Michael Shermer with Colin McGinn — Mysterianism, Consciousness, Free Will & God (SCIENCE SALON #29)

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This remote Science Salon was initiated after McGinn commented publicly, and critically, on Shermer’s latest Scientific American column on the mysteries of consciousness, free will, and God.

Well, life can be like this, but in this case Shermer invited McGinn on the show to discuss the topics in detail in order for everyone to glean a deeper understanding. A fruitful conversation ensued on these and other important topics.

This interview was recorded on July 9, 2018 as part of the Science Salon series of dialogues hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, in California.

RELATED MATERIAL

In an illuminating thought experiment that supplements Science Salon # 29, McGinn penned an essay ("What is it like to be a human?") to help clarify what, exactly, Thomas Nagel meant in his famous paper “What Is It Like to be a Bat?”

Read "What is it like to be a human?":

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[MsDamosmum]

As a person diagnosed with autism (Asperger's) it seems to me that there is something happening during interaction of neurotypicals (people who don't have autism) that seems almost like a supernatural event to me. They just appear to be on a wavelength or frequency that puts them in sinc with one another. A frequency or wavelength I'm unable to tune in to.
Only mentioning this as Autism and supernatural came up in close proximity during the conversation and that's how my brain works!

[CiiD]

This video is fantastic. It delivers the best philosophy and analysis, with the best arguments and examples known to date. Thank you so much for giving so much material in only a 2 hour video.

[naturalisted]

Actually, if you put a non-conscious brain in your head and there was no experience, then it would be like being under anesthesia and so it'd be skipped over, and so the skipping over from your consciousness back to your consciousness would tell you that there's nothing it is like to be that person.

[nikosavage]

I wish that when people gave a thumbs down for a video it would accompany an explanation.

[reasonvspower]

Polite, smart, and engaging discussion. Thanks for hosting McGinn.

[adamrotmil]

I'd like to see McGinn start his own podcast, he should do his own thing

[TheWeb]

Just thought with colors, we evolved in an environment and our categorizing and projecting back the qualities to the frequency inputs we get might have evolved along the environment that we have to make sense of. If there was only ever greys and white, I wonder if we would ever talk about the qualities 'red' or 'green'

[kasumiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin]

35:48
I'm writing this timestamp here for my own reference, so I can keep looking back on how frighteningly mysterious this actually is...

[chewyjello]

As far as free will and the addict go...bodily desires often overwhelm moral or intellectual desires. Especially when the bodily desire is particularly strong....and certain desires are stronger in some individuals than others. We have no control over our bodily desires obviously. This is why the body was rejected as dirty and vile in Christianity.

[Senazia]

Oh my goodness, this is so hard understanding, his phylosopphy is so interesting, Whats the nature of matter, whats the nature of reality itself without indicating to Idealism or panpsychisim. Even before watching this video I had a question like: Whats the strings itself made of? Whats the photon wich is a wriple in the field is made of? We know that Space-Time is emerges from quantum physic "quantum fields, the question is we dont know if this quantum field is emerges or if theres is a something else underlying this quantum thing! Or maybe the biggest problem is the language or the human cognition itself! Or as Daniel Dannet use word "trick" is all about

[johnsalmond]

gotta say that the interviewer is way out of his depth, and McGinn does well to make his points while travelling so often on a different track to his interlocutor. eg:, $The idea that bigger brains would get us to earlier steps preceding the big bang both fails to face the qualitative rather than quantitative failure of human understanding, and makes a parallel error re 'before' the BB

[amandaparr]

Much of this conversation with McGinn tacitly assumes a framework that individual particles are basic or "ultimate" units of existence, that cognition is understood as the private experience of lone brains and ideas, and that perceptions can be abstracted from their context (e.g. "redness") without compromising their concreteness. *It's all down to this or that isolated thing viewed close up.* Merlin Donald, neuro-palaeongologist, (A Mind So Rare) makes an excellent presentation of the coevolution and mutual dependency of culture and consciousness and criticizes the idea that the mind is locked inside the skull. He also criticizes the narrow scope of typical lab experiments. This is isolating individualizing thinking is a habit of thinking that colours these types of debates. Maybe it's time to develop alternative models, for example, models that don't prioritize certain scales of examination, or models that foreground interactions rather than items in the interactions.

[johnsalmond]

We apprehend what we are able to; as we can't see ultra violet, we can't apprehend or comprehend spacetime, but some greatly dumbed-down, trivialised space and time which are travesties of what is actually there

[thetasigma]

All these questions over what color is irritate me. True; how I perceive green may be different than how anyone else perceives green, but, every one of us can agree on the wavelength of green.

[naturalisted]

You only experience what you experience. Therefore no one can claim to know what it's like to be someone they aren't.

[tate]

I claim this planet in the name of mars, isn't that lovely? - Marvin the Marsian.

[jps]

That part of free will is absurd... For what your saying about the clash of two desieres beeing the expression of free will, entails that a computer heuristics for doing an ML (machine learning) naive bayes analisys has free will. You must understand that the question of free will is a mystery and is incompatible with our cognitive instruments. Free will is an utiliarian ethic instrument.

[MontyCantsin]

Excellent discussion. Straight to the point and lots of philosophical ground covered.

[dayanidhi]

Such speculative ideas, they have no clue in reality.

[patriciak]

Colour is a good indicator of chemical properties.