Excellent comment. I am deep diving into a range of disciplines trying to better understand consciousness: physics, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, neuroscience, psychology...and, in my view, the 2 greatest tools in this endeavor, mathematics and philosophy. I am a software engineer, doing quite a bit of AI programming. Some in my profession are materialists...saying consciousness is a function of brain state driven by fundamental forces. What's more, there is no free will in their reckoning. Inferring that since action at the quantum level is deterministic, with some randomness, so too are decisions, that they cannot be free. Talk about quantum leaps of logic. You nicely laid out the most important problem: what is transfer function between microvolt level sparks in the brain and any experience or qualia? Like you, I consider topics like quantum collapse, retroactive causality, neural correlates, and so. I'm certainly no master of these area, but still see the gap you do. Speaking of which...that is another criticism and quantum leap of logic by some materialists: gods of the gaps. They assume progress is linear and that gaps in due time will be explained deterministically. But I think more questions have been raised rather than answered. With no progress in bridging the massive gap on individuality you posted.

In addition any materialistic explanation would somehow have to be able to define and PREDICT each personal existence and when it should show up. An obvious absurdity.@@banmate6

Why do you think other hypotheses fare any better at this? How can they account for individuality other than positing a brute thinness?

Also, by my lights, if individuality is a problem at all it would not only undermine the notion that the mind is a physical process but you would have to deny that interaction between body and mind is possible, after all what makes your mind able to only control the specific atoms of your body and not any other?.

☦No, they are just heretical. He's the biggest blasphemer of our time, so wake up

I agree

​@@Autobotmatt428 appearance can be deceptive he's full of flannel!!!!!!

☦Because you are concerned about shallow things like his sophistry. He's not an Eastern Orthodox, he's the biggest blasphemer of our time

Agreed.

@@kenechiokoli7716 Seconded

@@kenechiokoli7716 I also agree

Kuhn is a corrupt shill for the Chinese Communist Party. Fact check it if you don't believe me. Bentley-Hart should've done his research on this guy before sitting down with him

☦Well, you need to wake up, because Hart is the biggest heretic of our time

it is because he is extremely, realy extremely, smart and erudit and have dealt with the topic for about three decades. .

He's a universalist heretic who believes in the Monad of the Greeks not in the Christian God of Moses, so you need to wake up

@@LyovaCampos Monad means One in Greek. Bible says: our God is One. So, what's the problem?

@@kitstamat9356 It means "one" literally, but in their philosophy it refers to a certain type of god, and this god is not the Christian God of Moses: YHVH the Father. The god of Aristotle is a cold emotionless involuntary machine of just 1 act who's like programed & dependant of his nature or necessities like creation & can will only 1 thing - this is contrary to Scripture & Thomists impose this Aristotlian metaphysics on the Bible, instead of the other way around - putting Scripture 1st & take it at face value. They have a false Greek presupposition which says that incorporeal things like virtues, attributes & emotions, cause distinctions within God or plurality: that is FALSE. Since there are by DEFINITION as incorporeal cannot be "parts" or compositions, that would be an oxymoron, since incorporeal things don't have forms or amount, therefore don't cause ANY distinction in God. Thomists should wake up.

Not your head, your mind lol

I hope your journey carries on. I like some of the off-the-cuff descriptions he uses about the positions of his philosophical foes: "It's the nuclear option", "It hardly rises to the level of a vicious circle", and "Well, I suppose there's some sort of consistency in total destruction". DBH cuts through the unworkable positions in post-Cartesian Philosophy of Mind. I look forward to his forthcoming book on the topic. But I'm rather afraid that it will have limited impact on the bigger philosophical traditions. He is better known for being a philosophical theologian which almost guarantees oblivion in wider circles.

