David Chalmers - What Exists?

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Lots of things exist. But what is so absolutely fundamental in that it cannot be further reduced into anything more fundamental, but other things that exist can be reduced to it? The challenge is to discern the minimum number of basic categories that can explain the entirety of existence.
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David Chalmers is a philosopher at New York University and the Australian National University. He is Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, and also Professor of Philosophy at ANU.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[@LionKimbro]

David Chalmers is such a kind and generous person. I deeply appreciate how he put the hard problem of consciousness on the map, in "the work," but -- on a personal level, I just loved when Robert Lawrence Kuhn threw out a fragment of an idea -- "some people say value, the goodness, is something that has creative powers," -- and David Chalmers took that ball and ran with it, penning in the raw outline of what Robert said, and further sketched it out for him, despite himself not really aligning with it. But always generous, always exploratory, always gentle, always kind.

[@Luis.Macedo.Monteiro]

Absolutely, and going directly to the point in the first sentence.... it's not about existence or non existence, it's about what's fundamental.

[@sujok-acupuncture9246]

I felt it absolutely the same.

[@orthostice]

This is the right way to be an intellectual.

[@bschmidt1]

Chalmers is awesome, I emailed him a question about the Hard Problem once and he replied lol Very nice guy

[@clownhands]

Chalmers is so charitable with positions not his own, like a true academic

[@jfoster7238]

My son looks so much like him it's crazy. I shared the video with him and told him now he knows what he's going to look like when he gets older.

[@justpassingthru1953]

Status of Truth..."At the end of the day, it's an open question." Chalmers

[@TrentMurray]

We need more Chalmers

[@spobleteo]

Markus Gabriel says “everything exists in a field of sense”: mathematics, particle, conscious, fiction, etc. Charles Sanders Peirce also postulates that everything exist in a continuum.

[@alekstube1423]

It is absolutely a continuum of sorts. The original universe did not have consciousness. It was developed in the life that came to be.

[@Nalber3]

You forget to say that for Peirce existence is only one level of reality and that corresponds to the category of secondness. There are firstness and thirdness also, which don't exist, but are as real as existence ❤

[@KiruvMedia]

​@@alekstube1423 The "original universe" does have nothing else than consciousness.

[@meghan42]

@@alekstube1423 Are you saying that consciousness does not and did not exist until life came to be?

[@alekstube1423]

@@meghan42 That is what I said. I believe consciousness came to be as a result of life, not the other way around.

[@walterbenjamin1386]

I like Chalmers very much both because of his intellect and because he looks like he should be starring in a stoner film. It all connects via the Great Chain of Being. Right?

[@janakasanjaya6926]

Thank you very much for the conversation

[@gsilcoful]

Thank you.

[@peterjohnstone2877]

A broad interpretation of the ancient Persian Zoroastrianism may be interpreted as positing that love and hate are the fundamental forces opposing each other.They are conceived of as the correlative dual components that make up the universe in its struggle between good and evil. All derives from this duality.

[@PetraKann]

Wonderful discussion 😎

[@pandoraeeris7860]

My favorite philosopher.

[@silvomuller595]

I hope for new Interviews with David. I would love to know how his views expressed in "Reality+" and how simulated worlds are somewhat real go along with Tononis and Kochs view that consciousness cannot be simulated/computed.

[@meghan42]

Consciousness seems to be completely ungraspable. It can't be "found" or grasped. And yet, it's the most obvious thing.

[@5piral0ut]

@@meghan42it is the only thing we truly know.

[@PaulHoward108]

Persons are fundamental, and nothing else is needed to explain everything. Their forms are the nouns, their activities are the verbs, and adjectives are their properties. Abstract concepts (sat-cit-ānanda) interact and embed in each other to produce all detailed objects. Sat-cit-ānanda are three types of choices a person can make.

[@emergencymedicine]

Why three types of choices?

[@thejimmymeister]

So "chair" is a form of person? I don't understand.

[@sxsmith44]

Physical things are not fundamental.. only consciousness is fundamental.

[@emergencymedicine]

@@sxsmith44 Consciousness is an emergent property of living systems and it requires a physical substrate. Why? Because a living system is a self-organising process that seeks, not just to resist, but also transcend the effects of entropy on its substrate.

[@sxsmith44]

@@emergencymedicine who told you this stuff? Do you have any evidence for the validity of this belief?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

quantum wave function / fields described by mathematics? how do time and mathematics interact in quantum mechanics?

[@CMVMic]

Consciousness is a physical event

[@ravichanana3148]

The probability of the ground state half-sinewave is highest (=1) at the centre of the wave. This probability of 1 gives the classical state.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

could causation measure quantum wave function / field into nature? subjectivity into consciousness?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

physics (and conscious awareness) from causation? maybe subjectivity backward causation in future? causation in the present?

[@longcastle4863]

Would it be accurate to say that Chalmers’ idea of a “hard problem” of consciousness, for all the hullabaloo it created, turned out, in the end, to be an unfruitful line of enquiry?

[@Luis.Macedo.Monteiro]

Of course, of course, Monism or Oneness (just words) has the potential to emanate what appears to be mind, consciousness and subject-object. Manifestation without identity or substance.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

feeling and emotion asscociated with causation in present? nature (science) from past development?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

abstraction (including mathematics) and subjectivity (including language) maybe from future?

[@melon6771]

Where was this shot?

[@bschmidt1]

My guess is Switzerland

[@melon6771]

@@bschmidt1 Too many places looks like this one in video... Upstate new york, germany, northern American, Switzerland as you mentioned. Pretty difficult to guess. I like that place where they are sitting...cold breeze, green forest, calmness. It's a dream place to be.

[@JamesBS]

On the balcony

[@notenoughyettoomuch]

In a simulation

[@melon6771]

@@JamesBS Ah! Very nice.

[@GaryBernstein]

It’s backwards to say “idk if math & numbers really exist”. Math is all that exists, when we inspect physics & “concrete” atoms. Math is all, and always existed & that’s why all exists. Math generates qualia like it does light. Added explanation only adds confusion. Occam’s razer

[@emmanuelweinman9673]

The question in itself is hilarious 😂 Almost like a divine comedy 😉🙏🏼

[@meghan42]

Comedy is divine. Not all , of course. But when it is, it is.

