Richard Swinburne - Does Human Consciousness have Special Purpose?
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- čas přidán 9. 12. 2019
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Scientists say our consciousness is the product of our brains, with purposes set by evolutionary fitness. Theologians believe our consciousness reflects the God who created it, with majestic purpose of eternal life. Mystics hold my consciousness is a drop in the ocean of cosmic consciousness, with cycles and return. For sure, consciousness is a test case.
Watch more interviews with Richard Swinburne: bit.ly/2DQpz12
Watch more interviews on human consciousness: bit.ly/34VQvrQ
The intelligence of this man is off the charts
Under the chart, he is a religious waste of time.
@@Nobody-Nowhere Aaaaand... what if you discovered his IQ was 30 points higher than yours? Would that lead you to reconsider your atheism realizing that a smarter man might actually have some insights not shared by you, or would you remain doggedly entrenched in your godless worldview while inventing various rationales to account for his greater intelligence? You know, something like, there must be something missing in his character? I'm pretty sure we both know the answer to that question.
Amazing explanation for why materialism will never lead to the truth the human heart aches for
Well said!!
Thats because your heart aches for fantasy, not reality.
@@Nobody-Nowhereif we are merely evolutionary products then we should reject materialism because it hurts humanity in the long run
I love him!!! 💙💙💙
Very very powerful argument.💯👍💪
I’ve never heard a good argument from ppl like this that explains why people with brain damage experience personality changes, or why drugs can alter our experience if the ‘soul’ is more fundamental than material.
Many of those types figure that the brain is a filter, thus when the brain is damaged or chemically altered it distorts your conscious awareness. It would be like a broken TV dish: the signal from the cable company would still be there but the dish would be unable to process it. I'm not completely convinced by this argument but it's worth thinking about. If the history of science has taught us one thing, it's that we shouldn't be devoted to current theories.
Hash Bro Agreed. I am looking at all the various theories at the moment, genuinely curious. Been trying to find early simulations/papers from don hoffmann that lead him to his theories on consciousness.
@@weirdsciencetv4999 WeirdscienceTV Check out hylomorphism. A good place to learn about it is on Edward Feser's blog or his books. This notion of the soul being distinct from the body and interacting with it really begins with Descartes. The Medievals and the defenders of the Aristotelian tradition wouldn't have any problem with any arguments from neural or bodily dependence, since they acknowledged that although the human soul has immaterial aspects (such as the grasp of the universals by our intellect) it needs the body to function. And that's why we need to get our bodies back with the Resurrection and the Christian doctrine is consistent with such a metaphysical worldview.
Aquinas held that our souls will be able to operate (albeit deficiently) before the Resurrection due to Divine Assistance, since under normal circumstances they require the body to do so. To evaluate the truth or not of such a view you need to examine the he arguments for hylomorphism, I just wanted to make it clear that the traditional view of the soul does not require it to be Cartesian that's why bodily dependence poses no problem to it. The Cartesian conception is, quite unsurprisingly, a new one.
Furthermore, it's not only the notion of the soul that got clouded when the Scholastic philosophy was abandoned. Matter itself, having been defined as devoid of colour, purpose, qualia, became itself mysterious and puzzling. And of course having kicked all those notions out of matter itself and limiting them to the mind, you have this whole range of mind - body problems. Cause since for example finality is nowhere to be found in the natural world, how does it exist in our minds and how could it possibly arise from our brains? A neo Aristotelian conception of matter makes these issues disappear and they become non mysterious as properties of some forms of matter (ie living organisms). Still under that conception of matter, humans have an immaterial aspect that's not mainly related to qualia, consciousness, but to the intellect and our capacity for abstract thought and the apprehension of the universals, which according to Aristotelian philosophy can never be accounted in material terms.
That's just a brief sketch, not an actual presentation of the arguments. Check the sources I mentioned if you are interested.
Part of the problem may be the idea of the "soul".. Do bugs and rats have souls? The soul idea makes no sense to me.. But niether does newtonian reductive materialism or handwaving the questions themselves away like " its all an illusion just stop asking its a stupid question".. The idea that makes the most scientific sense to me is consciousness is a sort of " field" not unlike any other thats inherent and key to the universe itself and our brain acts as a sort of focusing antenna.. Buy a 5 dollar antena from walmart you get 5 channels.. Buy a satellite dish you get 300 channels.. Hit the satellite dish with a rock.. You get 20 channels.. Etc.. And it seems to be a raw intelligence creator/ "will" "choicemaker" .. The materialist idea that "dust randomly gathered by chance and built a CERN supercollider to split atoms.. Why? How exactly? "Well those are stupid questions" seems crazy to me
@Jon I've reasoned that nothing is fundamentally material, as stated by Max Planck, "There is no matter as such." Then there's the conundrum of Zeno's dichotomous paradox that shows matter cannot be infinitely reducible leading us to an entirely new concept that is irreducible. Aldous Huxley' "mind at large? The soul? Whatever it is it'd have to be something other than matter. So to me the question isn't, how can something immaterial influence something that is material, but rather, the question becomes, how can something immaterial influence another "thing" that is equally immaterial? Perhaps no one can answer that question, but at least there's a compatibility there making the question slightly less absurd.
First contact: 👽
Humans: Stick a needle in it!
It is in man's nature to probe. :|
Kill it, then poke it with a stick
@@anglojojo
Yep!! That’s why so many species has gone extinct. But don’t worry because everything has no value anyway because we are all nothing more than a meaningless by product of an accidental, blind, mindless, pitiless, merciless process of random atoms and brain chemicals creating the illusion of stable patterns and regularities. Total materialistic, nihilistic nonsense. The nuances of objective morality will always be most hotly debated by those who want to justify evil and depravity.