​@@theophilus749 Agreed, I've tried to talk to people about Hart's work on consciousness, and they just brush it away saying "oh he just thinks it's all God." I hope they eventually realize that they have such a hard time fitting consciousness into their philosophical systems, yet traditional religious philosophy does not

@@repentantrevenant9776 I sympathise, I have suffered similarly in discussion with people about various philosophical theologians (and that includes fellow Christians). Firstly, it is, of course, a cheap and easy way of by-passing the much harder intellectual work of responding to their actual arguments. Secondly, it rests upon the mistake of seeing God as just another cause acting on events in the same playing field as nature's own causes and thus being locked into some zero-sum competition with them. Thirdly, as you acknowledge, their own minds are well insulated from the mediaeval philosophical synthesis which arguably has the far richer response - because, you've guessed it, that's 'all God', too. So, good luck. Theo

Hart is also well versed in both those

@@Autobotmatt428 Well versed in both sophistry and tautology.

Experiences have an experiencer. They can be of different phenomena such as sensations, memories, intellectual responses, emotional responses, etc. They are informational, in that they are about something. They are transitory. Just off the top of my head.

It’s a good question. I would offer such things as attention, agency, intentionality, and its phenomenal aspect (qualia). It might be prudent to call them ‘apparent’ properties, but they are nevertheless discernible.

@@mandelbot5318 Thanks. My point is that all candidates for the properties are merely the contents of experience. To me the nature of experience is empty, it's the medium in which all else seems to appear.

I believe by "it", David is referring to the content of a self's conscious field. Experience is simply the word we use to refer to what is going on in that field coupled to the recording of the field's content. (I.e., no self can enjoy an 'educational experience' should the content of the conscious field fail to be recorded).

@@SurrealMcCoy Mandelbrot and myself are thinking of experience as a category, in which various different things can be experiences. If it’s a container, then it’s an object or material, or a medium as you say. Thats a completely different view along the lines of dualism, so a kind of substance.

Did the Hindu monks believe that being conscious was accomplished by the body?

Not a name I see mentioned very often. I thought ‘Quantum Evolution’ and ‘Life on the Edge’ were both great books.

@@mandelbot5318 Loved "Life on the Edge." Haven't read the other. I am intrigued by his CEMI field theory, his partial solution to the hard problem which he has written two papers about.

@@theotormon’Quantum Evolution’ is definitely worth a read. I haven’t read those papers so I’ll have to check them out. Thank you.

@@ponderingspirit No it isn't'. I don't remember the age of the dinosaurs. And I suspect you don't either.

@@tedgrant2 are you suggesting that consciousness is the same as memory?

@@gfepsh No.

Great comment. It has much deeper implications for materialism than you might think. To highlight how universal evolution has changed consciousness is a strong argument for the reducibility of consciousness. Thanks for your comment.

Consciousness does not change or evolve, it's constant and ever present. consciousness is not a property of anything in nature. it is the fundemental reality. Mind (thoughts, feelings, perceptions) changes and evolves and is affected by the physical world, consciousness is not.

Paraphrasing... You are conscious. Not you are consciousness. You are alive. Not you are aliveness. When you are conscious, you are conscious OF something. When you are not conscious OF anything, you are not conscious. It is my self that is conscious of something. When my self is not conscious my self is non existent.

What proof do you have?

@@dr_shrinker The proof is self-evident. That you are consciousness itself is the most obvious thing but so many people don't take notice. It's like looking through a clear window and seeing the outside. You're ignoring the window and only focusing on the tree and birds or whatever. I come up and point out that you're looking directly at a window and you fail to see it because you're looking past it.

@Promatheos - This is a great way of explaining why many smart people just don't "see" the problem of explaining consciousness in terms of physical processes. I didn't "see" it until I was like 35. It was just a completely out-of-the-blue, spontaneous realization. It's like I was struck by a lightning bolt! Once you "see" it, it becomes difficult to understand why so many people don't "see" it. 🤔

@@Promatheossorry. Let me clarify my question. What proof do you have that consciousness is fundamental?

Not sure what this means.

@@Raiddd__ Don't worry, neither does he. 😂

Books are reducible. A written paragraph is reducible. The words and writing in the book are not fundamental. They would not exist without the book. Thoughts are reducible. A brain 🧠 divided cannot make up its mind. 😅

@peweegangloku6428- I like your comment. Some very interesting thoughts there. 🤔

🤔

I think your statement would be closer to truth if stated this way... Consciousness and Physicalism are ONE. Why? Because Materialism does not include 'movement' whereas Physicalism does and being conscious is obviously a process and process entails movement.

