Very obtuse method of arguing for free will without defining it. What he is describing as free will is making decisions- what he neglects is that the decision making process is parametered by discernible variables- thus making it not free.
00:18:00 You say you have “Free Will”? …But first you have to decide who/What is Free Will!? May I suggest- Free Will has to come out of the present or Now! But we are only ever Perception aware of the Past never Of the present! Therefore Free Will is Not yours but arrives from the Conscious Consciousness Which is of the “Absolute Presence Of Zero Time, And is not debatable as Yours to Own!? Regards
To know the nature of reality,, we have to know the nature of Consciousness.
It is interesting that Prof Tallis says that he is an agnostic, and at the same time, says he may die not knowing what type of a beast he is. He is indirectly asking himself, "who am I"? But his agnosticism stops him from going further to investigate the nature of life, that he is. He may probably die, without knowing what/who he is!
The problem is that any non physical stuff likely would be in another dimension(s) which overlaps this physical universe dimension and because of it you will find no scientifical proof except for stuff that maybe points towards non physical existence.
materialism starts 'failing' even as it attempts to explain material. to expect it to explain consciousness is unrealistically optimistic. the real failure is the idea of explaining.
Consciousness can no more be reduced to brain activity than light can be reduced to lamp activity. The lamp transmits the light, the brain transmits consciousness. In neither case can transmission be seen as creation of that which is transmitted.
I am not certain the brain is even a necessary condition for consciousness. It certainly is necessary for the particular instantiation of consciousness that occurs in this particular physical body, but who's to say if consciousness truly is gone along with the brain, or if it continues in some other form or instantiation.
All is reducible to “consciousness” yet we can’t define it. We sense it, we realize it because it is what makes you you, it has no physical characteristics.
An enquiry into mind? You threw out that enquiry when you dismissed panpsychism. You can not evolve consciousness from non-consciousness matter is conscious else life can never have a meaning. This is the lie perpetrated by materialism.
I don’t understand your objection to panpsychism. All other theories are dualistic. Matter is real and mysterious. Mind is the evolved contaminant of awareness a physical phenomenon. Mind either exists as a structural aspect of matter or it doesn’t exist. Conversely only mind exists and matter is an aspect of mentation. You are a dualist you are consistently proposing the existence of one thing by it opposing another thing this is not a description of mind. I can’t discern your position.
The brain is only a mediator of conciousness. Materialism doesnt add up. Idealism does. With no evidence at all, scientists still believe the brain create conciousness, thats not science, is it? Science is not dogmatic, always changing due to new evidence and objective findings.
Here's a Big Hint:Someone and or something has to collapse the wave function of the atoms that make up your entire body so that those atoms and you exist.
And if you take it a bit further than Descartes, "you are not your thoughts either". You are the witness, the I AM. The "thing" that stays the same throughout your life.
People who believe that electricity moves in wires , may think that consciousness lives within us.
People who think that electricity is a flux around a wire ( that's why transformers work ) will be perfectly ok with the idea that consciousness is around us also
Consciousness at any level is about giving meaning/qualia to the things! That's what the consciousness do. Hence the confusion with "illusion" category. It is not that consciousness itself is an illusion, but the outcome of it – the world is illusion.
Beautiful description. There is an interesting mathematical distinction between a thing and a process. The set of things leads to the algebraic world limited by Gödels insights while the processes are described in a complementary world, the co-algebra, which in turn is limited by Turings insights. From this reasoning it is evident that life, and probably consciousness, are processes. We are not used to such beasts. Music is a pure process. Still now is a snapshot of all processes that are. Somehow the thought of the habits of nature and our physics understanding extracting laws of what nature usually does, is appealing. I am a process with only incomplete memory and this makes it hard to grasp it all. If our memory would be perfect, we would see a halfsphere of the 4D reality we might live in, but the memory is continuously changing… Therefore, thank you for this enlightening discussion.
