Consciousness and the Physical World: A Conversation with Christof Koch (Episode #374)

Sam Harris speaks with Christof Koch about the nature of consciousness. They discuss Christof’s development as a neuroscientist, his collaboration with Francis Crick, change blindness and binocular rivalry, sleep and anesthesia, the limits of physicalism, non-locality, brains as classical systems, conscious AI, idealism and panpsychism, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), what it means to say something “exists,” the illusion of the self, brain bridging, Christof’s experience with psychedelics, and other topics.

Christof Koch is a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He is the former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. He writes regularly for Scientific American and is the author of five books, most recently Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It.


July 9, 2024

[jellyfish_adventures]

So happy to have found a podcast that isn't so much hype and health products sales. Really appreciate the calm tone

[mathew]

Sam, I really hope that one day you will do video format. It's really a style of long form content that I personally value, I find it more engaging and as a result I take away more from the conversation when I engage both vision and hearing as opposed to just listening.

[satan]

American spent $90 billion dollars last year on Halloween products. Imagine if we redirected our resources to neurological research, creat entire Industries and fields of research, high paying jobs you could attain with college degrees. Try and imagine the breakthroughs you would see, in areas of addiction, mental illness, depression and so much more.

[Wrestlingwidlife]

I listen to you and use your ways of engaging in debate in my office spaces and even in my personal life as Fan

[Williamwilliam]

For what it’s worth — it’s not surprising to me that slight weight differences in isotopes of xenon produce discernible changes in anesthetic potency. That slight weight difference (present in each of the 500 billion-billion-billion molecules per second it’d take for the anesthetic effect) would change the rate at which the gas can enter the blood through the lungs, and the rate from blood to neuron, and the effectiveness with which the molecule can interact with chemical receptors. Adding up all of the discrepancies among all of the relevant junctions (including many I didn’t mention) dissolves the surprise that such a small weight difference can make on potency (which, ofc, is how much of the drug it takes to cause an effect)

[collateral]

Finally some people addressing the hard problem of consciousness

[Paakku]

Could you have a chat with Bernardo Kastrup?

[arif-vv]

You are a LEGEND! Your Waking Up course change my entire understanding about consciousness and self. I am literally ARRIVED! Thank you a lot!

[hotuish]

Hell yeah… go deep Sam Harris… go deep.

[nyworker]

Fascinating conversation. I listened on the non-subscriber feed to the point where Sam describes the ultimate telemarketing employee.

[michaeltape]

I've heard it said that a person's personality resembles that of the five people that they spend the most time with. If audio/video counts, Sam Harris would be in my top five.

[Skibbityboo]

Sam Harris is just too good for this comment section, and he knows that.

[libraryofcod]

Please do a video format, youre just as handsome as your voice is soothing 😂

[imkoka]

Great talk. Poor mic for the guest. Had to blast the volume to hear Christof.

[observerone]

There must be a solution to "What is consciousness ?". Two epistemological 'puzzle pieces' are 1) thought is physically made of forces flowing through the brain's neural structures and sub-systems that include loops, comparitors, differencing and summing, and 2) existence is always and exactly now (the duration of every Now is exactly zero). This is why when being in states of flow, the sense of time disappears. Feeling conscious is 'simply' experiencing those changing, merging, and opposing forces in every moment.

After experiencing this conclusion, and with practice, one can step into this knowable state by simply choosing to BE. The causal continuum of forces (that is the entire universe) is just running; it cannot do otherwise. Enjoy the ride.

[gregorywilkinson]

Was really waiting for a more cerebral and philosophical episode. Well needed break from all the war coverage

[SylviabombsmithUjhybd]

Sam you need to have Dr. Jonathan Shedler on, he is the master of the unconscious mind.

[Jules-Is-a-Guy]

Dude, I'm a physicalist (materialism is SLIGHTLY different, and reductionist). What exists depends on what you measure? Ok homie, we're merely ASSUMING there's a real world out there, fine, I'll take it.
I kinda just think, it's called being an empiricist, and also probably non-schizophrenic, lol.

I'm not convinced Kastrup's semi-compatibilist idealism, holds up very well at all.
Am I effectively denying a type of first person, observable ontology? No, I'm just arguing that physicalist epistemology, will basically explain it one day!

[spectrumconnection]

Very hard to understand people over Zoom, just have them phone in!

[vigilance]

Always a pleasure to listen to you and your guests