255. David Chalmers — Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2022

⏱️ 112 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Shermer speaks with University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and codirector of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University, Dr. David Chalmers, to discuss: the hard problem of consciousness; virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence; VR inside a VR, indistinguishable from Reality; Are we living in a simulation?; Can you live a good life in VR?; Can AI systems be conscious? and more…

How do we know that there’s an external world? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of David Chalmers’ book: Reality+ — a highly original work of “technophilosophy” in which Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. We may even be in a virtual world already.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to the Michael Sherman Show.
0:11.6	Welcome to the... The Michael Sherman Show
0:17.0	Welcome to the Michael Sherman Show. I'm your host Michael Sherman. This episode is brought to you by Wundrium.
0:21.0	Wundrium was created for people like us, you, me,
0:25.6	Otto Dyedex, people who are self- learners or self-teachers.
0:30.4	They have a new plan, which is an annual plan. It's a subscription service. I remember back in the day when I had to purchase courses and they would ship me boxes of cassette tapes and that's how long I've been with this company. They're great. But now you can just stream it all online of
0:44.6	course that's the that's the way to go. It's a subscription service. You get an annual
0:48.4	plan. 99 bucks for your first year that's 58% off the normal right and for that you get access
0:55.8	to all their premium ad-free unlimited content to learn from some of the
1:01.4	world's brightest minds, including
1:03.4	Wondrium's entire collection of videos.
1:06.2	This is the great courses and other
1:08.2	exclusive content, for example, you can learn about
1:11.0	crypto, World War II, religion and philosophy, science and
1:14.8	skepticism.
1:15.8	I have two courses on there myself.
1:17.8	Or even how to train your dog and to photography, how to pick wine, all kinds of really interesting stuff they have guide books and
1:23.8	training guides to pair up with the programs and you can take the app on the go like
1:29.2	I do on my phone here's one for example I'm going to listen to this week. Twelve women who
1:34.8	shaped America from 1619 to 1920. This is a subject I know very little about, so that's the kind of thing you can access
1:44.0	through Wundrium so check it out go to Wundrium dot com slash shirmer to get your
1:50.0	a free trial and and your one year subscription at 58% discount. So that's
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.