Hey Vsauce, Does Anything Exist?

Let me try this British diet. Dr.

Pepper, Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar. It's

probably their newer formulation because there's also a Dr. Pepper uh Zero Sugar.

Wow.

Another wonderful British export. I got

to say this is different than Diet Dr. Pepper in the United States. Do you

think? I think that it's a more modern formula.

>> It's It's more syrupy. That was what they couldn't quite crack in the 80s.

How do you make a sugar-free drink taste like it's got that sugar thickness?

>> And how does that do?

>> That's got it.

>> Yeah. Are you sure it's not to do with the with the glass? Cuz you know how drinks taste different depending on what they're coming out.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Do you know why that is? Um,

I think it's probably a lot of things.

Not just the container, but um, how much carbonation they can put in, how much of the syrup they can put in based on different technologies, whether it's a can or a bottle. A fountain drink

is very different. It can be a lot more fizzy, >> but you can also crank the syrup up more than the manufacturer recommends.

>> But the recommended amount is what's in the canned and bottled versions.

>> Oh, really? I wonder how far away you have to get from that for it to no longer count as Dr. Pepper anymore.

>> I I do wonder legally what you got to >> because you bought the bag.

>> Yeah.

>> You bought the syrup. How much you mix in with the carbonated water is should be up to you. It's it's up to the consumer as well because you've seen in a fountain the beverages come out and you've got like a dark band and a light

band.

>> Yeah.

>> And that light that's that's both of them mixing. They mix more in the cup.

them mixing. They mix more in the cup.

But if you push your cup on that machine and then scoot to the side so the lighter beam just falls gets drained away. You're mainly getting syrup and

away. You're mainly getting syrup and you can get like super he call it heavy soft drinks.

>> Yeah. But you're putting a label on it.

You're saying this is Dr. Pepper.

>> Yes.

>> So if you on the back end crank up that syrup level above where Dr. Pepper would like to be, >> could you get in trouble? But who would you get in trouble with? Would you get

in trouble with the consumer who's expecting Dr. Pepper or with Dr. Pepper who sold you a project a product that you have to sell in a particular way?

You know, >> well you Yeah, you would you I mean depends how you define trouble. Yeah.

>> Like the consumer might say, "Oh, this is too thick."

>> But you could actually be liable monetarily to the Dr. Pepper bottling company. Yeah. Cuz if you're just like

company. Yeah. Cuz if you're just like selling the wrong thing, I mean, if it's not Dr. Pepper and it's being sold as Dr. Pepper, then presumably you can you can sue for your money back. But what

counts, >> right? Yeah. A customer could say, "I

>> right? Yeah. A customer could say, "I want my money back." Yeah. This machine

isn't working.

>> Yeah. But then I wonder if, you know, somebody who'd drunk a bunch of bottled Dr. Pepper could just have normal draft Dr. Pepper and go, you know, this doesn't taste the same. I want my money back too.

>> Yeah. This is myology. This is like his Dr. Pepper.

>> Um, it's recipe has changed a bunch over its history.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, you know, we're at the point where I I I fell down this rabbit hole for a while of trying to figure out how to make Coca-Cola flavor. Like, what is

that secret recipe? Is it nutmeg and vanilla and toasted orange or like what is it?

>> And I realized it's none of those. It is

a concoction of laboratory byproduct chemicals with names like oxyphenolene 7 and it happens to have like a cherry

note when consumed by a human. But it's

not cherries. It's not even based on cherries. It's just something that was

cherries. It's just something that was found. And that's their secret. M

found. And that's their secret. M

>> you can use equipment to analyze >> what the chemical components of something are. And if you put in

something are. And if you put in Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper, you don't get like the computer doesn't spit out, oh, it's got fresh cherries in it.

>> Um even a cherry >> won't register as containing cherry because cherry is a word we give to a incredibly complex suite of chemicals.

Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose ultimately those chemicals are themselves made up of smaller things such that if you had a truly accurate ingredient list for

Coca-Cola, it would just sort of say quarks, electrons, you know, mass.

>> That's right. Yeah. I saw a meme once that was like, "Okay, uh, here's what's in um apple fruit snacks." And the ingredient list has a million things

with hard to pronounce names, but here's what's in an apple. ingredients. Apple.

>> Yeah.

>> And then of course the retort was okay actually here's what's in an apple and it's like iron 3 and there's all these chemicals that make up the very complex organic structure that is an apple. And

then there was a third revision of the meme where someone just had fruit snacks and an apple and then underneath it they just had all the subatomic particles in the standard model and I was like that's it. They're the same.

it. They're the same.

>> Who is it that said if you want to make a sandwich you know you start with the universe. Is that Carl Sean? Yeah, Carl

universe. Is that Carl Sean? Yeah, Carl

Sean, like if you want to uh bake an apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe.

>> Yeah, somebody tried to do this once. I

forget who it was, but as like a project, they tried to make a sandwich from scratch, by which they mean like, you know, growing the bread, like

rearing a pig to get the bacon for the BL and doing everything necessary.

>> And I want to say it cost like $15,000 and took about two years or something, right? Yeah. And and so I suppose the

right? Yeah. And and so I suppose the question that's being driven at here and it's a good way in actually is kind of when does something count as a part of

something else? Like how far do we have

something else? Like how far do we have to dig down into something's parts before we're satisfied to say we know what makes it up? You know, like if you've got a table, I can say what's a table made out of? It's made out of a

surface and its legs. And you could then say, but what's the what are the legs made out of? Well, they made out of wood. Well, what's wood made out of? And

wood. Well, what's wood made out of? And

you can kind of keep on going, but it seems like that's a bit of an illegitimate approach. If I were to ask

illegitimate approach. If I were to ask you what this table's made out of, and you told me it's made out of electrons, you know, you Well, yeah. I mean, I would just say there's no table there.

There's a bunch of stuff.

>> And it's tableabling right now.

>> Yeah.

>> And it can table in a lot of different ways. I can remove one of its legs and

ways. I can remove one of its legs and it's still tableabling pretty well.

>> Yeah.

>> Um there are some things it's doing that are atypical for a table, like missing one of its legs. Um, but

once you start asking about what the table as a noun is made out of, you're overounting the universe.

>> You're saying, well, there's all this stuff and then there's also what they make up. So, there's all that stuff plus

make up. So, there's all that stuff plus one extra thing, their combined nounhood. And I say we can just reject

nounhood. And I say we can just reject that when we're being technical.

Obviously, I don't walk around going, "Oh man, I'm tired." And my friend's like, "Oh, sit down in that chair." And

I'm like, "What's that? There are no chairs." But um the only way to avoid a

chairs." But um the only way to avoid a lot of these clever little funny paradoxes like the ship of thesis, the sorties paradox, you just just you have to admit that look, it's a fiction.

We've cut the world up and we've added names of our own invention.

>> Yeah. I mean, it it seems like the solution is staring us in the face here.

Like you take something like the ship of Thesius. I read recently, I don't know

Thesius. I read recently, I don't know if this is true, but I read online that apparently the Wikipedia page for the ship of Thesus has had some, you know, 2

3,000 edits over its history. And that

there's no single sentence on the Wikipedia page for the ship of thesis that was in the original Wikipedia entry for the Ship of Thesius, which I thought was quite a nice touch. Yeah, it's a

nice touch and it's a great way to show what's really going on because if you said, "Well, you know, the ship of Thesius article today isn't the same as the one in 2007," I'd be like, "Of

course it's not. We know it's not. We It

has a different name." Yeah.

>> Because the page has an actual like revision name with a time stamp and everything.

>> Yeah.

>> But when it comes to a boat, it feels more like, well, boats can't just change. Mhm.

change. Mhm.

>> Mhm.

>> Um, so you see that the identity of something really depends on the context.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, from a really far away perspective, it's the same. It's the it's the Wikipedia

the same. It's the it's the Wikipedia page for the ship of Thesius.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Um, but you zoom in closer and you go, well, is that the the same boat? Well,

it's the boat that has been continuously registered to Michael Stevens. But if

you're asking me where's the original material the boat was made out of, that could be somewhere else.

>> Yeah. And it seems like the only non-arbitrary way to answer a question like, well, which is the ship of Thesus?

Is it the original planks that you've reconstructed or is it the one you're you end up with with all of the revisions? The only non-arbit answer to

revisions? The only non-arbit answer to that is that there is no such thing as the ship of Thesus. There's just matter that gets arranged in a particular way and we put labels on it. In other words,

it's whichever one you want.

>> Yeah. So, it's really it's much more legitimate to ask where is the stuff currently being labeled the ship of thesis or um where is the stuff that once was.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And the ship of Thesius. And that's when you have to

of Thesius. And that's when you have to get a bit technical and say, well, what do you mean when you say which is the ship of thesis? Cuz if you mean the matter that made up the ship of thesis, well, those will be subatomic particles

that are probably all over the universe by now. you know, they're sort of spread

by now. you know, they're sort of spread out all over the place, but I don't think that's functionally what you're interested in right now because you want to go to sea.

>> Yeah.

>> So, if you were asking if if the if the captain comes in and says, "Where's the ship of thesis?" You'd say, "It's over there, sir." You know, "Here's your

there, sir." You know, "Here's your here's your steering wheel."

>> Um or whatever they call them on boats.

Whereas, if you know, Zeno walked in and said, "Where's the ship of Thesus?" you'd say, >> "It's nowhere and everywhere."

>> A pseudo question.

>> Depends on the context, right? And it's

the same thing asking, "What is a table?" I mean, you made a video called

table?" I mean, you made a video called what is a chair >> or do chairs exist? Right?

>> And it's one of those sort of classic Vsource titles, right? The sort of like who even knows what that question could even be getting at.

>> Why would you even ask?

>> But this is the kind of thing you're getting at, right? And this is you use the word already myology, the study of parts, how parts relate to holes. Are

you then a myological nihilist in thinking that there are no real material objects? There's just stuff that we

objects? There's just stuff that we arrange. If that's what that means, then

arrange. If that's what that means, then yes, I don't remember all the isms andists that exist in ontology, but I believe that there is stuff, but I don't

believe that there are any nouns besides the vague noun stuff. Interesting. So

stuff for you is is like, you know, whatever's actually there. There's just

stuff like matter, particles, that kind of stuff. And when you put that together

of stuff. And when you put that together in an arrangement like into this chair >> or into this table >> that there's not actually some new thing called a table or a chair. It's just

essentially a label that we're putting on a on an organ >> and stuff does not mean matter >> because there are ways to put stuff together to make antimatter.

