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I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go

I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silicon-gate technology and developer of the earliest microprocessors; - Bernardo Kastrup: Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence), former CERN engineer at the LHC; - Donald D. Hoffman: Ph.D. in computational psychology, professor in Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine. On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions involving these figures, some with each other, and plenty more with others. I’d suggest it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity. As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2], it’s only by thoroughly understanding the opposing view that we can thoroughly understand our own position on any topic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism [2] https://youtu.be/zDap-K6GmL0?t=120 https://youtu.be/zDap-K6GmL0?t=120

mindcrime 2y ago
Frederico Faggin: inventor of the silicon gate which led to the development of microprocessors; And who, by the way, has a new book coming out shortly: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Consciousness-Computers-Human-Nature/dp/1803415096/ https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Consciousness-Computers-H...
- N0b8ez 2y ago
  I wouldn't have predicted that the inventor of modern CPUs would be so certain that computation is a bad model for consciousness. Is that a good way to characterize him and his position?
strogonoff 2y ago
A philosophical framework in which creating an artificial entity that is conscious and self-aware in a human-like manner is as straightforward as modeling the human brain is monistic materialism. Of course, it’s not the only framework available. Among the modern takes, Donald Hoffman’s interface theory of perception (explored in, say, his Objects of Consciousness paper[0]) is an interesting one that appears to align with monistic idealism, for example. Being wrong about this is generally not that impactful, until it concerns policies around ML. Adopting the former means we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights. However, if we hold the latter, manufacturing a “true” artificial consciousness may be unachievable using the means we employ (it might be just a philosophical zombie). [0] I don’t personally endorse the paper or his views, but they can be an acceptable starting point for a technical person interested in exploring monistic idealism: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
- smokel 2y ago
  > we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights A dog (most likely) has consciousness, but no human rights.
  - tomhoward 2y ago
    It has animal rights, which are broadly commensurate with the level of consciousness and agency it’s deemed to have. Mammals and other animals have legal protections not afforded to fish and insects.
    - mc32 2y ago
      In some countries… some countries hardly observe basic human rights much less any animal rights. Some have none on the books.
      - tomhoward 2y ago
        Sure but this is nitpicking, as is your GP comment, and neither refute the point that the original commenter was making: modern/advanced societies have laws to protect conscious beings from exploitation and cruelty. (As I was writing the comment I thought “ugh will someone chime in and point out that not all countries have strong animal protection laws? Do I really need to preempt that in my comment?”)
Zambyte 2y ago
Julian Jaynes theory of consciousness is very interesting. At a high level, his thoery was that consciousness is A) much smaller in scope as far as what it actually is than a lot of people like to think, and B) it is not actually innate in humans, it is something we learn as we grow.
- CuriouslyC 2y ago
  I don't see how we can learn to experience qualia. If the author means self awareness instead of consciousness that would make more sense.
  - amelius 2y ago
    I wish the scientific community would get the terminology straight.
    - yehabut 2y ago
      “Right” based upon whose consciousness? People in Georgia use language differently than people in Washington State. People need to read more Camus and Freire and consider the extent to which relativity applies.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    any art or music class that is successful in reaching its students will probably change what you think, how you think it, and gradually should change what you feel, how deeply you feel it, and to what extent you can analyze and converse with those feelings you have. If that sounds like intellectual activity above the level of qualia, the same is true for something as simple as the taste of food. We learn what apples taste like by tasting lots of apples and tasting things that aren’t apples and reflecting on and focusing our attention on experience of apples.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 2y ago
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
Please stop with the appeal to authority!! "The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.
- jasonlfunk 2y ago
  The author did not commit a logical fallacy. They referenced some people worth reading if you wanted some various opinions on a controversial subject.
- samatman 2y ago
