Philip Goff on the Purpose of the Universe | Closer To Truth Chats

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Why are we here? What's the point of existence? Philosopher and consciousness researcher Philip Goff tackles these questions and more in this discussion of his new book, "Why? The Purpose of the Universe". Goff argues that it's time to move on from both God and atheism and instead look to cosmic purpose to understand the universe.
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Philip Goff is a philosophy professor at Durham University, UK whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness.
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.

[@fredblassie3212]

How can you not like Philip Goff? Friendly and warm demeanor.

[@nitahill6951]

Best show I've seen in some time. Putting all the arguments aside, sometimes you simply resonate with an idea. I think as Philip said a parsimonious explanation should always be taken seriously. Thanks!

[@stevenevans8449]

But (i) Natural Science and (ii) Natural Science + Crazy Goff's "Purpose" explain exactly the same data. So by Occam's razor we choose (i). Goff's "Purpose" explains nothing, and means nothing. He is a crank.

[@chargersina]

OK I would say this was 10 out of 10 as far as closer to truth goes. Excellent questions and answers. Great great job. Thank you. 😊

[@JagadguruSvamiVegananda]

Great and lowly are RELATIVE. 😉 Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱

[@ralphstarling6707]

I feel better when I live in hope! So, I think I will keep choosing hope!

[@stevenevans8449]

You live longer because of science, and you feel better alive than dead. So you should choose science over the garbage churned out by cranks like the guy in this video.

[@rehx4]

love the long format, would definitely watch the channel more if there were more long format this like this! thanks for this!!!

[@ralphstarling6707]

Excellent!

[@foetaltreborus2017]

I,m fascinated with a SF book by Peter Watts " Firefall" which deals with the question of consciousness ...

[@adriatik7070]

What intriguing ideas.Thanks!

[@saqibadnan3544]

Simply wonderful interview

[@danielteran8067]

Reminds me Schopenhauer and his book "On the Will in Nature" was originally published in 1836

[@jaycharlton2085]

What a wonderful clear and logical discussion of very complex ideas and concepts!

[@vecumex9466]

Superb

[@geoffreytylerpayne]

I don't think Philip's argument is compelling, but Robert did a great job with this interview

[@JustAThought01]

The Key Assumptions is: The world we are meant to understand is delivered by our senses.

[@sentientsimeon7669]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/moXGgoZ3iLyBZ5Ysi=OaMSTT--5MBChsoR

[@bozdowleder2303]

Not at all. I don't know where we get that idea about physics. We don't use our senses. We use peecise measuring instruments. And our theories are about correlations and numerical relations about phenomena. We don't just look at something and say "That's what it is" In fact metaphysics(the parent of science) probably begins with the idea that the world revealed by the senses is somehow defective and we need to clarify it better with organizing ideas. Science, which is metaphysics, with empirical verification, is the next step. Science doesn't depend on our senses being perfect or even good. If our senses were perfect, nobody would invent a physical theory. We'd just open our eyes and take in the world

[@JustAThought01]

@@jim4437, yes, I offer ideas for the consideration of others. Knowledge requires agreement to be valid. Each thought occurs to me while listening to the discussion. Do you find any with which you agree?

[@JustAThought01]

@@bozdowleder2303 , my thought, everything you receive as information originates from your five senses. All observations come by way of our senses.

[@bozdowleder2303]

@@JustAThought01 I'm not denying that. I'm only saying that the limitations of our senses can be extended by instrumentation, by better organizing ideas, checks for coherence and so on. So our senses being deficient isn't an argument for saying that our science is flawed

[@eensio]

Purpose is extremely subjective concept. We can feel purposes. Frustration is the other side of this feeling. It is also extremely individual feeling. The purpose of existence could be happiness. But in larger scale our opinions about the meaning of universum reflects our omnipotent illusions.

[@JustAThought01]

About Philosophy: Philosophy is the process for discovering true knowledge. Philosophy is the collection of true knowledge. The objective of philosophy is to determine what is right, not who is right. The goal of a philosophical discussion should be to reach agreement. An assertion should be found to be: true, not true, or unknown. The purpose of philosophy is to establish a rational world view to be used for making decisions. Do not expect to understand everything unless you approach gaining knowledge as a philosopher. The most significant contribution to humankind of Philosophy is the realization that what holds a person back from finding truth is their own false beliefs. We need to validate our basic assumptions from time to time.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

You're one of the few genuine commenters.

[@jyjjy7]

I'm sorry what you say doesn't really make sense, and specifically so in the context basic philosophical thought. Philosophy has shown that solipsism/Descartes' demon/etc cannot be ruled out. Given such any claims to truth, what is right as you say, are philosophically invalid. You can aim for thinking of the world in ways that are rational, self consist and functional towards specific goals in specific contexts but absolute certainty or truth is simply off the metaphysical table.

[@JustAThought01]

@@jyjjy7, you are correct: philosophy must be assumption based. Assumption Based Philosophy: A practical philosophy which supports humans making well informed decisions must be assumption based. Many philosophical assertions resolve to unknown. It is difficult to make decisions if there is no knowledge about which path to take when coming to a decision point. If we restrict our philosophy to the real world, we can build a knowledge based on a foundation of a limited set of assumptions. A practical philosophy is bounded by the unknown. We can make decisions while inside of this boundary; but, have no reliable knowledge outside of the boundary. Premise: The key assumption: The world we are meant to understand is delivered by our senses.

[@ral1020]

Robert, you should have Tom Campbell on. His theories are very interesting. His theory explains suffering

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@garybalatennis]

Terrific mind-bending conversation. One of your best. Goff and you pull together many powerful ideas to help us get at ultimate answers. One conclusion appears to be for sure. At the ultimate bottom of all things existing must be a self-existence that explains itself and is self-existing (whether that is a supreme creator, a less-than-supreme creator, a law or force or quantum state or the universe itself).

[@bretnetherton9273]

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

[@ALavin-en1kr]

If we want to understand purpose God is not just kind enough to create us He wants to bring us to his level of awareness. The only way to do it is through knowledge of good and evil and the ability to choose. If we are mechanically good that is not free will and does not make us conscious.

[@iramtauqir5333]

Whenever we talk of fine tuning of the constants in nature, it somehow seems that an underlay to it is that it was determined to be so, in accordance with the ingredients in nature that could produce this result in a determined way, like a 2+2 equal 4. The reality of evolution in nature/cosmos also allows us to visualise that maybe there were many cycles of evolution over a time period we cannot even fathom that finally produced the energy processes and interactions that gave birth to the universe we know in which life and consciousness could emerge and evolve

[@EdwardAmesCastellano]

it would seem that by any means necessary, not that it would have to be for the purpose of necessity, that purpose could be simply propensity, but ultimately it seems as though that would require a deterministic underpinning.

[@darkstar4494]

That’s a cool idea. i’m not convinced that the universal constants could possibly have any other values in the first place though. there may be a reason why gravitational constant is what it is, just like pi. how could pi be anything else?