>> There's a way to put stuff together to make a dream.

>> Yeah. Right. Right.

>> Right. That's that does sound like some kind of nihilism, doesn't it? So maybe

it is myological nihilism. Um well I I really like uh I

nihilism. Um well I I really like uh I forget the guy's name. Big uh author in the field um who I think his whole thing he called it

organicism.

>> Peter Van Wagen.

>> Yes. Okay. So his whole thing was that and I could not put my finger on why he believed this. Mhm.

believed this. Mhm.

>> I read his book over and over again, but he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely." Uh, there's only stuff

definitely." Uh, there's only stuff except if it's alive, then it's a brand new thing.

>> Mhm.

>> And it almost felt like he it just seemed like life, living things were a bit magical, >> but he couldn't really define when life began or not. Is a tornado alive? Yeah.

It's always exchanging matter with with its surroundings >> and it's moving, but it also maintains its shape.

>> A whirlpool is is an even better example. Like it maintains its position

example. Like it maintains its position and shape, but it's made out of something different every second, but it's not alive. What about a flame?

>> Is a flame alive?

>> And I think he came to a point where he was like, I don't know, but whatever counts as alive is a thing.

>> Yeah. on above and beyond the stuff that it's made out of. And the reason I like that is that it can be summed up so

hilariously as the belief that people exist, but they don't wear clothes.

Yeah. Yeah. Because clothes just being a material object are not actually existing things. They're just matter or

existing things. They're just matter or stuff arranged clotheswise is the language that the people use. I mean, we could break this down for a moment cuz we're sort of in the deep end here a

little bit.

>> Like, there is this question of, you know, if a table is made up of its top and its legs, why do we consider those put together as one object, but this glass of water that's on top of the table, we consider it a separate object?

Well, maybe, oh, I can lift it up like that.

>> Yeah, >> but I could I could, you know, unscrew the legs and lift the top off as well.

And you gave the example of a bikini in your video. That's one thing, but

your video. That's one thing, but they're they don't touch each other. And

is it like if I put the top half of a bikini in a car and made it sort of start driving away, is there a point at which it's far enough away that we can't meaningfully say it's one bikini anymore?

>> Seems like it's kind of just up to us.

>> Yeah, it is. It's an art. It's not a science.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> Um >> you know, my favorite way of of explaining that idea is to say, does the left hand side of this table exist?

>> Yeah. Right. cuz like yes it does but clearly its distinction as a as a thing >> is dependent on our minds >> where and where you're standing the left side to me is different than what you

would call the left side >> and yeah the bikini is a really fun example to think about because um one thing that ties the two parts of a bikini together is that they match >> right

>> but they don't have to you can wear a different mismatched bottom and top >> however I still think like the folk philosophy, the the folk philosopher

would say, "Well, but that's not the same bikini. You've you've you've taken

same bikini. You've you've you've taken two different bikini parts and put them together. So then all it takes is for a

together. So then all it takes is for a fashion designer to design a bikini that doesn't match.

>> Mhm.

>> There is no missing half, two missing halves somewhere. That's just it. That's

halves somewhere. That's just it. That's

how it's sold. Now it is one bikini.

>> And >> in order for it to be one bikini, we're having to rely on the intentions of an artist. And that's what this all comes

artist. And that's what this all comes down to. It's just what's the context

down to. It's just what's the context and what what's relevant and who's asking.

>> Yeah. I kind of want to ask like if you had two bikinis and you took the top half of one and the bottom half of the other and you wore that. How many

bikinis are you wearing? I guess you want to say I'm kind of wearing two halves. So maybe I'm wearing one in

halves. So maybe I'm wearing one in total. But it's not the same thing as

total. But it's not the same thing as wearing just one bikini.

>> 1/2 plus 1/2 doesn't equal one.

>> Yeah. It's a bit weird, right? It's

weird to think about, but okay, here's my suggestion, right? So, Peter

Vaninwagen >> says there's something about life that seems special. And if we try to define

seems special. And if we try to define what life is, we might say that like it seems to be made up of stuff which like acts towards an end. Like all of the

parts of my body, broadly speaking, are involved in, you know, keeping me alive and and, you know, causing me to promulgate genes. All of the parts of a

promulgate genes. All of the parts of a tree seem to tend towards its sort of preservation.

A table kind of only does that artificially. It's not naturally, right?

artificially. It's not naturally, right?

Like I have made it so that this leg and this tabletop the whole sort of all move towards this end of holding up a holding up a glass. And so the table only exists

as a sort of artificial version of this.

But where that exists in nature like parts that act towards a unified end that's what gives us means to say that it's it's one thing something like that maybe.

>> Sure. Okay. I mean I'm following that but I don't agree because you still need to figure out where you draw the line.

>> Yeah.

>> Does a crystal have an end?

>> Like if you break the crystal and put it in the right solute, it forms again.

>> Is it alive?

>> Yeah. Um, a plumb bob always hangs down.

>> Yeah.

>> It's always pointing down. It has a purpose. I just don't think we should

purpose. I just don't think we should use an ideological approach to define a thing because what its purpose is >> depends on who's using it.

>> Mhm.

>> Um, a a beautiful silver knife from from, you know, some antique piece. Its purpose is

to be beautiful. It's maybe not to eat with. No, no, you can't eat with it.

with. No, no, you can't eat with it.

That's too special. But if I'm in an emergency situation and I'm locked in a burning room and I can't get the door open, it's a way to open the door is what it is. That's its purpose right now.

>> Yeah, it does seem to me that the way we define objects is functionally.

>> You know, this is a table because of what it does for us and that that is kind of how we how we tend to navigate the world. And that might be why despite

the world. And that might be why despite the fact that in reality we've just got a bunch of input data, there's lights and sounds and and all kinds of vibrations in the air that are all sort

of coming into my brain. Why is it that my brain divies things up? Why is it that my brain sees this as a cup and this is a table and you as a person and this is a mic stand? Maybe it's because

it serves the function. It means we can use it. We can do stuff with it and it

use it. We can do stuff with it and it helps us to survive and that's the reason why we divvy things up. Yeah, I I I completely agree and I'm I don't I'm not convinced that's the right answer or

the correct answer, but I think that I'm gonna always be biased towards well it's just natural selection.

>> Yeah, >> there was a survival benefit to not going around saying look at all this stuff. It it's important and it's way

stuff. It it's important and it's way more easy for us to just nifify all the properties that are relevant to us and say look >> it's just a chair that's so much easier.

And when someone goes, "Well, is a horse a chair? You can sit on it. It's got

a chair? You can sit on it. It's got

four legs." They go, "Look, dude."

>> We call it a horse instead of chair for a reason because we've packed up an enormous amount of meaning in this one word. Yeah.

word. Yeah.

>> Where by meaning I mean everything that we're not saying. When I say horse, I'm not saying a living organism that evolved on Earth that eats this and that kind of diet with this kind of physiology. I'm just saying the word

physiology. I'm just saying the word horse. And yet you know exactly what I'm

horse. And yet you know exactly what I'm talking about.

That's what we evolved to do. That's how

we that's our niche.

>> Like we don't have big claws and we don't have a hump on our back to store a lot of fat. The thing that we do is we create meaning >> and we share that meaning. It allows us

to cooperate. It allows us to use our

to cooperate. It allows us to use our minds to survive. And it's been quite successful. Humans can live anywhere on

successful. Humans can live anywhere on Earth, but a parrot can't. We'll get

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with that said, back to Michael. It does

make me think about how much philosophers are just kind of over complicating. I mean, you I don't know

complicating. I mean, you I don't know which discipline you consider yourself most aligned with. You you've just launched a new show.

>> Uh the rest is science. Congratulations,

by the way. I think that's extremely exciting. And you'll do a whole episode

exciting. And you'll do a whole episode on talking about chairs and myology and that kind of stuff.

>> But like, you know, a lot of what we're talking about here seems to sort of land us in the realm of philosophy. And a lot of the time you have scientists who come along and say that you know atoms behave in this way and laws of physics are this

way and the and the philosopher comes along and says ah but you know have you thought about technically couldn't this be this and couldn't that be that and you kind of just want to say look mate go go go and do that on your own in a

room if you're interested but it's not very functional here you know do you think that's going on a lot of the time with these kinds of questions? Are we just sort of sitting around doing something that's totally useless and getting in

the way of functional behavior?

>> Yeah. Well, that's the point. It's

supposed to get in the way.

>> Yeah.

>> Like a philosopher's job is to not find answers, but to find questions.

>> And sometimes it is so stupid.

>> It's so uh irrelevant to anything.

>> But they got to keep doing it because we need more questions.

>> Mhm. Mhm. we actually need answers less than we think. And so the philosopher is a professional question asker.

>> Um but yeah, that does mean that you don't need much to do philosophy. I'm

reminded of this joke. See if I can tell it where um >> Okay. Yeah. Right. So the the dean of

>> Okay. Yeah. Right. So the the dean of the university is speaking to the head of the engineering department and he says, "Look, we got to talk about how much your department spends. Your budget

is way too high. Like, why can't you be more like the math department?

>> All they need are pencils, paper, and waste paper baskets. Actually, no. Why

can't you be like the philosophy department? All they need are pencils

department? All they need are pencils and paper.

>> Like, nothing's a bad idea. Yeah.

There's Yeah. It's all It's fine. It's

all philosophy, but that's its job.

>> Yeah. Yeah. One one of the perhaps competitors for least helpful contributions in the history of philosophy might be this idea about myology which you also discussed in that

video which is known as myological universalism. It's like the opposite of

universalism. It's like the opposite of the nihilistic approach cuz some people look at this problem and they go like yeah I mean I do want to say that when I put a leg and a tabletop together I get a new object called a table. Yeah when I

put a when I put a a bulb on a stand I get a new thing called a lamp. And

someone says, "Well, why isn't the table in this cup also an object?"

>> Yeah.

>> And they go, "Huh, yeah, I guess it is."

