Bruce Hood - Anything Non-physical About the Mind?

What is consciousness, our inner experience of private awareness? Can consciousness be explained by only physical activities of the physical world? Because if not, if there is anything else required to explain consciousness in addition to the physical brain, then consciousness would defeat a materialistic or physicalistic worldview.

Bruce Hood is a Canadian-born experimental psychologist who specializes in developmental cognitive neuroscience and is the Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, based at the University of Bristol.

Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[xenphoton]

Robert took him for a little walk there. 👍

[karikeillor]

My 12 year old and I were discussing this conundrum. He brought up a good point: how can you divide the brain into equal parts when both sides have 2 different functions? Even if the 2 sides of the brain could function and survive on their own, they wouldn’t accept and experience the information in the same way.

We also discussed that environmental factors are a direct influence on the mind; and so is someone’s individual personality due to their past environmental influences. So, depending on the environmental impact of conditions, the mind would evolve differently. Another factor would be space/time continuum. The way we are constructed as humans we have a limited perception. We focus on the perceived “here and now” and react to that. Even if we were telepathically connected to our alternate “selves” we wouldn’t be experiencing what they are in the same way. We could feel into it, but it would be a completely separate experience. 👍🙌 💫

[animalfarm]

For someone that believes in the scientific method, it is interesting that one can be so sure either about the existence or non-existence of something that can't be isolated and measured.

[dinaray]

Robert was a bit feisty in this one. Really liked this side of him.

[PymGordonArthur]

Probably one of the best interviews. Mr Robert was outstanding.

[kzeich]

I admire academics who concede they don't know an answer to a question, and not try to wiggle out with flashy language.

[monchoglu]

Theseus's Ship is just like our body, we are actually not the same person (atom by atom, cell by cell) that we used to be 10 years ago, and yet we identify as the same person.

[reversefulfillment]

When you change your mind, who is the changer? When somone lost their mind, who lost it? The mind is an object and so is the body.

[TheTroofSayer]

For what might be non-physical about the brain, a good place to start would be associative learning as a fundamental principle. To this end, two references come to mind:
1) The semiotic theories of Charles Sanders Peirce and Jakob von Uexküll; and
2) Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL): Birch J., Ginsburg S. & Jablonka E. (2020). Unlimited Associative Learning and the origins of consciousness. Biology & Philosophy, 35(6), 1-23.
I would further factor in entanglement (nonlocal selves), but that's another story for another day.

[shellyfrye]

Wow that was super entertaining. 😂😂😂 I loved it! I never seen him argue with anyone.

[DuelingBongos]

Since physicists do not know what causes everything that they can observe, it is rather presumptuous to declare what is actually purely physical and what is nonphysical. There will always be hidden variables and unknown factors.

[samc]

It's a flawed question, containing dualist assumptions and that is why it cannot be resolved and appears to the casual observer to result in an unverifiable continuing possibility. But what is verifiable is that everything whatsoever perceived physical or non physical at any time is composed 100% of qualia appearing in awareness. Just as it is verifiable that you are the awareness of the universe observing the universe. Because awareness is the ground of existence and everything in it is qualia.

[Bassotronics]

After the interview is when the fight started.

[davidpb-j]

Bruce Hood would benefit from reading more about the mind/body problem. He admitted that he was out of his depths.

[metheplant]

Anyone that states that the brain is “hardware” and mind is “software” loses me immediately. We will NEVER explain how we were created by that which we have created afterwards. His line of reasoning inverts cause and consequences. Not a valid metaphor for doing actual science, only for language games.

[lobopix_]

These kinds of talking head conversations exemplify the problem of specialists/experts stuck up the back passage of their own cohort bubble. If either of them had done even the simplest of google searches, or had read a little more widely, they may have come across medical instrument inventor *Itzhak Bentov* who wrote two books, using quantum physics, to address the issue of Consciousness. Serious as his undertaking was Bentov nevertheless managed to explain his findings in a quite unique and humorous way.

He included many hand drawings of physical phenomena (e.g. waves, orbits, reciprocating motion etc) as they related to the micro-motion pulses of a body's physiology whilst sat in meditation. A really eye-opening view of the phenomenon of Consciousness.

*(1) Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness* (1988)
*(2) Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness: A Cosmic Book on the Mechanics of Creation* (2000, posthumously)

*Bear in mind the Yogis, Sufis, Taoists and Shamans have been studying the phenomenon of Consciousness for some 25, 000yrs or more.* They all recognise that 'the body is the vehicle' - the physical body being an anatomical and physiological entity - through which Consciousness may be directly appreciated. That mind-body system, in most cases, has to undergo training for that purpose, just as an elite athlete has to train for their high level purpose.

About 2, 000yrs ago the most pertinent of these findings were collated into the *Yoga Sutras (by Patanjali).* There have been numerous translations of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. As a Systems Analyst, the version I favor is:

*Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali* (B. K. S. Iyengar)

I found this version the most useful because it has many systems diagrams relating the levels of Consciousness to each other and *relating physical **_phenomena_** (through the sensory organs) to spiritual **_noumena_** (through the organs of the mind).*

Once again, this is all about _training, _ training the body-mind system to be receptive to the direct experiencing of Consciousness. And, as with training for anything, it is most advantageous to have a trainer to guide you around the many obstacles and personal resistances which get in the way of your progress.

*Yogic (inside-out) Sciences* are much more difficult than *Materialist (outside-in) Sciences.* It is much easier to study, and experiment with objective phenomena outside of yourself - isolated from everything else in a controlled situation - and then record their quantities.

It is many orders of magnitude more difficult when the *_object of study is your own whole self_* while it is still connected to the complexity of the world, and contend with _its quantities and also with its qualities._ *To experience how difficult this is, see how long you can just sit with yourself **_without any distractions whatsoever._* No more than 5-10mins before you start barking?

As far as I’m aware universities in the *US (Berekely) and Australia (Melbourne)* are doing the most interesting research on Consciousness using long-term meditators as their subjects. They have noted changes in brain blood flows _away_ from the frontal cortex (the seat of personal identity). That explains some of the utterances of highly spiritualised people around the world exclaiming that they have lost all sense of their identity and _’no longer know who they are.’_

[CUXOB]

"I can't see the entire reality where this universe was made and where i come from, therefore the universe came out of nothing and i am a robot". Maybe don't limit the entire reality by what you can see?

[johnandrew]

I tip my hat to you, Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Excellent intellectual joust! 6:57

[mattsigl]

Maybe “person” is just a concept in a mind at any given instance. If a transporter duplicated me that duplicate would be “me”psychologically at the start but then diverge from me and become his own “person” as “person” is just a concept of self in a real mind. What I AM really, truly, at any moment is the current experience that’s happening RIGHT NOW. “Self” is a concept happening in any experience; real enough, not an “illusion”, but not “REAL” in the same, ultimate ontological sense that “my” current state is. That’s what really real.

[klpA]

I think this conversation is more about the definition of "being you" than the truth about it. I think you can say both copies are "you" it's just that usually we define being "you" as singular and as a continuation.