  The meta fallacy on display here is the Fallacy Fallacy. For every logical fallacy, there is a fallacious application of it to a given example of rhetoric. You've committed the Argument from Authority Fallacy Fallacy: citing people who believe to have worthwhile opinions, and including their accomplishments, is not argument from authority. Argument from authority is claiming someone is correct based on their authority. Which isn't what GP was doing.
- captainclam 2y ago
  Op writes "I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic." They very specifically state that these people are good points of entry for "well-argued positions on the topic." Linking to specific literature would have been better, but this isn't "materialism/physicalism is wrong because of these people's credentials."
- tomhoward 2y ago
  It is precisely because their advocacy for metaphysical idealism is unusual for people with their academic qualifications that they are worth mentioning, and why its worthwhile to listen to them explain their positions at length. Appeal to authority is where you present a person's status or credentials as primary evidence that their argument is correct. I've done no such thing here.
mannykannot 2y ago
> I’d suggest it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity. I agree, and similarly for those who feel that materialism cannot possibly explain consciousness. Kastrup, for one, seems to sometimes behave as though ridicule makes his philosophy more correct.
- mekoka 2y ago
  > and similarly for those who feel that materialism cannot possibly explain consciousness. Perhaps for some it's indeed a matter of "feelings". But for others it's a conviction built from reasoning that leads to self-validating and irreducible truths. If you seriously go into this, the only possibilities left once you've dug and eliminated all mistaken assumptions are not material. It can be counter-intuitive and does take a bit of work to reason your way to those conclusions, which is why it's admittedly not a popular outlook. But once you grok it, you don't go back. The fact that materialism is slowly going out of style is telling. Whenever I exchange with someone who makes concessions about consciousness possibly being the product of matter, it's due to one of two things: either some holes haven't yet been covered in their own explorations, or they're still oblivious to some of the implications of their current position. Materialism is fast being eliminated as a possible antecedent to consciousness with reasoning and logic, not simply with beliefs. Currently, it's being salvaged in popular forms of dualism, where it would be a co-primitive of reality with consciousness (e.g. panpsychism). But even this position is just a short stop-over on the way to idealism, as it creates new problems and is just less parsimonious than simply saying consciousness first. An example of a relatively elusive and subtle realization to get, but that also becomes rather difficult to renounce once you grok it, are qualia and how they lead to the hard problem of consciousness. Qualia are so enmeshed in our experience that people have a hard time first seeing how divorced from brain activity they actually are. If you don't get qualia, you can't get the hard problem and how it's really an impossible problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0xWJpr0FY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0xWJpr0FY).
  - chr1 2y ago
    Well, idealism simply says that consciousness/humans cannot be understood or explained via simpler concepts. That's the first thing anyone would think of but it is not a useful theory in any way. The alternative theory was that everything complex can be explained to be a result of simple processes repeated many times. A modern way to say this would be that everything is a computation. This second approach have turned out to be very useful for explaining many things. It did not explain consciousness so far but we now have many directions to explore. So while neither position is proven so far, idealism is worse than wrong, it is useless, and if most people believed it, today we would know not much more than ancient Greeks did.
WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago
Any reason why you don't recommend discussions/lectures with Roger Penrose? Or are his theories considered conventional? Genuine question.
- tomhoward 2y ago
  If I were to mention a fourth it would be him but he's a bit embarrassed about all the controversy about his ideas on consciousness and doesn't really discuss them in depth in any videos I've seen, or wade into heated discussions about the nature of reality. Whereas the three I mentioned all embrace discussions about the nature of reality and consciousness and happily engage in lengthy discussions and debates about it.
jpt4 2y ago
Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?
- gala8y 2y ago
  Couldn't agree more. “Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” - Dick Guindon https://web.archive.org/web/20160731175038/http://www.guindoncartoons.com/userfiles/1231656389.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20160731175038/http://www.guindo... https://web.archive.org/web/20160731212226/http://www.guindoncartoons.com/userfiles/1225769038.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20160731212226/http://www.guindo...
- makk 2y ago
  ?
  - _a_a_a_ 2y ago
    "video is for poseurs", I think.
  - MetallicDragon 2y ago
    "Any kind of big idea which is spread primarily through video instead of text is immediately suspicious. Could you please send a link to a written version of the main points from any one of those video?"
