Name: Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science
Uploaded: 2021-11-24T18:03:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-24. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience and you know I think we shouldn't be surprised that
physical science has this difficulty of consciousness because the scientific
paradigm we've been operating in for the last 500 years was designed by
Galileo to exclude consciousness should I talk a bit about that yes so yeah so
this is what I defend in my book Galileo's error so really the most
important well I shouldn't say that a key moment in the scientific revolution
right is 1623 Galileo's decision that mathematics was going to be the language
of science right this was the start of mathematical physics what is not
discussed much is the philosophical work Galileo had to do to get there right
because the problem was before Galileo people thought the world the physical
world was filled with qualities right so you have colors on the surfaces of
objects
smells floating through the air tastes inside food and this was a problem for
Galileo because you can't capture these qualities in in the purely quantitative
language of mathematics you know an equation can't capture the the redness of a
red experience so Galileo got around this so Galileo you know you wanted to
describe it all in math so Galileo got around this problem by proposing a
radically new philosophical theory of reality so we think of Galileo as a great
experimental scientist which he was but he was also a great philosopher so he
proposed this new philosophical theory of reality and according to this theory
the
qualities aren't really out there in the physical world right they're in the
consciousness of the observer right so if you're looking at this is that black
you're looking at that you know the blackness isn't really on the surface of
the pen it's in the consciousness of the person looking at it or if you're
eating a spicy curry
the spiciness isn't really in the curry it's in the consciousness of the person
eating it so
Galileo strips the physical world of its qualities and after he's done that all
that's left of the
purely quantitative properties, size, shape, location, motion, properties that
you can
capture in mathematical geometry. So in Galileo's worldview, there's this
radical division in nature
between two domains, the quantitative domain of science, the physical world
with its mathematical
quantitative properties, and the qualitative domain of consciousness,
consciousness with its
colors, sounds, smells, tastes, which he took to be outside of the domain of
science.
So this is the start of mathematical physics, which has gone incredibly well.
But I think what
we've forgotten is that it's gone so well because Galileo gave science this
narrow, specific focus.
Galileo essentially said, you know, just put consciousness on one side, just
focus on what
you can capture in mathematics. So this is so important. So I think people were
now living in
a strange period of history where people like Sean Carroll, for example, think
our materialism
has to be true because you know, look how well physical science has done, you
know, it's explained
so much, surely it's going to explain consciousness. The irony is it's done so
well, precisely because
it was designed to exclude consciousness. So I think if we if we want to bring
consciousness
fully into science, we need a new worldview, we need to find a way to bring
together what Galileo separated, to bring
together the quantitative domain of science, and the qualitative domain of
human consciousness. And that's what
panpsychism does, it gives us a way of bringing this together.
I'm not getting how Galileo excluded consciousness. That doesn't, it doesn't
make any sense. I do
understand that mathematics are what he felt was the underlying building blocks
of all things. But even
if you're talking about how like spicy curry, for example, spicy curry doesn't
exist in the curry, it
exists in the consciousness of someone who eats the curry. But it's not really
true, because there's a chemical
reaction. There's we know what the ingredients are in the curry that causes it
to have a spicy reaction
to the human being that's taking it in. It's a very distinct, very definable
chemical reaction that
we know that these plants have excreted these chemicals to discourage predation.
That's why they're
so spicy in the first place. We know we know all these things. Like this is in
a way mathematics,
it's mathematics engaging with consciousness.
Yeah. So look, there's definitely a lot we can, we can do mathematically with
the tools
of mathematical science. Yeah. You can capture the chemical composition of the
curry. You can capture
the changes it makes in your brain. Right. But then at some point, the
resulting brain activity
goes along with the sensation of spiciness. Well, you recognize it. That's
where the miracle happens.
But how is it a sense? But you're recognizing because your pain sensors in your
tongue,
the sensations of taste, they're all, this is mathematics, right? Like there's
certain compounds
that cause certain reactions. We even attribute genes to those compounds. Like
the genes for,
with some people, cilantro tastes like soap and some people, it tastes
delicious. Like that, those are,
there's a genetic, we know for sure that there's a genetic component to that.
