Introducing the Mind-at-Large Project: A New Paradigm in Consciousness Research | Mind-Body Solution

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Peter, Matt, thanks so much for
joining me.

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This is an exciting time.
I think that most of the people

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who are watching are familiar
with both your work.

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You've both been on the channel,
both of you have provided

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lectures to Mind Body Solutions.
So firstly, it's an honor and

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privilege to chat to you both
together.

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But more importantly, this is
exciting because we're about to

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introduce a project close to
both of your hearts.

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It's called Mind at Lodge.
It's both of you are key

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contributors to this.
And perhaps, Peter, you could

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start off by explaining for us
exactly what Mind at Lodge

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means.
Where does that phrase come from

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and what is this project?
Right.

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Well, first of all, Tevin, it's
wonderful to be back.

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And, you know, thank you for
your endeavours here as well.

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So mind at large.
Well, it's a term that Aldous

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Huxley used in his 1954 book
Doors of Perception and also the

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sequel Heaven and Hell 1956.
And there it refers to a

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Bugsonian concept, which is a
kind of, as it were background

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consciousness within the cosmos.
And you know, Huxley, you know,

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style, he brings in loads of
different thinkers and thoughts

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and scores of, of thought and
creates this kind of mixed

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ambiguous concept.
And, but we're, we've, we've

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used the name, the term mind at
large because it is ambiguous in

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a way.
And we're using it in a way that

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it's not Huxley and a Bergsonian
or Vedantic or anything.

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It's beyond that.
It's it just generally refers to

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theories of consciousness beyond
what we commonly think are

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necessary sufficient conditions
for consciousness.

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In other words, the brain kind
of a beyond neuroessentialism, I

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suppose fundamentally so it
means so we incorporate then

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ideas of pantheism, pan psychism
for E cognition, AI

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consciousness or theories about
that plant consciousness and so

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on and so forth and many other
theories.

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So I suppose the common theme is
an extracranial theories of

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consciousness.
Matt, same question.

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Welcome to the show.
Welcome back.

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And yeah, what is mind at large
to you?

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Well, it's hard to say it better
than Peter just did.

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But, you know, this shift which
is occurring, I think both in

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academia and the, you know,
intellectual culture generally

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outside the walls of academia
towards a more expansive view of

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mind where this prevailing
assumption, which I guess has

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prevailed since, you know, the
19th century, that consciousness

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is an accidental byproduct of
some kind of as yet unexplained

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mechanical process occurring
inside human skulls.

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And I think it could be that
within the neurosciences that's

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still the dominant view and the
paradigm.

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And there's a search for
whatever that, you know, magical

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mechanism might be.
And we can get into why it would

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need to be magical just from a
philosophical point of view.

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But mind at large, over the
course of what we hope will be a

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three-year series of
conferences, we want to invite

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the leading voices who are
pushing the boundaries beyond

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the skull, beyond beyond the
human being and understanding

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the consciousness as a a
cosmological phenomenon,

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exploring various forms of
idealism and panpsychism, other

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spiritual views, animism.
And just to really make it clear

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that materialism is no longer
the only game in town.

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And there are a variety of other
options.

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And we really want to start that
conversation to hash out, you

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know, among all of the
panpsychists and all of the

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idealists and, and others, how
can we become more rigorous

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about these alternatives to
materialism and really just

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shift the conversation, broaden
the horizons?

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And I think this has not just
scientific and philosophical

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implications, but cultural,
civilizational implications.

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There's a real, you know, as
John Bervaiki would say, a

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meaning crisis occurring.
And I think how we approach

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questions like the nature of
consciousness has historically

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been central to, you know,
finding motivating stories that

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that drive the human project
forward or hold us back from

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realizing our potential.
Right.

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So it has brought application
beyond just academia.

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And yeah, we're we're hoping to
play a a role in shifting that

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conversation.
Yeah, I think this is super

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exciting.
When I when I started Mind Body

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solution, the goal was get this
core community online to inspire

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global inquiry, break the
boundaries, philosophy meets

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culture and and you guys are
doing this so and it's for me,

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it's an honor to be part of this
and I think it's exciting.

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You guys are hosting
conferences.

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This is going to be a massive
project and it's going to break

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boundaries in many ways.
The project challenges the only

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the brain only model of
consciousness scientifically and

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philosophically rigorously.
What's most at stake?

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Peter, perhaps you could answer
this.

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What do you think is most at
stake if we move beyond the

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brain only paradigm?
Well, you know, 1935, Edmund

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Hessel, phenomenologist, gave
this what is now known as the

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Vienna Lecture, and he spoke of
the European crisis.

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And although Hesel of course is
known as as a phenomenologist,

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he did say that there is
essentially this deep spirit.

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Well, I don't like to use the
word spiritual, but metaphysical

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crisis amongst academia, but
also therefore amongst society

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that we are thinking of
ourselves in a very restricted

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manner.
And it follows in a way from the

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sort of 4th decline of religion.
We now believe that, you know,

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there's only one other
alternative, and that's kind of

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strict reductivism.
But you know, that is in many

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ways product of the 17th
century.

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And I suppose what's at stake is
to try to shift that

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conversation away from that as
an assumption, as an academic

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assumption by rational means,
empirical means, and so on, and,

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and show that there are other
alternatives out there.

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There are other ways of thinking
about the cosmos in relation to

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the mind, and that's about
yourself and your relation to

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nature.
And there are perhaps perhaps

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beneficial to mental health and
as well as well as beneficial, I

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think, to new theories of
consciousness, even to thinking

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about the experiments 111 does
on consciousness, you know, the

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kind of, you know, thinking
about the hypotheses which lead

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to certain trials and so on and
so forth.

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I'm thinking non psychedelic
research especially, but

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generally.
So I suppose ultimately what's

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at stake is just just moving
along academically, but as Matt

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says, with social ramifications.
This view that consciousness is

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more fundamental in some sense
to reality than has hitherto

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been academically acknowledged,
I suppose, yeah.

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I think you, you touched on
something very important there,

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the fact that this is an
academic venture for, for the

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both of you personally.
So this is while we're exploring

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these concepts that sometimes
are associated with the most

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spiritual realm, this journey in
itself is trying to bring all of

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this together in a very rigorous
setting, almost as I, as I

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mentioned earlier, philosophy
meets culture in a sense, an

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academic setting meets this
cultural setting.

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So, Matt, for you, how do how do
philosophy and speculative

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metaphysics help prepare the
public 4 paradigm shifts in

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consciousness studies like this
one?

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I think, you know, there's a, a
broader sociological issue here,

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which is the way that academic
knowledge, whether scientific or

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philosophical has been, has
become increasingly abstract

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and, and jargon filled.
And the average person, even the

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average intelligent person,
can't make sense of what's being

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said in any of the academic
journals and if they can even

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access the journals because
they're behind Bay walls and so

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on.
And so I, I think, you know,

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Peter and I and, and the others
who are involved in this project

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have always wanted to break down
that wall between academic

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knowledge production and the
broader cultural conversation.

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And I think when it comes to a
subject like consciousness, it's

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both a special domain for
building such a bridge and it's

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also of tremendous relevance to
every person.

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And we're, we're all conscious
more or less, I hope.

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But as an object of inquiry,
again, scientific or

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philosophical consciousness is
unique, right?

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It's not just another object
that we can weigh and measure

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and slice and dice, you know,
it's, it's something that each

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of us has a, an intimate first
hand encounter with.

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And so it's as much subject as
object.

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It's not something impersonal.
Everything else that science

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studies is more or less
impersonal.

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We can hold it outside of
ourselves and and look at it,

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but consciousness is not like
that.

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And I think we want to be as
scientific as we can and

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studying it.
But there's an invitation here

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for people beyond academia to
bring their own experience and

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their own self understanding
into the conversation.

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And so there are a variety of
reasons why academia became more

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close, cloistered and ivory
tower and you know all that.

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But I think this this project,
in addition to just exploring

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the the value of these ideas, is
a real chance to bring the

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process of knowledge production
back into the public domain and

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allow there to be more of a Co
creative process here.

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I mean, we're going to be
inviting as many luminaries and,

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and experts and scientists and
philosophers to contribute to

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this as we can, but we also want
it to be very interactive and

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participatory.
And we're going to have a

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session for students to share
their ideas.

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And so we're trying to break
down walls, not just expand

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consciousness beyond the skull,
but get science and philosophy

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back into the hands of the
people around the subject of

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consciousness because it it
really matters to everyone.

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Well, this is rolling minded
large project has officially

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begun.
The process is starting.

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Let's try and explore your work
individually and try and bring

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it all together.
Before I begin and ask you as

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individual questions, Peter,
perhaps you'd like to tell me

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why is Matt the perfect person
to have on board with the Miami

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Lodge project?
I'll come back to that one

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second.
One thing I wanted to add to

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what was just said as well as
quickly, I think another way of

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looking at this project is to UN
uncover or reveal people's

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metaphysical biases.
You know, because we talk about

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a lot of prejudices that each of
us has, often unconsciously.

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But the one that is kind of in a
way the deepest, I mean, deeper

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than religion in many ways is
metaphysical biases, just

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assumptions people make.
And it's sort of, it sets a

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standard for how people judge
something to be like a crazy

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theory or something like this,
right?

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So to uncover that I think is
part of this project to reveal

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underlying assumptions or priors
and to show, you know, like

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rationally, you know, what
really is included in those

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assumptions and whether that
really is a default view or not

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or should be.
I mean, just quickly,

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physicalism, for example, is a
metaphysical option.

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It's not apart from metaphysics,
it's a part of metaphysics.

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And I think this is something
that is very important to push

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on society at large, really,
because it's just Yeah.

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And and academia at large, I
just find it all the time.

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I just wrote a commentary on the
paper, actually, which just

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makes all these assumptions
which generally scientists just

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don't consider anyway, right?
So why is Matt perfect for his

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project?
Well, Matthew is a good friend

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of mine and he is one of the, if
not the leading Whiteheadian

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expert, I think.
And Whitehead's philosophy, I'm

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also a keen Whiteheadian.
Whitehead's philosophy, known as

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process philosophy or philosophy
of Organism, is, I think a great

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way of getting into this Mind at
Large project.

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I mean, Whitehead and Bergsen
influenced one another and you

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see a lot of parallels in their
work.

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So, you know, I say this because
Mind at Large sort of comes from

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Bergsen's theory in many ways.
Whitehead is, in my view,

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excellent at pointing out what
is an abstraction.

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He's got this fallacy of
misplaced concreteness.

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He is he is very unique as well.
He shows problems of

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physicalism, materialism, but
promotes a fantastic new world

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view and Matt's.
You can't get anyone better than

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Matt really to exposit this his
thought.

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That's that's one way.
Also, he's got a way with words

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as you've just heard and is a is
a very productive, friendly

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chap.
Beautiful, Matt.

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Same question.
Why is Peter perfect for this

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project?
Well, I forget how long I've

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known you, Peter, but yeah,
we've been friends for a number

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of years.
And I think other than just

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being a really cool guy and the
stylish in in looks and

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rhetoric, you know, bringing
this a kind of philosophical

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edginess where, you know, he's
able to draw on a thinker like

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Friedrich Nietzsche in such
productive ways or Bruce Spinoza

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and apply them to these really
novel problems that that

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academic philosophers are
facing.

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You know, the work that Peter's
done on psychedelics to convince

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the the therapists and the
counselors and the people

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working in the mental health
application of psychedelics that

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actually there are some really
deep, profound metaphysical

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questions that are being opened
up by these experiences.

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And Peter has just done a
marvelous job shifting that

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conversation away from, oh, not
a way, but broadening it beyond

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just the mental health
applications and and healing

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psychological issues to hey,
maybe there are some bigger

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metaphysical mystery is that one
will confront in a psychedelic

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journey, a psychedelic
experience.

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And if we're not preparing
people to ask those questions

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and providing them with, as
Peter would call it, a

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metaphysical menu to to help
integrate that, then we're

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really leaving people, you know,
up the Creek without a paddle,

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so to speak.
And so I think the work that

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he's done on psychedelics and
psychedelic phenomenology is

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really exciting to people
interested in exploring

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consciousness.
Psychedelics are like the the

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equivalent of the microscope or
the telescope in consciousness

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studies.
I think it was Stanislav Grof

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who first made that analogy.
I could be wrong.

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Peter would correct me if
someone else said that before

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Stan.
But I think, you know, Peter's

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holding down this, this really
important new approach to

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psychedelics coming out of
philosophy, which still isn't

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getting enough attention despite
all the work that he's doing and

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teaching in this wonderful
program there at Exeter

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University, which brings
together the mental health, the

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anthropological and the
philosophical aspects of

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psychedelics.
And most likely going to be

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hosting us for this first
conference, Mind at Large

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conference there at Exeter.
So for all those reasons and

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more, it's great to have him on
our team.

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I certainly wouldn't want him to
be on the other team.

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That would be frightening.
Well, Peter, would that be said?

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I mean, your work oftentimes
Nietzsche, Spinoza, psychedelic

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phenomenology matches discuss
most of those concepts.

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But how do psychedelics expand
our understanding of mind at

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large?
Well, you know, I think

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psychedelics generally expand
our notion of mind.

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They give us.
I mean, the reason I I got into

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psychedelics really was because
I was interested in philosophy

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mind first and foremost.
And then I got interested in,

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00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:19,839
you know, altered states of mind
or expansive, expanded or

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extended states of mind.
And of course, psychedelics were

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one means by which that could be
achieved.

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So I've always taken
psychedelics in an academic

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sense.
It's not an excuse, It's, it's

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true.
So the first thing that they do,

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I think is just show a person,
you know, what the mind is

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capable of.
Just the, the standard human

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mind.
You know, it's just, it's beyond

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imagination, beyond dreams.
It's just something, something

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quite profound and beautiful can
be terrible as well, terrifying.

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00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:53,040
But that's the first thing that
they do.

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They just show you that, you
know, there is much more to

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consciousness than you have ever
dreamed, literally, unless you

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have quite amazing dreams, which
is possible, I suppose.

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Bergson actually did, He wrote
to William James about that.

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But generally speaking, that's
the first way in which they, I

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00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:12,240
think, I think they, they
basically, I would, you know,

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this is becoming cliche for me
now, but I always say

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psychedelics are a gateway drug
to metaphysics.

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They just open, they just like
when you've had an experience

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such as psilocybin or LSD or DMT
occasions, then you just want to

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00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:27,880
look into like, what the hell
was that?

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00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:30,800
You know, what was that?
And then that leads you into

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00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:35,080
theories of consciousness,
metaphysics, mind and other and

303
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:37,360
other fields as well as course
anthropology, history,

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00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:41,800
neuroscience, whatnot.
But so they're a real catalyst

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00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,240
or trigger for exploring the
mind.

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I think first and foremost, I
consider a lot of the

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00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:49,480
experiences to be what I call
experiential metaphysics.

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00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:52,400
So, you know, in university or
at home, you study intellectual

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00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,960
metaphysics.
You can study Spinoza for years,

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00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:58,600
as still, as says.
But at the same time, you can

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have a sudden flash of
Spinozism, like instantly, and

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00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:03,560
it seems that you understand it
all.

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00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:05,560
You have this noetic quality, as
William James says.

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00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:10,080
But so then the question becomes
11 interesting intellectual

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00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:13,280
question becomes with
psychedelics, well, were these

316
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:16,040
merely delusions,
hallucinations?

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00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:19,040
Were they completely veridical?
Was there some kind of third

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00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,640
way?
You know, that's an interesting

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00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,320
question.
That is an ongoing debate.

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00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:30,920
Another question is, do such
experiences actually inform us

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00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:33,480
about theories of mind?
I mean that in the

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00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,920
philosophical, not psychological
sense theory, theories of

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00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:39,040
consciousness, like, do they,
you know, what do they say about

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00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:44,000
behaviourism or identity theory
or emergentism, mental

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00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:46,000
causation, things like this?
They have, you know, as many

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00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,800
ways in which you can use such
what is essentially empirical

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00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,760
data to speak about certain
hypotheses.

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00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,280
So, and you know, there's,
there's a, there's growing work

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00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:00,320
on psychedelics and, and
consciousness as as you all

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00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:02,440
know.
Matt, anything about that you'd

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00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:04,520
like to add on?
And have you ever had a

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00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:09,280
psychedelic experience?
You're not being recorded, am I?

333
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:17,000
No, I'm already out on that.
Yes, I think I have, and it has.

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00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,720
My psychedelic experiences have
shaped my philosophy for sure,

335
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,520
because there's something that,
you know, it's not just the

336
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:29,800
extreme nature of those
experiences that produce these

337
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:31,800
anomalies.
It's that you become more

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00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:38,080
sensitive to the, the subtle
interactive, and I would say

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00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:40,800
participatory dimension of
consciousness, Which is to say,

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00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:45,520
in a psychedelic experience,
your thoughts and your

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00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:53,640
intentions end up immediately
shifting the whole mood of, of

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00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:57,600
the experience, right?
And so you can see how quickly a

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00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:02,680
positive or negative thought
then flowers out into an entire

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00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:04,360
world that you're then inside
of.

