so

654
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,720
everybody thinks the sociology
of them seems fascinating.

655
00:36:38,720 --> 00:36:42,880
But yeah, no, I mean, I think
it's a super cool question.

656
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:44,880
I might need more distance from
myself.

657
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,760
Yeah, now I do know that your
husband is as an ethicist and

658
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,800
you guys have written a lot of
papers together as well cuz this

659
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,270
podcast is also.
All about the nature of reality,

660
00:36:56,270 --> 00:36:58,710
morality, I mean, I think it all
plays a very big role.

661
00:36:58,710 --> 00:37:01,150
So meta ethics is a big part of
what you discuss as well.

662
00:37:02,270 --> 00:37:05,630
How do you think that this view
sort of changes the way we

663
00:37:05,630 --> 00:37:08,430
should behave morally?
I mean, how has it?

664
00:37:08,590 --> 00:37:13,150
How can it affect us?
So how?

665
00:37:13,350 --> 00:37:17,270
How idealism could affect us?
Or if people perceive the nature

666
00:37:17,270 --> 00:37:21,670
of reality in this way, then
they stand no physical person

667
00:37:21,670 --> 00:37:24,650
there.
There is mind that's possibly,

668
00:37:24,690 --> 00:37:29,530
yeah, there are these conscious
agents in a sense, but there is

669
00:37:29,530 --> 00:37:32,130
no physical person to actually
go and kick if I had to.

670
00:37:33,770 --> 00:37:39,050
How do you my, my answer might
be somewhat disappointing.

671
00:37:39,050 --> 00:37:43,850
So I I actually think that
there's probably very little by

672
00:37:43,850 --> 00:37:47,010
way of implications here.
And I think part of the reason

673
00:37:47,010 --> 00:37:52,640
is that one thing that I'm
aiming to do with with idealism

674
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:56,720
is to sort of show, to show
that, you know, we have our

675
00:37:56,720 --> 00:37:58,240
views about what the world is
like.

676
00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,120
And we get our views partly just
by the way the world seems to

677
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,640
us, partly from science, right
from gaining, we gain knowledge

678
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,760
all sorts of different ways.
But what I wanted to do is to

679
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:12,200
see, can we can we show that
there could be a world whose

680
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:16,440
nature is an idealist world that
looks just like we think the our

681
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:20,680
world actually is.
So in a sense, I'm sort of using

682
00:38:20,720 --> 00:38:23,440
the way that we think that the
world is as a guide.

683
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,160
And then trying to say, you
know, yeah, the world could be

684
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:30,040
just that way as an idealist
world, and that I think there

685
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:34,840
are some advantages to doing so.
But as a result, since I'm using

686
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,960
what we think about our world as
the guide, I think it's going to

687
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:41,600
wind up looking very much the
same as we ordinarily think.

688
00:38:42,720 --> 00:38:45,400
So I actually do think, you
know, you said there aren't

689
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:50,160
physical, there aren't physical
beings, and in a sense that's

690
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,200
right.
But in another sense that's

691
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,200
that's wrong, right?
So there are bodies that have

692
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,230
all of these.
You know, there are I I have a

693
00:38:58,230 --> 00:39:02,430
body and it's solid and it's
warm and you know, I have a

694
00:39:02,430 --> 00:39:04,390
brain and it's you cut my head
open.

695
00:39:04,390 --> 00:39:07,230
It's sort of Gray and squishy.
And if you look at me under an

696
00:39:07,230 --> 00:39:10,910
FM, RI, you know, you'd see
different patterns of things

697
00:39:10,910 --> 00:39:13,190
lighting up corresponding to
blood flow in my brain.

698
00:39:13,950 --> 00:39:16,630
And all of that's true.
So in a sense, in a sense, I'm

699
00:39:16,630 --> 00:39:18,390
sort of maybe making a very
Barkley in point.

700
00:39:18,390 --> 00:39:21,070
So Barkley, when people would
say you're doing away with

701
00:39:21,070 --> 00:39:24,100
matter, you're doing away with
with the world that we know it.

702
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:26,500
And he's like, no, I'm doing the
common sense thing.

703
00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:29,540
I'm giving you matter if what
you mean by matter is something

704
00:39:29,540 --> 00:39:31,700
we don't know anything at all
about.

705
00:39:31,780 --> 00:39:34,020
Yeah, I'm getting rid of that,
but I'm not getting rid of

706
00:39:34,020 --> 00:39:35,980
bodies.
I'm not getting rid of any of

707
00:39:35,980 --> 00:39:40,420
the properties you know about.
Okay, now that's a very good

708
00:39:40,420 --> 00:39:45,220
answer.
I think that there was a part of

709
00:39:45,220 --> 00:39:48,010
you wanted to ask at that point.
Let's say let's let's move

710
00:39:48,010 --> 00:39:50,410
beyond.
Let hurting someone or kicking

711
00:39:50,410 --> 00:39:52,690
someone.
What happens then when someone

712
00:39:52,690 --> 00:39:55,530
dies?
Cuz ideally at that point this

713
00:39:55,530 --> 00:39:57,130
is gonna become a very different
place.

714
00:39:57,450 --> 00:39:58,530
What?
What goes on then?

715
00:39:58,530 --> 00:40:02,170
What happens when someone dies
in this reality?

716
00:40:02,730 --> 00:40:05,130
Yeah.
I mean, I suppose there's a

717
00:40:05,130 --> 00:40:08,970
sense in which the idealist view
that I'm developing is sort of

718
00:40:09,290 --> 00:40:14,330
under, under determines that.
So certainly, you know, we have

719
00:40:14,330 --> 00:40:19,890
a body and it's fundamentally
made-up out of phenomenology.

720
00:40:20,330 --> 00:40:23,290
And I have a brain that's also
made-up out of phenomenology and

721
00:40:23,290 --> 00:40:26,450
it's going to start functioning
very differently, right, just as

722
00:40:26,450 --> 00:40:29,530
we ordinarily think.
So, you know, blood, my part's

723
00:40:29,530 --> 00:40:31,410
not going to be pumping blood,
my lungs aren't going to be

724
00:40:31,410 --> 00:40:35,090
breathing, decay is going to
eventually set in and the body

725
00:40:35,090 --> 00:40:38,770
is going to rot.
All of that's going to happen

726
00:40:39,130 --> 00:40:42,090
within the physical world and
just the way that we think that

727
00:40:42,090 --> 00:40:44,170
it does.
But the idealist is giving a

728
00:40:44,170 --> 00:40:48,880
particular account of sort of
the nature of the things that

729
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,720
are rotting, basically.
And the nature of the decay, I

730
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,640
guess itself is that it's it's
all sort of in some sense

731
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:58,320
phenomenal in some sense
conscious.

732
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,760
Not that my body remains
conscious.

733
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:04,400
It's not that there's a little
consciousness experience in my

734
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:08,770
body, but that, you know, what
do you think about the bones

735
00:41:08,770 --> 00:41:12,010
that make up my skeleton?
You know, yes, they're there.

736
00:41:12,010 --> 00:41:14,650
They're made-up out of whatever
molecules they're made-up out

737
00:41:14,650 --> 00:41:16,410
of, structured in the way that
they're structured.

738
00:41:16,610 --> 00:41:20,250
But what are those things
ultimately like, you know, what

739
00:41:20,250 --> 00:41:23,290
is?
You know, a physicist could give

740
00:41:23,290 --> 00:41:26,450
us a mathematical equation that
explains all of these things.

741
00:41:26,450 --> 00:41:28,850
They can tell us about the
relations between things.

742
00:41:29,770 --> 00:41:32,450
But what fundamentally is the
intrinsic nature?

743
00:41:32,450 --> 00:41:36,490
What are the things that have
these properties that have these

744
00:41:36,610 --> 00:41:39,490
sand and these relations?
I guess so that's what the

745
00:41:39,490 --> 00:41:43,970
idealist is telling us.
So you know the body is going to

746
00:41:43,970 --> 00:41:45,770
wither and rot.
Then there's the question of the

747
00:41:45,770 --> 00:41:48,810
mind, which we haven't really
talked about, how the mind and

748
00:41:48,810 --> 00:41:51,010
the body are related on the
idealist view.

749
00:41:52,170 --> 00:41:55,490
And I think there's not just one
view that ideals could have

750
00:41:55,490 --> 00:41:57,370
about this.
I think idealism is compatible

751
00:41:57,370 --> 00:42:01,580
with a number of different views
on this, but I think probably

752
00:42:01,580 --> 00:42:04,460
any view that a physicalist or a
dualist, I guess maybe more

753
00:42:04,460 --> 00:42:07,420
dualist could have on this would
be open to the physicalist, or

754
00:42:07,420 --> 00:42:09,380
sorry, would be open to the
idealist.

755
00:42:10,340 --> 00:42:14,260
So, you know, I think it would
be compatible with an afterlife

756
00:42:14,340 --> 00:42:16,940
to whatever extent other views
are compatible with the

757
00:42:16,940 --> 00:42:20,980
afterlife, but I don't think
idealism itself determines that.

758
00:42:23,620 --> 00:42:27,540
It's it's it's when you when you
talk about this nature of

759
00:42:27,540 --> 00:42:31,960
reality, this.
In this ideal world, let's talk

760
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:34,600
about things like that.
We talk that a lot of people,

761
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,920
let's say illusionists for
example, that try and count

762
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,160
these arguments.
We're saying, look, the truth

763
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:43,720
is, is that our perception of
reality is not what we think it

764
00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:45,800
is.
Fundamentally, the more we've

765
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,720
been learning, the more we've
been exposing how little we

766
00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:52,320
know, how little we matter and
how not important we are.

767
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:54,920
For example, down taking us off
the top of the food chain.

768
00:42:55,370 --> 00:42:57,290
And you've got people taking us
out of the center of the

769
00:42:57,290 --> 00:42:59,170
universe slowly.
We're learning that this is not

770
00:42:59,170 --> 00:43:01,850
really about us.
And because we have these

771
00:43:01,850 --> 00:43:04,290
experience doesn't mean it
should be fundamental to

772
00:43:04,290 --> 00:43:07,330
reality.
So does that bring us towards

773
00:43:07,330 --> 00:43:11,450
some sort of a solipsistic view
on how we view ourselves and

774
00:43:12,010 --> 00:43:15,880
consciousness?
Well, mind, yeah.

