Daniel Dennett on the Mysteries of the Mind | Closer To Truth Chats

[@DanielThomasArgueta]

RIP Daniel Dennett 🕊️

[@dukeallen432]

Nonsensical. He no longer is conscious and his body has either been cremated or started the decomposition process.

[@jessewallace12able]

Thank you for having Dennet on and having such a conversation.

[@josephkoech1985]

Just learnt he passed away 😢. Condolences to family and friends.

[@stefanlinquist3673]

Great to see Dan still firing. He is the reason I continued to pursue philosophy, despite often feeling exasperated by the mysterian types. For me, it is Dennett's meta-philosophy that deserves the most praise. Ideas like chmess and niftyism are just as important as the intentional stance. Thank you, Dan, for keeping it real.

[@kaoutartaki6275]

May he rest in peace

[@lucyweir5923]

Attitude is spirit. I'll never forget him saying that. Thanks, Dan. Your spirit lives on the attitudes that embody curiosity, free will, wisdom, and everything else that matters. Thank you thank you thank you.

[@davethebrahman9870]

I first read Dennett thirty years ago. It was an enormous leap forward in the understanding of mental processes.

[@AnthonyL0401]

Dennett changed my life. I read Darwin's Dangerous Idea and I have never been the same

[@jestermoon]

Makes us think ❤ 3:40

[@Aiething]

Except that he was quite wrong

[@davethebrahman9870]

@ Howso?

[@Aiething]

@@davethebrahman9870 He spent his life claiming that phenomenal experience like the feeling of pain is not real, just to avoid the philosophical implications

[@SpencerBRandall]

Rest in peace, Daniel Dennett

[@rumidude]

Dan Dennett is a real gem. He has some wonderful insights into how to think about things and how to explore the universe.

[@thinkology7174]

first time i see him, a gem indeed!! nice human!

[@HassanAameen]

Sitting around a chair and eating an orange admiring my house backside watching the sun on december 23 extremely phenomenal thanks.

[@janhoogendijk8604]

With Daniel Dennet you get much closer to the truth,thanks for this conversation.

[@janhoogendijk8604]

Truth determined by science/knowledge and human logic.

[@cmarkme]

@@edwardtutman196 HeHeHe... Exactly my thought. He has that beard and is looking very Sciencie. So to a lot the smaller minds out there he just represents a Truth. But as you know and I do. He was just Waffling on about Shite. He was leaving the Hard Problem well and truly out of his argument

[@danielosetromera2090]

I think it's exactly the opposite, really.

[@Wiki_Beats]

Such nauseating sycophancy, have you no self awareness?

[@jesseeaton1359]

@@danielosetromera2090 The hard problem is the problem of not being self caused. Since you cannot be the cause of yourself, you are the effect of previous causes, what ever those causes may be, you didn't choose them. Accepting the fact that you make choices, the choices you make are the results of the causes that made you. So, unless you have some magical ability to see outside of the causal chain of existence, your will to chose is not free, but determined by the sum total of all the causes that make you. See the problem

[@dustincondon5557]

What a fantastic conversation! Thank you so much

[@venkataponnaganti]

I admire Dennett for his brilliance and articulation.

[@BigBunnyLove]

He said nothing about nothing.

[@venkataponnaganti]

@@BigBunnyLove the interviewer did not ask, have I missed it?

[@jonathanrussell1140]

​@@BigBunnyLovethere's nothing to say about nothing is there?

[@BigBunnyLove]

@@jonathanrussell1140 🐰

[@godynnel7680]

Thanks

[@CloserToTruthTV]

Thank you so much! 💫

[@otthoheldring]

Thanks!

[@ranjaysinghnirwan5293]

Rest in peace Daniel sir

[@user-vi6ro8bd4l]

Please, kindly consider a session like this with Robert Sapolsky.

[@christopherwall444]

Sapolsky...extremely eloquent...his lectures on KZbin are riveting

[@foreignwindow]

Agreed!

[@marylouraygarcia401]

No I prefer Donald Hoffman!!

[@marylouraygarcia401]

​@@christopherwall444Sapolsky is a total materialist

[@christopherwall444]

@@marylouraygarcia401 you must be referring to a different Sapolsky..it's ok..mistakes happen

[@thewaythingsare8158]

Thank you for fantastic questions and fantastic answers 🧠

[@akshaysaraf3865]

Finally someone closer to the truth.

[@jamenta2]

Closer to the truth ... of confirmation bias.

[@ChannelZeroX]

Closer to the truth that just because he can't explain consciousness he pretends it doesn't exist 😂

[@rodmorgan4884]

Of what exactly?

[@Pyriold]

@@ChannelZeroXNobody can. It's not even well defined.

[@Person4649Person]

@@Pyriold That's not true. Consciousness is generically what it is like to process information. That's one definition.

[@TerryBollinger]

2:25 DD _“The great Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb once said, ‘If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well.’ ”_ I’m still laughing - that last word ”well” adds such a delicious twist! Daniel Dennett, your quote of Hebb aptly describes not only philosophy but the last 50 years of theoretical physics. Robert, you and Professor Dennett have, at long last, given me something good to say about string theory: Witten and his followers have done it very, _very_ well!

[@aclearlight]

A truly fascinating discussion. Definitely made me smarter than yesterday.

[@garychartrand7378]

I hope it's because you now know what to not think or say.😂

[@dukeallen432]

Thanks for doing this interview.

[@johnyharris]

Dennet's philosophical prowess is an island of rationality, a fortress of reason, in a sea of supernatural hypotheses.