We can actually isolate
the very, very specific genes that cause people to have that reaction.
So I think, I think that the chemical story can, the physical story can explain
how people react to the taste,
how people store information about it, how that impacts on their later behavior.
Right.
But all of that story could in principle go on in, in, in, in what we call a
zombie and without any kind of inner life,
any kind of experience of spiciness. You, you know, it's conceivable that you
could have a mechanism
that had all those reactions, um, and all those responses, but there was no
feeling of spiciness.
Um, I mean, he's, I mean, it's, it's sometimes, it's sometimes a bit more, more
vivid with color,
if you think about, so, I mean, here's another way of putting it right. Suppose,
suppose I wanted to explain in neuro, in a neuroscientific theory, the redness
of a red
experience, right? Okay. Why red experiences have that red quality?
So the first issue is, I don't think you can, and this is essentially Galileo's
insight.
You can't capture the redness of a red experience in the language of
neuroscience.
And the way to see that, you know, you couldn't convey to a, a blind neuroscientist
what it's like
to see red by, you know, getting him to read your theory in braille, right? You
couldn't convey that to
him. So that's a descriptive limitation, right? That the language of
neuroscience is purely quantitative
language can't express the redness of a red experience. So that's just a
descriptive limitation.
But I think it entails an explanatory limitation because if I wanted to present
my neuros, my
brilliant neuroscientific theory that explained the redness of a red experience,
my theory would first
have to describe that quality and then explain it in terms of underlying
physical processes.
But if the theory can't even describe it, then it can't explain it. So I think
in principle,
a neuroscientific theory cannot explain the qualities of our experience. Galileo
500 years ago realized that,
and he said, if we want science to be mathematical, we have to take
consciousness out of the story.
And that was a good move, but we've sort of forgotten that that's what we did.
So now we're in
a weird period of history where people think, oh, it's gone so well. But yeah,
it's gone so well because
we took consciousness out of the story, because you can't capture those
qualities in a purely quantitative
language. But what if it's both? What if what if it's both conscious and
chemical? That seems more likely,
right? Yeah, but that I mean, that's essentially the panpsychist view, right?
But
the question is, what comes first? So both both the panpsychist like myself and
the materialist like
Sean Carroll, for example, you know, many, many people are materialists. We
both think, you know,
in some sense, consciousness and chemicals go together. The question is, which
is more fundamental?
I think that we get physics and chemistry out of consciousness. We don't do it
the other way
around. It's very easy to explain. But I still don't understand why you think
that.
Because I think, so we've got a choice. Well, there's three options, really,
right? Here are the
three options on consciousness. Either consciousness is explained in terms of
matter.
That's the materialist view. Or matter is explained in terms of consciousness.
That's the panpsychist
view. Or we've got a third option. Hold on, break that down again. So either
consciousness can be
explained in terms of the brain. Okay. That's the materialist view of, say,
Sean Carroll.
Second option. No, the brain is explained in terms of consciousness. That's my
view.
Right. That's the panpsychist view. Third option is, they're just, they're two
separate things.
That's the dualist view. But it's also everything. Like the soul is separate
from the brain.
Everything has some sort of component of consciousness. Yeah, but there's...
Now that's what I don't understand. How do you make that leap? Because I don't,
you've got these three choices. I don't think, I think, look, I basically think
the materialist view
is incoherent. You just, you can't account for the qualities of experience in
the purely quantitative
language of physical science, right? That's Galileo's insight.
Well, aren't the qualities of experience quantitative in and of itself?
So you, I mean, yeah, so you can, to an extent, capture the structure in
quantitative terms. So like
color experience has a mathematical structure. We can analyze it in terms of
hue, saturation,
lightness, and we can map out a color space in terms of those three dimensions.