[@richardharvey1732]

Hi Closer To Truth, your title is sensible!, the concept of closer to truth has some foundation, given that we mere humans have no way of 'knowing' truth so that even if we get some we won't 'know' it. This leaves us in the interesting situation where we can seek truth as much as we like but should not expect to obtain it. The opening statement that 'this universe is fine tuned' is consistent with our observations, the concept that we exist in a mechanical universe that is consistent and coherent regulated by entirely unvarying natural forces that always follow the same sequences of cause and effect. This seems to me to allow for all the spontaneous reactions that we observe in areas like organic evolution in which the combination of circumstances that promote the chemical reactions that can create life forms can appear to embody aspects of pure chance, it is only in a universe that has no primary purpose or design that absolutely anything that is 'allowed' within the frame of reality can happen and at some time probably will happen. The fact that as mere animals with nervous systems that have developed in this manner, that we have all sorts of innate characteristics because they just happened during our evolution, that as long as they are not so damaging as to prohibit breeding and continuance they do not have to have any useful function will do for me to explain how we can have such a vigorous capacity for delusion and imagination, that mentally at least our actual grasp of reality is far less that some might hope for. All that is required is that some clear evidence of chemical and electrical activity is actually occurring within the human brain and that activity appears to be organised and co-ordinated, that there is a clear identifiable chain of cause and effect the little we have discovered does not yet contradict the basic premise. Until some real evidence of purpose and intention is presented I will stick with acceptance of ignorance, there is always going to be far more that we do not know about than the little we do uncover, we clearly do not really 'need' to know anything!. The bottom line for me is simply that this is just another situation in which human perception is some easily distorted by expectation. Cheers, Richard.

[@orver1]

“Fine tuning” assumes there’s a ”tuner.” It’s a circular argument. Unlike dice, constants can never be measured to have any other value. No divergent data to measure probability distribution. You can’t quantify the probability of something you can’t observe. Dice with sixes on every side could not be used to find the probability of rolling a different number. Constants are sixes on all sides.

[@cmvamerica9011]

The universe seems to experiment with matter and energy; mixing and matching things together to form things; wanting to grow and expand; and it never does something just once.

[@beeshepard]

Wonderful discussion. thanks!

[@TheTroofSayer]

Good, thorough interview. On the question of fine tuning, Philip Goff is right to rule out multiverse. Quantum Contextuality (Bell, Kochen & Specker) must surely play a role in the fine turning debate. Quantum Contextuality (QC) is inconsistent with the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI). The way that I see it, CI is an attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics with physicalist assumptions, hence their readiness to entertain whacky theories like multiverse & Schrodinger's cat. QC and CI can't both be right, they're going to have to go head-to-head to establish which theory is correct. I'm putting my money on QC, which would go some way to address fine-tuning.

[@simonhibbs887]

The quantum multiverse theory is completely different from the eternal inflation multiverse though, they're not related. I'm not clear if or how QC, which I agree is a very significant concept, relates to eternal inflation.

[@wmpx34]

Without knowing who or what created our universe, I wonder how we could ever guess its purpose. Obviously we can make our own “purpose” for it, which is fine. But there ain’t no way we can hope to comprehend its true purpose without identifying the creator (whether being or process).

[@CandidDate]

God is an alien machine. Only logical conclusion.

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@tedgrant2]

The universe has no edges, so "outside the universe" is meaningless. It follows immediately that "inside the universe" is also meaningless. So we conclude that "our universe" is meaningless.

[@___Truth___]

@@tedgrant2 I don't know if we can peer so far out in the universe that we can be so definitive in saying " The universe has no edges, so "outside the universe" is meaningless."

[@tedgrant2]

@@___Truth___ I've just asked Google, "Does the universe have an edge". I got this answer "One thing's for sure: the universe has no edge".

[@kathyorourke9273]

Why is it so hard to figure out that LIFE is fine tuned for this universe? Why do people think that everything is fine tuned for us???😮

[@darkstar4494]

because consciousness is soooo important. it’s clearly the purpose of everything in the entire cosmos existing. lol

[@kathyorourke9273]

@@darkstar4494 what???

[@andrewwalker1377]

Up to date thinking! How long before it becomes redundant? My thought, Long time🙂

[@tgenov]

The middle ground is not teleology, the middle ground is POSIWID - The purpose of a system is what it does. The universe is a system. To figure out its purpose figure out what it does.

[@ronhudson3730]

Everybody get into a circle. The purpose of a fine-tuned universe is to generate the conditions to allow perceptive, self-aware beings who after a period of learning can turn their gaze back on the universe. So the universe generates eyes, ears, brains that become the sensory organs that the big brain uses to consider itself. The ideas of morality and kindness are an essential part of our lives and must be an essential part of the universe’s reality. Is it self aware without us? Maybe or maybe not. Which presupposes an originator of this universe. Taking his argument to heart, we have purpose, of our own. Development, education, friends and family etc. so, there is purpose in the universe. We are self-aware so, ditto. Despite our propensity for self-denigration, we are the most evolved amazing things we know of in the known universe. Vastly more of us are inquisitive, compassionate, loving and considerate than. It. I really like the big-time informed overview. Big to small. So many of the physicists on this channel are like ants drawing conclusions about the wider world from their hyper-focused perspective. They develop theories but act as if they are conclusions and work very hard to dismiss any ideas other than an understandable, mechanistic view of the universe and our place in it.

[@simonhibbs887]

There is purpose in the universe, because we have purposes, however all the evidence is that our behaviour evolved through a natural process of evolution from random initial conditions. Evolution is not initialised by purposeful states, and does not require purpose to progress, yet it can evolve systems that exhibit purposeful behaviour. The flaw in the argument is the assumption that purposeful behaviour must originate from a purposeful origin, but evolution shows us that this is not the case. In fact we understand how the evolutionary bootstrapping of intentional, goal seeking behaviour works so well, that we use it to engineer our most advanced AIs.

[@henrycunha8379]

What's the purpose of purpose?

[@peterroberts4509]

Purpose is a human invention

[@mikescott5440]

Hamburger with veggies and ranch sauce. Yes, I eat hamburgers a lot.

[@vm-bz1cd]

Amazing guest and interview 👏

[@mykrahmaan3408]

What we need is not theories to explain and/or justify evil, but the accuracy of any scientific theory must only be judged by its applicability for PRACTICAL ERADICATION OF ALL EVIL (defined concretely and exhaustively as PREDATION, from which all else follow: disasters, diseases, under which also all other violence than predation fall, and death)

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@stevenverrall4527]

Good and evil necessarily follow from free will. The world's great religions provide speculative details that each of us should be free to believe or not believe.

[@jyjjy7]

Once you personify the universe itself, which is what pretty much all religious thought does essentially, it requires one to apply the concept of good vs evil to natural phenomenon. Goff mentions hurricanes and such as an example which is fine but it applies down to the fundamental level. Claiming natural phenomenon that kill millions of people every year everywhere exist as a necessary result of free will must be a reference to divine free will and if they are the result of divine free will the babies starving to death everywhere around the world right now and throughout history demand explanation if you are going to claim that free divine will is being exercised with benevolence. I don't think Goff is right about much but this is a very long standing unsolved philosophical/religious "paradox" called the theodicy and is a valid one in context of a benevolent omnipotent creator/God.

[@JustAThought01]

The purpose of the universe is to provide a vessel for intelligence to express itself.

[@JustAThought01]

The purpose of each individual human life is to serve the betterment of our world.