- Jevon23 2y ago
  Video is not the standard medium of communication in academic philosophy. I imagine the GP mentioned youtube because most people are more likely to watch a video than read a paper. Bernardo Kastrup has a bunch of essays/books up for free at his website https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html?m=1 https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html?m=1
  - fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
NikolaNovak 2y ago
Thanks! Any links to written word? I just don't do much youtubing, especially for scientific or philosophical areas where information density can be high and videos are infuriatingly inefficient :-(
mekoka 2y ago
As someone who's been engaged in this topic (the nature of reality and consciousness) over the past 3 years, it's very surprising to see this comment on HN. As I've suggested in a past comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465928), this can potentially be one of the most transformative rabbit hole anyone can ever hope to enter. It's been fascinating to observe the dichotomy between researchers who work on explaining consciousness, starting from a physicalist/materialist perspective, slowly being convinced away from that intuition with iron clad arguments, while laypeople lean further into it, deluded by what they perceive to be signs of it from recent AI progress. Among former materialist academics that I expect to see publications from a more affirmed idealist position in the next 5 years, I count David Chalmers and Christof Koch. Perhaps Anil Seth too.
- Lerc 2y ago
  I hadn't encountered conscious agent theory before. I took a quick look and it seemed to be solipsism wearing a disguise. Can you elaborate how it distinguishes itself from solipsism in its arguments that it might be real? I found the evolutionary argument rather odd. The disconnect between perception and reality is pretty much the standard belief these days. Unless I'm reading it wrong it was making the claim that 'reality' is a non causal artifact of conscious entities but one that was caused by evolution, which seems contradictory.
  - mekoka 2y ago
    Solipsism is skepticism of the existence of anything outside the self. I've seen Hoffman address accusations of solipsism a few times and I have to admit that it's always been unclear to me which part of his theory people tend to perceive as such. Perhaps I've just consumed enough of it to zoom past this perception. I'll try to keep things short, as this can get pretty long winded fast. From what I understand of his proposition, it's a take on idealism that is very close to eastern thought as inspired by nondual traditions like Advaita and Buddhism, but with a heavier emphasis on science. Everything in reality is a projection in consciousness of consciousness. It's made up of interacting conscious agents (you, me, a rock, an atom, a particle, etc) which are themselves "projections" ultimately stemming from a fundamental, unknowable, infinitely distant and unattainable root conscious agent. The implication is that space-time, our perceived reality, is not fundamental. Hoffman thinks that we might possibly have access to at least one, higher, more general dimension of reality of which ours is a specialized version (as hint of this, he speaks of current work in physics where structures outside space-time are being discovered, like the amplituhedron). Space and time not being fundamental creates problems with some materialist assumptions in evolutionary biology, where consciousness is seen as part of an evolutionary process. Hoffman suggests to rethink evolution from scratch instead. He uses evolutionary game theory to demonstrate that we can have consciousness as fundamental, keep some of the core evolution principles and still end up with consistent conclusions. I'll stop here, as I've said, it can get deep rather fast.
Hoasi 2y ago
Thank you for these recommendations.
hanrelan 2y ago
Any videos in particular you'd recommend?
- ggpsv 2y ago
  I found his first appearance [0] in Rupert Spira's show to be a good introduction to his arguments. For a more thorough examination, his book "The Idea of the World". [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQuMzocvmTQ&pp=ygUNa2FzdHJ1cCBzcGlyYQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQuMzocvmTQ&pp=ygUNa2FzdHJ1cCB...
- corry 2y ago
  Not OP but check out Closer to Truth on YouTube. PBS show hosted by a former neuroscience PhD, they have tons of recent interviews with leading thinkers on consciousness (among other fascinating topics).
moffkalast 2y ago
> it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity You're making it sound like I'm about to watch a proverbial Giorgio Tsoukalos make bold claims on pure speculation.
nicolodavis 2y ago
For academic literature, I would recommend reading: 1. James Ross: https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriality.pdf https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriali... 2. Edward Feser: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pd... 3. John Searle: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%20Brain%20a%20Digital%20Computer%20-%20John%20R.%20Searle.pdf https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%2...
dr_dshiv 2y ago
Here’s a recent post that discusses a 5th century BC theory of consciousness: https://open.substack.com/pub/aixd/p/ai-might-not-need-experience-to-understand https://open.substack.com/pub/aixd/p/ai-might-not-need-exper...