[@jamenta2]

Goofball militant skeptic rationality at its best. Daniel Dennett has been militantly active with his Atheistic (old-school) Materialistic views, and many of his CSI colleagues have been exposed as blatantly dishonest - for example James Randi, was brought to court on legal issues because of his lack of integrity. And lost his court case. If your rationality is founded on dishonesty - it's not really much of a "rationality" to speak of.

[@johnyharris]

@@jamenta2 Come on now, you can do better than that ad hominem surely. If Randi had legal issues it doesn't automatically discredit the entire body of Dennett's work. So, if you've got any concrete criticisms of Dennett's theories themselves, I'm all ears. Otherwise, you are simply mudslinging.

[@jamenta2]

@@johnyharris Who was it that said, you are known by the company you keep? ps: The idea you're "all ears" johny harris for anyone attempting to defy your Skeptic materialistic fanaticism (say someone like a Rupert Sheldrake, or a Pim von Lommel, or a William James, or an Eileen Garrett) - I find humorous. The only ears you and Daniel have demonstrated - are ears listening to your own self-described narcissistic "militant" fundamentalism - based mostly on dying old-school Newtonian materialism - which has little to do with actual scientific objectivity. Luckily, science will still advance as you old militant, know-it-all fogeys die off.

[@johnyharris]

@@jamenta2 *"Who was it that said, you are known by the company you keep?"* I've no idea, but whoever it was committed a logical fallacy. *"... anyone attempting to defy your Skeptic materialistic fanaticism (say someone like a Rupert Sheldrake, or a Pim von Lommel, or a William James, or an Eileen Garrett)"* Sheldrake gave up on science and appealed to the paranormal when he couldn't explain cell differentiation . It's a good job then we have biologists such as Michael Levin, on the bleeding edge of science, empirically explaining mechanisms for such differentiation in cells. Pim von Lommel's Dutch Study sample of patients interviewed longitudinally was very small. His proposal that consciousness resides in a "nonlocal realm" is speculative rather than scientific and the. same goes for his conclusion the brain merely "transmits" or "receives" consciousness like a transceiver. The problem with such studies is that they rely on memories which are malleable and easily influenced. I find the reports of NDE's interesting and I believe the people who report such experiences but I see no reason to make such conclusions when other explanations haven't been ruled out. I actually paraphrased William James the other day and I agree that in the study of consciousness the subjective aspects of human experience should be considered. Mark Solms has presented a compelling mechanism for consciousness using this approach. *"Luckily, science will still advance as you old militant, know-it-all fogeys die off."* Charming. You're hilarious.

[@cmarkme]

What exactly did he prove. Nothing. He just ignores the Hard Problem, and says Oh, its just Biochemical, processes nothing more... But he did not give us an example... I could say... OH it's just Aliens. and leave it that. Knowing full well no one can disprove my theory.

[@andrewjakins367]

Wonderful interview and insights

[@bretnetherton9273]

Awareness is the only constant of all experience what could be more fundamental to reality than that? Awareness is known by awareness alone.

[@jaggerlags]

Thats was wonderful. Even without the magic references I would have loved it but as a magic lover I enjoyed how close they came to magician Eugene Burger’s quote: “Real magic is fake magic and fake magic is real magic.” It’s exactly what they were talking about early on. So many other great topics and comments too. Thank you Dan Dennett and Robert Kuhn. 😄👏

[@tariqyousaf9948]

Thank u sir for guiding me.

[@chazmena]

This was terrific! I do miss you going to places and people around a subject, but I guess it's less costly this way, alas

[@CloserToTruthTV]

We've got new episodes we shot on location coming very soon...stay tuned 👀

[@chazmena]

@@CloserToTruthTV yay!

[@fobef]

I don't think it's hard for most people to swallow that life wouldn't be anything special but explainable in material terms, that's the default explanation, what's hard to swallow is that materialism can't possibly explain this, so another solution is needed.

[@venkataramanavurity2346]

Superb last few minutes

[@cemerson12]

“Tiers of complexity” … so well said. At 1:16

[@christianrelloso2649]

Why conceiving is endless? Why questioning never ceases to end? Always closer to truth?

[@ATech-cz2yz]

Philosopher Dr. Daniel Dennett on why Consciousness (some call it Soul) is hard to describe or understand: "We're in fact remarkably ignorant about what's going on in our brain that makes all of Consciousness things happen, and so the first person point of view is not a privileged one, it's rather under-previlaged. And that's a good thing for us because if you had to try to understand everything that's going on in your brain, then you wouldn't have time to do anything else". Amazing expression; so basically, if top scientists use improved scanning & advanced sensors, they will be able to decipher what consciousness is & how it works - unless our brains include a tuner that receives thoughts from distant or invisible beings, or Consciousness is a multiple things like in the suitcase analogy. Although I think this won't happen in the near future, I'm extremely excited but also somewhat reserved.

[@soulstice99]

Interesting conjecture

[@B.S...]

Awesome interview, thanks CTT !

[@Whippets]

This type of discussion is an antidote to the current state of political discourse.

[@wagfinpis]

Literacy is to intelligence as knowledge is to wisdom.

[@huberhg]

We are in for a treat!

[@backwardthoughts1022]

mythical tales by old gramps mr dan 'brains are static' 'lucid dreams don't exist' 'my introspection is scientifically proven to suck therefore my consciousness doesn't exist' dennett

[@radscorpion8]

@@backwardthoughts1022 lol honestly how can people get excited by materialism. OH BOY I GET TO HEAR ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING IS AN ILLUSION YAYYYYY

[@АлександрСам-ы1ч]

​@@radscorpion8восхищение материализмом это у них временно,до хосписа😊

[@jamenta2]

@@radscorpion8 What I find particularly amusing is how these Skeptic materialists will argue - hey free-will is an illusion but it doesn't matter! You still can live with the illusion of moral choice! And just because reality is a giant wind-up clock, doesn't mean you can't find meaning on your mechanistic one way trip to nowhere! Yeah, baby let's GOOOOO!!!