[@JagadguruSvamiVegananda]

Sings: “It ain’t necessarily so...” 🎤

[@JustAThought01]

@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda , true. Suggest a better purpose.

[@JagadguruSvamiVegananda]

@@JustAThought01, "purpose" implies a conscious ACTOR.

[@JustAThought01]

@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda , correct. We humans are the conscious actors. We determine the purpose of reality by observation.

[@spaceinyourface]

Mary's red,,Zombie's dead,,,most of philosophy goes over my head.

[@thomasridley8675]

Purpose ? What makes us think there is a purpose ? What makes us think we deserve to find the answers we seek ? Every scientific discovery just creates more questions. And the gods have only given us the answers we wanted.

[@jaycharlton2085]

Great conversation!!

[@JustAThought01]

We have no direct information about God. What we do have is information provided by our own individual five senses. We are constrained to build our system of knowledge based upon that information and our ability to form rational, logical arguments based upon those observations.

[@ManuelSainz-pg2vr]

Agreed. But we do have a wonderful amount of circumstantial evidence for God, as (and I think this the direction that Goff’s thought inevitably leads) Being itself, the sum total of the consciousness of the universe that, although inevitably rushing downstream towards absolute entropy, yet produces these wonderful eddies called life and consciousness. That such a universal mind would have purpose; i.e. intentionality, is not surprising. Goff’s arrogance is to presume that our human morality is somehow fit to judge God, whose benevolence is spoken to by the very fact of our existence. And where exactly does this human moral sense come from anyway?

[@JustAThought01]

@@ManuelSainz-pg2vr , I think the point is: we do not know how or where reality came about. We just need to make the best of this wonderful place in which we live and develop an understanding of our purpose and maximize the experience.

[@JustAThought01]

Reality is the objective world (space and time - four dimensions), the mind (subjective space) may be thought of as the fifth dimension. Each individual has their own private, unique view of reality in this fifth dimension. Our knowledge base in this fifth dimension is every bit as complex as the physical world. Therefore, we each live in our own universe which overlaps with others is a complex five dimensional space/time construct.

[@jyjjy7]

You are mutilating the word dimension here but that's a bit besides the point. The brain is creating a simulation of its immediate environment correlated with patterns in sensory nerve impulses and this is what our conscious experiences consist of. It is as much another dimension as San Andreas is when you load up GTA.

[@JustAThought01]

@@jyjjy7 , my thought is that thinking of the information each intelligence uses to make decisions is every bit as useful as thinking of the space/time difference in our relative positions. Each human is unique in physical and mental space.

[@jyjjy7]

@@JustAThought01 It isn't useful in the same way, they aren't the same thing or even kinds of thing. You can, and people have, described the dynamics of different possible mental states as traversing some high dimensional state space but the number of dimensions required to even possibly represent thought in such a manner is radically higher than the 4 Einstein identified as describing the geometry of reality. Reducing the complexity of thought down to a one dimensional object, a single line, just doesn't work. One dimension can describe just one scalar quantity, like what a thermometer reads for example, it cannot possibly represent all the complexity of consciousness. That said I still think the bigger issues are mental states and physical states are categorically different, no matter how many dimensions/what mathematical structure you use to model it. Physical states are objects while mental states are abstract processes, computational/algorithmic. What Einstein figured out was such a revelation because time and space seem to be fundamentally different in our experience. That the geometry resultant from treating time as an extra physical dimension describes gravity is a remarkable and non-obvious thing. Picking something random like mental states and trying to make it into a 5th dimension doesn't actually offer explanatory or functional utility like combining space and time does.

[@JustAThought01]

@@jyjjy7 , I suggest you broaden your thinking. You seem to be stuck in the physical realm. Knowledge is not confined to the physical world. Philosophy is an attempt to gain understanding of the knowledge needed to fulfill the promise of a better life for all humans. It starts from the only thing we each know for sure: the self exist. Everything beyond that is based upon assumptions because we have insufficient information to be sure of the truth value of any other assertion.

[@JustAThought01]

The key question to ask is: why does reality exist. This is beyond the capability of science to answer. The key finding is: The foundation of human thought: There are three types of truth: that which we believe to be true, that which we know to be true, and that which we think to be true. These are the three realms of thought: religion, science and philosophy. The thought is either right or wrong. The action is either good or evil. It is evil to advance the self by exploiting others. There are only two general choices: dominate or cooperate. One leads to destruction. The other leads to a better life for all. Rather than trying to dominate, we must all work together to insure justice for all people. Do no harm except in self defense. Protect all from harm where possible. As assumption based philosophy provides a method to justifying making the decision to cooperate in order to achieve maximum benefit for each individual self.

[@cemerson12]

At 16:20 the problem of probability is discussed. That seems to be a conflation of stochastic probability with actual likelihood probability. We don’t know if there is any actual likelihood of other universes (multiverse scenario), do we? Fine tuned constants are clearly causal factors for this universe. But are those constants fundamental to physics, or are they themselves just the effects of more fundamental causal factors?

[@catherinemoore9534]

Very interesting and Phillip is a powerful exponent of the most important mystery of all: the existence of purpose. 👌

[@a.nunnikrishnan5492]

Human knowledge is not limited to Western understanding. Purpose of the universe is to realize you your own Reality. To get a glimpse of this refer the book: SPACETIME AND THAT BEYOND By Unnikrishnan.

[@JustAThought01]

In the physical realm we have random actions. Intelligence is required to override random actions by applying judgment. Higher level intelligence understands moral responsibility.

[@markde9904]

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

[@Resmith18SR]

My question no matter what you believe or how you characterize or feel about Ultimate Reality or Nature of which we are a tiny, tiny miniscule part of is not worthy of worship, awe, and reverence?

[@rainmanjr2007]

I think Goff is missing the argument set forth in Tao Of Physics, or my own idea pinned to my YT Channel, which completely eradicates the multi-universe idea. It's much simpler to imagine a single electron, electromagnetically bonded to other electrons, forming a grid or template around a created frequency (which we call our Universe). Each electron could be playing out one possibility from an action within the wave's particles (thereby also addressing infinite dimensions). Just an individual electron observing a wave's particles.

[@jjay6764]

There’s a purpose and design of the universe. It has precisely the right architecture to store, transfer, process, compute, minimize and optimize quantum and classical information. This allows us to understand and interact with the universe. Quantum superposition allows us to encode qubits, entanglement correlates quantum information and allows us to build quantum error correcting codes, quantum tunneling/teleportation allows us to transfer quantum information and build quantum algorithms and quantum gates and counterfactual communication is used in quantum cryptography. Clear purpose in the design of the universe.

[@simonhibbs887]

That's just a statement of how the universe is, not an argument for or against any reason why it is that way.

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@darkstar4494]

this is same teleological argument. with all the same jumping to conclusions.