mindcrime 2y ago

Frederico Faggin: inventor of the silicon gate which led to the development of microprocessors; And who, by the way, has a new book coming out shortly: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Consciousness-Computers-Human-Nature/dp/1803415096/ https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Consciousness-Computers-H...

N0b8ez 2y ago
I wouldn't have predicted that the inventor of modern CPUs would be so certain that computation is a bad model for consciousness. Is that a good way to characterize him and his position?

strogonoff 2y ago

A philosophical framework in which creating an artificial entity that is conscious and self-aware in a human-like manner is as straightforward as modeling the human brain is monistic materialism. Of course, it’s not the only framework available. Among the modern takes, Donald Hoffman’s interface theory of perception (explored in, say, his Objects of Consciousness paper[0]) is an interesting one that appears to align with monistic idealism, for example. Being wrong about this is generally not that impactful, until it concerns policies around ML. Adopting the former means we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights. However, if we hold the latter, manufacturing a “true” artificial consciousness may be unachievable using the means we employ (it might be just a philosophical zombie). [0] I don’t personally endorse the paper or his views, but they can be an acceptable starting point for a technical person interested in exploring monistic idealism: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....

smokel 2y ago
> we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights A dog (most likely) has consciousness, but no human rights.
- tomhoward 2y ago
  It has animal rights, which are broadly commensurate with the level of consciousness and agency it’s deemed to have. Mammals and other animals have legal protections not afforded to fish and insects.
  - mc32 2y ago
    In some countries… some countries hardly observe basic human rights much less any animal rights. Some have none on the books.
    - tomhoward 2y ago
      Sure but this is nitpicking, as is your GP comment, and neither refute the point that the original commenter was making: modern/advanced societies have laws to protect conscious beings from exploitation and cruelty. (As I was writing the comment I thought “ugh will someone chime in and point out that not all countries have strong animal protection laws? Do I really need to preempt that in my comment?”)

Zambyte 2y ago

Julian Jaynes theory of consciousness is very interesting. At a high level, his thoery was that consciousness is A) much smaller in scope as far as what it actually is than a lot of people like to think, and B) it is not actually innate in humans, it is something we learn as we grow.

CuriouslyC 2y ago
I don't see how we can learn to experience qualia. If the author means self awareness instead of consciousness that would make more sense.
- amelius 2y ago
  I wish the scientific community would get the terminology straight.
  - yehabut 2y ago
    “Right” based upon whose consciousness? People in Georgia use language differently than people in Washington State. People need to read more Camus and Freire and consider the extent to which relativity applies.
- photonthug 2y ago
  any art or music class that is successful in reaching its students will probably change what you think, how you think it, and gradually should change what you feel, how deeply you feel it, and to what extent you can analyze and converse with those feelings you have. If that sounds like intellectual activity above the level of qualia, the same is true for something as simple as the taste of food. We learn what apples taste like by tasting lots of apples and tasting things that aren’t apples and reflecting on and focusing our attention on experience of apples.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago

Simon_ORourke 2y ago

Please stop with the appeal to authority!! "The argument from authority is a logical fallacy (also known as ad verecundiam fallacy), and obtaining knowledge in this way is fallible." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority The meta logical fallacy of treating Wiki itself as an authority isn't an intended pun.

jasonlfunk 2y ago
The author did not commit a logical fallacy. They referenced some people worth reading if you wanted some various opinions on a controversial subject.
samatman 2y ago
The meta fallacy on display here is the Fallacy Fallacy. For every logical fallacy, there is a fallacious application of it to a given example of rhetoric. You've committed the Argument from Authority Fallacy Fallacy: citing people who believe to have worthwhile opinions, and including their accomplishments, is not argument from authority. Argument from authority is claiming someone is correct based on their authority. Which isn't what GP was doing.
captainclam 2y ago
Op writes "I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic." They very specifically state that these people are good points of entry for "well-argued positions on the topic." Linking to specific literature would have been better, but this isn't "materialism/physicalism is wrong because of these people's credentials."
tomhoward 2y ago
It is precisely because their advocacy for metaphysical idealism is unusual for people with their academic qualifications that they are worth mentioning, and why its worthwhile to listen to them explain their positions at length. Appeal to authority is where you present a person's status or credentials as primary evidence that their argument is correct. I've done no such thing here.