Spectrum. So that's, yeah, it's not that they, they obviously have that
quantitative structure,
but you can't fully pin down, I would argue, maybe you disagree,
the redness of a red experience in that language. I mean, I talk in my book
about the, uh,
the color scientist, Nut Norby, who's, who's, um, a color scientist who's got
some cones missing from
his eyes. And so he's only ever seen black and white and shades of gray, but he's
a color
expert. And he talks about this and he says, when he tries to think about color,
he, he compares it
to sound. So he thinks of brightness, maybe like, like loudness. Um, and he
says he can get some grip
on the, the structure, but he says, you know, I'll never fully understand, you
know, the redness that
underlies that structure. Because he's colorblind. Because he's colorblind. So,
so I'm saying the
qualities of experience can't be totally pinned down in that language. But
right there in that example,
the qualities of his experience can be pinned down to a problem in the
structure of his eyes.
It's chemicals. Yeah, we, that's, we all agree. Yeah. So, so look, we all agree
that
the kind of experience you have is dependent on the structure of your brain,
right? We all agree on that.
Right. That's, but then there's a question is what explains that? Is that
because
the experience is explained in terms of the brain or is it the other way around?
That's the philosophical question. The materialist says the experience is
explained in terms of the
brain activity. Right.
I, I think that's doesn't work out. I do it the other way around. I think it's,
it's much more
straightforward at least to explain the brain activity in terms of the
consciousness.
But the quality of the experience can be explained based on the way the brain
works.
I don't think so. So like if you add things to the brain, it changes the
quality of the experience.
If you add certain chemicals, certain dopamine, serotonin, you add things to
the experience,
it literally changes the way you view an interface.
So, so yeah, I agree with what you've just said, which is basically a claim
about correlation.
That certain kinds of brain activity go along with certain kinds of experience,
right?
Yes. And certain kinds of chemicals are responsible for certain types of
experiences
being different.
Well, I, I would just say that they go together. I would put it more neutrally.
They always go
together. And that's a scientific question.
But if you go to a rock concert, say if you go to a concert and you take acid,
you're going to have a very different experience. And if you didn't take that
acid.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so definitely certain kinds of chemical activity go
along with certain
kinds of, and that's the scientific question. The hard problem of consciousness
is why,
why does certain kinds of experience go together with certain kinds of,
sorry, certain kinds of brain activity go together with certain kinds of
experience.
And there's two, there's two ways of explaining that you explain the experience
in terms of the activity,
the brain activity, or you explain the brain activity in terms of the
experience.

Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science

the Joe Rogan experience and you know I think we shouldn't be surprised that
physical science has this difficulty of consciousness because the scientific
paradigm we've been operating in for the last 500 years was designed by
Galileo to exclude consciousness should I talk a bit about that yes so yeah so
this is what I defend in my book Galileo's error so really the most
important well I shouldn't say that a key moment in the scientific revolution
right is 1623 Galileo's decision that mathematics was going to be the language
of science right this was the start of mathematical physics what is not
discussed much is the philosophical work Galileo had to do to get there right
because the problem was before Galileo people thought the world the physical
world was filled with qualities right so you have colors on the surfaces of
objects
smells floating through the air tastes inside food and this was a problem for
Galileo because you can't capture these qualities in in the purely quantitative
language of mathematics you know an equation can't capture the the redness of a
red experience so Galileo got around this so Galileo you know you wanted to
describe it all in math so Galileo got around this problem by proposing a
radically new philosophical theory of reality so we think of Galileo as a great
experimental scientist which he was but he was also a great philosopher so he
proposed this new philosophical theory of reality and according to this theory
the
qualities aren't really out there in the physical world right they're in the
consciousness of the observer right so if you're looking at this is that black
you're looking at that you know the blackness isn't really on the surface of
the pen it's in the consciousness of the person looking at it or if you're
eating a spicy curry
the spiciness isn't really in the curry it's in the consciousness of the person
eating it so
Galileo strips the physical world of its qualities and after he's done that all
that's left of the
purely quantitative properties, size, shape, location, motion, properties that
you can
capture in mathematical geometry. So in Galileo's worldview, there's this
radical division in nature
between two domains, the quantitative domain of science, the physical world
with its mathematical
quantitative properties, and the qualitative domain of consciousness,
consciousness with its
colors, sounds, smells, tastes, which he took to be outside of the domain of
science.