Nothing is obvious here. Physicalism is the same as materialism to most. Dont be too pedantic. You haven't figured it out either. We'll all know if you do.

Respect to you my brother. Appreciate the reply. Are you familiar with the term "Ekam Sat"? Thank you and best wishes. @@pjaworek6793

@@pjaworek6793 "Physicalism is the same as materialism to most". Are they the same to you? Materialism is about material existence. Mind is obviously not material. So some conclude matter and mind must be unrelated. Physicalism is materialism with the addition of movement. Movement is not a property of a piece of matter because movement is relative. Movement is not matter and not a property of any material object. Thus movement, like mind, is immaterial. Movement is thus a fine candidate out of which mind and being conscious may be built.

Seems to me the most interesting and germane aspects of neurons are their ability to maintain discharge-timing-patterns and their ability to allow other neurons to adjust those patterns via their synapses. Since thoughts are representations it seems to me that neural discharge-timing-patterns are ideal for instantiating representations in encoded form. Most religious folks believe their bodies are mere vehicles for their 'consciousness' or soul and this because 'consciousness' seems to be an immaterial entity. But in light of the fact that discharge-timing-pattern representations are immaterial entities... I once thought that my entire self was my body but later came to the conclusion that my self is a complex thought, a thought entirely dependent for its immaterial existence on my body as its necessary substrate in the just explained way that a thought is. It's late and my thoughts are getting hazy so good night.

you are thinking about the problem from a materialist point of view which is the wrong approach to begin with

