The New Science of Consciousness: Bernardo Kastrup & Carlo Rovelli & Patricia Churchland

21 thoughts on “The New Science of Consciousness: Bernardo Kastrup & Carlo Rovelli & Patricia Churchland”

1. Carlo Roveli thinks the Hard Problem Of Conscious is exagerated, but everything weve ever known has been an experience held by conciousness, so, you cant get anymore absurd then that. What would be more important to figure out then the thing upon which everything else rests?? He wants to propose a metaphysical worldview outside of the only state of being weve ever known, mentation, so he gets even more absurd.

2. It’s such a slog trying to get the blinders of materialism off so that a real conversation can begin. Most of these talks are far too short to reach any interesting territory unfortunately.

3. Nobody has created a matter and a consciousness.

4. To understand consciousness one has to be awake him/her self. Or rather to put it more precisely, it is not a consequence of being awake, but the level of awakeness itself is the level of understanding of the consciousness, or to paraphrase, in order or know consciousness one needs to be conscious.
   And to clarify this a little, the above is not a logical statement, however most people will treat it as such, since most people are not awake, which means that they are looking at the world symbolically, the consciousness itself being a symbol inside the worldview.

5. When it comes to consciousness the paragons of materialism can't put two coherent sentences together.

   As well as not being able to explain any specific qualia materialist theories cannot explain the most important thing. Why do I seem to be a specific, individualized consciousness associated with a specific body while you seem to be a different specific, individualized consciousness associated with another body? Why am I, I and you, you? There were billions of bodies around before this one showed up so what changed that I should find myself to be looking out of the eyeballs of this particular body and no other? When it comes to understanding consciousness this is the most important question that must be asked and answered but it is rarely even acknowledged. When the ontologies purporting to explain consciousness are examined critically it becomes obvious that all materialist/reductionist strategies fail completely in attempting to address this question.

   What is the principled explanation for why:

   A brain over here would generate my specific consciousness and a brain over there would generate your specific consciousness?

   Integrated information over here would generate my specific consciousness and integrated information over there would generate your specific consciousness?

   Global workspace over here would generate my specific consciousness and global workspace there would generate your specific consciousness?

   Orchestrated quantum collapse in micro-tubules over here would generate my specific consciousness and orchestrated quantum collapse in micro-tubules over there would generate your specific consciousness?

   A clump of conscious atoms over here (panpsychism) would generate my specific consciousness and a clump of conscious over there would generate your specific consciousness?

   Materialism already fails since it cannot find a transfer function between microvolt level sparks in the brain and any experience or qualia. In addition it’s not possible for materialistic ontologies to address this question of individuality since no measurement can be made that could verify my consciousness vs your consciousness and therefore no materialist ontology could even make any coherent statements about the subject.

6. Horrible debate. You have Kastrup which has a deep understanding of the other ideas and two folks who have no idea what idealism even is. Just fast forward through everyone except Kastrup and maybe there is some value here.

7. Role model

8. Bernardo is the only one of three that seems to understand intuition
   ie consciousness. If I'm going to bet on the future, I bet on Bernie…

9. he dosent want to be alive after death ,thats you
   and seeing that you dont believe it in any case ,why the hang up after all its false right

10. Near the end when Carlo says he wishes there wasn't life after death, as a rhetorical devise to defeat Bernardo, but Bernardo also wishes there wasn't life after death, but for different reasons.
    Rovelli uses philosophical arguments in a pompous way, so confidently saying he isn't keen on immortality, to make out those who speak such things are too weak to look at the bleak facts, thus his ego is elevated in this school boy debate. But Bernardo Kastrup knows there isn't death and so he worries a little bit, because, like you and me, he has had nightmares. Bad dreams are there but he wake up. But when You leave that brain organ which reduces your ability to have nightmares, once you have left your safe anchor, then you may very well get stuck in that nightmare forever! This is what Bernardo fears.

11. Omg give me a break! Philosophy is such a waste of time, right? B.K. wins again. Every time. Obviously Robert has a built in prejudice against idealism…

12. Wow. Churchland is such a toxic, arrogant, rude and patronizing person. I had no idea.

13. There was an instance in the discussion (~27 minutes) when Bernardo cited 2 scientific papers/evidence (one by Proitti (sp?) et al and one by “Wigner’s friend” ) that he claimed definitively proves that no physical entity can ever have stand-alone absolute existence and thus could never serve to generate mental entities. Ergo “materialism is “baloney”!

    Rovelli’s responsed by saying to Bernardo, “I wish you were right, I’d be very happy if it were true, but I don’t think they show what you say”. Unfortunately, Bernardo wasn’t allowed to retort adequately…and Carlo didn’t elaborate on the basis of his disagreement.

    Later on, Churchland had a similar reaction to the study’s Bernardo cites showing brain activity decreases, rather than increases, during psychedelic experiences. Again, Bernardo unfortunately was not allowed to convincingly dismantle her disagreement as the show had to keep moving.

    As a non-expert fan, my gut leans toward Bernardo, but when renowned experts poo poo his evidence or interpretation, I can’t help but pause…who to believe!?

14. Carlo "Im going to answer this and answer it in the context of this conversation" gee Carlo, thanks for clarifying exactly what the participants and listeners would expect.

15. Pat needs to work on her lighting. Looks like shes in an interrogation room.

16. Quantitative VS qualitative,Rovelli says that science has all the tools to account for subjective experience and that neuroscience will understand ‘step by step’. Sorry Carlo but following Naomi Klein (this week in the Guardian) ‘are you allucinating?’.

17. Did I misunderstand?When Churchland was speaking about poking the brain of ‘non human primate’ in order to get data for understanding the brain and possibly consciousness, I felt true horror. I wanted to scream “leave those creatures alone”. Kastrup would never advocate for such experiments.

18. Awesome

19. 42:50 Kastrup uses a provocative analogy:

    “Consciousness is the involuntary wiggling of my left big toe. There you are, identity theory.”

20. Interesting. Two scientists asked their opinions about philosophical ideas they aren't really qualified to speak about. Then a philosopher who is qualified to speak on the this particular philosophical question but is disregarded because he is partnered with scientists who are materialists.

21. Unsurprisingly materialists sound like cartoonish idiots with no actual arguments – If your dog poops will you just ignore it if it's all mind 😂

Comments are closed.