[@inoderlulzer5163]

​@@meghan42 Yeah, and this isn't.

[@MegaDonaldification]

Suffering and perseverance exist.

[@bschmidt1]

Only once you have minds, which you only get when there are brains, which only arise in nervous systems, which you can only get in bodies, which most likely only occur on planets near enough to stars for active chemistry. If the universe was a tree, the concept of "suffering" would be like a flower out on the end of a random branch - maybe "suffering" is built into the DNA of the tree, but doesn't manifest until later in the process at the right time and under the right conditions. I wouldn't say that in the primordial beginning of the universe there was suffering, it seems isolated to minded things and has a lot to do with awareness of past/future directly.

[@rareword]

Too many things are taken for granted here. We must always start by defining the words we use. How do you define the word “exist”? Dreams do exist, but are they real?

[@5piral0ut]

The only thing that we know exists for sure is consciousness. We cannot know that our waking reality is not a type of dream too.

[@genealogiacolorada]

​@@5piral0utI doubt, therefore I exist.

[@Razerfreak1]

the most genius people in this world see the world different than we do. that answers the question

[@marksevel7696]

Thanks for the compliment

[@emergencymedicine]

@@marksevel7696😂

[@meghan42]

Many, who are NOT considered genius, see the world differently as well. The mystics. Rumi, etc.

[@NothingMaster]

Albeit, without the idea of Nothing (Absolute Nothingness) as the perplexing conceptual mirror and the backdrop against which we, nonetheless, hold and examine the very notion of Being-and things that are, physical or otherwise-none of it would have made the slightest bit of sense. At least not to our fledgling consciousness that as yet tends to struggle immensely, not just with its own nature, but also the transcendental anomalies of understanding.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

causation is a fundamental element?

[@SeventyFive-gn9kh]

He basically admits what the Hindus have known since ages: there's "sat" or existence and then there's "chitta" or consciousness with a possible progression to a higher level of consciousness called "ananda" (loosely translated as bliss.)

[@5piral0ut]

We know consciousness exists but can we be totally sure the physical world exists beyond our consciousness? Could it not just be a manifestation of consciousness? As such could the thing that unites the physical and consciousness actually just be consciousness itself? This certainly seems the simplest possible answer to the question posed, but maybe intellectually that is something of a dead end.

[@Jaymim]

Ancient Indian Rishi’s reasoned their way to a mono (no other) non dual reality, which can be learned AND experienced thru the study of traditional Advaita Vedanta 🙏🏼

[@meghan42]

Or by just being still. Quiet.

[@ingenuity296]

What exists? Geniuses like Chalmers and non- geniuses like me. 😂😂😂

[@arnthorsnaer]

Is there any evidence or even compelling argument for conciousness being anything else than an experience of the mind, nervous system, brain, body? In terms of things we know we know that our thinking is private. We have yet to verify in controlled enviroment that thinking in of itself and purely on it’s own can affect anything outside of the body.

[@5piral0ut]

Are you aware of the observer effect? This is where things only resolve at a quantum level when they are observed by a conscious observer. The double slit experiment is the most famous example of this. For me it seems more likely that the body does not exist outside our consciousness, rather than the other way around 😄

[@srb20012001]

Veridical OBEs suggest a sort of dualism consisting of Consciousness existing outside of bodily function or awareness. See Greyson et al, "Irreducible Mind".

[@nickcooper1260]

Assuming there must have been nothing at all, not even quantum fluctuations in empty space (even though that is "something"), how and why did nature seemingly go against entropy and produce humans, planets, stars and everything we see in the Universe? Does this point to an infinite, eternal Multiverse?

[@bradleyfitzik2447]

Human beings are entropy machines. So are all the other living entities. We eat highly ordered food and break it down into unorganized chaos in our stomachs and intestines.

[@5piral0ut]

I’ve not met anyone that thinks there must have been nothing. As you say, even empty space is something, time is something, physical laws are something.

[@srb20012001]

Existence itself is a Brute Fact. It can't be reduced or weighed against anything other than itself. That's what we term "Reality".

[@RobertDeLechez]

Gold medal in the eye contact world champs for this guy

[@longcastle4863]

Nouns exist

[@claudetaillefer1332]

According to Quine's criterion of ontological commitment, "to be is to be a value of a bound variable", where the first-order logic variables range over individuals.

[@maxpower252]

Only I.

[@genealogiacolorada]

the only thing that exists for sure is this thing that doubts that anything exists.

[@carlosebert6702]

Words… Words… Words…

[@PJRiter1]

What about Joy and sadness

[@r2c3]

good point... they certainly have a place and role in our lives...

[@michaelmckinney7240]

The all encompassing question of what is real is presently not answerable by the human mind. Our human ancestors one million years ago had no hint or knowledge of Einstein's theory of Relativity, not because relativity wasn't valid, but because their brains had not evolved enough to consider these highly abstract concepts. In the same way, we find ourselves grappling with questions of what constitutes ultimate reality. We certainly are evolved enough to understand the terms and parameters of these profound questions but providing any comprehensive answer to explain "the entirety of existence" as Mr Kuhn describes it in the additional subsection of this post, is not possible. If you showed Neanderthal a bicycle and said nothing more about it and left it completely to them to decipher what it's function and purpose was, if any, it might take them a very, very long time to finally "understand" that it's a machine for human transport. The reason is they had no conceptual reference or experience to draw on in imagining this unfamiliar object as being a self-powered machine capable of carrying a human in forward locomotion. It's likely Neanderthal would've made an icon of this strange looking object and that status probably would've remained for some time. If you showed the same bicycle to a modern 14 year old in an urban setting, he could spin it around the block with alacrity. What's the difference? The difference in the two very different responses is basic. Neanderthal had no cognitive well of past experience that allows him to see the bicycle within the framework of the social, historical and conventional history that all of us are fully immersed in every day.. The 14 year old does have this perspective because of the rich tapestry of human evolution and cumulative understanding that our large brains have made possible. As Neanderthal couldn't conceive of Einstein's Theory of Relativity because they simply lacked the cerebral depth to fathom this very complicated idea, we today lack the cerebral depth to comprehensively answer questions of ultimate reality. Our descendants however, will not.