I agree we don’t need to throw out the empirical models that have built the modern world. We just need to change the bedrock presupposition that these observables are local and real with the alternative deeper orientation that they are instead phenomena being a derivative of consciousness rather than matter. Let me start that I can both accept the naturalist claim that the consensus picture of the Standard Model is correct while at the same time questioning whether it is actually validating a deeper truth about core reality. I will use the term “physicalist/ naturalist” to convey the “science worldview” that encompasses the entirety of the collective broader academic schools of science and modern analytic philosophy that reigns supremely as the current consensus view and paradigm. I take it as a given that there is much diversity and nuance of ideas within this collective body of work. However this collective “body of work” is laden with certain presuppositions. These assumptions in turn determine what arguments and evidence are deemed credible and which are dismissed as unconvincing. In this respect all committed naturalists; as a consequence non-naturalistic approaches (idealism, theism, etc.) are not considered to be live options. This “body of work” is also massively persuasive due to it’s powerful success as a predictive epistemic explanatory model of almost all classical phenomena. I am using the term “classical phenomena” very deliberately here. Physicalists like Sean Carroll can say with genuine confidence that the “core theory” of the classical world is a completed project. Everything from QFT through the Standard Model to the periodic table and relativity gives us a precise description of the classical world that we as a species perceive and can accurately and predictively model and manipulate. This is an undeniable “given” and I won’t argue against its empirical validity and it’s powerful applicable functionality. I will however make one key and massively important observation. This “all” falls into that constrained “cone of knowing” through our “sense data” and the mathematical formalisms that model this data. Everything is perceived through this constrained prism extending from our gross body sense organs all the way to the data produced in high energy Particle colliders. What is undeniably true today is that the classical and causally deterministic reality-the principle of cause and effect-has been replaced by Quantum indeterminacy. Instead the picture that arises with all the many odd quantum effects challenge our human-centered macroscopic worldview. The understanding of the world in terms of concrete objects, having definite properties, that are in a specific place and can jump over walls only with sufficient energy, following precise paths like pinpointed particles in a mathematical diagram and ruled by a strict principle of classical cause and effect, no longer stands. This kind of Cartesian, Galilean, Newtonian, and Laplacian mechanistic realism based on a reductionist, deterministic, local worldview made of unconscious matter following classical laws of physical causality, and that has been so tremendously successful for almost three centuries, is now under serious question. The dream of reducing reality to a completely predictable unconscious and mechanistic clockwork universe is no longer tenable. Moreover, the consensus paradigm conflates sense data with reality or in other words how this “naive realism” is the assumed unquestioned perspective without acknowledging that perhaps it may all be an evolutionary construct- a Headset interface-that “renders” a functional classical reality but also “hides” a deeper core reality-the “thing in itself.” I will use what QM is possibly telling us to add credence to this idea. P. F. Strawson has called “our pre-theoretic scheme, which is “realist” in character” -the way our “realist view” of the world is reflected by our ordinary perceptual judgements and should not be accorded the status of a theory-for its acceptance is the very condition for the sensory experience to be understood as what it is, viz. as what supplies the data or evidence for such a theory. This seems to be the horns of the problem or the presupposition that most physicalists are blinded too. I don’t think we as a species that are locked in our evolutionary sensory “filter headset” can ever get to a final “truth.” The best we can do is realize how deeply erroneous our perceived reality construct and deep intuitive notions really are. Neils Bohr one of the eminent founders of QM saw this dilemma quite clearly and always maintained that we will never cross over to the point where we have access to “true reality.” This is of course Kant’s view as well. The place to start is to understand what this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is pointing at. At the very least we can see that our reality is non-local and that this stand alone objective reality’s very existence is dependent on observation and measurement (really the same thing.) This astounding -experimentally verified-finding was started by John Bell and then confirmed experimentally by last year’s Nobel Laureates. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle already showed us that any observation can only ever give us a half truth about reality. If we measure a particle’s momentum we cannot ascertain it’s location and vice versa. That already implied that we only have phenomenological access to one aspect of the whole reality. David Bohm’s Implicate / explicate order postulate takes this understanding further and paints a reality that is an expression of two sides-one that is open to our sensory experience and one hidden from us. But these are two sides of the same holistic coin. Kant essentially says the same things with his Noumena / Phenomena distinction. You see that when it comes to “understanding” QM foundational science it is more philosophical speculation than empirical and verifiable research. Part of the problem and why we may never get an answer is that we are part of the very thing we are trying to observe. That is the crux of the measurement problem and why it may be an intractable problem forever. John Wheeler’s speculation on this and his “Participatory Universe” goes along similar thinking. The key take away here is that Bell’s inequality theorem must be taken literally which ever interpretational path you choose to endorse. It applies “in principle” as a core feature of reality. However the “world view” of a causally deterministic “realist” classical reality still holds its assuming grip on the imagination of scientists and the public at large.

For theists and for a lot of people in general it injures our intrinsic subconscious human exceptionalism resulting in vehement resistance to materialism or reductionism. IMO

You are merely informing us of your unproven beliefs. Consciousness is a requirement for a belief. We are capable of changing our beliefs whenever we want but we're too stubborn and attached to them to do so. Our beliefs were not pre-determined but were shaped by our life experiences that occurred as a result of our free will choices and those of others. Determinism is only true on a broad scale. The light bulb blows causing you to replace it. But you actually chose of your own free will to replace it because it was in your best interests to do so. On another level, what were you thinking and feeling while you were replacing it? You can't say light bulb failure caused all that. Hard determinism is crazy because it says all human thoughts, feelings and actions that ever occurred or will occur were determined before the earth even existed. Its so ridiculous because it contradicts the way human beings behave in the real world. If it were true then blame shouldn't exist but clearly it does. Its ludicrous to say the complete works of Shakespeare were somehow pre-determined at the start of the universe. Determinists know how stupid absolute determinism is and so are careful never to mention this aspect of it.

@@ianwaltham1854 so what you’re saying is, you can convince yourself it’s nighttime while staring at the sun? Have you ever considered the alternative that there are a finite number of determined slices of reality, and every event is not preset since the Big Bang? Like a game of billiards. Each turn is a “quantum reset” of random conditions that are played out. (Also, quantum chaos is not freewill either) Once the turn commences, there’s no changing the determined outcome until the balls reach their destined position. Not all effects are linked to causes stretching back to the Big Bang - but causes stretching back to the beginning of localized events; events that are the result of quantum fluctuations and their effects on causality. There isn’t a single series of events back to the BB, but a zillion to the zillion power of localized events. Each event is determined until the localized conditions which caused the event is annihilated, returning the particles to the quantum field. Shakespeare was not destined to write Titus since the Big Bang, but he was since his birth. Interesting enough, he was no longer destined to write anything after his brain turned to dust.

