- Home
- Mind-Body Solution
- Topics
- Consciousness
Consciousness
Theories, evidence and the hard problem
Consciousness is the fact that there is something it is like to be you: to see a colour, feel a pain, remember a face. Explaining how that arises from a living brain is often called the hard problem of consciousness, a phrase the philosopher David Chalmers made widely known in the 1990s to separate it from easier questions about how the brain processes information.
The theories on offer fall into rough families. Physicalist accounts, such as global workspace and higher-order theories, look for consciousness in particular patterns of brain activity. Integrated information theory starts from the structure of experience itself and works outward. Predictive-processing and active-inference approaches treat the brain as a system that models and controls its world, and ask what that says about experience. Panpsychism and idealism reverse the usual order, treating mind as fundamental or as the only reality. Illusionism takes another route and argues that the puzzle comes from a misleading picture the brain gives of itself.
This programme has hosted advocates of almost all of these views, and each conversation tries to test an idea rather than win an argument. Dr Naidu comes to the subject as a medical doctor with a master's degree in the philosophy and ethics of mental health, so questions that matter in medicine are never far away: how awareness is recognised in people who cannot report it, and what we owe to creatures and machines whose inner lives we cannot check.
If you are new to the subject, start with a guest whose view you find least plausible, then listen to one who disagrees with them. Episodes are listed newest first. This is general discussion, not medical advice.
Episodes on this topic.
Kevin Mitchell
Does Consciousness Require a Subject? The Self, Agency & AI Limitations
Length 1 hr 35 min
Donald Hoffman & Karl Friston
What is Ultimately Real? Consciousness, Free Energy & Spacetime
Length 2 hr 40 min
Jonathan Schooler
What is Consciousness? Nested Observer Windows, Meta-Awareness & Mind Wandering
Length 2 hr 4 min
Edward Kelly
What if the Brain Doesn’t Create Consciousness? Irreducible Mind & Beyond Physicalism
Length 1 hr 50 min
Dr Tevin Naidu
What if the Brain Does NOT Create Consciousness?
Length 3 min
Pim van Lommel
Does Consciousness Survive Death? The Science of Near-Death Experiences (NDE)
Length 1 hr 2 min
Susan Schneider
Can AI Ever Be Conscious? Machine Phenomenology, Ethics of AI & the Future of Mind
Length 1 hr 49 min
Donald Hoffman
What Are Traces of Consciousness? A New Breakthrough Unifying Mind and Reality
Length 2 hr 49 min
Elly Vintiadis
Consciousness Beyond Materialism: A New Framework for Mind & Reality
Length 1 hr 17 min
Adam Safron
Why Does Consciousness Exist? Integrated World Modeling Theory & the Cybernetic Mind
Length 1 hr 46 min
Eric Schwitzgebel
Will We Know When AI Becomes Conscious? The Epistemic Fog of Artificial Minds
Length 1 hr 31 min
Dr Tevin Naidu
Introducing the Mind-at-Large Project: A New Paradigm in Consciousness Research
Length 1 hr 51 min
Robert Prentner
Is Consciousness Fundamental? Interfaces of Reality & Mathematizing Phenomenology
Length 1 hr 3 min
Karl Friston & Mark Solms
Is it Possible to Engineer Artificial Consciousness?
Length 1 hr 33 min
Josh Bongard
What are Biological Robots? How AI is Reshaping Life, Consciousness & Matter!