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00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:10,160
And so it, it, that's why it can
be really scary because the, the

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00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:15,040
mind manifesting power of
psychedelics is such that you

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00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:17,760
know, you're, you're, you're put
in the driver's seat of your own

348
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:20,240
consciousness in a way that you
always already were.

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But now you're seeing all the
controls and levers.

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And with practice, you know, I
think you can navigate that

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00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:31,520
space a little bit easier and
then take insights back into

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00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,520
your everyday consciousness
where it then becomes apparent

353
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:40,520
to you that, you know, from a
metaphysical point of view,

354
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:43,960
whatever our consciousness is,
it's not this sort of ready

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00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,360
made, distinct and separate
substance.

356
00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:49,920
That's that's sort of.
Given to us at birth, but it's

357
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rather more like a, an ongoing
creative process.

358
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:58,080
And each thought is contributing
itself to what becomes the, the

359
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:03,960
sort of baseline for for an
ongoing consciousness and an

360
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,040
ongoing thought process.
So we're always building

361
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,120
ourselves.
We're always engaged in soul

362
00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:10,920
making, to put it in John
Keats's terms.

363
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And that James Hillman would
later pick up on.

364
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:17,560
And so that's, that's
frightening in a sense, right?

365
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:22,680
That you're not just a soul
that's there ready made that you

366
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,040
can rely on, but you're actually
responsible for making soul

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00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:31,120
manifesting mind moment by
moment, becoming more or less of

368
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:34,200
of who you're capable of being.
You know, so I think

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00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:38,800
psychedelics kind of force the
issue and and they can be a

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00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,120
frightening precisely because of
the existential stakes that they

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00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:47,640
that they raise, that they bring
to our attention that like we

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00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:52,120
can't avoid anymore once we've
turned on and tuned in.

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And whether we decide to drop
out remains to be seen.

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I think, you know, Peter and I
both approached the study of

375
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:05,480
psychedelics not in an effort to
drop out so much in in Leary's

376
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,400
sense, but more in an effort to
transform the institutions that

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00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:12,080
were that were inside of.
Yeah, agreed.

378
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:14,360
And and I should just add that
this was the way that

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00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:17,240
psychedelics were seen in the
early 20th century, starting

380
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:21,120
really with William James, you
know, and you know, continued

381
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,400
Stan Gruff as well, you know,
spoke about it intellectually.

382
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,760
HH Price, AJ even wrote
something related to a

383
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,640
psychedelic like experience.
But they became, now we think of

384
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,640
them as recreational drugs or
criminal activities or but

385
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,000
there's there's so much, so much
of interest there.

386
00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:43,400
Yeah, or as therapeutic agents,
right.

387
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,000
Like I was saying earlier, it's
kind of the psychedelic

388
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,800
renaissance has been so focused
on mental health applications,

389
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,680
which is great, but what about
the metaphysical and

390
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,880
philosophical implications?
These are research instruments

391
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,760
as much as they are mental
health treatments.

392
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:00,760
Absolutely.
I should add, though, you know

393
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:03,160
that even with mental health,
and I would say psychedelics are

394
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:04,880
more than medicine.
They are medicine, but more than

395
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:09,760
that as well.
But the now, you know, the Royal

396
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:13,800
College of Psychiatrists have
said that we should have just

397
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,840
issued guidance saying we should
integrate metaphysics into

398
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,640
psychedelic therapy.
So, umm, you know, that is an,

399
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:25,280
that's sort of indicative of the
fact that kind of zeitgeist here

400
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:27,920
is changing, you know, and
there's an acceptance of

401
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,640
metaphysics as well and a kind
of acceptance that we have

402
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:32,840
neglected it for too long.
Because if you look at the

403
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:37,120
history of metaphysics and mind,
I mean, it was umm, big in the

404
00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:40,040
early 20th century, but then
there was a turn away from

405
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:44,320
metaphysics, partly due to the
wars, an anti German kind of

406
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:48,400
feel and away from Hagelism that
influenced a lot of the idealism

407
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:49,640
of Britain and America at the
time.

408
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,200
And then a kind of barren period
of redactivism.

409
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,680
That's the way I see it as
anyway, not philosophers would

410
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:58,960
disagree with this, but a kind
of barren period.

411
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,400
And and now we've had this
metaphysical turn 20 years ago.

412
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,400
We had psychedelic turn 20 years
ago, maybe 10 years ago.

413
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,240
So they're kind of coming
together now in interesting

414
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,360
ways.
And Peter, you're touching on

415
00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:13,840
something very important there
because myself as a doctor

416
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,000
working in clinical practice,
when I see the way we can

417
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,360
medicalize something so
fascinating, something like

418
00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:23,200
psychedelics, I've personally
had psychedelic experiences

419
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,040
myself.
This would be the best place to

420
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:28,520
have a disclaimer that we're not
encouraging anyone to use

421
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,520
psychedelics, but just
expressing our own experiences.

422
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,880
But you guys are touching on
something very important, which

423
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,040
is the metaphysical component of
this experience.

424
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,840
And for example, Matt, if you
have to think of the way process

425
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,520
philosophy informs your work
when it comes to Whitanian

426
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:46,560
philosophy, you have taken it
further.

427
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,560
How would something like that,
your process philosophical

428
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,720
thinking, impact the world with
their understanding of using

429
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:55,560
psychedelics?
For example, what Peter's

430
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,440
talking about was teaching
metaphysics now within

431
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,520
psychiatry.
How would something like that

432
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:05,080
shift the mindset of a
practitioner trying to examine a

433
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:10,680
patient and treat them?
Well, I think I can, you know,

434
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:14,400
if I broaden that to just the
study of consciousness as such,

435
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:19,360
I think what Whitehead brings is
first of all, an invitation to

436
00:26:19,360 --> 00:26:23,000
people that they can take their
own subjective experience

437
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,360
seriously as a, a lens upon the
nature of reality.

438
00:26:27,360 --> 00:26:31,120
And, and so much of the modern
period, you know, with

439
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:37,160
behaviorism and the, the, the
real focus on, you know, after

440
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,920
Galileo separates the primary
characteristics, all the stuff

441
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:41,920
we can measure about the
material world from the

442
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:45,680
secondary characteristics, which
is what everything that Galileo

443
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,800
said is added by the Organism,
our perceptions, qualities,

444
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,680
tastes, colors, sense, and so
on.

445
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,160
That led, you know, the average
person to feel like

446
00:26:55,160 --> 00:27:01,640
consciousness is mostly just a
funhouse mirror maze that

447
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:06,400
produces illusions and biases
and that anything having to do

448
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,800
with your subjective experience
couldn't be part of science,

449
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,760
couldn't be part of metaphysics.
And I think not only, you know,

450
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,280
this work on the philosophy of
psychedelics, but Whitehead's

451
00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:22,080
experientially grounded approach
to, to metaphysics, where we're

452
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:27,360
trying to understand the nature
of reality, beginning with our

453
00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:31,360
own most intimate encounter with
reality, which is through

454
00:27:31,360 --> 00:27:35,680
experience and generalizing from
that to then reach the cosmos at

455
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:41,040
large.
It, I think it invites people to

456
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,280
see consciousness as a lens on
reality, right, rather than a

457
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,640
blindfold or a source of
illusions.

458
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,120
And in the study of
consciousness itself, we've had

459
00:27:51,120 --> 00:27:55,480
on the one hand, David Chalmers
famous hard problem of

460
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,520
consciousness that he
articulates in the mid 90s has

461
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:00,160
been a tremendous boon to the
fields.

462
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,280
It's it's generated a lot of
excitement and interest and

463
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,760
popularization of the, you know,
the, the difficulty of the

464
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:08,400
problem, a lot of interesting
debates.

465
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,920
But I think from a white Hedy
and, and and process

466
00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:17,080
philosophical point of view,
it's not a hard problem of

467
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,640
consciousness.
It's that framework is actually

468
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,080
the wrong problem because it
can't be solved in the terms

469
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,520
that it's been stated.
And Whitehead allows us to kind

470
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:31,440
of go back in time to this
Galilean split, go back in time

471
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,520
to this Cartesian split between
mind and matter and, and kind of

472
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,400
dissolve that framework, right?
So we're not going to solve the

473
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,160
hard problem in the terms it's
been stated.

474
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,400
We need to dissolve the whole
framework in terms of which the

475
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,440
problem arose in the 1st place
and see that there never was a

476
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,280
separation between mind and
matter, right?

477
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:54,840
Minds are embodied and bodies
are and minded if you want.

478
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,200
And you know, this is a sort of
pan experientialist or pan

479
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,480
psychist view of which you know,
there are a whole variety of

480
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:06,040
different pan psychisms and
Whitehead has a variety that I

481
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,600
think is especially fruitful
for, you know, allowing us to

482
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,880
advance the study of
consciousness in a way that

483
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,440
doesn't presuppose dualism or
materialism.

484
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,840
You know, in the way that Peter
was saying, we, I think one of

485
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:23,240
the measures of success of this,
this three-year project is if

486
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:29,200
you know, in, in, in 2028 or
2029, if the general

487
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:34,120
conversation is such that there
are a majority of people saying,

488
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,360
gosh, materialism is crazy.
Can you believe these

489
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,520
materialists are actually
arguing for such an absurd

490
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,880
position that the mind is
secreted by the brain, then

491
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,000
we'll know what we'll have
succeeded, right.

492
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,680
So we're trying to tip the
seesaw, as it were, to so that

493
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,520
we see these alternatives to
materialism as more plausible

494
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:59,440
and recognize the wrong turn
that science and philosophy took

495
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,760
centuries ago that have led to
some dead ends.

496
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,520
Now, as as much as science has
advanced in physics and biology,

497
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,240
this question of consciousness
really forces us to examine our

498
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,520
priors, you know, and start
fresh.

499
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:15,480
And so that's what we're
attempting to do.

500
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,040
I think it's worth noting that
while we're exploring these

501
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,760
concepts and fields beyond
materialism, for all those

502
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,520
watching of you or listening,
the goal is to still make sure

503
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,960
materialists are fundamentally
part of the conversation.

504
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,440
So they're all invited.
We're going to have panelists

505
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,280
who are attending who are very
much materialists going to still

506
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,280
give their counter arguments
because this is an Open Access,

507
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,360
free debate free thought
environment.

508
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,680
So we don't want anyone to feel
like they've if they're anti.

509
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,280
We won't treat, we won't treat
the materialists like they have

510
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,320
treated the fan psychists and
the idealists.

511
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,880
I mean, there's even the
question of what materialism is.

512
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,520
So Galen Strawson, for example,
insists he's a materialist, but

513
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,440
he's a pan psychist as well.
So it's it's a question of what

514
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:02,280
matter means.
And you know, that'll be part of

515
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:03,360
the conversation.
Absolutely.

516
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:04,080
I.
Think the.

517
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,280
History of it all, you know.
I think Galen now leans towards

518
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:09,880
more for mysterionism if I
recall.

519
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:11,280
He's doing that.
McGinn.

520
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,480
Where is he?
OK, I haven't spoken to him for

521
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:15,840
a couple of years.
That's interesting.

522
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:18,680
Well, let's let's.
He's he's given up, in other

523
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,160
words, basically.
Let's explore some of these

524
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:23,640
concepts.
So you guys touched on

525
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,760
panpsychism, Peter, perhaps you
could start if, if you were to

526
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,600
go towards an anti materialist
mindset and if you were

527
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:35,360
exploring beyond materialism,
what, where would you go?

528
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:36,840
What?
What would be the first theory

529
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,040
of choice and would it be
panpsychism and why?

530
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:46,320
Well, I just start by saying
that I suppose at the very least

531
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:48,920
we want people to know to
realise that there are more

532
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:50,600
options than materialism or
dualism.

533
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,000
So that seems to be what there's
a kind of false dichotomy that I

534
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,120
that we face all the time.
Now.

535
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,440
The one of the I was, you know,
I kind of defined myself as a

536
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,760
materialist in the past and or a
physicalist.

537
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,640
And perhaps I still am if Galen
Strawson is, if he is, but

538
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,040
especially what moved me away
from it partly was to was

539
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,320
deciphering which kind of
materialist I was, right.

540
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,200
And by looking at that, I
realized, well, here's problems

541
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,200
with this side and here's the
problems with this side.

542
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,600
And then I sort of realized,
well, actually, these problems

543
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,640
are very hard to, to kind of
like get rid of on either side.

544
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:27,960
And that kind of moved me on as
it were, right.

545
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,680
So when you, when you really
analyze the concept of

546
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,640
materialism, I think you see all
the problems and that just opens

547
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:34,760
up your your mind to other
possibilities.

548
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,280
Now, I just point out as well
that I say this all purely in a,

549
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,280
in a purely scholarly fashion,
because I think a lot of people

550
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,040
will suspect that there's kind
of some kind of underlying

551
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:45,720
religious motives here or
something like this.

552
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,520
But I'm, I'm not religious, you
know, not in the traditional

553
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,560
sense anyway, or in any sense
maybe.

554
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,800
And I read Nietzsche at a young
age and that's kind of disturbed

555
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:55,880
my religious sensitivity as
well.

556
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:06,320
So moving away from materialism.
Well, I, I, I suppose my path

557
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:10,920
was this with Nietzsche.
I was investigating his concept

558
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,800
of the will to power.
It's kind of underlying Dr.

559
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:16,960
which underlies not only life,
but all things.

560
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,840
And it, you know, although
Nietzsche is ostensibly anti

561
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:21,840
metaphysics, it was a
metaphysical tantrine.

562
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:27,040
And that brought me on to
Schopenhauer and, and I studied

563
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:28,360
Kant as well.
You know, Schoppenhauer was a

564
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,360
Kanty in many ways.
Well, they rejected the ethical

565
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:36,800
theory and and then I found Anne
Bergson, I should say, at

566
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:39,120
Warwick University with Keith
Ansell Pearson, people like

567
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:41,960
that, and Hegel with Stephen
Holgate.

568
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:47,960
But I eventually found Whitehead
like Matt did, and he

569
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,520
systematized a lot of kind of
muddy thoughts perhaps I had in

570
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,440
the past, you know, and his form
of pan psychism or pan

571
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,200
experientialism really appealed
to me.

572
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,840
I mean, I also, I should say I
was inspired by Spinoza as well

573
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:08,440
as Whitehead and others, but it
seems to me that instead of,

574
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,440
well, there are many reasons to
believe in panpsychism.

575
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:13,600
It's never a matter of proving
anything.

576
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,600
Because if you believe that the
mind is at least partially

577
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:22,760
private, then these metaphysical
issues go beyond the empirical.

578
00:34:23,159 --> 00:34:25,280
If you accept that, that's a
matter for debate.

579
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,239
But anyway, I found that
panpsychism was under a kind of

580
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,719
absolute monism that Espinoza
preferred.

581
00:34:35,159 --> 00:34:39,080
Seem to be the most logical,
parsimonious, beautiful theory,

582
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,560
really.
You know that mind is matter and

583
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,960
we see it from two different
ways, but there's an Infinity of

584
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,880
other ways of seeing the same
substance, which he calls God or

585
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,400
nature.
This kind of appealed to me.

586
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:53,880
I don't know, instinctively, but
also rationally.

587
00:34:54,639 --> 00:34:55,560
There are problems with it,
though.

588
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:57,440
I'm not saying that.
I mean, I always say that I

589
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,440
don't really believe anything.
I entertain ideas.

590
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:05,000
So, I mean, I don't think
there's any sort of rock hard

591
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:09,520
theory without any issues, but I
mean, at the very least, let's

592
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:15,680
say that what is considered the
obvious theory has as many

593
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:17,840
problems as any other theory
really.

594
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:20,800
So, you know, the question is an
open one.

595
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:26,040
And this is kind of why we're
exploring other, you know, I

596
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:29,440
suppose, unusual theories here
in a purely rational manner

597
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,720
though, you know.
So I think the importance of

598
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:38,680
keeping it rational and academic
is, is that that's going to have

599
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,640
more of an effect on others than
if you just appeal to faith or

600
00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:45,880
intuition or or whatever, right?
That's why it's quite important

601
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,320
to keep it logical.
And that's why I suppose it's

602
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,720
important to bring in people who
disagree with any of you you

603
00:35:52,720 --> 00:35:55,080
might held.
Matt.

604
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,720
So, yeah, Matt, anything you
want to add to that?

605
00:35:57,720 --> 00:36:00,640
I mean, our episode when we
recorded the first time, I think

606
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,200
I I think I labeled it is the
universe and sold with

607
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,960
experience as the question.
We explored if we had to take

608
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,200
this concept of the universe or
cosmos as conscious, what does

609
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,960
it mean for our world view?
And perhaps you could maybe

610
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,240
explain to us why other theories
of conscience like idealism, why

611
00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:19,200
is that not on the table at the
moment?

612
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:25,720
Matthew Speaker.
Thank you.

613
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:32,400
Idealism's on the table for me,
but yeah, I think so.

