Episode 175: At Least We Didn't Talk About Zombies (Nagel's "What is it Like to be a Bat?")
Very Bad Wizards
Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2019
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We try (with varying success) to wrap our heads around Thomas Nagel's classic article "What is it Like to be a Bat?" Does science have the tools to give us a theory of consciousness or is that project doomed from the outset? Why do reductionist or functionalist explanations seem so unsatisfying? Is the problem that consciousness is subjective, or is it something about the nature of conscious experience itself? Is this ultimately an epistemological or metaphysical question? What are we talking about? Do we even know anymore?
Plus, the return of Mr. Robot! We talk about the big new mystery at the heart of the new season.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Very bad wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and a psychologist, Dave Pizarro, |
| 0:05.9 | having an informal discussion about issues and signs and ethics. |
| 0:09.3 | Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm out of allow to say, |
| 0:13.6 | and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes. |
| 0:17.0 | Human beings, it turns out, are weird, and I will never truly understand what it's like to be one. |
| 0:25.2 | The way that I've asked the question, I do attention to that man behind the curtain. |
| 0:42.1 | Who are you? |
| 0:44.3 | Who are you? |
| 0:45.9 | I'm very bad men. |
| 0:47.3 | I'm a very good man. |
| 0:49.2 | Good man. |
| 0:50.3 | Just a very bad wizard. |
| 1:14.3 | Welcome to very bad wizards. |
| 1:15.6 | I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston. |
| 1:18.4 | Dave, we're doing an episode about consciousness today. |
| 1:22.6 | Do you think we can get through it without mentioning zombies? |
| 1:27.2 | I thought maybe yes, but the only class on the philosophy of mind I ever took ended up being |
| 1:34.8 | an entire class on zombies. |
| 1:38.2 | And so I feel like the only real philosophy of mind I know is just versions of zombie arguments. |
| 1:45.6 | So, but I dropped out of the I dropped out of that class. |
| 1:49.1 | I always do wonder how philosophers come up with the examples that they come up with. |
| 1:55.2 | And I feel like there is this just general kind of sub-game, |
... |
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