one might imagine that a print out of brain activity is like a print out of the atmospheric conditions – temp pressure humidity etc and these measures might be able to be described in different terms as say a rainy day or a sunny day like wise a happy state of mind or a sad state of mind – some objectivity achieved but nothing is ever its symbolic representation
Why not interview someone who has some expertise? It's pathetic that scientists don't have the balls or the curiosity to investigate mysticism even where they see the failure of all the alternatives. It's an academic scandal. Tallis is not an expert on this matter. He hasn't even studied all the available theories. Modern consciousness studies is a joke and a scam. They are so ignorant on this topic they cannot even falsify the explanation of consciousness given by the Buddha. Rarely do they even know what it is. So naive, and such limited scholarship.
Well, he at some point says that the brain is "for reasons that escape him" necessary for consciousness. I'd argue that this is a materialist position, which would make him a materialist.
So basically, Tallis is intellectually honest enough to accept that materialism no longer holds up in light of quantum physics. Yet, he is still too traditional in his thinking to take the next step. So he stalls out at agnosticism.
Neural activity is not the same everywhere one looks in the brain. There is a rich diversity of neural excitability, synaptic mechanisms, local circuit and long distance interconnectivity, second messenger systems and coupling to gene expression. A "clinical neuroscientist" (as he once was), is primarily exposed to studies of EEG activity and evoked potentials, which are macroscopic epiphenomena far removed from underlying neural mechanisms. The statement that neural activity is insufficient to underlie consciousness is an unsupported supposition. One should be agnostic, but for better reasons, namely, that the issue of consciousness is a scientific question, in which a materialist viewpoint is not a dogma, but rather, the most plausible scientific hypothesis — and it is so for a plethora of compelling reasons. One reason is that the temporal granularity of our consciousness is essentially the same as the temporal granularity of neural information processing. One cannot experience the individual images presented at 30 frames per second in a video precisely because of the temporal limitations imposed by the time required for neural processing. The qualitative difference between the perception of blue vs. red color begins with different receptors, different information pathways, and ultimately the synthesis of different perceptions. How that synthesis occurs is the $64,000 dollar question. The fact that phenomena such as sound-to-color synesthesia (chromesthesia) have a genetic predisposition points clearly to a biological basis rooted in neural processing.
There is no Mind/Body problem! We create the Mind/Body problem by not identifying ourselves with the Mind or Body as cause of living! It's the same as we can freely choose between a Free or Absolute will! Identifying with Mind & Body is resulting in becoming aware of: 1- I create myself (Egofullness) 2- I let myself being created (Egolessness) It's choosing between "living in the body" & "living in the spirit"! When you become fully aware of seeing the Body or Mind as the cause of living and forming your consciousness, everything will become clear whatever you choose! Good Luck! 🤔❤
@kinglewisjtl24
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Very obtuse method of arguing for free will without defining it. What he is describing as free will is making decisions- what he neglects is that the decision making process is parametered by discernible variables- thus making it not free.
@1SpudderR
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
00:18:00 You say you have “Free Will”? …But first you have to decide who/What is Free Will!? May I suggest- Free Will has to come out of the present or Now! But we are only ever Perception aware of the Past never Of the present! Therefore Free Will is Not yours but arrives from the Conscious Consciousness Which is of the “Absolute Presence Of Zero Time, And is not debatable as Yours to Own!? Regards
@joeclark1621
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I like the fact that even though Dr. Raymond is an atheist, he's not a reductionist materialist.
@Jagombe1
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
To know the nature of reality,, we have to know the nature of Consciousness.
It is interesting that Prof Tallis says that he is an agnostic, and at the same time, says he may die not knowing what type of a beast he is. He is indirectly asking himself, "who am I"? But his agnosticism stops him from going further to investigate the nature of life, that he is. He may probably die, without knowing what/who he is!
@fortynine3225
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
The problem is that any non physical stuff likely would be in another dimension(s) which overlaps this physical universe dimension and because of it you will find no scientifical proof except for stuff that maybe points towards non physical existence.