[@vm-bz1cd]

Cosmos Pan Physchism is a VERY OLD concept that underpins the ancient Hindu Upanishads and Buddhism.. called BRAHMAN

[@davevallee7945]

Fine tuning is an absurd non-sequitur for the following reasons: 1. No one knows why the numbers worked out as they did for the simple reason that no one knows what the elements available at the moment the universe came into existence, nor what processes where available as well. So to conclude that one understands the probability, or even how to calculate the probability, is about the greatest amount of presumption that any thinking thing is capable of. 2. One could conclude that anything that exists, or any combination of things that exist, are the intended outcome of the universe. There is nothing that compels us to conclude that the intended outcome is towards one thing, which is life. I say that if there is fine tuning it is logical to conclude that it was directed towards recliners, not life.Why recliners? Because without humans we would never have recliners, so stopping at humans, at least as the representation of life, is tantamount to stopping at a link in the chain with more links. Intention is directed towards an outcome, not towards intermediate steps. 3. Time. A finely tuned universe that requires at least 9,000,000,000 years until the outcome for which it was tuned comes about. Perhaps it was finely tuned to orders of magnitude to the right of the decimal number so that you don't get any form of life for that span of time because the tuner hates small numbers. And where else, after billions of years, do we know life to have evolved? How about nowhere. So finely tuned to create life, nut on only one of hundreds of trillions of planets? 4. What constraints? A finely tuned universe conjecture has an obvious implication, something got tuned. Whatever got tuned had to exist before the tuner. So where did the parameters come from that needed to be tuned in order to get the orderly universe we see today? Does that mean that whatever did the tuning had no choice but to use those "controls?" So the infinitely powerful tuner had its hands tied as to the forces it had to use, and clearly didn't create them as they required such fine tuning. 5. KISS. As any good engineer will tell you, keep it simple, stupid. Anyone able to recognize good engineering, supposedly from the greatest engineer of all time, would know this ain't it. 6. The inverse gambler's fallacy doesn't work here. Imagine roulette is an extremely popular way to gamble, and on each of billions of planets in the universe there are about a thousand people playing it. What does that do the probability of someone walking into a casino on any of those planets to see one person out of trillions on an almost unbelievable winning streak? It only takes one. Thanks guys. This was fun. I hope someone will soon put the fine tuning theory to rest. I'll buy the plot.

[@markde9904]

So Dr. Kuhn, the question is, with all your research, what is the conclusion. Are you leaning towards believing we have a first person, continuous, conscious transition to an after "something" and we exist after death? Or is it game over and nothing? No philosophical musings. If you were to just answer it yes or no based on what you know, which is it?

[@markde9904]

No answer I see. Your videos are always clikc bait for the next video which promises some more concrete information and it never comes. But I guess if you actually said what you have concluded the money train stops. So typical.

[@iramtauqir5333]

Maybe we also need to see the possibility that the numbers of universe's fine tuning are what they are not because they are the ones that enable life to emerge, rather they emerge out of an evolutionary journey of the most primordial energy process ( that we cannot yet give dimensions to in terms of even theoretical physics), which had an inherent tendency to produce the phenomenon we call life, mind and consciousness inherent in it. So it could get kind of 'pregnant' by a process that unleashed dynamics that gave birth to 'this' particular universe, which was fine tuned to produce life

[@AndrewKropff]

Two of my favorite modern philosophers. Incredible video and discussion

[@yourlogicalnightmare1014]

The host isn't a philosopher, but he is a professional lye ar

[@greensleeves7165]

On the issue of evil and suffering, I think a case can be made that ONCE you have any kind of constraint, a cascade of further and progressively more limiting constraints is likely to stem from it, and this is how we end up with packaged consciousness as “self” which can’t fly, can’t teleport, can’t,... whatever. Ultimately, suffering is limitation. If I were without limits, I wouldn’t suffer. But then could I BE, given that as a human entity I am a creature defined by a limit, ie I am not a horse, not a grasshopper, etc? I begin to suspect that the backdrop is some kind of primal awareness-ground that is fused in some sense to all possibilities as living potentiality. From this, the actual universe (or, as some would have it, universes) bubbles up complete with minds, which may well be an inevitable part of the process. At the top level, I’m not sure we can read that in terms of “goals” unless the cosmos itself is not final. If the cosmos has goals, then it is itself subject to a temporal process in some sense, which is a constraint. And we are back to where that constraint comes from.

[@JagadguruSvamiVegananda]

🐟 02. A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF “LIFE”: Everything, both perceptible and imperceptible - that is, any gross or subtle OBJECT within the material universe which can possibly be perceived with the cognitive faculties, plus the SUBJECT (the observer of all phenomena) - is to what most persons generally refer when they use the term “God”, since they usually conceive of the Primeval Creator as being the Perfect Person, and “God” (capitalized) is a personal epithet of the Unconditioned Absolute. However, this anthropomorphized conception of The Absolute is a fictional character of divers mythologies. According to most every enlightened sage in the history of this planet, the Ultimate Reality is, far more logically, Absolutely NOTHING, or conversely, Absolutely EVERYTHING - otherwise called “The Tao”, “The Great Spirit”, “Brahman”, “Pure Consciousness”, “Eternal Awareness”, “Independent Existence”, “The Ground of All Being”, “Uncaused Nature”, “The Undifferentiated Substratum of Reality”, “The Unified Field”, et cetera - yet, as alluded to above, inaccurately referred to as a personal deity by the masses (e.g. “God”, “Allah”, “Yahweh”, “Bhagavan”, etc.). In other words, rather than the Supreme Truth being a separate, Blissful, Supra-Conscious Being (The Godhead Himself or The Goddess), Ultimate Reality is Eternal-Existence Limitless-Awareness Unconditional-Peace ITSELF. That which can be perceived, can not be perceiving! Because the Unmanifested Absolute is infinite creative potentiality, “it” actualizes as EVERYTHING, in the form of ephemeral, cyclical universes. In the case of our particular universe, we reside in a cosmos consisting of space-time, matter and energy, without, of course, neglecting the most fundamental dimension of existence (i.e. conscious awareness - although, “it” is, being the subject, by literal definition, non-existent). Just as a knife cannot cut itself, nor the mind comprehend itself, nor the eyes see themselves, The Absolute cannot know Itself (or at least objectively EXPERIENCE Itself), and so, has manifested this phenomenal universe within Itself for the purpose of experiencing Itself, particularly through the lives of self-aware beings, such as we sophisticated humans. Therefore, this world of duality is really just a play of consciousness within Consciousness, in the same way that a dream is a person's sleeping narrative set within the life-story of an “awakened” individual. APPARENTLY, this universe, composed of “mind and matter”, was created with the primal act (the so-called “Big Bang”), which started, supposedly, as a minute, slightly uneven ball of light, which in turn, was instigated, ultimately, by Extra-Temporal Supra-Consciousness. From that first deed, every motion or action that has ever occurred has been a direct (though, almost exclusively, an indirect) result of it. Just as all the extant energy in the universe was once contained within the inchoate singularity, Infinite Consciousness was NECESSARILY present at the beginning of the universe, and is in no way an epiphenomenon of a neural network. Discrete consciousness, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on the neurological faculty of individual animals (the more highly-evolved the species, the greater its cognitive abilities). “Sarvam khalvidam brahma” (a Sanskrit maxim from the “Chandogya Upanishad”, meaning “all this is indeed Brahman” or “everything is the Universal Self alone”). There is NAUGHT but Eternal Being, Conscious Awareness, Causeless Peace - and you are, quintessentially, that! This “Theory of Everything” can be more succinctly expressed by the mathematical equation: E=A͚ (Everything is Infinite Awareness). HUMANS are essentially this Eternally-Aware-Peace, acting through an extraordinarily-complex biological organism, comprised of the eight rudimentary elements - pseudo-ego (the assumed sense of self), intellect, mind, solids, liquids, gases, heat (fire), and ether (three-dimensional space). When one peers into a mirror, one doesn't normally mistake the reflected image to be one's real self, yet that is how we humans conventionally view our ever-mutating form. We are, rather, in a fundamental sense, that which witnesses all transitory appearances. Everything which can be presently perceived, both tangible and immaterial, including we human beings, is a culmination of that primary manifestation. That is the most accurate and rational explanation for “karma” - everything was preordained from the initial spark, and every action since has unfolded as it was predestined in ETERNITY, via an ever-forward-moving trajectory. The notion of retributive (“tit-for-tat”) karma is just that - an unverified notion. Likewise, the idea of a distinct, reincarnating “soul” or “spirit” is largely a fallacious belief. Whatever state in which we currently find ourselves, is the result of two factors - our genetic make-up at conception and our present-life conditioning (which may include mutating genetic code). Every choice ever made by every human and non-human animal was determined by those two factors ALONE. Therefore, free-will is purely illusory, despite what most believe. Chapter 11 insightfully demonstrates this truism. As a consequence of residing within this dualistic universe, we experience a lifelong series of fluctuating, transient pleasures and pains, which can take the form of physical, emotional, and/or financial pleasure or pain. Surprisingly to most, suffering and pain are NOT synonymous. Suffering is due to a false sense of personal agency - the belief that one is a separate, independent author of one’s thoughts, emotions, and deeds, and that, likewise, other persons are autonomous agents, with complete volition to act, think, and feel as they wish. Another way of stating the same concept is as follows: suffering is due to the intellect being unwilling to accept life as it manifests moment by moment. There are five SYMPTOMS of suffering, all of which are psychological in nature: 1. Guilt 2. Blame 3. Pride 4. Anxiety 5. Regrets about the past and expectations for the future These types of suffering are the result of not properly understanding what was explained above - that life is a series of happenings and NOT caused by the individual living beings. No living creature, including Homo sapiens, has personal free-will. There is only the Universal, Divine Will at play, acting through every body, to which William Shakespeare famously alluded when he scribed “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” The human organism is essentially a biopsychological machine, comprised of the five gross material elements (which can be perceived with the five senses) and the three subtle material elements (the three levels of cognition, which consist of abstract thought objects), listed above. Cont...

