What is consciousness — and how should biology explain it?

In this second conversation with Professor Kevin Mitchell, we examine whether consciousness can be fully accounted for within physics alone — or whether biological organization introduces new levels of explanation.

Mitchell develops a non-reductive naturalist framework in which organisms are genuine agents, higher-level causal structures matter, and subjectivity cannot be ignored in any adequate theory of mind.

We explore:
• What needs explaining when we talk about consciousness
• The limits and strengths of physicalist reduction
• Weak vs strong emergence
• Biological organization as a causal framework
• Downward causation and levels of explanation
• Organisms as agents rather than passive mechanisms
• The role of the conscious subject
• Mental causation and explanatory gaps
• Teleology in evolutionary systems
• Whether artificial systems could instantiate subjectivity

This conversation situates consciousness within biology without appealing to dualism or mysticism, while also resisting overly simplistic reduction to physics or computation.

As always, Mind-Body Solution remains philosophically open — engaging rigorously with serious positions across the consciousness landscape.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Introduction
0:32 – Kevin’s Approach to Consciousness
1:12 – Consciousness and the Requirement of a Subject
3:59 – AI, Functionalism, & Biological Naturalism
7:37 – Embodiment, In-Mindedness & Experiential Bedrock
11:19 – Control Architectures, Attention, and Illusionism
15:21 – Selfhood Perspectives: Jennings, Graziano & Humphrey
19:08 – Temporal Continuity & Brains as Semantic Engines
23:03 – Top-Down Causation and Dynamical Self
27:00 – Levels of Selfhood & Autobiographical Continuity
30:43 – Neuroscience, Psychiatry & Emergent Mental Phenomena
38:15 – Altered Subjectivity & Embodiment in Injury
44:06 – Life, Consciousness, and AI Agents
50:23 – Philosophy, Science & Indeterminacy
56:28 – Neural Noise, Decision-Making & Agency
1:10:48 – Reasons, Choices & Moral Development
1:20:43 – Emergence, Transcendence & First-Person Neuroscience
1:26:50 – Kantian Structures & Perception
1:30:35 – Defining Mind & Relational Perspectives
1:34:52 – Final Thoughts

EPISODE LINKS:
- Kevin's Round 1: https://youtu.be/UdlkYGbuD7Q
- Kevin's Website: https://www.kjmitchell.com/
- Kevin's Blog: http://www.wiringthebrain.com
- Kevin's Books: https://tinyurl.com/2p9yjzxr
- Kevin's Publications: https://tinyurl.com/mskdpvce
- Kevin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/wiringthebrain
- Consciousness needs a subject:
https://philpapers.org/rec/MITCNA-2
- Reframing the free will debate: the universe is not deterministic:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-026-05455-7
- Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ejn.70064
- Undetermined: Free will in real time and through time:
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=10358095
- The origins of meaning - from pragmatic control signals to semantic representations:
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/dfkrv

CONNECT:
- Website: https://mindbodysolution.org
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@mindbodysolution
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- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu
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- Website: https://tevinnaidu.com

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