775
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,480
There's actually a sense in
which I think that idealism of

776
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,680
the sort that I'm interested in
meshes really well with the

777
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:24,160
observations that you were
making.

778
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:28,600
So, you know, you talked about
Darwin taking us off of the, you

779
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:31,040
know, Darwin just putting us.
We're just another animal,

780
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,640
right?
And our sun isn't the center of

781
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,200
the universe.
Our planet isn't the center of,

782
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:40,730
you know, the solar system right
now.

783
00:43:40,890 --> 00:43:43,090
When I talked about idealism
thus far, and I was talking

784
00:43:43,090 --> 00:43:46,210
about Berkeley and idealism, I
mean, I was giving examples of

785
00:43:46,210 --> 00:43:48,170
the sorts of experiences that I
have.

786
00:43:48,850 --> 00:43:53,010
And I was saying all of these
things seem like, you know,

787
00:43:53,170 --> 00:43:55,250
they're telling me something
about reality, like they're a

788
00:43:55,250 --> 00:44:01,210
part of reality.
And on the view that I, I

789
00:44:01,210 --> 00:44:05,450
defend, that is true.
So in a sense I am, I am saying

790
00:44:05,450 --> 00:44:08,350
the thing that you're
disagreeing with, namely that

791
00:44:08,430 --> 00:44:10,430
our experiences are a part of
reality.

792
00:44:10,910 --> 00:44:14,270
But I don't think that that's in
any way privileged or special.

793
00:44:15,110 --> 00:44:19,070
So in a sense I'm completely
agree with with the the, the

794
00:44:19,950 --> 00:44:24,790
examples that you're giving.
So I yes, I have certain

795
00:44:24,790 --> 00:44:26,870
experiences.
I look out and I see a tree and

796
00:44:26,870 --> 00:44:32,030
it looks green and the greenness
I think seems like it's there as

797
00:44:32,030 --> 00:44:34,670
part of reality and the idealist
is going to say it is.

798
00:44:35,390 --> 00:44:39,150
But my inverted twin where there
to be an inverted twin here

799
00:44:39,150 --> 00:44:42,190
would look out and would see a
tree and it would look red.

800
00:44:43,070 --> 00:44:45,430
There's no reason we should
privilege my experiences over my

801
00:44:45,430 --> 00:44:48,190
inverted twins.
Redness just as well seems like

802
00:44:48,190 --> 00:44:49,510
it belongs this part of the
world.

803
00:44:50,150 --> 00:44:54,230
Similarly, A/B has their
perceptions.

804
00:44:54,230 --> 00:44:58,190
A/B perceives maybe ultraviolet
that I don't perceive that all

805
00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:00,480
just as well.
I mean nothing privileged in my

806
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,400
experiences.
The bees experiences seem like

807
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:03,960
they're equally well part of
reality.

808
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:07,440
The bat echo locating it's
experiences equally well seem

809
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,840
like they count as part of
reality and you can go on and on

810
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,320
and on and on and all of these
experiences none of them seem

811
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,680
privileged or prior to any of
the others.

812
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,760
So for the idealist view that
that I'm developing and I would

813
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:23,030
be inclined to think that really
on a Barkley in view as well all

814
00:45:23,030 --> 00:45:26,910
of this is part of reality and
there's not sort of a there's

815
00:45:26,910 --> 00:45:30,430
not special glowing experiences
that are the real true ones.

816
00:45:30,670 --> 00:45:34,910
The all equally count And if you
think about it you know God.

817
00:45:35,150 --> 00:45:38,790
Barkley's God doesn't just
perceive the world from a human

818
00:45:38,790 --> 00:45:41,390
point of view, right?
He doesn't have a single vantage

819
00:45:41,390 --> 00:45:43,390
point on the world.
The idea is that you perceive

820
00:45:43,390 --> 00:45:47,270
the totality of the He perceives
the totality of the world, which

821
00:45:47,270 --> 00:45:50,710
is going to include vastly more
than human beings are aware of.

822
00:45:51,970 --> 00:45:56,450
So the idealist view, there's a
lot of phenomenology and it's

823
00:45:56,450 --> 00:46:00,650
not for, from my view, not
necessarily for all idealist

824
00:46:00,650 --> 00:46:04,650
views, human experiences are not
privileged in a way that they

825
00:46:04,650 --> 00:46:07,450
would be maybe for like John
Foster, possibly.

826
00:46:08,450 --> 00:46:11,090
In psychiatry, there's this
field that's called

827
00:46:11,250 --> 00:46:15,250
phenomenological
psychopathology, and there's

828
00:46:15,570 --> 00:46:17,450
there are these two tools used
to try and.

829
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,880
Understand schizophrenic
patients, one is called the ease

830
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:25,640
and the other is called the EE.
We but it's the examination of a

831
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:29,800
normal self experience and the
examination of anomalous world

832
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,600
experience.
So what happens is you look at

833
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:34,880
this patient and you try and
understand while they psycho

834
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,000
almost becoming psychotic so
close to psychosis, they start

835
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:40,960
to to do all the things you're
talking about.

836
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,720
I mean to have these different
experience that are so diverse

837
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,000
from the average experience.
I mean, someone starts seeing.

838
00:46:47,460 --> 00:46:51,060
The world as being a part of it,
being part of consciousness,

839
00:46:51,060 --> 00:46:53,700
someone, someone might not see,
read the same anymore.

840
00:46:54,100 --> 00:46:56,820
Some of them even don't see
visual illusions that we often

841
00:46:56,820 --> 00:46:58,940
see.
They they actually see it as

842
00:46:58,980 --> 00:47:02,580
accurate representations.
They see the truth.

843
00:47:02,580 --> 00:47:04,900
Actually, they see more than we
do in that sense.

844
00:47:05,380 --> 00:47:07,020
So.
So it's intriguing to see how

845
00:47:07,020 --> 00:47:11,580
different experiences do exist
even among this one species that

846
00:47:11,580 --> 00:47:15,740
has really identical DNA.
I mean, we're all basically the

847
00:47:15,740 --> 00:47:18,580
same.
It kind of fits with your view

848
00:47:18,580 --> 00:47:21,260
in a sense, if you think about
it, Yeah.

849
00:47:21,260 --> 00:47:23,860
Yeah, no.
And questions about how to deal

850
00:47:23,860 --> 00:47:26,140
with hallucinations and
illusions are also just like a

851
00:47:26,140 --> 00:47:29,500
super interesting question.
And I think even within just

852
00:47:29,500 --> 00:47:32,540
sort of like a neurotypical
subject, I mean, you think about

853
00:47:32,540 --> 00:47:38,100
things like after images, right,
where you're looking at some red

854
00:47:38,100 --> 00:47:41,620
light and the relevant
photoreceptors become fatigued.

855
00:47:41,620 --> 00:47:43,620
And then you look away at a
white wall and you see this

856
00:47:43,620 --> 00:47:46,420
green patch.
Well, in a sense, you know what

857
00:47:46,420 --> 00:47:50,740
you're perceiving of the wall.
On my view like that really is a

858
00:47:50,740 --> 00:47:53,180
feature of the wall.
The greenness of the wall is a

859
00:47:53,180 --> 00:47:55,940
feature that some other, you
know, some other creature with a

860
00:47:55,940 --> 00:47:58,660
different sort of visual system
that maybe only is capable of

861
00:47:58,660 --> 00:48:01,980
seeing green, green light would
see.

862
00:48:02,420 --> 00:48:07,420
And that also is a feature that
is a part of reality and that

863
00:48:07,420 --> 00:48:10,380
puts us in touch with reality
but in a very different way from

864
00:48:10,380 --> 00:48:13,100
the way that we normally are.
But I think I think there are

865
00:48:13,220 --> 00:48:15,660
challenges for the idealist and
how to make sense of these

866
00:48:15,660 --> 00:48:19,380
things.
It's a it's a complex picture,

867
00:48:19,380 --> 00:48:22,420
but but yeah, I think the
idealist has the resources to

868
00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:26,730
deal with the complexity.
The I think it's really

869
00:48:26,730 --> 00:48:32,010
fascinating to see when someone
really becomes, when there are

870
00:48:32,010 --> 00:48:35,290
psych patients where I mean, I
don't mean to use them as like

871
00:48:35,290 --> 00:48:38,330
tools of examples as, but it's
really fascinating to see.

872
00:48:38,330 --> 00:48:41,690
So when someone becomes truly
solipsistic, where they really

873
00:48:41,690 --> 00:48:44,690
think that once they close their
eyes and nothing else exists,

874
00:48:45,610 --> 00:48:48,010
it's an intriguing thing to
perceive because I've witnessed

875
00:48:48,010 --> 00:48:49,140
it.
Impatient.

876
00:48:49,740 --> 00:48:52,940
And when you see how real that
feels for the person, you can

877
00:48:52,940 --> 00:48:55,300
understand that that might be a
real feeling.

878
00:48:55,300 --> 00:48:57,380
I mean, it might be a real
experience.

879
00:48:57,780 --> 00:49:00,060
And so it does coincide well
with what you're saying.

880
00:49:00,060 --> 00:49:03,300
I mean this, this could just be
the way that the world really is

881
00:49:03,300 --> 00:49:07,820
for all of us, fundamentally.
But yet, this person is just

882
00:49:07,820 --> 00:49:10,300
fortunate enough to experience
the reality of it all.

883
00:49:12,500 --> 00:49:16,170
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I guess, sorry, I've had

884
00:49:16,170 --> 00:49:17,650
a whole lot of thoughts as
you've been talking.

885
00:49:17,650 --> 00:49:21,690
So one is that, I mean there's
there's an interesting question

886
00:49:21,690 --> 00:49:24,570
about what sorts of things for
the idealists are part of

887
00:49:24,570 --> 00:49:27,650
reality and what sorts of things
are just parts of our minds.

888
00:49:28,010 --> 00:49:32,370
So the way that I think about
it, I the the view that I I

889
00:49:32,450 --> 00:49:37,450
develop is 1 on which reality is
this vast unity of

890
00:49:37,450 --> 00:49:41,290
consciousness, but it's just
sort of sensory experiences that

891
00:49:41,290 --> 00:49:46,810
are bound together into a unity.
So if you sort of think, Jim,

892
00:49:46,810 --> 00:49:49,290
maybe would it be okay if I sort
of said a little bit about my

893
00:49:49,290 --> 00:49:53,290
view and how it works?
Explain this Okay.