[@BugRib]

@greensleeves7165 - Interesting thoughts! But I still don't know why misery should logically, necessarily follow from mere limitation on how much we can affect this universe with our consciousness. Why couldn't we have limitations and challenges but still find it all immensely pleasurable...like playing a sport or a video game? 🤔

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@greensleeves7165]

@@BugRib I am not saying that all limitation necessarily implies suffering; I am saying that all suffering implies limitation. Yes, under certain circumstances, limitation can be a kind of rich resistance to be pushed against. You use the example of sports, but I would extend that, for example, into games. Chess has defined limits, but doesn't necessarily imply suffering as usually understood. Nevertheless, I maintain what I originally said, that constraints cascade from an 'ur-constraint' (or constraints) that sets off the cascade. I disagree with the idea that suffering has some kind of intrinsic value, let alone cosmic purpose. I do concede that we can attach an extrinsic value to it and thus "find" meaning in suffering if that is what we choose to do.

[@cristianm7097]

​@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda If the Supreme Being is everything, knowing Itself will add nothing to It.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

universe from consciousness will have conscious qualities like purpose?

[@guitarrock58]

Question, if anyone can answer : Why do we have to consider the fine tuning as something special? In the same example of the consecutive casino winner, the only reason why we are surprised is because winning consecutively means something, but if a cat or a dog would look at that, it would mean nothing. In the same way that music makes sense to us, it's really just various frequencies that make sense to us, not to any other animal. In the same way, the only reason we think life is so special, is because it means something to us, we are part of it, but an alternate universe that is total chaos, is just as probable and just as special, maybe it can mean something to another observer, just not to us. Am I making sense or am I missing something critical?

[@simonhibbs887]

I think that’s right, it’s a fair restatement of the anthropic principle. The viewpoint of any observer will always be special to them by definition, but only to them, no matter how un-special it is otherwise.

[@simonrae3048]

You make sense to me.

[@jyjjy7]

You make perfect sense, life is important to living things, and obviously in a way that is impossible in most to see past as many in this comment section show. The idea that the universe is not about them and doesn't exist just so that they can as well is something they cannot deal with and will gladly resort to claims of the supernatural either to explain their own self or the universe as a whole.

[@OPTHolisticServices]

💗🍃

[@soche2993]

What the heck floated past the screen at 39:59 ?

[@radscorpion8]

Every one of these videos should be labelled farther from truth

[@brent2040]

I think fine tuning is possibly an evolutionary process emerging from earlier simpler universes

[@musictheorytree]

In the introduction, there is no mention of Eastern philosophy. I feel like the folks of those regions have much to say on the so-called "middle ground" that Goff speaks of.

[@eddenz1356]

Re the roulette wheel analogy, some external force of intelligence purposefully caused the wheel to get 100 reds in a row? I don’t think that was the intended implication.

[@ywtcc]

Usually I'm a little more concerned with the epistemic issue of a creator, rather than the issue of purpose. I think there's two camps: people who don't know, and people with low standards for establishing the truth of that assertion. On the other hand, it looks to me like the universe is acting with some sort of purpose, in the sense that it travels to a destination, according to several physical principles. The problem is scale, this universal purpose is unlikely to substantially inform my own personal decision making about purpose. And, as far as personal purpose goes, most of the time it appears to be a rationalization of my circumstances. Call it human nature. It's the rationalization that feels right!

[@davecurry8305]

The universe exists to prevent the collapse of quantum gravity.

[@fortynine3225]

The thing is only one universe would be mysterious and hard to understand. For folks in science that does not work. A multiverse that fits more into scientific thinking ideology.

[@ManuelSainz-pg2vr]

At present, the multiverse is not science, since the hypothesis is untestable, and string theory is interesting mathematics that as yet has no application to the description of observable physical reality.

[@ronhudson3730]

The argument at about 45 minutes regarding the immorality of a universe with suffering holds no water. There is no gratuitous suffering in the natural. A lion eats an antelope. The antelope feels terror, then pain, then nothing. The lion feels full. How is this interaction gratuitous or evil. The human develops a tumour and dies a protracted, painful death. Suffering yes. A sad reality of life for some? Yes? A man murders another. The murderer is experiencing a mental illness. Suffering? Sure. Pain. Ditto. If there is an ultimately foundational God, how could the rules baked into a fine-tuned universe, ultimately designed to produce self-aware life with true will, not allow for gratuitous suffering or evil (a cultural term only)? Without the possibility of either, there is incomplete self awareness and a limitation on free will. God, or the inclination of a fine-tuned universe could not prohibit either with invalidating the presumably desired result of fine-tuning and natural selection.

[@JustAThought01]

If reality has no purpose, then gaining knowledge about reality is of no value. So, for the sake of just making our lives better we will just assume reality does indeed have a purpose.