So this is the start of mathematical physics, which has gone incredibly well.
But I think what
we've forgotten is that it's gone so well because Galileo gave science this
narrow, specific focus.
Galileo essentially said, you know, just put consciousness on one side, just
focus on what
you can capture in mathematics. So this is so important. So I think people were
now living in
a strange period of history where people like Sean Carroll, for example, think
our materialism
has to be true because you know, look how well physical science has done, you
know, it's explained
so much, surely it's going to explain consciousness. The irony is it's done so
well, precisely because
it was designed to exclude consciousness. So I think if we if we want to bring
consciousness
fully into science, we need a new worldview, we need to find a way to bring
together what Galileo separated, to bring
together the quantitative domain of science, and the qualitative domain of
human consciousness. And that's what
panpsychism does, it gives us a way of bringing this together.
I'm not getting how Galileo excluded consciousness. That doesn't, it doesn't
make any sense. I do
understand that mathematics are what he felt was the underlying building blocks
of all things. But even
if you're talking about how like spicy curry, for example, spicy curry doesn't
exist in the curry, it
exists in the consciousness of someone who eats the curry. But it's not really
true, because there's a chemical
reaction. There's we know what the ingredients are in the curry that causes it
to have a spicy reaction
to the human being that's taking it in. It's a very distinct, very definable
chemical reaction that
we know that these plants have excreted these chemicals to discourage predation.
That's why they're
so spicy in the first place. We know we know all these things. Like this is in
a way mathematics,
it's mathematics engaging with consciousness.
Yeah. So look, there's definitely a lot we can, we can do mathematically with
the tools
of mathematical science. Yeah. You can capture the chemical composition of the
curry. You can capture
the changes it makes in your brain. Right. But then at some point, the
resulting brain activity
goes along with the sensation of spiciness. Well, you recognize it. That's
where the miracle happens.
But how is it a sense? But you're recognizing because your pain sensors in your
tongue,
the sensations of taste, they're all, this is mathematics, right? Like there's
certain compounds
that cause certain reactions. We even attribute genes to those compounds. Like
the genes for,
with some people, cilantro tastes like soap and some people, it tastes
delicious. Like that, those are,
there's a genetic, we know for sure that there's a genetic component to that.
We can actually isolate
the very, very specific genes that cause people to have that reaction.
So I think, I think that the chemical story can, the physical story can explain
how people react to the taste,
how people store information about it, how that impacts on their later behavior.
Right.
But all of that story could in principle go on in, in, in, in what we call a
zombie and without any kind of inner life,
any kind of experience of spiciness. You, you know, it's conceivable that you
could have a mechanism
that had all those reactions, um, and all those responses, but there was no
feeling of spiciness.
Um, I mean, he's, I mean, it's, it's sometimes, it's sometimes a bit more, more
vivid with color,
if you think about, so, I mean, here's another way of putting it right. Suppose,
suppose I wanted to explain in neuro, in a neuroscientific theory, the redness
of a red
experience, right? Okay. Why red experiences have that red quality?
So the first issue is, I don't think you can, and this is essentially Galileo's
insight.
You can't capture the redness of a red experience in the language of
neuroscience.
And the way to see that, you know, you couldn't convey to a, a blind neuroscientist
what it's like
to see red by, you know, getting him to read your theory in braille, right? You
couldn't convey that to
him. So that's a descriptive limitation, right? That the language of
neuroscience is purely quantitative
language can't express the redness of a red experience. So that's just a
descriptive limitation.
But I think it entails an explanatory limitation because if I wanted to present
my neuros, my
brilliant neuroscientific theory that explained the redness of a red experience,
my theory would first
have to describe that quality and then explain it in terms of underlying
physical processes.
