Transcript for:
Consciousness Theories Overview

This is the world's first map of all theories of consciousness and it now covers 325 competing theories. What is the totality of human thinking and passion about consciousness? After three decades and hundreds of interviews, the legendary Closer to Truth host Robert Lawrence Keune set himself a monumental task to create the world's first map of all scientific theories of consciousness. consciousness. The more we've learned, the more theories we have. Progress in science normally means to get to a single theory that explains a phenomenon. But when it comes to our most direct experience of reality, consciousness, there is an explosion of theories. As humanity, we are completely divided in understanding the most fundamental aspect of our existence. Life after death, personal identity, purpose, and value depend on your theory of consciousness. And if you don't think so, it doesn't matter because it still is. You just have an assumed theory of consciousness. I mean, the materialists say they're not making a leap of faith. They're just going by science. But their leap of faith is that mental states can be described in terms of physical states. I'm not a relativist. In fact, I've quipped at some point is that it's not that we have too many theories, it's that we have one too few. I had promised not to push Robert Lawrence Kun on his own view, but I couldn't resist it. If you're forcing me to reveal it, and for what little it's worth, here's what I think. [Music] [Applause] Robert Lawrence Keune was in Paris for a closer to truth shoot. That's beautiful. Had his map of all theories of consciousness brought him closer to truth or to madness. I'm sitting here uh nice Paris hotel room and I'm studying uh subway. The map of all consciousness theories QNET spent more than a year working on made me think of the Paris subway system. Complex as it is, it does look tidy in schemes like these. But every traveler knows that the complexity gets messy once you really dive in. You can get lost in the theories of consciousness just as you can get lost in the Paris subway system. In this conversation, we will cover over 325 theories of consciousness. These will be our stops. You can also find them in the timestamps. As your tour guide on the journey into the landscape of consciousness, I do have to be open and transparent. I have a favorite position on the map. The Asencia Foundation is all about analytic idealism and we point to the fallacy and inconsistencies of materialist theories of consciousness. That being said, we are also about hardcore science. And in trying to falsify my own views and reading about the materialist theories on the landscape, I was actually quite surprised because some of them I read as basically being idealist. We live in interesting times. I think metaphysical boundaries are silently moving and I think the map Cune has made will prove to be a historical document of the status quo of thinking about consciousness and metaphysics in 2025. We arrived on location. Yep. Beautiful city. I would be interviewing someone who had basically interviewed everyone himself in the field of consciousness studies. How do you prepare for an interview like that? Well, you just wait until the interviewe summarizes all his knowledge for you. You created this. This for all of us watching is a landscape of consciousness. In it, you try to collect and categorize all theories of consciousness. What made you do this? Because it's a daunting thing to do. And of course, as a opening question, has it brought you closer to truth? But first, sort of what made you do this? As a pre-teenager and an early teenager, I was consumed as some of us are with the nature of ultimate reality. Uh, and whether it was the existence of God or an afterlife and what what is life all about? And I determined that the way to to discern it would be to study either physics or philosophy. And I began thinking about it and which college I would go to and how I would do that. And then one day I can still remember it um that I had the sudden realization that the only way we can perceive physics or or construct philosophy is via our brains. I I began to be interested in broader aspects of it like parasychology and then you know is that real and if it's real does it violate the laws of physics and what would that imply about the nature of reality and so at that point consciousness became something that was the focus of my interest the core idea of consciousness is that I feel very strongly that whatever ultimate reality really is that consciousness plays a role in its determination. Now, that is not to say that I'm saying that consciousness is fundamental reality. That's not to say that. It is to say that if that consciousness is a determinant of what that is because if consciousness is indeed material and we can define what that means in a very grand sense and there are a hundred or more materialistic theories that I've cataloged in in in originally 10 subcategories and now it'll be 12 subcategories when it when it expands. Um but because if consciousness is material then that is a determinant of ultimate reality. If it's not then there's a a a broader set of possibilities of what conscience that's why consciousness to me is the test. Yeah. And perhaps it it's the only test in terms of thinking rigorously and analytically. Consciousness is the key to ultimate reality. one way or the other and if that's case what I want to do is to compile the best human thinking throughout history but mainly today uh on this topic and what is the totality what is the what is the scope of human uh uh uh thinking and passion about consciousness. So we have that link between consciousness being the the key to ultimate reality and then we get the entirety of human thinking about consciousness and that to me is electrifying. How do you define consciousness? Can you sort of grasp it sort of like in a couple of sentences? Uh I've approached consciousness, you know, fairly simply there, you know, people have done it very sophisticated. Ned Block talks about access consciousness, but I use the term of art is phenomenal consciousness, which is the the felt inner experience. Uh the smell of garlic cooking in olive oil, the sight of your newborn daughter just emerged from uh from a cesarian section. The uh last move the fifth movement of Mer's second symphony with a coral. I mean those experiences and even the ordinary experiences that we that we have the inner movie all different ways to express it that's the focus phenomenal consciousness it's not the content of consciousness per se because it have all these different kinds you know olive oil child music those are all radically different but it's that felt inner experience yeah can I get around you know and and that's it yeah and that's it and I and I and and I try to exclude everything else because a lot of other related things like perception uh like uh content of consciousness and and there are a lot of theories about that you know people have free will as part of it but I try to you know tease apart and dissect out everything but theories of phenomenal consciousness great um in diving in in the landscape which I want to do right now um first of all good to know just share with the audience we'll put the also this this oversight with it which which I think is great sort of on screen for you guys to watch. So we have sort of the main categories, materialism, non-reductive physicalism, quantum theories of consciousness, then integrated information theory, pen psychisms, monisms, dualisms, idealisms, whatnia foration is about, analytic idealism, and then anomalous and altered states, and you have a a final category of challenge um um theories. Now, Robert, please correct me if I'm wrong. I was talking historically the root if we would have taken historical route I'd say that I mean the oldest are the the vatic literature the Indian theory so that sort of main human thinking around consciousness starts out with sort of idealist notions but correct me now if I'm wrong I'm going to sketch how I think what what we how when just my understanding so we started out with uh idealist notions of uh of consciousness that that consciousness is the ultimate reality. Then out of that you see in Abrahamic religions sort of notions of dualism that yes there might be a sort of conscious but there's also a sort of world created that has a sort of ontological base. So there's matters of dualisms and that and monism sort of maybe also but it that that's more or less it and then um out of that dualism comes the idea but wait a minute what if that sort of matter is the fundamental stuff and um if can't we draw just consciousness out of matter and then we see this big explosioning happen in in western thinking and now funny enough to just share with me my analysis when reading your landscape I see this interesting return again in the 20th century that now out of materialism with its problems which we will also hopefully touch upon the heart problem of consciousness we now end up with people going back to dualisms again and of course idealism I mean yeah Bernardo Casper is the is the director of our foundation we have something like analytic idealism so I just see this very interesting c circular move uh in history but just curious as sort of a grand overview you for our audience and in reading your last script that I wanted to share with you and curious what you Sure. That's great and I would generally subscribe to what you say. I I would put some nuance on it um certainly historically the um the first um expression that consciousness is fundamental come from the vic scriptures and was expressed in in a a plethora of schools of Indian philosophy which are all fascinating. Um uh I uh advant today is a non-dualism school. That's the dominant one. But there were dualism schools in in ancient uh India as well. I mean as many you know different Christian sects we see today that was duplicated among I mean that's just a human sociological tendency of different views different uh expounders of philosophy. So that was one tradition. I I wouldn't say the Abrahamic traditions came out of that. I I would not I would not have a cause effect there. I would say that is a different tradition that began with a different ontological foundation which is a a theistic one that the Abrahamic religions had and beginning with Judaism and then Christianity and Islam. We could talk about each one of those in in great depth as as their approach. So I would say that was a a quasi independent development. Um and both then continued. Then a materialistic view uh began of course with the the renaissance of scientific revolution and where science became a uh a a way of doing you know natural philosophy. It was originally, you know, sort of philosoph philosophical theology and then it became natural philosophy and then it became science. It was a an approach to use a scientific method of of providing thirdparty verification because everything else we're talking about is uh either first person awareness or it is group tradition. But the scientific uh approach was something that would have independent third-party recognition. So everybody would have to agree with Newton's you know you you know laws obviously they were you know then then superseded by Einstein's relativity but then everybody generally will agree with that and the same thing has approached through the development of chemistry and physics molecular biology etc. And so materialism grew out of that invi out out of that theory. So you have if you want to take three different traditions and there are more but you have the idealism coming out from India. You have a a dualistic approach coming out of the Abrahamic religions and then you have materialism coming out of the scientific revolution and the scientific traditions. And now we're all merging together and we see what's happening. And that's what I love I love doing. Um, so before we get into a detailed discussion of the landscape, I I would like to if I can give you my big overview of why how this came about and and why I did it because it it is important. And I mean the individual theories, as I've said, I put my life and heart and soul into each one, you know, pretending for one or two nights that that was my theory, and I want the world to understand my theory, and I was going to do my best to explain it in 800 words or whatever. Um, but there's a bigger overview here. Um and I started as we've said that consciousness is in my opinion it's not absolutely sure but in my opinion is the key to ultimate reality one way or the other. It's not just that consciousness is on ultimate reality. I'm not saying that uh I am saying that it's the key to know what ultimate re reality is. Um and then uh I I start and look at the world and I see the great human contributions the great enormous human thinking historically contemporarily into consciousness. So I have two overarching objectives for the for studying consciousness the way I have. Number one is my view and you may disagree and others may disagree is that now is a time to appreciate the diversity and the creativity and the innovation of how human beings think about consciousness. And so I am of a mind to, you know, let a hundred flowers bloom to see them all and to and to to to discern out of those we think make a contribution and you have to make a choice. There's a lot of I would say not so rational ideas about consciousness. uh and there's you know some lots of fringe thinking and you know who's to judge what's fringe and what's the the main stream and and you know these are all obviously uh epistemologically uncertain. Uh everybody makes their own judgment. I make my own judgments. People can say I'm wrong. That's fine. I I like that. but make a judgment about which of these but to to to really see this landscape and to appreciate the great contributions of of human beings from all these different perspectives. So that's that's objective number one. Objective number two, and this has come up more recently, particularly in light of questions of AI consciousness, but it's broader than that, is that the big questions of of of human sentience and human existence um are completely dependent upon your theory of consciousness. Let me explain what that means. What are these big questions? Big questions are is there meaning or purpose in life? You know, what is value? Um, what is personal identity? How do you maintain personal identity? Is there free will? There's great controversy about free will. What things are conscious? Is is an amoeba conscious? Is is is a lobster conscious? A dolphin uh as well as humans. Um and then you get into AI consciousness and that's hot topic in society for various ethical and you know existential reasons that people are concerned about that and then from that virtual immortality. Is it possible to upload our first person consciousness to nonbiological materials and live if not forever for you know an indeterminate amount of time until the the the heat death of the universe or something. Um and then finally life after death. So that that big ideas that we deal with and each of the topics that I just mentioned are vast areas in themselves. their vast landscape and various opinions. But I I want to cut through all of that and I want to say that each of those questions and and and how you answer them are dependent on what your theory of consciousness is. And if you don't think so, it doesn't matter because it still is. You just have an assumed theory of consciousness. What I'm not sure is how each of the theories would express itself in in these big questions. And that requires some thought. I started the process in landscape. But that doesn't mean I had it right or I will change my mind. But I I think this is a wonderful thing to explore where diverse people look at these big questions and then explore each of the kinds of theories of landscape of of consciousness that would have implications for these for these theories. Now I want to zero in on the landscape itself and say what what are my overarching thinking about the landscape itself. Now we I said why it's important now what about it it itself and so again I have two um two big categories. The first category is that normal science, the more you learn, the more confident you are about certain theories. And so, you know, when when there was the background uh microwave background radiation discovered 1965 or so and the results of that that greatly supported the big bang theory and if not falsified at least undermined the steady state theory. So as science learns more in general, we've seen this in particle physics, molecular biology, there are fewer and fewer uh theories and they get more narrow. Um you can never really prove a theory right. Arguably you can falsify and prove some theories wrong. But that's the process with consciousness. The more we've learned especially in the last you know half century or so you know since I did my doctor degree I was working on brain stuff and everybody's you know brain science has been an enormous increase. the more we've learned, the more theories we have. And so that to me is telling that as science has advanced, this is the only subject that I know of, consciousness, in which the more we learn, the more theories we have, not the fewer. So that to me is a neon sign flashing. There's something going on here. This proliferation of theories that that's what we're talking about. The second point that you notice is the what I call the locus of the uh the key point of consciousness. Obviously we're in a world we are human being. I'm a brain you know at different orders of of magnitude. Where is the point that that consciousness is happening? And each theory has a place in which that happens. Mhm. And to me the second big idea in addition to the prol proliferation of theories is the vast dispersion of order of magnitude of where the theories are taking place. We can start at the smallest level which is quantum and there are some theories that would have the the the quantum nature of subatomic particles and then you go to quantum expressions within cells. uh you know Penrose Hammeroff and the microtubules and others have it in different parts of the cell and then of course you can go beyond that to pansychisms or idealism where consciousness is in in a sense everything the entirety of the universe whether it's a cosmos psychisms or cosmic consciousness or idealism in some sense. So you have this enormous range you can't have a larger range from the smallest quantum and you go each of the steps and there are theories at each of these steps. So those are the two big overviews the proliferation of theories and the vast range at which the consciousness uh the critical event occurs at that point. And from that framework we