[@simonhibbs887]

I don't think 'reality' needs to have a purpose in order for us to have a purpose. We know now from theory, experimentation, and application in practical technologies that intentional goal driven behaviour can evolve from Darwinian processes. Dario Floreano's team in Switzerland, using random evolutionary processes, observed self-trained learning AIs develop cooperative, and even altruistic behaviour. AlphaZero self-trained using evolutionary processes to teach itself how to play Chess and Go. So intentionality is a naturally emergent property given Darwinian evolutionary conditions.

[@JustAThought01]

@@simonhibbs887 , I believe that everything has a purpose or it would not exist. We can determine the purpose of anything by observing the results of its existence. The universe (reality) has resulted in the existence of human intelligence.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@JustAThought01 Goff discusses this in the interview. We've had teleological thinking like this since Aristotle, and it's never got us anywhere. There isn't a single phenomenon in all of the natural world we have examined and explored that has been shown to have an underlying teleological cause. Darwinian evolution was the final nail in it's coffin, showing how physical and behavioural adaptations can emerge, by environmental selection, from random variation. This is so well understood now that even our most advanced AI systems aren't programmed by humans anymore, we evolve their behaviours through evolutionary processes.

[@simonhibbs887]

@@michaelperrin7801 >"You're forgetting about lifeforms." You're forgetting about evolution. >"are you suggesting that you have never behaved in a way that was motivated by some future distant goal?" As I pointed out already we have a thorough, complete and actionable understanding of how intentional goal seeking behaviour evolves from random initial conditions and environmental selection. We understand this so well that we use it to evolve the behaviours of our most advanced AIs, such as AlphaZero. So we know that natural evolutionary processes can develop intentional behaviours from random initial behaviour and random generational changes, given a selective environment. A research group in Switzerland even simulated evolutionary processes and observed the evolution of co-operative and even altruistic behaviour. The evolved AIs acted against their own survival in order to improve the chances of survival of their offspring.

[@markde9904]

There is value in it. Expanding mankind's knowledge always has benefits even if not obvious to all.

[@changeinanutshell]

Pragmatically speaking, and in terms of the future of earths' life anyway, one absolute imperative is undeniable. We must spread out to other plants before the earth is consumed by the sun. It is interesting that, as we have evolved, so has our computational powers. And now, the computing machines that we have invented, may carry on inventing even more powerful computing machines, which could eventually solve the problems inherent to interstellar travel, allowing us to eventually populate the universe and maybe even transcend spacetime itself. If this is our destiny, what are the odds it was all just an accident.

[@colinlavery625]

Its always seems to be assumed that God is GOOD and so we have the so-called "problem of evil" but what if God is EVIL. The problem of evil then disappears. Why doesn't this ever seem to be considered or is this totally logical possibility too distasteful to countenance ????

[@Sidionian]

Martin Freeman + James McAvoy = Philip Goff.

[@salvadoralvarado8685]

purpose is a human construct, the universe is not a human product

[@peweegangloku6428]

If you think that this is all the life there is and purposeless at that, then the existence of evil incriminates God. But the contrary is obvious.

[@CandidDate]

"Why" is not the right question. If we are to survive the heat death or the second coming, we must understand "How?"

[@xXxTeenSplayer]

Taking fine tuning as a given, huh? Well there's your problem right there!

[@khalidtamr8856]

Almost all physicists agree there’s a level of fine tuning present, even the most atheistic of them

[@stoneysdead689]

This is this guy's argument in a nutshell- You're in a room, you have good reason to believe there are many thousands if not millions or billions of other rooms you can't see or interact with- but since this room is all you can see and/or interact with- you should assume every room is identical to this one. Even if the evidence that suggests other rooms exists, also suggests they should be different- it doesn't matter, this is the specific information you have to work with. Now if that's satisfying to you- have at it, I guess- but it's not at all satisfying to me, nor does it have the ring of truth or reason to it. As a matter of fact, it sounds remarkably like someone who is willing to bend the information to reach whatever predetermined goal they have- in this case, a purpose driven universe.

[@teleamor]

There is no good reason, and ZERO evidence to believe other rooms exist. Zero evidence for a multiverse.

[@greensleeves7165]

But what “constrains” the cosmo-psychism or the teleological cosmic mind to be a particular way? This seems to me ultimately the same problem as “natural laws”. It’s in some sense creating a meta-natural-law out of some kind of “necessity” for the cosmos to be self-consistent or something like this. But even there, it’s debatable where the quality of necessity in that is actually supposed to come from. We might say that it is necessary for a triangle to have three angles, and of course in common sense terms it is, But it is less clear why there should be triangles in the first place, or even geometries, or even mathematics. It terminates in a brute assertion again. Maybe some species of brute assertion simply has to be made or we don’t have anything. On the other hand, I do agree with some of what the guest is saying. I doubt that consciousness evolved though. I am in the camp of assuming it to be ontically primitive (as opposed to mind). But “constraint” seems to me a problem. Who or what is doing this constraining of what is? If there were something, then we should turn our attention to that. If it is “self-constraining” because of “the necessary rules of maths/logic/whatever” then I am still not sure we have an answer to why THAT particular notion of necessity should be crowned or indeed why it is necessary.

[@stevenevans8449]

So given inverse gambler's, why when I see a lottery winner in the newspaper who had bought one ticket can I safely assume that there were millions of other players? Well, because the newspaper announcement of the winner leaves open two possibilities (i) there was only one player that week and they won (odds 14 million to one) or (ii) there were millions of other players one of whom won and I found out about it through the paper (odds 50:50) . Clearly, I conclude (ii) is what happened. Regarding the universe, first of all there is no evidence of "fine-tuning" (for example, it's not known if it's physically possible for the Cosmological Constant to take values other than the only one measured) and assuming fine-tuning has led to zero scientific knowledge. And, even if you assume a life-supporting universe is unlikely (which we simply don't know), by my lottery analogy above there are the possibilities that (i) inverse gambler's applies and an unlikely event has happened and that's that, or (ii) actually there is a multiverse, or some fine-tuning mechanism or a "purpose", and the mechanism by which we find out about the universe is the anthropic principle. So if we had evidence that multiverses, or fine-tuning mechanisms or a purpose were physical, we might conclude (ii) is more likely. So Philip Goff invokes inverse gambler's to try to support a case in which it does *not* apply! But it's all pointless speculation anyway. There is no evidence of "fine-tuning", there is no observation which could even theoretically be made to determine its empirical truth or not, so scientifically it doesn't even mean anything. They might as well discuss the ether or fairies at the bottom of the garden.

[@philipgoff7897]

This kind of example was considered in the classic paper on the inverse gambler's fallacy objection to the multiverse: web.mit.edu/rog/www/papers/fine_tuning.pdf The disanalogy to the real-world fine-tuning scenario is that in your scenario there is a mechanism that connects us to the improbable event (i.e. the newspapers). This is what White calls a 'converse selection effect' as opposed to the mere selection effect that obtains with respect to the real-world fine-tuning scenario.

[@simonhibbs887]

​@@philipgoff7897 My own objection to the inverse gambler's fallacy objection to many worlds is the one Kuhn gave. Many worlds wasn't formulated as a response to fine tuning, it existed anyway and became the dominant theory in physics for reasons completely unrelated to the fine tuning question. MWI is only a fallacy if seen as a response to fine tuning, but it's isn't a response, we have other reasons for considering it. So we have no reason to phrase many worlds as a response to fine tuning. We could just as well put the sequence the other way around, and see how the fine tuning argument works as a response to many worlds. We have a theory the proposes multiple universes which may have different parameters in infinite variety. We have an argument that claims the parameters for our universe are unlikely. However we already know that all possible parameters will be found in some universe somewhere according to MWI. Looking at it this way, the fine tuning argument doesn't even get off the ground. There is no issue for it to address.