[@kianimate7803]

Living Legend

[@Uri1000x1]

Meaning (or information) is what influences the outcome of systems interacting. The states of interacting systems change after interaction.

[@AlphynKing]

I don’t agree with Dan Dennett on everything, but I really respect him as a thinker and articulating his thought out views.

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

I have figured out how the mind thinks. The science was hard, or time consuming, to acquire, but the harder part was thinking counterintuitively. Neuronal activity is extremely different from body activity. The neural activity of figuring out how to repair a bicycle is different from the skeletal muscle activities of repairing the bicycle, yet we wish to understand neural activity as though it were like using the hands. For decades I have been reading Dennett's works, listening to his lectures (on line), and exchanging emails with him (not in many years). He is a wonderful philosopher and cognitive science lecturer. It makes me happy to see him healthy and vibrant.

[@Bill..N]

I believe your comment is easy to agree with, friend.. See if I have it right.. With a robot an electrical signal goes from the cpu to the "hand," stimulating certain learned contractions and movements. There is ONE robot with unified systems.. The Cpu is different from the mechanical actions of the robots hands. . Is that it?

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

Yes, and as Dennett says there is no red outside of the brain which is different from how we treat a "red" traffic light. We believe the color is on the post and not in the brain. That is good while driving, but when trying to understand the neural processing in the brain, it is misleading. In the brain, red, is neural activity, a verb, not a noun. Red activity combined with traffic light activity activates the extension of calve muscles on the foot on the brakes.

[@ATech-cz2yz]

I'm not a biologist, but i thought it's the Cones in our eyes that detect color frequencies for the 🧠. 3 different cones detect R & G & B, or mix them up to produce other secondary colors. Then there're the Rods which detect light intensity or shades. In a very low light, our eyes can detect the silhouette of objects but not their colors.

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

Yes, except for the word, Detect. The retina sends action potentials to the thalamus which transmits them to the cortex. The structures , the rods and cones, in the retina send signals to different neurons, especially those of the optic nerve. The signals are "action potentials", electrochemical movements along the neurons' axons. There are no colors in any neural activity, just action potentials. The cortex activity is in preparation for movement and those preparations we communicate to others using words about colors (sounds, tates, etc). As Dennett here says, there is no Cartesian Theatre in the brain. Colors are neural activity which other neurons respond to and those we call color.

[@Hepworks]

fantastic!

[@bradsmith9189]

For the love of God (Irony there) will you PLEASE interview Dr Stephen Meyer ? He is the one person Closer to Truth has always been working toward !!! Seriously. Check out a recent discussion with him on the Bryan Callen KZbin Chanel

[@cmvamerica9011]

I’m always amazed at how Dennet contradicts himself; he said you shouldn’t tell someone that they don’t have free will, because they will change their behavior for the worse; but that would mean that their behavior is caused by something outside of themselves which is an argument for no free will.

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Determinism is not compatible with any notion of Free Will, there's not even the slightest freedom if the entire history of the universe is fixed by its initial conditions. As Gisin says, fundamentally Probabilistic/ indeterministic physical laws even if they aren't sufficient for free will, they're certainly necessary. Only if our future is "open", not pre-determined, there's room for some kind of restricted free will. So, everyone that advocates determinism is in big trouble when the discussion goes to these topics.

[@meiyuc22]

He can choose to change his behavior for the worse or not, that's the free will.

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

@@meiyuc22 Dennett advocates determinism. That means that ( with the exception of the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum mechanics which is a hybrid of determinism / probabilism) the history of the world cannot be changed, it's fixed. Noone "chooses" nothing if the universe was really deterministic. In this naive block universe idea there's not even the slightest chance for free will...

[@meiyuc22]

@@dimitrispapadimitriou5622 In this interview he also mentioned that there's a appropriate level of complexity with which we should look at the free will problem. He believes that going down to the atomic or subatomic or even QM level won't lead to a meaningful answer for a person's purpose if he/she wants to involve human behavior.

[@meiyuc22]

@@dimitrispapadimitriou5622 he also mentioned the concept of people being avoiders, that's evitability, not inevitability.

[@ArcadianGenesis]

23:30 I don't think the names are reversed. At the very least, you must admit that the "hard problem" is a _philosophical_ problem, because it's making a _conceptual_ distinction that previously didn't exist. The "easy problems" are purely scientific problems, which is very difficult in itself, but at least they don't have to deal with philosophical analysis. That alone makes the hard problem harder, in my view. I'm a cognitive scientist who minored in philosophy, and I can assure you that philosophy is harder.

[@TracyWitham]

Dr. Dennet is my favorite philosophy writer, and I will be ordering his new book. The one thing that still seems off after listening to this interview: His use of "user illusion." An example that it would be fun to have him respond to: I tell some intellectual friends that I want to impress that I am a Daniel Dennett enthusiast, but pronounce his last name like it rhythms with "pray." I am exposed as a poser, and feel embarrassment. Two questions. First, what is the embarrassment an illusion of? And second, isn't the embarrassment better understood as training me not to be a poser than as something that functions like a user interface? Thanks for this wonderful interview!

[@longcastle4863]

Wow! A lot said with two questions there. I may have misunderstood your meaning, but to me it whittles away at the illusion swindle-this thing people keep saying with no evidence at all.