mannykannot 2y ago

> I’d suggest it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity. I agree, and similarly for those who feel that materialism cannot possibly explain consciousness. Kastrup, for one, seems to sometimes behave as though ridicule makes his philosophy more correct.

mekoka 2y ago
> and similarly for those who feel that materialism cannot possibly explain consciousness. Perhaps for some it's indeed a matter of "feelings". But for others it's a conviction built from reasoning that leads to self-validating and irreducible truths. If you seriously go into this, the only possibilities left once you've dug and eliminated all mistaken assumptions are not material. It can be counter-intuitive and does take a bit of work to reason your way to those conclusions, which is why it's admittedly not a popular outlook. But once you grok it, you don't go back. The fact that materialism is slowly going out of style is telling. Whenever I exchange with someone who makes concessions about consciousness possibly being the product of matter, it's due to one of two things: either some holes haven't yet been covered in their own explorations, or they're still oblivious to some of the implications of their current position. Materialism is fast being eliminated as a possible antecedent to consciousness with reasoning and logic, not simply with beliefs. Currently, it's being salvaged in popular forms of dualism, where it would be a co-primitive of reality with consciousness (e.g. panpsychism). But even this position is just a short stop-over on the way to idealism, as it creates new problems and is just less parsimonious than simply saying consciousness first. An example of a relatively elusive and subtle realization to get, but that also becomes rather difficult to renounce once you grok it, are qualia and how they lead to the hard problem of consciousness. Qualia are so enmeshed in our experience that people have a hard time first seeing how divorced from brain activity they actually are. If you don't get qualia, you can't get the hard problem and how it's really an impossible problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0xWJpr0FY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0xWJpr0FY).
- chr1 2y ago
  Well, idealism simply says that consciousness/humans cannot be understood or explained via simpler concepts. That's the first thing anyone would think of but it is not a useful theory in any way. The alternative theory was that everything complex can be explained to be a result of simple processes repeated many times. A modern way to say this would be that everything is a computation. This second approach have turned out to be very useful for explaining many things. It did not explain consciousness so far but we now have many directions to explore. So while neither position is proven so far, idealism is worse than wrong, it is useless, and if most people believed it, today we would know not much more than ancient Greeks did.

WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago

Any reason why you don't recommend discussions/lectures with Roger Penrose? Or are his theories considered conventional? Genuine question.

tomhoward 2y ago
If I were to mention a fourth it would be him but he's a bit embarrassed about all the controversy about his ideas on consciousness and doesn't really discuss them in depth in any videos I've seen, or wade into heated discussions about the nature of reality. Whereas the three I mentioned all embrace discussions about the nature of reality and consciousness and happily engage in lengthy discussions and debates about it.

jpt4 2y ago

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

gala8y 2y ago
Couldn't agree more. “Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is.” - Dick Guindon https://web.archive.org/web/20160731175038/http://www.guindoncartoons.com/userfiles/1231656389.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20160731175038/http://www.guindo... https://web.archive.org/web/20160731212226/http://www.guindoncartoons.com/userfiles/1225769038.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20160731212226/http://www.guindo...
makk 2y ago
?
- _a_a_a_ 2y ago
  "video is for poseurs", I think.
- MetallicDragon 2y ago
  "Any kind of big idea which is spread primarily through video instead of text is immediately suspicious. Could you please send a link to a written version of the main points from any one of those video?"
Jevon23 2y ago
Video is not the standard medium of communication in academic philosophy. I imagine the GP mentioned youtube because most people are more likely to watch a video than read a paper. Bernardo Kastrup has a bunch of essays/books up for free at his website https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html?m=1 https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/papers.html?m=1
- fngjdflmdflg 2y ago