But if the theory can't even describe it, then it can't explain it. So I think
in principle,
a neuroscientific theory cannot explain the qualities of our experience. Galileo
500 years ago realized that,
and he said, if we want science to be mathematical, we have to take
consciousness out of the story.
And that was a good move, but we've sort of forgotten that that's what we did.
So now we're in
a weird period of history where people think, oh, it's gone so well. But yeah,
it's gone so well because
we took consciousness out of the story, because you can't capture those
qualities in a purely quantitative
language. But what if it's both? What if what if it's both conscious and
chemical? That seems more likely,
right? Yeah, but that I mean, that's essentially the panpsychist view, right?
But
the question is, what comes first? So both both the panpsychist like myself and
the materialist like
Sean Carroll, for example, you know, many, many people are materialists. We
both think, you know,
in some sense, consciousness and chemicals go together. The question is, which
is more fundamental?
I think that we get physics and chemistry out of consciousness. We don't do it
the other way
around. It's very easy to explain. But I still don't understand why you think
that.
Because I think, so we've got a choice. Well, there's three options, really,
right? Here are the
three options on consciousness. Either consciousness is explained in terms of
matter.
That's the materialist view. Or matter is explained in terms of consciousness.
That's the panpsychist
view. Or we've got a third option. Hold on, break that down again. So either
consciousness can be
explained in terms of the brain. Okay. That's the materialist view of, say,
Sean Carroll.
Second option. No, the brain is explained in terms of consciousness. That's my
view.
Right. That's the panpsychist view. Third option is, they're just, they're two
separate things.
That's the dualist view. But it's also everything. Like the soul is separate
from the brain.
Everything has some sort of component of consciousness. Yeah, but there's...
Now that's what I don't understand. How do you make that leap? Because I don't,
you've got these three choices. I don't think, I think, look, I basically think
the materialist view
is incoherent. You just, you can't account for the qualities of experience in
the purely quantitative
language of physical science, right? That's Galileo's insight.
Well, aren't the qualities of experience quantitative in and of itself?
So you, I mean, yeah, so you can, to an extent, capture the structure in
quantitative terms. So like
color experience has a mathematical structure. We can analyze it in terms of
hue, saturation,
lightness, and we can map out a color space in terms of those three dimensions.
Spectrum. So that's, yeah, it's not that they, they obviously have that
quantitative structure,
but you can't fully pin down, I would argue, maybe you disagree,
the redness of a red experience in that language. I mean, I talk in my book
about the, uh,
the color scientist, Nut Norby, who's, who's, um, a color scientist who's got
some cones missing from
his eyes. And so he's only ever seen black and white and shades of gray, but he's
a color
expert. And he talks about this and he says, when he tries to think about color,
he, he compares it
to sound. So he thinks of brightness, maybe like, like loudness. Um, and he
says he can get some grip
on the, the structure, but he says, you know, I'll never fully understand, you
know, the redness that
underlies that structure. Because he's colorblind. Because he's colorblind. So,
so I'm saying the
qualities of experience can't be totally pinned down in that language. But
right there in that example,
the qualities of his experience can be pinned down to a problem in the
structure of his eyes.
It's chemicals. Yeah, we, that's, we all agree. Yeah. So, so look, we all agree
that
the kind of experience you have is dependent on the structure of your brain,
right? We all agree on that.
Right. That's, but then there's a question is what explains that? Is that
because
the experience is explained in terms of the brain or is it the other way around?
That's the philosophical question. The materialist says the experience is
explained in terms of the
brain activity. Right.
I, I think that's doesn't work out. I do it the other way around. I think it's,
it's much more
straightforward at least to explain the brain activity in terms of the
consciousness.
But the quality of the experience can be explained based on the way the brain
works.
I don't think so. So like if you add things to the brain, it changes the
quality of the experience.
If you add certain chemicals, certain dopamine, serotonin, you add things to
the experience,
it literally changes the way you view an interface.
So, so yeah, I agree with what you've just said, which is basically a claim
about correlation.
That certain kinds of brain activi