can talk about specifics. [Music] the the the the first question I have when I just look at again this was not done a priority but it was DNA posteriority when I had this whole thing and looked at it I I noticed that of all of of the number of specific theories at at the lowest level you know which was order of magnitude let's just say 200 roughly half were materialism theories when materialism was when materialism is only one of sort of eight categories I have two categories at the end which are not theories in themselves One is what I call anomalous and and altered state theories which are theories that are motivated by uh anomalous parasychology ESP near-death experiences out-of- body experience all those kinds of things as well as meditative states psychedelic states and all of that those are different ways those are not theories of consciousness but they are ways that people who are into that use to develop their theories so I made it a separate category and then challenge theories are are are theory are are are people who have either challenged the whole exercise as being beyond our capacity to understand or different ways of framing it. Uh so leaving those two aside there are eight sort of substantive theories of category of of consciousness categories. Uh and again materialism is one and it has almost 50% of all the total. So why is that the case? That was my question and and I began to think and it was then became obvious that if you have the the first nodal point that you decide is is uh is the physical world able to describe consciousness without remainder nothing else. Almost everyone agrees that the physical world and the physical brain is is uh uh necessary for our kind of consciousness. Uh but some people would say it's not sufficient and uh if it's not sufficient that means there must be some kind of a non-physical reality of some kind. It can be you know from property dualism on the one hand where it supervenes on the physical to idealism on the other extreme. I mean and all all of that but all of that brings a n something non-physical into the metaphysics of reality. And so that's the critical point. Does it does it have something other than the physical a as defined in physical you can you can expand the physical beyond the physics we know today but still we know what we mean by physics and quantum physics or dimensions or something um and so once once you you do that now if you have a non if you go to the non-physical there's something non-physical about it because it's an ifso facto condition because you're saying there's something non-physical about it because that's your division point. So in these category there's something non-physical. You're not saying it's all non-physical but you're saying something about it. Once you do that you are then walking outside the arena in which the scientific method can be wholly uh uh uh valid. And so the amount of progress that you can make in each theory beyond that is somewhat limited in terms of our collective agreement on a theory. You may have a vision and therefore say that believe that that's real but that doesn't convince me. So it's it it's non- thirdarty determinant. Uh it can be first person determined but non- third party. It's not a consensus view. Once you are outside the the once you introduce anything non-physical, you then to one degree or another eliminate the possibility of of a scientific method. If you if you if you don't have anything non-physical, if you say it's all physical, then you can arguably make progress because you can apply scientific methodology to discerning it. And therefore, you get a a proliferation of different ideas because you're able or at least think you're able, you know, if if you if you if you have that materialist constraint, you then can make progress. Yeah. uh that doesn't mean you're progressing in the right direction or coming to a right answer, but you can you can move along a trail of doing scientific work. Whereas in the non-physical area, you're not. That's why there are more bottom line theories under a materialist view than there are under you know any of the non-materialist views and you know roughly the equivalent. that that's the reason that has nothing to do with the the veritical veracity of the theory. Nothing to do with it. It's just a almost a sociological uh or it's an epistemological analysis of why there are so many materialistic theories. And that's kind of a a meta way of thinking about why so many materialistic theories. I think this is very interesting. is a very very clarifying insight to hear this from you because it's this sort of method methodological commitment to science and doing science that you want to remain as long as possible within this this framework and you want to stretch sort of your your metaphysics as long as possible but I must say that in that stretching of the metaphysics within that category you hear stuff that that makes me think you are now sort of almost leaving leaving the category of materialism and in sort our most accurate this this is a bit of a jump right to quantum but I do think it's it's it's it can help us here our most it's in a sense our most accurate theory of of reality and in the foundations of physics of course um physicality in a sense of observer independent physical properties is sort of now highly disputed right so isn't sort of hasn't our sort of methodology of science in in quantum quantum theory now brought us sort of to sort of this metaphysics staring us in the eye that that's at least what fascinates me also interviewing people lots lots of people in the foundations of physics yes it's a bit of a jump towards we should of course yeah and that's why I put quantum in a separate category under materialism because in one sense it's still a physical theory but it it it it adds something beyond the physical or at least there's disputations along line yeah on which it doesn't really make a claim yet but yeah but let's stick with the material because to ask a good question that some of the theories in materialism have this claim. Now that seems to go beyond materialism and I would put them in the category of um an activism and phenomenology. Um and these are um harder to understand because your reaction is a um a normal reaction. And in fact, my reaction is the same. But I I I make this point clear that all of the main protagonists of an activism or embodied an activism, let's stick with that and phenomenology are they say they are materialists. They say it. So if you think they're not or I think they not, they think they are. That's interesting. And you wanted to honor that and I think I appreciate that. They say they are. In fact, they go out of their way to say they are. Now, you you may think that's hard to explain. In fact, when they say they are, they don't spend a lot of time explaining why they are still that way. Yeah. um but they say it's within and and as I got into it and I did not appreciate uh phenomenology uh before I did the paper as much as I I should have and I appreciate it more now and and it's something I want to appreciate more so and it it it it deals somewhat with the distinction between continental philosophy and Anglo-American analytic philosophy uh and It it it attempts to take the whole person uh as a gestalt as a as as a unified aspect and not break it into parts and that you understand this whole person aspect of personhood and and um and in order to understand. Now a sub field of that which some very smart people have supported is called neuro uh phenomenology. He was started by Francisco Vella long time ago, I think the late 1990s. And language for a while now is taken up by a number of people. You mentioned Evan Thompson and and his collaborators in his book The Blind Spot, Michelle Bitbull um and and and others um have taken up neuro um phenomenology as as a way to to give primacy to the experiential um and yet develop that in a neurological context but not not emphasizing the neurology. ology, but to keep both at the same ontological level. That that's their desire to keep the the neuroscience and the phenomenal phenomenology of the experiential whole person at the same level. Now, that's not the case in neurobiological theories at all. You don't need the whole you don't need the person at all. you're just dealing with these recurrent circuits or electrical, you know, electromagnetic fields or whatever your individual theory is. Um, and so neuro phenomenology keep tries to keep them both at the same level, but it is a um it is a uh kind of a promise that that can make progress. Um there's been little demonstration that you know that progress can be made in in that idea but I respect that idea a lot because I think it does reflect on the nature of consciousness and it also the the the neuro phenomenological um uh mandate that that they they would like to pursue um does undermine to some degree the rest of the material. ism um because it says that the neurobiological approach or the electromagnetic field approach is not going to be sufficient. Now again they're not claiming to be non-physicalist in any way whatsoever. They think it is all physical but it has to be something that's uh that that puts both the neuroscience and the phenomenology at the same level of onlogical existence. And you know that's a challenge and and that's something that you know they that that the burden is on them to show that it works. But what they do do which is your observation which I agree with is they do undermine some of the materialistic thinking. I do think it's a very interesting point where phenomenology enters sort of um the materialist category because it's the point where you say instead of sort of taking observer independent physical a physical universe as our departure point you now take a step back say wait a minute you acknowledge the fact that that world presents itself to the individual within something we call consciousness and that's sort of the phenomenological approach but that's also where Indeed as you say philosophically problems arise because if you don't want to keep keep both categories give them the same status I mean any sort of schooled philosopher will sort of tick you on the finger say wait a minute you cannot just do that right is that a way to look at it phenomenology takes the individual as a whole and and looks upon the individual as a whole and the lived experience of an individual experience is a very important factor in in phenomenon ology. So it's the individual as a whole and the the uh endurance of uh of lived experience and this they apply you know broadly even in physics they use these ideas uh as well in terms of process philosophy all sorts of things are part of this kind of different way of thinking. Uh but still they do it within a physicalist broadly construed uh way of thinking. Um, and that when the individual is a whole lived experience and then the world is presented to itself, then they use that as a way to discern what consciousness is. They don't start with consciousness. They start with, you know, they're not looking to explain consciousness. They they're looking to um express this wholeness of of of human uh experience and human endeavor. And then that that becomes a way of understanding if if you want to look at that an approach to what consciousness is. Now as neuroscience has come in they recognize phenomenology because phenomenology antidated real neuroscience it goes back a hundred years or whatever with different people and uh different philosophers. Uh but as neuroscience became a real science in the 20th century uh they recognized they have to deal with that. Uh and so the neuro phenomenology became a way to try to create uh equal ontological status. Um and you know you rightly may criticize that as as not being ultimately workable. Um but their innovation if you will is to say they are. And the mistake that materialists make and the mistake that idealists make or dualists is that they're not doing that. that they're giving precedence ontological precedence to one ra or the other. So the materialists are giving precedence to the neuroscience and the dualist and idealists are giving precedence to the to the the phenomenal experience or the consciousness. But but neither are correct because the only way to be correct is their theory, not my theory, their theory. Uh is to have them at an equal ontological status as your presupposition to move forward. Now how they move forward and what they do is a real question because I haven't seen forward progress from that assumption. I've not seen that. But um you know open-minded. I mean it it is a different approach. And what I do like is that it is a different reflection on the uh you know the old tension between the dualist idealist and the materialist point of view the phenomenology approach takes is a different perspective on it. Yeah. Check. And what I take from it, as I just said, this interesting point that people can make make this claim, but philosophically speaking, strictly philosophically, if an analytic philosopher studies sort of the these different subcategories, he might sort of suspect he might might have come to a different arrangement within the landscape of consciousness, but your aim was to follow what people themselves say about that. Yeah, absolutely. I I I try to as much as possible take myself out of every equation to put myself in the shoes of each individual or or group of individuals who have the theory and express it in the best possible way and again for a few hours or a day or two pretend that that's my theory and I'm trying to get the whole world to agree with it uh and do it as as rigorously as possible without injecting any other thoughts of thinking. And if somebody tells me that they're a materialist, you know, I'm not going to say, "Well, you're not." I mean, you know, I I might say I might I might put that in parenthesis and say, you know, I'm having difficulty following this. I do that on occasion, but I you know, if they say they are, they are. Galen Strawson famously says that that he's the real materialist because he because he is the one to who puts uh who puts consciousness as part of fundamental reality. And if you don't do that, you're not a real materialist. That was that one was mindboggling. I wrote it down. I will get to that quote which was like, "Okay, now I'm lost." Has a few stuff like this counts as materialism. Now I'm I'm I'm I'm properly lost. But in wrapping up sort of the cy of materialism, I think it's safe to say for people to just understand that more or less all these series say what Christoph uh calls what I really like sort of no-brain. we need the the the physical substrate that whether we understand it or not gives in the end rise to sort of consciousness. Uh yeah I I would say I would say that that's correct and uh but I I would also uh want to stress even though I myself might not be a materialist ultimately uh the richness and understanding of the different kinds of thinking that materialism that has emerged from materialism and and it's very rich even what some people ridicule in terms of eliminative mater materialism or illusionism Um there there is there is some deep thinking behind that. It's not it's not to be you know I I it's easy to ridicule that but there is helpful and very interesting thinking behind that. So, so each of the each of the subcategories under materialism brings some richness. Uh is that even um illusionism, neurobiological thinking in terms of how the circuitry works, electromagnetic ideas, computational uh uh ways of thinking, uh and activism in in terms of the body embodiment and activism with the environment. um uh theories that that are evol although all are evolutionary based some are very strongly evolutionary based and then the distinction between different levels of representationalism first order where you know the sensory in in uh input is happening and consciousness emerges immediately or do you need a higher order representationalism where you have to that first order then has to be reflected like a you know a second a second derivative or something that you have to go to the process again and this is a lot of very rich science has been developed in each of these categories. So um you know we leave materialism but recognize that all of these make some sort of a contribution to what to what we're we're talking about and and to oversimplify and sort of throw them all out was is in my mind a mistake. Even though I wouldn't classify myself as a materialist, I do appreciate each of those contributions. Yeah, I get that. And uh we interviewed for instance also Michael Leaven who also with his same technological approach to mind everywhere fits. But I know from my own conversations with Michael Evan that has to do with the fact that he ju just I wouldn't say he wants to stay away but metaphys he doesn't see the necessity to make any metaphysical claims but to us from a sensia foundation's perspective it's just super interesting to see what he's working on because I mean he does say stuff that there might be this platonic realm that give rise to form right where sort of the these bioelectric fields that sort of are involved with morphogenesis play a role. Super interesting stuff. So that also is sort of just to say that within your landscape I really think people should read sort of these different materialist theories and see for themselves. There's super interesting great example. Super interesting stuff there. Yeah. Is in materialism. Exactly. And that's why each of these to some degree or another has a contribution to make in terms of understanding. It's a good example. Okay. We spent quite some time here but this was of course the biggest category. A couple of times you've now said that you not per se are materialists. You just wanted to openly study people that themselves call who call themselves a materialist. But how has sort of studying all of these different theories influenced your own thinking about materialism because it's so wide? Yeah. Originally, as I began to think about reality and consciousness, I had this thought when I was very, very young, and it hasn't left me. Um, maybe that means I've made no progress, but it hasn't left me. And it's this thought, and that is, should a being, an existing thing, we're a being. Should a being that can conceive of eternity be denied it? Should a being that can conceive of eternity be denied it? And so that was a an initial thought that I had that that opened me to broader areas than pure science as a very young person and that has stuck with me no matter what I've done and has motivated my thinking. Now, maybe there's a there's a, you know, kind of an imprinting irrationality to that or or an exaggeration of what it means, but it it really still holds meaning for me that should a being who can conceive of