>> Okay. So, why isn't this table and the minute hand of Big Ben on the southern face a new object? And they go, >> "It is.

>> It is." And so, you get this position that every single possible >> arrangement of of objects is its own >> new object. It's its own new thing. And

when I'm sat in a philosophy classroom and I hear somebody talking about a view like that, I do start to wonder if even if the cost really is just pencils and

paper, if we're sort of if we're sort of wasting our time a little bit here.

>> Uh well, I I certainly don't think so because um I find it really uh really fun.

>> Yeah. And as a member of a species whose niche is finding meaning, >> it can be found for its own sake. That

said, I think that there there's like a therapeutic benefit to myology to asking, but like what are you?

>> Are you the sum of your parts? Are you

the culmination of your past? Or are you something else?

>> You can almost be whatever you you become. Um, I don't think it's

become. Um, I don't think it's necessarily helpful to explain whether a spoon exists or not, but a person.

>> Mhm.

>> Um, how many of me have there been? Is

there just this one that's changing or is every moment a new me?

>> Um, I don't know. But sometimes I choose one or the other to understand myself. Yeah.

Yeah, cuz there's a sense in which if you were speaking to like a medical doctor, you might say that 5-year-old who existed all those

years ago, that's the same person as me.

As if to say like, oh yeah, I've had a I've had a chronic illness and yeah, when I was 10. And so, am I the same person I was when I was 10? Yeah, of

course I was. But there's another context in which in terms of who you are as a person morally and your relationships with people, you might want to say, "I'm a completely different person to who I was when I was 10." And

I most people sort of have to pick one or the other. It's like, well, what do you really think is the truth of the matter? Are you or are you not the same

matter? Are you or are you not the same person you were when you were 10? Are

you saying that you kind of just choose which answer to to give depending on the context?

>> Yeah, just depending on what makes me feel better. That's that's what we do.

feel better. That's that's what we do.

Yeah, you know that and and maybe there will come a day where let's imagine that we answer this question.

>> We figure out exactly what defines composition. We define exactly what

composition. We define exactly what things are and aren't and what a person is and what consciousness is.

>> At that point, we cease to be humans.

We're some new species that has those answers and doesn't live in the void of not knowing them.

>> Mhm. M do you have like a a hunch about I mean the question of personal identity through time is a big one but say like right now right like a sort of classic

thought in philosophy might be that if I were to cut off your hand you'd still be there we could still have this conversation you might be in a bit of pain but I'm sure we could manage. Um

similarly it feels like I could sort of just just get rid of the lower half of your body. It feels like I could I could

your body. It feels like I could I could shave off your beard and and well, maybe you wouldn't be you in an important sense, but in a literal sense, you would be. So maybe it's something to do with

be. So maybe it's something to do with the brain, but then again, as you've pointed out in videos as well, you can sort of cut a brain in half and and you still sort of get a a conscious agent.

Like, do you have a hunch as to what you are?

Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about maximal amputation.

How amputated can I be and still be me?

>> Mhm.

>> At what point do you cut away a brain cell and it's like, "Oh crap, he's gone."

gone." >> Well, I I my my favorite way to approach it is to do like folk philosophy. Just

what would a person say? You look at how we talk about these things because in a way we actually have solved them.

>> We just don't know that we have or I shouldn't say solved. We have found a way to cope with that question. Because

if I'm trying to think where to begin, I'll just say this. If you're like asleep in the other room and someone says, "Hey, where is he?" I'm like, "He's in there."

Okay. But you're not consciously aware while you're asleep.

>> Mhm.

>> But if you die, you're gone. You left us. You passed.

you're gone. You left us. You passed.

Mhm.

>> But being asleep and being dead are kind of similar in some ways in terms of like, hey, is he like listening to us right now? Is he like capable of doing

right now? Is he like capable of doing things? Um, the sleep and death thing,

things? Um, the sleep and death thing, >> yeah, >> encourages me to believe that it's not so much about a set of properties, it's about a set of potentialities.

>> When you're asleep, you can still do some stuff later, but when you're dead, you can't. Mhm.

you can't. Mhm.

>> And that I think deep inside us is why we think of death as being you being gone.

>> I was reading some surveys from doctors about like when does a family accept that they have lost a loved one.

>> Mhm. And it's not when brain damage occurs, it's when the heart stops. M

>> and I thought that was is that just an old traditional kind of belief that well the heart is life and the brain is just >> like cools the blood. I don't know if anyone from Aristotleian times is still

around. But what I'm saying is deep

around. But what I'm saying is deep inside of us we think of the heart as being once the heart's gone it's over.

>> Mhm.

>> What do you mean the brain death? Well

well then you know they're still alive.

We can keep them alive with feeding tubes and stuff.

>> Yeah. And I think that it comes back to the fact that your brain can change significantly.

>> You can have brain damage and never walk again, but you're still you. But if your heart stops, there's no potential for you to do anything again, even in a different way like you would if you lost

part of your brain.

>> Yeah. I mean, like losing memory seems like a really important example here.

Like >> somebody who can't remember what happened to them yesterday or or 5 minutes ago. There's this guy called

minutes ago. There's this guy called Clive something who has a 7-second memory. He was a orchestral conductor

memory. He was a orchestral conductor and he had some kind of some kind of medical thing. It wasn't an accident. It

medical thing. It wasn't an accident. It

was like a virus or something that >> caused him to lose his memory every 7 seconds, >> right?

>> And so you would sit down with him and you'd say, you know, what what's going on? Like how how you doing? And he'll be

on? Like how how you doing? And he'll be like, you're the first person I've seen in in 30 years.

>> Yeah. And he kept a diary where every day he wrote, "I'm alive for the first time." And then he'd cross it out and

time." And then he'd cross it out and go, "No, no, now I'm alive. That wasn't

the real one." And he would he would tick off the correct ones. And then he'd go back through and he'd cross off the And there is a sense in which you want to say even without that psychological continuity. You could take out that part

continuity. You could take out that part of the brain entirely. There's still a person who's unified across that time.

>> And others would think of it as being a continuous person. Like you kept calling

continuous person. Like you kept calling him he, not them or they. And you also named him Clive, like he's got a name, a single name.

>> Um, so that's why I kind of just lean on your identity is linked to everything that you could do.

>> Yeah.

>> And after all, that is what leaves when you die.

>> Yeah.

>> When you die, you will never do anything that you could have done but didn't.

>> Yeah. You know a really interesting question to me which I think I have not thoroughly explored enough is the link between these two things myology we were talking about before and then this

question of of personhood and whether you can have a sort of similar philosophy of both. I mean we said like there isn't really this thing called a table. We just sort of decide when to

table. We just sort of decide when to call it a table and how much of it we'd have to take away until it's no longer a table. We're doing the same kind of

table. We're doing the same kind of thing with with people. Like you've kind of just got you can take away this and you can take away that and whether they're alive or dead or still the same person kind of just depends on your

context and function.

>> Yeah. Right. Like there's the whole like would you love me if I was a worm?

>> Yeah.

>> That question is actually pretty deep because well what do you mean if you were a worm?

>> Yeah. And I think that the average person means if my conscious experience was inside the body of a worm. They just

mean my body changed because they don't think of the body as being them. They

can lose an arm. They can gain weight or lose weight and they're still them. They

can be a worm and it's still them. The

thing that isn't changing is the internal world. And so that's why I

internal world. And so that's why I think that's like one of the best ways to define what consciousness is. When

you get into a discussion and a lot of times people are talking past each other. Some are talking about awareness.

other. Some are talking about awareness.

Some are talking about interiority. I

just say, look, consciousness is the thing that doesn't change for Phil in Groundhog's Day.

>> Mhm.

>> Every morning he wakes up and and everything's changed back to the way it was on, you know, 6:00 a.m. Groundhog's

Day.

>> Yeah.

>> But he remembers >> Yeah.

>> that thing that's not changing. His

wounds go away. But the thing inside, that's what we're trying to get at when we're talking about if you were a worm, what is what part of the worm is you?

It's that stuff. It's that mental interiority. I have a question then,

interiority. I have a question then, right? Like if we can conceive of my

right? Like if we can conceive of my consciousness inside of a worm. A lot of people who are like materialists about the world think that consciousness is just this thing that the brain does.

That conscious experiences are just the same thing as brain activity. If that

were the case, then surely in order to put your consciousness into a worm, you'd need to literally take your sort of big human brain and put it inside of a worm. If we can imagine taking your

a worm. If we can imagine taking your consciousness and fitting it inside of a worm, like taking it out of your brain and putting it into the worm brain, does that tell us that at least the way we

we're thinking about it conceptually that consciousness is not tied to the brain in that materialistic way? Or

would it be that in order to have a worm with your consciousness, you'd need a worm with Michael Steven's brain literally inside of it?

>> I don't know. I mean, I I believe but cannot prove that it could be my consciousness could be replicated in a computer or with some much more space efficient system that could fit inside

of a worm. But when I say my consciousness, I kind of just mean a thing that believes it is alive, believes it has conscious will, and also thinks that it is the continuation of my experiences. Yeah,

experiences. Yeah, >> I don't know if you could like build a machine that would just suddenly copy my brain and

put it into this little special worm brain so that I like basically died.

>> And this worm went, "Oh my gosh, I don't have any arms. I'm Michael though."

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> I don't know what >> is there is there like a a soul of mind that continues on and is like, "Ah, I'm dead. I'm the thing in the worm is an

dead. I'm the thing in the worm is an impostor. I don't know. We'll have to

impostor. I don't know. We'll have to just do that experiment.

>> Well, here's a question just to get an idea of your intuition here. Suppose

that there's you and there's like your greatest enemy. I don't know who that

greatest enemy. I don't know who that is. They shall remain nameless. But you

is. They shall remain nameless. But you

need to want bad stuff to happen to them and you want good stuff to happen to you. And I'm some sort of evil crazy

you. And I'm some sort of evil crazy doctor. And I say, "Here's what I'm

doctor. And I say, "Here's what I'm going to do, Michael. I'm going to I'm going to put you into an operation. I'm

going to put you on a on a table and you're going to go unconscious. I'm

going to take all of your memories, all of your conscious experience, and I'm going to move it over to his brain, and I'm going to take all of his, and I'm going to move it over to yours. So, when

you wake up, you'll wake up with all of his memories. You'll look down at your

his memories. You'll look down at your hands, and you'll go, "Gosh, just 5 minutes ago, I remember being him."