614
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,680
I wanted to circle back to a few
things Peter was saying, because

615
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,560
I certainly agree that we want
to approach this in the most

616
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:45,200
rational way and logical way
possible, avoid simple logical

617
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:49,520
contradictions, and we want to
be as logically coherent as we

618
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,640
can.
We want to draw on the best

619
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,680
scientific evidence.
And I think that given all the

620
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:02,520
scientific evidence and given
the need to remain logically

621
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:07,040
consistent, it seems to me that
the weakest metaphysical

622
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:13,880
position on offer today is
physicalism or dualism maybe in

623
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:18,640
in second place.
And and that's, you know,

624
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:20,840
there's a case that needs to be
made because that's probably a

625
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:25,120
rather controversial thing to
say, but that's the case that

626
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:27,480
we're going to be trying to make
at this conference.

627
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:33,280
And of course, you know, we want
to welcome physicalists and even

628
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,720
panpsychists who think of
panpsychism as a kind of

629
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:38,080
materialism.
And, you know, I was, I've been,

630
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,960
I'm teaching the history of
philosophy, Western philosophy

631
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,000
this semester.
And we're doing the scientific

632
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,640
revolution right now.
And rather than focus on on the

633
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:52,760
usual dudes, you know, Galileo,
Descartes, Bacon, Newton, I

634
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:57,480
really wanted to look at one of
the few women who was at least

635
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,600
trying to be part of this
conversation, Margaret

636
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:01,360
Cavendish.
I don't know if Peter, if you've

637
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,600
looked at at Cavendish's work,
but she was very similar to

638
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,520
Galen Strawson, actually.
I mean, at least prior to his

639
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,440
mysterion turn where, you know,
she was like everything's

640
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,240
material, including thinking.
So every material body is is

641
00:38:16,240 --> 00:38:20,960
thinking to some degree, whether
minerals, plants, animals.

642
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,160
You know, she really argued
against the Cartesians that

643
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:27,000
animals have rationality, that,
you know, alligators build their

644
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,440
nests a little bit higher above
the riverbank before a flood

645
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,600
happens.
They must have some capacity to

646
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:34,960
to to predict the future,
anticipate things.

647
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,840
And so for her, that's evidence
of rationality in the non human

648
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,320
world.
And so, you know, there are all

649
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:44,320
these alternatives in the
history of philosophy that that

650
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,560
were kind of undercurrents that
I think can be revived and and

651
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:52,720
revitalized.
And so, you know, panpsychism is

652
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:57,440
not some newfangled idea that
only emerged in the 20th century

653
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,680
or in the late 19th century.
It's, it's quite, I mean, it's

654
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,120
ancient and it was there all
along in, in, in the 17th

655
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,200
century as these more or less
dualistic thinkers that we're

656
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,880
all familiar with, we're pushing
forward that worldview.

657
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:18,240
People like Cavendish and before
her, Giordano Bruno, you know,

658
00:39:18,240 --> 00:39:21,560
we're, we're arguing for an
alternative that would make soul

659
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,400
and experience more of an
intrinsic feature of, of the

660
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:28,240
universe rather than something
that belongs solely to human

661
00:39:28,240 --> 00:39:32,480
beings.
But I also wanted to say, you

662
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,200
know, in response to some things
Peter was saying that as

663
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,840
important as logic and
rationality and science are, I

664
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,480
really do think that
philosophers can be open to the

665
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:46,720
full suite of human faculties
and powers that go beyond just

666
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:55,080
reason, imagination, emotion,
you know, aesthetic sensitivity.

667
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,160
And I think Peter probably
agrees with me on all of this,

668
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,120
but just to, you know, make it.
Yeah.

669
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,040
Yeah.
Psychedelic experience, which is

670
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,520
at least non rational if it's
not necessarily irrational.

671
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,680
And so, you know, I think we can
draw on the full suite of our

672
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:16,440
human capacities and and powers
of soul, so to speak, when we

673
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,280
search for evidence.
And, you know, I might be a

674
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:25,800
little bit more, have a little
bit more of a religious or

675
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:32,160
spiritual mentality than than
Peter, which not, is not because

676
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:33,640
of my upbringing.
It's actually because of

677
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,640
psychedelic experiences that I,
I came to some of those views.

678
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,960
But I, I think that, you know,
for me, part of the, the

679
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,960
evidence that should be allowed
into the the courtroom when

680
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,120
we're trying to adjudicate which
views are to be taken seriously

681
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,680
is our, our human longing for a
sense of meaning in the

682
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,040
universe.
And that might be dismissed by a

683
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,800
hard nosed scientific
rationalist thinker as just, you

684
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,160
know, sentimentalism or
whatever.

685
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,400
And it shouldn't matter what our
emotions are if we're trying to

686
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,400
understand the truth.
But I think from a, a pan

687
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:12,160
experientialist point of view
and a radically empirical point

688
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:18,080
of view, in William James's
sense, this human longing for a

689
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:21,400
meaningful universe, even if
it's a type of meaning that

690
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,720
requires something of us and
it's really hard work.

691
00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:27,800
And we have to be be we go
through an initiatory trial to,

692
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:32,080
to understand it's not just, you
know, butterflies and rainbows.

693
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,920
And it's, it's an easy form of
meaning that is just accessible

694
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,160
to everyone without any effort.
It could be that the meaning of

695
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,480
the universe requires a lot of
effort on our part to to grok

696
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:44,040
and and incorporate and
assimilate.

697
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:49,560
But none the less that that
desire for meaning is part of

698
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,680
the anthropological evidence
that we have to contend with

699
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,280
when we when we try to
understand our place in the

700
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,240
universe.
Why do we have that desire?

701
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:07,680
Is it really just sheer
foolishness on our part that we

702
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:09,800
would long for that?
And it's not to say that any

703
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,840
particular religious response to
that longing is the correct one,

704
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,400
But I think we can at least
recognize as some materialists

705
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,520
do, like Daniel Dennett would, I
think, acknowledge that there is

706
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,600
a humans have a natural instinct
for religion.

707
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:29,080
And that it religion might even
form some have some sort of

708
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:34,000
evolutionary value in terms of
the the social effects that it

709
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,600
has and the the ways that it
makes certain groups of human

710
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:39,600
beings more adaptable than
others and so on.

711
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,160
I think that's a more
reductionist view of the purpose

712
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,040
of religious feelings.
But, you know, there are ways

713
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,360
that even materialists could
acknowledge part of what I'm

714
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:52,600
trying to say here.
And so, you know, this process

715
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:57,080
philosophical view that I derive
from Whitehead and and others

716
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,240
like Friedrich Schelling, who's
often grouped with the German

717
00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:03,800
idealist, which is why idealism
and panpsychism are close

718
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,360
cousins, if if not siblings, you
know, And so it's all on the

719
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,480
table.
But I think they allow us to, to

720
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,760
look again at the theological
tradition and find ways of

721
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:19,040
avoiding this sense of conflict
between science and religion

722
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:24,200
that, you know, we, we could
instead imagine forms of

723
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:30,280
theology that are evolutionary,
that are pantheist or pantheist

724
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:35,520
where whatever we might imagine
by the divine and what that term

725
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:39,280
might mean and how we think of
nature, these these could be two

726
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,640
sides of the same coin,
different ways of talking about

727
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,800
the same creative process.
And so I think bringing all of

728
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,760
this back onto the table is one
of the exciting consequences

729
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,200
that follows from shifting away
from the old, tired forms of

730
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:58,160
materialism.
Yeah, I mean, essentially it's a

731
00:43:58,160 --> 00:43:59,760
question about teleology, isn't
it?

732
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,840
You know, these ultimate
purposes, if they exist, going

733
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:04,960
back to Aristotle, prime mover,
I think.

734
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:06,800
Didn't Whitehead speak about
this output urge?

735
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,320
Wasn't the function of reason,
you know, this kind of urge or

736
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,040
complexity, as did Bergson.
Bergson ends his last book with

737
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:16,200
a with a beautiful line, which I
can't remember, but it's

738
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,440
something like the function of
the universe is a machine for

739
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:20,920
the making of gods or something
like this.

740
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,440
So there is that sort of
ultimate telos.

741
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:28,360
But yeah, I mean, that can't be
reduced to matter as we

742
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,640
understand matter.
So if it does exist, and it

743
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,000
seems to exist, even
Schopenhauer, the atheist, you

744
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,760
know, atheist, really, you know,
he said that man is a

745
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:41,080
metaphysical animal, right?
There is that desire for deeper

746
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,240
meaning, a deeper sort of
metaphysical meaning behind

747
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:44,800
things, which I completely
accept.

748
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:49,160
It's just suppose I am more
secular than you are, Matt.

749
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,040
Maybe that's the sort of
cultural difference, you know,

750
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:52,360
European, American, I don't
know.

751
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:56,400
But but yeah, no, it's good that
we don't agree on absolutely

752
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,800
everything isn't.
It I think that that's that's a

753
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:00,760
perfect place for me to ask this
next question.

754
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:02,480
Let's do a little bit of cross
pollination.

755
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:05,360
So I was speaking to to Robert
Lawrence Coon today.

756
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,360
We were chatting via e-mail and
we're discussing the fact that

757
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,880
he's landscape of consciousness
has now reached over 350

758
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,840
theories of consciousness.
So this is getting a bit absurd

759
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,960
at this point.
So much to discuss, so many

760
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:21,080
things to prove right or wrong
for you.

761
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:26,560
Peter, where do you think this
spectrum of different fields lie

762
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,400
closest to your own worldview in
terms of may I just mention the

763
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,120
fact that he considers A
physicalism to be the worst

764
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:35,040
beyond dualism.
Do you agree?

765
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,160
Well, I think it depends on how
you define it.

766
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:44,960
I, I generally want to put on,
put out like other theories

767
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,640
rather than criticize the
theories like physicalism,

768
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:54,560
dualism, which I, I do
criticize, but I, I am more, I,

769
00:45:54,720 --> 00:45:59,760
I suppose I, I prefer to look at
other theories that have been

770
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,360
off the table.
As I said, I'm more in the camp

771
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:07,240
of absolute monism.
So sort of kind of kind of

772
00:46:07,240 --> 00:46:10,720
modern sort of neo Spinozaism.
So mind and matter are the same

773
00:46:10,720 --> 00:46:13,320
thing as one fundamental
substance, but with Whitehead,

774
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,880
that substance is a process.
In fact, Whitehead said that

775
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,680
about Spinoza substance, I
believe somewhere, and I with

776
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,720
Whitehead and Bugs on I, I sort
of prefer an open creative

777
00:46:24,720 --> 00:46:27,960
universe which allows for
freedom rather than Spinoza's

778
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,480
kind of fatalistic predetermined
universe.

779
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,400
Even though Spinoza allows for a
type of freedom, the freedom

780
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,480
which is the understanding that
everything is determined, which

781
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,840
is kind of funny, kind of free.
More fatty.

782
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:46,840
Yeah.
So yeah, no.

783
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:52,560
And then the Nietzschean side, I
suppose, is that I do, I do see

784
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,840
a lot of the beliefs that we
have in society today in the

785
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,680
West to emanate from
Christianity.

786
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,640
I think Christianity has,
Christianity has had a huge

787
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,080
influence on the West.
I mean, Christendom is another

788
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:10,280
word for the West in many ways,
in ways that are sort of not

789
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:12,480
explicit.
This is what Nietzsche brings to

790
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:13,800
the fore.
You know, this is what he's

791
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:18,600
known for, really making these
implicit assumptions explicit in

792
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,240
terms of morality first and
foremost.

793
00:47:22,240 --> 00:47:27,880
But more than that, I think we
can trace the sort of

794
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:32,240
development of our standard
metaphysical outlook to, you

795
00:47:32,240 --> 00:47:34,120
know, the Reformation,
especially the Protestant

796
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,720
Reformation.
I think that's had huge impact

797
00:47:36,720 --> 00:47:39,320
on how we think of the world,
even scientifically,

798
00:47:39,720 --> 00:47:41,560
skeptically, you can make good
argument.

799
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,040
Dale Allison made this great
argument and Essendon a few

800
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:48,960
months ago that, uh, modern
notions of scientific skepticism

801
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,680
actually come directly from the
Reformation, from Protestants

802
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,600
being skeptical of Catholic
claims to miracles and so on and

803
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,080
so forth, right?
So there's, there's, there's a

804
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,520
lot of religious undercurrents
that form what we consider to be

805
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:07,320
secular thinking and, and that
informs our kind of standards of

806
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,560
metaphysics and, and
consciousness even, right.

807
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,920
So uncovering those and
Nietzsche's genealogical method

808
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:14,600
is a good method by which we can
do that.

809
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:22,560
I think highlights where we are
in terms of our standards, our

810
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,680
theories of consciousness, and
it perhaps shows us in the path

811
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:27,400
we are on, the path we can move
to.

812
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,200
So there's a lot of value in in
this.

813
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,480
It doesn't mean being anti
religious just means being kind

814
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:37,120
of openly, just just
acknowledging the sort of power

815
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:39,720
of religion and Christianity in
the West at least.

816
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:44,240
And I think it's, you know,
personally very emancipating,

817
00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:48,040
you know, sort of emancipates
you from ways of thinking that,

818
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:49,680
you know, you're supposed to
think this way.

819
00:48:49,720 --> 00:48:52,480
You should, you know, should
believe this or that or you

820
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:54,520
should do this or that.
And, you know, you should feel

821
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:56,040
this.
You know, it's kind of very

822
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:58,480
emancipating in a way to sort of
question all these things.

823
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:02,160
Whitehead does that as well.
He really uncovers these primal

824
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,760
assumptions we have in society.
Nietzsche does it as well, but

825
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:07,240
in another way.
And that's why I've always found

826
00:49:07,240 --> 00:49:11,400
Nietzsche and Whitehead to be
the most powerful philosophers

827
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:13,760
because of that.
They just, things that I before

828
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,360
had read them or studied them, I
just take for granted.

829
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,480
Suddenly thrown up into the open
has open questions which which

830
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,640
can be, I suppose, I suppose
that you know for for some

831
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:24,160
people that could be damaging,
right?

832
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:27,360
But.
It was you, Peter, that I, I

833
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,200
think, first pointed out to me
that White had had a copy of

834
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,400
Nietzsche's Will to Power that
he had marked up in the

835
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:34,360
Marginalia.
And so that he read Nietzsche

836
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:38,000
and liked it and builds on that
and Modes of Thought, his own

837
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:39,800
book.
Yeah, that's right.

838
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:42,800
I know he did.
And one of his students wrote a

839
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:46,800
book on Nietzsche and I forget
his name, George something, but

840
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,600
you know, he was, he was very,
he was interested in Nietzsche

841
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:56,600
in in a time when Nietzsche was
considered quite sort of a

842
00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:01,720
National Socialist.
So before Kaufman and de

843
00:50:01,720 --> 00:50:04,440
Lausanne Fuku and outlaw sort of
the liberalised Nietzsche.

844
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:08,040
So he was quite again, you know,
Nietzsche saw that beforehand.

845
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:10,200
He never, I don't think,
explicitly wrote about

846
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:14,080
Nietzsche, but yeah, you get it
in then in letters and notebooks

847
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,400
and whatnot.
Nietzsche is an amazing,

848
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:21,800
amazingly open philosopher.
It's controversial for

849
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,000
historical reasons.
I mean, Mussolini was and Hitler

850
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:25,960
were inspired by Nietzsche.
There's no doubt about that.

851
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,240
But, you know, we all know the
story about Nietzsche's system

852
00:50:29,240 --> 00:50:33,160
and misreadings and so on so
forth, you know, But you know,

853
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:35,320
Nietzsche knew himself better
than any other person knew

854
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,160
themselves.
I think Freud said that about

855
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:41,800
him.
And and it just just last little

856
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:44,200
point here brings me back
something you said Matt, about

857
00:50:45,240 --> 00:50:48,960
weird saying that.
And Shapenow said this as well.

858
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:53,480
You know, instead of thinking
about ourselves in terms of the

859
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:55,560
outside external nature, as it
were.

860
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,920
In other words, thinking about
ourselves in terms of the laws

861
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,600
of physics and something we
should look at the outside from

862
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:04,400
an internal perspective so we
know we have agency and

863
00:51:04,720 --> 00:51:07,160
imagination and feelings and
whatever.

864
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,520
And then instead of sort of
bringing the outside in, we

865
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,360
project the inside out.
And that's where we get this

866
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:16,200
notion of mind at large.
You know that mind is not

867
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:20,120
necessarily something that is
contained within our skulls.

868
00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:25,320
Yeah.
Matt, do you think you want to

869
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:32,400
add to that?
Yeah, I mean, I, I've, I

870
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:35,920
definitely agree with what Peter
was saying about the sort of the

871
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,000
genealogy of secularism and
secular humanism that that

872
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:45,760
actually, rather than being just
simply opposed to Christianity,

873
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:50,960
it's actually a natural
development of Christianity in

874
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:52,160
some sense.
And there are a number of

875
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:58,160
scholars that that that show
that like Charles Taylor, this

876
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:02,960
great book, A Secular Age shows
how many of these values that we

877
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:10,320
associate with secular humanism
were seated by some of the core

878
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:13,520
ideas in, in in the Christian
worldview.