Richard Swinburne should write a pyschological horror. You know, if he wants to. I think it would be a great book!
This was an awesome talk to be privy to. Luv is a color ✨🌬❄️
Well said!! And the experience of colour (Luv) is fundamentally an immaterial process that has correlates with “matter”. It can be correlated to electrical signals in the brain but correlation does not equal causation because you need a decoder. This is basic science because a strictly reductive materialism is a closed system!
Equally, asserting that “matter” just did it is a question begging fallacy and special pleading fallacy of the highest degree.
I’m not making any appeals to authority but the fact is that according to the expert linguist and brilliant cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky…
“There are only two ways of looking at eliminative materialism (the idea that all things reduce to solid substance). One is that it is total gibberish until someone tells us what matter is. Until someone tells us what eliminative materialism is there can’t be such a thing as eliminative materialism and no one can tell us what matter is”. (Noam Chomsky).
Equally, I’m not making any appeals to authority, but on the cognitive level Albert Einstein utilised a more nuanced approach and demonstrated that “matter” is nothing more substantive than the curvature of space and time which is why he completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness. That is Einstein completely rejected atheism for the nuanced God of Spinoza/deism/panentheism. Similarly, Einstein’s closest friend Michelle Besso, who Einstein stated “was the greatest sounding board in Europe”, completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness/monotheism (Christianity). I’m not making any appeals to authority but everyone has a right to believe what they want and everyone including theists have a right to find it ridiculous….
So how do you go from the fact of the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness to monotheism?
The simple fact is that the evidence for an absolute ontological ground of reality the phenomena would be what you would expect if there was an absolute ontological ground of reality, mind and consciousness. And the fact is that consciousness is everything!! What else is there? Literally everything including science, that is empiricism (sensory data) is within consciousness. The fact is that consciousness is irreducible to “matter” because we cannot empirically observe “matter” outside and independent of consciousness, for we are forever locked in mind/consciousness.
Matter is a theoretical abstraction of mind and all we can observe are the contents of perception, which are fundamentally conscious events within mind/consciousness. Even the output of measurement instruments is only accessible to us insofar as it is mentally perceived by a conscious observer/conscious agent.
❤️
I don't find many of Swinburne's philosophical arguments to be terribly convincing, or even very good. But he's damn right about the reality and utter inexplicability of conscious experience.
Yes, I think consciousness defeats (standard) materialism. It's not even a contest. You know you're probably on the losing team when you have to deny the existence of the very thing of which is _the most certain thing to exist!_ Most certain thing to exist by an infinity. It's quite literally 100% certain to exist. 🤦🏻♂️
Exactly!! It’s only an “Hard problem” if you assume materialism. But you can’t even experience “”matter” that is empiricism (sensory data) without consciousness.
Richard Swinburne, OMG PLEASE!
It's so hard for him to say no but so hard for him to say yes!
Stuff exists and we can categorize it.
I once heard an interesting concept where there is a belief that says the one thing God can't do is have a human experience as we do on earth, therefore the belief is that God can only experience life through us, which means that God has to be us. If this concept is true then what it is saying is that we are all God having a human experiences on earth.
Check out the book Conversations with God. It goes over this very concept. And it's not merely limited to human experiences, but experiences of any kind as without a physical world, all experiences are just conceptual. Knowing what hot and cold are is not the same thing as experiencing what hot and cold are, for example.
@@KalCraig Thank you for that information, I'm going to purchase the book today on Amazon. I love deep subjects like this because to know that this is who we really could be is very thought provoking. Then you begin to ask all kinds of questions concerning sin, good, evil, and lot of other concepts that we have about who God is and then you start to question religions and their concepts. But don't smoke weed and ponder on it with your friends who are smoking too because they won't smoke with you anymore! Lol
Well said!
Conciousness is your intergalactic home page.
Yup pretty much the page is every thing that ever existed or will exists Its kinda awesome
I like that
"Without faith, it is impossible to please God."
~ 3:00 He's making a very similar argument to the "Ship of Theseus"... but somehow using it as an argument for consciousness. Surely he must see this, making an argument about a physical thing changing over time. That doesn't make the "concept" of the ship a "real" thing in the same sense that an a rock is a real thing. It certainly doesn't imply that the experience of being alive means a soul exists in a "real" sense, it's simply a concept. I don't think anyone would argue that there can ever be an absolute answer to the question of when it is no longer the same ship. If one were to say it's different the moment it changes a single part, then are we the same people from moment to moment as we gain experiences and change beliefs? It just seems to taint his argument that a soul "must" exist, when he is basically using a thought experiment about a soulless piece of matter.
So what you're saying is that there'd be two clones who think they're you, but you would be dead?
Now ask yourself, in what sense would _you_ be dead? All parts of _you_ are still alive, but they can't both be _you._ But what does that even mean? What am I actually referring to when I say _"you"?_
If you can manage to see why this is a genuine logical conundrum, then welcome to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
What I should have added is "This argument is not like the Ship of Theseus."