@sleethmitchell
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
materialism starts 'failing' even as it attempts to explain material. to expect it to explain consciousness is unrealistically optimistic. the real failure is the idea of explaining.
@user-ym5ml3he1b
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Does councousness exists without the brain how could you prove that .
@ElkoJohn
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
there are known knowns
there are known unknowns
and there are unknown unknowns
@ALavin-en1kr
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Consciousness can no more be reduced to brain activity than light can be reduced to lamp activity. The lamp transmits the light, the brain transmits consciousness. In neither case can transmission be seen as creation of that which is transmitted.
@HarmonicsAI
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Great conversation.
@xyhmo
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I am not certain the brain is even a necessary condition for consciousness. It certainly is necessary for the particular instantiation of consciousness that occurs in this particular physical body, but who's to say if consciousness truly is gone along with the brain, or if it continues in some other form or instantiation.
@zakmatew
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
All is reducible to “consciousness” yet we can’t define it. We sense it, we realize it because it is what makes you you, it has no physical characteristics.
@petershelton7367
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
An enquiry into mind? You threw out that enquiry when you dismissed panpsychism. You can not evolve consciousness from non-consciousness matter is conscious else life can never have a meaning. This is the lie perpetrated by materialism.
@petershelton7367
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I don’t understand your objection to panpsychism. All other theories are dualistic. Matter is real and mysterious. Mind is the evolved contaminant of awareness a physical phenomenon. Mind either exists as a structural aspect of matter or it doesn’t exist. Conversely only mind exists and matter is an aspect of mentation. You are a dualist you are consistently proposing the existence of one thing by it opposing another thing this is not a description of mind. I can’t discern your position.
@chrisbennett6260
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
who is the interviewer
@chrisbennett6260
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
enjoyed listening to him ?
@travis7651
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
The brain is only a mediator of conciousness. Materialism doesnt add up. Idealism does. With no evidence at all, scientists still believe the brain create conciousness, thats not science, is it? Science is not dogmatic, always changing due to new evidence and objective findings.
@Sharperthanu1
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Here's a Big Hint:Someone and or something has to collapse the wave function of the atoms that make up your entire body so that those atoms and you exist.
@user-ui2mk2no1f
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
And if you take it a bit further than Descartes, "you are not your thoughts either". You are the witness, the I AM. The "thing" that stays the same throughout your life.
@iamcosmic1993
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
People who believe that electricity moves in wires , may think that consciousness lives within us.
People who think that electricity is a flux around a wire ( that's why transformers work ) will be perfectly ok with the idea that consciousness is around us also
@crucifixgym
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I love how simply and clearly this man can explain the self evident.
@thedarkenigma3834
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Explain anesthesia, comas and fainting.
@Upuaut1967
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Consciousness at any level is about giving meaning/qualia to the things! That's what the consciousness do. Hence the confusion with "illusion" category. It is not that consciousness itself is an illusion, but the outcome of it – the world is illusion.
@oasill
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Beautiful description. There is an interesting mathematical distinction between a thing and a process. The set of things leads to the algebraic world limited by Gödels insights while the processes are described in a complementary world, the co-algebra, which in turn is limited by Turings insights. From this reasoning it is evident that life, and probably consciousness, are processes. We are not used to such beasts. Music is a pure process. Still now is a snapshot of all processes that are. Somehow the thought of the habits of nature and our physics understanding extracting laws of what nature usually does, is appealing. I am a process with only incomplete memory and this makes it hard to grasp it all. If our memory would be perfect, we would see a halfsphere of the 4D reality we might live in, but the memory is continuously changing… Therefore, thank you for this enlightening discussion.
@martinkennedy2400
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
…an extraordinary man
extraordinary mind
extraordinary
discussion
thanks
@bobaldo2339
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
"Consciousness" is a common, necessarily vague English word. And so it shall remain.