[@simonhibbs887]

In this situation changes occurred in your mental state and also in the mental states of the other people present. Subconscious changes in yourself, and even conscious changes in others are not accessible to you consciously. Embarrassment is a simplified physiological signal that triggers a set of behavioural responses in you to react to this sociological situation. It's an evolved stimulus tailored to help us cope with these situations, but it's in no way an actual representation of the processes going on in other people's brains, or even in your own subconscious. It's a massive simplification, as with a lot of the illusions generated by our brain to help us cope with complexity. >And second, isn't the embarrassment better understood as training me not to be a poser than as something that functions like a user interface? Per the above, it's both of these. It's like pavlov hitting a dog when it does something he wants to train it not to do. The hitting isn't an attribute of the thing the dog did. In the same way embarrassment isn't a representation of the actual situation that caused it.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@longcastle4863 >"I may have misunderstood your meaning, but to me it whittles away at the illusion swindle-this thing people keep saying with no evidence at all." There is considerable evidence for the illusory nature of our perceptions. The interviews on this channel with Donald Hoffman on this are particularly good, though I disagree with his pseudo-panpsychist theories. Here's one example, motion blindness. While our eyes are moving we are literally blind, no signal comes into our brain at all. It's switched off. Our brain generates a predicted image from our previous visual field and pretends that's what we see. It's similar to the way the brain hides the blind spot from us, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Stage magicians use motion blindness to perform actions they know we won't see because they are hidden from us during eye movement. Very often our brains flat out lie to us about what we are perceiving. Another example is the way our brain time-shifts sensations. We see our finger touch something visually as much as half a second before the touch sensation reaches our brain, yet we experience seeing the touch and feeling it at the same time. It's a synthetic experience. Again, please look up Donald Hoffman, he may be a panpsychist of sorts which I disagree with him on, but he's fantastic on this topic.

[@longcastle4863]

@@simonhibbs887 That our brain does some things outside our awareness and “correct” things like blind spots are all true. I believe, even, the visual image we experience in our occipital lobe are originally upside down, but are turned aright in the process of us experience them. But I think none of this means our mental experiences that we do experience are an illusions. And saying therefore “consciousness is an illusion” seems like an unnecessary and almost deliberately antagonistic poor choice of words. Like philosopher click bait before there were even clicks.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@longcastle4863 I'm not a fan of the illusion terminology because it is misinterpreted, but it is a misinterpretation. Dennett is not saying we don't have phenomenal experiences. He's saying that phenomenal experiences aren't as they seem to be. So he does mean something specific by it, I don't think he's trying to be antagonistic, he's just being technical.

[@GM-o6i]

'User illusion' is a useful concept. I agree. User illusions really help us control and understand things. Sensations are user illusions indeed - external objects don't have the properties that we perceive as sensations; atoms are colourless indeed. A sensation is a good and, at the same time, bad mediator between an object and consciousness. But in my opinion, an electromagnetic field is exeptional. Sensations are electromagnetic processes in our nervous system, and there is no mediator between the sensations and our consciousness. So, our consciousness directly perceives the electromagnetic fields as sensations. Therefore, what we perceive as sensations are the real (objective) properties of electromagnetic fields. Thus, sensations partly reflect objective reality. Sensations are not user illusions in relation to electromagnetic fields.

[@CarlDietz]

sensations are certainly not illusions. Sensations are sensations. They are not poetic until you name them.

[@GM-o6i]

@@CarlDietz Of course, this is supposed to be so.

[@Rico-Suave_]

I loved Dr. Daniel Dennett, very sad to hear about his passing, I would have loved to meet him, he was my absolute favorite, an intellectual giant, a legend, true sage, heard he was also very kind gentle person, huge loss to civilization, I will watch tons of his lectures in the next few weeks in his memory, I made a playlist of his lectures and interviews for myself to work through, listening to Dr Dennett lectures would be my idea of Heaven 1:20:00

[@jeffsaxton716]

He introduced the Frisbee to England, but that was a very minor part of his contributions to the world!

[@raymondmiller5098]

This is why Frisbee-tarians now outnumber Presbyterians (at least in Scotland).

[@johnsgarage6622]

Great show, really impressed with Daniels views. Adding meaning that was a good one.

[@fabiocaetanofigueiredo1353]

Robert is definitely a neutral unbiased interviewer - he does not allow his beliefs to interefere in how he interviews people or even in deciding who he invites to be interviewed 👏

[@simesaid]

Is this Mr Kuhn speaking? Because I find it hard to believe that _anyone else_ would say that Robert doesn't carry huge biases and assumptions into his interviews. If you need a reminder then perhaps you need to look back over a few of your other interviews, Robert.

[@fabiocaetanofigueiredo1353]

@@simesaid we are all entitled to have our opinions, I wrote mine 🙏😊🙏

[@DecodingUniverse]

nice conversation

[@gert8439]

Well Dan confirmed he believes phenomenal conscious experience exists, something I've not been clear on. Basically saying that 'user illusion' simply means something like colour is experiential, rather than a property of objects. In other words he's not a naive realist, which few are. So far so good. But he dodged the question on the Hard Problem, by wandering off talking about magic, which was frustrating. And made a daft comment about the Hard Problem being the easy problem, and neuronal mapping being the real hard problem, which will explain consciousness. That was very frustrating, as it's such a key question. The Question. Functionalism is fine as an evolutionary framing of why consciousness manifests in the particular ways it does, why injuries hurt and eating feels good and so on. But it doesn't explain why some physical processes (brain processes) result in conscious experience in the first place - which again is The interesting question re consciousness. Then he did his thing of creating new terms to talk around free will ('evitable', fungible', compatible'), which don't get to the heart of the issue in terms of pinning down the key problems of physical determinism vs mentally willing. behaviour. This sort of re-framing is more obfuscatory than illuminating to someone like me. And disappointing. Robert is usually good at pinning people down (if too polite to press), but Dennett remains elusive. To me anyway.

