David Chalmers – Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?

30 thoughts on “David Chalmers – Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?”

1. David understands…

2. An all out category error. We've conceptualized ideas like consciousness to be things so we treat it as a noun. Consciousness isn't a noun, it's a verb meaning activity and processes. Consciousness is what the brain does. It isn't a thing that exists unto itself.

3. Consciousness does affect the brain… it sends out signals from the impulses it receives. So sad to see smart people bumping around in a rabbit hole

4. 12:30 actually many of the physicists who came up with quantum mechanics thought it plays a role in consciousness or thought there is a link between the two. Schrodinger, Bohm, Heisenberg, Pauli, Von Neumann just to name a few

5. If someone says consciousness is outside the brain , its called pseudo-science

6. Consciousness makes a difference to physics according to amateurs? God forbid!

7. τυπικῶς

8. Needs a hair cut and stop smoking that stuff…..

9. This idea is elaborated in Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's quantum theory of consciousness

10. Howdy.
    I see one challenge for materialism. It seems to me that materialism has a hard time to explain the thirst for spiritualism. Although I heed to materialism I recognize this diificulty.
    Regards.

11. third time watching. very engaging.

12. Conscienceness can never be comprehended by Science. Science is based on that which can be Heard, Felt, Seen, Tasted and Smelled. It is Consciousness that enables Hearing, Feeling, Seeing, Tasting and Smelling by the instrument called Brain. All this have been made known by the great thinkers of yore. Yet it is elusive and incomprehensive to all except those who delve deep within.

13. If you picture consciousness as described below (an enlarged materialism), you can integrate it with the rest of your mind:

    Sensory inputs and memories cause neurons to fire. Chemoelectric signals are generated in the synapses.
    It seems to me that consciousness manifests when a critical mass of neurons are generating chemoelectrical signals. As these electrical signals travel on the axons, electromagnetic waves are produced that radiate short distances. When multiple neurons fire simultaneously, a complex field is created by these intersecting EM waves.
    Feed back loops and resonances of some waves occurs and becomes regulated by an emergent  brain property, consciousness. Consciousness is the ability to focus and regulate these feed back loops.

14. Consciousness seems to be a by product of complexity. If conscious is an illusion it's an illusion we can all agree on.

15. LOL ooooooof

16. I used to lean toward epiphenomenalism but I increasingly find it unlikely (but not quite disproven).

    It requires that the non-conscious brain be able to generate discussions about consciousness, which make sense to other consciousnesses, but without having any access to consciousness itself.

    This just doesn't make sense.

17. I don't want to sound like an asshole or arrogant but this is pretty much my first objection to materialism out of hand.

    If materialism is true, then you don't actually think, as thought itself is an immaterial abstract "thing" that you would have to immediately deny. In fact the concept of information is abstract and immaterial. When you deal with so many immaterial things on a daily basis, it's laughable to say materialism is correct.

    It's like determinism. It says if you know the starting point of the universe, the. You should be able to accurately predict everything that follows. But this begs the question as it is unprovable, (And to do some would require a computer bigger than the universe itself). Furthermore, you SHOULD be able to predict something on a small basis with sufficient information but even this proves to be more of probability. Hume is correct in his assessments.

18. physically and mentally to keep things in reality as are natural require effort and workout that is to be an angel otherwise satan selfie ownself refuser not a serpent…

19. Fascinating approach to the nature of consciousness.

20. I still strugle to see the problem with the consciousness.
    There is a computer. It is hard to understand the code by looking at physical processes at its components. But it is theoretically poissible.

    Looks like I am not listening the specific part of the argument

21. It is possible in a funny scientific aspect.
    Materialism focuses on possession and status but to achieve these certain aspects are often stable for people to achieve this. It has a lot to do with culture, Intelligence, assertiveness, etc.
    Now the more conscious one is about his action the more one can improve in these areas – even newer scientific studies show that it is even possible for intelligence.
    Now more and more studies especially social studies gathering data show more and more connections. Which then can be used to guide one's action in certain situations or circumstances (job, relationship) in a certain way which in its aim is to increase one's happiness, health, and stability which in a way are nonmaterial possessions but still something on can build up for himself.
    This way consciousness doesn't exclude materialism and also not the other way around.

22. I dunno. No one wants unambiguous evidence of dualism more than I do. But all the consciousness that we know is tied to a material body. Consciousness appears to be the ability to postulate, consider, and intend, in the context of awareness of one's own continuity (awareness of one's own existence is very similar, but not exactly the same thing — awareness of "continuity" is mechanistic / functional, awareness of "existence" is philosophical / conceptual).

    All that exists is "now". The past no longer exists. The awareness of continuity is, by definition, a function of TIME. There can be no awareness of "time" without storing a representation of a past "now" — which can be be compared to a current "now" in order to develop the concept of "continuity" to begin with.

    There is no magical structure for memory — it is material hardware. Consciousness is the integration of time — and this requires a material structure to get there.

    Until someone produces unambiguous evidence of dualism — for instance, a property controlled remote-viewing test — then consciousness appears to be fully explainable as a synergy of non-conscious component parts.

23. Hylomorphism is the ticket, not materialism, dualism or idealism.

24. This sounds scripted for some reason

25. I'm wondering where I could find the rest of this interview? It appears to cut off in the middle

26. Everyone needs to look into Benardo Kastrup's Analytical Idealism Course from the Essentia Foundation's YouTube channel. He pretty much dismantles physicalism and shows how absurd it is.

27. This is proof that religious people and philosophers need to stay out of serious science. They would just spend all their efforts trying to prove mysterious forces govern the universe.

28. I love how it ends with a person who is educated in physics shouting out that others are ignorant just because you are studied in one subject does not mean that you know about another it’s hilarious how the ignorant can shut down others a fabulous ending words from educated physicist taking the place of the ignorant man in the dark ages

29. Yes

30. It doesn't matter what idea you subscribe to. It'll always be the blind belief in yet another concept in hopes that our endless quest for understanding will finally be complete. But understanding is not a finite path. It's an endless act of creating and fitting concepts into our systems of knowledge. While the very substrate of that system is the logic we use to create concepts. Logic being a single interpretation of the date we gather through our limited perception. Not only is that data thus totally limited and not absolute, but the system we use to structure that data into information and thus knowledge is in itself just one of perhaps infinitely many ways of interpretating that data. Had we invented a language with only verbs, we wouldn't exist as egos. Because the ego is a logical conclusion based on the fact that our language utilizes nouns and verbs. You always need something doing something. A me that experiences something.
    But that me that you think you are is just the blind belief in one of infinite ways to interpret the data we gather through our already limited perception. So really, any belief in knowledge is limiting you. And so there is no you outside of logic. And don't tell me logic is a God-given truth inherent in the universes code.
    Logic can only argue for itself to keep the cycle alive. If logic can't question itself and labels other interpretations of information as illogical, then it is making itself redundant as a means of finding truth.

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