How Modern Science Got Consciousness Wrong From the Start | Philip Goff

Eye On A.I. - Craig S. Smith

The podcast explores how Galileo's separation of consciousness from science laid the foundation for modern physics but left consciousness unexplained. Philosopher Philip Goff argues that panpsychism—viewing consciousness

Key takeaways

• Galileo excluded consciousness from science by separating qualia from math

Transcript preview

I think the problem of consciousness was built into the way we designed science, right? By the father of modern science Galileo. Can you talk about Galileo's error? Galileo wasn't simply separating the quality of from the mathematics for scientific reasons. So what did Galileo do? He took consciousness outside of the domain of science. I mean the universe is not a biological system, right? If consciousness for higher forms of... biology is more developed than say a bird compared to a human. How do you feel about the proposal that a computer system in that there is a form of consciousness flowing through the physical system that if that system is complex enough, a higher form of consciousness can emerge. Thanks Craig. Looking forward to the conversation. Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is goes all the way down to the fundamental building blocks of the physical universe. I mean in a way you might see it as a continuation of a trend that's been going on for some time now. You know at the start of the scientific revolution we thought only we were conscious and animals were sort of unfeeling mechanisms and then over time we've attributed consciousness to more and more animals. starting off with higher primates, other mammals. Only fairly recently, birds and fish are typically attributed consciousness. And then maybe a couple of years ago now, there was a couple of hundred scientists signing a letter that they take insect and reptile consciousness seriously. So panpsychists take this to its logical conclusion, holding that not only the simplest forms of life, but the molecule. atoms, subatomic particles, making up life has its own very, very simple forms of consciousness. So we are conscious creatures in a conscious universe. That's the basic idea. Can you talk about Galileo's error? What I'm most passionate about is that this is not just another scientific problem we haven't dealt with yet. You know, it's not just, oh, we need to do a few more brain scans and we'll crack it. This is an utter unique problem. And I mean, and one way into this is I think the problem of consciousness was built into the way we designed science, right, by the father of modern science Galileo, right? He was a great experimental scientist, but he was also a great philosopher and it was his philosophical innovations that really shaped the foundations of the scientific revolution. But he was also a great philosopher and it was his philosophical innovations that really shaped the foundations of the scientific revolution. So Galileo wanted science to be purely mathematical. Something we take for granted these days, but at the time it was a radical innovation. But Galileo had to do a little bit of philosophical work to make sense of that. Because the trouble is, I mean, one thing about consciousness, it's the only phenomenon that we have direct access to, right? And that direct access to, right? And that direct access. reveals to us something about its nature, you know, the redness of a red experience, the smell of coffee, the taste of mint. We have direct access to the character of consciousness from the inside. That's one way which this is such a unique phenomenon. But Galileo appreciated, you can't capture these subjective qualities we directly encounter in our experience. the colors, the sounds, the smells, the tastes. You can't fully capture those in the purely quantitative language of mathematics, okay? An equation can't capture that deep red you experience as you watch the setting sun. I mean, there are all sorts of things we can capture about, the structure of, say, color experience in mathematical language. But, you know, to make the example vivid, suppose you have a boy, blind from birth neuroscientist. You can tell them anything you like framed in the language of mathematics about the objective brain processes involved in color experience. That will never convey to them the redness of a red experience, what it's like to see red. So there's information here, information about the nature of consciousness that we have from the inside that you can can't fully capture in a mathematical purely quantitative language. So what did Galileo do? Well, he took consciousness outside of the domain of science, right? He said if we want this purely mathematical story, this purely quantitative story, we need to take consciousness out of the picture. So he basically divided nature into two. On the one hand, we've got the domain of science with its purely mathematical quantitative story. We need to take consciousness out of the picture. So he basically divided nature into two. On the other side we've got consciousness that's in the soul that's got these funny qualities colors sounds smells tastes and that was the start of mathematical physics which has gone incredibly well but what we've forgotten is that success was premised on dividing reality into two and I think if we now want to fully bring consciousness into the scientific story we need to find a way of of bringing together what Galileo separated, joining them back together and I think panpsychism offers the best way to do that. And Galileo wasn't simply separating the qualia from the mathematics for scientific reasons. There was also a very dominant religious environment that, that presumably he believed in some level that there was a soul and that these things were features of the soul and not of the physical universe. But let me ask you, are you saying that consciousness is like gravity in the Einsteinian view that it's a fundamental property of the universe? property. Yeah, just on your first point, of course Galileo had some deep difficulties with the church over his Copernican view that the sun was in the center of it all rather than the earth. I'm not sure his views on consciousness were wrapped up in a clash with the church though, and in fact, he was in many ways rebelling against the view of the church on