eternity ultimately be denied it. And to me, that sounds illogical in a strange way. And therefore that opens me up to lots of non-materialistic kinds of of thinking. And so as I've gone through the landscape and as I've developed theories, I have had uh a personal predilction towards non-physical theories myself. Although I keep that very tightly uh under mental wraps. when I do every theory literally when every theory I I write I write it as as well as I can for each each one and so I would have say and I'd still say that I am not a materialist in that way but I had a personal experience in life in the last few years that has slightly slightly shaken my non-materialist view slightly very slightly you know to to be silly with percentages. If I was 98% sure that materialism was wrong, I'm now 92% sure that it's wrong. Okay, tell us about that 6%. So, so you know, still 92% but there was a slight change and that was this. Uh my daughter um got married late in life and her husband is is younger and uh they live in France which is why we're here in Paris visiting them. Um, and when they got married, my daughter was older. She was in her mid-40s and they wanted to have a baby. Um, and she had at least one miscarriage which was genetically deformed, etc. So, she they didn't have children. But she had frozen her eggs when she was 35 or 33, so 10 12 years before. Um, and they h they had a few and they studied them and none of them were great, but none none of them were full fully acceptable, but there was one mosaic they called it. A mosaic is a is an egg that could be good or could be bad. They don't know. So, the only one they took the chance they defrosted it. Uh, her husband flew to New York uh to fertilize it. Uh it then was allowed to grow into a ba blast with 100 cells so they could test it to be sure that it seemed okay because my daughter wanted to carry the baby not have a surrogate. So her body had to be prepared for a year with hormones. Her parents, my wife and I were not happy about that because that who knows what that could have. She wanted to carry the baby. And so her body was prepared for a year and then the the so the the the blastula the fertilized egg was fro again frozen for another year after the egg was frozen for 10 12 years. The blastula was frozen for a year unfrozen. It was actually flown from New York to Los Angeles unfrozen, implanted, and we uh went through innumerable genetic tests as you would do. Um and you know, the long the end of the story is uh our 5-year-old grandson Louie is what I would call uh you know, kind of seriously the exact opposite of autism. He is the most socially engaged eye to eye joke making kid who goes up to other people's tables and starts engaging them in conversations and that whole process as much as I have studied biology with a doctorate in science has has affected me because there is so much there is so much richness in the purely physical world that it slightly shook my sense of the nature of consciousness. I have to admit it. And so my certainty that consciousness is nonmaterial was has dropped from 98% to 92%. The granddad effect. Wow. What a wonderful story. Yeah. So first of all, congratulations to you, your daughter, and your grads. It's amazing. Yeah. And son-in-law. And son-in-law. Of course. It's it's it's it's amazing. It points to sort of the the miracle between brackets of of of science that we are now able to do this. The only thing I'd say but it's b it's baked into the original physicality. It's not just the technology. It's it's it's what's the the potential is is in the physical world. [Music] Um my biggest question with non-reductive physicalism is that it needs or it relies on um emergence right because you say we cannot produce sort of all properties to their physical base and therefore there's something we call emergence and then you have a weak and strong emergence and I think when here you need something like a strong emergence that you need a mind for matter and you don't know it. So you say it emerges and it has always felt for me but this is really I know it must be that I not very deep into these series as a sort of trick you play or something. What's sort of the current state of thinking around uh strong emergence? What are the the the the the most strong arguments in favor of it? Well, first of all differentiate weak and strong emergence. Weak emergence is when something properties at one level are um un uh unknowable by uh the uh properties at a lower level but unknowable in the sense that you don't know it like the properties of uh hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. You can examine those properties. But if I would tell you you take two of the hydrogen, one of the oxygen, you put them together and you get, you know, a zillion of the molecules, you'll have something called wet. It'll be water and it'll be wet. Um, and you never imagine how that could happen from studying oxygen gas and hydrogen gas. However, as science has advanced, you can explain it. And it has to do with the bonding angles of the hydrogen and oxygen and how they would slip past each other when you have enormous numbers of them. So that's explained. So that is weak emergence where it is possible to explain in principle and in fact in that case we have explained it. Strong emergence means it's impossible to uh predict the properties at a higher level from a lower level. in principle it's forever impossible no matter how advanced your science and the argument is that consciousness is perhaps the the single member of that set. Uh and that's the argument that conscious is the one thing in which there is strong emergence and it's also allied with the concept of top- down causation. uh even though you have the whole physical world is just the combination of of of uh of physical particles and fields at the lowest level and the and the top is just a combination of them yet the top then somehow has a a causitive power to affect what's down below. And so these are are challenges non-reductive physicalism and I' I'd put in the same category a property dualism uh where you have a single physical uh thing. The physical world is only real but it it has an irreducible property of of dualism a mental property. They're not exactly the same at all but but they are they are have similar kinds of characteristics. Um I have always felt there was an incoherence in those views. Um having done the consciousness paper uh landscape I I now appreciate those views more than I did. Yeah. But I I'm still not uh not a proponent of them. Uh non-physical um um non-reive physicalism is is interestingly used by some uh Christian philosophers. a very high standing. Peter Van Inwagon is is uh best example uh who is a believer and a philosopher of religion but he's also a physicalist of the nature of the person. And so um the the problem that they have has to do within their religious system of the resurrection. Uh how do you what are you resurrecting if you is it the molecules of the body and how do you what happens in the same a different mole? It's a very complicated analysis because if you can you know replicate if you can create one then you can create multiple and where is the kind so it it gets a very involved process but if you're a physicalist and you're a um if you're a physicalist and you are a um a believer in the Abrahamic religion in particular Christianity in this in this case um you you have to reconcile that with a resurrection and non-physical non-reductive physicalist ism is part of that process. So maybe the motivation, you know, is is not purely linear. It's sort of circular. You're making an you're making a a an ontological uh assumption about the nature of the world, existence of God and afterlife, whatever, and then you have to explain what happens. And non-physic non-reductive physicalism is a way to do that. Um, and as long as your motivation is clear, I'm fine with that. Uh, because because it's an insight that's interesting. So yeah uh you know as I said property dualism and non-reductive physicalism supervenience to a sim a similar degree where the physical is mental is supervened on the physical but but it doesn't ex it doesn't have to be reduced to it um are interesting insights but as I said I I I always felt slightly uneasy with all of them. M I agree with you but I do think it's interesting and it's good to mention also that there are very very uh only top level I mean George Ellis for instance here that's like you appeared also on conferences so there are some some very um yeah I respect highly George Ellis broadly Nancy Murphy philosopher religion as well as Peter Vandenwag and others yeah so um moving on to quantum [Music] which has sort of this broad diversity because it relies so heavily on your whole interpretation of quantum mechanics, how you how you approach consciousness. Um I do think and I was very curious what your thoughts are also a bit beyond the paper I'd say just your conversations with physicists. What I noticed, but it could be a bias here, is that in the foundations of physics, what is called these epistemic approaches that say, okay, we need to take a step back in in understanding quantum mechanics uh and and take the observer centric approach. You just say maybe the theory is just about our knowledge of nature and it's not about what nature truly is. Which means that uh the the the mathematics the the superp position the quantum state might not be this particle wave duality or a particle being at at different that very popular idea right which on which sort of popular science series are based on the multiverse etc. these physicists now say no no no wait a minute maybe take a step back and it's just about our knowledge we cannot say that and we have to take this observer centric approach um is becoming more and more prominent within within physics and it goes a bit against I'd say the more objective approach of someone like uh um Roger Penrose of course who has his objective collapse and still wants to stay sort of I wouldn't say physical but How do you assess this sort of tension within the foundations of physics and do you also what I just sketched do you see that sort of happening as well or is it sort of my bias in in researching all of this? Yeah, it's a complex uh question and the pieces need to be teased apart. Uh first of all a question is what is an observer? Um, and yeah, so so that that's one. And I'd say a majority of people would say an observer it it doesn't have to be a conscious element. It can be just a measurement. And so a machine doing an observant or even molecules colliding with each other is a measurement in in the broad in in the broadest sense of the term. So you know, collisions between particles are their own observers. And so it's completely natural and there's nothing spooky or um or or mystical about it. I mean so that that's a common perception. The the multi-world theory which sort of takes the Schroinger equation literally uh and then has every expression in branching off um has the virtue of not having to interpret the Schroinger Rage and not having to have a collapse. Um but to me the cost is is pretty high in terms of the nature of reality. Of course, who am I to say what reality is? It doesn't have to satisfy my interests of uh of parsimony or being able to understand it. I I I fully submit to that. Uh but still uh it it it uh it invites uh what um David Lewis says is the incredulous stare when he had his m you know plurality of worlds. uh you know there's just some things that you just feel just are crazy. Um and you know the multi- world interpretation you know would be that for me although some very good very top physicists and very good friends are are you know espouse that and really don't care what I think but I I just want to make the point that of the quantum theories and they're about I put have about 20 and I I'll have more in the future. Uh that they're very diverse in terms of how people use quantum. we just say the word quantum. I was always a pretty high skeptic of anything quantum being relative. Maybe I was a neuroscientist by background so I had that predilction but I'm very skeptical that quantum has any influence whatsoever on the uh consciousness uh process uh in the early days and uh in in discussing with Roger Penrose and Steuart Hammerov both of whom were good friends um you know I was pretty tough on them in terms of uh of their of their theories I've become softer um as they've persisted and have some interesting data Um, but I point out that that theory is just one of a large number of of different theories of of how quantum could be involved in conscious and they differ radically from each other. Um, very very important. You have, you know, collapse of wave function. Henry Stap, Dave Charas and and McQueen have had talked about collapse of wave function. uh uh Steven Wolfrram talks about the the rules of the rulad which is his universe of rules in which quantum theory is is derived from it. Um you know Federico Fagen on on quantum information theory. I mean there's just a a huge number. John Tord who's a physiologist has symbi symbiogenesis in the individual cells which are quantum related. Um the development of quantum biology as a real science uh in terms of uh photosynthesis, bird migration are two that are real and scientific. Nothing to do with consciousness but our biology shows that quantum um uh uh mechanisms are critical not just in the sense that quantum is everywhere on anything because it's the fundamental reality but actually quantum mechanisms are are critical for these bi biological functions. So that's really significant that gives a a boost to quantum theories in general. Um and so I would divide quantum theories of consciousness into three broad categories. One is where quantum processes are operating in the brain. Uh the ham the penrose hamarov microtubules is one. uh Roman Pzansski has it within the the neurohill the interstitial state spaces in in between neurons in the in in the brain. Uh you know so there are a lot of different places where it can occur in the brain. Uh second category are quantum theories that go beyond the brain. It's just the sort of the observer effect and that that consciousness is part of the universe and it's expressed through the quantum world. And so the brain is sort of a a uh a um a mechanism that that system uses but it's not the quantum uh a process in the brain that's the conscious. the conscious sort of outside and it's using the the brain but it's quantum process in some sort of a consciousness quantum process and then using the brain. It's a very different way of of of thinking. U one is purely a mechanistic view of quantum and the other has this generalized view which may be which would be more compatible with idealism but brings quantum and idealism in into effect. And then a third category might be how quantum processes are part of a of a dual aspect monism that's part of that that kind of is an emergent from some fundamental activity. So important when we understand quantum is that it it it's it's a vast universe of its own kind and and there are very very different expressions within it. I should point out that there are you know mainstream first rate physicists who say that the the whole effort of quantum consciousness is I won't use the you know a vulgar term but I would say Murray Gal man put it as quantum flap doodle um Carla Relli today who has a a relationship a relational theory in physics you know would dismiss any type of quantum of any kind that is relevant for And it's just a uh you know kind of taking a a uh kind of a a a modern popular view of quantum is with the observer and trying to trying to make the observer more than it is and where an observer can just be a measurement that the physical world can make with each other. So we want under quantum which I take seriously and more seriously than I did you know for decades doing this paper and researching it I now take it more seriously than I did. So I want to make that point but still I want to say that there's a great diversity on how it's expressed and that it is uh largely rejected by I'd say most mainstream physicists. Uh getting back to what we mentioned earlier in this conversation relating it back to what people really get understand and what's relevant to them conscious AI. I mean we just concluded that that you within computationalformational subcategory of materialism can give you conscious AI because you say it's computational touring machines AI is computational. If we get to certain level complexity we might sort of get conscious AI. Um I interviewed Sir Roger Penrose who of course says has this point this beautiful point in the emperor's new mind and sort of bring forward that consciousness must be something beyond algorithms must be beyond computation. Um do you how strong is that argument still? I mean is is that uh and I've always I've always liked the argument but it it is not it is not necessarily a popular argument among physicists or computer science in the um the landscape of Ka's website we're adding a theory of uh the Blum family um it's Lenor Manuel and Aram who's the son Blum and they're all MIT PhDs and computer scientists all top faculty at Carnegie Melon in in the past um and they have their theory of of conscious touring machine which is a very sophisticated approach to computational functionalism um and one can read it and assess it but the point I'll make is under their theory AI consciousness is an absolute certainty in at some point in the future that's their point and I totally agree with that because it's completely consistent and they have a very rich theory about that um so once again it is your AI conscious is depending upon your your theory of consciousness. If your theory of conscious where we are now in the quantum area um it is um it is uh uh less certain then it would be under computational functionalism like the Blums theory. Um, but it would still be possible because what you would need to have is is some kind of a manipulation because in order to create something that is conscious, you have to manipulate the mechanism and it's harder to manipulate the mechanism of of quantum theories. Whether it's possible in principle, you know, I'd be open-minded on that. I'd say it it is possible, but it's not certain. Whereas in computational functionalism, it is certain and and and would happen at some point in the future. I think it would take a longer time than people think that even if that were true, but under quantum theories, it's to me uh uncertain whether if quantum theories and any of these different kinds of quantum theories are the true theory of consciousness. Whether it's manipulatable enough, sufficient to create AI consciousness is a further question. And I leave it that way. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pretend to to give an answer to something, but I do know that it's a different likelihood than under the computational functionalism. Yeah. Check. And we have sort of the the Roger Penrose approach sort of very much still trying to stay with the brain and then you invoke quantum because you say it cannot all be computational. So we need quantum effects and then gets us consciousness. And on the other hand, we have Fedrico Fine who uh we've also featured on our uh channel and uh very popular. Yeah. Very good. uh um physicists now saying that the consciousness can be equated with quantum fields. So that's a total different approach. You now say the quantum fields we know to be fundamental are consciousness themselves. They express themselves in in sort of brains and that's sort of a a pansychism kind of ways way of thinking. We we need to make one point that we have not made so far and and to me it's a very important one and that is to discuss the the concept of identity theory. M so identity theory originally was a materialistic theory that said that brain states are the equivalent mind states are the equivalent of brain states um and then it was ridiculed they're so so different and all of that and we have all these different theories that you know the ones that you're mentioning the 200 theories one of my uh provocative points is that every theory is an identity theory at some point in every theory you're saying that that is consciousness whether that is this that or that that or this. You're saying that's it. Yeah. A quantum field is it? Why the is a quantum field a conscious doesn't look like a conscious? I don't see any red there. Why is it that rather than something else? But every theory makes that claim. That's why I like the work of David Papanau. Although I don't agree with his materialistic con uh uh conclusion, I think he is the is the um most precise in explaining identity theory to push everyone's nose in what they're saying because he says identity theory is absolutely the right idea and that means that you know the the impulses in in C fibers is the pain that is it and it's is it in the hard sense uh and the radical sense of the morning star and the evening star which you see in different places at different times is the same thing. It's the planet Venus. It's just called two different things. Uh Norm Jean Mensson whatever her name was became Marilyn Monroe. Those are two different names, two different people. But if you eliminate one, you by force have to eliminate the other. If you eliminate the evening star, there is no morning star. If you eliminate normagene, there is no Marilyn Monroe. They are exactly the same thing. And David Papano says that that's the principle uh of of of for neurobiology. That's his view. I don't agree with the conclusion, but I think his view is should be appreciated by everyone who studies consciousness studies because every one of these theories is making that claim in some sense. M everyone and I can take every theory and show you how everyone is making a kind of identity theory um claim and if you ask me I would say every one of them sounds ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense to say that that's what it is. Um and and and and that is a deep fundamental issue. Maybe idealism comes the closest because you don't have to define it because it's a it it it it is the fundamental thing and it's the full stop. Yeah. It's the equivalent of of of the classical God in the Abrahamic religions where God is a necessity. Well, it's a logical necessity, metaphysical success. These are two complicated questions. But if that that God is the absolute necessity and therefore if if if necessity is is part of the essence of God's being you you don't ask the question it's a meaningless question to ask where did God come from which is the obvious you know come back to theism but they eliminate that under the idea that existence and essence are the same thing and the same thing would apply with with pure consciousness whether it's an idealism or non-dualism and Indian and and and and so that you know it's a full stop at that And that's and that's fine. But you're still saying that whatever that is, whether it's a god or whether it's cosmic consciousness or any of these other theories, that that is what consciousness is. And I just what I like to do is to make everyone, you know, push their nose in this idea that you're making a claim that that is what consciousness is, even though it doesn't look like consciousness. I'm glad that you bring up sort ofism that has this problem to a lesser degree because I I find it a bit hard to follow you here. Would would it but I do get sort of that you you want to sort of make people sort of really point see me where it is and then then stop sort of denying and say this is it right for instance the if you really have this computational view on consciousness then be concrete about it. We know what I mean software is hardware states. Okay. Hardware. Okay. If I build a computer with tubes and valves like a super planetary water computer I build a touring machine we can build our LLMs it will be crazy will be I don't know how much space it will take. We can build them with water tubes and valves. And if you claim an LLM to be conscious then admit that that that super planetary valve water computer is conscious. Is that sort of a way to understand this? I I I I think that's entirely valid. That's an entirely valid point. Um but I I'm making a a slightly further point. The point I'm making is that if you're saying that that's the consciousness, the tubes, the electron, whatever it is, you're saying that that's the thing that's that's conscious. And so if it's the tubes, why is it the tubes? If it's the quantum state, why is it the quantum state? I if it's uh if it's um idealism, why is consciousness sort of the product of all reality? You're you're making some kind of claim. If it's a neural circuitry, if it's global workspace theory and recurrent things, why is it that? If it's a if it's electromagnetic waves, why are of the whole brain, which are interesting theories and making contributions, why is that the same thing as as consciousness? because there that's what the claim are. It's it's a it's not just that these are models and the reality is different than the model. It's that whatever the reality is. Why is it that? And to me for any of these claims there are no answers that that are available to my mental facilities. They're above my pay grade except as I said for a theistic view and for an idealist an idealism view both set as as definitional boundaries the nature of ultimate reality as uh non-penetrable. So the existence of God where where God's necessary existence is part of God's essence and an idealism where consciousness is the ultimate non reducible or non um uh a non-penetrable existent that's the existent that ends the conversation because you're defining it as such and and I think that's that's a legitimate point even though we're still left with the ultimate question uh which is my other non-conciousness lifelong question. Why is there anything at all? Why is there something rather than nothing? But that's a whole other conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Fourth category, integrated information theory. [Music] Um, I'm fascinated by it and I've interviewed Christoph. I've read about it and uh, so I know a little about about IIT, but you might have a better understanding than I do if I ask you what is IIT and what is its its central claim? I mean, we just discussed that every theory is an identity theory. What is its its claim about the identity of consciousness? Yeah, I I I like IT and I I re revel in it um in terms of its unique approach. It starts with an assumption of consciousness as a fundamental uh principle. It has a series of axioms and postulates, develops some mathematical theories. Um I I like all of that. I particularly like um and of course it talks about integrated information what it what it would take fi and the nature of it in order for information to be sufficiently integrated to create consciousness. Um I I as I said I like I like all of that. What I particularly like is its approach to identity theory because it has a quasi spatial structural in some sense um uh world although world is not a good idea in which each conscious unified precept is in a sense a kind of structure in some kind of of of non uklitian non uh hilbert space of some mind. Um, and I like that because that at least recognizes that something has to be that conscious element and they have that something. They don't talk about it too much because it sounds it sounds really uh odd to people who are say core neurophysiologists. It sounds like you're way out. It sounds, you know, pans psychic. They're accused of being pansychism. They say they're not pansychists. And I respect that. Everybody who tells me they're not this, I'm not going to accuse them being of that. They say they're not. I'm going to take them at their word. And so Kristoff Ko, Julio Tinoni say they're not pansychists. And though some people say they are, so I take them that they're not. Um but they as I said they have this structural idea which I think addresses my concern that every theory is a theor theory of an identity theory and they have conscience being an identity with this structure that comes out of what's integrated information. So at the very least I think uh IIT has made a significant contribution to our way of thinking. Uh what has happened as everyone who looks at consciousness at all knows is they were accused by 124 philosophers and neuroscientists of of being a pseudocience u because of a whole series of different things. We're not going to get into all of that. Um I I think the the incident is unfortunate in one sense and fortunate in another which puts me on the outs with a lot of people but it's fortunate in the sense that it it focuses on the interesting things about IIT um that um that maybe even they keep keep quiet like this um this quasi dimensional structure space that they have to have which is part of them. I I think that's a feature to be admired, not not a uh uh um a prediction that or or an aspect that should be hidden and and uh and and uh um and and pretend that it doesn't exist because I think that's a a real feature of it because it does it does then make a claim for what consciousness uh really is. Um I do personally criticize IIT or criticize the the the way the world the the scientific world has approached it because um in this so-called adversarial collaboration that that that treats predictions from IIT versus global w work space theory or others um each one makes a prediction and they see what what happens. Um to my mind the the the nature of the prediction does not really represent the essence of the theory and it it was forced because it was it had to be a scientific approach. It was forced to make pred make maybe it makes the predictions anyway but it was forced to make that sort of the premier thing about the theory. Uh to me it's not. And so if if the experimental work would have 100% proven the the you know parietal cortex or the the system that IT predicted if that was 100% proven to me that would not then verify IIT and conversely if it were not proven it wouldn't undermine it because IIIT to me has a different kind of approach that is not as susceptible to expressions of pred prediction that can be verified on an experimental basis. Now, Julio and Kristoff might disagree with what I just said that it is scientifically predictable from that point. Uh, but I'm skeptical of that. Yeah, they will I I think they will admit to the fact that it that it is sort of it might be in principle feasible, but I mean practically speaking to calculate fi which is the measure of of of is like incredibly complex, right? Yeah. But but I actually think that's a that's a separate and good uh very important contribution fi because it can help you understand whether uh uh comeosse patients are conscious. Exactly. And that that's a real useful extraordinarily helpful contribution to to medicine and humanity but I don't think it has it has a a great um onlogical uh um powers in itself. I don't think I have think that FI has wonderful um therapeutic analytical approaches and is a great contribution. I I do not give it a lot of ontological power to just share my sort of take on on IIT and my understanding of it. What I like also you express what you like about it is the fact that it sort of it says this is it in a sense the unfolded causal structure is like that difficult stuff that Christoph which I don't fully understand but I I do get the fact that you you say it's not the computation it's sort of the the interconnectedness of the hardware or the interconnectedness of the system which is its integrated information and which we can calculate where it maximizes and and that gives us sort of a conscious unit or and That is it. And we can even say that at a certain moment the that unfolded causal structure maps oneonone to conscious experience for instance of of garlic of of so so it is in a sense ifright our first or one of the first very accurate scientific theories of of qualia. Um and that also it surprised me in that sense that it got attacked with that that letter that which you referred to. And um I mean you you quote in your in your landscape article you quote Alex Alex Gomez Marin who you will be interviewing also is a very interesting physicist and and consciousness um researcher who said um that IIT ticks too many nonmaterialist boxes. uh there is academic hate for non-physicalist speech cancel cancel culture has unfortunately landed in the sciences and just now in neuroscience and I mean also David Chmer said it sort of got nuked so it's just this small dispute that got this letters like and I don't want to go too much into into the politics of of of consciousness researchers fighting over stuff like this but it does sort of raise my question hey wait a minute here we have a sort of a a a theory that is scientific I I mean it's scientific. It makes sort of accurate predictions if right and now you start attacking it and it seems like an onlogical attack. So I can follow what what Maria is saying here. I was curious what your thoughts are because you quote him but where do you where are you here? Yeah. Um I you know two of my favorite people are Dave Charas and Alex Gomez Marin work closely with them and long-term friends and um uh and I respect what they say. My view is that IIT is a very uh important um way of thinking that enliven and enriches our whole study of consciousness. So full stop on that. I I totally support that. I I I love it. Um I do not mind the u pseudocience attack which sounds contradictory to what I just said and the reason I don't is I like the the adversarial spark because it forces us to talk about it and to consider the deep essence of of what the arguments are on on both sides. And I have an orthogonal approach to it where as I've said uh I think that that IIT is a unique and and very important contribution to ways of thinking about consciousness. It is for sure with FI a um a a a medical and a therapeutic potential helpful intervention which is of enormous ethical importance. Um what I don't see is the predictions that it claims to make as justifying the theory it espouses. So because I think the nature of the requirements of proof in our society is so based on sci on science that they are forced to do that. So if their predictions were are wrong as as they put it to me it would not invalidate the fundamental aspects of IIT. It might invalidate some of the implications that led them to make that prediction but it wouldn't undermine it. And conversely, if it happened, it wouldn't it wouldn't prove it correct because as I we we've we talked earlier that there's this um significant disjunction I see when anything sort of touches something that is not expressable in the physical world and IAT sort of is on the borderline there in terms of of what it is. If if it if there's anything about it that is not purely physical in in the world, then the scientific method of prediction, experimentation, verification becomes loosened at the very least. And so that's why I I love IIT as making a contribution, but I'm not looking for its uh either falsification or confirmation through scientific experiments. Check. Yeah. Yeah. And I can only echo what I know Bernardo Castro sort of our director of foundation says and I like I like it. I mean because it's like for me like just uh exciting if true that it could be sort of the first he says it could be the first theory uh that bridges sort of the the the the fundamental philosophical gap between the the numina and the phenomena. Right. That it sort of Yeah, that's great. Bernardo Bernard's great and I think that's that that's right. Of course, that's partially what gives rise to the criticism of the materialistic neuroscientists and philosophers to the theory. So, I mean, that cuts both ways. Yeah. Check. Um, category number five, pan psychisms. [Music] Um, this is an interesting one because I think pampsychism has been sort of growing enormously in the last decade or so, I'd say. But, um, to me, if I want to really say something dummy about it, I'd say you're in search of a consciousness particle. I mean when physicists you see phenomena you can't account for in in sometimes you have to sort of just invoke a new particle or field and you start looking for it and now this feels to me sort of materialism the hard problem where we cannot find it so it must be a fundamental property say of every particle is this sort of a way to understand pam psychism or I'm being too blunt here no I I think it's it's very simple I see you said it well it says that that if if you come to a full stop in in materialistic explanations, purely physical explanations of of the physical world, you have to assume that consciousness is uh a a an irreducible property. And if it's irreducible, well, it has to be somewhere. Uh and uh and pansychism would have it at the fundamental level of of of a quantum field or a particle. and you know disputations about that happens and micropan microcsychism where it's individual particles or protoansychism if I got that right uh where it the particles or this field does not conscious itself but you bring enough of them together and you have something like real consciousness or awareness when when you get at that level um I like to use the word awareness rather than consciousness consciousness is is is is more uh associated with the phenomenal state of of human or animal consciousness where we have content and everything. But pure awareness uh can be devoid of of content. And so if you have a very simplistic definition might be you know consciousness equals awareness plus some content