@@BugRib I don't think that the argument leads to the necessity of a soul. I don't know if you're familiar with the ship of Theseus but the concept of the ship and it's physical characteristics are ambiguously connected. So my point is that the conscious "you" is a precarious concept that could be argued to change moment to moment. I basically said this before but clearly the point wasn't clear enough. Are "you" the same as the "you" when you were 4 years old? Arguably yes, arguably no. Did you have the same hopes and dreams, beliefs, cares, desires, loves, hates? More than likely not. So are "you" the same "you" at 4 years old? So the concept is ambiguous. So I would argue that no, the clones would not be "you" in the absolute sense. In fact they'd be half you and half some other thing making an all together new entity/consciousness.
My greater point was drawing a parallel between the concept of "The ship of Theseus" and the concept of "Consciousness"/"you", and how the question of when a thing changes from one form into another, when does it no longer embody the concept? This argument is made about an inanimate object, but it would appear to be essentially the argument being made for a soul because the concept of "consciousness" or "you" is precarious. The whole argument simply shows the ambiguity of the concept of identity. I don't believe this proves or even implies anything. It is a logical conundrum sure, but does not IMPLY a soul. That's the leap I'm just not seeing.
@@Kori114
“Consciousness is precarious as it changes from moment to moment”
Ho the irony!! Sorry but this is exactly the point because identity over time is a metaphysical presupposition that can not be proven, justified or grounded in a strictly reductive materialism, atheism or philosophical naturalism that clearly excludes metaphysical realities. This is the strictly reductive materialists problem not the metaphysicians problem. Equally, the only way to avoid being a metaphysician in a philosophical debate about “truth” is to say nothing. The double irony is that consciousness is only an “Hard problem” if you assume materialism.
Furthermore, according to the Director of the Institute for Mind and Consciousness professor David Chalmers the current laws of physics have not explained away “the hard problem of consciousness” that is phenomenal consciousness.
According to professor Chalmers…
“Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.” (David Chalmers).
We are left, Chalmers claims, with the following stark choice: either eliminate consciousness (deny that it exists at all) or add consciousness to our ontology as an irreducible feature of reality and existence that is as fundamental as the law’s of physics. Either way, we are faced with a special ontological problem, one that resists solution by the usual reductive methods as the assumption that (strong emergence) explains away mind and consciousness leaves an enormous explanatory gap.
Even the famous geneticist and evolutionist J. B. S. Haldane recognised this immense problem nearly a century ago. According to
Haldane….
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” ( J. B. S. Haldane).
The fact is that the qualitative experience of life that is empathy, compassion, altruism, beauty, bravery, morals, ethics, meaning and purpose that is mind and consciousness is unassailable and irreducible to “matter”.
Reality and existence and in particular the qualities of experience aren’t made of “matter” they are made of (what matters).
I’m not making any appeals to authority but Aristotle debated the sophists centuries ago regarding metaphysical truths and the (truth) of the law of non contradiction and the sophists naively responded….
“You can’t prove that Aristotle!!
because we could just come along and deny metaphysics and the law of non contradiction?”
Aristotle responds brilliantly using a transcendental argument. Aristotle pointed out that when you deny something that’s so fundamental and paradigmatic as metaphysics and the laws of logic, that is the foundations of science itself the proof of that thing is that it’s assumed in its denial. It’s the same with consciousness and prescriptive metaphysical presuppositions such as the laws of logic.
Equally, Professor Chalmers claims that the current evidence suggests that we should think of mind and consciousness as an….
“updated version of Rene Descartes.”
“I doubt therefore I think therefore I am” (Rene Descartes/Thomas Antoine)
According to professor Chalmers….
“The body effects the mind the mind effects the body. Integrated information theory tells us how physics effects consciousness and collapse tells us how consciousness effects physics.” (David Chalmers).
@@BugRib
Well said!!
Why are these videos so short? surely you could delve deeper and post the full-length interview?
im literally 14 and I enjoy watching this
Owen Hardage u r lucky little bro.
Right on man. Wish I had realized how fascinating philosophical exchanges could be at your age.
Read or watch Daniel Dennet
So?
This is my favourite video from this channel now.
I don't really find his first example to be sensible in any way. Of course there was a material 'you', which was the combination of the left and right hemispheres. Now that that combination has been tampered with, we end up with different personalities. No need to bring an immaterial soul into this equation!
The existence of consciousness is debatable? Perhaps that was poorly phrased. Everyone knows they're conscious. What's debated is whether consciousness is more than the sum of its parts.
In other words, we have no idea about anything other than somehow we exist.
WoW 🤗🤗🤗🤗
"That is to say..."
I prefer my metaphysics not to rely upon science-fiction thought experiments, but maybe that's just a matter of personal taste
I don't know much but I know consciousness and time make me feel like the planet is sitting on the surface of something else.
He should discuss with Donald Hoffman!
@@susanp3608 Well, Donald Hoffman has speculated that it just might be possible, down the road, through the theory and formulations of consciousnesses, that we will eventually find the consciousness we would call "God".