[@mohdnorzaihar2632]

Could you define exist without consciousness..peace be upon you'll out there and assalamualaiqum wmt

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

Excellent point. No you cannot exist without consciousness only the amount of total individuals can counter it or it can exist in other which has implications as you can gather.. This is why existence is survival and it correlates to consciousness in a big way. Its just a clarification on definition that one wants to postulate. You cannot actually say that existence is conscious but you can use the term survival in consciousness because it describes the function or process. What the abstract needs is material substrate or substance so that it may present itself or true nature or form within the material itself or constituents. As the idea itself is abstract such as the word survival because it does describe a process you cannot exist without one surviving. You must and have to partake in the reality of that abstraction concept as it is an idea or goal to achieve. Without a conscious state you will not survive or a complete conscious state will not live or survive just like without the brain you will not exist or survive as that's where consciousness resides itself or from that structure. It needs structure or material to exist. That existence is defined to the ability to survive and partake in evolution. You could look at consciousness as a manifestation of survival or it is actual survival itself expressing itself in abstract through the median. If you takeaway survival from consciousness or vice versa if you take consciousness away from survival existence is impossible unless in another entity, which is how and why it can evolve or continue. Best method is subtraction techniques or hypotheticals to gain clarification or definition.

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

Conscious states are from the biological substance without the substance you get no conscious state its impossible. The whole idea is to make abstract reality real or its how it can evolve .Conscious states go way back to the dinosaurs probably much further its used for survival purposes such as navigation systems, information portals, or intake manifolds. if you had a pre disposition how would you try illuminate that disposition or make it more relative?

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

The universe itself is in a mode of survival or existence as you put it. It grows, expands evolves and within the structure the constituents that make material matter relevant also follow identical protocol its a given. Now the terminology in word is different but underneath that is the real definition like you can use grow , live, evolve, expand, survive , or not. Protocol says the constituents follow suit and not only that they prove it in the structure they build.

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

What I can suggest to you is this. If you want to define it then use this method. If you takeaway consciousness you don't exist but consciousness or survival can exist in other but not yourself if you have no conscious state, Survival exist through consciousness though in other and self if you partake in the process or are available to. If you cannot partake in the process meaning you don't exist survival is irrelevant or impossible. Survival becomes more relevant when it knows it is conscious of it. If it does not know it is conscious of it it cant survive. So one must be conscious to partake in the actual process and to be alive or survive, but survival is different because it is abstract and a disposition or fundamental or requirement of existence.

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

I can probably suggest to you this also. To clarify non ignorance. You yourself wont survive first without a brain example being if I takeaway your brain consciousness for a complex structure like the brain wont survive or is unlikely to survive without it. Thats a given. Next if you takeaway consciousness you can survive in sub conscious possibly but you wont be able to function meaning you can't actively function or be available to participate in the survival realm or survival process and possibly will not evolve. You can though possibly switch off conscious state but its a reflection of non existence itself so it might as well be non existence. This is why its super important that you have the ability to participate in the function or process such as being a conscious state or being available to it. When you sleep its sub conscious but not available or break from the survival process itself and it reflects it. This is why you sleep to break from survival participation. Consciousness needs time out from the process of survival because its historical and forgotten mainly but its why you do sleep and its needed to gather the forces so to speak. You could say that consciousness needs time out from survival or itself in this degree which actually sought of defines it in away.

[@david-pb4bi]

I wish I had a job when I could just waffle on about something give no answers and get paid for it, perhaps that’s the meaning of life?

[@r2c3]

8:51 ideas have to be applicable to objective reality so that everyone can independently test their validity...

[@zenzen9131]

If consciousness is an underlying 'force' along with quantum mechanics then this could explain the results of the double slit experiment

[@AORD72]

In the double slit experiment is the other subatomic particles influencing the single photon being fire through the slit? Have we ever run the double slit experiment in a true vacuum? Have we ever mapped tall the neutrinos flowing around the double slit experiment and seen the subtle effects they hand on all of the electrons involved in the materials oof the experiment?

[@johnnytass2111]

​@@AORD72Oof

[@sujok-acupuncture9246]

Yes. Indeed.

[@anteodedi8937]

“I think consciousness exists, and I think physics exists, and I think they are both fundamental.” Well, that statement is a breath of fresh air! It is basic common sense, actually. Some philosophers are obsessed with eliminating one from the picture or reducing one to the other, and for no good reason at all.

[@JamesBS]

Physics can’t be fundamental. It’s just a description of how nature works. It’s like saying a description of chocolate is chocolate. Consciousness is fundamental because without it there is no experience.

[@anteodedi8937]

@@JamesBS That's a silly objection. What he means is that the world that exists independently of you has a physical nature that it consists fundamentally of objects with physical properties that have causal powers, are located in space and time, and interact causally with each other. The description of the chocolate is not the chocolate if by description you mean “the group of statements” but the description corresponds to reality. If not, then physics isn't telling you anything about the world. Next time try to understand the issue before throwing comments around.

[@5piral0ut]

Shouldn’t he have instead said “I KNOW consciousness exists, and I think the physical world exists”?

[@anteodedi8937]

@@5piral0ut You can rephrase it that way. Anyway, I am not interpreting Chalmers merely in virtue of a statement he says in a video. Chalmers is a property dualist. According to his view, both physical and mental properties are fundamental. He doesn't reduce one to the other. He isn't necessarily committed to substance dualism as you can see, he leaves that as an open question.

[@katalystc1268]

Numbers are a language that describe everything. That's what mathematics is. He lost me at not believing numbers dont exist? Our modernized society hinges on the understanding and application of mathematics, which without we wouldn't have our modernized society we have today! Your phones, laptops, computers, software, etc abstract concepts that give rise to physical devices.

