John Leslie - Is Consciousness Irreducible?

Why is consciousness so contentious? Neuroscience can increasingly explain many facets of consciousness, but what about conscious awareness itself? Some philosophers claim that although facets of consciousness—such as how we see edges or colors—can be explained, we have no possibility of explaining, in purely physical terms, the experience of consciousness.

John Andrew Leslie is a Canadian philosopher who focuses on explaining the world’s existence. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he earned a BA in Psychology and Philosophy, then an MLitt in Philosophy. He is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

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.

[georgebernstein]

He’s Such a great interviewer and brings in phenomenal subjects to interview and it’s no surprise I love this channel so much

[tomaalexandru]

This is my favourite channel on YouTube. It helps me a lot to write my book which answers most of the questions posed here

[XOPOIIIO]

Consciousness is the only reality we know. Objective reality is just a good model we can use to navigate through our conscious experience. There basically no practical difference which paradigm is true, but both are true in the way. If we consider objective reality as true, we can accept that inside this objective reality there are neurons that are firing in the heads of homo sapience, and those homo sapiences are communicating to each other to fire those neurons of each other. Everything we saw, hear or know is inside this interconnected net of neurons, and nothing of what is accessible to us is outside of it. The objective reality we know is not the same objective reality there is, it's just a picture of that reality encoded in our brain.

[theotormon]

Seems like an older interview from a time when idealism was not as popular as it is today ... and yet the discussion is superior to most you hear today.

[Seanus]

The concept of reducibility is within consciousness itself. Consciousness is the great enabler.

[rc]

19:35 existence doesn't seem to be dependent on some 'non-existent' element... the question is, what is the true nature of "existence" and what is the role of consciousness in the structure of reality 🤔

[thinkIndependent]

Yesss!!! mankind often walks out on a long Pier views the vast ocean. Calls it the known world but then forgets where and how they stand.

Consciousness maps to the physical world the question is what came first.

[mowglycdb]

I feel that, life evolves in a way to help consciousness express itself in reality, a physical medium that permits us to express ourselves. Reality has to permit the expression of as much as we want to happen. But reality it's not that flexible and our brains aren't powerful enough.

[shivakumarv]

Consciousness is comparision of present reality with stored information of past.

[patientson]

You MUST move forward to find its strength in you.

[Katiebelly]

The problem here, as with every other popular discussion of "consciousness" is that the discussants start without defining what consciousness is. How can it be discussed if you can't define it? Otherwise the discussion degrades into philosophy. No scientific understanding will emerge from this. So, define consciousness, give us its boundaries of understanding. What is consciousness what is not? Otherwise this is all a tempest in a teapot.

[thomasbaxter]

Substitute the word Being for the term consciousness, get on the track of metaphysics / ontology, spend some time with the ancient Greek philosophers ( eg., Plato and Aristotle) and make your way through Kant to Heidegger. Do this and many of these issues will take on a stunning conceptual clarity.

[monporoshneog]

Consciousness is fundamental and eternal .

[douglasrobinson]

Intelligent energy that is a constant eternally with or without a physical body for expression

[pesilaratnayake]

"Only consciousness is able to take an entire complicated pattern and make it belong to a single thing, and unless you had consciousness there would be no complexity in the world."
What does that mean? What does he think there would be if there was no consciousness? No complexity, or no world? I'm totally confused by this argument.

[stefanblue]

Like your way of insisting, coming to the point!

[e-t-y]

Universe as value creating machine is awesome. Perhaps since "nothing" is impossible and a contradiction in terms, the universe is a manifestation of the inevitable via both physics and consciousness. Since existence is therefore inevitable, necessary, given ... what to do with it? Move toward value.

[QuicksilverSG]

Even the simplest biological organisms rely on primitive forms of awareness of the world outside their own cells. This awareness is based on irreducible internal feedback loops that monitor the organism's environment. An organism that requires a certain temperature range, for example, has temperature sensors whose reports are compared to an internal reference level. Any perceived difference motivates the organism to react in a manner that reduces that temperature difference to a minimum. More complex organisms contain countless layers of nested feedback loops that act to maintain the organism's internal homeostasis. Conciousness dawns when you become aware of your own awareness, and incorporate that awareness into increasingly sophisticated forms of neurological feedback loops. These internal feedback systems are irreducible because as soon as you break up a feedback loop into its constituent components, it ceases to function for its intended purpose.

[ProjectMoff]

All exists within a space, that space is consciousness, the concept of consciousness is an object of consciousness and is mistaken for consciousness itself, this is where most trip up, they are consciousness itself and don’t realise it because being is more subtle than the content of their awareness, a hand can’t hold itself, it’s known to be a hand by its function.

[taniasara]

Thank you so much for this video. Very intriguing conversation. ❤ this channel Thank u Drs.