Alan Paul Why would it be to his discredit? As long as it’s science, or have I missed something. The assumption that God doesn’t play dice is worse because Einstein ruled out something based on assuming both the existence of God and also his behavior. Hoffman has done neither. As long as it’s honest scientific inquiry done strictly in a scientific way, I’m fine with that. I did put ”God” in quotation marks to indicate that it wasn’t the religious God we are talking about. And even in religious discourse one can’t make assumptions if God is easy to find or not. Hmmm, guess the G word triggered you, sorry bout that ;-)
Alan Paul Is the word ”God” only a religious term? Isn’t it not used in metaphysics and philosophy besides Spinoza? There will always be people who use the word ”God” in a sloppy way, but otherwise I see its use as legitimate whenever someone uses the word b/c there is no other better word for whoever-it-is. Besides, no one knows who God is anyway, except those who have a religious conviction with very precise theology. I feel I’m doing Hoffman a disfavour by quoting him, since seeing fairies is clearly not his thing, and I feel I’ve given readers the wrong impression of how he reasons and thinks. If one goes metaphysical, which i can see D Hoffman doing since his theory is pretty ambitious, then there might be need of a word something like ”god” when talking about the fundamental origin of everything. But ok, I guess you wish he would use ”fundamental consciousness” instead? Granted, if Hoffman had said ”faeries” even I would have reacted. But I never got that feeling of star dust ✨ when he speculated. Scientists should be able to do that inside their disciplines. - ok, i guess we just have different ”pov” ^_^
This is an example of when a really clear intellect becomes an obstacle to the realization that all of this thinking and all other THINGS are appearing inside of consciousness awake to itself.
This CANNOT be realized by the individual mind , but the mind , once the experience of pure consciousness is realized can attempt to comment on this seeming contradiction.
Did God bump into the camera?!😬
That's silly. There is no God. The force of Swinburne's argument perturbed it.
The idea of soul is an interesting invention
“The idea of a soul is an interesting invention”
Ho the irony. Sorry but the idea that literally everything including “ideas” can be reduced to meaningless “matter” without reaching an absurdity is an interesting “invention”.
Everyone has a right to believe what they want and everyone including theists have a right to find it ridiculous….
@@georgedoyle7971 you are mixing a lot concepts up here, maybe slow down a bit to remain coherent
Minutes 10.00 Physical things are not for what they are colour, sound, heat, tingle etc but for the effect on humans. How come these physical quantities have more manifestations than consciousness can detect and have purposes more than just producing that effect ?
Well obviously consciousness can detect them if we know about them. But he never says that external appearances are only meant for consciousness, he just says that they in themselves don't have innate experiential qualities like color, brightness, taste, texture, etc, and that these qualities are a product of senses interacting with them. And our senses are limited to what our bodies need to survive. So there are infinite wavelengths of light and frequencies of sound that we can't detect.
@@jzonkel Your point is well appreciated. Thanks.
The consciousness of each individual created man is connected to all the information in the main Consciousness called our Creator. The Creator created and programmed all his thoughts into life experiences that are experienced in each individual consciousness and that's where each created man experiences his visible world with all it's visible images that are FORMED illusions from the processing of information. There has never been a material world.
@Aaron
hahahahaha...... then my opinion of Deepak's intellect just went down a rung..... not that he was way up on the ladder anyway.......
Love GOD, love Science.
beware the humans........ the non-scientific ones and non-GOD ones...... and the ones who dont have the integrity to say "i dont know, so im not sure".....
@@vids595 I got taught directly from our Creator this past 11 1/2 years. It all started 40 years ago when he first spoke into my consciousness, "I AM YOUR CREATOR".
@@myutubechannel_nr1 I was thoroughly tested for 28 1/2 years before I could write and speak from our Creator's eternal thoughts which is where all creation exists.
your pain is an hustle, and your hustle is an extra therefore you are smoking perceptual experience ........ "consciousness"
What would jesus have said ?
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me." In my opinion, he would say, "Do not debate the existence of the soul but rather how your soul may be saved from everlasting punishment."
Spot on. Consciousness is non local and non physical. Therefore there has to be a soul.
Julian Mann, so many people want to say that consciousness in not local or physical since they can imagine other places, and they can feel great expanses, but somehow they always find their consciousness back in their local head on their physical body. You might feel that consciousness is some kind of energy, but energy isn't even a thing, it is a concept. This is why you can't have a container full of energy to heat your house or run your car. You can have potential energy in fuel or kinetic energy in falling water, but there is no such thing as just plain energy. Thoughts, feeling and even consciousness must be realized in matter, and you and your brain are that matter; real physical stuff, not spirit.
@@caricue Steve, what proof have you that the physical realm is the only realm? There are very strong indications not only from a multitude of NDE and reincarnation experiences, many accounts by Doctors, Nurses, and similar professionals, for example but also in science, that there are nonphysical realms. There are cultures which accept these experiences without question and have had startling stories to relay. I can point you to a number of these if you want. With regard to science, why are a growing number of scientists talking about us living in a computer simulation? I don't hold of the idea at all personally, but it is a strong indication that life cannot be explained in terms of physical processes only. Why is the observer critical to understanding QM?
Einstein equated Matter and energy in his theory of Relativity, so your idea that energy must be housed in matter does not necessarily follow. You have also to bear in mind that science is only in it's infancy, there are many things don't understand and admit to this fact. So to make the sort of statements you are making, is not proven in science.
@@julianmann6172 Thanks for the reply. I don't know anymore than you or anyone else. I'm trying to accept the most obvious and simple explanation. Like I said, I would consider a thing to be real if it can causally affect some other thing. This is why I doubt other realms since whatever you think is there had to interact and affect you in some way or you couldn't know anything about it. In terms of strange mental experiences, those can be induced by chemicals or trauma, so the simplest explanation is that they happen inside the brain. I'm open to evidence, but a story is not evidence, no matter how compelling. Even if I had such a transcendental experience myself, I would still be living in the dirt and poop with the other little piggies, so I doubt it would change much.