NikolaNovak 2y ago

Thanks! Any links to written word? I just don't do much youtubing, especially for scientific or philosophical areas where information density can be high and videos are infuriatingly inefficient :-(

mekoka 2y ago

As someone who's been engaged in this topic (the nature of reality and consciousness) over the past 3 years, it's very surprising to see this comment on HN. As I've suggested in a past comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465928), this can potentially be one of the most transformative rabbit hole anyone can ever hope to enter. It's been fascinating to observe the dichotomy between researchers who work on explaining consciousness, starting from a physicalist/materialist perspective, slowly being convinced away from that intuition with iron clad arguments, while laypeople lean further into it, deluded by what they perceive to be signs of it from recent AI progress. Among former materialist academics that I expect to see publications from a more affirmed idealist position in the next 5 years, I count David Chalmers and Christof Koch. Perhaps Anil Seth too.

Lerc 2y ago
I hadn't encountered conscious agent theory before. I took a quick look and it seemed to be solipsism wearing a disguise. Can you elaborate how it distinguishes itself from solipsism in its arguments that it might be real? I found the evolutionary argument rather odd. The disconnect between perception and reality is pretty much the standard belief these days. Unless I'm reading it wrong it was making the claim that 'reality' is a non causal artifact of conscious entities but one that was caused by evolution, which seems contradictory.
- mekoka 2y ago
  Solipsism is skepticism of the existence of anything outside the self. I've seen Hoffman address accusations of solipsism a few times and I have to admit that it's always been unclear to me which part of his theory people tend to perceive as such. Perhaps I've just consumed enough of it to zoom past this perception. I'll try to keep things short, as this can get pretty long winded fast. From what I understand of his proposition, it's a take on idealism that is very close to eastern thought as inspired by nondual traditions like Advaita and Buddhism, but with a heavier emphasis on science. Everything in reality is a projection in consciousness of consciousness. It's made up of interacting conscious agents (you, me, a rock, an atom, a particle, etc) which are themselves "projections" ultimately stemming from a fundamental, unknowable, infinitely distant and unattainable root conscious agent. The implication is that space-time, our perceived reality, is not fundamental. Hoffman thinks that we might possibly have access to at least one, higher, more general dimension of reality of which ours is a specialized version (as hint of this, he speaks of current work in physics where structures outside space-time are being discovered, like the amplituhedron). Space and time not being fundamental creates problems with some materialist assumptions in evolutionary biology, where consciousness is seen as part of an evolutionary process. Hoffman suggests to rethink evolution from scratch instead. He uses evolutionary game theory to demonstrate that we can have consciousness as fundamental, keep some of the core evolution principles and still end up with consistent conclusions. I'll stop here, as I've said, it can get deep rather fast.

Hoasi 2y ago

Thank you for these recommendations.

hanrelan 2y ago

Any videos in particular you'd recommend?

ggpsv 2y ago
I found his first appearance [0] in Rupert Spira's show to be a good introduction to his arguments. For a more thorough examination, his book "The Idea of the World". [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQuMzocvmTQ&pp=ygUNa2FzdHJ1cCBzcGlyYQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQuMzocvmTQ&pp=ygUNa2FzdHJ1cCB...
corry 2y ago
Not OP but check out Closer to Truth on YouTube. PBS show hosted by a former neuroscience PhD, they have tons of recent interviews with leading thinkers on consciousness (among other fascinating topics).

moffkalast 2y ago

> it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity You're making it sound like I'm about to watch a proverbial Giorgio Tsoukalos make bold claims on pure speculation.

nicolodavis 2y ago

For academic literature, I would recommend reading: 1. James Ross: https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriality.pdf https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriali... 2. Edward Feser: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pd... 3. John Searle: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%20Brain%20a%20Digital%20Computer%20-%20John%20R.%20Searle.pdf https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Is%20the%2...

dr_dshiv 2y ago

Here’s a recent post that discusses a 5th century BC theory of consciousness: https://open.substack.com/pub/aixd/p/ai-might-not-need-experience-to-understand https://open.substack.com/pub/aixd/p/ai-might-not-need-exper...