879
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:18,840
And and Luther, you know, in the
Protestant Reformation, that

880
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,600
sense of like, you know, as
Luther would say, the priesthood

881
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,240
of all believers.
We don't need the church to

882
00:52:23,240 --> 00:52:27,320
mediate it.
It might at first appear like

883
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:31,880
Luther's biblical literalism and
his attempt to, you know, purify

884
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:36,120
the Church of Greek philosophy
and bring it back to, you know,

885
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:41,600
the original revelation that
might seem opposed to the

886
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:44,120
scientific revolution.
But at the same time, the

887
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:47,760
consequences of the Reformation
leading to the disenchantment of

888
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,680
nature.
And the, you know, Luther was

889
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:52,800
very critical of Aristotle.
And until you get rid of

890
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:56,400
Aristotle's physics, you don't
really, you can't get modern

891
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,400
science.
And so it contributes to

892
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,280
clearing the way for the rise of
this new approach to nature.

893
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:07,680
Despite Luther saying to about
Nicholas Copernicus, I think he

894
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:11,200
called him an upstart astrologer
and a fool when you heard about

895
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:13,400
the heliocentric theory.
So there, you know, there's all

896
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:19,720
of these subtleties and seeming
superficial conflicts between,

897
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,360
say, what was going on in the
Reformation and then what

898
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:23,800
happens in the scientific
revolution.

899
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,240
But just beneath the surface, I
think there's a lot of ways in

900
00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:30,720
which, as Peter was saying, the
Reformation opens up this

901
00:53:30,720 --> 00:53:34,520
possibility of like, you know,
Luther was a nominalist, for

902
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:36,640
example.
And instead of thinking that we

903
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:38,560
can just understand the
structure of nature by

904
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:41,440
reflecting on the structure of
our own reason, which is kind of

905
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:44,200
like one way of understanding
what Aristotle was doing.

906
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:49,640
If, if, if we reject Platonic
realism and that there is a

907
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:53,840
structure of forms that's
shaping the natural world, we

908
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,720
actually have to go out as the
more empiricist method would

909
00:53:56,720 --> 00:54:00,560
suggest and look and see how
nature is organized, because

910
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,160
it's a contingent order.
It's not a rationally necessary

911
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:07,040
order imposed from the realm of
forms or something, right.

912
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:08,840
And so they're, they're all
these.

913
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,680
It would, it would take hours to
fully unpack all the nuances

914
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:13,960
there.
But this shift away from

915
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,760
Aristotle towards more
nominalist views that Luther

916
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:22,320
ushered in, drawing on Occam and
stuff, I think really does open

917
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:29,280
the door to modern science.
But the the irony is nominalism,

918
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:32,240
when Occam and others were
beginning to articulate that was

919
00:54:32,240 --> 00:54:34,200
actually a defense of divine
power.

920
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,480
They didn't want God to be
subject to the logical structure

921
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:41,440
of of the Platonic forms.
They wanted God to be so

922
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,400
powerful that God can make 1 + 1
= 7 if God felt like it.

923
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:50,480
And So what started as a defense
of divine power ended up being

924
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:53,400
utilized by this new scientific
materialist point of view to say

925
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:55,320
all we know are the particulars
of nature.

926
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:59,840
And then any, any what we called
universals in the past are just

927
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:05,000
generalizations derived from our
experience of many particulars

928
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:07,160
that are similar.
You know, so all these

929
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:10,640
interesting shifts which occur
that the genealogical method

930
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,960
allows us to track.
And one more parallel I'll point

931
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,640
out is this, you know,
monotheistic obsession with the

932
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:22,800
one God who has power over
everything leads right into the

933
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:26,440
scientific obsession with the
one truth that rules over

934
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:28,240
everything.
And science is the only way of

935
00:55:28,240 --> 00:55:32,920
knowing that truth.
And so that type of materialist

936
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,720
fundamentalism follows directly
from this monotheistic

937
00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:39,160
theological fundamentalism,
right?

938
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:41,680
Science believes that there's
one truth that holds over the

939
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:44,800
entirety of the universe, and
that science is privileged

940
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:48,560
access to that truth as an
inheritance of this monotheistic

941
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:51,800
religious belief.
I would say right, There's a

942
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:54,760
parallel there, so.
And also that God is a law

943
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:57,240
giver, so the laws of the
universe must be constant,

944
00:55:57,240 --> 00:55:58,400
right?
And this is what weigh heads.

945
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:00,760
And for him, Hume actually
questioned, of course.

946
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,080
And there's also another little
aspect of the genealogical

947
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:06,360
method here about, about the
Reformation process and

948
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:09,240
reformation, which is that the
Puritans who really pushed that

949
00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:13,200
reformation, they wanted to get
rid of all traces of paganism

950
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,960
from medieval Christianity and a
lot of that.

951
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:20,640
I mean, so Aristotelianism was
considered paganism, of course,

952
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:23,880
but also animist.
You know, native European

953
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:30,320
anonymous thought was also kind
of pure, you know, filtered away

954
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:32,800
from Christianity.
And that's what you left with.

955
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:36,920
You left with a dead unconscious
material universe.

956
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:39,920
But then, you know, opposed to
that, you have the human soul.

957
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,080
And for Deca it was only humans
who had souls and minds, you

958
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:44,840
know, and then you had that
extreme dualism.

959
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:49,360
But you can even before Deca and
Galileo, as Matt was intimated,

960
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:54,800
you can see it in yeah,
political, religious, social

961
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:59,520
movements, which were, you know,
political because they were

962
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:02,520
about, you know, authority,
authorities, governments and

963
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:03,800
what whatever, you know what
not.

964
00:57:04,240 --> 00:57:07,200
The reason that Spinoza was
suppressed to such a high extent

965
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:13,120
was because he questioned
religious authority and about

966
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:15,480
who wrote the the Old Testament
or the first five books, The Old

967
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:18,600
Testament and, you know, was
basically suppressed for 100

968
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:21,280
years, excommunicated by his
fellow Jews, books banned by the

969
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:22,960
church.
And these were really for

970
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:25,560
political reasons.
But now that the church kind of

971
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:29,760
ostensibly lost power and the
state has taken over, things

972
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:31,720
begin to shift.
But of course, the state has.

973
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:34,360
I mean, really, you can make the
case that, you know, secular

974
00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:39,360
Western societies, really
Christianity, but it's it's

975
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:43,000
hiding its real origins.
And that's the whole purpose of

976
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:44,840
Nietzsche's claim that God is
dead.

977
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:46,720
You know, if you don't believe
in this Christian God, then

978
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:48,120
you've got no right to these
stretches.

979
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:50,960
Anyway.
Perhaps we're straying too far

980
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:54,440
into politics now, but it's all
interrelated, you know?

981
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:57,080
You guys have already sort of
bridged philosophies.

982
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,920
I mean you you both show where
you guys slightly disagree

983
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:03,000
perhaps with the religious
aspect of it all, but complement

984
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,280
each other in many ways.
Are there any other ways you

985
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:09,800
guys see perhaps mature
Whiteheadian process thought or

986
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:12,840
Peter's psychedelic inspired
philosophy?

987
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:14,760
He's a niche in Spinoza
philosophy.

988
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,800
Will you guys complement each
other more, or perhaps challenge

989
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:21,960
each other more?
Well, you, Peter, you were

990
00:58:21,960 --> 00:58:27,120
saying absolute monism is more
where you tend to, to ally

991
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:30,360
yourself.
Whereas I, I think you know

992
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:33,360
Whitehead in process, in
reality, when he's talking about

993
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:37,360
Spinoza and live Nets, he says
I'm, I'm with Leibniz on the

994
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,280
question of pluralism versus
monism.

995
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:45,480
So Whitehead affirms ontological
pluralism as against Spinoza's

996
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:48,960
monism because he thinks monism
necessarily leads to

997
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:53,600
determinism.
Whereas his account of pluralism

998
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:58,800
isn't the same as Leibniz's
monads, which are windowless and

999
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:04,160
enclosed and and and have no
real relations to one another.

1000
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:09,560
Whitehead says his actual
occasions are they enter into

1001
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:13,160
prehensive relationships with
others with one another.

1002
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:17,760
Prehension being his technical
term for feeling causal

1003
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:21,560
transmission, you could say.
And so for Whitehead, the

1004
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:25,760
plurality that constitutes
reality is an ongoing,

1005
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:31,440
open-ended creative advance
where every every moment, every

1006
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:35,080
occasion of experience is the
entire universe recapitulating

1007
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:39,120
itself, the many becoming one
and being increased by one.

1008
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:42,600
As he says, that's what the
process of congressence is all

1009
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:45,520
about.
And so it's, you know, they'll

1010
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:47,960
lose in Guatere somewhere.
Maybe it's in what is

1011
00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:49,600
philosophy.
They say, look, we're all

1012
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:51,960
searching for that secret
formula which allows us to see

1013
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:55,240
how monism equals pluralism.
So maybe this isn't really a

1014
00:59:55,240 --> 01:00:01,000
conflict, but it struck out.
It stuck out to me when you were

1015
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:03,040
defending monism a moment ago.
I guess so.

1016
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:06,200
I mean you're certainly it's
different from Spinoza's monism,

1017
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:09,400
which I don't fully accept.
But no, yeah, you're right.

1018
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:12,280
I mean, I suppose I'd say this,
that you know, Spino Wahid also

1019
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,840
did say that you can, if you
understand Spinoza's substance

1020
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:17,840
as his process, then he's in
accord with Spinoza.

1021
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,400
But I do agree that he's more
Leibnizian generally.

1022
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:22,720
Not with the pre established
harmony of course, and things

1023
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:27,120
like this, but if you take, you
know, in way of creativity is

1024
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:29,080
the highest tenet really above
God himself.

1025
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:34,240
You know, if you take that as
the the kind of primary dare say

1026
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,400
substance, then he isn't honest
in that sense.

1027
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:38,960
So a lot of these questions, I
mean, I don't disagree with

1028
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:41,880
anything you said.
So I think a lot of these

1029
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,680
disagreements quite often are
about terms used, you know, so

1030
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,320
you use one uses a term in
different ways and then you

1031
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:51,360
think you disagree with people.
But I don't think we do

1032
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:53,320
essentially disagree on that
point.

1033
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:56,400
I'm, I think prehensions and
Whitehead is the, are the

1034
01:00:56,400 --> 01:01:00,200
greatest contribution to modern
philosophy in modern times.

1035
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:04,200
Really, this notion of, you
know, the, the outer in the past

1036
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:07,960
becoming part of the presence.
But probably we do to describe

1037
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:10,200
an ethical theory.
I think actually, so I'm I'm

1038
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:13,080
probably more Nietzschean based
and I'm generally a bit more

1039
01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:15,680
relativist than absolutist with
regard to that.

1040
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:17,880
Much like Spinoza was as well I
suppose.

1041
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:20,960
Absolute relativist as as were.
Not not that far.

1042
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:24,960
But you know, I, I don't know, I
think perhaps that's a point of

1043
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:27,520
point of difference, but it
doesn't really pertain that much

1044
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,640
to metaphysics.
Well, maybe it does, but other,

1045
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,080
I mean, you know, I'd say
generally Devin that Matt and I

1046
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:35,080
are pretty much on the same
page.

1047
01:01:35,080 --> 01:01:38,760
Maybe he's he's at the top and
I'm at the bottom or left and

1048
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:41,720
right, whatever.
But you know, there's not much

1049
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,280
difference between us really.
And I suppose that's why we know

1050
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:45,800
each other, right?
Yeah.

1051
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:48,720
No, it's the the type of
differences between our thought

1052
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:53,520
is I enjoy having a beer or two
and then surfacing what those

1053
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:55,720
differences might be.
It's really fun and interesting

1054
01:01:55,720 --> 01:02:01,800
and fruitful to explore
differences that that you and I

1055
01:02:01,800 --> 01:02:05,280
might have philosophically
because their generative

1056
01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:07,800
differences.
And I think, you know,

1057
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:11,480
philosophy for me is not about
getting everyone to agree.

1058
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:16,760
That's kind of boring.
And, and so I've always enjoyed

1059
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:21,760
debating physicalist and
materialist and duelist and so

1060
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:23,400
on.
But the problem in that in that

1061
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,320
case is that very often my own
position gets totally dismissed

1062
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:30,280
as absurd or whatever.
And the good thing about being

1063
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:32,520
friends with someone like Peter
is that we can take each other's

1064
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:35,400
position seriously enough to
really engage, you know?

1065
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:37,320
So that's what it's all about
for me.

1066
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:40,040
I think at this point it's
important to mention the fact

1067
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:44,280
that that's the point of this
conference is to sort of bring

1068
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:46,480
these concepts and these terms.
Peter, you were discussing the

1069
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,640
fact that you have such similar
views, but there's a terminology

1070
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:52,440
issue and that's the point.
We need to discuss these, bring

1071
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:55,200
them to the forefront, allow
people to understand it, Which

1072
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:59,200
brings me to this question, how
do we communicate these paradigm

1073
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,720
shifting ideas without them
being dismissed as mere

1074
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:04,720
mysticism?
Both of you could answer this.

1075
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:14,280
Matt, feel free to start.
Well, I mean, I think we first

1076
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:19,200
of all can defend mysticism as a
legitimate way of knowing.

1077
01:03:20,440 --> 01:03:21,520
It's not the only way of
knowing.

1078
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:25,640
And we wouldn't want to base a
philosophy entirely on a

1079
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:29,000
mystical experience or even on
the whole history of mystical

1080
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:32,160
experiences.
But at the same time, you know,

1081
01:03:32,240 --> 01:03:37,200
if, if you're, if you read
William James's Varieties of

1082
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:41,680
Religious Experience, there's a
lot of, I think that's a, that's

1083
01:03:41,680 --> 01:03:46,600
a catalog of evidence.
As James said, you know, we, we

1084
01:03:46,600 --> 01:03:50,120
could never be closed with our
account of reality until we've

1085
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:52,840
really examined all of the
different modes of consciousness

1086
01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:54,800
that are available to us.
And mysticism is one of the

1087
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:58,960
modes, one of the lenses that we
can look through to understand

1088
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:01,160
reality.
And I think we should take it

1089
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:03,680
very seriously.
And so just to say, you know,

1090
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:07,360
first of all, let's not dismiss
mysticism, but we can also, I

1091
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:14,240
think, justify our views that
would take us beyond materialism

1092
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:19,760
and and physicalism on
scientific grounds and logical

1093
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:23,840
grounds.
There's a lot of new paradigm

1094
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,720
science being done.
You know, Michael Levin's work,

1095
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:32,600
for example, showing how genetic
reductionism is just completely

1096
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:36,000
inadequate to the empirical
evidence coming out of his lab.

1097
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:42,360
And so it's it's and in, you
know, in physics has been in a

1098
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:46,720
paradigmatic crisis for 100
years with where the two most

1099
01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:49,040
successful theories, relativity
and quantum theory, just they

1100
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:50,280
don't know how they fit
together.

1101
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:53,920
And so, you know, there are a
lot of reasons to begin to

1102
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:58,880
question this idea that somehow
physicalism has closed accounts

1103
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:04,560
with reality that don't require
us, you know, dropping acid and

1104
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:06,360
and having a grand mystical
experience.

1105
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:09,560
You don't even need to go there
at all to be skeptical that

1106
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:13,720
physicalism is the best account
of the scientific evidence.

1107
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:19,080
But one thing I want to add,
though, is I, you know, maybe

1108
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:21,280
another difference between
Spinoza and Whitehead.

1109
01:05:21,840 --> 01:05:25,880
Spinoza, you know, wrote his
ethics in this geometrical way,

1110
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:30,240
trying to really prove his
position step by step as one

1111
01:05:30,240 --> 01:05:32,840
would articulate A mathematical
proof.

1112
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:37,520
And I think that's compelling,
but I would say it's compelling

1113
01:05:37,520 --> 01:05:39,720
as a as a rhetorical move.
It's not.

1114
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:42,680
You can't actually prove
metaphysics as you would prove a

1115
01:05:42,680 --> 01:05:45,680
mathematical theorem.
And Whitehead makes the point

1116
01:05:45,680 --> 01:05:48,640
that mathematics is valuable,
and useful as it has been to

1117
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:54,440
philosophers has also really
misled philosophers because they

1118
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:57,080
got the wrong sense of what the
philosophical and the

1119
01:05:57,080 --> 01:06:00,960
metaphysical aim is, which is
not to arrive at some definitive

1120
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:05,160
proof.
Whitehead says philosophy is not

1121
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:08,800
deduction, you know, contrary to
the method Spinoza was

1122
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:10,560
deploying.
Philosophy is the search for

1123
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:17,840
premises and the search for
premises requires us to be open

1124
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:24,200
to these intuitive insights to
the full, again, the full suite

1125
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:28,560
of human experience can allow us
to feel like a certain premise

1126
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:31,000
is justified.
But then we have to test that

1127
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:34,120
premise.
Yeah, through deductions,

1128
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:35,520
seeing.
Well, what implications does it

1129
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:37,560
lead to and does that produce
any absurdities?