I am not sure what is going on with the whole E=mc2 business. I had always wondered about energy being a thing in itself, but PBS Spacetime explained that it was a concept that is useful for scientists to explain observation. Apparently much of what science says exists does not exist in the sense that us mere mortals would consider real or solid. Down at the lowest levels of reality, no one knows what is real or not. I accept the strangeness of the world but don't feel the need to invent strange matter like scientists, or strange realms like others. I am a physical being that comes from dirt and to dirt I will return. If you want there to be more, imagination is the limit.
@@caricue Steve, with regard to energy I should add there is also Vacuum Energy and Dark Energy. In fact Dark Energy is said to make up to 75% of the universe, therefore pure energy is both abundant and more important than matter. The Creator appears as a form of pure light energy according to those who have had NDE's. Most of these NDE accounts have common features, which is not the same in chemically induced experiences, which are known to be quite individual experiences. If you don't accept verbal accounts(evidence), then presumably you would not accept such evidence produced in court, where eyewitness accounts are key to the result of a court case.
@@julianmann6172 I just recently heard that energy was a concept, so I hadn't considered those two. I don't know about vacuum energy, but I do know that Dark Energy and Dark Matter are not actually things that have been discovered. They are placeholders for observations that cannot be explained. I forgot also that mass is not a thing either. Mass is a property of energy, which is a concept. Supposedly, gravity is not actually a force but a reaction of matter to curved space time. I hope you aren't getting annoyed with me, I watch the science YT videos and actually listen to the crazy stuff they insist is fact. You mentioned light energy, but light is supposedly a particle (with no mass), but also a wave. So God appears as a particle and a wave, now that's miraculous! I don't mean to make fun of religious beliefs, they are personal and aren't really required to make sense to anyone else, but science pretends to be objective and rational, but make claims that are more mystical than any religious or spiritual person would ever dare. Peace.
Too smart for me ahaha. God bless his soul
Humans seems to have trouble distinguishing between things and processes. "Look, a ball. It's a thing. Oh, the ball is rolling. Now it's two things. Look, a brain... "
In my opinion, his argument is fallacious. The argument is that feelings, beliefs, etc., are different things from what happens in the physical brain because we cannot infer the former from the latter. Could it be just a limitation of our understanding? Nature is full of emergent phenomena that we cannot yet understand well. Even ANN from machine learning (deep learning) is an emergent phenomena, but artificial, that we sometimes do not understand deeply. For example, recently, an ANN (artificial neural network) algorithm has been developed and refined to deliver illnesses diagnosis. They are performing even better than the team of doctors that has helped to train the algorithm. Even the data scientists who have developed the algorithm cannot explain in detail why it is performing better than the doctors. We could come up with a similar conclusion in this case.
As you say "a limitation in our understanding". That's the starting point to consider all matters, especially those related to consciousness. It's what we don't know that defines science, not what we do know hence scientific observations and calculations are called theories, such as the theory of evolution etc etc. (imo).
@@clownworld-honk410 .I know what science is. I hold a PhD in Science.
@@rasanmar18 OK... I didn't mean for my comment to across as disparaging to you. Just adding my 2 cents worth. Thanks for replying.
I think your comment is failing to address a key part of Swinburne's argument -- the fact that human consciousness has a subjective awareness of itself and of the world. It is qualitatively different from the brain that gives rise to it. The existence of qualia is still a "hard problem" that science (as it now stands) does not explain well. The general science-based approach is to argue that it doesn't exist, or to reduce it to something else. The problem with your ANN example is that as complex and interesting as it is, we know with almost 100% certainty that it does not possess qualia.
@@CreatewithTech The example of ANN was to try to illustrate what an emergent phenomenon is and how hard it is for human understanding to infer/predict its behaviour just by knowing/measuring the state of each element that makes up the entire system (e.g. brain, ANN algorithm, ....). I was not trying to put ANN in the same category of the human brain. I totally agree with you that ANN-based systems do not possess qualia. But that was not my point. My point is that there are recent studies that suggest that there's already enough empirical evidence to think that qualia is an emergent phenomenon caused by the extremely complex signal interactions between the different neural networks of the human brain.
🌴😎💯
the answer is... 'you' are gone and there are two other independent consciousnesses. put them back together and they disappear and 'you' reappear. no soul required
Oh first video in which we learn something about the personal life of the old Kuhn
The argument about pain is wrong, pain is just as much of an illusion as the physical world we perceive, when you look into it enough.
Not Truth, that it's a complete Materialistic Concept.
@@FranciscoAlvarado-words I have no idea what you mean by that
@@PicturesJester First of all Thanks, I Believed that Profesor Richard Swinburne It's very Sure of what he think, and I like it very much. I like it so much That I will love to analyse a bit more his Discourse and compered my own Thoughts about the subject? Interested? I should tell you I' am not a Evolutionist, I' am mostly a Believer and very open Minded.
OK! First we are Physically Material or Matter, the Pain is real and of course we feel it because a Specific Sensorial Cells gave the info to a Molecule and by using electric Impulses gave that info to our Brains, for our Brains to process the way to stop, soften or erase the Pain perhaps to move our body out way from the needle? you are talking not only about seeing, but also Perceiving the Material World after looking it, for a while? if I do so, I will perceived different things, If I look a man made Material thing that its what I will Perceived a Table a Chair a House as a man made art-i-fact, The World Isn't an Artifact and when I look into it, I Not Only see Life but I also Perceived it, even when I Look a Tree. what I'am trying to say is that that sample it has Nothing to do with Consciousness, which at the time Consciousness isn'twithin our Brains nor it's within our Body, it's Mainly available to be seeing or being Sense in some rare conditions out side of our own Body (Physical Expresion) Sorry if it took me so long to explaing, Mainly because I think its one of the best Videos Interview with that kind of explanations that it has taking me further in my research of the same Subject, and a lot Closer of what I think Conscience can be found as well find a better explanation as to the reason why It's and how to get to it. In the same time thank you very much for your inquire, I really Like it Very much.
