John Searle - Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?

What would it take for consciousness to defeat materialism or physicalism?

[PaladinswordSaurfang]

Sure we can create a consciousness. It's called having sex.

[jimmytorpedo]

Seems to be a good conversation. If only they could turn the volume up to 2.

[joshc]

This is just your typical naive materialist type responses, and 0 proof to all the claims he made, just assumptions

[BLSFL_HAZE]

So, as it turns out, the very "hardness" of the Hard Problem is in fact nothing more than the apparently rather prevalent hardness of accepting that there can simply be no reason why it is like something to be a self-propelled organism.

[whycantiremainanonymous]

Searle's last sentence: "If we knew in detail exactly how the brain does it [i.e. how it causes consciousness]..."
But here's the point: any such "knowing in detail" would constitute a category mistake. That trivial difference between 3rd-person and 1st-person ontologies (to use their terms for it in the talk) blocks all possible detailed explanations of this sort. No interaction between material entities, described from the 3rd-person perspective, can conceivably yield anything other than other phenomena described from a 3rd-person perspective. Our understanding of causality is closed within the 3rd-person realm. You can study how physical events cause conscious experiences (or correlate with them) at any level of detail you like, but that assumes there already exists a consciousness to experience them, and cannot account for how that consciousness emerged in the first place. You can study how neurons in the brain interact all you like, but that would yield, well, descriptions of neurons interacting, and physical changes in the brain that are caused by those interactions. Any leap from the latter to the former is a non-sequitur. What most philosophers then do is either hide behind the number of neurons in the brain (as if a couple trillion interactions can bridge a logical divide that a smaller number cannot), or try to tacitly substitute the real problem (which Searle succinctly states in the quoted sentence above) by some other, more tractable, problem, and then pretend that they have a path toward a solution (the interview with Minsky, in this series, is a master class in such intellectual trickery: he keeps being asked about one thing, and answering about any number of others).

[kichu]

I dont agree or disagree with him cause i cant even hear him

[thetruthoutside]

What important in this program is the knowledge that Robert has about the subject matter and also asking the right questions and most importantly following up with answers which is extremely important.

[jdorritie]

Based on the comments here, here is my proposed first test for artificial consciousness:

Accuse the artificial consciousness of being materialistic, and see if it reacts indignantly. If it does, its conscious.

[antoniostanziola]

"We know consciousness comes in discrete units". Well, no. We don't know that: that's a massive assumption.

[isaacmackey]

"irreducible subjective ontology" well-stated

[hamzariazuddin]

who is the interviewer...he does a great job..is he himself a philosopher?

[GarryBurgess]

Why does he say that you don't get an immortal soul of out of Physics? And he makes a huge assumption: "we know that consciousness is caused by brain processes". I don't see it. That's like saying that we know music is created by processes in a radio. We know that movies are created by television processes. Sadly people can't see the huge assumptions they are making.

[mohammedj]

He claims that if we knew exactly in detail how the brain does it, we'll be able to do it artificially. My question is is it even in principle possible for us to know precisely exactly how the brain does it? After all it's a first-person experience. Can he ever be sure that *I* am conscious?

[hziub]

conciousness and digestion are philosopher of the century.... he must also mention the region of brain where conciousness resides because digestion is a process which involves multiple Brain is also a machine made up of molecules and protiens that's true. Similar brain is also present in other mammals but without conciousness. Similar heart is present in other mammals but it is still pumping blood. So this is a lame argument that conciousness is because of brain.

[tedgrant]

Let's get one fact straight.
Before you can be conscious, you need a brain.
And alcohol can easily defeat consciousness !

[MeirBarTal]

Searl assumes that the brain produces consciousness. The fact that he asserts that to be a matter of fact doesn't make it more valid.

[truebomba]

When you skip your metaphysic class.










Let me troll a little bit because I fin his view disappointing :D

[motorhead]

I thought Searle’s whole argument with the Chinese room was that computers couldn’t be conscious and here he seems to be saying they totally could if we only knew how.

[karniskavva]

Really appreciate your videos Robert !

[dreamycalculator]

what a beautiful room. i want to be there. look at the plants.