>> Mhm.

>> And vice versa. Now, before I do this operation, I'm going to tell you that one of these after the operation, I'm going to torture.

>> Who do you want me to torture?

Uh, not the body I'm inhabiting. So,

you'd want me to torture the other guy's body because he'll wake up with your memories. Hold on. Wait.

He'll So, he'll wake up. He'll wake up.

>> When does the torture happen?

>> Afterwards.

>> After the after the switch. Right.

>> So, what I've swapped is >> is all of the memories and all of the sort of continuous experience, but none of the physical matter, >> right?

>> Just literally sort of as if I can go in as if it's a computer and and and tap tap tap and get rid of your memories and put his memories into you. You know who do you want me to torture?

>> I want you to torture my body containing his experience.

>> Yeah, that's interesting because now if if everything about you physically stays the same, everything physical that makes you up stays the same. And yet you say, "Well, I'd rather that this physical

self be tortured because I'm going to be over there." Yeah.

over there." Yeah.

>> of the mind or the self because all of the material is still the same but you are not identifying yourself with it anymore you know.

>> Yeah. It makes me really question like the emotion of revenge because if you made a clone of my worst enemy >> Yeah. Um and then you said, "Well, you

>> Yeah. Um and then you said, "Well, you can torture the clone we just made." It

wouldn't give me the same pleasure >> even if it had all the same memories and everything really.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and it's hard to pinpoint why. But

then it makes me question why do I why would I even enjoy torturing >> my worst enemy if they hadn't been cloned >> because they also change over time. In

one second they will be a clone of who they were a second ago. But I get more pleasure out of their suffering than like, "Hey, we made a thousand clones of them that all think that they're the

real one. You can pick one to beat up."

real one. You can pick one to beat up."

I'd be like, >> "That just doesn't feel fun anymore."

Yeah. Anymore. Yeah. It's like maybe maybe it's because all the other clones are not getting the punishment that they deserve.

>> Yeah, that would be an interesting scenario. But I know what you mean. Like

scenario. But I know what you mean. Like

it doesn't feel satisfying. I this came up once in a video I was doing where someone suggested something like, you know, making a perfect clone of Hitler and sort of punishing him for World War

II and and whether that would satisfy our sense of justice. Would we feel that justice had been done >> because we've got this figure who wakes up and goes, "Yeah, it's me. I remember

doing that. Yeah, this was this was me.

I I did it last week." And we punish them for it. Would we be would we be satisfied?

>> So, it wouldn't feel very satisfying.

>> Yeah. But it should in a way because that person who is being punished thinks that they really are Hitler.

>> Yeah. Right. So someone who did what he did is experiencing the consequences.

>> Mhm.

>> And yet it doesn't change what happened.

So you you're missing that piece.

>> Yeah.

>> Um cuz also there's a reverse question here. If we want to say, well, he didn't

here. If we want to say, well, he didn't do it, but as long as he thinks he did it, that's a good reason to punish him.

M >> does that mean that if someone does commit a crime and then they forget about it and they genuinely don't think that they did it, do we now not punish them? Because the thing that matters is

them? Because the thing that matters is that you know whether or not they think they did it.

>> Yeah, I know. I know. Um

>> so all you got to do is wipe your memory and you can get away with any crime.

>> Yeah. Right. So that the only way I can kind of feel about it is that maybe we should make punishment less uh

cruel. Like, okay, look, you did it. You

cruel. Like, okay, look, you did it. You

don't remember that you did.

>> Yeah.

>> Um or you didn't do it, but you really think you did. Let's just Okay. And the

first the first example is better. You

did it, but you don't remember that you did it. Or you did it, but you're

did it. Or you did it, but you're actually a clone of the consciousness of the real bunch of matter that did it. I

just think we still we need to separate them from society, but make sure that they're happy.

Don't execute them or punish them, but just because we want everyone to be safe, we're going to put you guys on the clone planet.

>> Yeah. Becomes purely preventative.

>> It's just preventative.

>> Yeah.

>> But we want it to remain like fair.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I was thinking a second ago, we mentioned Peter Vaninwagen who has this sort of weird and wacky view about life being unified. There's this sort of

being unified. There's this sort of argument that derives from his work about consciousness and about the immateriality of consciousness because you know this this view of murology that

you have that there's no such real thing as a chair. There's just stuff. Yeah.

>> And it's arranged chairwise and we've put a label on it. But there's no real distinction between a chair and the table and it's all just stuff that we've just arranged.

>> And wagon has this thought of like well okay here's our first premise then.

There are no real distinctions between material objects. There are no distinct

material objects. There are no distinct material objects that exist. Premise

two minds are distinct. My mind is distinct from

are distinct. My mind is distinct from your mind. Your mind is distinct from my

your mind. Your mind is distinct from my mind. Conclusion, if there are no

mind. Conclusion, if there are no distinction between material objects, but minds are distinct, then minds are not material.

Wait, why is there no distinction between material objects? Because for

this view of mology, it's like you don't actually have a chair and a table here.

You've just got a bunch of atoms. Yeah.

Or fundamental stuff as you like to put it. And we've just sort of put a label

it. And we've just sort of put a label on that and put a label on this. But

it's it's all just one big soup of stuff, right? That we're just

stuff, right? That we're just >> Well, yeah, but there's it's different stuff.

>> The stuff >> here that you're sitting on is different than this stuff. And the properties they're exhibiting are different.

different colors, different hardnesses.

Like >> so I guess that would be my response, but it does sound like a pretty clever little funny way of going about this.

I've just proved that the mind is immaterial with two with two little sentences.

>> Yeah, two two relatively controversial sentences, but that once you've sort of got on that bandwagon, it becomes an interesting I think that's might be part of his thought because you were saying earlier it's a bit of a a weird view. I

think there is this element to which we can look at like you know is that a part of that and is this one object or many objects there is a sense in which we feel unified there's a sense in which I

feel like I am a person and so there's an intuitive force to saying that well >> life like me there is some real unity going on there

>> yes yes um and I think that you feel that way and I feel that way about myself not because it's correct but because it has an enormous survival advantage I The story of human evolution

is among many other things the story of us becoming more and more sovereign and identified with something very specific.

So even it's not just this is me and and and my body but also my will like that thing that I just did I decide to do

that or not? Uh, does a cat or a lobster make conscious decisions and then like regret them and explain itself and and and feel a certain like self

authorization for what it does? I think

that's something that came even later in hum the human history than you might think.

>> Do you what do you think about conscious choice and decision-m? I mean, you you've probably been asked before, but do you think that there is such a thing as free will? Uh,

that's a very good question for me to answer after I go to the bathroom. I'm

sorry. The the the Dr. Pepper >> cut to the Dr. Pepper commercial.

>> No, what was it? Zero is just going right through me. I'll be right back.

>> We're back. We're back. I'm back. Do I

believe in free will? Uh, I don't know uh what I will eventually decide. I

think today, if you asked me today, which you did, I would say I don't think so.

>> I really don't think that we do. But

because we're all so ignorant, we get to pretend that we do. And it's it's really incredible >> that I can say, "Golly, I'm responsible for things." There's something called I

for things." There's something called I that that has authority over this body and is responsible for what it does. And

I think though that really it's a fiction that was created um in order to make our species more uh fit to survive

on this planet um in the niche that we had to take on in order to to continue.

I think that um we have an enormously intelligent non-concious brain that decides how we feel about things and decides what we should do.

>> Mhm.

>> And we listen to that. Who who's we how can I listen to it? Isn't it me?

>> Mhm. Well, we developed a feeling of a separation between the non-concious instinctive responses to stuff

and the agent that does it. Um, I think that it just helped us as life became more and more complex.

I'm sure you're familiar with the bicamal mind theory.

>> Uh, Julie James. No, I don't think so.

>> Well, I I'm I'm currently really deep into this. Um,

into this. Um, >> you should get uh Brian McVey on your podcast.

>> I've listened to like everything that he's ever said and his books are really fascinating, too. In a in a nutshell,

fascinating, too. In a in a nutshell, the bicameal mind theory, >> it's most its most bold claim is that humans did not have consciousness in the

sense of like they I I am self-aware inside my head. Yeah. until about like a thousand BC.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

>> So what did they have?

>> They had voices in their heads.

>> And those voices told them what to do.

If you look at the Iliad, no one decides to do anything in that book.

>> It's always Athena then filled me with the courage to fight or and then the fates of hunger made me eat. There's

absolutely no like well you know uh the soldier started to feel like maybe he should call his mom because he missed her and >> interesting. But then

>> interesting. But then >> go forward to the Odyssey and now we've got fullyfledged people with opinions

and desires and it can't be well this whole way of thinking starts to explain why dreams appeared to be

different in prehistory and even early history. I'm so glad you said that.

history. I'm so glad you said that.

>> Why people reported hearing voices all the time, right? The Bible, I think the

time, right? The Bible, I think the Bible is very much the story of humans becoming conscious.

>> It began with, "Oh yeah, God's like walking around with us all the time and and telling me to build an ark and then it becomes, oh,

um, where'd he go?"

That's so tell tell me about the dreams thing. Dreams changed. So dreams we we

thing. Dreams changed. So dreams we we read in in very old literature dreams are almost always like oh I'm I an angel

came to me in my bed where I happen to be sleeping. Um dreams are are are never

be sleeping. Um dreams are are are never described as oh well so okay it was really weird like there was a horse but it was like my mom and we were on the

beach. No the dreams are almost entirely

beach. No the dreams are almost entirely in the oldest literature we have. I fell

asleep in the barn and then a spirit spoke to me or something there in the barn.

>> Yeah. It's like it's it's it's very sort of direct and communicative. It's not

like imagistic and narrative.

>> That's right. And um I just got a book about consciousness as as being explained through the dreams of children and I haven't read it yet, but I'm so

excited because children's dreams also change over time as they become encultured into our world where you have will and you are an individual sovereign

person locked inside your head. And that

changes how they >> maybe experience dreams, but I think definitely it changes how they report dreams, what they think happened while they were asleep. The reason why this

will sound immediately suspicious is because like biological evolution doesn't work that quickly. So if dreams and our sense

that quickly. So if dreams and our sense of like consciousness and all of that like changed that quickly, it kind of been like a evolutionary adaptation or something to do with the brain. So what

what changes?

