The Importance of Materialism in Science

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The extent to which I'm impressed with materialism is just so vast that of course Consciousness being involved with the most complicated structures. We know of in the universe will be the last thing that science successfully explains Not because it requires something separate just because it's hard, you know, that's why it's hard But anyway, I think we could get stuck here rather. Maybe let's not get it. You know, it's that Yeah, science is so impressive, but it's impressive At a very limited task describing the behavior of matter roughly mathematical models that capture it was never in the business of Accounting for subject these subjective qualities that were immediately aware of That's never what it's been

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.

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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.

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