[@ViceZone]

Numbers are not fundamentally real, numbers are concepts/ideas that we use to describe the world around us.

[@katalystc1268]

@@ViceZone numbers are very real within the abstract domain, for without we couldn't have many things that rely on mathematics. Computers are binary codes 0 & 1 that store information. Modern computers are a blend of abstract science- quantum physics and hard science - electrical engineering and chemistry. Numbers are very real and considered absolute values. Are we going to say information is not real either? Information is also abstract concepts.

[@andecap1325]

Who says consciousness is fundamental? We don't know enough about it yet ...

[@sxsmith44]

We don’t have enough information about consciousness? You have all the information you’re ever going to get… everything is consciousness!

[@anticat900]

I definitely think and interact with the outside world, but I can also make worlds within my mind and explore them. I don't think however I am anything more than software running on my brain's hardware. I have no idea what it takes to make me feel and think and have no idea what else is going on in my brain subconsciously or at a lower level in the running and maintenance of my body. I can see however this 'hardware' can be twisted with drugs or even decide to close down this os for maintenance to be carried out (sleep and coma).

[@simonhibbs887]

Those imagined worlds are really just descriptions of worlds you construct in your mind. They're fictions, like fantasy worlds or virtual world generated by a computer.

[@anticat900]

@@simonhibbs887 Yes like a incredibly powerful 3d software package that has the amazing ability to create an image immediately of anything and do anything with it. I believe we can do this by partially accessing our visual subconsciousness hardware which already spends its time creating a realtime 3d 160 degree image partially from our eyes but mainly from a 3d image set we have stored of everything we've seen so far.

[@anticat900]

In fact you may notice a feeling when on holiday as your brain starts seeing new things for the first time, vast new model sets are being saved over old unused sets

[@ronhudson3730]

Everything that we can understand, perceive, feel, and speculate upon. Exists. States, objects and other things exist but not yet in our perception. States, things and objects may exist but be forever outside our perception. In short, everything that exists or can exist, in fact, exists.

[@synaestheziac]

You’re stating a tautology. As Chalmers makes clear, the interesting question is not what exists, but what exists fundamentally.

[@simonhibbs887]

We can speculate about hobbits living in Middle Earth. What exists is the description of them, but that description doesn't refer to anything that exists.

[@quixodian]

What about logical propositions? Scientific laws? Mathematical conjectures? Do they exist? Are they real? And what are their fundamental constituents? A big question, considering how fundamental their role is in seeking for an answer to the question of what exists.

[@srb20012001]

That's the old question, "Are they discovered, or invented?"

[@kallianpublico7517]

Consciousness and physics "assumes" the reality brought to bear by the senses and measuring devices. What is not assumed yet is found to be the case in both is discovery. While consciousness and physics both make discoveries the congenital difference lies in the type of discoveries. Physics puts a lens or a lever on what is already there and expands the scope of what is. It either finds new structures it can taxonomize (telescopes); or finds new relationships (electrical charge) it can utilize. Categorization and utilization. Consciousness, when it makes discoveries, narrows the scope of what isn't. Physics, indirectly, expands the scope of our ignorance. Consciousness, directly, contracts the scope of our ignorance. What exists is our ignorance. The fact that we think ourselves knowledgeable is due to consciousness and self-consciousness.

[@simonhibbs887]

Isn't physics itself a product of consciousness though? You're talking as though it isn't.

[@kallianpublico7517]

@@simonhibbs887 Physics is a manifestation of self-consciousness: the linguistic mind, thought. Insofar as the origins of physics lies in empiricism, physics is a product of applying thought to consciousness: studying Nature. Modern physics, however, supposedly studies "Nature" far removed from the senses. Instead of the empirical world of the senses, science studies the "instrumental" world of measuring devices. This "instrumental" world is not the Nature of the five senses. Though, supposedly, physicists claim that it is one and the same. Just as the world that the telescope or microscope reveals expands our experience of Nature; so scientists would have us believe that LIGO is just as revealing. Consciousness both reveals and hides. When you look at the moon you don't see the "whole" moon. The dark side is hidden by geometry. But the geometry of what? The eye 👁; or the moon 🌚 ? Or something else? What is it about consciousness that makes discovery possible? Is that the wrong question? Should the question be: what is it about ignorance that makes knowledge possible? Consciousness or self-consciousness? For me ignorance exists. The evolutionary derived organs that impart consciousness of Nature are temporary, or, like LIGO, limited in what they impart. True revelation waits for an organ that can see "the whole of the moon 🌚", at once. Does such an organ exist, or must the geometry be invented to make a "telescope" that can collimate both light and ...whatever "particle" collimates the darkness?

[@kallianpublico7517]

​@@simonhibbs887 It may be that the contraction and expansion of ignorance is what we call consciousness. That Nature and the self are an endowment of ignorance. That death is a return. Not to nothingness, but to that existence where the "whole of the moon" can be apprehended without navigating time and geometry.

[@douglinze4177]

The “Abstractness” and Platonic solids, and all probability is in The Exclusion Zone… It entangles everything,

[@synaestheziac]

What is the exclusion zone?

[@mother3crazy]

Goodness and badness being the only thing that exist is no different than black and white or yin and yang. It’s the very fact that we have good and evil AND black and white AND yin and yang AND red and blue, AND happy and sad, so on and so forth forever-that we have a world to live in. It’s only by building up more *different* sets of things that we can establish contrast, see through the haze, and try to ascertain facts about those original two worlds.

[@markb3786]

maybe a good post, but could you please define "good" and "evil"

[@mandelbot5318]

A minor point, perhaps, but it’s ‘yin’ and yang. ‘Yen’ is Japanese currency.

[@emergencymedicine]

@@markb3786 Values, Archetypes, Moral objects (human beings). Cheers!

[@Arunava_Gupta]

Everything can be reduced either to conscious personalities or to unconscious substance. I place time and space within the latter category. Thoughts are subordinate to the conscious personality. Concepts need for their conceptualisation a conscious mind.