and that could be a definition of consciousness that I might have. So when the pure awareness part would be what these quantum fields or whatever you have at the lowest level but still giving rise to a um uh still giving recognition that the physical world has a reality to it. So it's not idealism where the physical world is derivative from or in some cases an illusion of the material world of of the of the of the consciousness of fundamental consciousness. it's either an illusion or a derivative from it. Uh but is you know has a reality to it. It's just that part of that reality is consciousness as we've say you know Galen Strawson famously says that the real materialist is you know has consciousness as part of the fundamental reality and that's the real materialism. Uh because that's what the world is and the world is material. The world is exist and existent and and that's what it is. um you know when I put on a different hat or look at it with a different squinty eye um you know if I were a Martian or something looking at all these human theories uh you know it would be a little hard for me to discern the the uh the intense differences between pansychism and idealism and certain sense and I I can I'm happy you bring that up because I was like this is like dual aspect monism or I mean all of these are are artificial ways of taking different theories and trying to give some structural organization to how we understand them. But at its basic core, you're dealing with two different kinds of things. One where only the physical world is real and that it and that ultimately will explain conscious without remainder. You need nothing else other than physical theories. You might have to expand your concept of the physical and to quantum and other things. I mean can't go too far without getting into non-physical stuff, but you you can make progress. And the other is non-physical. And when you're in non-physical aspects, whether it's dual aspect monism, whether it's pansychism or idealism, they're all flavors of the same thing. Yes, we are now at number five. Pam psychism is already sort of three categories out of sort of the hardcore physicists or the materialist um theories that sort of can sort of rely they're grounded in the scientific method, the third perspective, third per third person perspective of the world. And now in these other categories you run in pro you have some problem right because you try to sort of include that category of consciousness which if not material how to study and how to make progress here. So I like to distinguish uh between the scientific method which is applied to all materialistic theories. The scientific method is one of observation or experimentation, repeatability, uh falsification, um the repeatability by different techniques or different labs or or or different things, prediction and and uh and results. It's a scientific method. And I say that if it's a non-physical theory or the theory has any aspect of non-physicalism to it, it doesn't have to be all non-phys any aspect invalidates to some degree invalidates the scientific method as I just described from being applicable. And I think there's a tendency in in some theories that have some non-physical aspect to it to try to show their legitimacy by applying the scientific method. Uh this also occurs a lot in the parasychology things which we can talk about in in another category. Um and I I think that's a um that's a a a false desire because once you're non-physical you you are invalidating to one degree or another the scientific method. Maybe not totally but in some degree. So what so then how do you make progress? So I I differentiate between the scientific method which I've described with what I call a scientific way of thinking which another way to put it is is is a logical system of of uh of of of logical steps within generally an analytic philosophy framework which also can be critiqued is not the only way of of thinking in terms of of of a logical approach. So I would start with saying it's a scientific way of thinking and a scientific way of thinking sounds like it is if not experiment and replication logical steps like analytical philosophy but I make it broader than that. A scientific way of thinking means you are very clear about each step. So I can have a scientific way of thinking about faith and religion. I can have a scientific way of thinking and and I do. In other words, I can respect someone who who goes through a process of understanding why guy God exists and they've had some experience and and the scientific way of thinking approaching that means at a certain step they're making a leap of faith between certain steps and so that's entirely uh proper if if that's the way they think. I mean, and I judge that, but I want them to realize at that step they're making that leap. Yeah. And that's the that's a way of thinking. So, you you're you're very clear at each step why you are making that next step. Yeah. And that's what I would look for in any non-physical theory is a rigorous stepbystep analysis to get to your conclusion. And even if you even where you have to make a leap of faith or uncertain, you specify it and you know it. And often time they don't people don't do that. Yeah. Check. And and preferably you make one leap of faith, right? So you hear that sort of I I I know when interviewing Donald Hoffman say you have to grant every scientist one miracle. They need one miracle. Give me God and then I can explain everything. But then further down the line, you don't want to make that. You don't want another leap of faith. And a lot of theories suffer a bit here and that I think you're alluding to that right for instance in thinking about pan psychism. Okay check at the ground level uh matter has sort of this this consciousness uh quality to it. Now we have do have a problem how to account which is called the combination problem. How does that build up to to me sitting here as a form of consciousness and how can you say because if it that that consciousness quality of particles is also right here and and what's the boundary between them? How do these different pans psychism deal with the combination problem and can they do so without sort of making leaps of faith? No, I think every theory of consciousness makes a leap of faith. Uh and the combination problem is the obvious one for a pansychism. Uh and and it also might have to do with uh the uh the boundary problem between different forms of us because I'm sitting in a chair and the same made of the same material. So how am I differentiated my mentality from the physicality of my body or the chair? So you have a combination problem and a boundary problem. Um idealism has its own issue. It's it's the you know the dissociation problem. You have this giant big you know I ide idealist idealism worldview of consciousness. How then do you split apart different elements from it and make them uh isolated and non-over overlapping or or so so you know each each theory will have its own issues and that's why we have a proliferation of of of uh of theories but as I said each one makes a contribution to how we think and how we can appreciate the the importance of consciousness and does pan psychism because because I agree but wouldn't you sort of subspecify that in a sense that uh if you approach that for instance under an analyticism it's not I mean empirically verifiable but the mechanism of dissociation for instance that Bernardo Casper invokes we do see in nature within in human brains people with schizophrenia so you can sort of we account for the mechanism you you invoke a mechanism that you do see in nature I'm just curious if pan psychism has sort of a solution for the combination problem that a mechanism perhaps not yet that they can test. Yeah. I look I think each of the elements of pansychism has its own way of doing it. In in cosmos psychism uh you have sort of the the the entirety of the of existence being the primary form. So it has a you know a great similarity to idealism although there still are are differences. Um I'm uh I'm I'm skeptical that any of the theories of the the combination of of theories of pansychism, you know, ultimately works that you can easily determine it. You can you can see how it could work, but you see how it has problems. Same thing with idealism. Uh you know, I'm familiar with it, you know, Bernardo's dissociation theory with schizophrenia. Um and and to me that's interesting, but uh to me they're operating at such radically different levels. It's not, shall we say, um immediately persuasive. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That that you could call and you could label that a leap of faith in that sense. Yeah. And a leap of faith, you know, we're using that. I'm not using that in a pjorative way. I I I recognize those there is a ultimate theory. I'm not a relativist. I'm not saying oh all these theories making a contribution you know we'll never know that there is a real theory in fact I've quipped at some point is that it's not that we have too many theories it's that we have one too few that's interesting it's like this good incompleteness thing right moving on but um uh there's this funny quote you quote I like how you quote Dave David Chmer because he's just he says such great stuff throughout the landscape and around panyism you have him saying um one starts as a materialist then one becomes a jewelist and then a pimp psychist pam psychist and one ends up as an idealist is is psychism this in between stop do you see it that way for for for people sort of on their materialism towards I wouldn't per say idealism it doesn't necessarily but just let's say non-physical on their journey towards non-physical it's this this your first subway stop out of material yeah I mean I I think that's that's uh that is a uh a a valid idea. It's it's kind it's it's it's a it's a it's a very clever approach. Um um and it has to do with the the strength of of consciousness on the one hand and the your diminishing confidence in the nature of the material world whether influenced by quantum physics or or whatever else. uh uh I I I am less um uh um less uh uh confident that I would move along that path because I think that that path has a um a constraint to it that's not recognized. It looks like it's the only way to go, but there are other ways to go and if you have a theistic view of of the world um then it's a radically different path. A lot of the you would utilize a lot of that same information, but you'd have an entirely different approach to that process. Yeah. Check. We'll get to those more religious theories. Uh number six, zmonisms [Music] for people sort of new to the to the term. What is a monism? Monism means there's only one reality. Um and that talked about talking about a dualism that there's you know physical world and a mental world or a mental world and a physical world and a spiritual world. Um the Abrahamic religions have kind of a dualistic approach. Indian religions sometimes have three different levels of a body, a soul, a spirit and different um different esoteric philosophies and theosophy and have have different realms of the of of of existence. Um, modism says it's only one thing and the one thing is the thing and it is expressed or is it seen um in different forms and one form that you see is the physical world. Another form that you see is our mental states but it's all emerging from the same thing. It's a a a little bit um like I don't know an optical illusion that there's one thing there but you can see it in different ways depend on your your mindset or a hologram where it's only one thing but you look at it and has different forms or something. Yeah. Uh or a you know a four-dimensional object seen in in three dimensions at different stages. I mean there are different metaphors that we can use but it's one thing uh and that it has these different expressions. Burch and Russell famously started that and then it has had different expressions uh along the way and the concept of dual aspect has been utilized by by uh a number of theorists uh which to me are are very interesting. Now in doing the landscape uh there there are just certain people have said that they're monus that they only believe in one thing and therefore it was hard for me to categorize them to something else because they say that they're one thing and I don't want to necessarily I'm trying not to disagree with what they're saying themselves um about their theories. Um, and so it's it's it's hard to some theories that are pansychic theories are monistic theories like like Galen Strawson who everybody says is a pans psychist. He says he's a materialist, the real materialism. He says that slightly tongue and cheek. Uh, but then he says I'm a monist. And so I had to reference him in this pansychism. Everybody calls him a pansychist, but he himself says he's a monist. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to respect his views and put him as a monist. Yeah. David Bentley Hart who is a um an orthodox uh Christian uh philosopher, theologian and u um kind of um critic um says that his conception of God and the universe is a monistic theory. Um, and so I put him also under monism because that's what he's saying his theory of God is is a monistic theory of existence and he has, you know, his arguments for that. So monism is um I don't want to call it a catchall theory because that sounds um, you know, like it's a slight disparity. I don't mean it that way at all. I'm saying that there are there are a number of theorists who have theories that range from a um a pansychist approach to a theistic approach that that want to be classified as there is only one kind of existence and um and because of that I I you know I I give that it it its pride of place by its own category. Yeah, that's clear. as that point you made and I think it's it's a very valid approach because otherwise it would become very messy if you I mean you would adjudicate which you don't want to do right you categorize so you but for people new to it just for clarification philosophically speaking and and and an analytically speaking um physicalism is a monism yes and idealism is immonism so that can be a bit confusing right I totally agree with that and under monism under monism where where it uh how it is differentiated from the materialist modist and the idealist modus is that it most of them claim some kind of a dual aspect. Yeah. And and that's the difference they so monism could have been called dual aspect monism because all of them have that characteristic. Yeah. And to have it just monism it just fit better on a paper. It it it it it it would sound like materialism and idealism could be in that. So every everything could be ammonism or many things would be a monism. But again it's a it's it's those who call themselves dual aspect monisms. Yeah. Dualism I find next category number seven dualisms I find very interesting [Music] because of course in western thinking uh the the the the dualism introduced by Renee Deart has been criticized and is not a favorable position at least that's I think also you how you desc describe it. But still we see a lot of dualisms many of which are uh come come sort of out of the the religious um thinkers and there you can understand it a bit better right because they have sort of this uh conception of God and creation which is sort of dualistic. So then you want to but I'm just curious at other dualistic theories that are still sort of um new um as a position because it surprised me in a sense as a category that it's still a position some people take or is it a very much a minority position uh among uh professional philosophers it is certainly a minority position. I mean there was one survey I think that was done that you know had it below I don't know 5% or 8% of philosophers uh um philosophers I think would be more than 50% would be materialist. though you can judge the quality of their work based on your thinking about materialism. But dualism certainly is uh is not favored among professional philosophers. Uh and certainly most scientists are not are not dualists uh by any means. Um but um the vast majority of of the world are dualists. I mean they think not that that means anything um in terms of today's world but you know I take it much broader. I I do not take it as originating with Decar although Decar had a very specific uh uh expression of it. And the the big problem with dualism just like combination problem for um for pansychism and the dissociation problem for idealism big problem for dualism is interactionalism. How does the non-physical world interact with the physical world or the physical world is a closed physical system and you know that has to do with free will. A lot of other things can be derived from that. Uh but dualism um goes back you know to Greek philosophy and Plato in one sense certainly to the Abrahamic religions. If you have a a a god creating a physical world which is a real physical world it's not a it's not an illusory physical world. So the physical world created by God is a real world. It is it it it has its own ontological status. whether that status has to be maintained by God on a uh a sustaining basis which many people a agree with or not at least it has its own real uh ontological uh status and and level. Um and so dualism is sort of a uh uh kind of your first folk religion uh that comes out of thinking well I'm rejecting materialism and therefore there's something there's something else others then move on to the pansychism or idealism. But to me, dualism, you know, is underappreciated in the scientific world. And I think just as pansychism and idealism has its new adherence, I think dualism does as well. And there are different forms of um of dualism that have emerged. An interesting one is uh is um emergent dualism, which makes the claim that that the physical world is primary uh in essence. But once there's a certain combination of physical things and whether that's some you know integrated information or whether it's some neuronal connections or whatever it is that there are kind of overarching psychophysical laws that exist you know eternally that out of that out of that physical structure a non-physical thing would emerge and that's called emergent dualism. Uh Richard Swinburn who who is um one of the leading philosophers of religion has very strong arguments for substance dualism um which are not um analytically dependent upon his theology. Now it may have be motivated by his theology and consistent with his theology but it's not motivated by it. I I mean it is motivated by it but it's not dependent upon it in a in a logical sense. uh he would say that he believes God created souls. That is part of the dualism. But he says, and this is I I find this very interesting. If he says I'm wrong about that, if God didn't create