All people who watch these videos are probably more educated than average. Yet I am surprised by how overwhelming the comments seem to favor determinism. It shows me that education can corrupt by replacing experiences and common sense with smart sounding nonsense. Free will is obvious but denying it gives an excuse for any shortcomings.

@@firstlast9043you said,,,,”Yet I am surprised by how overwhelming the comments seem to favor determinism. It shows me that education can corrupt by replacing experiences and common sense with smart sounding nonsense.” You totally contradicted yourself. You deny determinism, then you blame the corrupt education system for the overwhelming number of determinists! (Physicality) lol.😂 I couldn’t even stage this sort of comedy gold. I love how you tried to insult me but it backfired.-- classic. I am obligated to "like" your comment!!!! Plus, you never answered the question. Do you think a person can convince themselves it’s night time while staring at the sun? 🤷🏻This should be a cinch for a dualist!!🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻

Ouch this interview hurts

Rabbits, wolves, frogs and insects have sensory perceptual systems beginning in eyes, ears, noses, taste buds and touch sensors and ending in brain areas not dissimilar from our own-producing an awareness of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches, also very likely not very different from our own…. I think we can grant that other animals do not have conscious awarenesses much different than our own. Consciousness is obviously not an impossible thing to study.

Your description of "Existence" greatly resembles the ancient Chinese philosophy of Lao Tzu called Taoism. The Yin-Yang symbol represents the polar opposites of Everything unified in the Tao.

You said. “"Existence" freely offers us observable pairings such as existence and nonexistence,” Existence offers us non-existence? Does that work with money also?! 🤪

@@dr_shrinker Yes, you either have money or you don't and are broke.

@@Resmith18SR *"Your description of "Existence" greatly resembles the ancient Chinese philosophy of Lao Tzu called Taoism."* ... Yes! Yin-Yang is an integral element in the ToE presented in my book. I deal with it in a different way, though. Not everything is harmonious.

Yeah, that's right. Perturbation modalities and modalities. Let what comes come, let what goes go, take me to where the wind begins.

Nonsense.

​@@legron121Awareness is known by awareness alone; is the sole irreducible axiom of reality. To put forth a syllable to the contrary is but to concede.

You're mistaken. Judeo religions believe that body and spirit make a human. You can't separate the two. Hence the doctrine of resurrection.

Pagans/heretics are usually dualists. People of Abrahamic faiths usually fall more into Plato/Aristotle

Basically that the mind can’t be reduced to what the sciences tell us.

@@kevinpulliam3661 cool thanks!

How do you learn? Asking interrupting is the best way for the one that's trying to learn or understand someone.

Energy defeats materialism. And the soul/consciousness is energy. Energy and consciousness are in separable. Inanimate objects know their purpose and function in this reality, Otherwise this reality could not hold together -- The word of Goth

To bring it up to the critical level one first needs to define what the word angel refers to. Same problem with Consciousness, Mind, Soul, Spirit or God.

That’s because that question has always been a dumb caricature

I'm not sure that explains the existence of consciousness.

@@BugRib just the ability for 0ne to want to combine to another one to make two displays consciousness this works from the microscopic to the macroscopic and seen in the fibonacci sequence i know im crazy lol

Sounds good except you cannot control thoughts. You are slave to them. They are slave to the universe.

And whatever you call materialism in your concept of it, it is still the ground of all other concepts, think naturalism.

​@@dr_shrinkerYour statement is total rubbish 🗑. If you couldn't control your thoughts then you wouldn't be able to work anything out. You wouldn't have been able to write your idiotic reply.

If determinism is true, you have no reason to believe in it other than you were determined to.