@alanbooth9217
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
i thought transcendental idealism
posits a noumenon butballows for phenomenal differences hence subjects can have different experiences
@alanbooth9217
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
one might imagine that a print out of brain activity is like a print out of the atmospheric conditions – temp pressure humidity etc and these measures might be able to be described in different terms as say a rainy day or a sunny day like wise a happy state of mind or a sad state of mind – some objectivity achieved but nothing is ever its symbolic representation
@timba3olf568
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
It's a shame Professor Tallis didn't bring his Carmen Sandiego hat to this interview.
@markkrawchuk5862
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Raymond Tallis Forever!💎⚡🥊🇬🇧
@peterjones6507
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Why not interview someone who has some expertise? It's pathetic that scientists don't have the balls or the curiosity to investigate mysticism even where they see the failure of all the alternatives. It's an academic scandal. Tallis is not an expert on this matter. He hasn't even studied all the available theories. Modern consciousness studies is a joke and a scam. They are so ignorant on this topic they cannot even falsify the explanation of consciousness given by the Buddha. Rarely do they even know what it is. So naive, and such limited scholarship.
@noreenquinn3844
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Very engaging conversation. Wonderful interviewer too.
@michaeldillon3113
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
The water of brain activity and wine of consciousness. Beautiful ✌️🕉️
@supplychainoperationsresearch
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Well, he at some point says that the brain is "for reasons that escape him" necessary for consciousness. I'd argue that this is a materialist position, which would make him a materialist.
@chrishowe8614
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
So basically, Tallis is intellectually honest enough to accept that materialism no longer holds up in light of quantum physics. Yet, he is still too traditional in his thinking to take the next step. So he stalls out at agnosticism.
@protonman8947
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Neural activity is not the same everywhere one looks in the brain. There is a rich diversity of neural excitability, synaptic mechanisms, local circuit and long distance interconnectivity, second messenger systems and coupling to gene expression. A "clinical neuroscientist" (as he once was), is primarily exposed to studies of EEG activity and evoked potentials, which are macroscopic epiphenomena far removed from underlying neural mechanisms. The statement that neural activity is insufficient to underlie consciousness is an unsupported supposition. One should be agnostic, but for better reasons, namely, that the issue of consciousness is a scientific question, in which a materialist viewpoint is not a dogma, but rather, the most plausible scientific hypothesis — and it is so for a plethora of compelling reasons. One reason is that the temporal granularity of our consciousness is essentially the same as the temporal granularity of neural information processing. One cannot experience the individual images presented at 30 frames per second in a video precisely because of the temporal limitations imposed by the time required for neural processing. The qualitative difference between the perception of blue vs. red color begins with different receptors, different information pathways, and ultimately the synthesis of different perceptions. How that synthesis occurs is the $64,000 dollar question. The fact that phenomena such as sound-to-color synesthesia (chromesthesia) have a genetic predisposition points clearly to a biological basis rooted in neural processing.
@myfilmpy
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
There is no Mind/Body problem! We create the Mind/Body problem by not identifying ourselves with the Mind or Body as cause of living!
It's the same as we can freely choose between a Free or Absolute will!
Identifying with Mind & Body is resulting in becoming aware of:
1- I create myself (Egofullness)
2- I let myself being created (Egolessness)
It's choosing between "living in the body" & "living in the spirit"!
When you become fully aware of seeing the Body or Mind as the cause of living and forming your consciousness, everything will become clear whatever you choose! Good Luck! 🤔❤
@schaolinkungfu
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
consciousness is fundamental and beyond space time
@ajithboralugoda8906
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
I propose consciousness emerges as a result of experience through sense organs! is an unborn infant Conscious!!! ?
@desertportal353
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
How is this not Smoke-and-Mirrors materialism? I do think it is. Thanks anyway Essentia.
@adamd585
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
Great conversation!
Doctor Raymond Tallis is a very good teacher.
His use of analogies and examples made understanding these tricky ideas much easier! 👍
@doc-bw4nb
April 25, 2024 at 6:42 pm
why does everyone who talks about consciousness never talk about astrology? Our brains are radios and astrology is the signal.