Can we explain consciousness with emergence? | Philip Goff goes head to head with Suchitra Sebastian
160Physicist Suchitra Sebastian and panpsychist Philip Goff battle over emergence.
This excerpt was taken from ‘The mystery of emergence,' recorded at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London from September 2023.
Watch the full debate at https://iai.tv/video/the-mystery-of-emergence?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description&utm_medium=head-to-head
From consciousness to free will, and even life itself, it has become commonplace for philosophers and neuroscientists to explain some of the most puzzling phenomena in the universe as 'emergent'. Some even make the claim that nothing in science makes sense without emergence, the idea that the characteristics and behaviour of the whole is different from, and in addition to, its parts. But critics argue there is a danger emergence gives the impression of understanding when in reality it explains nothing.
Can we explain emergence and account for an overall property occurs when it is not present in the elemental parts? Might a new science of emergence enable breakthroughs in our understanding of life, consciousness and physical properties like superconductivity? Or is emergence a rhetorical device used to give the misleading impression that materialism is capable of explaining the deepest mysteries?
#TheMysteryOfEmergence #WhereDidConsciousnessComeFrom #IsEmergenceReal
Suchitra Sebastian is a renowned condensed matter physicist currently working at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. She has made significant contributions to the understanding of exotic quantum phenomena, especially the simultaneous insulating and conducting behavior in unconventional materials
Philosopher of consciousness at Durham University, Philip Goff's research focuses on integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview. Philip is a defender of panpsychism as the solution to the hard problem of consciousness.
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