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

Consciousness is needed to par take in the survival process, Id suggest to you that without you wouldn't survive or struggle to at the least. So if you want to define it becomes a bit more tricky but is relatively quite simple. What I think is that it is the abstract idea of survival through physical substance realising itself potential or that it is a mode of survival or survival itself in mind. If you takeaway the conscious state full time what is the result? If the result is death or non existence then the opposite defines it which the opposite is survival.

[@emergencymedicine]

You are so close to the correct answer.

[@thejimmymeister]

You don't think there could be a strictly mechanical process that results in the same behavior but without conscious experience? Also, it seems like plants partake in the survival process. Must they therefore be conscious?

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

@@thejimmymeister They could be conscious to a lesser degree but possibly because they lack complexity like the brain it is not as pronounced or obvious as one would assume. I think its more this once you are complex in your position or evolutionary configuration survival shape survival itself evolves with that configuration for us humans because of size or shape and our material character we need the brain to be conscious because that's what we are or how we are configured. Without survival itself conscious state is impossible or irrelevant and without conscious state or complete conscious state not including sub conscious state survival is impossible or irrelevant or you don't exist this is why it is vital that one must be able too partake in the system or survival process for evolution to then proceed. This is how the abstract position or disposition of survival can realise itself through material substrate with the caveat of complexity. What survival needs is material substance to realise its nature or to pronounce its disposition without the material substance survival is irrelevant and so is conscious state or vice versa. You cant have one without the other.

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

@@emergencymedicine I know

[@MasterofOne-zl6ur]

@@thejimmymeister The clue is is that survival is first protocol or it is a requirement of evolution to first exist then to survive so that evolution can happen so that conscious state can realize its disposition of survival. If the disposition is abstract or a process like survival it to will evolve with the material or become part of that system which is consciousness.

[@davidadams6731]

Boom!

[@MarineBoy42]

Should've said it was Pub day in the description.

[@richardharvey1732]

Hi Closer To Truth, the definition of exist cannot be established with total certainty given the vagaries of human perception. Within the constraints of communicable language it makes some sense to settle such definitions in a pragmatic manner so that people can make intelligent distinctions between the many things that appear as real in our tiny minds. This then fort me allows my definition to pertain to only those things that appear un-affected by our perception or judgement, things that are always more or less the same and not subjectively variable. Thus a rock is always a rock and a tree is always a tree. All the other 'things' that people choose to believe in therefore do not exist within those parameters, that is not say they are not 'there' only that they do not exist in the same physical universe. Cheers, Richard.

[@rooryan]

It makes no sense to hold this view. The laws of physics don’t leave out consciousness, they create stuff and that stuff creates consciousness.

[@tajzikria5307]

No

[@terekrutherford8879]

That is my view as well. Chalmers has a reasonable argument that those physical pieces can't explain consciousness. If you are curious, I'd read more on Chalmers description of the "hard problem of consciousness"

[@5piral0ut]

How do the laws of physics create stuff?

[@ral1020]

Without “mind” there’s non of this. No math. No experience “of”. IMO, consciousness is fundamental

[@simonhibbs887]

It's fundamental to you experiencing something. The question is are you fundamental.

[@AORD72]

I totally disagree. You don't need a human mind for the universe to exist. The laws of the universe exist and could be described by any language (math) you want. Before humans do you truly think the universe didn't exist? Our math/physics says it did.

[@5piral0ut]

@@AORD72You might be right, but I personally think the simplest explanation is that everything is a construct of our consciousness. Maybe ONLY consciousness exists.

[@AORD72]

@@5piral0ut "simplest explanation is that everything is a construct of our consciousness" why would you think that is the simplest? What would your mind exist in then. What happens when another human dies, do you suddenly cease to exist?

[@5piral0ut]

@@AORD72 There would be no mind if there was only consciousness / conscious energy. That is hard for us to comprehend given we appear to inhabit a purely physical world. Nothing would happen to my part of consciousness if another part ended (there are no humans in this model, only consciousness). This is just the very simplest way I can see everything working. I know it appears strange and impossible, but is it more strange and impossible than the infinite universe we are in?

[@johndoolan9732]

Look for me I know we don't understand so much but here is what I say and will stick by this there are 2 things I see as say incubators being vibration IR as a basis for a start

[@BLSFL_HAZE]

I agree that nature didn't HAVE to be this way, but I don't agree that it could have been another way. It JUST IS this way, without having to be. In other (extremely tautological) words, nature is natural.

[@srb20012001]

That loophole is philosophically left open by appealing to the Multiverse concept, where physical laws can have myriad permutations.

[@BLSFL_HAZE]

@@srb20012001 There was a time when I did just that, but a some point, doing so somehow began to feel like a sort of cop-out. I really don't know if it is or it isn't, though.

[@srb20012001]

​@@BLSFL_HAZEYes, that's why I termed it a loophole, an intellectual copout against Anthropic or Fine-Tuned Constants reasoning.

[@feltonhamilton21]

Dark matter is the base of everything and everything came from invisible matter that at one time gave off friction and then quantum mechanics evolved with lawe's of Independence which is now governing over everything that was put into perspective by it and now everything follow the laws of the universe. The universe itself has a single wave function that is governing over it and everything inside it all the way down to the plunk level is basically lined up inside a single wave function that support the entire universe.

[@DoomSlayer-MAGA]

I miss his metal look. Time flys

[@potheadphysics]

Only fields.

[@mandelbot5318]

And scarecrows.

[@markb3786]

@@mandelbot5318 quantum scarecrows

[@fred_2021]

@@mandelbot5318 and crows

[@friedpicklezzz]

To me this is just an exercise of nomenclature. Consciousness is an emergent construct, something that exists because of the fundamental forces, billions of years of evolution. Consciousness is an awareness of internal and external existence, an inner voice of some sorts. It might not be as magical as we think but merely a result of having evolved to apply language that we can also internalize.

[@alexbreiding]

But does consciousness depend upon the ability to construct language? My dog doesn't have symbolic language but seems to experience the world in a way that fits with the definition of consciousness that Chalmers uses.

[@Tmesis___19]

The most reasonable and probably most true thing I’ve heard here!