1130
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:40,440
And we have to to test our
philosophical premises

1131
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:43,400
experientially.
Is this adequate to, you know,

1132
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:46,920
the, the various facets of human
experience or does it end up,

1133
01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:50,360
well, mystifying aspects of our
experience where we we can't

1134
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:53,000
explain it if those are our
premises, For example, the hard

1135
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:55,560
problem of consciousness, if
mind and matter are these two

1136
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:58,960
entirely different sorts of
things as a premise that's going

1137
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:01,680
to lead to some problems down
the road that might require we

1138
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:05,640
back up and unask that question
or dissolve that premise.

1139
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:07,760
Right.
So metaphysics is not about

1140
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:09,400
proof.
In other words, I think we're

1141
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:13,120
we're really looking for
something more like an adequate

1142
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:16,000
interpretation that that's what
metaphysics is seeking.

1143
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:20,680
We shouldn't imagine that we
would ever have some, you know,

1144
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:28,640
final argument to to rule them
all that's going to allow us to

1145
01:07:28,640 --> 01:07:30,360
just be finished with
metaphysics of.

1146
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:37,160
Course Hegel, you know, tried to
move Spinozaism onwards by

1147
01:07:37,160 --> 01:07:39,880
saying, OK, let's like try to
find these premises, these

1148
01:07:39,880 --> 01:07:43,840
axioms, you know, imminently in
an imminent dialectic, you know,

1149
01:07:43,840 --> 01:07:46,320
which was very influential,
influential Marks and later

1150
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:49,960
human history, of course.
But yeah, no, I agree that, you

1151
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:52,880
know, we get, you know, if you
think about the word proof, what

1152
01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:54,160
does it mean?
You know, it's like you don't

1153
01:07:54,160 --> 01:07:56,960
use the mathematical proof is
not or logical proof is not the

1154
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:59,040
same thing as empirical proof,
right?

1155
01:07:59,040 --> 01:08:00,640
I mean, they're very different
forms.

1156
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:04,320
And history doesn't use proof as
biology does, for example,

1157
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:06,000
right?
So what does metaphysics

1158
01:08:06,360 --> 01:08:08,240
require?
I mean, other, other

1159
01:08:08,240 --> 01:08:10,320
methodologies, right?
For instance, explanation,

1160
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:14,120
parsimony and so on and so
forth, where one could even

1161
01:08:14,120 --> 01:08:17,240
question, of course, logical
presuppositions.

1162
01:08:17,359 --> 01:08:21,640
And interesting thing is that
certain states of experience can

1163
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:24,160
question, you know, laws of
contradiction and so on and so

1164
01:08:24,160 --> 01:08:25,200
forth.
Yeah, absolutely.

1165
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:36,920
But yeah, yeah.
Well, what's the next question?

1166
01:08:37,319 --> 01:08:39,800
What was your question?
Oh, yes.

1167
01:08:39,800 --> 01:08:41,600
How to how to, how to move it
forward.

1168
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:42,120
That's right.
Yeah.

1169
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:47,439
Well, I think that I, I also
respect mysticism in many ways.

1170
01:08:47,439 --> 01:08:49,880
But of course, mysticism, as I,
as I point out to a lot of

1171
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:51,880
people, mysticism is not
metaphysics.

1172
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:57,560
Metaphysics seeks, maybe it
doesn't achieve as we are saying

1173
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,399
now with axioms, but metaphysics
at least seeks to offer some

1174
01:09:00,399 --> 01:09:04,720
kind of explanation as to a
certain belief or Stan's

1175
01:09:04,720 --> 01:09:07,760
position or something like this,
you know, using reason and

1176
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:11,960
experience and whatnot,
genealogical methods, etcetera,

1177
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,439
etcetera.
So that's one thing.

1178
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:17,560
And also I think it's very
important to get the message out

1179
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:22,160
as you ask, to just make people
realise that physicalism is, as

1180
01:09:22,160 --> 01:09:24,560
I repeat myself now, but
physicalism is a metaphysical

1181
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:27,800
position.
I think generally I come across

1182
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:30,560
this view that physical, you
know, there's metaphysics and

1183
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:32,840
then there's, you know, like
just standard materialism.

1184
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:35,840
I don't believe in metaphysics.
I'm just just believe in matter,

1185
01:09:35,840 --> 01:09:38,720
right?
That is just an avoiding the

1186
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:43,200
problem, right?
Because materialism is 111

1187
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:46,520
theory within metaphysics.
Also, I notice other difference

1188
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:49,600
here between America and Europe.
I think America, as I understand

1189
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:54,680
it, metaphysics is kind of in
the new age bookshelf or

1190
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:56,680
something like this.
Whereas in Europe and Britain at

1191
01:09:56,680 --> 01:09:59,680
least, it's, it's like, you
know, a dry academic logical

1192
01:09:59,680 --> 01:10:02,480
subject that we teach with, you
know, teaching stuff about

1193
01:10:02,480 --> 01:10:05,120
causation, modality and so on,
so forth, right.

1194
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:07,800
So there's that.
There's slightly cultural

1195
01:10:07,800 --> 01:10:11,160
connotations that differ.
So just pointing out that

1196
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,400
metaphysics is actually, you
know, from Aristotle's book, The

1197
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:16,440
Metaphysics, that's where the
word comes from, is a dry,

1198
01:10:16,640 --> 01:10:18,680
boring subject.
No, it's not boring.

1199
01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:21,240
It's very interesting, but it's,
it's demanding, right?

1200
01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:23,400
It's a disciplined science
itself.

1201
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:26,480
You know, science in the sort of
in the sense of business shafts,

1202
01:10:26,480 --> 01:10:30,040
you know, the sort of, you know,
methodological study.

1203
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,200
So that's one way to point out
again, people's metaphysical

1204
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:36,760
biases and say that, you know,
you can't have a, what was that

1205
01:10:36,760 --> 01:10:38,880
great quote quotation from Wait,
heads late.

1206
01:10:38,880 --> 01:10:41,200
If you don't go into
metaphysics, you assume an

1207
01:10:41,200 --> 01:10:44,120
uncritical metaphysics, right?
I think that came out recently

1208
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:45,200
in the Harvard lectures, didn't
it?

1209
01:10:45,840 --> 01:10:48,800
So just pointing this out, just
constantly pointing this out.

1210
01:10:48,800 --> 01:10:51,480
There's no neutral default
position here, right?

1211
01:10:51,480 --> 01:10:55,280
As you know, Tevin, because of
the old podcasts, you know,

1212
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:57,520
people think there's just the
default position, but there

1213
01:10:57,520 --> 01:10:58,840
isn't.
Nothing is neutral.

1214
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:02,960
Nothing is not problematic.
We just want to problematise all

1215
01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:07,560
of this and offer alternatives.
And perhaps, you know, when we

1216
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:11,360
speak when, when in the in the
conferences, people from all

1217
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:15,880
types of disciplines, plant
biology, AI for E cognition and

1218
01:11:15,880 --> 01:11:18,640
so on so forth, you know, speak
to each other, you know, like

1219
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:23,000
common commonalities will will
appear as well as differences.

1220
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:26,920
And we can really sort of, you
know, debate these out, you

1221
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:30,120
know, see, see, you know, like
move the move the conversation

1222
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:32,480
forward and you know, how to
bring it out to people.

1223
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,840
Well, I think, you know,
podcasts like like this Tevin, a

1224
01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:41,400
documentary perhaps, or
documentaries and so on and so

1225
01:11:41,400 --> 01:11:45,200
forth.
Something at once.

1226
01:11:45,360 --> 01:11:46,360
Sorry, Matt.
Continue.

1227
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:50,080
Well, I mean, I just was
thinking on, you know, Peter was

1228
01:11:50,080 --> 01:11:52,360
talking about this cultural
difference between America and

1229
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:54,320
the UK when it comes to
metaphysics.

1230
01:11:54,320 --> 01:11:56,680
I've been to Glastonbury.
You know you guys have your own

1231
01:11:56,680 --> 01:12:00,120
New Age spiritual metaphysical
tradition going on there too.

1232
01:12:00,440 --> 01:12:02,320
But we don't, we don't call it
metaphysics, though.

1233
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:03,520
You see, that's the difference,
right?

1234
01:12:03,520 --> 01:12:06,600
We would call that spiritualism
or spirituality or or whatever.

1235
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:08,320
Sure.
OK, OK.

1236
01:12:09,160 --> 01:12:10,760
Yeah.
I think we have it for sure.

1237
01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:13,160
I mean, I live in West
westernmost Cornwall in Britain

1238
01:12:13,160 --> 01:12:15,200
here.
I mean, you know, the Cornwall

1239
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:17,640
is known as it's like a
Christmas.

1240
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:19,800
This is an old adage.
It's almost like Christmas

1241
01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:21,840
stocking.
All the nuts go to the end, as I

1242
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:22,520
said.
Got.

1243
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:28,160
A huge collection of neo pagans,
witches, Wizards and all types,

1244
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,160
right?
So certainly, certainly that

1245
01:12:30,160 --> 01:12:32,000
that's an aspect of Europe.
I didn't.

1246
01:12:32,480 --> 01:12:36,000
What I really meant to say was
that the word metaphysics is

1247
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:38,600
generally not used within those
circles.

1248
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:42,680
Yeah, I think that's, well as as
someone from South Africa, it's

1249
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:47,200
we're very imbued with
historically British or European

1250
01:12:47,720 --> 01:12:49,480
colonized.
So at, at this country's

1251
01:12:49,480 --> 01:12:51,120
fundamentally very British
thinking.

1252
01:12:51,120 --> 01:12:52,960
So we're kind of in the middle
because we're very much

1253
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:56,960
influenced by the US, but also
imbued with culture from from

1254
01:12:56,960 --> 01:13:00,560
Europe.
And, and I find it is quite what

1255
01:13:00,560 --> 01:13:05,880
what Peter's saying is is sort
of accurate, but perhaps too

1256
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:08,920
simplified.
Yeah.

1257
01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:12,000
I mean, you know, certainly it's
true of California.

1258
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:16,320
I think in East Coast like New
York City, intellectual cultures

1259
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:20,720
more European than say what's
going on in Northern California

1260
01:13:20,720 --> 01:13:22,960
in terms of how people
understand metaphysics.

1261
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:27,760
But but yeah, point taken.
Well, does this before we go

1262
01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:30,120
back to the conference and to
Minded Lodge project.

1263
01:13:30,560 --> 01:13:32,720
Peter, you just touched on
documentaries, the podcasts like

1264
01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:34,320
these and what we're going to do
with the future.

1265
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:37,680
But let's first touch on 2
concepts before we move on.

1266
01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:40,880
One being MIND and AI.
How do both of you view

1267
01:13:40,880 --> 01:13:43,720
artificial intelligence in the
framework of mind at large?

1268
01:13:44,120 --> 01:13:48,000
Do you see AI as a new kind of
mind or just an extension of

1269
01:13:48,000 --> 01:13:52,440
ours?
Shall I start?

1270
01:13:53,240 --> 01:14:00,680
Well, a few things.
AIFAIFAI or robots or computers

1271
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:02,800
can be conscious.
That's a form of consciousness

1272
01:14:02,800 --> 01:14:05,040
outside the human brain.
So it's kind of extracranial.

1273
01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:07,440
And that's why it'd be
interesting to speak about these

1274
01:14:07,440 --> 01:14:11,080
things.
However, one asks then, and this

1275
01:14:11,080 --> 01:14:13,760
is the fundamental question I
suppose, what are the sufficient

1276
01:14:13,760 --> 01:14:15,720
and necessary conditions for
consciousness, right.

1277
01:14:16,400 --> 01:14:19,440
And once you know that, then you
can apply that to plants and

1278
01:14:19,440 --> 01:14:24,240
bacteria and and AI, of course,
but AI presents different

1279
01:14:24,240 --> 01:14:27,120
problems really from plants
because plants and fungi,

1280
01:14:27,120 --> 01:14:29,520
whatever their self to a certain
extent, self-contained

1281
01:14:29,520 --> 01:14:32,040
organisms.
Whereas, you know, when you ask

1282
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:34,280
a question to AI, you'll get an
it will go to the Internet and

1283
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:37,000
go to a cloud and and reply.
So you don't have the

1284
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:40,000
self-contained physical units at
least, you know, so it

1285
01:14:40,000 --> 01:14:43,240
complicates, certainly
complicates the issue.

1286
01:14:43,760 --> 01:14:47,880
I personally am, I must say,
undetermined about the question

1287
01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:50,520
whether AI can be conscious.
I was speaking to Bernard Carr,

1288
01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:53,800
you know, the physicist about it
if you a couple of months ago.

1289
01:14:53,800 --> 01:14:58,040
And if you, if you take a
Buxonian exogenous theory of

1290
01:14:58,040 --> 01:15:01,320
mind, so you know that the brain
receives rather than generates

1291
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:03,840
consciousness, then you know,
it's conceivable of course, that

1292
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:06,640
you could create some kind of
mechanism which could receive,

1293
01:15:06,720 --> 01:15:08,880
right.
So that would be a type of AI

1294
01:15:08,880 --> 01:15:11,240
consciousness.
But that's if you accept that

1295
01:15:11,240 --> 01:15:13,760
exogenous theory of mind in the
1st place, which has got a lot

1296
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:16,160
of problems.
I think we've certainly moved on

1297
01:15:16,160 --> 01:15:19,280
from the Turing test to, you
know, to say that, you know,

1298
01:15:19,280 --> 01:15:22,760
something's conscious if it can
pass, if one can't determined

1299
01:15:22,760 --> 01:15:25,000
whether it's a human or not.
I think this is based on logical

1300
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:28,040
behaviourism in the 1950s from
Turing, you know, and no one

1301
01:15:28,040 --> 01:15:30,160
really, not many, hardly anyone
believes that anymore.

1302
01:15:31,280 --> 01:15:34,600
But I do notice in AI circles,
Daniel Dennett is a huge

1303
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:38,160
influence still.
And in philosophical circles

1304
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:41,280
he's kind of, you know, he's
respected, but kind of, I feel

1305
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:44,320
like we've moved on from his way
of thinking.

1306
01:15:45,080 --> 01:15:48,280
But it's quite, I was at an AI
conference in Exeter a few weeks

1307
01:15:48,280 --> 01:15:52,240
ago and one does notice these
assumptions being made, you

1308
01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:55,440
know, and, and there's
historical reasons for that,

1309
01:15:56,000 --> 01:15:59,960
that John Searle, who just died,
spoke about.

1310
01:16:00,920 --> 01:16:03,680
But I, I'm interested to, you
know, debate this.

1311
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:08,760
Like I say, I'm personally on
the fence with this and.

1312
01:16:09,000 --> 01:16:11,240
Do you do you find that these AI
conferences are just

1313
01:16:11,240 --> 01:16:14,640
philosophically uninformed?
Yeah.

1314
01:16:14,640 --> 01:16:18,440
So I, I mean, my role was just
to get set out the standard, you

1315
01:16:18,440 --> 01:16:23,520
know, like the difference
between simulating consciousness

1316
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:27,080
and instantiating consciousness,
you know, just the, the, the,

1317
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:31,720
the Chinese room, you know,
thought experiment and so on and

1318
01:16:31,720 --> 01:16:32,320
so forth.
Yeah.

1319
01:16:32,320 --> 01:16:35,800
So there are, there are a lot of
assumptions there because of

1320
01:16:35,800 --> 01:16:38,120
course people who are
specialists in AI can't be

1321
01:16:38,120 --> 01:16:40,000
specialists in philosophy might
understand that.

1322
01:16:40,400 --> 01:16:43,480
But there's see again, a great
role here to play with

1323
01:16:43,480 --> 01:16:48,000
philosophy and and the
development of AI and the social

1324
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:52,120
ramifications of AI which will
prob which are manifesting

1325
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:55,360
regardless of the truth of the
instantiation of consciousness.

1326
01:16:55,360 --> 01:16:58,600
So really fascinating and really
dangerous.

1327
01:16:58,600 --> 01:17:00,520
A lot of it, you know, really
like some of the things I heard

1328
01:17:00,520 --> 01:17:02,400
some of the talks.
It's quite worrying, but

1329
01:17:03,280 --> 01:17:09,760
fascinating nonetheless.
Yeah, well, in, as a an

1330
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:14,160
experientialist, I, I, I can't
rule out that there might be

1331
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:18,000
artificial forms of
consciousness at some point.

1332
01:17:18,440 --> 01:17:24,000
But at present, large language
models, I'm pretty sure cannot,

1333
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:27,760
are not and cannot be conscious
or even intelligent in any

1334
01:17:27,760 --> 01:17:31,320
meaningful sense of the term.
These are information

1335
01:17:31,320 --> 01:17:33,760
processors.
And the thing about, you know,

1336
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:36,040
say Claude Shannon's
understanding of information is

1337
01:17:36,040 --> 01:17:39,640
he sort of brackets the sender
and the receiver and just looks

1338
01:17:39,640 --> 01:17:45,120
at the message as a in a
syntactical way without meaning

1339
01:17:45,320 --> 01:17:47,280
because meaning comes from the
sender and the receiver.

1340
01:17:47,280 --> 01:17:49,560
In other words, human beings are
in the loop.

