David Bentley Hart - The nature of consciousness

[@andrewwhite6]

"The very act of consciensness itself looks like my finite participation in an act that far exceeds my finite identity" WOW!

[@muzika8144]

What is there to wow ? Bently does not understand time . When there is no mass, there is no time , so how can there be something prior ?

[@ManForToday]

@@muzika8144 You're confusing temporally prior with logically or ontologically prior.

[@ericday4505]

David is quite brilliant, I stumbled upon him as a novice theologian, and Hart literally challenged me to expand my mind, he really did, I also stumbled upon him speaking of Bach, the composer, and since I am a huge fan of Glen Gould, who plays Bach from the piano,as well as it can be done, I became that much more of a fan of Hart, he demands that you put on your thinking cap when you delve into one of his books, ( especially the earlier works) and you are all the better for it as well, his The Beauty of The Infinite could well be the very best aesthetic Christian theology work ever, by an American, brilliant work, the guy just emmerses you in his mind, and it is indeed a fantastic journey.

[@GabrielKerr]

I love this talk. I want another round

[@repentantrevenant4451]

You should upload the video "Does consciousness defeat Materialism (Part 2)". It's incredible - he sums up the problem consciousness poses to materialism incredibly well.

[@thegoldenthread]

Are you referring to this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4jZXoyqetF_rs0

[@Autobotmatt428]

He had it before but he took it down or it got taken down do to copy right.

[@theophilus749]

Anyone who has anything to say at all about consciousness should catch this video.

[@hodge_feather]

Theo Philus or better yet, read his book

[@theophilus749]

Dear Heather Hodges, I couldn't agree more, especially if one is called Daniel Dennett or 'Somebody' Churchland. Alas, I believe that true miracles are rare. A happy new year to you.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

I really like Hart, but this was a little cringe-inducing given that we all know what Kuhn meant: There's this very commonly-held notion that our minds (that which carries-- or perhaps just is-- the seat of "I") can survive the death of our brains; i.e. that each individual "I" can exist without a physical body in a "non-embodied" or "disembodied" state of (conscious) affairs that is at least relatively continuous with the "I" that we experienced while alive/embodied/being filtered through a brain. This is clearly what Kuhn meant by "soul" and it's what the vast majority of Christians mean by it, even if they're ignorant of Church history. Moreover, what exactly differentiates one unembodied mind from another (different) unembodied mind? Your unembodied "I" is different from my unembodied "I"? Christians typically believe that the "I" is unified within (or just *as*) a "soul," which is vaguely thought to be a sort of non-physical "body." This admittedly sounds confused or at least in need of a conceptual analysis that justifies using the word "body" without anything physical to attach that label to. Nevertheless, the point is that Christians usually believe that individual minds are in some sense unique localizations that can (again, in some sense) "navigate" (or at least have the... "perception" of doing so). It's not just one indivisible blob, but a plurality of distinct self-aware entities.

[@theophilus749]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns We have to remember, though (whatever many Christians may think) that the ultimate form of our future life is bodily resurrection, not disembodied ghostliness. Neither ancient nor medieval Christian teaching thought of the soul in fully Cartesian terms. The real _you_ is necessarily an embodied human being.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

Theo, i agree with you and was actually just saying the same thing to my partner in the car ride to get groceries lol. Be that as it may, it’s clear what Kuhn was asking: after the brain dies, is there a continued “I” that persists until the resurrection? If so, what do we call that? Etc

[@ΕμμανουηλΠετρουλακης-ψ5λ]

There was anothet video the name was. Consciousness defeats materialism, again with David Bentley Hart, now it has been deleted i don't know why. Upload it again if it's possible please.

[@andrewx3y8c]

Sam Harris likes to say “slip Jesus in somewhere”, Kuhn is pulling a little “slip materialism in somewhere” XD

[@jps0117]

That's because it is necessary. We live in the material world.

[@andrewx3y8c]

@@jps0117 agreed it’s necessary. I just think there’s reality beyond what materiality alone can account for

[@kennyfernandez2866]

Thank you for absolutely being unable to answer the question.

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

Just when it was getting really interesting with DBH saying that the Cartesian view of the soul was "post-Christian," it cuts out. Though what was said before it was pretty good too.

[@jpielemeierpianist]

Such a genius

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

EDIT: FOLLOW UP. In an interview with Robert Wright, Hart agreed that "there IS something it's like to be dead." Obviously, By “soul” Kuhn was asking the following: After the death and dissolution of my brain and body, will I - the person posting this comment- be able to think the following thought? “I WAS embodied. I did type that comment. Now I lack a body.” THAT is clearly the purpose of the question. DBH was being difficult. And btw, in a separate interview (with Skeptiko) DBH said he was “not surprised” by the first-person accounts of NDEs…. No, I didn’t misunderstand Hart. Hart was just being difficult here, even granting he’s technically correct.