[@Tmesis___19]

@@alexbreidingwhat?

[@alexbreiding]

@@Tmesis___19 OP says consciousness is the result of having to apply language that we can also internalize. I'm showing a counterexample of consciousness emerging without language.

[@LionKimbro]

I think the tricky question is -- why does there have to be any experience of the world? This is what David Chalmers, back in ~1995, called the "hard problem" of consciousness, different from the easy problem of consciousness. If you believe that physical entities (like subatomic particles, or quantum fields) are fundamental to all other things in the universe, and if you believe that those physical entities are governed entirely and completely by mathematics and some kind of state -- I mean like a simulation that follows certain, mathematically prescribed rules, applied to something like a game board that has pieces on it -- if that is everything that exists, then the question arises: "Why does there need to be an experience of all of this?" Let's call the mathematical rules that run the universe, and the state of the universe (the information about how the universe is "shaped" or "configured" at any given moment) -- let's call it "the mathematical model." Everything in a mathematical model operates exactly the same whether or not there is a being having an experience of it, or not. There is nothing in any mathematical model that could gain anything from there being an experience of it happening, and the inner experience of it could be entirely absented, and the outcomes of the mathematical model would calculate out exactly the same way. If the mathematical model were running on some kind of computer, and it were in a closet, but there were no monitors or printers attached, it would operate exactly the same way, because it is entirely defined by the mathematical model. (If you believe that there is some kind of randomness in the universe, that is fine too -- it makes no real difference, because randomness does not in any way depend on an experience either: dice rolling in a vacuum do not vary differently, depending on whether there is an experience of it, or not. The distribution and selection process in no way depends on experience.) And yet we know that there is not just changes in the state of the universe, we know that there is at least one being (namely, yourself, another name for the being experiencing reading this text right now,) that is seeing a show of light and sound, that is somehow experiencing all of this, even though that being was in no way required for the calculations to proceed. Now, you may object that your mind and emotions and the taking of information is itself part of the mathematical model, and you would be correct. But here a subtle distinction is needed, and it is a distinction between very real things: The distinction between your mind, and the consciousness that experiences what occurs in the mind. It is not the same as the "ego," because the ego is part and parcel of the mind. Rather, it is the raw experience that experiences the mind and all of the things that the mind experiences. That experience, which only ever is of a single but constantly changing moment, and that has at one end a continuously changing show of thoughts and feelings and lights and sounds, that expands in wakefullness and diminishes in sleepiness, that experience is something that could not exist -- it would be like the entire universe winking out and not even being missed -- and it is nowhere needed or entailed by the mathematical model. It is trivial to imagine that the entire mathematical model could execute and run without anybody ever having an experience of it. It would be like a computer game simulation, like say "the Sims," but a computer game which nobody ever watched or played, but was just occupying CPU power on a computer somewhere. Emotional states could be rendered, and Sims talking with one another, and some kind of hit point and damage and pain model being carried out, and all manner of lives and dramas could happen in it, and yet nobody ever experienced any of it, and it just rolled along in the computer's memory database. That's how the universe easily could have been. And yet, it is not like that. And the mathematical model doesn't tell us why or how there is an experience of the mathematical model, because the mathematical model does not require or in any way address the experience. It can model minds and emotions and pathways of photons and such, but as far as an actual experience, it has no model. The structure of an experience is modeled, even actualized, but the experience itself is nowhere necessitated, because nothing mathematical requires an experience. This is why philosophers such as David Chalmers believe that there must be something fundamental about experience itself. Mathematics alone can create extraordinary complexity, but fundamentally, does not in any way necessitate experience.

[@pseudohuman2645]

Why are they sitting so close? lol

[@shahidsehrai]

Sentient beings are fundamental in all existence. And the values that emerge from them are fundamental amongst them. Hence "Values" are fundamental. But again values come out of creation; so "Creation" is fundamental whether of a universe or multiverse. Finally; That entity which created all that exists out of nothing is "Fundamental".

[@mrtienphysics666]

God.

[@mellonglass]

Wave is a spiral. Flat earth rationality is irrational with its squares, flatness and complexity of stages. The sun is moving, stop getting anxiety from repetition.

[@TakeTheWorldBackFromWallStreet]

The only thing that exists for human consciousness is the only thing that we experience. Our nervous system. And its complex response to external stimuli that is presented to an awareness, an echo, that our nervous system creates which we call a self.

[@synaestheziac]

You seem to be blurring the line between metaphysics and epistemology. Just because we only know ourselves directly doesn’t mean we are all that exists. Also, you say nervous system, but what we know directly is our consciousness, including our bodily awareness, which we only later attempt account for in terms of our nervous system.

[@TakeTheWorldBackFromWallStreet]

@@synaestheziac maybe you are correct. if you can define consciousness I will better understand your point

[@lukew7343]

Bit windy there

[@user-gr3oo5ux9x]

We only dream we do stuff

[@michelangelope830]

The problem is atheists are right and religious people are right also, and both can not be more wrong because God exists and the intelligent creator of the universe is not what atheists call "sky daddy". The bloody debate is stagnated. To settle the debate you have to read Spinoza. You are ready to read Spinoza if you understand the atheist logical fallacy. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is "sky daddy" to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. To end Islam and the war you have to ask for proof that the Quran was memorized. Trust me. Thank you.

[@simonhibbs887]

Spinoza is fascinating, the question for me is why assign the name 'god' to the monistic universal substance comprising all of nature that Spinoza describes? Why not call it 'nature', or 'the physical'. These are just labels. What is it specifically about the label 'god' that makes it so important to you that it be identified in that way? The reason I resist that identification is because theists are constantly using the label 'god' for concepts, such as whatever the cause of the universe might have been, to smuggle sky daddy style theistic attributes into the definition.

[@Nword3390]

Same ol questions and answers again..just in different words

[@Alwaysdoubt100]

Gnomes,.Angela and supernatural beings dont exista, ALL the other things do exist.

[@5piral0ut]

Alternate realities exist?