894
00:49:53,290 --> 00:49:59,970
So, so we had sort of Barclays
view that I gave where we have

895
00:49:59,970 --> 00:50:02,290
God, and God is always
perceiving the totality of

896
00:50:02,290 --> 00:50:04,890
reality.
God doesn't just see the world

897
00:50:04,890 --> 00:50:07,730
from a single vantage point.
He sees it from all vantage

898
00:50:07,730 --> 00:50:09,770
point.
He sees, you know, he sees all

899
00:50:09,770 --> 00:50:12,930
of it.
But it seems like there's a lot

900
00:50:12,930 --> 00:50:18,970
about God that's not essential
to to ensuring the stability and

901
00:50:18,970 --> 00:50:21,970
persistence of the world as he
needs to for Barclays view.

902
00:50:22,450 --> 00:50:26,370
So, you know, I think God
doesn't have to be all good.

903
00:50:26,370 --> 00:50:28,850
God doesn't have to be all
powerful.

904
00:50:29,090 --> 00:50:30,890
I don't think God has to be an
agent.

905
00:50:30,930 --> 00:50:33,410
I don't think God's beliefs are
a part of what's doing the work.

906
00:50:33,410 --> 00:50:36,130
What's doing the work is God's
experiences, right?

907
00:50:36,490 --> 00:50:39,370
And God's experiences.
God is not just having, you

908
00:50:39,370 --> 00:50:42,970
know, a giant experience sense
of everything that's happening,

909
00:50:42,970 --> 00:50:44,970
that's just all disconnected
from itself.

910
00:50:45,530 --> 00:50:47,650
God's experiences are structured
in the same way that our

911
00:50:47,650 --> 00:50:51,290
experiences are structured.
So when I when I look at a tree,

912
00:50:51,290 --> 00:50:54,410
I don't just see greenness and
leaf shape and brownness and

913
00:50:54,410 --> 00:50:56,810
trunk shape all sort of
scattered around.

914
00:50:57,460 --> 00:50:59,940
The leaf shape and the greenness
are bound together.

915
00:51:00,300 --> 00:51:02,700
The brownness and the trunk
shape are bound together.

916
00:51:03,340 --> 00:51:06,660
My experience has structure
along various different

917
00:51:06,660 --> 00:51:10,340
dimensions and the thought is
that God's experience in order

918
00:51:10,340 --> 00:51:13,700
to be a single experience of the
world and in order to be

919
00:51:13,700 --> 00:51:16,580
coherent has to have structure
too.

920
00:51:16,700 --> 00:51:20,420
And so God is having the thought
is for Berkeley, we can sort of

921
00:51:20,420 --> 00:51:23,860
think of God as having this
gigantic multi perspective

922
00:51:23,860 --> 00:51:26,990
experience and that experience,
that multi perspective

923
00:51:26,990 --> 00:51:30,870
experience is what's doing the
work of ensuring that the world

924
00:51:31,190 --> 00:51:34,710
persists even when we we are not
perceiving it when we are not

925
00:51:34,710 --> 00:51:40,110
there.
So for me, reality, just the

926
00:51:40,110 --> 00:51:44,790
physical world around us, just
is this structured multi

927
00:51:44,790 --> 00:51:47,870
perspective experience
structured using the same

928
00:51:47,870 --> 00:51:49,870
resources that structure our own
experiences.

929
00:51:49,870 --> 00:51:52,510
And you sort of refer to it as
like a tapestry of reality.

930
00:51:53,310 --> 00:51:54,070
Yeah.
Yeah.

931
00:51:54,070 --> 00:51:55,510
So I like the analogy of the
tapestry.

932
00:51:55,510 --> 00:51:57,950
Because the tapestry, you've got
all these threads that are,

933
00:51:58,310 --> 00:52:00,830
they're not just separate
threads like, you know, piles of

934
00:52:00,950 --> 00:52:04,550
little yarn everywhere, right?
There are threads, which in in

935
00:52:04,550 --> 00:52:07,390
the case of reality are
phenomenal threads, bits of bits

936
00:52:07,390 --> 00:52:09,510
of experiences.
And then they're.

937
00:52:09,710 --> 00:52:12,510
But they're structured, they're
woven together into a single

938
00:52:12,510 --> 00:52:15,870
hole unit, kind of like a
tapestry.

939
00:52:16,950 --> 00:52:20,510
But so on this view, the idea is
that what makes up reality is

940
00:52:20,510 --> 00:52:25,250
sensory experiences.
So you know, experiences of

941
00:52:25,330 --> 00:52:29,650
color and warmth and solidity
and line and and and smell and

942
00:52:29,650 --> 00:52:34,010
pitch and so on.
Now there are more to our

943
00:52:34,010 --> 00:52:36,210
experiences than just sensory
experiences.

944
00:52:36,210 --> 00:52:39,450
So I I think, I'm inclined to
think there's something called

945
00:52:39,450 --> 00:52:42,250
cognitive phenomenology.
So this is the phenomenology of

946
00:52:42,250 --> 00:52:45,760
thought.
And I'm inclined to think that

947
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,480
cognitive phenomenology is not a
part of the physical world

948
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:51,080
itself.
The cognitive phenomenology sort

949
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,320
of comes from our minds, and
it's kind of like like a

950
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:58,880
cognitive overlay on reality.
So when I'm aware of the

951
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:05,000
physical world around me, of
this sensory tapestry, I don't

952
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,320
know, do you remember those
overhead transparencies?

953
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,750
Did you have these when you were
a kid in school the the clear,

954
00:53:11,750 --> 00:53:13,990
the clear overhead and then they
put it down and then they could

955
00:53:13,990 --> 00:53:15,790
like write on it with markers
and you could put another

956
00:53:15,790 --> 00:53:18,390
overhead transparency on top.
I kind of think about cognitive

957
00:53:18,390 --> 00:53:25,230
analogy like a like a overhead
transparency on reality but

958
00:53:25,230 --> 00:53:29,750
that's coming from our minds.
So sorry, this has taken us

959
00:53:29,990 --> 00:53:31,630
quite far from where you
started.

960
00:53:31,830 --> 00:53:37,670
But you had this really
interesting point about, well,

961
00:53:37,870 --> 00:53:45,260
you you had, you'd raised this
really interesting case of of

962
00:53:45,260 --> 00:53:49,580
people who wind up, you know,
not just believing that they're

963
00:53:49,580 --> 00:53:53,060
the only person who exists, but
having this experience, the

964
00:53:53,060 --> 00:53:58,700
sensation as of being, you know,
the the only thing that's real.

965
00:53:59,890 --> 00:54:02,610
And so I think I think it's
quite interesting because on

966
00:54:02,610 --> 00:54:05,650
this sort of view, cases like
that, there's going to be a

967
00:54:05,650 --> 00:54:08,210
question of is that what kind of
phenomenology is that?

968
00:54:08,210 --> 00:54:11,770
Is that some sort of cognitive
phenomenology or is that

969
00:54:11,770 --> 00:54:16,650
actually sensory phenomenology?
And not obviously not all

970
00:54:16,650 --> 00:54:18,970
sensory phenomenology is part of
the physical world.

971
00:54:18,970 --> 00:54:21,210
I think there can be
hallucinations that are part of

972
00:54:21,770 --> 00:54:24,050
our mind but not the physical
world.

973
00:54:25,140 --> 00:54:28,780
But it is interesting because
whether whether something is

974
00:54:28,900 --> 00:54:33,860
purely cognitive or whether it's
sensory does wind up playing a

975
00:54:33,860 --> 00:54:36,700
big role in in how we think
about it fitting into reality.

976
00:54:38,420 --> 00:54:41,460
Along your view with in your
idealism, you also talk about

977
00:54:41,460 --> 00:54:43,740
naive idealism.
Do you wanna touch on that as

978
00:54:43,740 --> 00:54:45,980
well?
Sure, yeah.

979
00:54:46,820 --> 00:54:51,060
So this is a view about
perception that I think that

980
00:54:51,100 --> 00:54:53,220
idealism meshes really well
with.

981
00:54:53,850 --> 00:54:59,010
So for the idealist, for the
idealism, just as I as I've

982
00:54:59,010 --> 00:55:02,050
stated it, just as a view about
the physical world and what the

983
00:55:02,050 --> 00:55:04,410
physical world is ultimately
like.

984
00:55:06,450 --> 00:55:08,410
But then there are all these
other questions that that

985
00:55:08,570 --> 00:55:10,890
doesn't touch on.
So when one question is, it

986
00:55:10,890 --> 00:55:14,450
doesn't tell us about how our
minds relate to our brains.

987
00:55:15,170 --> 00:55:17,450
So it doesn't directly answer
the mind body problem, although

988
00:55:17,450 --> 00:55:20,860
it has implications for it.
Another thing that it doesn't do

989
00:55:20,860 --> 00:55:26,580
is it doesn't tell us anything
about how it is that we, maybe

990
00:55:26,580 --> 00:55:29,220
our minds, interact with the
world, how it is that we

991
00:55:29,220 --> 00:55:36,060
perceive the world around us.
And I I think I mentioned

992
00:55:36,060 --> 00:55:40,640
earlier that when I had 1st come
to idealism and started thinking

993
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:43,720
about it, part of what what led
me to do that was thinking about

994
00:55:43,720 --> 00:55:46,880
this view, naive realism, which
is this.

995
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:50,280
This idea that what perception
is essentially is this relation

996
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:53,920
between us and objects in the
world.

997
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,720
And that when we stand in this
relation, sort of the objects in

998
00:55:56,720 --> 00:56:00,720
the world in some sense become a
part of the experience or part

999
00:56:00,720 --> 00:56:02,440
of the character of the
experience.

1000
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:06,740
And that's something that always
struck me as really, really

1001
00:56:06,740 --> 00:56:11,580
mystifying, and it still strikes
me as completely mystifying.

1002
00:56:13,660 --> 00:56:18,260
The basic idea behind naive
idealism is that that that sort

1003
00:56:18,260 --> 00:56:21,820
of intuitive idea of perception
that naive realists want to hold

1004
00:56:21,820 --> 00:56:26,260
on to is something that I think
we can get and we can get really

1005
00:56:26,260 --> 00:56:31,700
intelligibly, but only if the
objects in the external world

1006
00:56:31,700 --> 00:56:36,020
that we're related to are
themselves mental or phenomenal

1007
00:56:36,020 --> 00:56:41,140
kinds of things.
So I mean, I think it doesn't

1008
00:56:41,140 --> 00:56:45,300
make any sense to take an apple,
a material apple, and sort of

1009
00:56:45,300 --> 00:56:48,180
shove it into a computer
program, right?