I don’t think it nullifies morality. It refutes concepts of absolute morality, but that’s not the only type of moral framework. There are others such as utilitarianism.

*"There can be only one winner as the two notions are mutually exclusive."* ... Let the Kickboxing match begin!

You’ve refuted yourself. Determinism and reason are incompatible

@@deanodebo How is cause and effect incompatible with reason? I know you hate a clockwork universe, so do I but it is what it is.

This!!

Because there’s no way we and all the other animals can be a product of biological evolution?

@@longcastle4863 More accurately stated... Because there’s no way we can be a product of evolution? (We don't know if other animals are conscious. They might be entirely instinctual).

@@REDPUMPERNICKEL it’s hard to think that animals with the same kind of sensory perceptual apparatuses as us and generally very similar brain structures as us, do not experience a similar kind of consciousness as us. We share a lot of genes with chimpanzees; do you really think consciousness occurred for us, but not for them?

It all comes down to what you mean by “product of a living organism”

@@synaestheziac An emergent property which comes into existence when matter is structured in a certain way.

Resmith18SR • Correct.

@@Resmith18SR The problem is that all examples of emergence that we have in nature are soft emergence, conscious brains arising from non-conscious atoms is hard emergence ie something akin to magic. Panpsychism is much more likely.

Emergent is just another way of saying we can’t explain it.

How clever, religious ideas are invalid because theyre religious

The brain is not a part of the physical body?

@@SurrealMcCoy 1st came the body, then the brain. The body employs the brain so the brain really works for the body. This is why many people people also feel like they do not have free will. The ultimate will lies with the body.

Consciousness is non-local.

Considering all matter is condensed energy, I don’t think it defeats anything.

I agree with you and even a bat has some level of awareness albeit very different than that of a human being.

There have been single neuron studies that show even one individual neuron can be conscious. The mystery is how can we claim that a neuron is conscious but the atoms it's made of are not.

Keep telling yourself that....

its a false and primitive notion...

@@ioioiotu And how did they theorize that an individual neuron can be conscious?

… so says your consciousness

What if it's not a position but a default. We're speaking materially here. Sounds images....

Speak for yourself. You might be clueless but that doesn’t mean everyone else is. 🤣

​​@@dr_shrinkeri think you might have misunderstood @johnyharris but please enlighten us Who are clueless.

@@highvalence7649 I liked your comment. It deserved a 👍🏻 - you said “please” and even though it was condescending, I like a good challenge. I thought it was pretty obvious what I referred to. I didn’t misunderstand at all. -consciousness defeats all the isms. I hoped it was self-evident because of the description of the video. Seems contradictory because he said “consciousness defeats materialism,dualism, Panpsychism, and idealism”, but then he said “ no one has a clue of its nature,” which just discredited his first assertion . Funny really. I referred to having “understood the nature of consciousness.” - forgive me for not being concise enough for you to infer from my vague comment. If you want me to enlighten you, you need to be more clear. First, what part of consciousness do you need help understanding?

@@dr_shrinker how does that discredit his first assertion?

@@dr_shrinker i think there are theories that solve some of the problems on consciousness so i actually dont identify with this crowd Who seem to think consciousness is such a mystery but nor do i agree with the those who deny there is a hard problem of consciousness within the current framework. But yeah so my question to you, then, might be: if something physical is giving rise to someone’s qualia, what it's like to taste coffee, say, then how or why is that physical thing giving rise specifically to that what it's like to taste coffee? And why is it not giving rise to some other experience like what it's like to have an orgasm or something?

Or maybe you just haven't thought about this carefully enough.

When I was five I might have said the same thing.

Good for you!

​@@vecumex9466thank you Brahman.

Energy defeats materialism. And the soul/consciousness is energy. Energy and consciousness are in separable. Inanimate objects know their purpose and function in this reality, Otherwise this reality could not hold together -- The word of Goth

​@@gothboschincarnate3931thank you Brahman. All is Brahman. Perturbation modalities and modalities. Whatever is known is from the mode of the knower.

The guy that wants to call something else woo woo is talking about "harmony, essence, substance, substrata, being, form,... " LOL