[@bschmidt1]

If by "The Universe" we mean all the stars, planets, and physical processes - all of those are concepts in consciousness (nouns, verbs, adjectives or simply, "objects") - none of them actually exist in real life. The values are derived in brains and minds, but they don't exist *out there* as discrete objects. We make the objects in our minds - and different animal brains make different objects, depending on our instrumentation. Whether or not this object-orientation is "fundamental" (whatever that means), clearly concepts therein "a neuron" or "a planet" aren't. I think it's silly to think consciousness is fundamental, and even sillier to think any concept of consciousness ("a big bang", etc.) is fundamental. Where the values come from that inform our object-based experiences is unknown, not even clear if it's a thing within space and time.

[@5piral0ut]

I cannot believe consciousness isn’t fundamental. Given how we see things work at the quantum level I don’t believe the universe would exist without it.

[@bschmidt1]

@@5piral0ut The spacetime universe as you experience it wouldn't exist without consciousness anymore than there can be a play without a stage, but I'm not sure it means consciousness is fundamental to the baseline relative vectors that are neither spaced nor timed, and especially not conscious. It's from this vector space that I think our concepts arise and I leave plenty of room for other catalysts. I ultimately think consciousness is biological, and is somehow substrate dependent more-or-less, but just a layman's hunch!

[@thomasbaxter1371]

Whooooo, back up guys. The question is What Exists? but you forgot to fully elucidate what you understand by the concept Existence - sounds like you just plucked it out of thin air as if it was totally clear with out further ado. The concept of existence is central to any ontology and requires rigorous conceptual clarification before you pose your question. My question is: What do you mean by existence? Once you have offered an answer to that and articulated your ontology, only then you can get on on asking your question.

[@thejimmymeister]

How can articulating an ontology be a precondition for answering the question "What exists?" An ontology is just an answer to that question (and the subsequent questions of what those things are like and how they relate). Additionally, in defining "existence", we will have to use words. Do those words stand in need of definition? If they do, aren't we headed for an infinite regress? If they don't, what makes them different in this respect than "existence"? I think we already know what "existence" means, at least well enough to have this conversation. I mean, I understood it fine. The constant "but you haven't defined exist/consciousness/fundamental/etc.!" comments under these videos seem to me like the worst element of the analytic tradition, a kind of unproductive psuedo-philosophy that has thankfully died out in the academic realm despite persisting here.

[@thomasbaxter1371]

@@thejimmymeister To keep it short I refer you to the work of Martin Heidegger.

[@johnhausmann2391]

He basically gives an operational definition of fundamental existence. The things that fundamentally exist are those things that can explain the existence of all else. Seems legit to me to start there. Maybe you want to question the word 'explain' then?

[@thomasbaxter1371]

@@johnhausmann2391 Asserting that which 'fundamentally exists' (as operational definition) is the issue - it's a typical and problematic metaphysical posit. It appears the ontological understanding of existence is simply presupposed and taken for granted. Which understanding of Being is in play here - has it been sufficiently clarified? Has the question of Being even been posed? Answer: no it hasn't and Chalmers has helped himself to a traditional (and dare I say common sense) meaning., i.e., Being as fundament and ground.

[@johnhausmann2391]

@@thomasbaxter1371 It's a scientific approach. Chalmers is a scientist above all. I'm sympathetic to Heidegger and deeper thinking about ontology, and I suppose it's annoying when scientists think the scientific approach is the only true approach. To me, the truth of science is based on the idea of truth as repetition, prediction and control. There are deeper modes of truth than that, but I'm still a scientist.

[@mickshaw555]

So, hopefully, Chalmers will be asked about Vedanta in the full video.

[@Rosiedelaroux]

Is David the son of that woman who is orange - Judith chalmers

[@Bassotronics]

Existence itself is a paradox. If we take away all intelligent beings, the universe exists without "knowing" it even exists. It's there and not there at the same time.

[@5piral0ut]

Surely it’s still there, just nothing is aware of the fact. Unless of course the universe is actually a product of consciousness, as I suspect it might be.😉

[@Leif-yv5ql]

What's on second.

[@tedgrant2]

Angels exist. When Jesus comes back, food will be distributed by angels. Cars, buses, lorries, trucks, trains and planes will be destroyed.

[@5piral0ut]

What about ambulances?

[@tedgrant2]

@@5piral0ut We won't need ambulances because we will be transformed. As you know, Adam and Eve had built-in obsolescence. God will correct that mistake when Jesus returns.

[@TheTroofSayer]

1:57 - "... one basic underlying category... more primitive than physics, more primitive than consciousness..." This one tickles my hunch bone: association (conditioning), within the context of the categories of CS Peirce. Subatomic particles and molecules do it, as in the Feynman diagrams. Like when an electron and positron associate in annihilation to from a photon, or an oxygen and hydrogen atoms associate to form a water molecule; Cells and neurons do it - ER Kandel's research on Aplysia; Animals and humans do it, like when we associate words together to form a sentence, or contexts together to form an illusion, or experiences together to form a phobia or thrill or memory. The reason association is compelling, for me, is because it connects mind with body with experience. Embodied cognition. Bodies wire neuroplastic, DNA-entangled brains.

[@garymulsp]

If Chalmers could provide one piece of evidence that consciousness is fundamental he should be taken seriously

[@5piral0ut]

He mentioned it’s interaction at the quantum level. Surely that is sufficient?

[@5piral0ut]

He mentioned it’s interaction at the quantum level. Surely that is sufficient?

[@5piral0ut]

Personally I struggle more with the concept that the physical is fundamental. I know consciousness exists and is fundamental but hope can we ever truly know anything physical actually exists?

[@user-op6hm9tj5x]

I think pancakes exists.

[@simonhibbs887]

I eat pancakes, therefore I am.

