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Highlights: #190 – Eric Schwitzgebel on whether the US is conscious
Jun 21, 2024
Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel discusses nested consciousness in the US, challenging intuitive thinking and exploring dream experiences. The conversation delves into emergent consciousness in ants, reliability of human intuition, and the moral significance of dreams, questioning the boundaries between wakefulness and dreams.
22:22
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Quick takeaways
- Consciousness can be nested, challenging the idea that complex cognitive processes cannot arise from individual components.
- The Copernican argument for alien consciousness suggests diverse cognitive structures in alien species contribute to the debate on consciousness and challenges anthropocentric views.
Deep dives
Nested Consciousness and the Ontarian Ed Heads Example
The podcast explores the concept of whether consciousness can be nested, challenging the idea that conscious entities cannot have conscious parts. An example used involves intelligent woolly mammoth-like creatures with a million bugs inside them, suggesting that complex cognitive processes can emerge from conscious parts. This challenges the notion that consciousness cannot arise from individual components and presents a science fiction scenario to highlight the plausibility of nested consciousness, contributing to the debate on the anti-nesting principle.
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