[@jamenta2]

Oh, so we exist ... good to know coming from Dennett.

[@gert8439]

@dannyholland7462 Not sure I understand you? What Dennett is saying, today anyway, is that the redness of the apple is the illusion, not the having the experience of red. The conscious experience itself is real. (At other times he's not been clear about that). The user interface analogy he uses as a way of describing the experience of seeing a red apple being different to the underlying brain processes which are more complex and 'in competition', vying for our conscious awareness. Like a file icon on a computer screen is nothing like the physical parts of a computer's innards. If I'm right that's what he's saying in that part, it's fairly mainstream. Pretty much everyone agrees that our conscious experience represents reality in a way which honed for utility rather than perfect accuracy. The problem is, if that's really what he means by conscousness being an illusion, then it doesn't address the Hard Problem at all. It can't be a way of 'dissolving' the Hard Problem, just to say that conscious experience is a useful representation of reality. But in other talks he fudges what he means by 'illusion', and seems to be saying something more like Frankish, or the eliminativists. Which makes him hard to take at face value. The 'magic' part I just didn't get as a refutation of the Hard Problem...

[@ihatespam2]

It’s not a dodge, he don’t see it as hard. Those who want or need magic, have a hard time excepting that.

[@jamenta2]

@@ihatespam2 Magical thinking if you think it's "easy".

[@ihatespam2]

@@jamenta2 and, of course, you misunderstand what’s meant by “easy…”

[@Pawgee]

My dog Sport got his back leg stuck in a barbed wire fence on our Arkansas farm. He was missing over a day. When he returned home he had three legs…

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

56:00 I respect Dennett's views, but I strongly disagree with that point of view ( about the supposed compatibility between Free will and determinism). Free will, in any conceivable sense, is utterly incompatible with strict determinism, for the simple reason that in that case the history of the world is fixed. Everything is encoded in the initial conditions! You can't change anything at all, not the slightest detail! As Gisin says: Indeterminism ( fundamental probability) may not be sufficient, but it is certainly *necessary* for the existence of some kind of Free Will ( or even self awareness, I could add to that ..)

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Thankfully, Quantum mechanics is irreducibly Probabilistic, so our future is open, not determined. This, by itself, isn't sufficient for the traditional notion of " libertarian" free will, but it gives the basis ( especially if some kind of physicalist strong emergence is possible) for a weaker, more restricted ( and more reasonable!) version. People that support determinism have this weird idea ( like having their cake and eating it!), that , somehow (and with a lot of handwaving), "free will" is "compatible" with a totally fixed history... a strange kind of logical fallacy.

[@earthjustice01]

Dennett is exactly right about AI. "They've left the genii out of the bottle. ...an awful pandemic of counterfeit people if we don't take steps now."

[@Resmith18SR]

Our consciousness is individual and is wholly a product of our physical brain. And we don't need to know exactly how it works although we are making progress on how it works. The distinction between illusion and reality when it comes to our awareness dreaming and waking are self evident.

[@firecloud77]

*"Our consciousness is ... wholly a product of our physical brain."* There is so much evidence to the contrary.

[@Resmith18SR]

@@firecloud77 And what evidence specifically are you referring to?

[@firecloud77]

@@Resmith18SR Near Death Experiences.

[@frankslade33]

When you create a computer that cries out in pain like someone grieving or enjoys music, then maybe you can be taken seriously. But this is always 20 years away. It will in fact never arrive, because consciousness- that is, our existence - doesn’t happen because some molecules bumped into each other according to the laws of thermodynamics. This is preposterous and you yourself have no evidence for this, none. Consciousness- an awareness looking out of your eyes, existence- does not depend on a physical body. It’s the other way round. There’s so much evidence that it’s pointless to even start, you must be willingly turning away. NDEs is a perfect example. You want a flavour of this yourself? Take psychedelics. Joe Rogan said it, talking about ‘The God Room’ on a video. Take dmt or mushrooms, go to that place where there is consciousness outside of physical reality - and if you come back from that and tell me there is no higher intelligence, I’ll at least respect your point of view. As JR said, what are you waiting for? Here’s your chance to experience what we say will convert you and ‘debunk’ it. However. I know zero people - zero - who’ve been to that place and think consciousness is because molecules bump into each other in your head.

[@Resmith18SR]

@@firecloud77 Near death experiences are hallucinations and when you're dead your brain activity will cease to exist along with your consciousness. Scientists have studied this and know this.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

can awareness of physical, such as sight of trees and hearing of sound, be located in brain? could awareness be described as a physical process?

[@MontyCantsin5]

Yes.

[@Aiething]

I had a question that I always wanted to ask Dennett (and all illusionists actually): When you go to bed at night and no one is listening to your thoughts, do you REALLY believe that phenomenal experience is an illusion??

[@theluckytree]

🕊️🕊️🕊️📝📝📝📖📖📖He wrote for decades great books, He will be missed, 😢🤝🏼🌻🌻🌻

[@zebonautsmith1541]

What is Dennetts answer to the riddle of "why am I me; and not you?" Bernard Carr deals with that issue; but he is not a materialist.

[@johnhausmann2391]

There are some basic capacities of the brain that create consciousness, and I am me because of all of hte experiences my brain has had in the world (including, e.g., knocks to the head). You are you for the same reason. Is there anything more?

[@RupertFear]

Dan is always a pleasure.....

[@newidealism3894]

The spontaneous existence of material that would evolve into conscious entities like you and me with the will to live and fall in love with each other, that's pretty magic. It seems to involve something more than just physicality.