Length 1 hr 21 min
Suzanne Gildert
Can We Engineer Consciousness? Quantum Physics, Robotics & Conscious AI Technology
Length 1 hr 35 min
Susan Blackmore
A New Approach to Consciousness from the Perspective of a Panpsychism of Models
Length 1 hr 1 min
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
What is Exogenous Mind Theory? Metaphysics, Psychedelics, & Mind At Large
Length 1 hr 42 min
Stuart Hameroff
Is Consciousness a Quantum Orchestra? Microtubules, Objective Reduction, & Orch OR
Length 1 hr 37 min
Nir Lahav
Can Physics Explain Consciousness? A Relativistic Theory & the Equivalence Principle
Length 1 hr 35 min
Tom Campbell
Are We Living In A Simulation? Consciousness & A Theory Of Everything
Length 3 hr 27 min
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
A Landscape of Consciousness? Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations & Implications
Length 1 hr 49 min
Chris Fields
What is a Theory of Consciousness for? Quantum Mechanics, Minds & Minimal Physicalism
Length 1 hr 13 min
Murray Shanahan
What are Conscious Exotica? Consciousness, AI & the Space of Possible Minds
Length 1 hr 20 min
David Papineau
Is the Mind Just the Brain? Materialism & the Problem with Phenomenal Consciousness
Length 1 hr 20 min
Federico Faggin
What is the One Consciousness? Bridging the Gap between Quantum & Classical Reality
Length 1 hr 45 min
Keith Frankish
What is Descartes' Prison? Illusionism as Intuition Pumps for Consciousness Theories
Length 2 hr 49 min
Tony Nader
Is Consciousness All There Is? The Field of All Possibilities & The Ultimate Singularity
Length 1 hr 17 min
John Vervaeke
Can Science Untangle the World-Knot of Consciousness? Relevance Realization & Meaning
Length 2 hr 1 min
Johnjoe McFadden
Is Consciousness An Electromagnetic Information Field? The CEMI Field Theory
Length 1 hr 19 min
Dr Tevin Naidu
What is Consciousness? Theories of Consciousness & The Mind-Body Solution
Length 1 hr 7 min
Ogi Ogas
Can this Unified Theory of Consciousness Explain all States of Mind? The Hard Problem
Length 1 hr 51 min
Stephen Grossberg
A Unified Theory of Consciousness? Adaptive Resonance Theory & The Hard Problem
Length 1 hr 54 min
François Kammerer
Is Consciousness Real? Illusionism As A Theory Of Consciousness
Length 1 hr 49 min
Mark Solms
How Do Dreams Relate To Consciousness? Why We Dream & The Felt Uncertainty Theory
Length 1 hr 36 min
Stephen Grossberg
How Does Each Brain Make A Mind? Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) & Consciousness
Length 2 hr 19 min
Thomas Metzinger
Is The Self An Illusion? Minimal Phenomenal Selfhood & Epistemic Agent Model
Length 2 hr 16 min
Bernardo Kastrup
Are We Dissociated Alters Of A Universal Mind? Understanding Analytic Idealism
Length 2 hr 28 min
Susan Blackmore
Did Religions Evolve To Exploit Us? God's Memes & Consciousness Delusionism
Length 58 min
Donald Hoffman
Can Consciousness Create Reality? New Experiment to Test CA Theory's Implications
Length 2 hr 11 min
Angela Mendelovici
What Is The Role Of Qualia? Phenomenal Intentionality Theory & Consciousness
Length 59 min
Christof Koch
Can Consciousness Be Quantified? Integrated Information Theory & Neural Correlates
Length 1 hr
Tony Nader
Is Everything Consciousness? One Unbounded Ocean Of Consciousness
Length 1 hr 44 min
Bernardo Kastrup
Is Consciousness The Fundamental Reality? Analytic Idealism & The Cosmic Mind
Length 1 hr 52 min
Philip Goff
Is Everything Conscious? Panpsychism & The Purpose Of The Universe
Length 1 hr 40 min
Helen Yetter-Chappell
Is Consciousness Everything? Quasi-Berkeleyan Idealism Without God
Length 1 hr 28 min
Chris Frith
What Is The Function of Consciousness? The Evolutionary Purpose Of Conscious Minds
Length 1 hr 33 min
Mark Solms
Where Is The Source Of Consciousness? The Hidden Spring & The Cortical Fallacy
Length 1 hr 51 min
Noam Chomsky
What Is The Mind-Body Problem? The Hard Problem Of Consciousness & Materialism
Length 37 min
Eric Schwitzgebel
A Weird World? Universal Bizarreness Thesis & Perplexities of Consciousness
Length 2 hr 2 min
Nicholas Humphrey
Why did Consciousness Evolve? Evolution of Sentience & Phenomenal Surrealism
Length 2 hr 28 min
Keith Frankish
Is Consciousness an Illusion? Illusionism & its Ethical Implications
Length 3 hr
Michael Graziano
Rethinking Consciousness? Attention Schema Theory & the Science of Subjectivity
Length 1 hr 34 min