[@stevenevans8449]

@@simonhibbs887 You are confusing the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (Everett) with the Multiverse concept of Rees and Carr. Here are the scientific statuses of the three ideas: Universal Fine-Tuning: The idea that the universe is fine-tuned for life or complexity. No evidence to support it and no observation that could even theoretically test it. Does not solve any known scientific problem. Therefore, it is scientifically meaningless and pointless speculation. Multiverse: The idea that there are many physical universes with differing fundamental constants. No evidence to support it and no observation that could even theoretically test it. Does not solve any known scientific problem. Therefore, it is scientifically meaningless and pointless speculation. Many Worlds Interpretation: the idea in quantum mechanics that a superposition of quantum states breaks up into causally separate "worlds" on measurement. You could say this is one possible answer to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, but it is unfalsifiable and does not explain why the wave function "collapse" or "separation" happens in the first place. So it's an interesting speculation related to a real problem, the measurement problem.

[@ALavin-en1kr]

Giving self-conscious awareness to natural selection is a stretch.

[@piehound]

@ about 8:25 Dr. Kuhn says " One of our LEITMOTIFS (also spelled LEITMOTIV)." And in my opinion he mispronounces it. Here is the correct pronunciation. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5eTnmCnidhrfassi=JKRLxvp48UD8IF7l This word is of German origin. Therefore the phoneme *ei* is pronounce more like ay or ai. If one is unaware of the origin of the word or unwilling to acknowledge its German origin . . . then of course it's easy to understand why an educated person may wish to use an Anglicized pronunciation.

[@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd]

On the one hand, the mythical version presented by religion (in its varieties) and on the other the systematic investigation of reality. But Goff prefers something in between. For some reason, he finds it necessary to move away from systematic research. Something closer to myth. Something more primitive. From times in which little information was used to construct conclusions. And at the same time, that seems to him more effective in determining whether the universe has a purpose. Colored by his human nature, he expects the universe to conform to his prejudices.

[@bananacabbage7402]

The inverse gamblers fallacy is itself a fallacy. The multiverse argument predicts fine-tuning because we can only be here if the parameters are suitable for our existence. If you go into a casino and observe one player he does not need to be winning for you to be there.

[@jcolvin2]

Take the IGF with a grain of salt. There is much good argument that Phil is making an indexical fallacy here. The situation is more akin to a journalist reporting on a casino because someone has had a huge run of luck. In this case, it is more likely that the casino is really busy.

[@wheredowegofromhere79]

*Philip, go off on the purpose of the universe

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

subjective experience as purpose of universe?

[@sujok-acupuncture9246]

Fine tuning does not necessarily mean purpose in life. Life exists from billions of years. And possibly in many other planets as well. It does not seem to have any purpose. The word "purpose" in my understanding is purposeless.

[@SandipChitale]

Philip seems to confuse the point when physicists say that the physics is not done yet when they talk about cosmological ideas like multiverses and different set of values for parameter with some of the well understood (complete) physics for desktop incline plane and heck even the verification and use of GR in GPS. Of course physics recently started discussing about these cosmological ideas and physics in that domain is in its infancy and the completeness of physics there is not at the same level as physics of gears and pullies, electronics and so on.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

Not sure where you stand - physicists completely overlook the fact that Metaphysics is the missing part to their incomplete 'physics'. I guess this here is the divider - the line drawn in the sand. Part of me believes you're a man from India, but I never see you reference the Rig Veda, which is everything "physicists" discuss, but they're not strong enough to see this.

[@SandipChitale]

@@S3RAVA3LM I am 100% non-supernaturalist and a physicalist.

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@lenspencer1765]

Really enjoyed this he makes sense

[@JustAThought01]

Believing in God is not difficult: My thought: God is our explanation for the causation of reality.

[@Arunava_Gupta]

Absolutely. I agree with you totally. God is the supreme cause of the world.

[@simonhibbs887]

Believing in the god handed down to you, that everyone around you believes in, that you were taught since birth, that came to dominate your culture a thousand years ago is incredibly easy. In fact especially in an environment where being devout is the default, not believing becomes rather difficult and even uncomfortable. There are of course those that do choose a religion for various reasons, but it’s pretty unusual and is often also due to specific sociological circumstances.

[@JustAThought01]

@@simonhibbs887, and it is a logical conclusion based upon my definition. Reality must have come from somewhere/something.

[@Arunava_Gupta]

@@JustAThought01 Very true. A super intelligent mind is necessary to make sense of the teleology inherent in the creation especially the body. To understand the tethering of the immaterial conscious personality with a material brain, the wiring together of two disparate entities in a programmed relationship.

[@S3RAVA3LM]

​​@@simonhibbs887we can only know what others mean from what they state from our own experiences and mental similitude, i.e. we can only truly understand somebody talking about the top of K2 and what it's like if we ourselves have been there, that is, the top of K2. Now, whenever somebody mentions "God" to you or when you see it, and because you yourself really have no idea and inside are lost, you by default 'rationalize or damage control' the situation by manipulatively - and unconsciously I believe, anyways - by acknowledging now, 'this God', in a conditioned way, as the 'God handed down to you from religion', as a way of dealing with the fact that you're basically clueless, lacking the courage to walk the narrow path, and that your degree or whatever you got from school is actually bullshit and means nothing - basically you got nowhere's since school. You're not alone. Today, everybody has been fooled. Hey, I been recommending some books and they're better than anything you've studied. Comon man. Comon. Stop waiting for others to go first. Take the initiative.

[@emptycloud2774]

I discovered Philip Goff when I studied Philosophy of Mind. One of my favourite classes I did at uni. I was not a philosophy or neuroscience major, I majored in sociology and anthropology. I chose to focus on panpsychism for 2 reasons: first, it was by far the most controversial position towards the mind-body problem that would trigger the most people in class into hostility; secondly, arguments against physicalism, in my mind, were both devastating and unanswered (even now, years later). The idea that conscious experience both does not fit into how physical facts are measured and understood yet it is necessary for current physical laws to include a law for consciousness was extremely compelling to me. I found positions such as: eliminativism, strong emergence and it's an illusion incredibly absurd. All in the name of explaining away conscious experience. Goff points out that even the Many World's interpretation of quantum mechanics was a means to take consciousness completely out of explaining the collapse of the wave function, i.e. the observer. I am not committed to either position, but it adds to the absurdity of how we attempt to understand reality when consciousness is attempted to be taken out of the equation. If you are studying analytic philosophy and epistemology, philosophy of mind will take your reasoning skills to the edge. You can take a position seriously without "believing" it.

