The Mystery of Consciousness - with Rowan Williams, Anil Seth, Laura Gow, Philip Goff & Jack Symes

We've teamed up with the Panpsycast podcast to bring you this week's episode of Unbelievable? 'The Mystery of Consciousness' was a live audience event recorded at the Tung Auditorium in Liverpool. The panellists are Rowan Williams, Anil Seth, Laura Gow and Philip Goff, moderated by Panpsycast host Jack Symes.

[maxsterling]

As close to perfection as we can get for a musical performance, I’m absolutely humbled by this with every note no words what’s this piece called

[kipling]

Shame Ian Mcgilchrist was not part of this conversation.

[johnathanhunter]

Those who claim to be philosophers desire wisdom more than the truth.

[janwaska]

Justin, you may want to have Dr. David Chalmer debating Anil
in another episode.

[pv]

we can reduce the crime rate by redefining what a crime is. That's how I see Anil's and Laura's approach. Is that scientific?

[pv]

much talk but any idea how to explain the hard problem of consciousness? I hear cricket chirping... the sound of silence...

[CJS]

Justin, if you get a chance to look him up. Professor Mark Solms would be a great guest to have on for consciousness.

[shortandclueless]

Interesting discussion. There are times when I question my own panpsychism. If there's nowhere in the brain responsible for our subjective experience and therefore our subjective experience is inconsistent with the neural circuitry, and yet there's something about the subjective experience of reality that gives it reality, then are we observing reality into being? Well what if none of were here, does objective reality exist? If so, then who is observing it into being? God? Love to hear others' thoughts

[pv]

fMRI, EEG and other technologies should help us to find more about consciousness, but will they allow us to explain the hard problem of consciousness?

[pv]

the brain could be the physical part of the interface between our bodies and our consciousness.

[joaoferreira]

Could anyone please name the musical piece we heard in the intro?

[lesliecunliffe]

This was a poor discussion, which was mainly caused by the assumption that a conscious mind resides in the brain as opposed to being embodied and embedded in social, cultural, and biological contexts. Only Rowan Williams hinted at this problem in the way the discussion was conducted, and that's because he is very familiar with Wittgenstein's and Heidegger's thinking. Thus, the two massive elephants that were in the room but never called upon as witnesses were Wittgenstein and Heidegger, both of whom carried out a systematic critique of mind-in-brain and the kinds of solipsism some participants seem to think counted against our shared ability to understand each others' unique experiences. In particular, Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology does a wonderful job of disentangling these conundrums. Therefore, the discussion was mainly hamstrung by the mind-in-brain body/brain dualism, which is just a footnote to Descartes' mind/body substance dualism, a case of neuroscientists doing bad philosophy (see Bennett & Hacker, 2003, 2022). In Wittgenstein's words: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

[maxsterling]

Does liking your own comment prove we have free will ?

[victorv.senkevich]

👉 Consciousness is perception with understanding

Quotes:
"• There is no other way to determine that some object has consciousness other than our subjective perception. It doesn’t matter how the Chinese room produces answers. The only important thing is whether we are ready to qualify these answers as conscious. If you do not speak Chinese, you will not be able to qualify your counterpart as having consciousness, despite all his/her attempts to explain it to you in Chinese. Because consciousness is perception with understanding and consciousness is subjective.
• Of course, I have consciousness regardless of someone else’s perception. But this is true only for myself, not for others. And as much as I am ready to perceive myself. And it will be true for others only when they can perceive it.
Because consciousness is subjective."

See also on Medium – simple approach to the hard problem:
«Consciousness Is Subjective»
«The “Hard Problem of Consciousness” Is Being Solved»

[aron.Thomas]

Anyone have any concerns with this explanation of consciousness?

Subjective consciousness exists and evolved to allow an organism to simplify complex information for storage and decision making during scenarios of risk. The reason why this experience is subjective is because an objective and therefore detailed explanation is not able to be processed by our brains without huge amounts of energy and storage.

[Bigbitbutt]

the discussion go from The Mystery of Consciousness to can science explain concsciousness?

[DrMukeshChauhan]

Now I have scientific proof of existence of human soul or atma...Read my new book of my scientific discovery in Creator and God series...Dr. Mukesh C. Chauhan

[pv]

sadly Anil got off the scientific track and apparently didn't even notice it. Didn't Richard P. Feynman say that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy? The beautiful music that was performed in the background masterfully performed by a talented string quartet was just a bunch of vibration waves in the air that hit our hearing system and were converted to electric signals that eventually reached some areas of the brain and voila! we heard that sound and delighted in it so much but at some point uch a subjective experience was interrupted by the presenter's introduction talk. How is that conversion explained?

[kipling]

There is a slight-of-hand in slipping from the deterministic explanation of brain circuitry to the philosophical assertion that this produces consciousness, for which there is not a shred of evidence.

[DiscoverJesus]

Waffle and twaddle, nobody helped by this