1010
00:56:48,180 --> 00:56:52,100
I mean, I take my team mug for
anybody who sees this online and

1011
00:56:52,100 --> 00:56:56,660
I try shoving it at the screen.
I don't therefore put my mug

1012
00:56:56,860 --> 00:57:01,060
into the computer, right?
It's just not the right kind of

1013
00:57:01,060 --> 00:57:03,140
thing to be a part of the
computer or part of the computer

1014
00:57:03,140 --> 00:57:06,340
program.
Similarly, my mug is not the

1015
00:57:06,340 --> 00:57:09,340
right kind of thing to become,
you know, a physical, material

1016
00:57:09,340 --> 00:57:11,460
mug.
I don't understand how it can be

1017
00:57:11,460 --> 00:57:14,900
a part of an experience.
I understand how I can be

1018
00:57:14,940 --> 00:57:18,020
related to it in different ways,
but I don't understand how it

1019
00:57:18,020 --> 00:57:20,620
can be an elementary constituent
of an experience or the

1020
00:57:20,620 --> 00:57:22,540
phenomenal character of my
experience.

1021
00:57:23,510 --> 00:57:28,390
By contrast, if you think about
something like maybe stepping

1022
00:57:28,390 --> 00:57:33,350
back from thinking about
perception, it's really easy to

1023
00:57:33,350 --> 00:57:37,310
see how my experiences just in
general can be constituents of

1024
00:57:37,390 --> 00:57:40,470
other experiences and other and
and judgments and things in my

1025
00:57:40,470 --> 00:57:44,910
mind, right?
So when I introspect and I, I

1026
00:57:46,430 --> 00:57:48,950
don't know, I feel slightly hot,
right?

1027
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,680
I'm able to directly.
My mind is able to directly

1028
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:55,520
apprehend the hot feeling that I
have right now.

1029
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:59,080
And the hot feeling can actually
become sort of a part of the

1030
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:01,320
thought.
It doesn't stand at a distance

1031
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:03,160
from the thought.
They're both constituents of.

1032
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:04,920
They're both sort of mental
things, right?

1033
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,520
There's the the hot feeling and
then there's the thought about

1034
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:10,160
it.
And there's not a mystery as to

1035
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:13,280
how the one can can literally
sort of subsume the other.

1036
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:21,890
Well, if if the the cup itself
is a phenomenal item is is a bit

1037
00:58:21,890 --> 00:58:27,010
of phenomenology, the thought is
that we can have the same sort

1038
00:58:27,010 --> 00:58:32,450
of thing be true of perception.
So I actually think I might need

1039
00:58:32,450 --> 00:58:37,330
to say a little bit about that.
You might.

1040
00:58:37,330 --> 00:58:39,450
I'll just try saying it without
backing up anymore.

1041
00:58:40,690 --> 00:58:45,900
Explain yourself as as much as
possible so that it's all right.

1042
00:58:45,900 --> 00:58:50,220
Well, I the idea is that when we
perceive objects, our mind

1043
00:58:50,220 --> 00:58:53,860
literally comes to overlap with
the perceived objects.

1044
00:58:55,140 --> 00:58:59,820
So when I perceive the cup, the
cup, it winds up.

1045
00:58:59,900 --> 00:59:02,820
The cup is a part of the
phenomenal tapestry.

1046
00:59:02,820 --> 00:59:05,810
It's a part of the physical
world, but the idea is that the

1047
00:59:05,810 --> 00:59:09,090
cup also becomes unified with my
mind.

1048
00:59:09,170 --> 00:59:11,130
So, So.
And how is it that this is

1049
00:59:11,130 --> 00:59:12,930
possible?
Well, the cup is more

1050
00:59:12,930 --> 00:59:15,930
phenomenology.
The cup is kind of like pain.

1051
00:59:16,330 --> 00:59:19,290
Pain can be unified with the
rest of my experiences.

1052
00:59:20,170 --> 00:59:25,250
And similarly the cup itself, my
mind can sort of in perception,

1053
00:59:25,250 --> 00:59:29,250
can sort of reach out and expand
and pull the cup into it in a

1054
00:59:29,250 --> 00:59:32,130
sense.
So I mean, we're not physically

1055
00:59:32,630 --> 00:59:35,950
pulling the cup into it, like in
terms of a spatial relation, but

1056
00:59:35,950 --> 00:59:40,550
the thought is that the elements
of my mind are unified with the

1057
00:59:40,550 --> 00:59:44,510
cup in the same way that they're
unified with my pains or my warm

1058
00:59:44,510 --> 00:59:47,750
feeling.
So the cup actually in a sense,

1059
00:59:47,750 --> 00:59:50,110
is part of the physical world,
but it's also a part of me.

1060
00:59:50,390 --> 00:59:53,200
And as such I can think about it
directly.

1061
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,960
I can directly grasp and
apprehend it and know about it.

1062
00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:01,480
And that, I think, is one of the
things that idealism can get,

1063
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:03,880
that materialism can't get.
And that, I think, is a really

1064
01:00:03,960 --> 01:00:06,080
interesting advantage to the
view.

1065
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:11,920
This is bringing me back to one
of your papers.

1066
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:18,800
I think it's called dualism.
All the way down you're talking

1067
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:22,130
about, you talk about phenomenal
judgment, you talk about self

1068
01:00:22,130 --> 01:00:24,290
knowledge.
And I know how critical this

1069
01:00:24,290 --> 01:00:27,450
relationship is.
What is the paradox there?

1070
01:00:27,450 --> 01:00:29,490
I forgot what it was called the
Paradox of.

1071
01:00:30,010 --> 01:00:31,690
The paradox of phenomenal
judgment.

1072
01:00:31,690 --> 01:00:35,130
Yes, explain that to me.
Cuz while reading it, a part of

1073
01:00:35,130 --> 01:00:37,290
me was just a little bit
confused.

1074
01:00:37,290 --> 01:00:39,050
I wanted to just understand that
a little bit more.

1075
01:00:40,210 --> 01:00:43,570
Yeah, yeah.
So this is a paradox that

1076
01:00:43,570 --> 01:00:45,090
doesn't have to do with
idealism.

1077
01:00:45,090 --> 01:00:47,370
Particularly.
It's a paradox for

1078
01:00:47,410 --> 01:00:53,030
epiphenomenalist dualism.
So, you know, the dualist thinks

1079
01:00:53,350 --> 01:00:56,670
takes it, that you know, there's
there's the physical world and

1080
01:00:56,670 --> 01:01:00,350
then there's also consciousness,
And consciousness can't be

1081
01:01:00,350 --> 01:01:02,110
reduced to things in the
physical world.

1082
01:01:02,110 --> 01:01:09,790
So we sort of need a duality,
and we quickly run into this

1083
01:01:09,790 --> 01:01:12,630
problem if you're a dualist,
namely the problem of how

1084
01:01:12,950 --> 01:01:16,990
consciousness and the physical
stuff interact with each other.

1085
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:22,040
So, and there are there are some
reasons that I sort of think I

1086
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:25,480
we mentioned very early on for
thinking that they actually

1087
01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:28,680
can't, that maybe the physical,
maybe physical stuff can call

1088
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:31,920
generate consciousness, but the
consciousness, we should think

1089
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,160
that consciousness can't
actually affect the physical

1090
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,400
world.
Why not?

1091
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:39,880
Well, it seems like every
physical event can be entirely

1092
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:41,760
explained in terms of earlier
physical events.

1093
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:44,480
Or at least you know, every
physical event that has a calls

1094
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:49,420
or something like that.
So that's one reason.

1095
01:01:49,420 --> 01:01:52,820
I mean, conservation of energy
also is going to potentially

1096
01:01:53,300 --> 01:01:57,740
play into this.
So that might push you towards a

1097
01:01:57,740 --> 01:02:01,740
version of dualism called
epiphenomenalism, which is the

1098
01:02:01,740 --> 01:02:05,340
view basically that every
physical event, everything

1099
01:02:05,340 --> 01:02:07,700
happening in my brain,
everything happening in my body,

1100
01:02:07,700 --> 01:02:10,140
can be explained entirely in
terms of earlier things

1101
01:02:10,140 --> 01:02:13,500
happening in my brain, my body,
the physical world around me.

1102
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:19,240
So I can completely explain all
of this without needing to posit

1103
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:23,600
consciousness.
But there also is consciousness,

1104
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:25,600
and consciousness is not just
physical.

1105
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:31,480
So when I, you know, take a
pencil and I stab myself and the

1106
01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:34,640
signals sent to my brain and my
brain does it's whatever it

1107
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:39,360
does, then there's also, you
know, I say ah and I pull away

1108
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,360
from the pencil.
But I also have an experience of

1109
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:44,480
pain.
And the experience of pain

1110
01:02:44,480 --> 01:02:46,920
itself doesn't cause me to do
anything.

1111
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:51,000
The experience of pain doesn't
affect anything in the world.

1112
01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:53,960
We could get rid of it and I
would still go and I would still

1113
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:56,200
pull away from it.
So that's the epiphenomenalist

1114
01:02:56,200 --> 01:02:59,080
position.
And it's a position that seems

1115
01:02:59,960 --> 01:03:02,080
deeply counterintuitive to many
people.

1116
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:07,360
Because, you know, you think,
isn't it obvious that when I go

1117
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:12,370
and I order, you know?
You know, I order a cup of tea

1118
01:03:12,850 --> 01:03:15,930
that I ordered tea because I was
thirsty and wanted caffeine,

1119
01:03:15,930 --> 01:03:17,610
right?
I mean, isn't that what could be

1120
01:03:17,610 --> 01:03:20,370
more obvious than that?
And for the epiphenomenalist,

1121
01:03:20,370 --> 01:03:23,530
that's just not the case, right?
You ordered the cup of tea.

1122
01:03:23,530 --> 01:03:25,170
Why?
Well, because your brain was

1123
01:03:25,170 --> 01:03:27,970
sending certain signals down to
your body which caused Baba

1124
01:03:27,970 --> 01:03:32,410
Baba, Baba, Baba.
But you also do feel thirst.