“Pain is just as much an illusion”
“When you look into it enough”
I think that the bereaved families of the people who were tortured and murdered by the Nazis would beg to differ that “pain” is an “illusion”.
Equally, when “you” looked into it enough doesn’t it logically follow that this “you” including the “looking” was also an illusion? Sorry but under this strictly reductive materialism or strictly reductive philosophical naturalism you are nothing more than the by product of an accidental, blind, mindless process of random atoms and brain chemicals creating the illusion of stable patterns and regularities. So why “ought” we take any of your claims to the rational high ground seriously? Under this self refuting world view “your looking into it enough” is nothing more substantive than the science project of vinegar and baking soda bubbling over! Can the science project of vinegar and baking soda take the credit for its circular logic and self contradiction?
Has Swinburne never read Parfit?
He has
I would counter Swinburne's esoteric arguments by asking: Is this the best of all possible worlds? If god existed is this the world we should expect?
Where does Oxford keep this guy, in a closet with other religious relics and dinosaur fossils?
“If God existed is this the world we should expect”
Everyone has the power to change the future by what they choose to do in the present!! If an absolute ontological ground of reality exists this is what we would expect. Equally, we would also expect ad hominems, (Appeal to Ridicule Fallacies) mockery and arrogance because free will exists. Hence your ridiculous “religious relics” argument.
I prefer the tooth fairy argument myself with Dwayne Johnson in lead role.Sorry but this is nothing more than an (appeal to ridicule fallacy and the Stone Fallacy), including rhetoric, a straw man argument and an ad hominem. If only you could have been around during the time of Michelle Besso, Francis Bacon, John Henslow, Dostoyevsky, Kepler, Newton, Thomas Aquinas, Anselmo d’Aosta, Miguel de Cervantes, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Augustine, Kant, Einstein, Descartes and Spinoza etc you could have saved them all from their misguided belief in mind and consciousness/theism/deism/panentheism with your Earth shattering “religious relics” argument.
Yes it does, but only for YOU
Why is this even a question?
Don't be mystified.
Swinburne could use a good course in neuroscience and evolutionary biology. At least he goes at his beliefs in a logical fashion even though his a priori assumptions are invalid.
Could you share with us a more valid “a priori” assumption…?
@@mrbwatson8081 The Christian God exists and guided evolution.
@@georgegrubbs2966but you can only make that assumption if you can experience.
@@mrbwatson8081 Subjective experience is not a reliable path to truth. The mind can fool you. How many time are we fooled by magicians, by natural illusions and vivid dreams. If you want to know reality and truth, do not rely on your inner experiences.
@George Grubbs I agree we can be wrong about some experiences like magician illusions but that doesn't mean we are wrong about all our experiences. Is the love you have for ..... not truthfull..? If I feel hungry is that not a reliable source of information? If I experience sadness for a loss is the sadness not real or valid?
consciousness? in confused or enlightened aspect?
I think consciousness is like a DNA-centered whirlpool that spins off of stellar forces like a fractal
When not knowing the mechanisms the brain uses to allow concioussness leads you to conclude, "therefore an invisible force is at work" you have stopped being a scientist. Given we know so little of how the brain works we shouldnt be so quick to insert supernatural forces into any gaps in our knowledge.
The view that belief in God somehow compromises the continuity of scientific research is fallacious. There is a virtual infinite platform of mysteries imbedded in the physical universe, in and of itself. Rather discussing expansive implications of a multiverse and hyperspace or the reducibiltiy of the quantum realm, every answer only leads to new questions which will exponentially increase qualitatively...eventually to a horizon beyond the limits of human comprehension...where only super AI can conceive and explore. And yet, there is a deep ultimate meaning to all of this that transcends the explorative voyage of infinite regress.
@@coreyking5619 We know almost nothing about how the various sensory inputs received by our brain is constructed into a a sense of consciousness. Its okay to say we dont know. Inserting God into this gap of knowledge is.only useful in bolstering ones own faith. The same trick has been.used countless times in early science, and with our increase in understanding supernatural forces have always been replaced by a naturalistic explanation.
@@smhaack63 You totally missed my point. Are you one of those individuals who find no true value in philosophy? That's dogmatic atheism. Natural Science, the pursuit of the Hows and Whats of the universe, is a quest which is infinite. And so, as I stated, belief in a Creator in no way impinges on the integrity of scientific advancement. What is it with you people? You do know that there are highly intelligent people who believe in the existence of God, right? No theological neuroscientist is addressing idiosynchratic processes of the brain with a God of the Gaps approach. Contemplation of the deeper question of existence, why, is a separate quest for truth.
@@coreyking5619 People once thought storms and Earthquakes were caused by gods. A failed crop or epileptic seizure was the result.of witchcraft or demons. Unlucky.misfortune thought to be a result of sin. Our species has a long history of inserting magical forces into the gaps of our knowledge. The mechanisms involved in creating consciousness are unknown and our very human impulse is to assign this phenomenon to our favorite deity. Why? Don't worry, Belief in gods will continued even though we now know the causes of earthquakes and seizures. Naturalistic explanation won't harm gods that simply find another gap in our knowledge to assert their dominion over.