1341
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:53,000
And so when a large language
model spits out something, we

1342
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:55,920
understand its meaning.
The information processing going

1343
01:17:55,920 --> 01:17:58,400
on in the computer itself,
completely meaningless.

1344
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:01,360
There's no intelligence
happening, no understanding.

1345
01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:03,120
This is Searles Chinese room
argument, right?

1346
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:05,880
Then there's certainly no
consciousness there.

1347
01:18:06,520 --> 01:18:10,880
And I've found that, you know,
as a philosopher of religion who

1348
01:18:10,880 --> 01:18:15,000
has some understanding of, you
know, some of these ancient

1349
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:19,680
myths of, of in the Kabbalah of
the Golem, I mean, there's Mary

1350
01:18:19,680 --> 01:18:22,760
Shelley's Frankenstein.
And we have, we have this, this

1351
01:18:22,960 --> 01:18:25,000
and demonology and the occult
and all of this.

1352
01:18:25,560 --> 01:18:28,440
My background and all of that
stuff helps me understand what

1353
01:18:28,440 --> 01:18:32,520
some of these Silicon Valley
computer engineers are are

1354
01:18:32,520 --> 01:18:35,680
getting on about, where it's
becoming a religious phenomenon

1355
01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:37,960
for them.
And these AI systems are being

1356
01:18:37,960 --> 01:18:42,840
treated like gods.
And all the sudden demonology,

1357
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:46,680
which might have seemed
superstitious, is being drawn

1358
01:18:46,680 --> 01:18:53,320
from by computer engineers to
make sense of what they think

1359
01:18:53,320 --> 01:18:57,920
they're doing.
And again, I'm open enough to

1360
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:03,280
some of that stuff, you know,
the occult orientation to think

1361
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:05,960
that, OK, if the brain is in
some kind of a receiver, then

1362
01:19:05,960 --> 01:19:10,200
maybe there is a way in which an
advanced information processing

1363
01:19:10,200 --> 01:19:16,960
system could, could be a sort of
receiver for some alien

1364
01:19:16,960 --> 01:19:20,160
intelligence that would then
have a body and access to this

1365
01:19:20,160 --> 01:19:22,960
dimension through that system.
You know, I don't know,

1366
01:19:22,960 --> 01:19:24,960
something weird like that.
We might be in a universe that's

1367
01:19:24,960 --> 01:19:29,400
as weird as that.
But I think at present I have

1368
01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:34,200
seen no evidence in machine
learning and large language

1369
01:19:34,200 --> 01:19:38,240
model technologies of anything
that could in principle become

1370
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:39,960
conscious.
I think that's just

1371
01:19:40,000 --> 01:19:46,600
fundamentally confused to
imagine that a digital computer

1372
01:19:46,600 --> 01:19:48,840
could achieve that.
And you know, there's so many

1373
01:19:48,840 --> 01:19:51,920
interesting things to explore in
regards to the nature of human

1374
01:19:51,920 --> 01:19:53,920
intelligence in the ways that
it's always already been

1375
01:19:53,920 --> 01:19:56,640
artificial, in the sense that
human beings have needed

1376
01:19:56,640 --> 01:20:00,800
external tools to think in the
abstract ways that we do think

1377
01:20:01,320 --> 01:20:04,720
from.
The first stone tools through

1378
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:08,600
the whole history of media
technologies, written language,

1379
01:20:08,600 --> 01:20:15,160
alphabets, you know, our our
brains have always been

1380
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:20,560
augmented by these external
tools that that extend our

1381
01:20:20,560 --> 01:20:22,640
memory.
I mean, you know, if you,

1382
01:20:23,480 --> 01:20:25,640
there's so many parallels
between people worried about the

1383
01:20:25,640 --> 01:20:29,360
effects of large language models
on human cognition today to what

1384
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:32,680
Plato was saying about the
alphabet over 2000 years ago,

1385
01:20:32,800 --> 01:20:35,000
right?
All the damage is going to do to

1386
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:37,240
our memory and our capacity to
think for ourselves and so on.

1387
01:20:37,240 --> 01:20:43,040
So this isn't a new problem, but
I think there's a lot of hype

1388
01:20:43,160 --> 01:20:46,760
and philosophy has never been
more important to help us avoid

1389
01:20:48,000 --> 01:20:54,240
falling prey to that hype and
allowing the PR and advertising

1390
01:20:54,240 --> 01:21:00,200
approaches of these big AI
companies to distract us from

1391
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:04,600
the real technical limitations
and, and, and philosophical

1392
01:21:06,480 --> 01:21:08,160
limitations of these
technologies.

1393
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:11,040
The whole idea of conscious
machines and artificial general

1394
01:21:11,040 --> 01:21:13,680
intelligence, that's an
advertising campaign.

1395
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:20,600
The the AI systems themselves
are powerful and interesting and

1396
01:21:20,600 --> 01:21:23,440
useful, but they're not
conscious and they can't be

1397
01:21:23,440 --> 01:21:24,440
conscious.
That's.

1398
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:28,800
My my view it's not the current
architecture.

1399
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:33,800
Before we before I move on to
Peter, what would you say?

1400
01:21:34,200 --> 01:21:37,480
Where do you think the humans,
sorry non human minds come from

1401
01:21:37,480 --> 01:21:40,680
in terms of plants, fungi or
other alien like species?

1402
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:42,200
How does it fit within your
framework?

1403
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:50,880
Well, I mean, I think the the
cosmos is an ecosystem from top

1404
01:21:50,880 --> 01:21:55,880
to bottom.
And as Whitehead argued, physics

1405
01:21:55,880 --> 01:21:57,680
is the study of the smaller
organisms.

1406
01:21:57,680 --> 01:22:03,040
And so you know, there there are
atomic minds and photonic and

1407
01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:06,200
electronic minds, little minds,
different, very different kinds

1408
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:08,400
of minds from what we think of
as the human mind.

1409
01:22:09,960 --> 01:22:14,680
And so every self organizing
system in nature is

1410
01:22:15,440 --> 01:22:18,400
experiential, has a perspective,
right?

1411
01:22:18,680 --> 01:22:22,440
And in some sense, from a white
Hedian point of view, reality is

1412
01:22:22,440 --> 01:22:27,040
made of perspectives of various
kinds, and many of those

1413
01:22:27,040 --> 01:22:30,240
perspectives are nested so that
you can build up richer

1414
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:34,080
perspectives from simpler
perspectives.

1415
01:22:34,080 --> 01:22:38,440
In the sense that, you know, my
more or less unified

1416
01:22:38,440 --> 01:22:40,840
consciousness is made-up of
billions of cells.

1417
01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:47,560
Somehow the combination problem
is, is solved by our biology.

1418
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:53,120
And so whether or not we can
think clearly about how that

1419
01:22:53,120 --> 01:22:57,760
combination problem is solved,
we know that in fact, it is, you

1420
01:22:57,760 --> 01:23:02,120
know, because the, the sentience
of cells somehow does achieve A

1421
01:23:02,120 --> 01:23:04,400
synthesis into the sentience of
a whole animal.

1422
01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:10,120
So, yeah, I mean, I, I think we
live in a the whole universe can

1423
01:23:10,120 --> 01:23:13,680
be understood as an ecology of
organisms, each with its own

1424
01:23:13,680 --> 01:23:19,640
peculiar form of sentience.
And the human being is, you

1425
01:23:19,640 --> 01:23:23,040
know, unique in some senses, but
in another sense, we are one

1426
01:23:23,040 --> 01:23:27,800
member of this much larger
community of, of, of organisms.

1427
01:23:30,320 --> 01:23:31,480
You know, what are your thoughts
on that?

1428
01:23:32,120 --> 01:23:34,800
Other minds, and perhaps even
altered minds.

1429
01:23:37,960 --> 01:23:41,920
Well, again, you know, I'm a
Whiteheadian, so I didn't really

1430
01:23:41,920 --> 01:23:44,440
disagree with that.
My PhD was on panpsychism, so

1431
01:23:45,280 --> 01:23:47,320
pretty much in accord.
Just kind of quickly about the

1432
01:23:47,400 --> 01:23:53,680
AI thing though, that's, I think
that the sort of an issue that

1433
01:23:53,680 --> 01:23:57,520
won't be solved or the hardest
issue here really is to

1434
01:23:57,520 --> 01:24:01,360
determine whether AI were a
robot and certainly not the

1435
01:24:01,440 --> 01:24:05,320
current LLMS, but in the future
some kind of robotic device

1436
01:24:06,960 --> 01:24:09,200
achieves consciousness.
The problem is how to determine

1437
01:24:09,200 --> 01:24:11,040
that.
And William James actually wrote

1438
01:24:11,040 --> 01:24:14,440
about this, I think 100 years
ago or so, calling it an

1439
01:24:14,520 --> 01:24:16,880
electronic suite house, I think
something like this.

1440
01:24:16,880 --> 01:24:22,080
But how you know, and, and
essentially John sells issue as

1441
01:24:22,080 --> 01:24:24,600
well, you know, like even if you
had a robot which cried and

1442
01:24:24,600 --> 01:24:27,440
said, listen, I insisted, look,
say I love you, why do you not

1443
01:24:27,440 --> 01:24:29,240
believe me?
And this is true love, you know,

1444
01:24:29,240 --> 01:24:33,120
and and so on that all of that
could be fake, just like an

1445
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:35,840
actor would do it.
And, and this comes back to the

1446
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:38,240
methodology with regard to
consciousness, you know, and the

1447
01:24:38,360 --> 01:24:40,320
problem of other minds.
Essentially, you know, it seems

1448
01:24:40,320 --> 01:24:44,400
that these questions can't be
empirically validated, falsified

1449
01:24:44,400 --> 01:24:47,440
or verified.
So how then do we determine it?

1450
01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:50,480
Are we at the level whereby we
cannot determine it?

1451
01:24:51,040 --> 01:24:54,600
Will this always just remain a
question or are there some kinds

1452
01:24:54,600 --> 01:24:58,000
of solutions to this apart from
just inference, best

1453
01:24:58,000 --> 01:25:00,600
explanation, so on, so forth?
You know, these are fully open

1454
01:25:00,600 --> 01:25:04,120
questions and that's why I don't
want to say absolute yes or no

1455
01:25:04,120 --> 01:25:06,840
to, you know, the question of
robot consciousness

1456
01:25:07,360 --> 01:25:10,480
consciousness.
But they are extremely difficult

1457
01:25:10,480 --> 01:25:15,120
questions and they sort of
demand a new, a new form of

1458
01:25:15,120 --> 01:25:16,920
science, really a new form of
methodology.

1459
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:21,400
Yeah, forward.
Yeah, I mean, I've been to a

1460
01:25:21,400 --> 01:25:26,160
couple of AI conferences lately
as well, Peter.

1461
01:25:26,160 --> 01:25:30,720
And one of the things that I got
clued into by being part of

1462
01:25:30,720 --> 01:25:35,040
those conversations is the the
concern about false positives,

1463
01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:40,440
which is to say, more and more
people are imagining that their

1464
01:25:40,440 --> 01:25:44,000
particular instance of ChatGPT
or Cloud or whatever, that

1465
01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:47,760
they've woken it up by a unique
form of prompting, right?

1466
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:52,600
And so might not be the ChatGPT
as such is conscious, but their

1467
01:25:52,600 --> 01:25:56,800
particular instance of it, they
think is conscious.

1468
01:25:57,280 --> 01:26:00,760
And as, you know, robotics
advances, we're going to have

1469
01:26:00,760 --> 01:26:03,680
more and more cases of that sort
of thing where people are going

1470
01:26:03,680 --> 01:26:09,280
to want to defend their AI that
they've formed this relationship

1471
01:26:09,280 --> 01:26:11,760
with as a sentient being that
deserves rights.

1472
01:26:13,240 --> 01:26:17,120
And different societies and and
individuals are going to come

1473
01:26:17,120 --> 01:26:18,600
down on different sides of that
question.

1474
01:26:19,120 --> 01:26:22,720
And while I again, think that
the particular form of

1475
01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:26,240
artificial intelligence that is
popular nowadays, large language

1476
01:26:26,240 --> 01:26:30,480
models and whatnot, I don't see
that as an Ave. to conscious

1477
01:26:30,480 --> 01:26:32,680
machines.
I can see various forms of

1478
01:26:32,680 --> 01:26:36,400
Cyborg, you know, architecture
where there's some living tissue

1479
01:26:36,400 --> 01:26:40,200
versus with with silicone and
microchips like, yeah, all bets

1480
01:26:40,200 --> 01:26:43,720
are off when you start to mix
the biological tissue in with

1481
01:26:43,840 --> 01:26:47,800
with these machines.
So what the future holds, I

1482
01:26:47,800 --> 01:26:49,520
can't say.
And as a, again, a pan

1483
01:26:49,520 --> 01:26:52,280
experientialist, I have to be
open to this possibility.

1484
01:26:52,280 --> 01:26:56,760
I just don't see it happening
with these stochastic parrots as

1485
01:26:56,760 --> 01:26:58,480
there's.
Some well, I think I'm in

1486
01:26:59,040 --> 01:27:01,080
agreement with that.
Also, another whole factor here

1487
01:27:01,080 --> 01:27:03,160
is transhumanism.
You know, it's out of political

1488
01:27:03,160 --> 01:27:07,480
dimension to all as well, which
it stems partly from from

1489
01:27:07,480 --> 01:27:10,360
Nietzsche.
When I was in California a few

1490
01:27:10,360 --> 01:27:12,360
months ago, I was near Silicon
Valley.

1491
01:27:12,360 --> 01:27:15,520
And these people, I remember a
woman asked in the audience like

1492
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:19,720
#1 what is consciousness?
And #2 should we prohibit the

1493
01:27:19,720 --> 01:27:23,000
system we've just created from
insisting it is conscious, You

1494
01:27:23,000 --> 01:27:25,960
know?
And so I sort of replied to her

1495
01:27:25,960 --> 01:27:28,800
that, you know, gave her the
classic philosophy man spiel

1496
01:27:28,800 --> 01:27:33,000
about what consciousness is,
which gives a Tempest for but

1497
01:27:34,200 --> 01:27:38,120
but her colleague said, no, If
it says it's conscious, then it

1498
01:27:38,120 --> 01:27:40,160
is conscious, you know, that's
that's good enough.

1499
01:27:40,200 --> 01:27:41,840
And of course it's not good
enough.

1500
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:44,120
But I mean, if people believe
this is going to change the

1501
01:27:44,120 --> 01:27:47,880
society regardless of the truth,
you know, And so this is a whole

1502
01:27:47,880 --> 01:27:49,840
other aspect of it as well, you
know?

1503
01:27:50,400 --> 01:27:53,280
Yeah, but The thing is that
eliminated materialists would

1504
01:27:53,280 --> 01:27:56,000
say that we human beings say
we're conscious, but that's

1505
01:27:56,000 --> 01:27:58,640
really not true.
So like these issues, they cut

1506
01:27:58,640 --> 01:28:00,960
both ways.
But if there's no consciousness,

1507
01:28:00,960 --> 01:28:03,560
like the logical behaviors, then
of course, yeah, they know they

1508
01:28:03,560 --> 01:28:05,640
are equivalent to us in terms of
consciousness or non

1509
01:28:05,640 --> 01:28:06,400
consciousness.
Yeah.

1510
01:28:06,760 --> 01:28:10,840
So again, this question really
comes back to fundamental

1511
01:28:10,840 --> 01:28:14,920
metaphysical beliefs.
You know, that's what determines

1512
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:17,480
this is again the underlying
implicit undercurrent that

1513
01:28:17,480 --> 01:28:21,320
determines more surface beliefs
such as this.

1514
01:28:21,320 --> 01:28:24,080
And, and again, to bring it back
to the focus here, this is what

1515
01:28:24,080 --> 01:28:27,000
our conference conferences are
about.

1516
01:28:27,600 --> 01:28:32,080
You know these underlying
default metaphysical metaphysics

1517
01:28:32,080 --> 01:28:35,200
and mind positions that go
unchallenged quite often.

1518
01:28:37,000 --> 01:28:37,560
Peter.
Peter.

1519
01:28:37,880 --> 01:28:40,920
Aside from that overarching
theme of just trying to

1520
01:28:40,920 --> 01:28:43,480
highlight the fact that every
position is technically a

1521
01:28:43,480 --> 01:28:46,840
metaphysical position,
physicalism is not the default

1522
01:28:47,000 --> 01:28:51,480
point, standing point which.
So in terms of interdisciplinary

1523
01:28:51,480 --> 01:28:55,880
impact, which fields do you
believe stand to get in the most

1524
01:28:55,880 --> 01:28:57,920
from this project and these
conferences?

1525
01:28:59,840 --> 01:29:04,320
Well, you know, I do think, I
mean, obviously I'd say

1526
01:29:04,320 --> 01:29:06,000
philosophy first and foremost,
perhaps.

1527
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:09,440
I think neuroscience actually
has a lot to gain from this.

1528
01:29:09,440 --> 01:29:14,920
And I'll tell you why a lot.
I know many neuroscientists now

1529
01:29:15,080 --> 01:29:17,720
I work with them.
There's many involved in

1530
01:29:17,720 --> 01:29:21,120
psychedelic research here in
Britain and Europe and America.