[@wietzejohanneskrikke1910]

Maybe you don't grasp the vastness of the physical world. You need something extra. The problem with that is that you invoke 'something extra' fir which there is no proof at all. You make the explanation more inscrutable and complex than it needs to be by introducing 'fairy dust'.

[@newidealism3894]

@@wietzejohanneskrikke1910 yeah I know that's the argument. You sound like dennett. But the fact that you can recite the argument doesn't make it true. It makes you a panpsychist, kind of, actually. If you ever start to feel bummed out about the idea that you're going to just stop existing, remember you don't have to worry about that because the nature of reality is that you find yourself existing.

[@meiyuc22]

yes, that's called Darwinian process

[@monkerud2108]

the dreamlike vision inside your head is not like seeing, it is kind of like seeing but it is more like activity in the visual cortex, you can learn to control it, but there is not the same clear picture like there is with your eyes open. but there clearly i a picture there that is possible, or where do visuals in dreams appear? i maintain that you can visualize stuff like you see it but it is in a different space that you cant quite "see" outside a sort of dreamlike state. for example when i close my eyes and lay down, i can create artificial substitution for my vision, i can see a version of the same room in pretty much full detail if i wish, and if a try really hard i can see almost anything like that, it is kind of like lucid dreaming but only for your vision, and in that state it is incredibly hard to control, while in a more fully lucid dream it is much easier, but not quite as present.

[@silvomuller595]

I also think that the mathematics behind IIT is not convincing since I saw Scott Aaronsons comment on the topic in 2014. So it's basically describing an expander graph and predicts that a grid of XOR gates would have high phi. Well who knows, maybe that's so.

[@chitranshraunak5135]

Sir you may invite Shree Aacharya Prashant from India on your Chat .......he is one of the greatest living philosopher of life and the self ......but still people are ignorant of him

[@missshroom5512]

It would be weird if we end up having a virtual leader🤔..after the past 7 years any thing is possible

[@byroman4]

RIP my intellectual hero

[@BlanBonco]

I thought this was up already. No hate like idealist love. 😊

[@charlescarter9773]

Reptiles have been shown more likely to play in weightless environments. Pet reptiles also engage in behaviors that may be interpreted as play. Young bumblebees have demonstrated some behaviors that could be interpreted as playful.

[@lenspencer1765]

Then please explain phsicic experiences materialists never do

[@simonhibbs887]

They’re stories people tell. That’s all the explanation that’s required.

[@lenspencer1765]

@@simonhibbs887 4 u mabee not 4 people thats experienced them

[@simonhibbs887]

@@lenspencer1765 I’m sure they had experiences, but I don’t see any reason to accept anyone’s interpretation of those experiences at face value.

[@lenspencer1765]

@@simonhibbs887 thats true but I experienced something I can't explain thats why I think theres something that goes beyond materalism

[@simonhibbs887]

@@lenspencer1765 That’s fair enough, I can’t tell you how to interpret your own experiences.

[@1stPrinciples455]

Nothing is unreal because even what is really unreal is still really unreal. So it's real. Nothing is Nothing because even Nothing is something by definition

[@Resmith18SR]

One question I would pose is human consciousness unique from all other animals and mammals on the planet and is that difference a matter of degree or difference of kind? The fact that humans have developed language, culture, religion, philosophy, science, legal systems that aren't present in any other species of animal.

[@longcastle4863]

A matter of degrees, presumably with a lot of baby steps.

[@simonhibbs887]

One way to think about this is which evolved first, a personal experience of self, or language. Does a personal self-awareness require language? I can have such experiences without thinking or expressing anything linguistically at all, so the answer seems no. Can I use language and express myself in it without any conscious awareness? It seems unlikely. So on the face of it I'd say that language depends on consciousness, not the other way around, and therefore consciousness evolved first. It's possible they evolved together of course. Another way to think about it is that we have a range of activities we perform unconsciously and others we perform consciously. The conscious activities are all to do with intention and decision making, like hunting or searching for something, for example. All of these we do with self awareness as part of the process. If we evolved those behaviours without consciousness, why then do they all now have consciousness as an intrinsic and inseparable part of the process of doing them? Surely we should be capable of doing at least some of them unconsciously at least in some circumstances, without invoking the extra costs in energy? Yet we cannot. So it seems likely that since consciousness seems to play an intrinsic role in actually performing these functions that it evolved to do so. Animals such as other mammals seem to perform these activities in similar ways to us and with similar emotional and behavioural expression, so it seems likely we inherited these behaviours and the cognitive processes that go with them from common ancestors.

[@woodygilson3465]

Some would argue that human consciousness unique among humans. In other words, your conscious experience of this life is uniquely yours. Generally speaking though, there is something it is like to be you, something it is like to be a cat, a fish, and so on. That's consciousness. I think that to try to differentiate consciousness along species lines, one would have to show some concrete data to support it. We know that there's nothing in an "enlightened" brain that distinguishes it from any other brain in any real sense. People can claim all day long to have a "higher consciousness," but there's no physical sign of it in the brain. The notion of "higher or lower" consciousness is subjective, a value judgement. One person's guru is another person's crackpot, but... there's definitely something it is like to be that person.

[@longcastle4863]

@@woodygilson3465 The conscious experience of a worm’s life is uniquely his-hers. Or hers-his. They are hermaphrodites. God was being naughty that day.

[@elenabalyberdina2393]

nervous system can't be sensitive to meaning, it is sensitive to stimuli...

[@revolvant]

"The hubris, the semi, demi" LOL. Some great quotes from some deep thinkers. TA

[@ourblessedtribe9284]

1:09:10 "Better" Upon what basis could you say such a word? Better compared to what? Better according to who? suicide by definition is not rational

[@vidasmick]

Dennett's phenomenological model of consciousness looks logically concise. However, dr. Dennett committed logical fallacies and self contradictions in his explanations of free will and hard determinism, AI and consciousness. Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn was very diplomatic in not pressing on and switching to another topic.