[@kevinhaynes9091]

Robert, why do you persist in this reductionist mindset! Why should the answers be found in the fundamentals. For example, you'll never understand water, if you simply try to understand what hydrogen and oxygen are. Indeed, if water didn't exist, you'd never predict it from the study of hydrogen and oxygen. Why do 20 up quarks and 18 down quarks produce a water molecule is probably the wrong question... Forest for the trees, Robert.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

(1:30) *DC: **_"Among the fundamental things that exist is consciousness and in fact both physics and Consciousness need to be taken as fundamental."_* ... I believe consciousness to be fundamental, but not because of the way we subjectively experience it. I argue it's fundamental because it is a 14-billion-year-old derivative of nonphysical logic. The universe is unarguably scripted via logic (mathematics), and the key component of a self-aware human consciousness is "logical conceivability." If (fill in the blank) is inconceivable, then it does not (cannot) exist. With these two factors sharing the same orchestration (logic), it is _reasonable_ (pun intended) to consider them both as fundamental. My view is that nondimensional (nonphysical) information is *one existential step lower* than physical reality and that what we understand to be "consciousness" is really just an evolutionary byproduct of *nonphysical information.*

[@5piral0ut]

Then how do you explain the effects of consciousness we observe at the quantum level?

[@5piral0ut]

Then how do you explain the effects of consciousness we observe at the quantum level?

[@realitycheck1231]

Chalmers: There could have been a world with just mind. ------------ A world with just mind isn't consciousness because consciousness requires a body. We live in a physical world and I believe it's just natural. But there's also something vaguely unnatural about animal bodies, including humans.

[@5piral0ut]

How do you know consciousness requires a body.? I tend to think it does not. How do we even know that the world we see around us is not just a construct of consciousness? Like a dream… you don’t know that isn’t physical until you wake. I’m also curious to understand what you mean when you say bodies are vaguely unnatural? Are you referring to the purely physical?

[@realitycheck1231]

@@5piral0ut consciousness involves perception. In order to perceive you have to have something to perceive with. You need a body and it's senses. I don't exactly know why I think the body at times seems unnatural. I tend to live in my "head" more. Maybe it's a disconnect of sorts.

[@5piral0ut]

@@realitycheck1231 According to our perception / understanding of the physical reality we inhabit, you are of course correct. I am saying though that our universe and everything in it could be a construct of our consciousness, and as such we don’t need bodies for consciousness. As if we all live in a shared mental construct of a reality, (like a shared dream) but are in fact pure consciousness / conscious energy, that exists, in a form we likely could not comprehend from within the construct itself.

[@realitycheck1231]

@@5piral0ut If we live in a mental construct then why do we have bodies? Consciousness is a split mind. The wholeness of mind is living in the spirit mind. Consciousness was the first split introduced in the mind after the separation from spirit. Spirit is reality, consciousness is an illusion of a body but it's still a body.

[@5piral0ut]

@@realitycheck1231 to enable us / consciousness to experience many more things would be my best guess.

[@shephusted2714]

consciousness is not fundamental by any means, it is an extra quirky luxury, even an accident

[@fredbeard7710]

But how could one know such a thing? I think you need to watch more videos on this channel.

[@steve_____K307]

I suspect most of us are going to attribute your last response to muscle induced keystrokes, themselves just natural brain chemistry deterministically “doing what chemistry does”; e.g. future physical states always strictly dictated by former states. Atoms doing what atoms do. Nothing special about Consciousness at all? There is a good reason that so much mystery surrounds the topic. But, if you've cracked the code, please do share...

[@sirbarringtonwomblembe4098]

​@steve_____K307 Can I steal a lot of this please, to respond to materialists/philosophical zombies?

[@steve_____K307]

@@sirbarringtonwomblembe4098 Well, yes, if the theme of your comments are that the nature of consciousness is by no means trivial. There is a serious lack of knowledge for how a mindless evolutionary process could ever bring it forth. There is clearly something profoundly significant going on. Those that attempt to trivialize it are just proving they haven’t really understood the issue. 🙂

[@5piral0ut]

@@steve_____K307bravo.

[@God7OD]

I should have been born with a rich family or ultra high IQ life could have been so much better

[@caricue]

What a bizarre formulation poor Chalmers is stuck with. He thinks "real" reality is that which is the smallest and indivisible, but consciousness obviously doesn't exist at this level, so he has to go all ga-ga and embrace panpsychism and say that consciousness is a fundamental force. It seems like it would be easier to give up reductionism as a religion and just accept reality as we see it in our everyday lives.

[@Jalcolm1]

He is half right. Physical entities DO exist. It is silly to say “consciousness exists “. That is like saying, “my automobile trip to Boston exists.” It doesn’t exist. It’s a process. Boston exists, my car exists, I exists… but my trip doesn’t exist in the same sense. Consciousness is a process generated by the brain, and if Chalmers, having cut his hair (finally), could take off his leather jacket and come down to earth he could admit that imagining consciousness as a will o’ the wisp is just a game philosophers play to ensure that they don’t have to get real jobs. Bah! Humbug!

[@ralphmacchiato3761]

Read some more

[@Jalcolm1]

@@ralphmacchiato3761 I’m sure I do.And you read Anil Seth “Being You “. Perfectly reasonable discussion of awareness in the tradition of Daniel Dennett. You might ask why 2000 years later philosophers are still puzzling over free will. If scientists behaved that way we would still be rubbing sticks together for fire. Chalmers just wants to keep an endless conversation going, laughing all the way to the bank. It’s not just dreary, it’s reprehensible. Maybe you’re reading too much.

[@digitalfootballer9032]

Processes exist. Just because they are non tangible doesn't mean they don't exist. Ideas exist. Work exists. Comedy exists. Drama exists. You can't touch any of these things but they all exist. Existence isn't limited to material items.

[@Jalcolm1]

@@digitalfootballer9032 or in Chalmers case, boogers exist, although they are merely a residue of snot. All this is not debatable. “Consciousness” is the process or behaviour of brains.

[@5piral0ut]

I know consciousness exists. I think physical stuff exists but I’m not totally sure.

[@user-gr3oo5ux9x]

An unreal dreamer in an unreal dream.nothing actually exist

[@5piral0ut]

Surely you know consciousness exists though?

[@ghaderpashayee8334]

David is too conservative to answer such a big question! He never dares to say what is really in his mind.

[@5piral0ut]

Yes, I felt he was holding back too.