Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced a new series of audio documentaries, exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.
Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.
And make sure to stick around for the end of each episode, where we provide our list of recommendations from the worlds of film, television, literature, music, and art.
In this episode, we survey the landscape of consciousness and get acquainted with the mystery of the mind. We start with an attempt to define consciousness–and veterans of conversations on consciousness will know that this is a huge part of the challenge.
David Chalmers begins with his conception of what he coined “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” and a famous question offered by the philosopher Thomas Nagel.
We then construct a “Philosophical Zombie” before the philosopher Thomas Metzinger explains why he is thoroughly unimpressed by the ability to imagine “such a thing,” while he simultaneously warns us against ever attempting to build one. Anil Seth brings some hope of whittling away the intuition gap of the hard problem by pursuing the “easy” problems, with clear scientific reasoning.
Later, Iain McGilchrist lays out the intuition-shattering implications of the famous Roger Sperry experiments with split brain patients that suggest that consciousness can be cut with a knife… at least temporarily. Annaka Harris then shifts the conversation to the realm of panpsychism, which suggests that consciousness is nomologically fundamental and potentially permeates all matter.
Finally, Don Hoffman explains that consciousness is not only fundamental and non-illusory, but that the physical world we appear to be navigating is merely a virtual space-time interface, which has evolved to hide the true nature of reality from us.
December 16, 2022
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I just got my Trump digital cards đź¤đź¤đź¤ˇ
Saving this for later, but just wanted to say, after my sampled few minutes, this is a good bit to add to the channel.
Wait didn't this guy say it doesn't matter how many dead body's were in hunters basement….
Wait his podcast costs $15 a month?? Holy shit dude that is way WAY over priced good God Almighty
min. u lost me there Sam. I don't believe consciousness is real. Why? bcos there is no perception beyond thought. There is no self-evident, undeniable feeling. Thats just wishful thinking.
There i s no such thing as what it is like to be a bat. No more so that what it is like to be a human. We are all individual sentient beings. Only the question, what is it like to be YOU makes any sense.
The whole first half is obnoxious. As if I've never thought about this before. It's a terrible ad.
I hate you Sam, you can here this for free.
Evolutions DID produce zombies. We call them plants.
the intros to these are way too wordy, should be more succinct, just to set the context. Why a rambling definition of consciousness before playing the clips that do exactly that ?
These type of videos stop me from commiting suicide.
Why is this woman talking? I prefer Sam do the talking.
The background music is a distraction
Is this not available in his waking up app.
+++
Nah…
The narrator voice is great đź‘Ť
Please lose the music.
Narrator and technical effects such as the heart beating is very immersive at 7:30! Thanks
Excelent Sam Harris
Dennet’s or anyone’s illusion explanation doesn’t make sense. An illusion requires an illuded. There is no illusion happening on the stage of a magic show. Without an audience, there are only physical events happening and not one of them is more of an illusion than any other.
Sam is right about consciousness. It is self-evident. Here is a radical new view of reality: Consciousness is life. Life creates time, space, and the cosmos itself…
Consciousness is simply the process of remembering (or learning) by information processing systems. The closer, the more simillar to ours, this process is, the more "human" it is (and more it will be easier for us to call it that). Consciousness has no any causal power. This approach makes the Hard Problem of Consciousness disappear.
This is trivial and soporific rubbish
I am not my body, thoughts, nor emotions. Psychological suffering is derived from identifying with our illusionary Ego. Awakening arises as an independent self evaporates. May you be at Peace.
I have no clue how to imagine a philosofical zombie that can act….
Why don't the Japanese complain more about being abombed
I feel like every single human alive has 2 consciousnesses in them and one of them you can't control, it seems to be a genetic consciousness, like a zombie you have no control over. The other consciousness is your main consciousness which gives the illusion of free will because (for example) you can control and manipulate your hands, fingers and feet to move in specifics ways. The other consciousness that I mentioned earlier (which you have no control over) can be seen when you're dreaming or taking hallucinogenics. For examples after taking hallucinogenics you may see weird shapes, colours, patterns or random events. Try to consciously manipulate and control what you see because technically it's coming directly from your mind, but you'll realise that you can't.
Very Interesting and Fascinating subject! Consciousness is a tricky subject but examining what is "real" and how do "I" effect Reality is a great start in the right direction.
In the same way that a definition is invalid if it uses the word that it's trying to define, the "how and why" of consciousness is going to be invalid if it draws on anything to do with consciousness.
Otherwise it's just consciousness explaining itself in its own terms, which is circular. That's why it's not just a "hard problem", it's impossible to consciously make sense of consciousness.
If you think that zombies can be equivalent to us, try to imagine an 'army' of zombie philosophers like Sam Harris et al, arguing about the meaning and origins of consciousness. Why would zombie 'minds' even raise that topic when by definition don't have an experience of it?
When are u going to apologize to Brett Weinstein for being wrong about ivermectin?
The making scams podcast totally not the people we can't talk about stealing billions for charity