[@michael_howling]

I have heard that brain waves are electromagnetic and that on a quantum level unimaginable things are possible, such as even string theory types. For instance, we automatically begin to think the worst about every situation, why? Some bacteria can use electromagnetism to communicate, perhaps we are able to perceive every possible way that our matter can be terminated, because the possible paths all exist in the same space/time. Maybe we focus too much on whats approved to assume and this leaves us blind to some of the possibilities. You should get back on X. too bro. we having fun on there. its all just banter.

[@ModestNeophyte]

I am dismayed at the negativity in these comments, as the episode is not even live yet.

[@АлександрСам-ы1ч]

А́ ты не тревожься,это иллюзия

[@frankslade33]

Is it, perhaps, because DD is a dogmatic one-note boring and entirely wrong about all the important questions? I think it is. The idea he might have changed his mind recently is not highly probable.

[@jamenta2]

Committee Skeptics tend to be not the most popular folk - similar to priests of the Spanish Inquisition. Intellectually dishonest fanatics to the point of doing direct harm to the welfare and integrity of other human beings.

[@jestermoon]

Take A Moment 1:03 Hi Daniel ⏲️ 1:19 Relax and Enjoy a genius at play 1:29 war games play chess I'm going to make a new game 2:52 🎮

[@pjaworek6793]

So wait, 3:30, when we're dreaming, that's a vision on the retina?

[@logical-machine]

It's not an image at all. You don't see images when awake or dreaming. You experience the information after the image has been processed. You don't see all the leaves and branches of a tree as an image. Your brain operates on the abstract concepts that have been distilled out. Green. Blowing in wind. Big. Far. And you missing some details sometimes. Like the 2 birds sitting on a branch. It wasn't important and hard to see so you didn't become conscious of it even though the image is on your retina. Dreams work on these concepts, not images.

[@ramilaj]

Rest in peace professor!

[@heath3546]

I think the magic is ever present, in life. From carrying a child to its birth. The feelings of love .., if we saw the true magician behind it, all we would be dumbstruck and in awe. Instead, we let science’s materialism perspectives turn everything into explanations, and say it’s all natural processes, and nothing to see. I agree. The materialistic explanations are very helpful, but it tells you , like he said there’s something way more complex and out of our awareness going on all the time whether it’s in our mind or in the universe. And there are ways to explore consciousness by going into it, and seeing it firsthand and what it’s pointing to clearly. A fantastic magical mystery with a higher power present This podcast is the hubris of scientific materialism The idea of removing all magic from existence is clearly an inflationary perspective of what we know despite all the current mystery’s and then saying we understand what reality truly is. Absurdism We are at another Copernican moment when we see everything from our hubris and self-centeredness, and inflationary understanding of what we are, and what we’re capable of know through this sliver of eco experience , we call the material world. .

[@matswessling6600]

understandti g the real problems isnt taking the mystic from it at all.

[@GuitarWithBrett]

His cadence and tone of voice sounds like Michael Moore

[@paulkeogh7077]

I appreciate Dan’s perspective and his notion that humans are the luckiest organisms alive, because we can make meaning in a world that has no inherent meaning. He says, “we are so fortunate to live on a planet where meaning has grown and grown and grown and grown.” Further, Dan says he doesn’t subscribe to a “trickle-down theory of wonderfulness” yet his alternative of a “bubble-up theory of wonderfulness” surely presupposes inherent wonderfulness. Unless he also subscribes to the something from nothing theory. For anything to grow there must first be the seed of that something. Whatever you believe about the origins of our universe, a “bubble-up theory of wonderfulness” clearly assumes you started with a seed of wonderfulness. I get that Dan believes we paint meaning onto the canvas of wonderfulness but from my perspective, such a canvas is seeded with every possibility for meaning-making as well as meaningless-making. The latter being the inevitable consequence of people believing there’s no inherent meaning to reality. You don’t need to look very far to see the solipsistic and narcissistic consequences of such a belief in the world today. Maybe Robert could explore this with Dan next time they chat on C2T.

[@theobviousidentity]

Beautiful comment

[@garychartrand7378]

Luck has NOTHING to do with it. There's no such thing as luck, chance, or coincidence. Serendipity is quite by design.

[@paulkeogh7077]

@@garychartrand7378 Nice paradox “serendipity… by design”. Are you acknowledging the uncertainty principle or asserting that fundamental uncertainty is an illusion?

[@ruskiny280]

Even for Dan "It is stranger than we can think" JBS Haldane.

[@elenabalyberdina2393]

Dennett is wonderful example of gaslighting. even if you believe you have consciousness, you will start doubting you have one after listening to him for five minutes of his speech

[@matswessling6600]

that is not gaslighting. That is true sceptiscism: always question what you think that you know.

[@elenabalyberdina2393]

Dennett is not sceptic at all@@matswessling6600

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

​@@matswessling6600It is like the old joke: The wife enters home without warning, goes straight to the bedroom where she finds her husband with another woman. " No, wait honey, this is not what you're thinking...🤗" That's it , not exactly scepticism.

[@jessewallace12able]

You need to take a philosophy class.

[@SandipChitale]

Consciousness is not a thing (there goes pansychism). It is a conventional word for class of phenomenon produced/reported as experienced by brain (like) structures. I like Marvin Minski's statement that consciousness is a suitcase word.

[@Ockersvin]

I agree it’s not a thing. The second part of the definition however I think is uneccesarily limiting and one many people working in this field do without.

