David Bentley Hart, 'The Mind's Eye (I): The Conditions of Human Consciousness'

Lecture at the University of South Carolina, 15 November 2018

[NeilWestbrook]

Let's get Hart and Bernardo Kastrup together already. And Rupert Spira. Now that would be a worthy listen. Thank you for sharing.

[filmsequences]

I quite enjoy David Bently Hart's speaking style 😄

[mattsigl]

Such shattering genius. But I do think he gives serious short shrift to how philosophically informed and subtle the Integrated Information Theory is. It avoids, when deeply understood, the many absurdities and conceptual pitfalls that bedevil every other “scientific” or “functionalist” theory of consciousness.

[KipIngram]

45:00 - The language is very fancy, but the main thing he's really saying at this point is that WE MAKE CHOICES. And of course we do - it's patently obvious to anyone that thinks about it. We have free will and that's the end of the story. The people who try to deny that are being unbelievably ridiculous.

[WackSmackAttack]

DBH's voice sounds like Robert Brandom's. I'd love to see a conversation between them.

[cuddywifter]

We can't step outside of our own experience. The third person comes by way of the first.

[dubbelkastrull]

Bookmark 30:14

19:00 panpsychism

20:34 Eliminativism. Daniel Denett

[jonb.]

What book is DBH referring to that he’s writing on PHILOSOPHY of MIND? Has it been published now? I NEED TO READ THIS BOOK! Please let me know 🙏🏾

[samwisegrangee]

Goodness. He's one of the most cogent and eloquent theological writers, but he's also one of the most aimless and pedantic speakers. Rather than just tearing down the tenuous truths and the obvious errors of others, I wish he'd actually say something about some truths he's found. If all you ever do is concern yourself with the banality of what everyone else has said about a given topic, you will become yourself banal—and in an even more vacuous way than the people you criticize, because at least they were trying to articulate something. I'm just tired of his boredom posturing as erudition.

P.S. But to give credit where it is due: his "Orthodoxy in America" and "Is Everyone Saved?" are two talks where I find him both sincere and invested, as he unpacks something he's actually and humbly concerned with.

[timkuitems]

Dr Hart is speaking on the subject of consciousness, mind and brain, correct? Couple of thoughts:
(1) Without the physical (the brain) the mind ceases to exist. In this sense anyway, mind is contingent upon brain.
(2) Humans know mind to be our most fascinating feature, at least in the philosophy department. The biologist is equally fascinated, and rightfully so. Fascination aside, we recognize that the activity of the mind, the transmission of information from mind to mind, etc, is quite a world unto itself. We seem to be so impressed by the activity of the mind that we start to see the world of mind as something independent and outside of the physical world in which it is embedded.
(3) To better understand this fascinating world of the human mind, let's consider the mindful activity of lesser life forms. Does the world of mind exist in rats? It does. I posit that in the case of lesser life forms, we are more comfortable saying that the world of mind and consciousness, is merely the product of the physical brain. Roll this forward to our fascination with ourselves, and we should conclude the same thing - no matter how fascinated we are with the human super mind.
(4) This said, the world of the human mind, and all it's production is SUPER COOL! It's so cool that we can rightly stand in awe of it, and wonder deeply about the thoughts produces, the exchanges from mind to mind, AND the turn back affects on the physical world.
(5) But then you get to this posit. IF the mind can produce affects and changes to the physical world - actually control the physical world - then is it possible that mind came first, and set the whole thing in motion in the first place?
(6) But the evidence of lower life forms, etc, suggest that mind came second. Or rather, the very specific sense of human mind, came second. Life, and the very basic desire to survive, is mixed in here as well.
(7) To say that the physical and biological world is passe and void of divine mystery, and the world of mind is fascinating and tends towards divine mystery, is a bad construct. Solving mystery begets new mystery. One view of God is that the whole enchilada resides in Him. We may get closer to Him in some sense with knowledge and intelligence, but we will never get TOO Him.

Fun to talk about. I have little to conclude on.

[KevinGeneFeldman]

Hasn't other people asked themselves, how are they the experiencer of consciousness? There could be a trillion other human beings, why are you one of them when theres an infinite amount of potential human beings who are none of them. Theres currently absolute void for a potential infinite people, so when your body was birthed into a world of billions of other bodies, why weren't you just another stranger whose not you? How do you have ownership and observance of your own mind? How do you possess your own consciousness in which to experience the mind? Your mind could be anyone elses experience, consciousness is a paradox that constantly asks who is who is who into infinity. The only answer is that you are a soul and the soul possesses the mind and experiences the processes of that mind. Why weren't you born as the body of someone 10, 000 years ago? Why weren't you born as the body of someone 10, 000 years in the future? Why weren't you the baby born in the hospital room next door? Why were you ever born? Who are you to be plucked out of the infinite void of potential conscious beings? Nobody can win the odds of 1 out of infinity and if you did, you'd have to be an entity from before life in order to be capable of being chosen.

[TheGuiltsOfUs]

REALIZE THE KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN

[HubbardGavin-ex]

Robinson Mark Lewis William White Dorothy

[gazorb]

Hart is saying relevant things. It is unfortunate that he doesn't even TRY to state it so that a non-PhD can understand it. And he COULD do that for every legitimate point he makes.

[grmalinda]

I'm thinking we're all figments of God's imagination.

[esoterictrinitarian]

I really want to comprehend what he’s saying but it’s difficult to with his cascade of words. 😂

[ericday]

Not every great writer is a great speaker. I wish Hart was as good as his books when he speaks. Maybe he should debate, maybe that would losen him up. Anyway his books are great.

[newdawnrising]

DBH is the most pompous speaker I have ever heard. He proves to me without a doubt that real knowledge and understanding have nothing to do with rational thought.

[robinhoodstfrancis]

Hart´s dismissal of mind´s emergentism is as hollow as his voice is low and his discussion inadequately empirical, or too unempirical. That´s why empirical philosophy is key as a check in Christianity´s globalized civilization in the big pic. My college degree in Bio Anthro and soph paper on the evo of language etc have given me some visualized sense that makes me gag at DBH´s lack of grounding criteria. M Talbot´s proposal of holographics using Pribram and Bohm is one key level of paradigm and mechanics. The meaning of NDEs and reincarnation at UVA and B Greyson et al´s work is another thing that seems to inform other levels of explanation, but doesn´t negate developmentalism, a la Piaget etc. That can only be what´s guiding Hart, that mind isn´t even emergent, it´s divinely granted. And he´s accusing the materialists of "magical thinking, " and rightly so. However, he´s slippery-sloped into "god of the gaps, " but can´t free himself from that sloppy premature negation and blurred distinction, and it shows in his pedantic overly controlled hush.