Noam Chomsky on Daniel Dennett

NOTE: The perspectives expressed by guests don't necessarily mirror my own. There's a versicolored arrangement of people on TOE, each harboring distinct viewpoints, as part of my endeavor to understand the perspectives that exist.

[derp]

Wow, this comments section is awful. What did Kurt do to attract such toxic, shallow people?

[bastianray]

I wonder how could Chomsky has so much patience to accept an interview every 5 days maybe? I've heard he actually reply to almost everybody who writes to him, glad to see him so lucid and bright still at 95 years old

[vivalavideoable]

Probably worth noting that while the question of consciousness entered the Wester philosophical tradition in the modern era, consciousness was a central concern in Indian philosophy dating back at least two millennia. We are late to the party. But, as the saying goes, better late…🙏🏼

[sabriya]

“I think it leaves consciousness where it was” is the politest put down I have ever heard 😂

[marioberthiaume]

95 years old with a mind as sharp as a razor

[flawlessduck]

I don’t really but this theory and it almost sounds panpsychist to me. We understand DNA replication, evolution, and how coffee is made, even though supposedly “ we don’t understand matter “.

[jyjjy]

Claiming we understand consciousness better than the physical world is... just objectively incorrect? We have nothing even approaching the fairly comprehensive, predictive, precise and explanatory power of our current physical theories. Psychology as a field is psuedoscientific mess in comparison to the amazing power we have gained over the physical thanks to QFT/the standard model of particle physics and relativity.

In fact specifically what he says about how we don't even know if particles are "conscious" is a damning indictment of our lack of a coherent accepted understanding of what consciousness even is and where it comes from and how it works, not physics. His opinion is actually kind of an insult to the accomplishments of not just physics, but to the real and important, though comparatively incomplete, progress cognitive science has made in the handful of decades since it could reasonable be called a science, nevermind our astounding current exponential progress in creating digital minds/intelligences that functionally replicate and in many aspects improve upon our natural consciousness.

This a curiously archaic opinion on the subjects in question, almost quaint in its ignorance/near complete dismissal of our impressive understanding of the physical world and the technologies resultant from such that fill our lives, as well as our quickly advancing functional knowledge of brain structure and how it generates our conscious experience.

I know Curt only gets so many prestigious scientists like Chomsky on the channel by exercising great tact but very often these conversations call for a decent amount of pushback to understand why some guests make certain claims and why we should believe them, and it is sorely lacking, especially with the many guests who make grand claims contrary to established science the channel hosts, oddly in this case, Chomsky.

[radscorpion]

I have to disagree with Chomsky, matter seems fairly well defined, or as well as can be expected. We have the ability to characterize it under a microscope, even down to the atomic level we can see it using transmission electron microscopy. And we definitely know that the subatomic particles exist - electrons, protons, because we can see the effects these things have in various experiments in nuclear physics. There might be a symposium about the structure of an electron for example because they're trying to understand the exact structure instead of treating it as a point particle which it obviously isn't, but that won't tell us anything more about consciousness or whether matter has consciousness, because consciousness is poorly defined. You wouldn't know what to look for. You may as well ask whether an atom has dark matter. Again, it is a pointless question because no one knows what "dark matter" is, so what are we even looking for (though at least you could check for "missing" gravity)?

All we can say is how it feels like to be aware. But this is like defining fire on the basis that it feels hot. It is not a real definition for what is actually transpiring beneath our sense perception. If we can define it as say the generative output of N neurons connected in a group, then it would be crystal clear whether matter has those properties or not. But learning more about the fundamental nature of an electron, or any other point particle in the standard model? I really don't see how that could possibly suggest anything about consciousness.

[franksalo]

It wouldn't surprise me if it's a particle physicist, that discovers the origin of consciousness.

[kevinbyrne]

We experience matter through consciousness so maybe matter is a representation or image of 'other' consciousness

[theotormon]

Because so much of the content of our consciousness is memory, and memories are self-referential, specific to the organism that lived them.

[FortYeah]

I went back to university and I'm reading Aristotle these days. Of course he was wrong about a lot of things but his definition of sustance ; matter + form, resonates a lot I find... Can't see why it wouldn't be that.