1125
01:03:32,650 --> 01:03:34,250
Now why does the
epiphenomenalist told this?

1126
01:03:34,250 --> 01:03:36,490
Well, because the
epiphenomenalist is convinced.

1127
01:03:37,060 --> 01:03:40,580
By the you know first that we
have conscious experiences, that

1128
01:03:40,580 --> 01:03:43,580
nothing could be more obvious
than that because we feel them,

1129
01:03:44,060 --> 01:03:48,740
And 2nd that physicalism can't
account for these conscious

1130
01:03:48,740 --> 01:03:53,220
experiences.
So we pause at the experiences

1131
01:03:53,220 --> 01:03:55,980
because we know that there are
experiences, not because we

1132
01:03:55,980 --> 01:03:57,820
think we need them to do causal
work.

1133
01:04:00,100 --> 01:04:02,900
But then you run into this
problem.

1134
01:04:02,900 --> 01:04:06,220
The problem of the paradox of
phenomenal judgments.

1135
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:09,960
Sorry, I realized how I took us
off course there.

1136
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:13,400
But but it's fine.
Sorry.

1137
01:04:13,880 --> 01:04:15,760
Well, we're here now.
I guess.

1138
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:20,640
So the paradox of phenomenal
judgments is basically this idea

1139
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:24,280
that, you know, there are these
experiences, The experiences

1140
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:28,000
don't come down and sort of
affect my brain.

1141
01:04:28,930 --> 01:04:33,370
So how is it that I could
possibly know about these

1142
01:04:33,370 --> 01:04:36,250
experiences if they're not
actually doing any causal work?

1143
01:04:38,530 --> 01:04:45,370
And so this paper is attempting
to respond to this, to this, and

1144
01:04:45,370 --> 01:04:48,570
to give an account of how it is
that a dualist, an

1145
01:04:48,570 --> 01:04:52,090
epiphenomenalist dualist, could
accept that you actually can

1146
01:04:52,090 --> 01:04:55,490
know about your experiences,
even if they're epiphenomenal.

1147
01:04:56,850 --> 01:04:59,290
And actually it it sort of made
sense that you you thought of

1148
01:04:59,290 --> 01:05:02,970
this in in the earlier response
that I was giving.

1149
01:05:02,970 --> 01:05:08,010
I think because the response
that I give their appeals to the

1150
01:05:08,010 --> 01:05:12,730
idea that the experiences
themselves, while they're not a

1151
01:05:12,730 --> 01:05:17,690
part of my brain, they are a
part of my mind and they are

1152
01:05:17,730 --> 01:05:21,570
embedded in a sense in the
judgments which are also mental

1153
01:05:21,570 --> 01:05:23,130
things.
So there is this conscious

1154
01:05:23,130 --> 01:05:25,690
judgment that has as a
constituent.

1155
01:05:26,620 --> 01:05:30,060
The the pain itself or the
phenomenal redness itself.

1156
01:05:30,740 --> 01:05:34,580
And what I'm aware of is the
conscious judgment and the the

1157
01:05:34,580 --> 01:05:37,900
thing that I'm judging and both
of those things are generated by

1158
01:05:37,900 --> 01:05:41,860
my mind.
But the awareness sort of isn't

1159
01:05:41,860 --> 01:05:45,220
happening in my physical brain.
The awareness is all stuff

1160
01:05:45,220 --> 01:05:47,940
that's being generated by my
brain and is all happening sort

1161
01:05:47,940 --> 01:05:52,700
of at the conscious mental level
in a sense, Helen, who do you

1162
01:05:53,020 --> 01:05:57,610
Which philosophers or
philosophical views do you think

1163
01:05:57,610 --> 01:06:01,330
challenge your nature of reality
the most?

1164
01:06:07,450 --> 01:06:12,290
Huh.
It was interesting to see how we

1165
01:06:12,490 --> 01:06:16,650
perceive our the people who say
no to our theories.

1166
01:06:17,810 --> 01:06:21,650
Yeah, Well, I mean, I mean, who
gives the best examples of why

1167
01:06:21,850 --> 01:06:25,490
this wouldn't be true?
Yeah, it's a little hard.

1168
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:29,360
It's a little I I I'm sort of
paused for a little bit, in part

1169
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:31,680
because I'm not it.
It's.

1170
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:35,400
I think maybe the task that I've
set myself in a sense is easier

1171
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:37,760
than the task that I think a lot
of idealists have set themselves

1172
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:40,720
in that I'm not trying to argue
that you have to be an idealist.

1173
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:44,520
I'm just trying to argue that
idealism is possible as opposed

1174
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:48,000
to that it's necessarily true.
I'm trying 1st that it's

1175
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:50,780
possible and 2nd that it's.
More likely than you might have

1176
01:06:50,780 --> 01:06:53,540
thought.
So it's it's harder to give a

1177
01:06:53,540 --> 01:06:57,100
knockdown argument of that than
it would be to give a knockdown

1178
01:06:57,100 --> 01:07:00,220
argument of.
This is necessarily the way that

1179
01:07:00,220 --> 01:07:04,340
reality is.
So I mean, if you wanted to

1180
01:07:04,340 --> 01:07:09,860
argue that it's not even
possible, sounds like a very

1181
01:07:09,860 --> 01:07:11,940
strange, it seems like a very
hard task to set yourself right.

1182
01:07:11,940 --> 01:07:13,740
It's not possible.
I think the biggest pretty much

1183
01:07:13,780 --> 01:07:16,060
impossible.
I think that's why this fists.

1184
01:07:16,060 --> 01:07:17,860
I mean it's cuz no one can do
that.

1185
01:07:18,260 --> 01:07:20,070
It's, yeah.
I mean, I think the biggest

1186
01:07:20,350 --> 01:07:24,150
challenges to idealism come from
the incredible complexity of

1187
01:07:24,150 --> 01:07:28,270
idealism.
That's not necessarily a view as

1188
01:07:28,270 --> 01:07:32,710
just a straight up problem that
the idealist has to reckon with.

1189
01:07:33,110 --> 01:07:35,110
So I mean, like I was telling
you when you when you were

1190
01:07:35,110 --> 01:07:38,270
pointing out that, you know,
well, look, we're not at the top

1191
01:07:38,310 --> 01:07:39,850
of the.
You know, maybe we're at the top

1192
01:07:39,850 --> 01:07:41,850
of the food chain, but we're not
at the top of, like, in the

1193
01:07:41,850 --> 01:07:44,530
sense we're not has some
privileged glowing place in

1194
01:07:44,530 --> 01:07:47,610
reality, right.
And I was like, yeah, but I

1195
01:07:47,610 --> 01:07:50,090
don't think our experiences have
a privileged glowing place in

1196
01:07:50,090 --> 01:07:52,330
reality.
There's, you know, the tapestry

1197
01:07:52,370 --> 01:07:56,930
of reality is this, you know,
incredibly complex, rich thing

1198
01:07:56,930 --> 01:07:59,650
that includes far more than us.
And our experiences aren't in

1199
01:07:59,650 --> 01:08:03,370
any way special.
But once you accept and embrace

1200
01:08:03,370 --> 01:08:06,570
that, you see the reality for an
idealist.

1201
01:08:07,460 --> 01:08:10,580
Is incredibly complicated.
I mean, you know, you think,

1202
01:08:10,740 --> 01:08:12,580
well, my experiences are part of
reality.

1203
01:08:12,940 --> 01:08:16,220
The experiences that an inverted
twin would have, they're part of

1204
01:08:16,220 --> 01:08:17,660
reality.
The experiences of bat would

1205
01:08:17,660 --> 01:08:19,700
have the experiences the bee
would have the experiences the

1206
01:08:19,700 --> 01:08:21,899
snake would have, the
experiences the Martian would

1207
01:08:21,899 --> 01:08:24,140
have.
I mean, once you get to that,

1208
01:08:24,140 --> 01:08:27,500
you're like, is there any limit
to all the experiences that are

1209
01:08:27,500 --> 01:08:31,020
bound up as part of reality?
Or is reality sort of infinitely

1210
01:08:31,020 --> 01:08:34,689
complex?
And I think there are ways for

1211
01:08:34,689 --> 01:08:37,090
the idealist to stave off the
idea that it's infinitely

1212
01:08:37,090 --> 01:08:41,410
complex, but it does wind up
being incredibly complex.

1213
01:08:41,410 --> 01:08:44,770
Whereas, you know, a materialist
can come at the idealist and

1214
01:08:44,770 --> 01:08:48,850
say, look, we just think there's
this little simple particle and

1215
01:08:48,850 --> 01:08:51,930
it just has one simple little
nature to it.

1216
01:08:52,810 --> 01:08:55,090
And it, you know, combines with
other particles that are

1217
01:08:55,090 --> 01:08:57,370
similarly simple and
minimalistic.

1218
01:08:58,090 --> 01:09:02,569
And the diversity of experiences
is just something that happens

1219
01:09:02,609 --> 01:09:05,410
when you have different
perceivers who actually are

1220
01:09:05,410 --> 01:09:08,970
perceiving things, but those
aren't extra parts of reality

1221
01:09:08,970 --> 01:09:12,850
and they don't exist unless
there actually is a bee or a bat

1222
01:09:12,850 --> 01:09:16,410
or a person in the room.
So I think that that's really

1223
01:09:16,410 --> 01:09:18,930
the the biggest challenge for
idealism just is the the

1224
01:09:18,930 --> 01:09:23,290
profligacy of it, I guess the
idea that that it has all this

1225
01:09:23,290 --> 01:09:27,870
richness built into reality.
Are there any specific idealists

1226
01:09:27,870 --> 01:09:31,990
or people who believe that
ideally that the fundamental

1227
01:09:32,029 --> 01:09:34,109
fundamental nature of reality is
mind?

1228
01:09:34,510 --> 01:09:38,229
Any specific philosophers or
scientists today that you think

1229
01:09:38,229 --> 01:09:41,750
are providing this view with a
lot of backing and like support

1230
01:09:42,029 --> 01:09:45,710
in a very effective manner?
Yeah.

1231
01:09:46,109 --> 01:09:50,830
Ooh, you're just gonna see my
own ignorance and how the extent

1232
01:09:50,830 --> 01:09:52,390
to which I'm in my own mind
here.

