Dr. Philip Goff is a philosopher and consciousness researcher at Durham University, UK. His main research focus is trying to explain how the brain produces consciousness. He thinks we need to radically rethink our understanding of matter in order to explain consciousness, in something like the way Einstein radically rethought the nature of space and time. Dr. Goff also has a sideline in political philosophy, focusing on issues pertaining to taxation, globalization and social justice. He’s also the author of the book Consciousness and Fundamental Reality.

In this episode, we talk about consciousness, materialism and the nature of reality. We start off by discussing the philosophy of materialism and its limitations when it comes to account for phenomena like consciousness. We also talk about illusionism as a theory of consciousness, and the difficulties in trying to understand consciousness from an objectivist perspective, and the inherent limitations that our theory of mind has. Then, Dr. Goff explains his approach to consciousness, and what he thinks is the best way to know its nature, based on Russellian monism and panpsychism.

Time Links:

00:53 The philosophy of materialism, and what might be some of its limitations

08:51 Causal relationships vs. the nature of the Universe

11:47 Mind-brain dualism

14:08 Phenomenal consciousness, and the hard problem

15:27 On Illusionism

19:36 Does it matter if our intuitions about the mind are wrong?

21:50 Dr. Goff’s approach to consciousness, and Russellian monism

25:58 About panpsychism

28:41 How would we know what consciousness is?

33:31 Individual variation of conscious experience, and issues about subjectivism

49:18 Consciousness, the external world, and our cognitive/epistemological limitations