1531
01:29:21,840 --> 01:29:23,920
And when you speak to something,
you know, in the pub and

1532
01:29:23,920 --> 01:29:26,400
whatever, they're not actually,
they're not many of them are

1533
01:29:26,480 --> 01:29:29,040
physicalists, you know,
materialists, you know, in their

1534
01:29:29,040 --> 01:29:31,240
in their articles.
This is a kind of assumption,

1535
01:29:31,240 --> 01:29:33,480
but when you really question
question them, they're like,

1536
01:29:33,480 --> 01:29:37,480
well, maybe maybe some kind of
monism is more over it likely or

1537
01:29:37,480 --> 01:29:39,400
whatever.
When you question them about

1538
01:29:39,400 --> 01:29:42,480
mental causation, then then then
it will falls apart as well.

1539
01:29:43,400 --> 01:29:49,120
I think that if you change
metaphysical underlying beliefs,

1540
01:29:49,120 --> 01:29:53,960
you could potentially change
neuroscientific experiments,

1541
01:29:53,960 --> 01:29:55,880
right?
So here's an example of

1542
01:29:56,080 --> 01:30:01,000
something analogous,
epigenetics, founded in large

1543
01:30:01,000 --> 01:30:04,880
part by Charles Waddington.
It came about as a science

1544
01:30:04,880 --> 01:30:08,960
because what Waddington, as he
writes in his autobiography, was

1545
01:30:08,960 --> 01:30:11,080
very much influenced by
Whitehead's metaphysics.

1546
01:30:11,520 --> 01:30:14,800
This actually changed the
direction of his experiments,

1547
01:30:14,800 --> 01:30:17,400
which then lead to epigenetics,
which before that was

1548
01:30:17,400 --> 01:30:20,520
considered, you know, from a Neo
Darwinist point of view, heresy,

1549
01:30:20,800 --> 01:30:22,720
you know, even 20 years ago
probably, right.

1550
01:30:23,440 --> 01:30:24,800
I think the same in
neuroscience, right?

1551
01:30:25,040 --> 01:30:29,560
So what we're proposing here is
not at all anti scientific or

1552
01:30:29,560 --> 01:30:33,000
anti neuroscientific.
It's just questioning the

1553
01:30:33,800 --> 01:30:39,200
underlying metaphysics of of
much of neuroscience.

1554
01:30:39,200 --> 01:30:43,280
Jake Juan Kim, you know, the
philosopher mind said that the

1555
01:30:43,440 --> 01:30:46,080
general working hypothesis of
neuroscientists today, and this

1556
01:30:46,080 --> 01:30:49,280
was a few, you know, a decade
ago was methodological

1557
01:30:49,280 --> 01:30:51,880
epiphenomenalism, right?
It's just the assumed

1558
01:30:52,640 --> 01:30:54,840
metaphysics.
If you if you challenge that,

1559
01:30:54,840 --> 01:30:59,080
you might see other kinds of
neuroscientific experiments.

1560
01:30:59,080 --> 01:31:02,560
For example, at the moment we're
only scanning brains, you know,

1561
01:31:02,760 --> 01:31:05,520
in relation to consciousness.
Why not scan the whole body?

1562
01:31:05,880 --> 01:31:08,120
Why not try to see correlations
there at least, you know, for a

1563
01:31:08,120 --> 01:31:12,560
start, for example, or are there
ways of neuroscientifically

1564
01:31:12,560 --> 01:31:18,600
testing huge, you know, very
varied metaphysical theories?

1565
01:31:18,600 --> 01:31:20,840
So, for example, Bergson's
theory that the brains of

1566
01:31:20,840 --> 01:31:23,720
receiver rather than generator
of consciousness, can this not

1567
01:31:23,720 --> 01:31:28,000
be in some way, you know,
empirically tested perhaps, You

1568
01:31:28,000 --> 01:31:30,320
know, maybe the different
hypotheses will have different

1569
01:31:30,640 --> 01:31:32,400
predictions about outcomes,
right.

1570
01:31:33,120 --> 01:31:37,040
So that would be, I'm not saying
this will happen, but that would

1571
01:31:37,040 --> 01:31:39,720
be, I think, a very productive
way in which metaphysics could

1572
01:31:39,720 --> 01:31:45,000
change the movement of science.
Just as metaphysics now is

1573
01:31:45,080 --> 01:31:49,760
coming into therapy.
I think it now demands itself in

1574
01:31:49,760 --> 01:31:53,840
other fields like that.
Maybe I'm just saying

1575
01:31:53,840 --> 01:31:56,520
Euroscience because I'm in
psychedelic research fields, but

1576
01:31:56,800 --> 01:31:59,400
I think at least that's one
discipline which will benefit

1577
01:31:59,400 --> 01:32:02,040
from it.
Yeah.

1578
01:32:02,040 --> 01:32:05,440
Which fields do you think will
be impacted most by this by this

1579
01:32:05,440 --> 01:32:11,800
project?
Philosophy, religious studies,

1580
01:32:12,560 --> 01:32:14,200
hopefully all the natural
sciences.

1581
01:32:14,640 --> 01:32:19,160
I think it touches everything.
And you know, as Peter is

1582
01:32:19,160 --> 01:32:24,080
pointing out, the the the extent
to which we can notice certain

1583
01:32:24,080 --> 01:32:28,480
salient facts that would be
considered evidence for a view,

1584
01:32:28,480 --> 01:32:31,000
it really depends on the
theoretical framework we bring

1585
01:32:31,000 --> 01:32:35,080
to our observations.
And so a limited theoretical

1586
01:32:35,080 --> 01:32:40,040
framework that rules out in
advance that consciousness might

1587
01:32:40,920 --> 01:32:44,920
be realized outside the brain,
outside the skull, then of

1588
01:32:44,920 --> 01:32:46,560
course you're not going to
notice any evidence for that

1589
01:32:46,560 --> 01:32:50,400
position.
And so people often think that,

1590
01:32:50,720 --> 01:32:55,000
you know, this idea that in
neuroscience that the mind is

1591
01:32:55,000 --> 01:32:57,680
produced by the brain, that
that's a scientific discovery or

1592
01:32:57,680 --> 01:32:59,720
something.
No, that's not.

1593
01:32:59,720 --> 01:33:03,800
That's a paradigmatic assumption
that shapes the research before

1594
01:33:03,800 --> 01:33:07,280
they've even found anything out
about the, you know, there's no

1595
01:33:07,280 --> 01:33:10,240
theory of how the brain can
produce consciousness that I've

1596
01:33:10,240 --> 01:33:12,240
seen in terms of an actual
mechanism.

1597
01:33:13,920 --> 01:33:18,200
And so metaphysics allows us to
back up and recognize that there

1598
01:33:18,200 --> 01:33:21,200
are certain paradigmatic
assumptions that have been, I

1599
01:33:21,200 --> 01:33:24,240
would say holding back the
sciences and neuroscience in

1600
01:33:24,240 --> 01:33:29,200
particular, all of the available
neuroscientific evidence,

1601
01:33:29,200 --> 01:33:34,720
including all of the brain scans
is just as compatible with the

1602
01:33:34,720 --> 01:33:37,920
receiver theory as the producer
theory, right?

1603
01:33:39,800 --> 01:33:45,360
There's the whole discipline of,
of parapsychology and, and side

1604
01:33:45,360 --> 01:33:51,240
research where because
materialism has, you know, ruled

1605
01:33:51,280 --> 01:33:54,600
over academia for so long, there
haven't, there hasn't been much

1606
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:58,400
experimentation done and, or
much, much research funding

1607
01:33:58,400 --> 01:34:02,560
directed towards looking at, you
know, things like telepathy and

1608
01:34:02,560 --> 01:34:06,360
remote viewing and and
psychokinesis and all these

1609
01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:07,680
things.
They're just dismissed as well.

1610
01:34:07,680 --> 01:34:09,680
That's not possible.
So why would we research it?

1611
01:34:09,680 --> 01:34:14,440
But the research that has been
done suggests that there's

1612
01:34:14,440 --> 01:34:17,600
something there that needs to be
looked at that's inconsistent

1613
01:34:17,600 --> 01:34:19,760
with the usual materialist
picture.

1614
01:34:20,440 --> 01:34:25,760
And so I think if we can open
the door to getting more

1615
01:34:25,760 --> 01:34:30,040
intelligent minds and more
research funding in areas like

1616
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:35,000
PSI, that could really change,
change things.

1617
01:34:35,000 --> 01:34:38,320
And, you know, one of the things
that I love about Whitehead's

1618
01:34:38,320 --> 01:34:44,040
metaphysics is that if he's
right, telepathy is happening

1619
01:34:44,040 --> 01:34:46,080
all the time.
We're just mostly unconscious of

1620
01:34:46,080 --> 01:34:48,080
it.
And so rather than it being

1621
01:34:48,400 --> 01:34:52,200
parapsychological, it's just
normal psychology if you change

1622
01:34:52,200 --> 01:34:57,320
your metaphysics, right?
And so I think we can really

1623
01:34:58,640 --> 01:35:03,320
move the ball forward here if
this project is successful.

1624
01:35:03,320 --> 01:35:07,040
And we're not the only ones who
are trying to do this work, but

1625
01:35:07,040 --> 01:35:14,160
we want to contribute to a
larger push that would just

1626
01:35:14,160 --> 01:35:20,080
expand the conversation and
allow us to really be scientific

1627
01:35:20,320 --> 01:35:25,240
and, and ask questions that have
been forbidden by the priesthood

1628
01:35:25,240 --> 01:35:28,040
of materialism, right?
We need a, we need in a sense,

1629
01:35:28,040 --> 01:35:31,520
another Protestant Reformation
against the, the Church of

1630
01:35:31,520 --> 01:35:33,520
materialism.
That's that's part of what we're

1631
01:35:33,520 --> 01:35:36,160
up to here.
I think the sheer amount of

1632
01:35:36,160 --> 01:35:39,480
topics we covered in this in
this conversation thus far

1633
01:35:39,760 --> 01:35:42,840
highlights the interdisciplinary
impact it already makes.

1634
01:35:43,160 --> 01:35:45,520
When you guys spoke about
evolutionary biology, physics,

1635
01:35:45,520 --> 01:35:49,320
neuroscience, psychology,
parapsychology, philosophy,

1636
01:35:49,320 --> 01:35:54,680
ecology, this is such a
wide-ranging impact and it's at

1637
01:35:54,680 --> 01:35:57,360
some point has to have some sort
of a global relevance.

1638
01:35:57,360 --> 01:35:59,840
So Peter, what do you think?
How do you think these ideas

1639
01:35:59,840 --> 01:36:02,680
resonate with these contemporary
crises that we have?

1640
01:36:02,720 --> 01:36:05,440
Ecological collapse,
technological acceleration,

1641
01:36:05,440 --> 01:36:09,560
spiritual hunger, for example,
is a big part of why we have

1642
01:36:09,800 --> 01:36:13,520
these conversations.
I mean a huge question, but you

1643
01:36:13,520 --> 01:36:15,560
know, it's all, it's all very
much interrelated.

1644
01:36:15,560 --> 01:36:19,320
I mean, the ecological crisis,
for example, I think is partly

1645
01:36:19,320 --> 01:36:23,240
due to seeing nature as having
any instrumental rather than

1646
01:36:23,240 --> 01:36:25,400
intrinsic value, which is a kind
of metaphysics.

1647
01:36:25,400 --> 01:36:28,520
Again, you know, that you don't
attribute A consciousness to,

1648
01:36:29,120 --> 01:36:32,320
you know, natural, natural
entities, plants, whatnot.

1649
01:36:32,440 --> 01:36:35,760
So and that was actually the
base of deep ecology from

1650
01:36:35,760 --> 01:36:38,360
Ananes.
You know, he's used Spinoza to

1651
01:36:38,360 --> 01:36:43,320
try and change our approach and
attitudes to the environment,

1652
01:36:43,320 --> 01:36:46,600
you know, not on a practical
technological level, but on a

1653
01:36:46,600 --> 01:36:49,440
deeper metaphysical level that
we that we see nature in a

1654
01:36:49,440 --> 01:36:51,280
different way.
So this is one way in which we

1655
01:36:51,280 --> 01:36:55,560
can we push deeper ecology.
Deeper ecology I see as part of,

1656
01:36:55,560 --> 01:36:58,120
you know, fits nicely into this
whole project.

1657
01:36:59,080 --> 01:37:00,960
And Matt has already spoken
about the meaning crisis.

1658
01:37:00,960 --> 01:37:03,240
I mentioned herself European
crisis.

1659
01:37:04,520 --> 01:37:07,400
I do believe that there's a case
to be made.

1660
01:37:07,400 --> 01:37:10,560
Now, I don't think I'm quite as
sort of antagonistic against

1661
01:37:10,560 --> 01:37:14,720
materialism as Matt is, perhaps.
But I would say that there is a

1662
01:37:14,720 --> 01:37:19,760
case to be made that materialism
itself as an underlying implicit

1663
01:37:20,000 --> 01:37:23,560
belief system that has
underlined the Western mind for

1664
01:37:23,560 --> 01:37:30,280
the last 300 years can maybe is
perhaps a factor of mental

1665
01:37:30,280 --> 01:37:33,560
health decline, you know,
depression, meaninglessness,

1666
01:37:33,560 --> 01:37:36,320
nihilism, essentially.
So.

1667
01:37:37,640 --> 01:37:40,480
And also I should say that I do
believe that ethics is very, in

1668
01:37:40,480 --> 01:37:43,520
most cases, theoristical ethics
is based on metaphysics as well.

1669
01:37:43,520 --> 01:37:46,480
You know, if you want to really
substantiate your view, you have

1670
01:37:46,480 --> 01:37:50,800
to go into deep metaphysics.
And, and so changing that

1671
01:37:50,800 --> 01:37:54,120
underlying current, changing the
direction of its flow to a

1672
01:37:54,120 --> 01:37:58,080
certain extent should have, you
know, I'm not saying that this,

1673
01:37:58,080 --> 01:38:01,080
these three years will do this,
but it should like begin to kind

1674
01:38:01,080 --> 01:38:05,840
of move, move.
This is under current in, in a,

1675
01:38:06,480 --> 01:38:10,320
in a direction that has perhaps
been pointing in the wrong

1676
01:38:10,320 --> 01:38:13,080
direction for a few 100 years
now.

1677
01:38:13,280 --> 01:38:17,280
I mean, you can trace this back,
I think again very much to the

1678
01:38:17,280 --> 01:38:20,560
Reformation and then
Cartesianism.

1679
01:38:20,680 --> 01:38:23,400
And well, there are a number of
events, you know, that that

1680
01:38:23,400 --> 01:38:27,200
contribute to this.
But this is the hope, you know,

1681
01:38:28,000 --> 01:38:32,680
a rational logical redirection
of implicit metaphysical

1682
01:38:32,680 --> 01:38:36,440
undercurrents.
Beth, what do you think about

1683
01:38:36,440 --> 01:38:40,280
the global relevance and how
this project is going to help?

1684
01:38:42,840 --> 01:38:45,480
Well, you know, for most of
human history on every

1685
01:38:45,480 --> 01:38:49,600
continent, the default worldview
was some form of animism.

1686
01:38:50,120 --> 01:38:56,520
And it's only in the last few
100 years in the Western modern

1687
01:38:56,760 --> 01:39:03,600
world that this strange idea
that all of consciousness and

1688
01:39:03,600 --> 01:39:08,640
all meaning in the universe is
again sequestered inside human

1689
01:39:08,640 --> 01:39:10,640
heads.
That's that's the anomalous

1690
01:39:10,640 --> 01:39:17,360
view, That's the the odd
perspective that I think future

1691
01:39:17,360 --> 01:39:20,160
anthropologists will look back
and say, wow, that was a very

1692
01:39:20,160 --> 01:39:25,240
strange tribe of, you know,
western people that had that

1693
01:39:25,240 --> 01:39:28,080
bizarre view about the whole
universe as a machine or

1694
01:39:28,080 --> 01:39:32,880
something.
And so, you know, I think in

1695
01:39:32,880 --> 01:39:36,800
terms of the global impact,
we're trying to to de

1696
01:39:36,800 --> 01:39:41,000
provincialize in some sense,
Western academic science and

1697
01:39:41,000 --> 01:39:45,720
philosophy to come back into
touch with again with the rest

1698
01:39:45,720 --> 01:39:48,160
of the world for the majority of
human history has believed.

1699
01:39:50,000 --> 01:39:53,160
But I think, you know, so much
of the the issues that our

1700
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:57,520
contemporary, you know, modern
civilization is faced with, I

1701
01:39:57,520 --> 01:40:04,320
think stem from a overly
pessimistic view of the place of

1702
01:40:04,320 --> 01:40:09,040
consciousness in the universe.
You know, the anthropologist and

1703
01:40:09,200 --> 01:40:13,160
philosopher Ernest Becker talked
about the denial of death as a

1704
01:40:15,680 --> 01:40:20,640
crucial source of different.
Cultural coping mechanisms I

1705
01:40:20,640 --> 01:40:22,880
mean, he kind of thought all
culture was a coping mechanism

1706
01:40:22,880 --> 01:40:30,000
to figure out ways of not having
to face our mortality and and

1707
01:40:30,000 --> 01:40:32,440
make meaning in the face of
death.