souls, it's entirely possible that souls can be an emergent quality of the physical world under some under some system. what he's sure about in his world. He is sure that there is a non-physical element in the in the human in order to create consciousness. He believes that God created it each one, but he's not dependent. His argument doesn't depend on it because there could be an emergent dualism. Some claim that the interaction problem is is not as as severe and defeating as most people would think. And so even more recently some physicists have shown that the physical world is not as closed as you think and whether it's invoking quantum or chaos or you know various kinds of theories they would show I you know I I would think in a kind of a logical sense that if there you know if there is a god and if there is a god who created every everything in the physical world and if that system is right to me it's it's it's a it's a leap of faith but not a not a very large one to think that there could be um there could be interactionalism in in some in some case. So I mean we're all making leaps of faith in one way or another. Yeah. And it what's important I believe is to understand for each of these where those leaps of faith are being made. But everyone is making a leap of faith of of some kind. I mean the materialists say they're not making a leap of faith. They're just going by science. for their leap of faith is that mental states can be described in terms of physical states. So they start out with they start out with a leap with a leap of faith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's Yeah. There are departure points. Yeah. But I again I I would I am not I am um willing to uh take dualism seriously as opposed to most people most people in the academic community. the sort of just sort of what r uh sort of uh what comes up with me in thinking back to quantum um I I was I've always been fascinated by John Wheeler's work to you right the participatory universe and because that's in a sense you could say it's a dualist picture it's it as the observer and the big bang and it sort of it it it plays around with that right from his quantum perspective uh observerhood and the the our physical universe But it's connected. It's in that you, right? And then you have Amanda Ga, a science journalist who I I regard highly. Oh, you know her. She's awesome. Yeah, she's great. Trespassing on Einstein's lawn. She written this beautiful her journey into very much of Wheeler's work. But it's she says sort of at that bottom U where you have the the the observer and the universe there's this overlap and that's what puzzled Wheeler and you have a student of Wheeler saying because you could also say it's it's epistemic it's about knowledge is the observer and his knowledge about the world and what's on right what we regard to be on and I think with Suzac or you have like one of Wheeler's students who came up with like epiantic it's like it it it you know it's this connection between the And why I'm saying this is that for me thinking about sort of these jewelist pictures when you have the two in in in the interaction problem there is this moment where they do if you want to interact and and right at that point you're the same thing. Yeah. And that's epionic and that and then to me you are monist again. So then I'd say it just feels like dual aspect monism would then be a better to to to describe yourself your position if you're a jewelist. Yeah. Look I I mean just something which fascinates me personally. Yeah. And I think that's legitimate. Each of these positions can be defined in in different ways and in how you look at the reality of the physical world and the potential non-physical reality and how they how they interact and you can define it in different ways and each each of the big categories I use is is what's what people traditionally think and then within those there are lots of variations but the truth is it's a smear. You know, you could take this diagram and if it's an ink, I just pour some water on. It'll all smear together. And some of the categories are legitimately, you know, properly smeared together. We'll leave materialism out. Yeah. And and and interesting though to read in jewelism for people also the what was new to me sort of in Vatic and and and and Indian thought. There were already debates sort of amongst dualists and idealists. That's that's interesting. Yeah. And the the dualist were the weaker category and not not as surviving in in Indian philosophy, but it definitely was a an original an original category. And what was also new to me is that sort of in would you say that indigenous thought sort of uh you know what I wanted to do and and this is a little story I I really would like to tell is uh as I was doing this paper it came about by the way u not because I had this great motivation to suddenly write the landscape of consciousness for everyone to talk about uh but I was asked um by a scientific journal uh one of the uh one of the um editors are on the board uh John Tord who has a theory um to write an introductory short introductory article to their special issue on quantum consciousness. He wanted me to give an overview because he watched closer to truth and and thought I would do that and I resisted for 3 four months because I I obviously so much work I was already doing. I knew this would take extra work and and I would have to do it right and I I wouldn't do it and I can't do it so I'm not going to do it. And then, you know, he asked me a few more times. And then suddenly I realized that if I'm ever going to do I really do want to do something like this. If I'm ever going to do it, I I I better do it now or I'll never do it. And this is an opportunity. Um and and you know, it'll opportunity it'll be published. I don't have to worry where it'll be published and review article and I'll say, "Okay, I'll take it." Now, when I agreed to do it, I knew it'd be a lot of work, but honestly, this is not an exaggeration. the amount of work it was less was uh that I thought it would take which frightened me was less than 5% of what it took. I mean less than it was like 20 times more than even the worst fear I had. So it's lucky I didn't know what was to come or I wouldn't have started but just each step as as it occurred. Um, and early on in that process, I realized what I wanted to do was to encompass all human thought as much as I could. And that required not only the the sophisticated philosophical arguments like Bernardo's analytical idealism, which was absolutely essential. It's one of my first theories I put in because it was so important. dualistic theories and uh but dualistic theories that that were more theological from the major each of the major traditions mainly Christianity and Islam, Judaism to a lesser degree because it's less less involved with metaphysical questions at least more recently. Um and then I realized indigenous religions have their own take on it and so in order to I not that I believe in animism or these various things but I think it's very important but but I wanted to encompass all human thinking. So we have African religions, we have um Chinese religions, folk religions that that are that are part of it and these are not done um uh patronizingly. They are done honestly as an expression of the diversity of thinking. And so my early draft, my first draft that was submitted for peer review uh was like 50,000 words compared to 175. I didn't know what was coming but it was about 50 and it and it it had a heavier skew towards the the religion and the philosophical and the peer reviewer who I don't know still anonymous was excellent recommended some theories I had not included which was very helpful um uh but said that look this is the journal of progress in biopysics and molecular biology and our readers are not going to be interested in the philosophical theories um you know the idealism, pan psychism and certainly not the theological theories and so you know but you've done a great job with the scientific theories and so that's great definitely publish um but if you take those out it'd probably be better and I wrote back I I wrote a long thing thanked him for all his help and I wrote back and I said look uh if I were you if I were in your place I would reject this paper because of what you said uh and I would put it stronger than what you said. I would say if you don't take it out, we're not going to publish it. That's what I would say. But you were kind enough to say, you know, I suggest you take it out. I I literally said, you're right. And if I were you, I would say take it out or we're not publishing it. And I said, but here's my position. I'm going to do this once in my life. And I'm now at the position where I'm going to do this. And I'm going to do it where I feel comfortable and self fulfilled. even if nobody ever reads it, that I've produced what I think is my best expression for the for the for the nature of consciousness as expressed by the totality of human thinking. And that's what I want to do and that's what I'm going to do. And if you publish it, I will be thrilled. If you don't, I will be disappointed. But understand completely and I'll look for another way to publish it, even if I have to self-publish it in some way. And to their credit, they agreed and let me publish without any anything cut. Very it's awesome, I think. And it's it's it's also beautiful as a life's work that you had to include it all. And I do think making the move from dualisms to idealisms. It does seems to me that sort of um let's wait for the closing door. um these sort of religious thought that you brought in is now becoming in my opinion is becoming more valuable again because it now uh goes hand inhand with sort of like analytic idealism. It goes it it sort of resonates with some of the quantum theories, right? So they it's very interesting to see how ancient thought and these ancient ways of thinking about consciousness now are sort of uh uh synthesized in a sense I'd say almost and I was of course happy I mean we were clear about our position at the essential but to to to just quote you here uh if anything Imm's explanatory stars seems on the ascent shining brighter as consciousness maintains its mysteries and ilism attracts more adherence [Music] And I just you're being like, okay, this is awesome to but I mean a bit more. I'm not making a value judgment there. I'm making a a a an observation. Yeah. You put it poetically, which is very I'm making an observation. You know, I'm not saying I'm happy about it or sad about it. I'm saying that's that's real real and I take it seriously and very I think it's I think it's fascinating. What I do object to and I get this a lot. I get people scientists uh writing to me and showing how u quantum science and and cosmology and and and you know modern science is in the vadic scriptures is in the Quran is in the Hebrew Bible. I haven't heard too many people saying it's in the New Testament, but but in each of those uh things that and they they show it's there. Um I don't I don't accept that. Um I don't think that's correct. I think there are analogies. I think there are common ways of human thinking about consciousness. So that both what the vades saw, the Vadic scholars saw and what the um perhaps the the the Quranic interpreters saw were similar kinds of uh of uh senses of the universe. But I I do not uh I do not ascribe you know scientific you know uh revelatory truths in the uh ancient religious traditions. I get that. And but but on the why of of you say you just make an observation here. what sort of you think the the reason for the fact that it is gaining popularity is that sort of because I think I think it's so exciting to see it um both ideal idealism and pansychism and even a little bit dualism which I've kind of uh in my own way slightly favored um over time um because it's it's a it's a recognition that you know with the proliferation of materialist theories it it's just not working uh my perhaps my favorite quote is from Jerry Fodor who was a great philosopher psychologist of mine um and and he said it's not that we don't know what it's like to have a theory of consciousness based on the physical world. It's that we don't know what it's like to even know what it's like to to have a theory of consciousness based on the physical world. So, it's a it's it's a it's a it's a second order. We have no idea. Uh and and that position has gotten more and more recognized that each of these materialistic theories are just don't cut it. And and the more you see, the more you feel that. And therefore people are reluctantly some reluctantly some enthusiastically but many reluctantly moving towards non-physical theories in which there are the different expressions and idealism is sort of the ultimate level of of where you go and so it's a it's it's an you can't go beyond that. So that's the ultimate stopping point for the nature of consciousness. What I what I will say about idealism that I've been struck by is the number of different expressions of idealism of how it's described. I mean there are I mean I would say almost hundreds. Now I've I've chosen a few because some of them you know are both rep everybody thinks they're original but they're very rep repetitive of each other uh and also internally consistent. um uh Bernardo's uh analytical idealism is shall we say the most modern thoughtful expression of it be because of the analytic approach his his work in as a computer scientist has given him that capacity to do it. So, you know, I personally would relate to that way of thinking perhaps more than other kinds of idealism. But, um, but each of them have has a sort of a a twist to how consciousness is the ultimate reality. You know, a self-aware universe or consciousness is all there is or or um, you know, the the fundamental ground of being and then how then the physical world comes out of it. Is it an illusion or is it derivative or is it a manifestation? You know, so so there are variances on on how it occurs and and to me those are very interesting. Each of those brings a uh a new vista, a new way to think about idealism. So when we say idealism, just like when we said quantum, we know what we mean by that. But it's important and what I try to do is show all the different expressions of it and how they differ because that can enrich our understanding of what that means. Yep. And when people say interesting this is a bit out going outside your landscape but it does relate to sort of um scientific method versus the scientific way of thinking which of course our foundation is very much about scientific way of thinking but because it's about metaphysics and philosophy we cannot we cannot per definition apply the scientific method there a lot of our viewers and I think people who are a fan of for instance Fedrico Fine's theory love it for the fact that they how they read it or see it as sort of ah now science and spirituality are finally getting together now sort of sort of Buddhism is now proven right and so there's this deep wish to to to bridge the gap so to speak and I get it but I also feel that we have to be humble there and say yeah it's compatible with some of these spiritual traditions but if you truly want me to say anything about karma or reincarnation or your chakras and all that stuff that might be compatible with analytic idism. We do have to be quite honest there. It's a leap often multiple leaps of faith. Yeah. How how do you just I'm just bringing this up because I'm just curious to converse with you about this. I I totally agree with that. Um and that uh and and that goes in in both directions. uh it it goes from you know analytical idealism to people who justify Buddhism or Buddhism go going the other direction. So it is a um uh it it we like to try to do that to bring spirituality and science together. A lot of people will do that. I I try to be you know very rigorously approaching each in its own world and not trying to make artificial bridging because then I am making my own multiple leafs of of faith to satisfy my own kinds of interests and I try you know very vigorously not to do that. Um and and and resist when when when people do that. Each each has its own right to be understood in its own context and that's that's fine. There is certainly a a tendency with Buddhist thought uh to relate a lot of this to to to Buddhist thought. Um and I think Buddhist thought has its its own very interesting approach uh to the nature of nothing or emptiness which is not really an emptiness. It's an emptiness of intrinsic value of of permanence of kinds of thing and I I think that's very interesting and and it is um it is perhaps compliment complimentary with an e I mean it it with theories of consciousness but it is it is not synonymous and it is not is not a proof of it or consciousness doesn't give that additional uh additional credence. uh both are the expressions the broad expressions of human thought about the nature of reality and that I love. Yeah. and you as I want to be careful there. You want to be rigorous. Um to ju just share sort of how that works for me is that I I wouldn't say it's schizophrenic but I make sort of this gut somehow that I do my work for Asencia Foundation and I'm sitting down with you and talking about this and try to be scientific and rigorous and then I also might watch some woo YouTube video on Oh, we all like we all like to do that. Yeah. And I don't know. It's not that I It's just that I let's say it like this. I love the fact that through analytic thinking and I can can sort of not prove it but at least say it's compatible. I don't have to deny that sort of lived experience that I also do have and that relates back to what you shared earlier. the fact that you had difficulty in in in in in sort of science or materialist science denying the human being that thinks about eternity and that's in search of meaning and that's quite bluntly sort of denied in materialism. How does this work for you personally because you said very often here that you take the step back you only spend like two lines on your personal position which we I really want to go into that. Yeah. So uh I I can describe the process of of the landscape paper which which really addresses this question. Um, I went through literally seven or eight stages of sub resubmitting after pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe peer review. And so I give Elsir and the journal bio biohysical molecular biology credit for putting up with my really um manamomaniacal changes and and and because as it as it went uh and about the sixth time when it went through a a third peerreview process because I made so many changes they had to do peer review again. Uh other peer reviews were superficial. I mean they said fine. Um but when they did they have a they had a rule uh this