@@smhaack63 It's true that using a deity to fill gaps in understanding isn't good science, but it also isn't good science to neglect the exploration of the idea that God may exist; when we have no clear evidence of a God not existing. Consciousness is only a result of the physical world, but the physical world is mostly unknown. Especially at the most fundamental level. String theory suggests that our universe may have 11 dimensions, yet we only see 3 (plus 1 of time). Maybe our "soul" is a very real; inter-dimensional state of being. A state of being that runs deeper into the universe then what we now know.
This guy sounds like he is alienated from his emotions, yet he is talking about consciousness.
It's an illusion.
hahaha!
It's perhaps an interesting thought experiment to imagine your brain split into halves, but it does not provide any answers, or even any useful questions. He can call himself a soul, but this is just a word. The word person would work just as well, and avoid the religious baggage. As of now, and into the foreseeable future, first person experience is just that, first person. Technology may some day work out a method to directly identify and quantify qualia, but as of now there isn't even a theoretical framework to start with, so idle prattle about brain splitting will have to suffice.
“Idle prattle about brain splitting”
Sorry but this is just an ad hominem and an (Appeal to Ridicule Fallacy). Evidence please not logical fallacies, insults and hubris.
“The word person would work just as well”
Sorry but this is a (Fallacy of Equivocation) and is just prevarication (clever lies). The word soul to describe a “person” and soulless to describe a machine or mindless matter has worked quite well for centuries. Equally, a “person” is a metaphysical presupposition that can not be “proven”, justified or grounded in a strictly reductive materialism, atheism or philosophical naturalism that clearly excludes metaphysical realities. Equally, a unified theory of the conscious “self”, that is a “person”/consciousness is a metaphysical presupposition that can not be proven, justified or grounded in a strictly reductive materialism, atheism or philosophical naturalism that clearly excludes metaphysical realities. You can not be a “person” if you aren’t conscious so get over “yourself”. Because you are clearly equivocating on the meaning of a “person” and and a soul.
The word soul works just as well without all the question begging and materialistic, nihilistic and fatalistic baggage.
As I’ve already pointed out
according to the expert linguist and brilliant cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky…
“There are only two ways of looking at eliminative materialism (the idea that all things reduce to solid substance). One is that it is total gibberish until someone tells us what matter is. Until someone tells us what eliminative materialism is there can’t be such a thing as eliminative materialism and no one can tell us what matter is”. (Noam Chomsky).
Equally, I’m not making any appeals to authority, but on the cognitive level Albert Einstein utilised a more nuanced approach and demonstrated that “matter” is nothing more substantive than the curvature of space and time which is why he completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness. That is Einstein completely rejected atheism for the nuanced God of Spinoza/deism/panentheism. Similarly, Einstein’s closest friend Michelle Besso, who Einstein stated “was the greatest sounding board in Europe”, completely rejected atheism for the belief in the fundamental nature of mind and consciousness/monotheism (Christianity). I’m not making any appeals to authority but reality and existence and in particular the qualities of experience aren’t made of “matter” they are made of (what matters).
So the conclusion is that everyone has a right to believe what they want and everyone including theists has a right to find it totally ridiculous and literally “self” refuting!!….
I rest my case!!
@@georgedoyle7971 I take it that your only real complaint about my light-hearted comment was my dismissal of the idea of a soul. The reason I don't like using the word soul is probably the same reason that it is so important to you. A soul would necessarily have an existence separate from the person in which it is enfleshed. I don't pretend to have any special knowledge or privileged access to the gears of reality, so I just accept what I see, which is a bunch of large mammals with delusion of grandeur.
Wow! He's almost a Non-dualist (Oneness). Cool.😊
That was, without a doubt, the most absurd rambling that I've heard in a long long time. I believe conscious to be the necessary summary of existence arising naturally from an ever increasing complex brain. Any machine is useless unless it can sumarize the answer to a problem, whether that is a model of the universe or whether that is making sense of our moment to moment existence as an animal who must juggle both a flood of autonomous behavior and the visualization of advanced planning at the same time. Without the constantly running summing narative (not withstanding the periodic pauses for the repair of sleep), the complex machine that is a human could make no moment to moment sense of its flow of data input. It survived it's complexity and staved off a state of overwhelm, only because it could summarize it's existence as a simpler narrative. The real test and defining moment of consciousness will be at the point of singularity when a computer matches our human complexity. Will we recognize an emergence of consciousness or will the machine create the illusion of one in order to form a more comfortable interaction with its human creator?
This is, without a doubt, the most absurd rambling that I’ve ever read in a long long time.
Lmao, realizing that electricity isn’t just a tingly thing doesn’t mean you can’t explain why we feel the tingles scientifically.
Prespective of quantum particle, we are a Quantum Universe which exists everywhere to which no law applies.
Thinking is a state of consciousness.
No law applies to thinking.
Thinking means, experiencing.work of consciousness.
We are being experienced from the prespective of consciousness.
Death is no such thing, meaningless event.
Prespective of consciousness.
Because, after death ? We will find overselves in the whole universe as consciousness.
Because, thinking is a state of consciousness.
At the moment we are experiencing through this body.
Creation has no meaning without experience.
Prespective of consciousness whatever is happening is happening in nothingnes.
Past present future running in nothingness.
Because, no law applies to consciousness.
The universe (form of quantum reyality creation) is experiencing itself.
________________________________
Whatever happens in the world is at the will of humans.
Our prayer are fulfilled through God, this too is the thinking of humans.
Prayer =form of think, thinking is a state of consciousness.
