#96 — The Nature of Consciousness

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2017

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the significance of WWII for the history of ideas, the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as an hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as the root of the feeling of self, the place of Eastern philosophy in Western science, and the limitations of secular humanism.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're
0:12.1	hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing
0:16.2	the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense
0:20.7	Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed
0:26.1	to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads
0:31.2	on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
0:35.8	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:46.5	Today I'm speaking with the philosopher Thomas Metzinger. Thomas is a full professor and director
0:52.8	of the theoretical philosophy group and the research group on neuroethics and neurophilosophy
0:58.4	at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. He is the founder and director of the mind group
1:06.3	and Ajahn Tfello at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, also in Germany. His research
1:13.2	centers on the analytic philosophy of mind and applied ethics and the philosophy of cognitive
1:19.7	science. And he is the editor and author of several books. He edited the neural correlates of
1:25.7	consciousness and he wrote being no one and the ego tunnel. And in addition to being a
1:33.9	philosopher of mind, Thomas is also a long-term meditator. So as you can hear, we have many,
1:39.1	many interest in common. Our conversation starts on a political note, the significance of World War
1:47.2	II for the history of ideas and the connection between Nietzsche and the Holocaust.
1:53.0	Thomas gives us the German view of current US politics. But then we go deep into questions of
1:59.6	consciousness and the self. We talk about the role of intuition and science, the ethics of building
2:07.0	conscious AI, the self as a hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts and the paradox of
2:15.3	doing that. Attention is the root of the felt sense of self and the place of eastern philosophy
2:25.2	in Western science as well as the limitations of secular humanism. So it's a very rich conversation
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.