[@enchantingamerica2100]

I think that it has a lot to do with our post-cartesian understanding of a ghost in a machine which is why David was emphasizing that. If the body is ensouled just as much as the soul is embodied, then there is no purely disembodied soul. Ghosts are phantoms, not full souls. In Christian tradition the picture of the afterlife fully realized is an embodied one and even more truly embodied than how we find ourselves in this life. Where “we go” when we die in this picture is further into the divine life, further into our telos which resides in the fullness of being, and this is supposed because the ancients thought in terms of formal and final cause, which is no less an accurate model than the mechanical model that we have today. If the ancients were right about formal and final causes, ultimately residing in God for the Christians, then it follows that this after-life will have a quality to it. It is not enough to say that our personalities go into the afterlife as spectators of divine reality, but that the Divine sums up what we each were in this life. Each person finds their way into the Divine because they had a unique instantiation not in spite of it. According to the Christian view God created finite personality for that very reason, so that the fullness of Being could be shared with as much of the cosmos as was possible. David says this succinctly elsewhere that in order for us to have participation in divinity at all we must have an absolute past in non-being and an absolute future in divinity. Or in the words of st Athanasius “God became man so that man can become god.”

[@memento11mori]

Glad to hear the Lonergan name drop. Everybody go read Insight now, please. Self-appropriate already, c’mon!

[@TheSoteriologist]

Highly informative about "the soul" towards the end !

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

ya'll need to settle down.

[@39knights]

Surprised he didn't bring up the example of apparitions or Angels. When Moses appeared to Jesus at the Transfiguration; then what exactly type of being was the form of Moses at that point considering he could be seen and heard yet did not have a body? This state Moses was in is what Kuhn was probably asking about and how does it relate to the material reality of the body?

[@thetotalvictoryofchrist9838]

I approached this question by asking the inverse. If consciousness didn't exist then does anything exist? If consciousness didn't exist everything would be meaningless, time itself would be meaningless. The time from the dawn of the universe until its ultimate heat death would be a blip of nothingness. So as Dr. Hart seems to believe it is God's consciousness that is the basis of reality itself, and we have been invited to participate in that.

[@MS-od7je]

The subjective of God being our reality is itself a fractal in context. God, being essence being is a kind of thing that is not the kind of thing that we are. It can be argued that a tree, a slime mold can exhibit evidence of consciousness but we nor it experience anything other than our own consciousness. If the nature of consciousness is the same whether in an amoeba or in God then knowing and knowledge of consciousness is like math. 1+1, 3+3, etc. God does not make the answers different nor do all the correct answers emerge from all the incorrect answers. “ God left him”… in order to “ know him, what was in his heart.” This suggests that despite God being omnipresent God knows us by theory of mind and actions. We are Schrodinger‘s cat as a rough approximation/explanation. In biblical text it suggests that God can be surprised and that God repented of creation, etc. understanding this in context of fractals God is simultaneously infinite and finite, simultaneously in time and outside of time, God experiences with us and simultaneously though all experiences in everything through all time. Our concept of God is woefully inadequate. How can I know God? Is my knowing you inadequate for understanding all your behaviors, thoughts, etc. Even you have an inadequate understanding of yourself. We can “ blame” chemicals for our actions but the complexity of our lives, our perceptions etc is beyond our knowledge ( I do not know what the cells in my toes are individually sensing, knowing,but I know how I feel about my foot). Regarding consciousness: one need not be able to change anything about the environment, the body, in order to be conscious. You can be conscious after a dose of succinylcholine. When God rests is God aware/conscious or as aware as when God was creating?

[@user-lz6dm5lk9y]

The upshot is we never will know because we cannot know, and herein is where despair lays.

[@uthman2281]

How do you know that ?

[@user-lz6dm5lk9y]

@@uthman2281 We cannot get outside of ourselves to know the noumenal world, and our minds are too small and limited to even attempt to know the mind of God. We can make hypotheses and "educated" guesses, and we can experience "intuitions," but in the end, none of that constitutes Knowledge. Just think of all the things you thought you "knew" once upon a time only to discover subsequently that you did not know at all. You can choose to have "faith," but faith is not knowledge. Still, what does one lose to have faith? Faith engenders hope, and faith and hope may help us to live a better life now.

[@tedgrant2]

The nature of software has puzzled philosophers for thousands of days The only conclusion possible is there must be a higher power. This proves Computer Programmer really does exist.

[@quisdaman]

The mind isn't just hardware. the mind has intentionality

[@tedgrant2]

@@quisdaman My house plant is leaning towards the window. It must be doing that intentionally. It's not just chemistry.