1233
01:09:54,550 --> 01:09:57,710
Yeah, I mean there are a lot of
there are a lot of different

1234
01:09:57,710 --> 01:10:01,710
people playing with a lot of
very different but related

1235
01:10:01,710 --> 01:10:05,710
views.
I'm mostly more views are very

1236
01:10:05,710 --> 01:10:07,910
different from each other.
It's from what I've gathered so

1237
01:10:07,910 --> 01:10:09,470
far.
Right, right.

1238
01:10:09,870 --> 01:10:12,670
So I mean, I'm more familiar
with the the philosophical side

1239
01:10:12,670 --> 01:10:15,590
of things, although I'd love to
learn from you about people in

1240
01:10:15,590 --> 01:10:18,070
other disciplines who are doing
relevant related work.

1241
01:10:18,830 --> 01:10:21,830
So I mean, I think there's a lot
of work in.

1242
01:10:22,270 --> 01:10:26,790
Panpsychism has sort of had a a
bit of a rise before idealism

1243
01:10:26,790 --> 01:10:28,950
has, so it's sort of more well
known and has had more

1244
01:10:28,950 --> 01:10:32,750
development of it.
But I know Noam Chomsky had been

1245
01:10:32,750 --> 01:10:35,990
referencing Galen Strawson, who
is, as he says, quite brilliant

1246
01:10:36,590 --> 01:10:40,270
and excellent, and Philip Goff
had a March.

1247
01:10:40,270 --> 01:10:44,870
So there's been a lot of a lot
of panpsychists recently who've

1248
01:10:44,870 --> 01:10:47,230
been sort of developing and
trying to refine and hone those

1249
01:10:47,230 --> 01:10:49,110
views.
They're quite different views, I

1250
01:10:49,110 --> 01:10:51,790
think.
From from the view that I'm

1251
01:10:51,790 --> 01:10:56,710
interested in, I I really admire
the work of Mike Pellisar who's

1252
01:10:56,710 --> 01:10:59,470
a phenomenalist.
Again, a very different sort of

1253
01:10:59,510 --> 01:11:02,950
view.
But he's done just remarkable

1254
01:11:02,950 --> 01:11:08,670
job of of trying to show that
phenomenalism, which is a view

1255
01:11:08,670 --> 01:11:11,830
that I think a lot of people had
decided was dead and buried,

1256
01:11:12,430 --> 01:11:15,430
actually has a lot more going
for it than than you might

1257
01:11:15,430 --> 01:11:16,950
think.
And he's somebody who also.

1258
01:11:16,950 --> 01:11:19,790
You're asking about views that
pose challenges to idealism.

1259
01:11:20,350 --> 01:11:24,030
He's somebody that that does do
that, that actually directly

1260
01:11:24,030 --> 01:11:26,950
takes and says, look,
phenomenalism Trump's idealism

1261
01:11:26,950 --> 01:11:31,070
and gives a really kind of
clever argument to that effect.

1262
01:11:31,550 --> 01:11:41,710
So Pellisar argues that we he
sort of imagines a world that

1263
01:11:42,470 --> 01:11:44,350
has one sort of intrinsic
nature.

1264
01:11:44,350 --> 01:11:47,630
Maybe it's a materialist world.
And then overnight while we're

1265
01:11:47,630 --> 01:11:50,480
sleeping.
The nature of the world changes

1266
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:53,880
and now it's a Barkley in world.
And then overnight it changes

1267
01:11:53,880 --> 01:11:55,760
again.
Now it's a panpsychist world.

1268
01:11:55,880 --> 01:11:59,560
Then overnight it changes again
and you know it's we're all

1269
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:04,640
living in the Matrix and but of
course throughout all of this

1270
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:08,280
there is no, no change
whatsoever to anything that we

1271
01:12:08,280 --> 01:12:10,280
observe.
The world seems from our

1272
01:12:10,280 --> 01:12:13,960
perspective exactly the same.
And then you imagine that at the

1273
01:12:13,960 --> 01:12:16,940
end of all of this.
You know, the newspapers reveal,

1274
01:12:16,940 --> 01:12:19,580
you know, nature of reality
constantly shifting.

1275
01:12:19,580 --> 01:12:21,700
Like, now what would the
newspapers say?

1276
01:12:21,700 --> 01:12:25,700
Would they say that the world
like ceased to exist and when

1277
01:12:25,700 --> 01:12:27,660
every night the world is ceased
to exist?

1278
01:12:28,140 --> 01:12:30,660
No, they wouldn't say that
they'd, you know, they'd

1279
01:12:30,660 --> 01:12:34,420
completely ignore it, right?
Or they'd be like, huh, weird

1280
01:12:34,420 --> 01:12:37,950
fact.
So the the lesson that Pelzar

1281
01:12:37,950 --> 01:12:41,430
draws from this is that what's
essential to being our world,

1282
01:12:41,430 --> 01:12:43,990
the world that we care about, is
the thing that all of these

1283
01:12:43,990 --> 01:12:47,990
things have in common, namely
the potentials for experiences

1284
01:12:47,990 --> 01:12:49,510
that we're having throughout all
of these.

1285
01:12:50,830 --> 01:12:55,790
And so, you know, it's not even
if even if our world ultimately

1286
01:12:55,790 --> 01:12:59,750
has, you know, a Barkley and
God, that's sort of is at the

1287
01:12:59,750 --> 01:13:01,820
base of it.
That's not really what's

1288
01:13:01,820 --> 01:13:04,420
essential to being our world.
What's really essential is the

1289
01:13:04,420 --> 01:13:08,700
potentials for experience.
So this is something that that

1290
01:13:08,700 --> 01:13:10,980
Pellisar has sort of argued
against all the other views,

1291
01:13:10,980 --> 01:13:13,260
which I think is a fun and
clever argument.

1292
01:13:15,260 --> 01:13:18,420
Great argument.
Yeah, I think the idealist can

1293
01:13:18,780 --> 01:13:22,500
can resist it, whereas I think
the other people can't resist

1294
01:13:22,500 --> 01:13:23,860
it, which is I think kind of
cool.

1295
01:13:25,100 --> 01:13:28,500
But it would be very difficult
to tell the difference if it did

1296
01:13:28,500 --> 01:13:33,000
change constantly.
Yeah, this is very several

1297
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:35,840
philosophical questions indeed.
Yeah, yeah.

1298
01:13:36,080 --> 01:13:38,360
Well, I mean, I think, I think,
you know, the way that an

1299
01:13:38,360 --> 01:13:42,520
idealist potentially could
resist it is, you know, if you

1300
01:13:42,520 --> 01:13:46,120
imagine that the world has been,
imagine an idealist world.

1301
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:50,720
And as I said, as I said a
little bit ago when we were

1302
01:13:50,720 --> 01:13:53,480
talking about naive idealism,
about the theory of perception

1303
01:13:53,480 --> 01:13:57,400
that I I proposed for the
idealist.

1304
01:13:58,260 --> 01:14:01,180
We're directly in contact with
reality, right?

1305
01:14:01,180 --> 01:14:04,300
We directly grasp the world
around us.

1306
01:14:04,740 --> 01:14:08,620
So I a way that I like to put
it, is that So?

1307
01:14:08,860 --> 01:14:12,060
Dave Chalmers has this paper
where he talks about, like

1308
01:14:12,060 --> 01:14:14,500
perception of the fall from
Eden, where he imagined this

1309
01:14:14,500 --> 01:14:17,820
perceptual Eden.
And in perceptual Eden, you

1310
01:14:17,820 --> 01:14:20,860
know, the world, the world was
just as it seemed, right?

1311
01:14:20,860 --> 01:14:22,780
The world seems like it
includes.

1312
01:14:23,100 --> 01:14:25,740
Here we go.
I've got a green dinosaur I'm

1313
01:14:25,740 --> 01:14:27,560
holding up.
The world seems like it

1314
01:14:27,560 --> 01:14:31,160
includes, you know, phenomenal
greenness there as a part of it.

1315
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:33,440
Greenness is a primitive element
of reality.

1316
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:39,680
And it seems like I directly
apprehend this greenness when I

1317
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:41,720
look at the green dinosaur that
I'm holding up.

1318
01:14:43,160 --> 01:14:45,880
And then, you know, Chalmers
says, look, we think these

1319
01:14:45,880 --> 01:14:48,110
things.
And then we do some science and

1320
01:14:48,110 --> 01:14:50,550
we realized, no, greenness isn't
out there in the world.

1321
01:14:50,550 --> 01:14:53,230
There's just a surface
reflectance property that the

1322
01:14:53,230 --> 01:14:55,950
dinosaur has certain wavelengths
of light bounce off of it.

1323
01:14:55,950 --> 01:14:58,270
My brain does certain things and
I have an experience as a

1324
01:14:58,270 --> 01:15:00,550
result.
But there's no like green

1325
01:15:00,550 --> 01:15:05,750
property out there in the world.
And you know, similarly we maybe

1326
01:15:05,750 --> 01:15:08,790
think that we directly
apprehend, you know, properties

1327
01:15:08,790 --> 01:15:10,510
in the world, that we directly
grasp them.

1328
01:15:11,030 --> 01:15:13,550
And then we learned that no,
actually, we only grasp them in

1329
01:15:13,550 --> 01:15:17,870
this very indirect way through
this long, complicated causal

1330
01:15:17,870 --> 01:15:24,110
chain of of, you know, physics.
Now, if idealism is right, we

1331
01:15:24,110 --> 01:15:29,350
actually do live in Eden, right?
If idealism is right, the world

1332
01:15:29,350 --> 01:15:34,950
around us is precisely the world
that it seems Greenness, warmth,

1333
01:15:35,190 --> 01:15:39,630
you know, all of these things
are actually part of reality.

1334
01:15:40,910 --> 01:15:43,310
And furthermore, they're part of
reality that we directly

1335
01:15:43,310 --> 01:15:45,510
apprehend.
We don't stand at a distance

1336
01:15:45,510 --> 01:15:48,710
from them and just sort of, you
know, you know, get them

1337
01:15:48,710 --> 01:15:51,110
indirectly and then have some
experience that our brain

1338
01:15:51,110 --> 01:15:53,510
generates, right.
We really are in touch with

1339
01:15:53,510 --> 01:15:56,670
reality.
So I think if that's right and

1340
01:15:56,670 --> 01:15:59,950
if we imagine that we live in an
idealist world, you know, that's

1341
01:15:59,950 --> 01:16:01,350
the world that we've always
grown up in.