[gellis]

Daniel Dennett insists that mental states don't exist. That is to say that he denies the existence of beliefs, desires, perceptions of color, and so on. In other words, Dennett insists that he is unconscious. Yet he acknowledges that he and others SEEM to be conscious. And so - on his view - 'seeming to be conscious' and 'being conscious' are wholly distinct concepts. But this is absurd. If one SEEMS to be conscious, then one must, necessarily, BE conscious. For this reason, it is impossible to engage Dennett in a rational discussion regarding consciousness. Dennett has written many interesting books and articles on topics other than consciousness. His books on the philosophy of mind - sadly - provide mind-numbing testimony to the fact that some clever people can be utterly and incurably obtuse when it comes to matters of psychology. I think that Dennett is an excellent example of someone who might be said to have "high-functioning autism."

[MrCman]

I keep coming back to Ken Wilbur's quadrant epistemology when thinking about consciousness. That epistemology asserts panpsychism. Basically, everything (even an atom) has a "view from the inside" (the "I" quadrant). There will be a day when we can "see" consciousness translated into brain processes of some sort, but that will never get us an imagine of consciousness from the "I" perspective as these are literally different epistemic realms. Almost like different universes, in contact and knit together as intimately as possible, yet impossible to cross the dividing line.

[SandipChitale]

The word materialism is outdated. Physicalism is a better word. But in the end, let us not beat around the bush and cut to the chase. These debates are basically about if the phenomenon of consciousness is supernatural or not. Physicalists think it is not. Secondly, consciousness is not a thing, it is a process. Panpsychism gives it a status of being a thing or material from which electrons are made of by simply asserting it. It basically is a non-explanation.

[nyworker]

If you keep looking at the wrong way or same way, you keep getting the same answers and the same arguments.

[selwynr]

Agree, all the gap of the gods consciousness idealists and fundamentalists work with a vulgar notion of materialism or physicalism (even when they're quantum-savvy, it's regarded as mere matter), which is why they reject it and think that consciousness must be fundamental, some extra thing that we haven't discovered yet. Chomsky isn't saying that, he's saying "we don't know", which is absolutely honest. The god-gappers also want to make the universe meaningful, which has nothing to do with science or reality but everything to do with human psychology and projection.

[justinotherpatriot]

We understand consciousness implicitly. But as Socrates demonstrated, making *explicit* the structure-providing boundaries of various concepts we hold *implicitly* can nonetheless be quite difficult. *Explicitly* understanding the role of consciousness in our universe requires a closed definition of the universe from which consciousness can unambiguously be derived, a derivation soundly performed by the CTMU.

[Philosophuncultist]

Chomsky fails to learn the lesson taught to us by Wittgenstein. Materialism/physicalism does not need a definite description which exactly captures a lofty metaphysical conception. No, materialism/physicalism derives its meaning from its use: Materialism is what is meant in these best scientific theories, and so on. Chomsky gets trapped in a Russellian linguistic confusion because he thinks the terms need to represent reality isomorphically. This metaphysical approach is wrongheaded and it won't get us anywhere. We know what materialism means and it is enough to satisfy what Dennett correctly means by consciousness.

[mikhail_fil]

Its not actually that complex. Here is how it works. People at not actually searching FOR the answer or truth, they are "searching" for ways to get as close to the answer or truth, but not close enough where it becomes clear. Thinkers aren't stuck, they kinda got to as close as you can without collapsing into it. Some call it edge of chaos, some event horizon, some will bring up ikarus, some tower of babel, some will think of the sirens calling sailor with truth, some bring up the apple of wisdom. Truth can be thought of as the thermal equilibrium, or laminar flow, the ultimate reduction of gradients that create the turbulence of life. Our consciousness our thoughts our future states and selves are the energy stored in electrochemical bonds, our free will us the composite algorithm for entropy minimization that is derived from state space mapping/encoding/ storing energy. We are constantly balancing stored potential and kinetic moving through. We have a single goal, maximize dissipation of energy in the universe, not just around us, but throughout, our very function is to facilitate shortest path to universe's next era of black holes. However this, as every other theory only makes sense for those who can connect it to a mechanism to implement it, if you don't have a mechanism then a feeling of "no free will" kicks in, and a person feels bad for 1 second before wiggly rejecting it, and settling into a phase space where "free will" can be experienced as each person keeps fulfilling that single goal of energy dissipation at max efficiency and max power... so, don't over think it...😂😂