>> It was cultural, right?

>> It was about uh how you were raised. It

was about um how your parents like interacted with you. I I I think that >> it's hard to do experiments like this like oh hey let's let's take some

newborn babies and like uh what never speak to them. You just like I do have an idea for a movie that I call motherland where some scientists do this. They take newborn babies and they

this. They take newborn babies and they put them into this room that is just a soft, warm room where there's like spets where they can slurp the nutrients they

need and it can it can embrace them and hug them like the floor can move.

>> And they're raised there as babies. They

can never get hurt. They get everything they need, but they never see an adult.

They are never exposed to any culture.

>> Mhm.

>> And the experiment is what do they wind up believing?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Do they wind up going, "Oh, I think therefore I am or what?"

>> Yeah. Yeah.

So dreams, you said children's dreams also change over time. Yeah. And so that would give us an indication that >> I mean I guess you could say it's cultural like it's not like cultural

shift on a societal level, but as some kind of cultural view gets put into a into a person. Yeah. the way that they consciously interact with the world is adapted.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And the the way the world pushes and pulls them uh causes certain parts of them to emerge and it causes them to think about themselves and what it is to be conscious, what they're

actually experiencing in their own minds. I think that's something that we

minds. I think that's something that we learn.

>> Yeah.

>> And I I think that and I cannot say too much about it because I don't know enough yet, but I've got this whole stack of books. I think that interiority which is really what I'm talking about

because I know consciousness can mean a lot of things. I'm talking about feeling that you are in your own head um trapped and all alone. Okay. I think that has

risen and fallen through time. I think

that in the uh after the fall of Rome individuality went back down for a long time until the Renaissance. And this

isn't just like oh I thought of this.

This is something that uh Brian McVey has talked about. I don't know if it's true or not. I do think, however, that the work that he and Julian James and

many others have done has allowed us to talk about and investigate consciousness in really fruitful ways, even if they're completely wrong.

>> Mhm.

>> Uh slight tangent. It's just you said there, you know, I don't know if this is true, but I think it's interesting. And

I suppose so much of the essence of who you are and what you do is to raise some interesting questions. at the end of a

interesting questions. at the end of a vsource video or something you might go and you know who knows like thanks for watching like go and think about it have

you approached one of these topics one of these big top you consciousness and myology and all the stuff that you talk about and ever come away being like actually you know what I've read the books I heard this person's opinion and

I think I think that's right like you know you do a video about free will and you come away from it going like yeah no it doesn't exist or you know if you'd have done a video about consciousness and come away being like, "Yep, integrated information theory, that's

that's the one." Has that ever happened?

Or is it always this sort of open-ended, you know, who knows?

>> Yeah. Well, it needs to stay open.

Again, that's the job of philosophy. But

I definitely think that I've taken a question like, "Do chairs exist?" And

I've been like, "Oh my gosh, like of course they do." But then by the end, I go, "Well, no, obviously they don't."

>> Um, however, I I will forgive all of us and myself for constantly talking about chairs. Yeah.

chairs. Yeah.

>> Um, I think that >> in my episodes I tend to leave it open but then take like an oblique path to say, well, what does it even mean that we can ask this

>> and that we can't answer it? Like maybe

there's something bigger or some analogy we can make that will make us appreciate the mystery cuz I don't like ending by saying, "Well, we may never know."

>> Yeah. Right. The world is full of mysteries. See you next week.

mysteries. See you next week.

>> Yeah. I've heard you say before that in finding ideas like this, you kind of just do a bunch of interesting reading and then afterwards you go like, you know, so what what's the video going to be about? I'm interested in this and

be about? I'm interested in this and interested in that. Has there ever been an abandoned project in the sense of being like here's a really interesting question and then doing the reading and then either because it doesn't make

sense or it feels like something you won't be able to easily communicate or because you don't have you know enough to sort of say on it or whatever that you thought I'd love to have made a video about that but I had to give it up.

>> No, I've never given up. Uh, I've never abandoned anything, but sometimes they sit for a long time because

>> I don't know either where to go or how to make it an episode with a spine.

>> Yeah.

>> And not just a whole bunch of like, oh, and here's another cool like thing, whether it's a piece of trivia or just like a here's a cool thought experiment.

Like I've been working really hard for a long time on an episode about stuck culture.

>> This is the feeling that artistic innovation in our society has like reached a standstill. That television

shows and music just aren't innovating like they used to.

>> Yeah.

>> And this feels like a very subjective thing. It feels like a real generational

thing. It feels like a real generational thing. You reach a certain age and you

thing. You reach a certain age and you go, "Ah, gosh, the music when I was younger was way more innovative." um or it was good back then or how come how come movies all look the same nowadays?

I I I think that's part of growing up.

>> But it's also true that like in the '9s a 20-year-old television show looked like it was 20 years old. The fashion,

the the grain of the film it was shot on. Like all these things were really

on. Like all these things were really different. But today, a 20-year-old show

different. But today, a 20-year-old show from like 2005, that's like The Office.

>> Mhm.

>> It's like may as well have been made yesterday.

>> Yeah. Right. I'm watching a lot of Gilmore Girls right now. You forget that that show is as old as it is. Yeah. But

you could not watch a show in the '9s >> and forget that it was as old as it was.

>> So what's going on? Um why we also just have way more remixes and reboots than ever before. I mean that's not an even

ever before. I mean that's not an even opinion. That's just like very true.

opinion. That's just like very true.

>> Yeah. Um, and I think a lot of people like to try to pinpoint one cause,

whether it's capitalism or some other big ism. But as I looked into this re really hardcore, I'm like, man,

there are 18,000 reasons for this feeling.

And obviously Mark Fischer is one of the biggest philosophers who's investigated this with the idea of hontology.

>> Um you should you should look some of his just look up some of his uh lectures and speeches he's given. But then his book Mark Fischer's Ghosts of My Life really goes into this. He he kind of

frames it as saying that the future has been stolen from us. um that there was a time when the future was like this brand new thing

>> and and in the future guns are going to go >> guns in the future still gow pew they haven't changed the future isn't

changing like it did a 100 years ago mhm yeah I mean intuitively and I haven't read about this at all but I I've got sort of two

suggestions here right one is pessimism one is that If you ask someone in the 1950s to draw the future, they would draw silver cars flying through the sky.

And if you ask someone to draw the future now, >> they show nuclear wastelands or environmental catastrophe. Like guns in

environmental catastrophe. Like guns in the future will actually be, you know, people throwing sticks at each other because the whole world will be destroyed, right? They don't go pew pew,

destroyed, right? They don't go pew pew, they go >> Yeah.

>> Um >> but the thing about particularly with with television technology and music technology, people forget how recent this is. And there is like a diminishing

this is. And there is like a diminishing returns thing, right? Like in the first 10 years of technology, the increases will be noticeably crazy. Think about

the iPhone. The jump from the first iPhone to the to the second iPhone would have been pretty significant. And then

every iteration, it's like a diminishing return curve, right?

>> And so maybe that's why if you're in the '9s watching a show from the '60s, there's this huge technological gap.

Might even be in black and white.

Whereas from the 90s to, you know, 2010, it's still changing. It's just the rate is is reducing. So maybe there like really is >> maybe really is like a plateau that's

reached. I mean, in the 50s and 60s,

reached. I mean, in the 50s and 60s, >> people didn't even really know what television was yet.

>> Yeah.

>> You watch the Dick Van Djk show, episode one, it's not a TV show. It's a play.

>> Yeah.

>> It's a play. I mean, that's what that's what a a live to tape sitcom was. you

had a live audience and you had a third wall or a fourth wall that they looked through. Right. And um in that first

through. Right. And um in that first episode of the Dick Van Djk Show, he and his wife go to a dinner party and they all sing songs together because the show is just a a musical like variety show.

Yeah.

>> And later on they were like we can actually do like storylines that exist within this universe and isn't just a show for an audience.

>> Um and I think yeah before the iPhone people didn't know what a phone was supposed to be. We hadn't figured it out yet. So, there were phones that opened

yet. So, there were phones that opened in all these weird ways and they would swivel open and and then now we're like it's a black rectangle.

>> Mhm.

>> That's what a phone is. I know that there's folding phones now.

>> Yeah.

>> That are kind of resemble that like clamshell idea, >> but they still what do they fold out into >> a mirrored rectangle, you know? Uh, so I think sometimes that happens and I think

when there is innovation, we don't realize it's happening until we look back and go, "Oh man, yeah, there was a time before I could order a burrito to be delivered to me."

>> Just with with like a box in my hand.

There's a time before the internet. I

was alive for it.

>> Mhm.

>> But during that transition, I wasn't like, "Guys, things are changing." I was like, "Uh, Map Quest sucks." Yeah. Yeah.

But we're a bit more attuned to that now perhaps in that when something like chat GBT gets released and people are immediately perhaps uniquely in sort of a historical from a

historical perspective going like this will change everything. You know when when the mobile phone was invented I'm sure people thought this is really neat.

Hey I'll be able to call someone when I'm on the go. But they could not have possibly imagined I mean who even uses a mobile phone to be a a phone anymore?

you know, it's like seems to be the least important part of the phone's technology. But maybe there's something

technology. But maybe there's something just genuinely more radical about the new technology. Or maybe we are just

new technology. Or maybe we are just becoming a bit more attuned to realizing the butterfly effect of >> Yeah, I think it's become really calcified in our minds that that

expectation that things will change and get better and be perfect. And so when there is a major step forward, >> there's probably something that's not perfect about it and we go, "Nah, not impressed. This isn't the future yet."

impressed. This isn't the future yet."

Yeah.

>> I'm like, "Guys, it's been the future for a long time."

>> Yeah. You know, you're you're hosting this new show. The rest is science. And

I've got to say, like, we've we've spoken about issues like consciousness and free will and, you know, objects and atoms and how they all go together. But

we haven't been talking about like scientific concepts and we haven't been talking about laws of nature and stuff.

I wonder how much of your work previous to this particular show you consider to be a work of of science or a work of philosophy or psychology or sort of what

box you would best sort of describe.