1342
01:16:01,350 --> 01:16:04,470
And then, you know, at midnight
last night, it turns out that

1343
01:16:04,910 --> 01:16:08,350
the nature of reality changed.
And now we all live in a

1344
01:16:08,350 --> 01:16:13,310
materialist world.
I actually do think, whoa, wait

1345
01:16:13,310 --> 01:16:15,550
a minute.
We went from having a world that

1346
01:16:15,550 --> 01:16:18,590
is just the way that it seems
that has greenness as part of

1347
01:16:18,590 --> 01:16:23,230
it, that I directly apprehend to
a world that I'm only indirectly

1348
01:16:23,230 --> 01:16:26,070
in touch with and I, you know,
just sort of stand at a distance

1349
01:16:26,070 --> 01:16:28,630
from and there's no greenness or
warmth in the world.

1350
01:16:29,910 --> 01:16:32,350
That's a big cost.
And yeah, I do think, you know,

1351
01:16:32,630 --> 01:16:36,990
maybe that maybe we would say
the world that we knew is gone.

1352
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:40,800
So I think I think The Idealist
has some resources to respond,

1353
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:43,120
but I still think it's a very,
very clever argument.

1354
01:16:43,240 --> 01:16:48,080
But ideally, ideally, ideally,
if if everything is

1355
01:16:48,080 --> 01:16:52,040
fundamentally matter or mind,
there shouldn't, there shouldn't

1356
01:16:52,040 --> 01:16:55,200
necessarily be a change in our
perception when the thing does

1357
01:16:55,200 --> 01:17:00,440
change from material to to mind.
I mean, it shouldn't actually

1358
01:17:00,440 --> 01:17:03,920
still feel the same way, except
we haven't learned the science.

1359
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:08,010
Perhaps in this new
materialistic world, Yeah, that

1360
01:17:08,010 --> 01:17:11,610
provides us with the knowledge.
Now that that's not true, you

1361
01:17:11,610 --> 01:17:14,290
probably would still experience
it as.

1362
01:17:14,410 --> 01:17:18,570
Yeah, this we would still, yeah,
it would still seem the same way

1363
01:17:18,570 --> 01:17:22,210
to us, but in a sense something
very different would be going

1364
01:17:22,210 --> 01:17:23,930
on.
So it would be kind of, you

1365
01:17:23,930 --> 01:17:26,690
know, like you know, I could
have.

1366
01:17:27,060 --> 01:17:29,140
I know this is just a
philosopher's imagination of

1367
01:17:29,140 --> 01:17:31,660
hallucinations that we don't
actually have, hallucinations

1368
01:17:31,660 --> 01:17:35,020
that are qualitatively
indistinguishable from from this

1369
01:17:35,100 --> 01:17:38,020
this world.
But, you know, you could, we can

1370
01:17:38,020 --> 01:17:41,340
imagine that I, I could have a
hallucination of talking to you

1371
01:17:41,340 --> 01:17:44,180
right now on the computer that
would be exactly from the

1372
01:17:44,180 --> 01:17:49,580
inside, feel exactly the same
way, but without there being any

1373
01:17:49,580 --> 01:17:54,830
reality outside of my mind.
So I think we can't necessarily

1374
01:17:54,830 --> 01:17:58,030
read off from the way that
things would seem from the

1375
01:17:58,030 --> 01:18:05,510
inside to to to sorts of
questions about like whether

1376
01:18:05,510 --> 01:18:08,190
we're truly perceiving things
and how we're related to things.

1377
01:18:09,030 --> 01:18:14,670
Is there anything surrounding
you, your view on idealism that

1378
01:18:14,670 --> 01:18:17,870
you that you've always wanted to
argue or say or talk about that

1379
01:18:17,870 --> 01:18:20,390
you've been holding in and you
just really wanted to get out

1380
01:18:20,390 --> 01:18:22,440
there.
I think that would be the best

1381
01:18:22,440 --> 01:18:26,920
time.
Gosh, I mean something you've

1382
01:18:26,960 --> 01:18:29,520
always felt misunderstood by.
I mean, have people ever come to

1383
01:18:29,520 --> 01:18:32,720
you and said, like, do you, why
do you think that the world is

1384
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:34,040
all mine?
Like, have people come to you

1385
01:18:34,040 --> 01:18:36,040
with some basic arguments that
you've always felt?

1386
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:39,600
Let me clarify and clear this up
right now.

1387
01:18:40,600 --> 01:18:44,240
Yeah, I mean, definitely
idealism is extremely

1388
01:18:44,240 --> 01:18:48,520
misunderstood, I mean.
I guess there's a, I guess the

1389
01:18:48,520 --> 01:18:51,480
two things that jump out are,
which are things that I've said

1390
01:18:51,480 --> 01:18:57,200
before but but that still I
think maybe they're they're

1391
01:18:57,200 --> 01:19:00,240
forcefully repeating.
So the first is just that

1392
01:19:00,240 --> 01:19:03,440
idealism is not at least this
one of ideals view that I am

1393
01:19:03,720 --> 01:19:06,000
defending and that people like
Barkley are defending.

1394
01:19:06,680 --> 01:19:11,360
It's not an antirealist view.
It's a it's not a theory

1395
01:19:11,360 --> 01:19:14,120
according to which there is no
world, there is no physical

1396
01:19:14,120 --> 01:19:17,560
reality.
It's a view about the nature of

1397
01:19:17,560 --> 01:19:20,120
the world and the nature of that
physical reality.

1398
01:19:20,600 --> 01:19:23,040
So you've got the I don't
remember who it was.

1399
01:19:23,040 --> 01:19:25,920
Do you remember who it was who
was trying to refute Barkley by

1400
01:19:25,920 --> 01:19:27,560
kicking the stone and saying I
refute you?

1401
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:37,440
Thus, I think it was not luck.
Anyway, is it a famous, famous.

1402
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:38,920
Famous.
Ridiculous.

1403
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:40,760
Ridiculous.
No.

1404
01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:41,520
No, no, no, no it wasn't.
Was it not humor?

1405
01:19:41,560 --> 01:19:44,560
No, I don't.
It wasn't a super famous

1406
01:19:44,560 --> 01:19:46,680
philosopher.
It was, yeah.

1407
01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:50,680
Some I kind of know what you're
talking about now.

1408
01:19:50,680 --> 01:19:51,840
Just.
Yeah, yeah.

1409
01:19:51,840 --> 01:19:55,360
So I mean, and it's, I mean,
it's just such a ridiculous

1410
01:19:55,360 --> 01:19:56,840
misunderstanding of the view,
right?

1411
01:19:56,840 --> 01:19:59,250
Because.
The view precisely is 1 where

1412
01:19:59,250 --> 01:20:01,570
there are rocks, and it's trying
to give an account of what the

1413
01:20:01,570 --> 01:20:03,890
rocks are.
So I mean, darkly what?

1414
01:20:03,930 --> 01:20:05,570
Rocks are.
That's the problem is that we

1415
01:20:05,570 --> 01:20:06,850
don't really know what rocks
are.

1416
01:20:07,690 --> 01:20:09,610
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so.

1417
01:20:09,610 --> 01:20:13,650
I mean it doesn't help anyone.
No, it doesn't.

1418
01:20:13,650 --> 01:20:16,570
It doesn't help itself either.
No, it doesn't.

1419
01:20:18,330 --> 01:20:20,610
But so you think.
That's why I like to sort of

1420
01:20:20,610 --> 01:20:22,490
think about ideals.
I meant to present it to people

1421
01:20:22,490 --> 01:20:26,780
who are physicalists.
With that sort of analogy to how

1422
01:20:26,780 --> 01:20:29,660
reductive physicalists think
about the mind, you know, look,

1423
01:20:30,020 --> 01:20:32,740
you're not denying you at least
don't think that.

1424
01:20:32,740 --> 01:20:35,300
You're denying that there is
such a thing as consciousness.

1425
01:20:35,420 --> 01:20:37,900
You're trying to give an account
of what it is, an analysis of

1426
01:20:37,900 --> 01:20:39,620
it.
And similarly, I'm not trying to

1427
01:20:39,620 --> 01:20:41,980
deny that there are rocks.
I'm trying to give an analysis

1428
01:20:42,020 --> 01:20:45,620
of what their nature is.
So that's that's one thing.

1429
01:20:45,620 --> 01:20:48,820
I mean, I think the other thing
is that I think when people hear

1430
01:20:48,820 --> 01:20:51,540
you talking about idealism and
hear you defending idealism.

1431
01:20:52,230 --> 01:20:54,950
It's always naturally assumed
that you are an idealist and

1432
01:20:54,950 --> 01:20:57,830
that you think that the world is
an idealist world.

1433
01:20:57,830 --> 01:21:02,510
And I'm actually engaged in a
project that's, as I said, a

1434
01:21:02,510 --> 01:21:05,390
little bit, maybe sneakier than
that and harder to argue

1435
01:21:05,390 --> 01:21:07,270
against.
Which is just the project of

1436
01:21:07,270 --> 01:21:13,510
arguing that, you know, there
could be a world that is just as

1437
01:21:13,550 --> 01:21:17,870
our world seems to us, that has
a particular sort of nature and

1438
01:21:17,870 --> 01:21:21,000
idealist nature.
And then second, looking at, you

1439
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:25,120
know, suppose that we, we take a
world that seems just as our

1440
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:26,640
world does.
It's an idealist world.

1441
01:21:26,760 --> 01:21:29,800
And suppose we take a world that
seems just as our world does.

1442
01:21:30,200 --> 01:21:32,080
That's a materialist world.
I think that there are both

1443
01:21:32,080 --> 01:21:36,520
sorts of, I think both sorts of
things are possible and, you

1444
01:21:36,520 --> 01:21:39,840
know, take each of these
possibilities and look at the

1445
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:43,600
complete, total worldview that's
on offer from both sides.

1446
01:21:43,900 --> 01:21:46,060
So not just what it says about
the metaphysics, but what it

1447
01:21:46,060 --> 01:21:48,660
says about the mind body
problem, what it says about the

1448
01:21:48,660 --> 01:21:54,380
nature of perception.
And then, you know, take those

1449
01:21:54,380 --> 01:21:58,580
total packages and see which one
of these looks more plausible

1450
01:21:58,580 --> 01:22:00,340
and has more theoretical
virtues.