[@quisdaman]

@@tedgrant2 intentionality means something different in the philosophy of mind

[@tedgrant2]

@@quisdaman I'm glad you cleared that up.

[@glenliesegang233]

It's genetic makeup contains interactions which make each cell responsive to the stimuli it is attuned to. Wild tutkeys are born with the knowledge of which plants are edible, and which snakes are harmless and poisonous. This is too complex for simple evolution

[@TomCarberry413]

Gospel of Thomas 29: (29) Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty." "Man got to tell himself he understand." Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.

[@Eric123456355]

He missed Yogacara which exactly explains consciousness

[@muzika8144]

All this conversation would not happen if Bently had understood the meaning of time . His is thinking as a human being who cannot imagine something before all started . That is why we need physics and not "ontology" or something like that .

[@marymcreynolds8355]

I’m not being mean here, just observant...how many orthodox churchmen are very well fed and appear lacking in asceticism. Hmm.

[@theophilus749]

As a well fed churchman myself, if regrettably Anglican, I have a deep affinity with DBH.

[@adambirch6466]

Hart isn't a churchman. He's a philosopher and scholar, not a priest or monk.

[@joe4570]

Hart also has chronic illness

[@williamwilkes503]

@@adambirch6466 Wrong, Adam. Look up the definition of churchman. 'Clergymen' is only one of the definition. Another is "member of a church" Yes, Hart is a scholar and philosopher. He also happens to be a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church and - not only that - but one of that church's most eminent theologians. Perhaps you should a dictionary before offering your comments.

[@williamwilkes503]

Who would ever suspect you of being mean, Mary? LOL.

[@TheExastrologer]

I think he's a Panentheist.

[@emmashalliker6862]

He's Eastern Orthodox.

[@natashatomlinson4548]

He’s too smart to be a pantheist

[@1DangerMouse1]

How does this man (Hart) live with himself spouting all this nonsense he has no way of knowing and acting like he's better than others because of it? So cringey to watch.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

JW, here’s a comment I wore in this comment section that I haven’t gotten an actual serious reply to. I really like Hart, but this was a little cringe-inducing given that we all know what Kuhn meant: There's this very commonly-held notion that our minds (that which carries-- or perhaps just is-- the seat of "I") can survive the death of our brains; i.e. that each individual "I" can exist without a physical body in a "non-embodied" or "disembodied" state of (conscious) affairs that is at least relatively continuous with the "I" that we experienced while alive/embodied/being filtered through a brain. This is clearly what Kuhn meant by "soul" and it's what the vast majority of Christians mean by it, even if they're ignorant of Church history. Moreover, what exactly differentiates one unembodied mind from another (different) unembodied mind? Your unembodied "I" is different from my unembodied "I"? Christians typically believe that the "I" is unified within (or just *as*) a "soul," which is vaguely thought to be a sort of non-physical "body." This admittedly sounds confused or at least in need of a conceptual analysis that justifies using the word "body" without anything physical to attach that label to. Nevertheless, the point is that Christians usually believe that individual minds are in some sense unique localizations that can (again, in some sense) "navigate" (or at least have the... "perception" of doing so). It's not just one indivisible blob, but a plurality of distinct self-aware entities.

[@aoeulhs]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns The Bible has many spiritual beings -- including God -- none of whom have bodies and yet all are perfectly differentiated one from another. I agree with you that Hart was, as is typical for him, pertinaciously opaque in his response yet he did hint in a roundabout way at the answer: the soul and spirit aren't' "in" the body, rather the body is in them, or perhaps better, it is a manifestation of them. The body, at their departure, will speedily deliquesce.

[@rumidude]

David Hart is like one of those pretentious jargon generators. In the end he is simply empty.

[@processrauwill7922]

@@aoeulhs Sorry I just had to reply to this because that's just bad theology, my friend. The notion that God doesn't have a body is much more Aristotelian or Neoplatonic than it is Christian. Now if you think what I mean by body is the same thing we think in modern terms of what is a body(i.e. flesh and blood) that's also mistaken. A body is just a nexus of potentiality, or the ability to act in the world. God is able to act in the world and thus has some sort of body. The angels as well as messengers of God can also act in the world so they have body. What Hart is saying is that their essence their essential form exists in heaven as well as well as our essential form. We have a heavenly part which is purely what we are in an unambiguous sense, and an earthly part which manifests our potentiality. Which is what Hart means by the body is in the soul rather than the soul is in the body. The body manifests our potentiality. Also it's not a good idea to look at things as unembodied because there's essentially no such thing. Everything has some sort of body whether it be a strong or weak body.

[@suatustel746]

@@rumidude you're dead right....