David Bentley Hart- a physicalist picture of reality is likely false.

[@failedkingdoms]

"We have no world, but the world that comes to us through consciousness. " -David Bentley Hart

[@davidpalmer5966]

Excellent. This man covers a huge territory in just eight minutes and does so with remarkable clarity. If you don't get it on first listening, it's worth a repeat or two, especially if you take the trouble to research some of the terms he uses. You rarely find the fundamentals of science and metaphysics presented so concisely.

[@satireofcircumstance6458]

The end is really the key: physicalism is a presupposition and most if not all of the arguments in its favor start with the assumption that it is true.

[@jayare2620]

So we're back to "us" being the center of the universe with everything "revolving" around us.

[@justaguy328]

The part that blows my mind is that, you could cut the brain open and you wouldn't see thoughts or experience. Where are they?

[@ballisticfish1212]

You can cut open a video game disk and not see the characters in the game

[@user-wx6pf2bc2r]

@ballisticfish1212 after a while playing the video game you immerse with the characters unaware you're participating immensely engrossed ,that's why we might be a pawn in a video game by and large .....

[@ryanashfyre464]

@@ballisticfish1212 W/ all due respect, that's quite a silly comparison. No one says that game characters are themselves conscious or have an inner cognitive world of their own.

[@ballisticfish1212]

@@ryanashfyre464 I guess I was using it as a response to the original comment which struck me as a bit silly, if it was meant as a literal question.

[@admoni.]

@@ballisticfish1212 Hi there - I would hesitate to dismiss the original point as quite so silly. Video game characters have an immediate material explanation (a particular projection of light, graphics formed by the televisual technology and game algorithm, a clear link between console and display TV, etc.). Thoughts, abstractions, and all over data or indeed qualia from conscious experience seem to be, by all accounts, categorically removed from the material apparatus by which they are known.

[@sxsmith44]

He needs to interview BK.. Bernardo Kastrup.

[@KT-dj4iy]

I quite liked Kastrup's stuff ... for a while. But he's getting a bit too adversarial for my liking these days (and not in the good kind of adversarial that he blogged about recently), and it's distracting. I wish he'd just stick to The Stuff. Regardless, even if he did there is no comparison. In this area, Kastrup is to Bentley Hart, what a pea shooter is to a 15-MIRV RS-28 Sarmat.

[@sxsmith44]

@@KT-dj4iy I think if BK were to read your comments he would say yes, you’re probably right about everything you just wrote. BK is fond of saying “no process in nature is perfect“! He also likes to say “we are doings of nature“. And lately he’s been saying it’s like “we’re all violins and we have to allow ourselves to be played by nature, (with supervision) instead of resisting. I love the way he communicates. He and Christoph Koch recently did an interview together and CK now says he’s come around to Bernardo’s “analytic idealism”. I recently started putting the comment “ you need to interview Bernardo Kastrup” at every site I visit. Have a good one!

[@goldistocks609]

Wht are they wearing the same gray suit and black turtleneck?

[@nyworker]

Sale at Macy's

[@jessewallace12able]

That’s the required attire.

[@andrewgeoghegan3526]

How can you come to a scientific conclusion when you start from a place of being brainwashed that there is a god?

[@manlikeJoe1010]

The single dumbest comment I've read today. No serious Christian believes that there is 'a' god. God isn't a being or any kind of 'thing'. He is the ground of being itself, or that which provides and determines the being of all that exists. Therefore He could not be any type of being or thing or else He would be dependent on something prior to Himself for His own being. Silly atheists can't even accurately define the classical conception of God that people like Bentley-Hart believe in. It's tiring to have to constantly correct atheists who think that orthodox Christians like Bentley-Hart believe in the 'powerful sky daddy' caricature of God simply because morons like Richard Dawkins think that's what Christian's mean by 'God'.

[@user-ky5dy5hl4d]

We may not be conscious at all.

[@failedkingdoms]

I highly doubt that to be the case saying that I'm experiencing stuff at the moment.

[@user-ky5dy5hl4d]

@@failedkingdoms I think, therefore, I may think I do not exist.

[@MoiLiberty]

We’re pre-Socratic moving into Socrates, and you know what democracy did to him. Will the Constitutional Republic hold fast and not have the same result? The rate of meaningful dialogue in the culture is the measure.

