Modern WisdomWhat Is Consciousness? - Philip Goff | Modern Wisdom Podcast #272
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:03
Why consciousness resists standard scientific explanation
Goff argues consciousness is unique because it’s not publicly observable—only directly known through first-person awareness. This makes explaining it fundamentally different from explaining other “unobservables” in science, which are posited to account for public data.
- •Conscious experience (pain, seeing red) is privately accessible, not publicly observable
- •Science typically explains observable data by positing unobservables (e.g., particles)
- •With consciousness, the target datum isn’t public, constraining experimentation
- •Sets up the need for philosophical groundwork alongside neuroscience
- 1:03 – 5:39
Why philosophers belong in the consciousness debate
Chris challenges why a philosopher (not a neuroscientist) is tackling consciousness. Goff explains neuroscience can establish correlations, but philosophy is needed to assess competing explanatory frameworks for why brain activity is accompanied by experience.
- •Neuroscience can correlate reports with brain scans and stimulation results
- •Correlations don’t equal an explanation of why experience occurs
- •Experiments can multiply correlations but may not bridge the explanatory gap
- •Philosophers evaluate and compare candidate explanatory proposals
- 5:39 – 9:01
Science, behaviorism, and the temptation to deny consciousness
The conversation traces how 20th-century science often treated consciousness as taboo, culminating in behaviorism’s focus on observable behavior. Goff contrasts two options: deny consciousness (illusionism) or revise our conception of science to include it.
- •Behaviorism treated only observable behavior as legitimate scientific data
- •Dennett/Frankish-style illusionism: if it can’t be scientifically explained, it ‘doesn’t exist’
- •Most people hold an unstable middle position: affirm consciousness while restricting knowledge to experiments
- •Goff’s stance: keep consciousness real and rethink science’s scope
- 9:01 – 11:27
What the science of consciousness can do: correlations vs explanations
Goff clarifies that consciousness isn’t mysterious in the sense of being unfamiliar—we know it directly. The real challenge is constitutive explanation: why certain physical processes are accompanied by particular qualities of experience.
- •We know what pain is by having it; the puzzle is ‘why this brain state feels like that’
- •Experimental methods: self-reports + brain measurements to map correlations
- •A general theory seeks necessary/sufficient conditions for experience
- •Explanatory gap remains: experiments alone yield more correlations, not ‘why’
- 11:27 – 14:25
The three broad options: dualism, materialism, and a third way
Goff outlines traditional dualism and materialism, then signals a ‘third approach’ that revived his interest. Dualism posits consciousness as non-physical; materialism identifies experiences with brain processes; panpsychism aims to avoid both pitfalls.
- •Dualism: consciousness outside the physical, yet possibly law-governed (Chalmers)
- •Materialism: experiences just are neural patterns (like water = H2O)
- •Same neuroscientific data can be interpreted via different metaphysical frameworks
- •Motivation for a third option: dissatisfaction with both standard camps
- 14:25 – 17:51
Naturalistic dualism: psychophysical laws and the 'mechanism' worry
Chris presses on how dualism could ‘connect’ mind and brain without woo. Goff explains Chalmers’ move: treat mind–brain links as fundamental psychophysical laws, similar to physics’ own unexplained fundamental laws.
- •Chalmers as ‘naturalistic dualist’: non-physical consciousness but within science
- •Psychophysical laws link specific brain activity to specific experiences
- •Princess Elizabeth’s challenge to Descartes: how can non-physical affect physical?
- •Hume/Newton point: fundamental laws aren’t explained, they’re posited
- 17:51 – 20:50
Critiques of dualism and the limits of neuroscience certainty
Goff reviews common objections to dualism, including the expectation that non-physical influence would show up as anomalies in brain science. He notes how little we truly understand the brain at fine-grained levels, but still prefers more unified theories than a two-realm split.
- •Empirical worry: ‘poltergeist’ effects should appear if non-physical mind intervenes
- •Counterpoint: neuroscience resolution is coarse (millions of neurons per fMRI pixel)
- •We lack deep understanding of how large-scale functions are realized cellularly
- •Theoretical worry: dualism is disunified/‘ugly’ compared to simpler unified accounts
- 20:50 – 24:50
Why materialism fails: Galileo’s quantitative science leaves out qualia
Goff’s central anti-materialist argument is that physical science is inherently quantitative, while consciousness is qualitative (redness, taste, smell). He frames this historically: Galileo helped create a mathematical physics by bracketing out qualitative experience—so we shouldn’t expect physics-as-is to recover it.
