David Chalmers - Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?

What would it take for consciousness to defeat materialism or physicalism? This is the worldview that only the physical is real, which is the dominant view of scientists and philosophers. Here's what it would take: our inner awareness, our experience of what things feel like, could not be explained by physical brain alone That's it. A tall order, though.



David Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University.


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.

[dhammaboy]

How can you not love a genius, Australian, philospher-scientist who looks like he played lead guitar in Metallica? 😂
Chalmers is one of my philospher heros! So clear in laying out the philosophical positions regarding conciouness!
Rock n roll brother! 👊🏻✌🏻⚡️⚡️

[jonnyjay]

“Consciousness is an illusion” is one of the most ridiculous statements some of these thinkers would say. in fact it’s the only think we can be sure about.

[blackieblack]

It's really interesting to see materialists squirm when confronted with the possibility that their worldview is inaccurate. It's one thing to see a person confronting a new idea, or adjust to the possibility of realities they haven't considered. It's entirely something else to watch someone processing something they DON'T WANT to believe.

[vm-bzcd]

Chalmers is one of the most amazing thoughtful and lucid philosopher scientists out there! 👏

[JamesBS]

I was waiting for the final part on idealism, but the video ended!

[PabloVestory]

It always amazes me how many materialist scientists usually dismiss any hint of spirituality, trascendance, purpose, etc. as mysticism, magical thinking, wishful thinking, uncientific, unprobable and such... and then they declare so easily something like : "conscious experience EMERGES from the brain..." or so, and that's it.
in wich way to say that differs from saying "conscious experience appears MAGICALLY...out of the blue..."??
both statements aport exactly the same information: zero.
What the h... is TO EMERGE?
To say "we have absolutely no clue about how is that happening" wold give a litle bit more info

[cthoadmin]

This is one of the best you've ever done, but you cut it off! Too short! Consciousness is fascinating and Chalmers did a very good job of going through the current ideas, but too short!

[Dion_Mustard]

My personal opinion - after experiencing an Out of Body Experience as well as Lucid Dreams more real than my current reality - is that consciousness is MORE than brain.
I never used to believe in things like OBEs and Lucid Dreams but now I know how important it is to keep an open mind. All I can say is I had experiences which seemed separate from the matter, so to speak. I am not sure this was a "spiritual" experience, but more an altered state of consciousness, possibly non-local.

[mitchelweaver]

Interesting that the "most radical" view of consciousness/material interaction is the common sense view lol

[transcender]

The Vedas state that everything is an expression of consciousness knowing itself. The transcendent, non material, absolute field of pure consciousness through it's self referral dynamics creates all the notions that we experience in the "material" world.

[smilesfears]

I highly encourage everyone to check out Bernardo Kastrup if you like this talk. He's had the greatest impact on the consciousness discussion for me - completely blew my mind

[arthurwieczorek]

1) Consciousness is primary and material existence is secondary. 2) Material existence is primary and consciousness is secondary. 3) For any organism, they are experienced as arising mutually.

[normaodenthal]

This is simply superb. Would love to see a discussion between David and Bernardo Kastrup; that would be a mind blowing experience in consciousness.

[godlesscommie]

Fun to think about. But, it just sounds like a reification error. Is not "consciousness" a verb rather than a noun?

The brain is an organ of the body. Its machinations cannot "defeat" the material of which they are phenomena.

Contrarily, a blunt "material" object, given sufficient velocity, might "defeat" "consciousness" rather easily.   :P

[RadicOmega]

Consciousness is just irreconcilable with materialism. All of the physicalists theories have serious problems or are just implausible. A proper philosophy of mind and unified theory of existence just needs to leave physicalism/materialism behind

[doloreslehmann]

Great, great, great! The only thing I was missing here was the approach of Donald Hoffman, who basically says that consciousness is a one-way-street in the other direction: Consciousness creates all that we assume to be the physical world, including spacetime and matter.

[waldwassermann]

Does consciousness defeat materialism? Naturally not for they are one and the same. - Wald Wassermann, Physicist

[katherinestone]

"In the unobserved state, a quantum object does not have definite location in time or space, nor does it have definite properties, at least not in the way that we think of definite in classical terms. How can something be said to exist if it doesn't have properties, location, or existence in time? We don't know, but it suggests that something about our ordinary assumptions of an objective classical reality 'out there', independent of us, is mistaken."
Dean Radin, Entangled Minds

[tonydg]

The fact that you can ask the questions and discuss them proves consciousness is not an illusion.

[danbreeden]

David Chalmers is one of best philosophers out there he's my favorite I love listening to him