was in December of of 2023 when I had sent in a version that they have a rule that within 3 days they publish it online even if it's not going to be published in the journal for 8 months or so and it was published online but they ne I never knew that and so suddenly there was online and it had and I hadn't finished it yet. Scary moment and I really panicked. Yeah, because the first thing people was going to have at that point was like 120,000 words. So, I mean eventually it was much longer and I was in the process and I panicked and I said somebody wrote to me and and said you know I saw the paper and it was interesting and here's what you left out and I panicked and I said you got to take it down. That was a mistake. They said that's our policy because we we promise people as soon as it's peer reviewed and it's published and I said I said it's not finished it down. I said we can't do that. And I said I said who go to your higher authorities whoever I have to talk to this must be taken down. So it took about two weeks and they told me that look the only time we have ever taken down a paper is when it we've discovered plagiarism or fraud and people are going to think we take it down you plagiarized or fraud. I said I don't care. I don't care what they think. Take it down. So they please and so they finally took it down. and they put a notice they said you know we expect to publish the paper again if we don't we'll explain why so people might have assumed it was there was some fraud about it now and so I was happy they took it down upset that it was it was it was put online now what I didn't realize is when it was first put online even in incomplete form that keywords triggered a lot of people finding it and reading it and I got 20 or 30 emails of which you know maybe a dozen were really substantive. Some of them were angry at me for leaving out a theory and one of them was a theory that I rejected because it didn't make my um my level of confidence. In politics they call it an Overton window which means the window in which a politician is willing to make outrageous statements. Um and above that I mean too outrageous they won't do. So wherever your Overton window is, you can make certain outrageous statements as a politician, but not above that. So my Overton window was at a level where I rejected the theory of theosophy and Rudolph Steiner in terms of their vision of the soul. I could barely follow all the different categorizations of how the soul migrates or whatever. Uh and I got at least two maybe three letters extremely angry. These are from Rudolph Steiner associations and and they were sophisticated people and saying I really blew it by missing it. So uh and other people wrote in other theories I'd missed. So there were probably about 15 or 20 of the 200 theories that came to me no not through me at all but through people writing into this mistake when the p paper was first accidentally published ahead of time. And then I spent a lot of time on those theories. I mean I spent two three days on Rudolph Steiner. I never expected to do that and put him in uh as as I did Theosophy. Now one of the other criticisms I had from this early early uh publishing was that we couldn't find your theory what you believe in there. And I wrote back and I said you couldn't find it because I didn't put it. And I didn't put it because two reasons. One, it really doesn't matter what I think. really doesn't. Uh, and I don't take what I believe particularly seriously, so it doesn't matter. And secondly, if I put it in there, everybody's going to assume that I'm skewing all the other theories to subtly support what I believe because I'm, you know, undermining this one or presenting and that's really not the case. I'm really trying to present every theory as the theorist would present it himself, but doing it in a way which I I try to make it even more believable than the theorists themselves would do it because they're too close to it. I'm making it as believable as possible. And if I put my theory in there, it'll undermine my uh objective. And then a couple wrote back and say, "Yeah, if you do that and you leave it out, people are going to think you have a hidden agenda because everybody has a theory. So now they're going to think you're not only not only directing it, but you're doing it surreptitiously. So I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I didn't know what to do. So I decided how to solve the problem was I put in what I think and I used um I think 39 words in the text and 33 words in a footnote. So 72 words altogether out of 175,000. and and the and the distinction and all the other theories are between I don't know minimum of 400 words to maximum 1500 words and mine was you know 39 words plus a footnote and I and I was deliberate to make to make the point um and so I said look for if if you're if you if you're forcing me to reveal it and for what little it's worth here's what I think 39 words and 33 and what I said was uh what I what I still feel is some sort of a dualistic idealism mashup. And then I put a footnote and I said, "If that's wrong, my next would be something that relates to the quantum world." Which surprised me because I was always very negative on quantum theories. But having read all these and worked through all these, I now would have a feeling. And if even that's wrong, I would counterintuitively, and you're going to think I'm nuts, devolve into an eliminativist uh uh illusionist approach. So that's my three levels. And you know, I'm not going to defend it. I'm just going to state it because I don't want you to think I'm hiding anything, but it doesn't influence what I'm saying. So that was that was that was what I said. And that that is true. And it it actually goes back to the first thing we talked about which was that initial emotional insight. I mean everybody has a sort of a a foundational idea that's imprinted on us or something. And I have to admit that was what it was for me. Can a being who can conceive of eternity be denied? Is this is the nature of all reality such that it produced a being who can conceive of eternity and yet be denied it? Is that what reality has created? And I felt and still feel that that's not the case. that there's something about reality that has I don't want to use the word deliberately but that is consistent with having beings who can conceive eternity and yet and somehow participate in it. Yeah. And that's just an emotional lifelong feeling that then expresses itself in sort of a dualism idealism framework. And how I mash the two together is I I would be a a a and again I have very low confidence in my own opinion. So don't take this too seriously. Um I I would be a dualist but in the sense that the non-physical part of the dualism has has a primacy to it. And so I could just as easily maybe say I'm an idealist who gives uh real credence to the uh the uh the generation of a physical world. Physical world is not an illusion uh which is some idealisms would have it being an illusion. It's not an illu illusion and it is uh it may be caused by but it's not derivative and it has the physical world does have a real ontological status which is but as a pure dualist you would have to say something like both have a a permanent ideological status and I would feel that the non-physical aspects of dualism has a uh e even in a timeless sense has an explan planetary um um pre-existence in some sense. It's not a time sense necessarily, but a explanatory prior that the non-physical aspect of a dualism has non a non-physical explanatory prior and if an explanatory prior that would lead to some kind of an idealism. So that's why I blend these two together. But I don't ask you to believe it and I and and I and I can't really go further to explain it. Thank you very much. I think that's that's beautiful that sort of backstory and also sort of the the the the paper coming out too early has sort of contributed to its richness. And uh as you said indeed you quoted yourself correctly. It was it was very interesting to read sort of your own position so briefly described and I should say also I can I can describe it dare not defend it right but I do think um I interviewing you say you would be part of your own landscape which you yourself could not do but I'm interviewing you here right now um I think you you described it very very eloquently this position and so so it be that uh it has a sort of it's an it's an isism with an objective. You want to sort of keep an objective reality, right? You don't want to end up in this subopsist world where it's all ide. all mind and you could say all an illusion because there does seem to be something which is so permanent which is not mind right that's just very intuitively but you do acknowledge the fact but please correct me if I'm wrong I'm trying to sort of to grasp your position and sort of converse with you about it I would a little bit like jello you know you grab it it's kind of hard to grab but yeah but it's like the the so you you do believe that that it's permanent but you also acknowledge the fact that the the the observation of that objective world goes through mind. It goes through these phenomenal states. It goes through qualia that you have to perceive it. So I get you fully there that it just feels natural to say okay that must be primary. But still I cannot deny that there's something so permanent and which is not mine. So that that then is a form of jewelism. Yeah. Or or jewel aspect monism. What's in the words here Robert? Yeah. Um look look I I am you know always a little bit of a contrarian so I I don't mind using the word dualism. I don't mind that. um other people would have a dual aspect monism and and these words you know have soft boundaries between them and you can easily describe one in terms of the other and I that's easy to do but you know I I like saying dualism because it it it makes it it uh it clear um and it's not just that the um that mind is able to perceive an an a a physical world. Um, but it is the real ontological status of the physical world on a mind independent basis that I would I would believe. Uh but but I would not but if I have the physical world and some kind of non-physical existence both um with strong ontological status I would tend to think that in an explanatory explanatorily sense that the non-physical is is primary in in some way. That's why I would not be, you know, a pure dualist, but be more of an idealist, uh, or even a theist dualist. Uh, that there's something explanatorily prior to the dualistic world. So, I'd say the world today is dualistic. I I would say to be simple, but in in a in a generative sense of how that happened that the non-physical aspect has priority. I think there's this book by is it Polo Kulio? What's his name? The Cabalist or what's I forgot. Anyway, it's this story about sort of being close to a treasure and and this this lifelong search. I'm just sketching the essence of the book. It's a beautiful book. I'll put it below in the descriptions once I have the title. And and then he he's at the end of his life or sort of at a long journey finds the treasure to be and to notice that he was sitting just on it. And what I'm saying and it's sort of I find it a bit emotional even because I just feel connection with you sitting here Robert is that I mean in preparation I I I I also went a bit into your earlier work and you wrote this article back in 69 right the human mind and you said it has to be this non-physical uh component in it and now you have this lifelong journey because that's more than it's more than 50 years ago right and and you hear me explaining this eloquent feels like this beautiful circling around it and having found better words for it but in a same in a sense it feels like the same essence still right but I find that beautiful and I wouldn't say that sort of yeah other I I I appreciate that other people would say you haven't made much progress in your life um I guess that's that's a critique you hear right it's also a critique I read sometimes people watching closer to truth right right that's right And I, you know, I refuse to bend to to an artificial certainty. Yeah. Um I'm going to say what I believe and what I believe may be wrong, but I'm I'm not going to, you know, pander to to desires either my own or others to come to conclusions I I don't I don't believe in. But it is true that the first article I did in 1969, which was was written, you know, a year or two earlier, so I was 23 or 24 at the time. I mean, and that expressed the the the same view that should a being who can conceive of eternity be denied it. And that was sort of a foundational idea to begin to look at the human mind. And what I did at the time is comparing the human mind with the the mind and activities of of nonhuman animals. And you see such a vast difference between them between the outputs. Now, we can explain a lot of that in terms of culture and various other things, but uh I speculated at the time if there's something non-physical that that that non-physical element could be different for different types of beings. Uh that that that the non-physical it doesn't have to be exactly the same kind of thing. And so one if you're willing to admit a non-physical element into your into your uh creation of consciousness then it there could be differences between the ones that humans have and other animals have. So that was part of that way of thinking. Uh then I' I've really not pursued that part. But the overarching feeling about the nature of reality uh based on human perceptions uh is uh is very real. And so I disagree with some people in the last category which we haven't talked about the challenge category who say that the human mind is incapable of understanding consciousness. Uh and that's the answer. A lot of those people would be from even a materialistic point of view. So we just materialism doesn't work because we're not smart enough to do it. Our brains evolved for avoiding jaguars or you know sustaining ourselves through glacial winters um not to understand the nature of reality. So we're not going to be able to do it. I reject that idea. I I don't I don't think that's the case. I think we we can we can perceive you know just like we can quantum theory and the structure of the universe. I think we can make progress um on on consciousness especially if it's materialistic. If it's not materialistic, you know, then then we we have a different way of thinking, but we can then isolate it. So, you know, I am I am not a skeptic in terms of our capacity to understand. Uh but I am I try to be very rigorous in being sure that the steps we make, we have clarity in the logic that we're using and when we make the leaps of faith. Category nine is of course a very important one to to to end with. Um the which is sort of anomalous and altered states, right? [Music] Here we have uh Dean Raiden. Uh we've done extensive research on just the what we empirically can say about sort of deep side phenomena stuff we just can't physically explain and near-death experiences um telepathy um what have you not telekinesis there all these phenomena and he himself says which I like because if you are scientific about it there's so much to debunk there's a lot of woo out there but he says yes 95% of these reports may have been uh may have mundane explanations we can debunk but 5% do not and that 5% changes everything. talking about that 5% and you what is your take on sort of how uh val how serious we should take sort of these these findings and yeah I I am um very committed to really deeply understand anomalous phenomena and um and also uh altered states because there are many people who I respect who use those um those activities or experiences to um inform and even direct their theories of consciousness. So we must do that independently. I had a an early very strong interest in parasychology. So when I had this first feeling that the brain was the thing that that I wanted to study almost at the same time I I began to look at the parasychology literature and found this fascinating because this also was potentially a shortcut and you know we always look for shortcuts to understand things. So rather than going through all the elaborate things of studying quantum physics and physics through you know eight years of graduate school parasychology is a shortcut. I can get right there by seeing a a a difference you in in reality where reality uh can supersede physical law. And in fact, as a teenager, I I wrote to one of the founders of the field, JB Ryan at Duke. And when I was in my first year in in in in college and and skipped a couple grades and did some things, I I communicated with him and he invited me to do my PhD in parasycchology with him at Duke. Uh and I almost did that but decided that you know in in the real world it might be better to do a hard science in neurohysiology. So that was the choice that I made but I took it very very seriously and I followed the field uh in the 60s and 70s and then I say lost interest it it didn't seem to make progress and I I really didn't follow it much until starting closer to truth and in closer to truth uh we have um uh uh parasychology sigh ESP as a a small part not a big part of what we do in consciousness but we have the approach that I'm not going to adjudicate this I'm not going look at the evidence and claim this and claim that because it's a it's a it's a minefield of of of radically different opinions, but rather ask if these phenomena are true and if the 5% I would have it less than 5%, but it doesn't matter. If there's one that that violates that's real, it's real. I mean, it's like being pregnant, you know, it's you're either pregnant or not. So e if one is real and violates the laws of physics with precognition knowing the future or or clairvoyance sensing at a distance that you have no sensory input. If one of those is real then it it really changes everything. So Dean is 100% right about that. Uh I I would make the comment on the very first closer to truth series 1999 Dean was on it and Dean made a wonderful statement that I've retained for for my entire life and he said uh in parasychology he said if the best um uh sigh um um expert or experiencer were to come with me to Las Vegas, we would still lose all our money, but we would lose it slower than other people. [Laughter] That's awesome. Yeah. Now, now that's a wonderful comment and it really leads to some deep thinking about the nature of the scientific method as opposed to as applied to parasychology and s research because it is an example of what I've said earlier which is a a foundational feeling of distinguishing the worlds of physical and non-physical where the scientific method works in the physical world but a scientific ific method does not work in the non-physical world or it may not work and what works is a