this. because the church inherited the view of Aristotle, that the world is filled with qualities, colors, sounds, taste, this division Galileo made of putting consciousness just in the soul outside of what physical science can study. That was a very rebellious move, actually. We've got used to it now, but it was quite radical at the time. I mean, I think actually, I think actually, I think actually, I think, just Galileo appreciated that this is a very unique a very unique phenomenon here I mean you know contrast with other any other phenomena science studies let's say lightning right before we do the science we've got no idea what lightning is it could be the anger of the gods you know or water we used to think water was a fundamental element together with earth and air and fire you know you don't know you don't know what the hell water is do the science, but with consciousness you have a good grip on what it is from the inside by being conscious, by being immediately acquainted with your own experiences. And there is information there about the nature of consciousness that you can't get from the science. As I say, you know, a blind from birth, neuroscientist is never going to know the character of a red experience. So, so. So actually there's information we have about consciousness from the inside that needs to be added to the scientific story. So Galileo in a way, instead of confronting that he thought, let's just put it on one side. If we just put consciousness on one side, we can stop worrying about it, we can get on with mathematical physics. I think that was a good move because it allowed mathematical physics to start and that's obviously gone very well. But if we want to bring consciousness into the scientific story, we need to somehow take What we know about the physical world from experiments? Obviously absolutely crucial, but also what we know about consciousness from the inside. These two sources of information we need to bring them together. And until we get at first base in understanding what a unique explanatory enterprise this is, we're not going to make progress and consciousness. But I think I wandered off you. That was, I just focused on the first video question. What was the second bit of your question? The second was. when you talk about it as a fundamental property is it like Einstein's space time and that it's that it's it just exists as this indivisible quality of of the universe yeah puns like is definitely take it to be fundamental and you know there is precedent in science a lot of present taking something as fundamental I like to give the of Maxwell with his theory of electromagnetism in the 19th century. Maxwell didn't explain electricity and magnetism in terms of features of reality that science was already committed to. He added new fundamental electromagnetic properties and laws and then built up from that basis. So similarly, panpsychists add consciousness. as a fundamental feature of the universe, obviously in very rudimentary forms at the fundamental level. And then the view is that our consciousness, the very complex consciousness of the human or animal brains, is somehow built up from those more fundamental elements. But actually there's another thing that needs to be said here. It's not just that we are adding consciousness alongside the property science already believes in. like mass spin and charge and so on. The physicist Sabine Hosenfelder has pointed out in her public writings on panpsychism. That would kind of show up in our experiments, right? If there was this new property alongside the properties physics already studies, that would kind of show up in our experiments. We'd falsify the standard model of particle physics or something. Note the claim is rather that the consciousness. the story underlies what physics is getting at that ultimately at the fundamental level of reality according to panpsychists all there is is consciousness and the the mathematical story that physics is telling us arises emerges from that more fundamental story about consciousness so it's kind of turning the problem of consciousness on its head you know the normal way we think about the problem of consciousness is start with the stuff physics talks about or chemistry and neuroscience that story we try and get consciousness out of that the pan psyche says no no no no we've tried that it doesn't work it arguably doesn't even make sense we're gonna turn it upside down we're gonna start with consciousness and account for everything else account for physics chemistry neuroscience in terms of consciousness and I think that way of doing it makes a lot more sense prove more productive I think in some ways. Yeah you talk about a gradient or a spectrum or I'm not sure the language that you use but that in higher more complex organisms consciousness is is more developed and that is you go down the the tree of life for or of the world to the level of electrons and quarks and that sort of thing. There's that property still exists but in a very, very simple state. And I think at one time, I'm going to read this this problem of the combination problem, like how do you get from those fundamental particles, if indeed they are particles? and build up to the level of a complex organism. And more recently, you have this idea of, I think you call it, cosmic, you'll, you'll cause cosmoshikism, where it's this fundamental property that flows through or is manifest in every level of. physical reality. It's not built up from the quantum field. It's rather coming down the other way. Is that a fair assessment or fair explanation? So panpsychists hold that the fundamental physical entities have consciousness of some incredibly rudimentary form. But it's a question for physicist what the fundamental physical entities are. particles, electrons or quarks, but actually many theoretical physicists these days are inclined to think actually reality isn't made up at particles, it's made up of universe wide fields and particles are just sort of local excitations in those fields. So if you combine that kind of view of panpsychism, we reach the view known as cosmocychism that the fundamental conscious mind is is the universe itself. So we shouldn't think of that as you know God or something or you just because something has consciousness it doesn't mean it has intelligence agency understanding these