[@stevenevans8449]

"arguments against physicalism" Physicalism, like atheism, is a made-up term used by cranks to try to pretend there is an argument when there isn't. You are welcome to present a phenomenon in the universe which is demonstrably not only physical. Go for it, Sweety. *Just one will do*. "Goff points out that even the Many World's interpretation of quantum mechanics was a means to take consciousness completely out of explaining the collapse of the wave function, i.e. the observer." Complete drivel. "Consciousness" is not defined in physics so how could it be part of the explanation of the collapse of the wavefunction? Everett conceived of Many-Worlds by taking the wavefunction literally.

[@emptycloud2774]

@@stevenevans8449, Physicalism is a metaphysical statement that there are only physical facts; i.e. no phenomena beyond physical reality as we currently understand it. Collapse of the wave function has a few interpretations. The point from Goff was the Many Worlds interpretation as defended by leading physicists today is taken extremely seriously, in part by rejecting the observer having any influence what so ever. Consciousness playing no part, what so ever. I don't write this defending one position over the other. What is interesting is certain philosophical assumptions about the world motivate arguments. How one considers consciousness is one such position. A phenomenon that does not have properties aligned with physical stuff is consciousness. There is no physicist, neuroscientist or philosopher that knows what it is, how it is possible, how it relates to matter. Some cranks make up positions like "eliminativism", "functionalism", "Identity Theory", "behaviourism", in an attempt to explain away conscious experience. I'll even go further, leading physicists don't even know what the matter is they study at the most elementary level. We don't even sense most matter in the universe, we don't know if there is phenomena beyond what we know. We don't know if there are more properties beyond what we are aware of, we don't know if we have measured every particle, neither do we have a theory of everything. What we do know is consciousness is radically different and we don't even know how to approach it. If you did, you would be one of the most famous scientists alive.

[@JustAThought01]

The foundation of human thought: There are three types of truth: that which we believe to be true, that which we know to be true, and that which we think to be true. These are the three realms of thought: religion, science and philosophy. The thought is either right or wrong. The action is either good or evil. It is evil to advance the self by exploiting others. There are only two general choices: dominate or cooperate. One leads to destruction. The other leads to a better life for all. Rather than trying to dominate, we must all work together to insure justice for all people. Do no harm except in self defense. Protect all from harm where possible.

[@ZahraLowzley]

What does belief look like? In expression beyond declaration? You necessarily would need such an exhibition to associate cognitively to innate faculty, I cannot see a need for such a faculty, nor reason. I am a non-lexical thinker, "true" is not a word for something being accurate but rather aligned with an axiom of reference point , the brain doesn't do true/false. I think in the innate language, this lexis is absurdly incompatible with it as it has insufficient tense and causal structure, additionally it habituates too fast and is too far beyond the threshold of autonomy's orchestration that free speech is irrelevant as this is barely a language. It's a punctuated compressible index, evolution. If you don't know the cognitive associative framework of every word you know then your are irrelevant to its expression. For example the "consciousness" talk on the video is habituated nonsense, and refers to wakefulness. Evolution stratifies life, life in rudimentary form is everywhere and not special except to people like me who despise evolution which uses life for permutations. I am alive, I can reproduce perception , it isn't a knowledge task nor is it complex, but the simplest aspect . Science is indexing, evolutionary imperative. The birds nest isn't a product of geniosity, nor are our actions.

[@JustAThought01]

@@ZahraLowzley, good question: what does a belief look like? First thought: we can not see a belief (or thought, or opinion) when present in the brain. It is a complex arrangement of values in brain matter. When expressed verbally, or in writing others can observe the set of words we use to express our thought (as belief or opinion). These words represent culturally agreed upon concepts which are generally accepted within a collection of individuals. Once expressed, others form a judgement as to the validity of the thought being expressed. We classify the thoughts using our own internal model of language.

[@JustAThought01]

@@ZahraLowzley, I spend a great deal of time thinking about knowledge. Most human individuals do not. They are far too busy just living their lives in whatever situations in which they find themselves. I organize thoughts about information in the following hierarchy: Data > Information > Belief > Knowledge > Wisdom > Understanding. Belief and Opinion are similar. One is more easily changed than the other. Wisdom is key Knowledge which in general informs good decisions. Understanding is a framework for organizing all information into a consistent set.

[@JustAThought01]

@@ZahraLowzley, Knowledge is the key to success in human life. Humans are unique in the set of living things in that we store knowledge external to our own body. We use common knowledge to organize the world to our own advantage. We make better decisions when we use knowledge rather than unsubstantiated opinion. Knowledge is defined to be justified true belief.

[@ZahraLowzley]

@@JustAThought01 I came to the conclusion early in life that I am epistemologically unequipped to be certain of knowing, but my desires are perhaps the simplest of any human; to do a little to alleviate loneliness , I will be happy with that as I see no point in pursuing truth so as to die validated . I welcome my disintegration back into my home place and want no more . I was devastated as a child to find Humans asking "what is the meaning? ? Whilst surrounded by all the life they will ever know, I wish I could get to know everyone and tell them that they don't need to earn their meaningfulness , but I am sensitive.

[@francesco514]

The cosmos has naturally selected a being with a very large brain who has invented a means of wiping itself out and everything with it.Nice one Universe!

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

political government is atheism; love through divine central authority

[@cmacmenow]

Philip Goff,is Batman! Discuss.

[@tedgrant2]

The purpose of the universe is love.

[@davidpetrosky]

What we call love, is a simple facet of nature. Nothing more.

[@user-gu4zo1dw1f]

How did you know that?!

[@PuzzlePlanet-mr2we]

@@davidpetrosky you'll have a surprise ending at the end of the movie

[@trolley2327]

No , the purpose of universe is Lust. Sadly, sometimes people mistake the two 😔

[@pytime8621]

⁠@@trolley2327what if the appearance is the illusion? I would agree that the purpose is what we would call love, but depending on your perspective that love might appear as lust. Love can appear as judgement. Love can appear as anger. And on and on. It depends on the perspective in which love is being viewed. I’m hesitant to use the word “mistake” because all of it is driving to the same conclusion. Like roads leading all to the same destination. Some roads are rocky and others smooth, but none are a mistake.

[@winstonalaneme7610]

Back to religious inspired content, interesting.

[@necminit4945]

The purpose of the universe on earth is to create beetles. Everywhere else there is an inordinate fondness for dark matter/energy.

[@vivekbhat2784]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWjGnGVjeNx_Z68

[@primatejames]

It's all extremely unlikely,just like its unlikely your Mom & Dad or their Mom & Dad ever got together. If not,someone else would be pondering such amazing coincidences, and yet coincidence it is,all the way down.

[@philipgoff7897]

Good objection! Sometimes improbable things need explaining (bank robbers getting the code right) sometimes they don't (your example). It depends on whether the improbable outcome has significance independently of it being the outcome. The numbers that came up in our physics do have such significance, because they allow for a universe containing great value: life, intelligent life, people who can fall in love and contemplate their existence. As far as we've able to understand the probability space, most of the other combinations of numbers produce universes containing little or no value.

[@primatejames]

@@philipgoff7897 & in those universes,no one is pondering anything. It's an amplification of the Earth just happens to be in the Goldilocks zone.How could it be an accident? Look at all the great things that were possible because it was in the zone! As far as we know, there's no one on Mercury wondering such things.The improbable become inevitable when given enough opportunities.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*The purpose of the universe is to generate new information.* Whenever the information being produced becomes redundant, "Existence" evolves into something else (like life, consciousness, and self-awareness).