[@feltonhamilton21]

After the plunk level. If it grows it is consciousness Anything that ages is a form of consciousness 123 is a form of consciousness ABC is a form of consciousness Having a understanding about something or disagreeing about is a form of consciousness The word death is a form of consciousness The activity of day and night is a form of consciousness A simple Rock can store heat in the relationship with the sun is a form of consciousness All relationships is a form of consciousness Life as we know it started from everything above got us to this point in life makes everything in existent the rim of consciousness.

[@bennyskim]

To your point, you cannot count (123...) or spell words without a self, as we see in our dreams, but there is still a remembered experience. It isn't cohesive, it lacks objects (space) and the order of events (time), but it's a partial experience nonetheless. The amygdala seems to be capable of producing consciousness without objects - examples: raw fear, anxiety, etc. without anything you are afraid of. That is not possible in the sensory/PFC loop in the waking state, a smell must be "of" something, a sound must have a value, there must be content. So to your point again, I'd say there are definitely several modes of experience, some more primitive than others, or some have entirely different aspects than others, and while some might inform others they are not the same kind of thing. Rock/heat, I think it needs further examination on what kinds of consciousness are possible there, but interesting thoughts.

[@newidealism3894]

Physicality requires effects to have causes. How do you account for the first cause? Abandon physicality. There's something else.

[@sarahrigdon2348]

Dennett confuses physicalism with some sort of bottom line in truth evaluation. One should be allowed to entertain, as a working idea, the notion that other reality may come into play. Color is definitely not a user illusion, rather it is a phenomenon. If it's an illusion, it's a real illusion. Thinking not to be explained by "thinking up" some physiological construct. Eventually one needs to acknowledge that such "explanations" cannot close themselves. One always needs thinking. Science relies on observation and thinking. No one should proclaim on "ultimate reality" or "limits to knowledge" who has not discovered the essential reality of thinking. To do so expands consciousness. New possibilities present. Pure thought as independent of sensible reality has developed in mathematics. Pure Projective Geometry is intriguing in this respect. Consciously apprehended color is a borderline sensible/supersensible phenomenon.

[@nyworker]

35:15 He said C exists?

[@earthjustice01]

Re: "The Cartesian Theatre".... What's the difference between seeming to have a movie in our heads and having a movie in our heads? No difference to what we are experiencing. The problem with Descartes is he posed an alternate substance: mind, as opposed to matter. But he was right to treat the contents of the mind differently from material things. The Cartesian Theatre, alias, the Mind needs a different kind of epistemology not a different kind of metaphysics. What we know about the mind is exactly what we experience in our own minds. What we know about other minds is our experience of empathy, putting ourselves in the place of others. This is nothing like the scientific study of physical matter.

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Well, his "explanations" about the " compatibility" of determinism and free will don't make any sense at all ( from ~ 58:00 and afterwards...). Not a big surprise: One can't reconcile what is impossible to be reconciled...

[@sonarbangla8711]

Dan is the last man I would rely on understanding consciousness. The universe is a QM phenomenon (evolved out of a single wave function-Hawking) in which life, consciousness, soul and faith etc., are the metaphysical foundation on which the physical edifice is built, as a result everything in the universe is a part of the whole, our consciousness can take us outside the universe and enable us to view from outside and study the relation with the divine designer. Physics with metaphysics explain reality.

[@VoloBonja]

"our consciousness can take us outside the universe" yeah, let's do it, When is the next consciousness train to the outsides of the universe?

[@sonarbangla8711]

You should know, you are the train. Some even ventures to multiverse.@@VoloBonja

[@VoloBonja]

@@sonarbangla8711 right. I am the multiverse, we are all one, and every atom is alive. I'm glad I've read Dennett and can read your comments with smile on my face. You really want real magic and you got it for yourself :D good luck

[@sonarbangla8711]

You probably didn't read enough of Bennet, as I did, try his stupid understanding of science.@@VoloBonja

[@VoloBonja]

@@sonarbangla8711 there's no such book. You read it in another multiverse?

[@randybackgammon890]

I felt the usuall existential quesiness before watching this.....Feel a whole lot worse now.Nice 😂

[@Jay-kk3dv]

There is a part of the self that is an illusion, that is creating and living in the matrix. But that is not all of the experience

[@PieJesu244]

Brilliant idea's about consciousness but it's sad he has closed his mind to other 'none material' awsome possibilities not yet discovered.

[@uninspired3583]

Maybe they aren't yet discovered because they aren't real

[@PieJesu244]

@@uninspired3583 'maybe' or maybe not but that's my point, how sad to rule out such awesome possibilities.

[@uninspired3583]

@@PieJesu244 everything is ruled out till there's actually good reason to believe it. Start with evidence, not just wild speculation.

[@PieJesu244]

@@uninspired3583 But its not wild speculation and there is plenty of evidence for none material explanations.Try a little inspiration.

[@uninspired3583]

@@PieJesu244 lol, what evidence

[@CaptMang]

Dennett uses illusions in the same way Buddhists do. kinda cool. In fact Dennett has a lot of overlap with Buddhism's explanation of the mind.

[@dontuateytu2557]

please explain why Hoffman went to far.That is a very strong statement with no evidence presented.

[@OrbitTheSun]

The hard problem: Qualia. How can the _sensation_ of colors be formalized? Emphasis on _sensation._ And even harder: How can you use this formalization to program a computer so that it experiences this sensation?

[@mnp3a]

i have this feeling you will be ignored or dismissed by those claiming there is no hard problem.

[@theotormon]

You can't. Pointing out the hard problem is not about embracing mysticism or rejecting physicalism. It is simply acknowledging an incongruity between our explanations and our experiences.