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Mind Chat with Philip Goff and Keith Frankish

Philip Goff is a philosopher who thinks consciousness pervades the universe. Keith Frankish is a philosopher who thinks consciousness* doesn't even exist. From their very different perspectives, Keith and Philip interview leading scientists and philosophers of consciousness, engaging and debating in a friendly way in pursuit of truth. Mind Chat aims to be highly accessible, allowing those with no background in science and/or philosophy to get a grip on the cutting edge of the field.

(*To be more precise, Keith thinks *phenomenal* consciousness doesn't exist; listen to find out what this is.)

Mind Chat

Annaka Harris is author of bestselling book "Conscious" and writer and producer of the forthcoming audio documentary series "Lights On." In this episode we mainly focused on panpsychism, although we also touched on free will and the self. Annaka is sympathetic to panpsychism, so Philip and Annaka compared their reasons for taking the view seriously, whilst Keith and Annaka tried to work out why they disagreed.

Annaka Harris: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

Philip recently went public with his conversion to a heretical form of Christianity (see article and video below). In this episode Keith and Philip discuss this and open up to Q&A. 
 • Why This Famous Atheist Became a Prog... 
https://aeon.co/.../i-now-think-a-her....
IMPORTANT NOTE: I accidentally said that "Jesus" didn't approve of gay sex, but I meant to say "Paul." Philip

Philip Goff & Keith Frankish: Heretical Christianity

Andy Clark is a leading and incredibly influential philosopher and cognitive scientist. Among other things, Andy has done pioneering work on predictive processing and the extended mind thesis. Here Keith and Philip discuss with Andy his most recent book 'The Experience Machine.' 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/04/the-experience-machine-how-our-minds-predict-and-shape-reality-review

Andy Clark: The Experience Machine

Tim O'Connor is a dualist: someone who thinks consciousness is not physical. People tend to think of dualists as believing in the soul, a supernatural entity distinct from the physical workings of the body and the brain. However, Tim's dualism is very different. He thinks consciousness resides in the brain, and is brought into existence by the physical particles that ultimately make up the brain. Nonetheless he rejects the idea that we can explain consciousness in terms of the kind of electro-chemical signalling of the brain. Instead, Tim is a Strong Emergentist: He thinks that particles have special powers to produce non-physical consciousness, powers that only kick in when the particles are arranged in the special combinations we find in brains. To put it another way: the brain as a whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Tim's website: https://toconnor.org/

Tim's entry on ''Emergent Properties' for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/AlUsJRKqEVE

Tim O'Connor: Interview with a Dualist

Professor Janet Levin is a materialist about consciousness. She thinks our feelings and experiences are identical with physical processes in the brain. In this episode we will explore Janet's position and how she responds to arguments that try to show that consciousness alludes physical explanation.

Janet Levin: The Materialist Theory of Consciousness

Christof Koch is a neuroscientist and proponent of the integrated information theory of consciousness, or 'IIT". In this episode we explore with Christof the science and philosophy of IIT.

Christof Koch: The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness

Matthias Michel is a philosopher whose work focuses on the science of consciousness. In a recent paper he outlines how scientists working on consciousness have been having the same debates for 150 years without reaching consensus. In this episode, we will explore why the science of consciousness is more challenging than other scientific endeavours and examine possible ways forward.

Matthias Michel: Is a Science of Consciousness Possible?

Dr Helen Yetter-Chappell is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Miami. Idealism is the view that the fundamental nature of reality is made up of mentality or consciousness. Inspired by the 18th century idealist philosophy George Berkeley, Helen has developed a version of Berkeley's idealism which dispenses with his commitment to the existence of God. http://yetterchappell.net/Helen/

Helen Yetter-Chappell: Is Reality Made up of Consciousness?

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. In this episode we discuss his new book 'Being You: The New Science of Consciousness.'

Anil Seth: Is Consciousness a Controlled Hallucination?

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll joins us to discuss whether it make sense to think of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, and whether contemporary physics points in this direction. 

We discussed Sean's essay responding to Philip's book 'Galileo's Error,' and Philip's counter-response essay. Both are available here: https://conscienceandconsciousness.com/2021/08/01/19-essays-on-galileos-error/ 

We also discussed Philip's Scientific American article making the case that the move from the fine-tuning to the multiverse commits the 'inverse gambler's fallacy': https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/#:~:text=We%20exist%2C%20and%20we%20are,with%20the%20existence%20of%20life. 

Finally, Keith and Philip discussed the PhilPapers 2020 survey of philosophers' opinions on philosophical questions, which is linked to from this blog post of Philip's: https://conscienceandconsciousness.com/2021/11/01/materialism-remains-the-majority-view-but-only-just/

Sean Carroll: Is Consciousness Emergent?

Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He is also the author of the wonderful recent book 'Free Agents: How Evolution Gave us Free will', a robust defence of the reality of free will. Between the three of us, we aim to definitely establish whether or not humans are free.

For more on Kevin Mitchell:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/har...

https://www.kjmitchell.com/

Timings

0:00 – Amusing Banter

4:41 – Introducing Kevin Mitchell

6:07 – Kevin’s view

16:12 – The Philosophy of Free Will

29:03 – Keith Probes Kevin

51:25 – Philip and Keith disagree on how to interpret Kevin’s position

1:01:00 – Does quantum mechanics help?

1:24:12 – Keith can’t help himself

1:30:24 – Philip mutes Keith

1:30:57 – Audience Q&A

1:43:33 – Final banter and Mind Chat catchphrase

Kevin Mitchell: Do We Have Free Will?

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