Those species which are not in the stage of advance intellect, their desires come out in the form of energy, so their desires are fulfilled.
Thinking is a state of consciousness.
Please recognize your thinking ability.
_______________________________
The body that we think of overselves and experience through it. Alien can also experience him.
Human always live in past as a memory.
Human always ready to pleasure.
Sex, smoke,f..k, drink, Drugs, dominat other is a state of present moment Intoxicantion.
Which is not controlled by humans.
Alien get Intoxicated by this present moment through humans.
In the energy from,alien are in our body, we can identify them.
This Intoxicating hunger comes out of our entire body till it ends.
Without any rituals any human being is like a Intoxicantion tools for the Extraterrestrial.
Extraterrestrial makes any kind of intoxication by him till his death.
Alien have been ruling the Earth for thousand of years in the name of religion.
They always gave us an image and they want to stay connected with us through the same image.
Fallan angel, different brands of God's image.
All heavenly religius books=life is a better way to live and measures to avoid the devil things (own devil)
All heavenly religius books God of some chosen people=the God who is the creator of the whole creation and has created a religion for a few specially chosen people concept created by alien.
With all the civilizations that have gone extinct in thousands of years their God also became extinct
The Bible describes man as spirit, soul and body. I have wondered if the soul connects our bodies to our in material spirit.
The bible was a load of crap written by males to try to control the rest of the population. Most was written long after the events happened and then was heavily edited by other men.
You do not know what you are talking about
It was meant to be inmaterial not material. The spirit is not something made out of matter. The Bible describes man as being spirit, soul and body. How does something without physical substance connect with our material body? I have thought about that for years and I really do not know. However the word spirit seems to describe man relating with God. Jesus said that God is spirit that is He is not corporeal as we are (John 2:24). We must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. Soulish animals are mammals and birds that can have relationship with people like a pet. But mankind was made to relate to God (spirit) as soulish animals like my cat can relate to humans. We also have a physical body. It appears that human beings are made up of inmaterial components and material conponents and I wonder if it is our souls through which our spirit is connected to our body. You may think that is stupid, and maybe it is, but I have been born again of the Spirit and believing in incorporeal intelligence I have wondered just how it works. I have a manual transmission on my truck. Somehow I have to work the stickshift in order to control my vehicle. I don't remember right now but I thought this video was about the soul which I studied in college in an independent study.
Actually the Bible is not crap but it is clear you need to use the toilet yourself.
@@tedbates1236 Easy to say. Very difficult for you to prove however :)
Crap.
This is very sad stuff out of Swinburne, a complete devotion to inside the box thinking, unable to free himself from old rot. If triangles gods they would have three sides, yes of course Mr Swinburne.
Consciousness is for survival.
This Swinburne is just ridiculous...
He is absolutely right
You are
"Does Human Consciousness have Special Purpose?" Good god, what a stupid question!!!
Why?
@@adam79634 Consciousness simply has a biological function. It is the functioning of the reticular formation in the brain stem. Extirpate this structure and consciousness is GONE!
This guy Robert Lawrence Kuhn want to ask "deep, deep, deep" questions...
@@GeoCoppens to me consciousness doesn't make sense it should even exist.
Its a very complicated topic with no real Answers
@@adam79634 You seek mysteriousness where there isn't. You are a religiousness seeker. Science clarifies and does not obfuscate unneccesarily.
@@GeoCoppens then why does consciousness even exist and we aren't all just some robots doing actions based on inputs, why do we have to be self aware?
What a complete load of twaddle. His logic does not hold water at all.
Mr. Swinburne wasted a good education. Good grief!
Sounds like someone can't stand someone disagreeing with them..... How mature of you
The problem is not his conclusion but that his argument is littered with unfounded assertions and non sequiturs. An educated 'professional' thinker should do better.
@@waerlogauk I disagree with your proposition that his thinking is flawed. Perhaps you could elaborate for me?
@@ethanf.237 Less than 10% of advanced scientists believe in a god, as Mr. Swinburne does. And that (less than) 10%, according to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, is too many.
@@jerryhoare8198 Ah yes, because Scientists are definitively the smartest people in our society. So much so infact, that even when they pontificate on matters that fall strictly outside their field of expertise, we should unquestionably accept what they say as authoritative......
_Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time._ -Isaac Asimov, _Free Inquiry,_ Spring 1982
Most of the greatest scientists of the past 100 years have been agnostics, skeptics, or atheists. Why? Because the arguments given trying to prove God exists are (1) weak or (2) contradictory or (3) taken from holy books or (4) not believed and followed and practiced by 99.9% of humans through many millennia. Millions of people today believe in UFOs and God...and yet there is no *_evidence_* of UFOs or God. Science goes by facts and evidence.
💕 ☮ 🌎 🌌
Science (especially physics) and philosophy go hand in hand, at least for me. I process information scientifically, but I take the conclusion and apply it to existential unknowns.
I was a staunch atheist but have moved more to the agnostic camp the more I've learned about the standard model, special relativity, etc.
Keeping my mind open to the possible existence of a 'God(s)' makes consideration of our physical/temporal universe less daunting or lonely.
Not sure if that makes sense.
I'm more inclined to lean towards 'God(s)' when considering that absolutely none of this reality need be here.
@@Electro_Spunk _The word ‘God’ is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions._ -Albert Einstein, in letter written to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind, 3 January 1954 (a year before Einstein's death)
Science doesn't tell the truth very limited by our sensory perceptions. Fact is there is a realm that is non empirical!