>> Yeah. So I just I just call it entertainment, >> right?

>> I I think to try to whittle it into like oh so you're a science YouTuber. I'm

like I don't know. I talk about language a lot too. Word games and poetry and art and math and philosophy. It's just

whatever. It's all It's all just stuff, dude.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, and we put labels on the stuff and we pretend that it's a noun, but it's all just entertainment.

>> It's myological nihilism about about my career.

>> Yeah. About the it's it's nihilism all the way down, it seems, or all the way up maybe. Um, which I suppose is the

up maybe. Um, which I suppose is the position. Um, but then, you know, you

position. Um, but then, you know, you you have spoken about science a ton as well, and it's always really interesting. Did I hear you once say

interesting. Did I hear you once say that you spent a long time trying to get to the bottom of like talk?

>> Yeah.

>> And like why it sort of it sort of does that >> because I feel like a lot of the time this is something I really resonated with because a lot of the time whenever

a scientific explanation comes along to you know describe the relations between objects there's always this remaining question of but why is it doing that?

>> Yeah. So like Isaac Newton, I give this example all the time. He discovers

gravity, right? And he he he brilliantly and in an unprecedented manner describes exactly how planets relate to each other. He realizes the same thing that

other. He realizes the same thing that makes this glass fall to the ground is the same thing that keeps the the planets in orbit around each other. And

there's an inverse square law that if they're this far away, it will be this amount of mass and this kind of attraction. And he writes all of this in

attraction. And he writes all of this in the Prancingia Mathematica and in the Scolium to the second edition of the Prancipia Mathematica, he writes quite explicitly.

But as for what this gravity thing is, as for like why it does this and why the objects behave in this way, hypothesis nonfingo is what he writes. I frame no

hypothesis.

>> He doesn't know. He's got no idea. And I

feel like a lot of the time >> that's kind of what's going on in science. So when I heard you say that

science. So when I heard you say that you really wanted to get to the bottom of talk >> Yeah. Like, yeah, I understand that if I

>> Yeah. Like, yeah, I understand that if I move further away with a long lever, I can apply less force and lift something heavy, but like why, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Like, do you think that I mean, my my feeling is that a lot of what science does is it just describes, >> right?

>> It just describes that if you, you know, move further away from the from the sort of pivot point, you'll you can apply less force and the object will go up.

But it doesn't really go much further to telling you why. But I don't know if you agree with that assessment of science.

>> Uh yeah, I mean I agree that the job of science is to, you know, describe and predict.

>> Yeah.

>> And so if I can describe a lever using a formula.

>> I can predict what a lever will do in the future and I can build a lever that'll lift something and it'll work as soon as I make it. But then that's not

about asking why it works. Newton was

very right to say, I don't have a hypothesis for what it is. I can

describe it. I can write formulas and you can just plug in whatever you want.

I've condensed all of this behavior into one equation. But uh what is force? It

one equation. But uh what is force? It

would be very easy uh to have had a totally different history of science on this planet where we never even invented the concept of force. A force is not a thing. Yeah. I I can't fill this glass

thing. Yeah. I I can't fill this glass up with force.

>> Force is really humanentric. It's about

how it feels exactly >> to push something. Um you could have just as easily have said um well there's mass and there's acceleration.

>> Mhm.

>> But Newton said, "Ah, but what if >> we called their product force?" I mean that's what F= ma was. It was a definition. It was hold on. Let's just

definition. It was hold on. Let's just

say that there's this thing called F and that its relationship is the product of mass and acceleration. Because mass is this like thing that's out there. We

don't today we still don't really know.

Are there two kinds of mass? Is there

the the inertial mass and the gravitational mass? Are those different

gravitational mass? Are those different things or the same manifestation of the same thing? We don't know. But we do

same thing? We don't know. But we do know how to calculate what the thing will do.

>> It does.

>> So when it came to torque, um I spent years trying to get this. And other

people have asked this question too.

Give me an intuitive physical origin for mechanical advantage. Because whenever

mechanical advantage. Because whenever you ask, why can I lift a car >> with a lever? I'm not that strong. I can

stand on one end of a lever and lift an entire car up.

>> Um, you get kind of two answers. One is,

well, it's not that surprising because force is not conserved. Like,

>> I still don't have an answer. Or they'd

say, well, you're trading force for distance. Yes, it's not taking very much force to lift that car, but you're having to move a large distance.

And I'm like, how the heck does the car know what's going to happen?

>> Does the universe go, "Hold on, guys.

He's going a long distance, so we don't need the force to be as high. Are there

some physics police out there that are telling matter which way to go and what laws to follow?" So,

there was one night, I don't know how I found this, but I found a paper titled The Physical Origin of torque.

And it was a breakdown of exactly where that mechanical advantage comes from and why.

>> And I've made my own models of it, both physical and digital, to kind of show this off. I mean, we understand that

this off. I mean, we understand that that torque comes from the properties of rotation that if if an if something needs to move a certain distance, like a

certain, you know, linear distance, but it's rotating through it, the further out it is from the center of rotation, the the the uh I guess the smaller that angle is going to be to cover like one

inch out here versus one inch circling around here. But moment of inertia,

around here. But moment of inertia, which is how hard it is to rotate something, >> depends on that, but also on something

else. Because the formula for moment of

else. Because the formula for moment of inertia isn't uh mr, mass time radius.

Torque is force time radius. But inertia

in the rotational sense is MR squared.

>> So if I've got like a turntable and I put some weights on it. Y

>> and I use a force to pull it. Like maybe

there's just a string on a pulley and then some weights. And I let go of it.

It's going to start spinning.

>> It'll accelerate.

>> If I move those weights twice as far from the center, >> I need not twice as much torque to get it to accelerate the same, but four times as much.

>> Why?

>> Why?

>> Okay. Every answer online and every answer I got from the people I asked was, "Well, let's do a derivation of the formula." Yeah.

formula." Yeah.

>> And they would do it and sure enough two Rs pop out and I'm like don't want it pop out. It popped out the second I

pop out. It popped out the second I touched a crowbar. Like you're just describing it with symbols.

>> Exactly.

>> And so to to describe the answer as given in in this paper, the physical origin of torque, I kind of need some like visuals.

>> Yeah. But the long and short of it is that not only is there the the angular advantage, there's also the the

efficiency a force has when it pushes closer or further from um a pivot point, the efficiency it has at rotating all of

the mass that it's affecting. And that

efficiency is not 100% because the speed of sound is finite. Because forces don't travel instantaneously. Objects bend.

travel instantaneously. Objects bend.

There are no perfectly rigid objects.

>> And if you allow your rod to bend, you realize, hold on a second. The geometry

of the lever arms for the force application point and the load are different.

>> And it doesn't matter how much that object bends. But when you do the

object bends. But when you do the trigonometry on these angles, what falls out is >> M R 2.

>> And are you satisfied with that as an explanation?

>> Yes, I am. And it's hard to probably satisfy you because I haven't yet made this video, >> right?

>> And so I don't have the the like a honed toolkit for explaining and showing it.

>> Yeah, I get Um, but that's what I'm currently working on.

>> Well, I've got to say you I mean you've got a talent for that clearly. I mean, I think your video on spinning >> is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. I mean, I think it's my favorite

seen. I mean, I think it's my favorite video that you've made. It's just

because >> it's so weird. I mean, it's so weird that if you like, you know, spin a bicycle wheel, it will it will stay up and it'll and if you if you, you know, turn it over like that, then you'll

start spinning around on a sp and it's again that feeling of like, you know, when I watch someone sat on like a spinny chair >> and they spin an object.

>> Mhm.

>> And then they go, "Now watch this. When

I turn when I turn the object, I'm going to start spinning." And again, it's sort of like, how does the universe know? How

does the chair know >> Yeah.

>> that I've done that? And it's a it's a it's a wonderful. Um

>> so so which video are you talking about?

The the one whose thumbnail is a gyroscope.

>> I think it's probably I think it's called spinning.

>> And there's another one called laws and causes.

>> I'm talking about the first one.

>> Okay. Okay. Yeah. In laws and causes I double down on that even more where I'm like if I'm spinning with two weights in my hand and I pull them in, I spin faster.

>> Don't just tell me that it's about the conservation of angular momentum because >> that's just describing. That's not an explanation.

Now, I don't know if you can ever totally explain something. That's one of the problems with explanations. But, um,

you can draw out some diagrams and you'll start to notice that when you pull something in, you're actually pulling it um uh well, forward or backward, I guess, depending on which

way you're you're already spinning. And

that is what you're Oh, I see. Cuz if

you're spinning, then when you pull inwards, the motion is actually a kind of forward.

Um, yes. The path. So, if I'm spinning around and I've got two big weights in my hand and I pull one in, the path that that weight takes is this arc.

It's got this curved path >> and I'm, let me think. Um,

>> oh man, I need to remember this.

The direction of my force to pull it directly into the center is actually pulling like myself around.

I'm not just pulling the weight in. I'm

pulling myself towards the weight. Yeah.

>> I'm accelerating myself. It's almost

like you're grabbing an like a like an object and sort of and sort of giving yourself a >> Exactly. It's exactly like reaching out

>> Exactly. It's exactly like reaching out to a wall and pushing off >> because that I'm able to do that. I'm

able to move myself when I push the wall because the wall is so much heavier than me. In fact, it's not just the wall.

me. In fact, it's not just the wall.

It's the entire earth because the wall is like attached to the earth probably.

>> Yeah.

>> That I move because my mass is so much smaller.

>> But uh when I pull a weight in, I'm also pushing off of that weight. It's just

that we don't think that you can push off of something that you're holding in your own hand, but oops, you can if you're >> spinning. And spinning makes all the

>> spinning. And spinning makes all the difference.

>> Yeah.

>> Um Yeah. And I think I mean for what it's worth, I think that explanation >> sort of can only go so far. Like I think that what people end up doing is just describing something at a at a slightly

lower level, right? And for some people that's kind of satisfying. I spoke to a physicist on this podcast who was very much because there's this sort of debate among scientists. you call I guess you'd

among scientists. you call I guess you'd call it like functionalism about physics that it only tells you what stuff does.