[@marcushagey4110]

Nah, the Sophists were correct even if they didn't understand why. Why have these great metaphysicians never contended--or better--put forward a powerful theory of language?

[@MoiLiberty]

@@marcushagey4110 When metaphysics is dead, as Nietzsche fundamentally meant with “God is dead,” then the metaphysical is not part of the zeitgeist. In other words, all knowledge is remembering. So if your attention is not placed on metaphysics, then you won’t remember because you never knew about the knowledge found in the metaphysical.

[@aioniansage6081]

@@MoiLiberty Could you repeat that ?

[@MoiLiberty]

@@aioniansage6081 "that." Hehe Jk. Which part amigo?

[@aioniansage6081]

@@MoiLiberty Just the part from the 'W' to the period. hehe. Ain't you glad Jesus didn't talk like you. hehe

[@Phylaetra]

If 'mind' does not need a physical substrate, show me a single disembodied 'mind'. He's also using 'more and more researchers' think something with no real evidence. Finally, 'phsyicalism' may be a bit of a presupposition, if only because there is no evidence otherwise.

[@failedkingdoms]

How could you know that there exists a physical substrate apart from consciousness when the very thing we're talking about is exclusively accessible through consciousness?

[@Phylaetra]

@@failedkingdoms you are writing your question in a weirdly complex way. What is 'exclusively accessible through consciousness'?

[@ral1020]

Max Planck: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

[@Phylaetra]

@@ral1020 cool, show me some consciousness without matter.

[@mikeoliver159]

​@@Phylaetra There was a time when we couldn't see sub atomic particles, or gamma radiation. Maybe one day we'll be able to detect disembodied consciousness. I'm not saying it definitely exists, but I don't think we can dismiss the possibility because we can't see it. Science is very poor at explaining the unseen. E.g. Based on our understanding of gravity, Scientists reckon only 5-10% of the matter in the universe is visible (given our current instrumentation). They know there must be 90-95% more matter than they can see, but they don't know what this matter is. So they've called it dark matter. In a sense it's a religious belief to fill a gap in our knowledge.

[@michaelboguski4743]

Mind over Matter ? But aren't Energy and Matter Equivalents ?

[@gregoryarutyunyan5361]

Self awareness.

[@gregoryarutyunyan5361]

Very intelligent person.

[@moonshoes11]

No. Not at all.

[@avatarofenlightenment386]

A very fine exposition of the issues but for the normal viewer this is densely difficult. Because it is difficult and assumes the viewer knows something of philosophical terms. Judging by the comments below, the previous viewers know little and want to know even less.

[@saguaroh9407]

The issue is he's limiting his audience to the subset of people who have read the same books as he. But his points are very fundamental: consciousness, the scientific method, truth... why can't he explain these concepts in his own terms? Presumably he's doing podcast interviews to get his message out - but he's making no attempt to speak in a vocabulary most people would understand.

[@davidgood7621]

If you think life is mechanical, be a mechanic. If you think God gives you purpose, enter Jesus.

[@jsvoable]

Finally, someone who gets it.

[@moonshoes11]

Neither of you do, apparently.

[@jewelciappio]

I’d love to see Neil degrasse Tyson discuss this topic with you because I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before you discovered some new truths together. Your brains work similarly. 😉

[@bltwegmann8431]

Nice video of a man talking himself into a pretzel.

[@jessewallace12able]

I thought so too.

[@williamoarlock8634]

What kind of BS word is 'physicalist'?

[@ballisticfish1212]

Maybe google it before commenting

[@ezrawilson6986]

That’s why dictionaries exist

[@williamoarlock8634]

@@ezrawilson6986 Physical reality which fat theists being so 'blessed' are virtually oblivious to.

[@tranquilityzenrelaxsleep5799]

Blah blah blah. I'd you want to communicate with human beings, speak their language.

[@user-wx6pf2bc2r]

He's full of flannel.

[@isaacromero3475]

He’s being pretty clear if you have a background in philosophy. If you don’t, you probably should start reading it instead of expecting every philosopher to explain knowledge that’s prerequisite to what they're talking about. Your complaint is like going to into a Calculus class and getting mad the teacher is not explaining the fundamentals of algebra

[@johnz8843]

If he was a chemist talking about chemical reactions would you say the same thing? Sometimes you have to understand a field of study. But if you don't it's not thereby nonsense what he's talking about.