The Conversion Experience

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I've always been Obsessed by the problem of consciousness as far back as I can remember and you know what thought I was a materialist materialist I was amaterialist. And yeah, I just just one night and just certain vivid experiences got to me and I Just decided this can't go on anymore. At that point I was taught as a philosophy undergraduate the only two options and materialism and dualism He wrote his end of year Undergraduate dissertation on how the problem of Consciousness can't be resolved but then he discovered there is an elegant middle way That does accept the reality of consciousness But is completely consistent with our empirical knowledge of the world.

The human brain contains roughly 85 billion neurons, wired together in an extraordinarily complex network of interconnected parts. It’s hardly surprising that we don’t understand the mind and how it works. But do we know enough about our experience of consciousness to suggest that consciousness cannot arise from nothing more than the physical interactions of bits of matter? Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness, or at least some mental aspect, is pervasive in the world, in atoms and rocks as well as in living creatures. Philosopher Philip Goff is one of the foremost modern advocates of this idea. We have a friendly and productive conversation, notwithstanding my own view that the laws of physics don’t need any augmenting to ultimately account for consciousness. If you’re not sympathetic toward panpsychism, this episode will at least help you understand why someone might be.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Philip Goff received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Reading. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Durham. His new book, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, is being published on Nov. 5.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.