It only describes it. And then there are people who think no it it it sufficiently explains why stuff's happening. And I was speaking to

happening. And I was speaking to somebody who was very suspicious of functionalism. And I said okay well

functionalism. And I said okay well suppose that I like blew a trumpet and that light turned on over there >> and then I realized that if I blow it

louder the light turns on louder uh the brighter. Yeah. And and and vice versa.

brighter. Yeah. And and and vice versa.

And maybe the different notes are different colors. And I sort of map this

different colors. And I sort of map this all out and I say, "Okay, I've got this mathematical model now where I know that if I blow the trumpet with a C sharp at this volume, it's going to be an Azure

blue at this, you know, brightness." And

I do it perfect prediction.

>> And then I was like, "Do you think that when someone asked why is the light turning on?" And I said, "Oh, because I

turning on?" And I said, "Oh, because I blew the trumpet >> and according to my laws of, you know, trumpet, I've explained it." And do you know what she said? She said, "Yes."

>> Yeah.

>> She said, "Yeah, you've explained it."

>> And I think it's a sort of it's a mentality thing. Like I look at that and

mentality thing. Like I look at that and say what you've done is you have described comprehensively the relationship between the trumpet and the light but you haven't even moved into >> see it's about prediction. You know

>> how to cause what you want and and you know what had to precede what happened.

>> Yes. Um, so then I would like to ask that person, well, what if you were then told that there's a microphone in the room

>> that analyzes the sound and then feeds it into a computer that translates that into a brightness and a color for the light bulb. What is that? What's now

light bulb. What is that? What's now

happened?

>> Has it been explained in a different way?

>> Yeah.

>> Because there's got to be a word for that cuz that's a very different thing.

>> Exactly. But even then, like I would then want to say, okay, so maybe you discover that there's a microphone and the mic, then you might want to ask, well, you know, why does why do vibrations in the air cause an

electrical signal to get sent? And you

can kind of keep going.

>> You can always keep going and and eventually you're going to say, well, who put the microphone there?

>> Yeah. Right.

>> Who decided that C means Azure? Right.

>> And so explanations never end. And

that's one of the reasons for the uh illusion of explanatory depth.

>> Yeah, >> this is a great uh psychological phenomenon. I'm sure you've read about

phenomenon. I'm sure you've read about it.

>> I'm also I've heard of it.

>> This is this is the the thing that if you if you ask people, do you understand how a helicopter works?

>> They're like, of course I do.

>> And you go, okay, so how does a helicopter go from hovering to moving forward? Mhm.

forward? Mhm.

>> And they go, "Oh, >> yeah.

>> Why does a helicopter have blades on the table >> that are like perpendicular to the ones on the top, the big ones?" And they're like, "Oh, I don't I guess I don't really know how a helicopter works."

Partly, it's that there's just no end to what you would need to know to fully understand something. And so, we just

understand something. And so, we just have to default and say, "Yeah, I do. I

get it. I got it." It depends on the level that you're >> that you sort of that you're looking for, right? Like if if I sort of walked

for, right? Like if if I sort of walked into this room and I was like the architect and I turned to the to the to the decorator and said, "Why are the walls blue?"

walls blue?" >> Mhm.

>> They say, "Oh, because you know Johnny in in the wallpaper department told us, oh, okay, cool. That that makes sense."

Whereas if it were a physicist saying, "Why are the why is the wall blue?"

>> Right?

>> And you say, "Well, because the decorator said this, yeah, but but why is it is it blue?" And say, "Oh, because of the wavelength that's bouncing."

Okay, great. And then you ask the philosopher says, "Why is the wall blue?" Oh, because it, you know, there's

blue?" Oh, because it, you know, there's this electromagnetic wave that's bouncing off and >> Yeah, but why am I experiencing an electromagnetic wave? And you can keep

electromagnetic wave? And you can keep asking why.

>> Yeah. Why is why is blue?

>> Yeah.

>> How come when I look at that wall, the wavelengths don't cause me to taste hamburgers?

>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

>> That's the philosophers's question.

>> Exactly. And it's it's it's actually kind of a continuum. It's not like you've got three different questions going on there. I think you've just sort of got a slightly deeper level of explanatory depth. So like with the

explanatory depth. So like with the helicopter, well the helicopter flies because the blades rotate. Cool. Or you

could say why does that Well, because of lift. Yeah. But why does lift why is air

lift. Yeah. But why does lift why is air there in the first place? What is air made out of? What are atoms? You know,

>> right? And ultimately I think that the scientific method tells you what things do that it describes things to the extent I mean Philip Goff was just sat in the chair that you're in now and and he's talked about this a lot about the

fact that ultimately when you break down what something is say the table it's made out of wood the wood's made out of atoms the atoms are made out of electrons and quarks and you say well they they've got mass you get to these

foundational qualities of the universe like mass and charge and you say ask a physicist what is mass?

>> Yeah.

>> What is charge? and they'll define it in terms of what it does and there's never actually at the very root there's never

an answer to like what is the universe made out of what is the the reason why this is happening and that science is essentially just describing so you're left with this maybe I'm just trying to

justify you know the existence of of philosophy which sometimes you have to do amongst scientists but I think there is this like onlogical gap at the bottom of of science interestingly Philip Goff

fills that up with consciousness.

>> Okay. Yeah.

>> Consciousness is the thing itself. And

>> well, consciousness could be uh like a third thing. There's there's

matter and there's consciousness and there's >> uh what what's what's am I thinking of?

>> I don't know. Maybe like form. Um

we could say that it's a foundational property of the universe. You've sort of got mass and charge and >> yeah, right. Consciousness is just one of those things >> foundational features.

>> It doesn't it doesn't come about when matter is arranged in just the right way. It's there and and we just need to

way. It's there and and we just need to include it into our standard model somehow.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that might happen. I I'm still too much of a

happen. I I'm still too much of a reductionist to accept that. I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I could just I

don't know. I feel like I could just I feel like I could arrange mechanical levers and pendulums in just the right way and it would it would suddenly have opinions and think and

believe it existed. Yeah. Well, I think you know someone and Philip Goff is what's known as a pans psychist. And I

I've been I've been exploring this view too myself, the view that sort of consciousness is more foundational and ubiquitous and and more simple. For that

reason, I think you could say that yeah, like if you did put a bunch of, you know, levers and and and nodes and stuff together that you would give rise to some kind of conscious experience, but that's because it's

there at every level, you know. So of

course you can take conscious foundational stuff and put it together in a way and get a big conscious thing but that's explained by the fact that consciousness sort of

>> how does he define consciousness >> in the same way that that everybody does ultimately which is to first say well it's a difficult thing to do and then I think I don't know if he would endorse

this definition but the most popular one is Thomas Nagels that he gave in the 70s that to be conscious if something is conscious there is something it is like to be that thing >> okay >> so it's experience, you know.

>> Okay. So, so to a pans psychist, >> yeah, >> there is something that it is like to be >> an electron.

>> An electron.

>> Yeah.

>> Then how how rich is that being extremely simplistic?

>> So, so the idea is that like conscious the big mistake that people make for the pansyist is that consciousness requires complexity. Yeah. when instead all you

complexity. Yeah. when instead all you need complexity for is some of the really complex things that consciousness sometimes does like memory or like persistence of self through time or

emotion or desire or anything like that >> but so so suppose for example that you um like you're conscious right now I presume imagine I took away your eyesight right you couldn't see anymore you'd still be conscious right but you couldn't see imagine I took away your

hearing >> you're still conscious but now you can't hear >> so whatever the like sight is just a form of conscious perception, but it's not what consciousness is. It's just one of the things that consciousness does.

If you take it away, you're still conscious.

>> Yeah. Consciousness uh like deals with that sensory input.

>> So now imagine that I took away memory.

>> Yeah.

>> And I don't mean like we were talking about earlier. I don't mean like oh like

about earlier. I don't mean like oh like where am I? I mean like there's no such thing as memory. So in every single instant nothing gets laid down. What

would that be like? Like imagine you were falling through the air.

>> Mhm.

>> And there was no such thing as memory.

So in every instant you didn't know that these were your hands. You didn't

remember a microcond would you even like know that you were falling. It seems

really difficult to imagine but it still makes sense for me to say that that thing is ex is experiencing it's it's conscious. And so I think if you strip

conscious. And so I think if you strip away all of the things that aren't actually consciousness itself, the thing you're left with is actually quite like simple and rudimentary. And so the kind of experience that you know an electron

would have for a panicus would be something extremely rudimental but maybe just enough to do things like I don't know repel other electrons you know maybe that's all that the conscious experience exists it consists in

>> interesting >> and that's what we get that breathes life as >> recommended reading list for pansychist thought.

>> Oh yes I mean Philip Goff is the is the pansyist guy. He's got a great book

pansyist guy. He's got a great book called Galileo's error.

>> Oh I have that book. Yeah.

>> I literally I just got it and it's on my stack.

>> He should have brought it. He could have signed it for you on the way out of the book.

>> I didn't know that he was here before me.

>> Yeah. Yeah. He's um so he he wrote that book. Uh and there's I think there's an

book. Uh and there's I think there's an academic kind of version of the case for panicism that he's written which I think is called something like consciousness and foundational matter or

something. I don't know. I'll I'll send

something. I don't know. I'll I'll send it to you. But

>> okay, I can look it up too.

>> A whole list of stuff. Thomas Nagel's

What is it like to be a bat?

>> Yeah, I've read a lot of Nagel. I've got

uh the view from nowhere and mortal questions which are just also awesome to read for all kinds of other reasons consciousness >> Immortal Questions the essay after what is it like to be a bat is an essay

called pansychism >> did you know that I haven't read that one >> where he makes the case so you should read that you should read that >> well maybe I did because I think he did spell it out in a pretty nice way where

he was like I'm just saying that there could be like a third thing besides matter and form or whatever the these two things are.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh okay. So I mean I think it's well worth exploring but the the that's why the confusion arises in saying that you know the thing that you need for consciousness is complexity. Like

consciousness is just this one very simple thing. In the same way that if I

simple thing. In the same way that if I asked I like using the example of something like the Empire State Building compared to a rock, right? Imagine I got a rock and the Empire State Building and

I asked you which has more materiality.