scientific way of thinking and so to my mind to enforce the scientific world of replicability and experimental you know in the in the uh in SI experiments is is not something that I pay a lot of attention to because I think there's a potential fundamental logical flaw like a category error in applying the scientific method to something where the science. Now if telepathy and if clairvoyance if that is an expression of something having to do with the physical world of quantum theory and non-locality in some physical determination then the scientific method as it applies to quantum theory can work. But if it's if it's beyond that, if the psychophysical laws of reality or if in if if the you know pansyist or idealist or theistic world exists and that's part of it in some sense, the scientific method is not going to work or it's going to work intermittently. Um, and so therefore what Dean said about the uncertainty of of of the of of the capacity to me speaks very deeply about the nature of reality because I think and again I don't want to consider myself an expert on s phenomena but the degree that I have looked at it um I I believe there is something there um but I do not think that that's demonstrable by the pure scientific method even though many people including Dean think it is. I I I would not go that far. Uh and so that sounds like it's a you know I'm I'm spouting a contradiction that I'm saying I believe that it's real. It's not subject scientific method. But why that's consistent is because of my my feeling the difference between the scientific method and a scientific way of thinking. Yeah. and uh and therefore uh but if it exists, it really does inform your theories of consciousness because it would invalidate many if not all the the materialistic theories. Um and and that's why it's important. Yeah. But and if you're then committed to to add to this, right, I I can follow. But if you're committed to the scientific method, you should be committed to falsifiability. So you're in search of black sheep. You're not the next white sheep. Uh so and you know then what if what Dean says makes perfect sense. If you can encounter a phenomenon that's just sort of a black sheep to a materialist worldview you should if you're committed to the the method look for it right and that's what I love for instance about Alex Gomes Moran who you will be interviewing on closer to truth which I find great who does research for instance on extraocular vision. So it's crazy phenomenon that people you can they can just see without eyes. So it's crazy and he says it it's crazy. Why are you studying this? Yes, but because it just basically says because I'm scientific. I just want to and I don't want my theory to stand in between nature or my observation of nature and and and myself. And I do think that our theories can you can put your theory between yourself and and the world in a sense. And and I think that's just a mistake. And I'm not saying that only materialist people do this. you can do this across the board in the landscape. But don't you think that's sort of for me very important? Yeah, I I I I totally agree. I think I think we should be as um not neutral is the wrong word because I don't want to I'm not neutral. I'm passionately um um focused um but not not um uh obstructed by my own presuppositions. That's why I put my own theories on a very low level of confidence level because I really want to explore. Um and so uh you know I've looked at quantum theories and and I've been you know more amendable to it because of that. uh and in parasychology and it's not just it's not just sigh experiments it's a out-of- body experiences near-death experiences I mean people are very passionate about these the these things and I take them seriously as data points but not in a scientific sense and so if there's anything about this stuff that's true about any of this anomalous phenomena it doesn't exist in the same physical and I use that in an epistemological sense world. It does not it exists in some other kind of there's something else going on. Uh Charlie Tart is one of the founders of parasychology has a theory uh and again with all theories I'm almost sure it's wrong but it's very interesting theory and his theory is that parasychology or what's happening in parasychology is not some anomalous phenomena. It's the normal way that the mind and the brain work together and and because the mind and the brain work on on the this sigh relationship and once in a while it sort of leaks out and somebody else can catch it and therefore it's nonreproducible in a scientific way because it's all going on within the individual person. It's the normal way it works and occasionally there's a leakage. Uh but the leakage is not the normal thing. And so that's a crazy theory, but it it has some elegance to it. It has it has a a coherence to it. Um and so my belief is and why I've included it and why I included it and and again the original peer reviewer didn't think it was relevant because it wouldn't be looked upon seriously by hardcore scientists. But I said, you know, I'm sorry. That's this is part of the way I see the world. This is a necessary uh way of thinking. I'm not saying it's real, but I'm saying if it's real, it does inform our theories of of of conscious, and you can't get out of it. Um and and so that's where I I leave it. I I I am not adjudicating whether it's a whether it's it's completely false, which some people do, which I do not do. I do in fact believe that some of it is real and it does it does violate physical law which does immediately invalidate materialistic theories. I believe that. But I also believe it's not susceptible to the scientific method because of something because of some thing and that is and and it is you know remotely and if it is real which I think it is just some quirky thing that is going on or some non-normal thing. I mean, even with near-death experiences and out-of- body experiences, if these were real, you know, veritical approaches to reality and when people die, this is what happens. It'd be a zillion more cases of them. It'd be much more frequent and it's not. It's just it's it's a lot of anecdotal examples, but it would be much much more frequent. I also want to include the two sort of quasi scientific approaches in terms of meditation and psychedelics because I include that in in this category and my simple approach to it. These are very interesting very um um uh perceptive and insightful ways of understanding humanity and and our human way of thinking. Um but neither gives me any veritical confidence that I have that is giving me a a shortcut to to ultimate reality. Um I did find you found you a bit harsh on psychedelics. I must say that that sort of your but that came also from me interviewing Kristoff Co who's now sort of has had some personal experience. I understand I get a lot of advice to take psychedelics. Yeah. And and my answer is I I really do. I mean, I could show you a box of emails about saying I'll get a lot closer to truth if I take psychedelics. And my answer is if I did and I had this great vision stuff, you know, I I wouldn't trust it. I mean, you know, and I don't see it. I don't mean to demean it, but I mean, if somebody, you know, if hits you in the eye, you see stars. It's a similar It's a similar kind of biological intervention in your serotonin or acet acetylcholine uptake or whatever that's distorting things for a while. And you you know and and is that the insight to see ultimate reality? I'd be shocked. Honestly, if reality was such that psychedelics was the way to see ultimate reality, that that would be a shock to me. That's by it is exactly what Christopher he was like shocked. Yeah. Okay. Let's leave it at that. When it comes to psychedelics, um this has been a wonderful conversation, Robert. I've enjoyed it very much. And I thought on an ending note I'd love to end we already discussed your personal position so I don't know if you want to go there but before that sort of before I ask you like a very personal question more on your landscape the work you've done Steuart Calfman quotes says on the the landscape I get by publishing the landscape you shall have changed it and you of course cannot tell me now how this will change that would be just like I'm uh um speculation. How do you hope to change the landscape of consciousness? Yeah, that's a great question. I and and and Stu's a a very innovative thinker and a good friend. By the way, his his theory which I've included is a very interesting one because he differentiates between uh potential and um and actual uh in terms of possibilities and actualities and he he involves quantum theory or quantum observation as as converting the the possibilities to actuality. So once again it's not something that I would agree with but I think it makes an important contribution. It's a new way of thinking. So he is very good. and he was, you know, very generous with his comments. Uh, you know, I I didn't have any motivation to do that. My only motivation was that if I don't do this, I'm going to really feel bad. And, you know, it's a very mundane and prosaic kind of uh life kind of thing. Um but uh you know I I have been pleased where it you know it's now been cited dozens and dozens of times in a in you know less than a year and in the scientific literature and anybody who's dealing with consciousness does refer to it and saying here's the here's what you know here's here's the totality of of the landscape and I and I do think it it uh it it it helps people recognize that it's not just a a battle between uh uh integrated information theory and global workspace theory that's not the battle for consciousness that it's a it's a bigger landscape that the that and and I think this is a time of importance I I I would like to add one thing that is of a social nature which is not part of closer to truth or landscape of any of any way but it has affected me and it surprised me and that is beginning I guess during co uh the viewership on Closer to Truth on YouTube really took off and um because everybody was you know was in was isolated and quarantined. Um and what I began to recognize was that we were getting comments from all over the world um and particularly from u uh religions and races and and countries that were in conflict with each other. And so from India and Pakistan, from I don't know Turkey and Syria uh and from uh Russia and Ukraine uh and from I don't know Minimar and Bangladesh and people from each of these cultures writing in and none of them talked about politics or anything. They only talked about the nature of consciousness or quantum physics or something that we're dealing with on Closer to Truth. And I recognize that that the questions we deal with on closer to truth particularly big a big one is consciousness which is the landscape as well are these universal questions which cut across religions races um um gender socioeconomic level even educational level and therefore potentially are a great unifier of humanity around these questions. I mean we've had hundreds of people from the Hindu tradition and the Muslim tradition writing in to appreciate closer to truth even though in the early stages we didn't deal very much with their particular views recently in the last 3 four years we have but even before then they were very appreciative they said look take a look at our culture too there's a contribution but they really appreciated that we are dealing honestly and seriously with these big questions um and so that I I recog recognize is uh is is is an additional contribution that we make and essentially you make too because what you're what we're doing is we're dealing with universal questions that cut across all superficial differences between peoples and to me I think that's very exciting. Yeah, I I could not agree more and it's beautiful to hear this from you. Um our founder Fred Matzer who founded the philanthropist who founded our foundation uh in Dutch he says had bust design the conscious being and the philosophy of non-julism dualism how it contributes to sort of more harmonious living together on this planet which is at the heart of asencia and and our mission achieves that through analytic idealism but at the heart is just harmonious more harmonious living together and our approach approach is is is a little bit less specific but says that just to ask these questions is a great unifier of humanity and and together we can all expose it. I have to tell you maybe one final story which is is always one of my favorite. It was it was some years ago and it was a woman writing from Bakersfield, not the highest in California, not the highest intellectual country. And she wrote, she said, "I'm whatever it was, 58 years old, 65." Uh, and she said, "Man," she's probably 65. And she says, "I have a husband and four sons." And so I have five men in my family and they all think I'm nuts because I've been asking these questions about the universe or existence or what what we are. You know, one son is a mechanic, another son runs a farm equipment machinery, another's a truck driver. You know, these are great people. I love my but none of them understand me. And I I really felt that I was an oddball. And then in the last year, my 13-year-old grandson has been asking these questions, and he and I together watch Closer to Truth. Awesome. And and to me that was, you know, she maybe graduated high school, didn't but there's something in some people who have this passion for these big ideas. And here it was the grandmother and the grandson. Everybody in the middle thinks they're both crazy, but they both they both unified and came together to watch Closer to Truth. So that that's so cool. that that beautiful just one final thought I thought funny I want to share with you was funny on your landscape and then I'll move to my final question in preparing I didn't open with it because I thought it's a bit sort of not not that funny but I once saw this sort of documentary on um bird watching in the UK and uh it was like about sort of have you really seen a bird or not like and and sort of controversy arising out of that amongst the bird watchers your claims you make you could not have seen that special bird. I'm not a bird watcher. So, there was this one guy uh who took on himself to roll to police sort of the whole community of bird watchers to just note what they said and and check it with each other, you know. And he said that's such a funny moment in a documentary. I can I'll see if I can watch it and put it in the description. He says, "It's a nasty job, but someone's got to do it." And Robert, you've done the nasty job of mapping. Very appropo. Very appropo. Yeah. Right. So, just thanks for that. I think is wonderful and it's important. And um final question, we've talked a lot about closer to truth. Um the moment you die, do you suspect that you will then get as really closer to truth? I I I think that's a almost a tautology because at that moment you will know or or not know uh what is the next step. So I think I think that that for sure the answer is yes to that. Um there can be variations on it. There could be you know some some eastern religions have a you know a period of time where you're a hungry ghost I think in Buddhism. So you're sort of quasi thing and then you go into a different state and have a reincarnation. uh in uh elements of uh the u Abrahamic religions uh you have a sort of a disembodied state and then plan for a resurrection and in some in some aspects of the um of the Abrahamic religions you're completely dead. You have no no consciousness whatsoever but will be resurrected. Um so you know it's never over. But what do you hope personally? What do you believe personally? I I very different from what I hope and what I believe. I mean that's you you can't equate the two. So I can easily describe what what I hope and what I'd like. Uh that doesn't mean reality has to listen to my uh my desires. But uh I'll start with what I what I hope is not true. Uh obviously I hope it's not true that materialism right and that's the that's the end. And uh as I've as I've argued without logic uh I think that's il illogical. I think that that uh it would be a strange uh um reality that gave us the capacity to imagine eternity and be denied it. So I've said that several times and and I I emotionally believe that. Um uh I would also so I don't want to have non-existence. Some people would and I understand that. I I don't um but I also don't want to to have the um become a drop in the ocean of consciousness. I don't want to merge back into the ocean of consciousness from which I came. Um that would not be a nirvana to me. Uh I want to maintain my individuality. And so you know many forms of eastern religion uh sort of a contradiction. you have the reincarnation aspect uh of of multiple lives, but the ultimate is to kind of eliminate all of that and to be sort of merged back into this ultimate um reality. And I've always asked if that's the ultimate, that's where you came from, why did you have to go through that whole process to get back to where you were, but that's a a separate issue. Um even in categories of idealism where you lose your personality, I mean, that does not appeal to me. It doesn't mean it's wrong. just means it's not what I want. Um, you know, I'm I'm fiercely interested in maintaining my personal identity and maybe, you know, whether whether reality is uh is consistent with that. Um, you know, I'll have to find out. I'm very much looking forward to to watching sort of the closer than truth on the other side. Your show continuing on the other side. Robert, thanks so much for this wonderful interview. Thank you for your time and uh yeah, it's wonderful. Great. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for watching this rather lengthy discussion. I think it was worth it every minute of it. Um we will put all links down in the description below. Uh a link to the landscape of consciousness and the the theories we've referenced to. And if you have any questions, let us know. We can follow up. And also the landscape of consciousness website. Good that you mention it. Which is uh which by the time you have the show, I think will be launched in beta site. There may be bugs but it'll be an expansion of the landscape of consciousness paper and it'll be quite significant very easy to navigate and find the theories and great maybe if okay we can already show a little bit of it in our edit or you're a bit sure it's still you know we we we're supposed to get what's called the the minimum um viable version in a few days. So we we'll have that. It won't be it won't be it won't be ready for beta site. Beta site will be you know during the summer sometime. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thanks. Thanks for watching. Yeah. Thanks. Great. Mercy.