- •Physical science uses quantitative descriptions; experience is qualitative
- •You can’t capture ‘what red is like’ in equations or purely quantitative terms
- •Galileo’s move: build mathematical physics by excluding qualities from science’s domain
- •Therefore ‘physics will eventually explain consciousness’ misunderstands what physics was built to do
- 24:50 – 33:52
Emergence clarified: strong vs weak emergence and the 'wrong question' trap
Chris proposes consciousness as an emergent property; Goff distinguishes weak emergence (no new laws) from strong emergence (new bridging laws). They also separate evolutionary/functional explanations (why traits are adaptive) from constitutive explanations (what makes experience exist right now).
- •Weak emergence (materialist-style) vs strong emergence (Chalmers-style)
- •To explain qualia, a theory would need to describe them—physical science can’t even do that
- •Language limits: you can’t convey red experience to a blind-since-birth neuroscientist
- •Evolutionary accounts explain functions/history, not the constitutive basis of experience
- 33:52 – 36:16
A detour into time: ‘chronological chauvinism’ and ‘time racism’
A brief tangent introduces philosophy of time: presentism vs four-dimensionalism (all times equally real). Goff uses humorous labels to illustrate how privileging the present can be seen as a kind of bias if eternalism is true.
- •Presentism: only the present exists; past/future are unreal
- •Four-dimensionalism/eternalism: all moments exist equally
- •‘Chronological chauvinism/time racism’ as a memorable teaching device
- •Highlights how common-sense intuitions can be challenged by metaphysics
- 36:16 – 42:26
Panpsychism introduced: Russell–Eddington and matter’s intrinsic nature
Goff presents his preferred view: a specific Russellian panpsychism. Physics, he argues, describes what matter does (behavior/relations) but not what it is intrinsically; the proposal is that consciousness (in very simple form) is matter’s intrinsic nature.
- •Resurgence of panpsychism in recent academic philosophy
- •Russell & Eddington: physics gives behavioral/structural facts, not intrinsic nature
- •Chess-piece analogy: moves vs what the piece is made of
- •Unified solution: experiential qualities are the intrinsic nature of matter
- 42:26 – 44:42
What panpsychism claims (and what it doesn’t): particles, fields, and ‘two sides of the coin’
Goff corrects a common misunderstanding: panpsychism isn’t adding spooky mental properties on top of physics. Instead, physical properties (mass/charge/spin) are known only by what they do; the ‘inside view’ of matter is experiential, and physics is the ‘outside view’ describing behavior.
- •Not dualism: not ‘physical properties + extra consciousness properties’
- •Physics defines properties via roles/behavior; intrinsic nature remains open
- •Brain states: neuroscience tracks what they do; experience reveals what they are like intrinsically
- •‘Matter is what consciousness does’—physics as the behavioral description of consciousness
- 44:42 – 48:57
Where consciousness begins and the combination problem
Chris asks what counts as conscious—rocks, plants, soil—and Goff says only the fundamental entities have ultra-simple experience; which complex systems are conscious is an open empirical question. The major philosophical challenge is the combination problem: how many micro-experiences could combine into a unified macro-mind.
- •Panpsychism’s core: fundamental building blocks have extremely simple experience
- •Fundamentals might be particles or universe-wide fields (depending on physics)
- •Which macroscopic entities are conscious is for science (correlation-based theories like IIT/GWT)
- •Combination problem: making sense of many small minds yielding one unified mind
- 48:57 – 54:29
AI, the internet mind, and separating intelligence from sentience
They discuss whether AI or the internet could become conscious. Goff says artificial consciousness is possible in principle, but intelligence (functional information processing) doesn’t guarantee experience; he references Integrated Information Theory’s implication that a highly integrated internet could form a single mind that subsumes ours.
- •Artificial consciousness: possible if the right physical/organizational conditions are met
- •Sharp distinction: intelligence (function) vs consciousness/sentience (experience)
- •IIT: consciousness corresponds to maximal integrated information in a system
- •Speculative implication: an ‘internet mind’ could emerge if integration surpasses human brains
- 54:29 – 1:09:13
Why consciousness matters: identity, value, and re-enchanting the worldview
Goff closes by connecting the metaphysics to meaning: consciousness grounds value and personal identity, yet the ‘official’ scientific worldview seems to omit it. They broaden into modern alienation, existential anxiety, and the social/spiritual roles once played by religion and ritual.
- •Understanding reality is intrinsically valuable; consciousness is central to that project
- •Consciousness underpins what matters: pleasure, pain, relationships, identity
- •Materialist-leaning ‘official worldview’ risks treating experience as unreal or secondary
- •Disenchantment/alienation, loss of religion’s community/ritual, and search for meaning