You'd say like neither like they're they're both like as made of material as each other. But I could say but look at

each other. But I could say but look at the Empire State Building. Look at it's got like elevators and light switches and automatic door and all. And you're

like yeah but that's just it's just a more complex arrangement of what's actually quite a fundamentally simple thing.

>> Interesting.

>> And they view consciousness and mind in the same way. I mean, I've got to I've got to read up on this because I >> I could only read so much at a time. So,

I stuck to >> um a lot of like evolutionary approaches. That's where I started with

approaches. That's where I started with consciousness. Like if

consciousness. Like if >> what whatever it is that we call consciousness, it's it must have some purpose or maybe it had some reason it made us as an organism more fit.

>> Yeah.

Um, and then I looked at a lot of like information theory and uh I have not yet dipped into pans psychism.

>> Yeah.

>> So I think it'd be up your street.

>> Yeah. I can't say too much about it, but I have Galileo's error. It's like on that list I've read a lot of Nicholas Humphrey >> and um Kurthers.

>> Well, you know, the reason he calls it Galileo's error is because >> what Galileo does is kickstarts the scientific revolution. And he famously

scientific revolution. And he famously says that you know maths is the language or math is in the American translation is the language of the universe. And in

trying to say that everything which like is everything which exists and is something that we can apprehend is mathematizable into the language of essentially science of you know like

this equals this. He's just precluded the ability to talk about consciousness >> because consciousness is the one thing that resists. Consciousness is by

that resists. Consciousness is by definition first person and science is by definition third person, you know.

Yeah. So that's why it's Galileo's error because he's sort of >> told us that like look consciousness like whatever it is, it's going to be explainable through math, physics,

biology, it's it can be reduced to the language of nature which is just math.

>> Yeah. So there's a weird coincidence here which is that we spoke a moment ago about how if you really push the scientist they're only describing and describing and once you get down to the very bottom they're just describing and

there's this onlogical gap. What is the thing? And then you think about in terms

thing? And then you think about in terms of our experience there's only one thing that we really experience in itself like as a thing in itself and that's awareness itself. And so maybe if we're

awareness itself. And so maybe if we're missing this sort of ontological isness at the foundation of science, but we also only experience, you know,

experience directly as as a thing in itself that plugs in that gap, you know, that I guess that's kind of the idea.

>> So there's something that it is like to be an electron according to the panist.

>> And there's something that it's like to be me. Yes. But what it is like to be me

be me. Yes. But what it is like to be me is just many more things because I've got memories and hearing and sight and I've got nerve endings and and if I

lived with no memory like every single instant was a whole brand new thing. I

might still know that I was falling because I could feel that there was no geforce on me. I'm weightless in all of those moments.

>> But an electron doesn't have internal parts.

>> No, >> it couldn't experience weightlessness.

It couldn't experience motion.

>> Mhm.

>> If I'm imagining that it has no memory, it's going to just be like, I'm here.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. And it's

not going to go, I'm here now. I was

there.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Okay. So,

>> so it's a bit weird, right? And that's

why I think like it's it's it's a it's growing in popularity. Um, and but it is it is really weird and it sounds kind of insane. But then the the pansy is kind

insane. But then the the pansy is kind of here's the here's the charge and goes yeah okay like I think that it's just in the way that you break it down and you say well what's math to a physic physicist and they say well that's just

a foundational thing and you say so what kind of it's just like well it's just a foundational unit of experience and they say okay I know I sound crazy and insane but I've spent the past few hundred

years hearing you guys say that if you take a bunch of atoms this like lifeless stuff and you just sort of put them next to each other in the right

then you get the taste of a burger. Like

to them that's going to sound insane too. And I think one of the challenges

too. And I think one of the challenges that something like pansychism faces us with is to realize that it all like anytime you try to explain where consciousness comes from, you have to recognize that it's it's just it's a bit

of a sort of crazy insane thing that it exists in the first place.

So yeah, how do they answer the question, how do how does a conscious continuity come about? Like I'm made of a lot of

about? Like I'm made of a lot of electrons, >> but I'm not made of a zeppilillion different things. It's like to be

different things. It's like to be >> exactly >> why does it become a actually I'm the one in charge. I'm the overarching thing. I'm the murological com

thing. I'm the murological com composition of all this matter and I say what we eat, not you. Uh, proton number eight billion.

>> Well, the reason I think that you would be fascinated to read this and why it's so your street is because you've just immediately hit on what is known as the biggest objection to panychism, the

so-called combination problem.

>> Okay. Why do these individual units of consciousness combine in some cases like a human mind into one unified experience rather than billions and billions of

individual experiences in a way that they don't seem to do sort of everywhere and all over the place? And

interestingly to come full circle, it's a sort of similar question to the parts and the holes. You know, why is a a leg and a top put together a table but that doesn't unify with the cup,

>> right? But it's a a lot more difficult

>> right? But it's a a lot more difficult to answer when it comes to minds because we experience ourselves as a as a oneness. And I think that's what

oneness. And I think that's what motivates Peter Vanimwagen to say that well life and people are just you know we don't know how or why but we know that they are actual individual things

because but the problem is the materialist has a combination problem too right? So you want to ask the panist

too right? So you want to ask the panist well why do you put all of these individual conscious entities together and you get one big unified consciousness. Why does that happen? But

consciousness. Why does that happen? But

I want to say to the materialist, you've got a combination problem, too. You take

a bunch of inatimate matter and you put it together and it combines into one conscious experience, but you've also got the problem of it combining into like a totally different kind of thing,

you know? So, that is a problem for

you know? So, that is a problem for pansychism that needs to be addressed.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think it's a problem plus some for like a materialist, if you know what I mean. But but you're right to ask the

mean. But but you're right to ask the question because it's the question that is the sort of the biggest question mark over panyism.

>> Wow.

>> And I I would very much like to go back into academia and specifically study the relation between myology and philosophy of mind for this reason. I think it'd be really interesting.

>> They're so related.

>> Yeah, I think I think so. Um but I think I think definitely worth checking out.

But I want because you made a video about consciousness. Like do you you

about consciousness. Like do you you said you were a reductionist earlier. Do

you have like a sort of favorite theory of mind like where you're at now? like

where you what you think it's it's all sort of doing you think it's just information processing >> um memory related >> I think so I mean look I'm I'm persuadable

in any direction >> uh at the moment yeah I feel like there's an evolutionary explanation

>> I think that it becomes like just fit for an organism to start

going. Ah, all right.

going. Ah, all right.

So, I'm creating a lot of meaning. I'm

creating a lot of symbols and abstract thoughts and concepts that are kind of like furniture up here.

>> Well, I'm also manipulating that furniture in my mind. I'm thinking about the future in my mind's eye. Well, where

who witnessing this? And so, the fiction of an internal person comes about. Now,

I guess I' I've jumped way ahead though because where did the where do the experiences come from in the first place?

How does uh you know blue come about?

>> Yeah, >> we know that there are you know lights uh photons with certain wavelengths but then how did

our organism decide to assign the experience of blue to that? Mhm.

>> Like we were saying about the wall, why isn't it the taste of hamburgers?

>> Um, why doesn't coffee taste like grapefruit? How did that get sorted by

grapefruit? How did that get sorted by all of our brains? Assuming we have the same qualia, how did it decide, "Aha, chocolate is going to taste like this."

You ready?

>> And it just does something in our brain and we go, "Oh, yes, chocolate."

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird, right?

Like cuz you want to say why isn't it that when a wavelength hits my eye, I don't suddenly hear the sound of a trumpet. Yeah. And the only answer that

trumpet. Yeah. And the only answer that some people want to say is like well because that's not what that's not what eyes do. That's what ears do. But again,

eyes do. That's what ears do. But again,

the question is always like but why?

Like why is that the case? And it's a complete mystery. And this is the

complete mystery. And this is the so-called hard problem of consciousness, right? Like you can explain everything

right? Like you can explain everything about the brain and the way it's processing information and the way that wavelengths of light trigger this neuron to fire and but the question is why does

that come along with an experience right you know why doesn't it just sort of happen you know I've got a physical explanation as to when I you know bang into that table the atoms vibrate and it

causes the the the glass to fall off and gravity pulls it to the ground that all that explanation is there >> you've just got this added thing experience that just seems like totally

and utterly mysterious, >> right? What advantage do we have as

>> right? What advantage do we have as sensing things that experience that experience?

>> Yeah.

>> That a robot version that could do everything that we do.

>> Yeah.

>> Don't have. That's the concept of a philosophical zombie, right? Like cuz

people want to say, well, by experiencing the world, we've got an evolutionary advantage. I feel fear, so

evolutionary advantage. I feel fear, so I run away from the predator.

>> Right. But that reaction could happen.

You don't need to feel fear to to automatically run away when you should.

>> Exactly.

>> Um, in fact, you could feel amazing and running could be how you express that, right? It's like, how is that

that, right? It's like, how is that feeling?

>> Um, yeah. Nicholas Humphrey's whole kind of approach was to say that experience like Qualia tastes and and

and enjoying this internal theater that's created is what made us fall in love with life that literally humans

reached a point where they were like hey I could end my own life and solve a lot of my problems. Mhm.

>> And that that could have literally been a moment in human history where our species could have gone extinct, but because of the emergence of But actually, I kind of like the sunrise.

>> I kind of like the way the water moves when I run my fingers through it, I think I'm going to stick around. It

literally made us fall in love with being with having a self.

>> Yeah. Well, whatever the case, I think I don't know. Do you think we'll do you think we'll be able to settle masses like this? I don't know. I mean, there

like this? I don't know. I mean, there are people who believe that actually we are in a position to never be able to answer these fundamental questions about consciousness and experience because of

the fact that we're the ones who have them or something. Maybe it's just impossible. Um, I don't believe that. I

impossible. Um, I don't believe that. I

think that we really could >> have answers and I think that when we do, we will become a different kind of species. M well, Michael Stevens, thank

species. M well, Michael Stevens, thank you so much for that quick detour about the uh the diet, Dr. Pepper. Should we

should we start recording now?

>> If you enjoyed that conversation, you might like an episode I recorded a few years ago with Philip Goff on pansychism and the limits of science. You can watch it by clicking the link that's on your screen. To support my work and get early

screen. To support my work and get early adree access to episodes, subscribe to my Substack at alexoconor.com.

And as always, thanks for watching.