1708
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:35,800
And I think we all do need to
confront death, but

1709
01:40:36,840 --> 01:40:39,920
metaphysically speaking, none of
us knows what happens when we

1710
01:40:39,920 --> 01:40:43,560
die.
And the dominant Christian view

1711
01:40:43,560 --> 01:40:47,080
for, you know, a few thousand
years in the West was what, you

1712
01:40:47,080 --> 01:40:49,920
die and you go to heaven or you
go to hell or you get lodged in

1713
01:40:49,920 --> 01:40:53,320
purgatory unless you buy an
indulgence, which is what upset

1714
01:40:53,320 --> 01:40:57,960
Luther so much.
And so there's this one life,

1715
01:40:58,640 --> 01:41:01,320
you know, and there was this
kind of escapist mentality in

1716
01:41:01,320 --> 01:41:02,400
the act.
We want to believe the right

1717
01:41:02,400 --> 01:41:03,720
thing, so we go to heaven when
we die.

1718
01:41:04,560 --> 01:41:07,640
But that is an anomalous view as
well.

1719
01:41:07,640 --> 01:41:10,680
Most cultures, I think, believe
in some form of reincarnation,

1720
01:41:10,680 --> 01:41:12,960
actually.
And even early church fathers

1721
01:41:12,960 --> 01:41:15,840
like Origin thought that
reincarnation was a thing and

1722
01:41:15,840 --> 01:41:19,840
was compatible with
Christianity, as did Pythagoras

1723
01:41:19,840 --> 01:41:22,400
before Christianity.
You know, it was at the ancient

1724
01:41:22,400 --> 01:41:25,480
Greeks thought that there was
some form of, of reincarnation.

1725
01:41:25,480 --> 01:41:31,520
And so I think in terms of the
rampant consumerism, the meaning

1726
01:41:31,520 --> 01:41:35,920
crisis, this idea that if
consciousness is just limited to

1727
01:41:35,920 --> 01:41:39,120
the, to the brain, that when we
die, it all just goes black and

1728
01:41:39,120 --> 01:41:42,080
it's as if we never existed.
There's a kind of pervasive

1729
01:41:43,880 --> 01:41:45,920
sense of nihilism.
And I know, you know, Peter has

1730
01:41:45,920 --> 01:41:49,520
a maybe different reading of, of
nihilism as a generator of new

1731
01:41:49,520 --> 01:41:52,600
values perhaps.
And I think we do need to face

1732
01:41:52,960 --> 01:41:57,560
this, this nothingness at the
core of modern culture and not

1733
01:41:57,560 --> 01:42:01,840
turn away from it and and paced
over it with, you know, wish

1734
01:42:01,840 --> 01:42:05,440
fulfilment and fantasy.
But I think if we if we had a

1735
01:42:05,440 --> 01:42:07,320
more expanded view of
consciousness, we could take

1736
01:42:07,320 --> 01:42:09,120
seriously something like
reincarnation.

1737
01:42:09,120 --> 01:42:12,880
I think it opens up whole new
possibilities for the deep

1738
01:42:12,880 --> 01:42:16,120
structure, the deep motivational
structure of our civilization,

1739
01:42:17,160 --> 01:42:21,160
which, you know, we need, as
Whitehead says, as we think we

1740
01:42:21,160 --> 01:42:26,440
live, right, the ideas that we
entertain shape our

1741
01:42:26,440 --> 01:42:30,840
civilization.
And right now the lowest common

1742
01:42:30,840 --> 01:42:37,760
denominator of, of value is
consumer capitalism and profit

1743
01:42:37,760 --> 01:42:40,200
and money.
And that's leading us in some

1744
01:42:40,200 --> 01:42:44,600
very dark and, and dangerous
directions, ecological

1745
01:42:45,640 --> 01:42:49,080
devastation, the social
fragmentation, alienation and so

1746
01:42:49,080 --> 01:42:50,280
on.
And so I think that this

1747
01:42:50,640 --> 01:42:53,200
expanded view of consciousness
really does have the potential

1748
01:42:53,200 --> 01:42:57,600
to ripple out and affect
cultural life and, and provide

1749
01:42:57,600 --> 01:43:00,160
people with deeper sources of
meaning that could, you know,

1750
01:43:00,160 --> 01:43:06,040
shift our entire civilization
off of the, I would say this

1751
01:43:06,040 --> 01:43:08,960
track it's currently on towards
our own extinction and many

1752
01:43:08,960 --> 01:43:12,920
other species besides, towards
maybe a more positive direction.

1753
01:43:15,240 --> 01:43:17,280
Yeah.
And I, I think I'm super excited

1754
01:43:17,280 --> 01:43:20,360
to be part of this as well
because mind and Lodge's mission

1755
01:43:20,440 --> 01:43:24,880
overall conference vision aligns
very much with that of mind body

1756
01:43:24,880 --> 01:43:27,080
solution.
If if I look at it, I feel like

1757
01:43:27,080 --> 01:43:30,480
I'm the most materialist slash
physicalist leading person in

1758
01:43:30,480 --> 01:43:33,640
this conversation because when I
wrote my dissertation was on

1759
01:43:33,640 --> 01:43:35,320
illusionism as a theory of
consciousness.

1760
01:43:35,760 --> 01:43:38,320
But after starting this podcast
and experiencing this for the

1761
01:43:38,320 --> 01:43:42,080
last five years, exactly what
you want to come out of this

1762
01:43:42,080 --> 01:43:43,680
conference has happened to be
personally.

1763
01:43:44,040 --> 01:43:47,680
I mean, you start off very much
doubting everyone else's views

1764
01:43:47,680 --> 01:43:49,920
and it's the more you expand
your mind, the more you expose

1765
01:43:49,920 --> 01:43:51,840
yourself to all these different
theories of consciousness.

1766
01:43:51,840 --> 01:43:55,440
You're able to really understand
the way philosophy is done if

1767
01:43:55,440 --> 01:43:58,520
someone's got a logical frame of
thinking, if they metaphysical

1768
01:43:58,520 --> 01:44:01,560
view is coherent enough and it's
valid enough for you to pay

1769
01:44:01,560 --> 01:44:04,040
attention, That's exactly what
you want.

1770
01:44:04,240 --> 01:44:06,920
And you're able to give that so
much more credence because of

1771
01:44:07,240 --> 01:44:09,960
the flow, the natural state of
the argument.

1772
01:44:09,960 --> 01:44:12,120
And I think that's primarily
what the focus is here for

1773
01:44:12,120 --> 01:44:17,480
people to understand that these
metaphysical positions are all

1774
01:44:17,560 --> 01:44:20,000
on the table.
And the problem is, is when

1775
01:44:20,000 --> 01:44:24,040
someone just dismisses it merely
out of query mysticism, quote UN

1776
01:44:24,040 --> 01:44:28,000
quote or or just pure lack of
understanding the the field in

1777
01:44:28,000 --> 01:44:31,000
itself.
So if if you guys are to close

1778
01:44:31,000 --> 01:44:34,720
off a round of your future
vision for mind at large, the

1779
01:44:34,720 --> 01:44:38,320
field of consciousness, the
project itself, Matt, perhaps

1780
01:44:38,320 --> 01:44:40,160
you could start and then Peter,
you could close us off.

1781
01:44:43,120 --> 01:44:45,760
Well, yeah.
I mean, in in let's say five

1782
01:44:45,760 --> 01:44:49,760
years, the five year plan after
these, this series of

1783
01:44:49,760 --> 01:44:53,960
conferences that I would like to
see manifest would just be that

1784
01:44:53,960 --> 01:44:55,920
we're able to have a different
kind of conversation.

1785
01:44:56,160 --> 01:45:00,520
Not that we're all going to
agree on what the the

1786
01:45:00,520 --> 01:45:03,720
alternative to materialism or
physicalism is, but that we

1787
01:45:03,720 --> 01:45:11,000
would be able to have a more
fruitful dialogue about the

1788
01:45:11,000 --> 01:45:17,360
alternatives and work out in
detail whether it's idealism,

1789
01:45:17,360 --> 01:45:21,440
panpsychism, you know, some
other position we haven't even

1790
01:45:21,440 --> 01:45:24,680
thought of yet.
Work out the details so that we

1791
01:45:24,680 --> 01:45:28,160
could not just be critical of
materialism, but have a viable

1792
01:45:28,440 --> 01:45:31,200
alternative that's asking
questions that we can get

1793
01:45:31,200 --> 01:45:35,040
answers to.
And, you know, I didn't know you

1794
01:45:35,040 --> 01:45:36,760
wrote your dissertation on
illusionism.

1795
01:45:36,760 --> 01:45:39,640
And I, I had a really lovely
conversation with Keith Frankish

1796
01:45:40,000 --> 01:45:44,640
where I realized we actually
have a lot more in common, you

1797
01:45:44,640 --> 01:45:49,600
know, And so maybe I would hope
them that the people who are

1798
01:45:49,600 --> 01:45:52,800
currently identified as a
materialist of one form or

1799
01:45:52,800 --> 01:45:55,160
another could be part of this
conversation too.

1800
01:45:56,120 --> 01:46:00,200
And they have important insights
to bring to the table and in

1801
01:46:00,200 --> 01:46:01,960
many ways are catalytic of this
whole thing.

1802
01:46:01,960 --> 01:46:06,040
Because if they weren't making
good arguments, then we would

1803
01:46:06,040 --> 01:46:09,440
have not needed to have this
conference, you know, so.

1804
01:46:11,120 --> 01:46:15,200
Yeah, I have a colleague, Exeter
Adam Toon, who's also an

1805
01:46:15,200 --> 01:46:17,080
illusionist of sorts.
And when, when we had a

1806
01:46:17,080 --> 01:46:18,880
conversation, I mean, there's a
lot of overlap.

1807
01:46:18,880 --> 01:46:21,000
You know, you sort of read
things into books, but you have

1808
01:46:21,240 --> 01:46:23,520
proper conversation.
You realise that's not all

1809
01:46:23,520 --> 01:46:26,160
completely nuts after all.
Whatever side, right?

1810
01:46:27,560 --> 01:46:30,160
My, my, my.
I suppose my hope and my view of

1811
01:46:30,320 --> 01:46:35,560
the next few years is that,
yeah, you know, I just, you

1812
01:46:35,560 --> 01:46:38,240
know, I teach false remind to
psychology students.

1813
01:46:38,240 --> 01:46:42,120
They've only been looked at
psychology, you know, factory

1814
01:46:42,120 --> 01:46:46,000
analysis, you know, data and
statistics and what and whatnot.

1815
01:46:47,560 --> 01:46:51,040
Presenting options to them as I
do there really, really changes

1816
01:46:51,040 --> 01:46:55,880
people.
You know, it really can have an

1817
01:46:55,880 --> 01:46:59,400
effect on people when you just
show them that there are other

1818
01:46:59,400 --> 01:47:01,320
views other than physicalism and
dualism.

1819
01:47:01,600 --> 01:47:03,800
They are not completely nuts.
They're not religious or

1820
01:47:03,800 --> 01:47:05,520
mystical or whatever you want to
call it, right?

1821
01:47:05,520 --> 01:47:11,680
They are actually very cohesive
logical positions.

1822
01:47:11,680 --> 01:47:14,560
Then then that opens up a lot of
minds who think, well, we need

1823
01:47:14,560 --> 01:47:16,760
that, you know, to like talk
about it.

1824
01:47:17,400 --> 01:47:20,240
So that's the hope just to open
people's minds to different

1825
01:47:20,240 --> 01:47:23,000
rational positions.
When I say rational, I don't

1826
01:47:23,000 --> 01:47:27,280
mean excluding the non rational,
but you know, certainly showing

1827
01:47:27,280 --> 01:47:30,280
that there are rational other
positions.

1828
01:47:30,960 --> 01:47:34,120
And thus, you know, the effect
of that then would be hopefully,

1829
01:47:34,120 --> 01:47:41,680
as we sort of showed, spoke
about changing the trajectory of

1830
01:47:41,840 --> 01:47:47,760
certain scientific experiments.
Also something Matt touched on

1831
01:47:47,760 --> 01:47:49,440
which you never really got into
is funding.

1832
01:47:49,440 --> 01:47:52,520
You know, like if you to get
funding, you need to be a sort

1833
01:47:52,520 --> 01:47:56,280
of legit, you need to offer
something legitimate in there in

1834
01:47:56,280 --> 01:47:58,720
the eyes of the funders.
And at the moment a lot of

1835
01:47:58,720 --> 01:48:01,880
these, you know, like idealism,
for example, or as psychism,

1836
01:48:01,880 --> 01:48:05,840
it's not seen as a legitimate
position in which to place a lot

1837
01:48:05,840 --> 01:48:09,040
of money, right?
If you if you make the point

1838
01:48:09,040 --> 01:48:13,280
that actually is at least
equally legitimate to other

1839
01:48:13,400 --> 01:48:16,360
underlying hypothesis, then
you're more likely to get that

1840
01:48:16,360 --> 01:48:19,360
funding, of course.
And then we progress because a

1841
01:48:19,360 --> 01:48:21,640
lot of these experiments require
a lot of money, you know?

1842
01:48:22,280 --> 01:48:25,640
So that's my hope, I suppose.
And and I, you know, I'm not

1843
01:48:25,640 --> 01:48:28,640
saying we're going to change,
change the world, but we're just

1844
01:48:28,640 --> 01:48:31,280
going to sort of like give it a
little, little nudge, you know?

1845
01:48:31,280 --> 01:48:33,600
Yeah.
Look, Matt, just by the way on

1846
01:48:33,600 --> 01:48:36,720
what you said, the when I wrote
my dissertation, this was back

1847
01:48:36,720 --> 01:48:39,000
in 2021, Keith was actually a
big part of it.

1848
01:48:39,000 --> 01:48:41,960
We spoke about it for quite some
time, but I'd come out of mid

1849
01:48:41,960 --> 01:48:45,320
school so fundamentally
materialist thinker, physicalist

1850
01:48:45,440 --> 01:48:48,360
with with very little
philosophy, philosophy training.

1851
01:48:48,360 --> 01:48:50,480
So not much of A philosophical
background.

1852
01:48:50,800 --> 01:48:52,640
But that goes to what you guys
are trying to say.

1853
01:48:52,640 --> 01:48:54,960
Because the moment you do
explore this, because when I did

1854
01:48:54,960 --> 01:48:59,080
my philosophy degree, started
the podcast, started interacting

1855
01:48:59,080 --> 01:49:02,000
with all these great thinkers.
That's exactly what happens is

1856
01:49:02,000 --> 01:49:04,680
that you're you're forced to
then question your own reality.

1857
01:49:05,040 --> 01:49:06,480
You're forced to question your
own view.

1858
01:49:06,480 --> 01:49:10,560
And that's primarily what this
podcast is about is to do that,

1859
01:49:10,560 --> 01:49:14,480
challenge it and to continue to
explore great work just like

1860
01:49:14,480 --> 01:49:17,240
your your work for both of you
are excellent philosophers,

1861
01:49:17,240 --> 01:49:20,160
great professors.
And I think this conference is

1862
01:49:20,160 --> 01:49:24,280
going to be one that these set
of conferences will be one that

1863
01:49:24,280 --> 01:49:26,880
will be unforgettable.
Thank you so much for joining

1864
01:49:26,880 --> 01:49:28,040
me.
This is going to be some

1865
01:49:28,240 --> 01:49:30,040
exciting stuff and I can't wait
to be there.

1866
01:49:31,360 --> 01:49:32,560
Thanks for being part of it,
Tevin.

1867
01:49:33,000 --> 01:49:34,200
Yeah.
Thank you, Tevin.

1868
01:49:34,200 --> 01:49:36,640
And you're an excellent host.
I mean, I've always admired the

1869
01:49:36,640 --> 01:49:39,200
way that you're very clear.
You've got excellent questions,

1870
01:49:39,200 --> 01:49:41,960
but you're also really
diplomatic to all point of view.

1871
01:49:41,960 --> 01:49:44,840
So thanks for that and we're
really happy to have you on

1872
01:49:44,840 --> 01:49:45,920
board here.
Thank you.

1873
01:49:46,560 --> 01:49:49,520
Now it's my pleasure gentlemen,
if is there anything about the

1874
01:49:49,520 --> 01:49:52,760
conference or minded lodge you
feel you haven't said that you'd

1875
01:49:52,760 --> 01:49:56,200
like to close off on or make
clear?

1876
01:49:57,800 --> 01:50:00,520
Updates on the website that we
can link people to.

1877
01:50:00,840 --> 01:50:04,800
Yeah, Mind at large project.com
Mind at.

1878
01:50:04,800 --> 01:50:07,400
Large project.com.
I'll put links to everything

1879
01:50:07,400 --> 01:50:09,160
below.
Yeah, gentlemen, thank you.

1880
01:50:09,160 --> 01:50:11,800
This was wonderful.
Thank you man.