1451
01:22:00,860 --> 01:22:02,460
And that's the project that I'm
engaged in.

1452
01:22:02,460 --> 01:22:05,300
It's the project of of not
arguing that you can't accept a

1453
01:22:05,300 --> 01:22:08,480
certain view.
But of arguing, you can accept

1454
01:22:08,480 --> 01:22:11,280
this view.
And furthermore, when we compare

1455
01:22:11,280 --> 01:22:14,360
the total packages, it actually
looks much better than you would

1456
01:22:14,360 --> 01:22:16,440
have thought, and perhaps better
than the materialist view.

1457
01:22:16,800 --> 01:22:20,440
Yeah, you're trying to ensure
that people apply as an

1458
01:22:20,440 --> 01:22:23,760
important level of credence to
this view, as opposed to perhaps

1459
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:26,880
a materialistic view, because
ideally when people think about

1460
01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:30,040
it, they automatically shun it
down as if it's completely

1461
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:32,680
absurd.
But when you hear certain

1462
01:22:32,760 --> 01:22:35,080
people's arguments you it means
it's clear that this is a

1463
01:22:35,080 --> 01:22:38,320
possibility.
This is because the for people

1464
01:22:38,320 --> 01:22:41,800
when I started this, if I was
let's say 10 years ago, 20 years

1465
01:22:41,800 --> 01:22:44,520
ago, I would be completely
materialist.

1466
01:22:44,520 --> 01:22:46,320
I'd be physicalist all the way
down.

1467
01:22:46,600 --> 01:22:51,440
And even though my intuitions
are very much physicalist, I

1468
01:22:51,440 --> 01:22:55,320
still don't I know how much we
don't know the unknown unknowns

1469
01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:57,840
it's so it's so it's almost
impossible to have that

1470
01:22:58,120 --> 01:23:01,640
Gnosticism regarding reality.
I think Raymond tell us.

1471
01:23:01,760 --> 01:23:04,440
I often bring it up.
He he he says he's ontologically

1472
01:23:04,440 --> 01:23:08,100
agnostic, but epistemologically
he knows most of us are wrong.

1473
01:23:08,100 --> 01:23:11,100
I mean that.
Sounded about right.

1474
01:23:11,380 --> 01:23:12,740
I love that because that's so
true.

1475
01:23:12,740 --> 01:23:14,380
That's exactly why I have this
podcast.

1476
01:23:14,380 --> 01:23:16,980
I mean it's it's an opportunity
for someone to bring up of you

1477
01:23:17,020 --> 01:23:20,140
just like this, I mean, and to
have that opportunity to discuss

1478
01:23:20,140 --> 01:23:22,580
it, Helen.
I mean, if we had to like close

1479
01:23:22,580 --> 01:23:26,180
off, if you had to think of five
philosophers, your favorite 5

1480
01:23:26,180 --> 01:23:27,820
philosophers.
I know it's difficult.

1481
01:23:27,820 --> 01:23:31,020
It's like picking a mad Rosmo of
like big people.

1482
01:23:31,220 --> 01:23:33,340
Who would those be?
Because I feel like when people

1483
01:23:33,540 --> 01:23:36,650
read your work, get to know who
you are, they're gonna want to

1484
01:23:36,650 --> 01:23:39,170
know who are the people they
should read that inspire you and

1485
01:23:39,170 --> 01:23:44,090
make you the philosophy today.
Okay, Well, I would definitely

1486
01:23:44,090 --> 01:23:47,890
say Dave Chalmers, who I know
you've had previous guests, at

1487
01:23:47,890 --> 01:23:52,490
least one not so favorable
things about.

1488
01:23:52,490 --> 01:23:56,890
So I'll just give a plug for
Dave, hopefully have Dave

1489
01:23:56,890 --> 01:23:58,370
onsoons at some point.
So it's fine.

1490
01:23:58,770 --> 01:24:01,700
Fantastic.
Well, everybody will enjoy his

1491
01:24:01,900 --> 01:24:05,900
his podcast.
So actually another person who

1492
01:24:05,900 --> 01:24:09,820
you've already had on whose work
I I just absolutely love is Eric

1493
01:24:09,820 --> 01:24:13,820
Schwitzkable, who I think I
mean, just both in terms of

1494
01:24:13,820 --> 01:24:19,500
defending views that might seem
bonkers but then giving really

1495
01:24:19,500 --> 01:24:22,460
interesting, creative arguments
for them that are incredibly

1496
01:24:22,460 --> 01:24:24,180
fun.
I mean anybody who has the

1497
01:24:24,180 --> 01:24:26,100
opportunity to read any of his
his work.

1498
01:24:26,140 --> 01:24:28,100
I mean, everything he writes is
just.

1499
01:24:28,730 --> 01:24:31,330
It's really fun to read.
Eric is very underrated, I

1500
01:24:31,330 --> 01:24:32,890
thought.
I enjoy his work very much.

1501
01:24:33,010 --> 01:24:35,090
Yeah.
And actually my husband had

1502
01:24:35,090 --> 01:24:38,370
asked me who I thought the the
whatever the best philosopher of

1503
01:24:38,370 --> 01:24:41,050
mind in the world besides
Chalmers was.

1504
01:24:41,450 --> 01:24:44,850
And I was like, ah, you know,
and he's like, well, who would

1505
01:24:44,850 --> 01:24:48,730
you, who would you, whose work
would you be most excited about

1506
01:24:48,730 --> 01:24:50,890
reading if you heard some new
paper come out?

1507
01:24:50,890 --> 01:24:52,890
And the tricky thing with that
is that you know.

1508
01:24:53,360 --> 01:24:55,680
In general, it's the kind of
people who work on the stuff

1509
01:24:55,680 --> 01:24:58,000
that I work on.
But I did realize that of all

1510
01:24:58,000 --> 01:25:01,120
the people who don't do directly
the stuff that I work on, hands

1511
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:03,600
down it's Eric Schwitzkable.
Because anything he writes is

1512
01:25:03,600 --> 01:25:06,440
gonna be brilliant and fun.
I mean, he's got some

1513
01:25:06,440 --> 01:25:09,680
fascinating topics like the
philosophy of science fiction.

1514
01:25:09,680 --> 01:25:12,640
I mean, he goes into some very
intriguing domain.

1515
01:25:12,640 --> 01:25:14,600
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I mean.

1516
01:25:15,480 --> 01:25:18,080
Yeah, he's got a book on the
perplexities of consciousness

1517
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:21,720
that's very fun and accessible.
Arguing you have no clue what's

1518
01:25:21,720 --> 01:25:26,040
going on in your own mind.
And I think a paper if the

1519
01:25:26,040 --> 01:25:28,400
United States, sorry if
materialism is true, the United

1520
01:25:28,400 --> 01:25:31,240
States is probably conscious
that involves these incredible

1521
01:25:31,240 --> 01:25:34,800
fantastical science fiction
examples to try to make this

1522
01:25:34,800 --> 01:25:38,160
case.
Yeah.

1523
01:25:38,200 --> 01:25:43,560
But so I guess I've also
mentioned Mike Palace are if

1524
01:25:43,560 --> 01:25:47,330
anybody's interested in sort of.
Similar like idealist adjacent

1525
01:25:47,330 --> 01:25:49,410
things.
I think he's also a very good

1526
01:25:49,410 --> 01:25:53,730
and underrated philosopher.
Oh, I don't have your name.

1527
01:25:53,730 --> 01:26:00,290
Caddy Ballog is somebody who's a
physicalist, a an officer or a

1528
01:26:00,290 --> 01:26:05,010
physicalist who I think is a
really also very underrated,

1529
01:26:05,010 --> 01:26:08,490
very subtle, interesting,
interesting philosopher.

1530
01:26:10,010 --> 01:26:14,690
Not sure if I've given by.
Yeah, shoutouts to Berkeley and

1531
01:26:14,690 --> 01:26:18,290
Lock.
I had a feeling those two names

1532
01:26:18,290 --> 01:26:22,610
had come up.
No, Helen, I mean, it's been an

1533
01:26:22,610 --> 01:26:23,850
absolute pleasure chatting to
you.

1534
01:26:23,850 --> 01:26:26,650
This has been such a fascinating
conversation.

1535
01:26:26,650 --> 01:26:28,330
I mean, even listen to you.
It reminds me of the

1536
01:26:28,330 --> 01:26:30,530
conversation I've had with Eric.
I can tell you're that type of

1537
01:26:30,530 --> 01:26:34,050
person who is very, by a lot of
these ontological questions, the

1538
01:26:34,050 --> 01:26:37,490
metaphysical side of things.
And it's really great to have

1539
01:26:37,490 --> 01:26:40,930
people like you out there
challenging and pioneering these

1540
01:26:41,010 --> 01:26:45,680
these arguments and these views,
because ideally there's then we

1541
01:26:45,680 --> 01:26:48,920
just get stuck in our own world.
Yeah, yeah.

1542
01:26:48,920 --> 01:26:55,200
No, I mean I think in a sense it
is, it's very much a creative

1543
01:26:55,520 --> 01:27:00,800
sort of a creative world
building almost endeavor that.

1544
01:27:01,200 --> 01:27:03,360
But I hope is is thought
provoking in the way that you've

1545
01:27:03,360 --> 01:27:04,880
described.
So it's very nice to hear you

1546
01:27:04,880 --> 01:27:06,240
say that.
I think without you, this

1547
01:27:06,240 --> 01:27:08,560
tapestry would not exist.
I mean, we all have to sort of

1548
01:27:08,560 --> 01:27:10,040
give up.
Oh no.

1549
01:27:11,560 --> 01:27:13,320
Which indicates that my view is
wrong.

1550
01:27:13,320 --> 01:27:17,280
If you're right, but you all
have to sort of give our views

1551
01:27:17,280 --> 01:27:20,080
and sort of get into that
argument and and just have a

1552
01:27:20,080 --> 01:27:21,760
great time doing it.
Thank you.

1553
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:23,040
Thank you so much for inviting
me on.

1554
01:27:23,040 --> 01:27:24,840
This has been a pleasure.
Thanks.

1555
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:26,960
Thanks so much, Helen.
I really appreciate your time

1556
01:27:27,280 --> 01:27:29,040
and I look forward to reading
more of your work.

1557
01:27:29,760 --> 01:27:30,160
Super.